Chapter 1223: The Last Victim

The Last Victim

Rumbling echoes resounded from behind the rift.

Having lost the forceful support of the Turbid Calamity root, the gray rift suspended in the air repaired itself at a visible speed. Those thin roots clinging to the surface also began to rapidly retract, shrinking back toward the Bitter Flesh Forest.

Even now, the shock in the crowd's eyes hadn't faded in the slightest.

Sun Bumian's heaven-piercing kick just now was like a brand in everyone's minds, impossible to wave away...

This was Chen Ling's first time seeing Sun Bumian fight with such an invincible posture. But since he clearly had the strength to single-handedly challenge a World-Ending Calamity, why hadn't he revealed it at all during the era of the Nine Monarchs?

No, if one carefully compared the Sun Bumian of the two eras, they would find that the Sun Bumian of the Nine Monarchs era seemed to be much more cowardly. He always talked about "if disaster doesn't provoke me, I won't provoke disaster"... When Chen Ling first met him, wherever Sun Bumian calculated there would be trouble, he would hide far away. He didn't have the fearlessness of his self in this era at all.

In the air, seeing the rift about to heal and the Turbid Calamity no longer having the ability to strike across realms, Sun Bumian's mind shifted, and the Power of Samsara gathered around him rapidly dispersed...

His aura began to drop, and his face visibly paled.

"We... survived?"

Fu Kun finally snapped back to his senses, the joy of surviving a disaster surfacing in his eyes.

The Turbid Calamity wasn't pursuing them, and the other Calamities from the Bitter Flesh Forest hadn't caught up either. They approached the Mid-mountain Hotel under the protection of the starlight just like that. Whether it was the civilians or the escorting practitioners, their hanging hearts were completely at ease.

However, right at the instant the rift was about to completely close, another sudden change occurred!

Just as everyone relaxed due to the Turbid Calamity's retreat, a slender root lashed out like lightning from the healing rift. In an instant, it tore through the sky, flying precisely toward a certain direction in the crowd!

Its speed was too fast, like a venomous and enraged avenger. Even the air was instantly blasted away. By the time Chen Ling and Ying Fu reacted, that root had already flown toward the tail end of the rear procession...

"Crap!!" Chen Ling's heart skipped a beat.

At the same time,

Chu Changqing, who was being carried on Su Zhiwei's shoulder and slowly moving forward, suddenly felt a chill rise from the back of his head. An unprecedented sense of life-and-death crisis welled up in his heart!!

He didn't have time to think. The innate intuition brought by his half-treant form made him subconsciously react.

"Watch out!!"

Chu Changqing fiercely exerted force, directly pushing Su Zhiwei hard with his thick, branch-like arm. The already exhausted Su Zhiwei was shoved away, staggering and nearly falling to the ground...

She blanked out at first, then turned around with a tight frown.

The next moment, she saw the last root from the depths of the Bitter Flesh Forest wrap around the fallen Chu Changqing like lightning, wrapping his body and directly pulling him back toward the rift!

"Chu Changqing!!!" Su Zhiwei and Lu Xun shouted simultaneously!

But the speed of that root was truly too fast, and its strength was extremely great. Even wrapping the half-treant Chu Changqing didn't slow it down in the slightest. Spanning several kilometers, it was about to swallow him back into the Bitter Flesh Forest.

A figure draped in a Great Crimson Theatrical Robe rushed out rapidly!

Chen Ling pushed his speed to the limit, madly chasing after that root, countless doubts directly surging into his mind.

He didn't understand... Why, at this time, did the Turbid Calamity still attack Chu Changqing? Moreover, looking at its posture, the other party wanted to capture Chu Changqing alive. What on earth did it want to do?

"Director Chen..."

Wrapped by the root, Chu Changqing looked through a narrow gap at Chen Ling, who was rapidly chasing after him. The desire to survive swirled in his eyes. He struggled to raise his branch-like arm, wanting to reach out toward Chen Ling.

Even pushing his speed to the limit, Chen Ling could only barely keep up with the root's retreating speed. He also raised his hand, struggling to grab toward Chu Changqing's figure...

But the next moment,

The root, wrapping Chu Changqing's figure, directly shrank back behind the rift.

The rift rapidly healed and ultimately dissipated without a trace completely. Chen Ling's figure rushed past its location rapidly, but ultimately only grasped a handful of nothingness...

The Great Crimson Theatrical Robe fluttered in the air, and Chen Ling stood blankly on the spot.

Chu Changqing, one of the Nine Monarchs...

Was captured by the Turbid Calamity??

This was a situation Chen Ling had never anticipated. The situation that had originally been turning for the better under Chen Ling's efforts took a sudden turn for the worse at this moment!

He originally thought he had already saved several of the Nine Monarchs and established a good relationship with them, but now everything had changed. Chu Changqing had been captured by the Turbid Calamity. With his current self, it was completely impossible to have the slightest power to resist. Furthermore, the intersection of the two realms hadn't officially begun yet, so even if he wanted to rescue him, there was no chance.

Heaven knew what Chu Changqing would experience in the Bitter Flesh Forest during this time? Would he live or die??

Although Chen Ling had already guessed that everything in the Timeline Save File was very likely a predetermined past, he ultimately had no proof. If it was truly because of his interference that Chu Changqing's trajectory of fate was changed, even leading to the death of one of the Nine Monarchs, then he would truly become a sinner for the ages.

"Chu Changqing..."

Chen Ling looked at the nothingness before him and muttered to himself.

...

Underground Project.

Figures rapidly descended deeper underground from the expanded stairs under the guidance of staff and military personnel.

In just over ten minutes, Sun Zhongliang had already mobilized all the movable lighting equipment in the base, paving this staircase with light to facilitate all survivors entering the Shelter from here. The medical personnel on the side were even more swamped, constantly filtering out the heavily injured in the crowd and dragging them down trip after trip for emergency treatment. Batch after batch of survivors entering caused the entire underground project to operate overloaded.

Standing in the stone corridor, Sun Zhongliang watched one survivor after another, covered in blood or with dull expressions, being guided into the underground project. His gaze was incredibly complex...

"Is this all of them?"

"What?" The staff member beside him blanked out.

"Up until now... are there only this few survivors?"

"...Yes, we only have this one emergency entrance."

"How many people have we taken in total?"

"Up until now, a total of over twenty-four thousand." The staff member paused for a moment. "The casualties outside are quite severe. And during the retreat process, there were also some who were too heavily injured or unable to move independently who couldn't hold on until here..."

Only over twenty thousand people until now...

This number was far less than Sun Zhongliang had anticipated. He could almost imagine the purgatory-like scene outside right now. What kind of disaster did they have to experience to cause such terrifying casualties?

"...I'm going up to take a look," Sun Zhongliang suddenly said.