Chapter 712

Accompanied by the grinding sound of guillotines sliding down their chutes, a full thirty thousand gleaming blades, arranged in order from the valley floor to the mountain peak, successively chopped toward the neck of the Goddess of Wealth.

The guillotine at the very bottom of the valley merely severed her hair, leaving a shallow indentation on her skin and causing little harm.

Those positioned slightly higher managed to break through her skin before stopping abruptly, but those set further up, at the mountain's midsection, truly pierced the flesh, drew blood, and snapped bones!

Valley, foothills, mid-mountain, ridge... the higher the guillotine's position, the deeper it sank into the flesh and bone upon falling.

When the final guillotine atop the mountain peak fell, successfully splitting the "death row inmate" with wide, staring eyes at the blade's edge completely in two, the other twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine guillotines, as if spurred by some incentive, all plunged downward again in unison!

"Crack!"

"Rumble, rumble, rumble-rumble!"

Watching the twenty-plus thousand severed heads, still refusing to close their eyes, roll down the slope like "red footballs," Li Ang, half-crouching near the summit, instantly drew in a sharp breath of cold air, feeling the chill of the guillotine blades transmit to the back of his exposed neck... or perhaps it wasn't just a feeling.

Stiffly turning his head, he saw the massive guillotine hanging precariously above his neck, which ultimately did not fall. Li Ang, so injured he could barely speak, somehow mustered a shred of strength from nowhere and trembled as he climbed out from beneath the unfinished guillotine platform.

Fortunately... fortunately, Elder Auntie Auntie Ai Ma's 【Bloodthirsty Execution Platform】 had a maximum capture limit of only thirty thousand.

After coordinating with the effect of the 【Collective Punishment Law Book】 to guillotine the Goddess of Wealth a full thirty thousand times, the Bloodthirsty Execution Platform could no longer capture extra targets; otherwise, he feared he would have been swept up and placed on the block to be chopped by such a blade!

"Don't... don't just stand there..."

Just as Li Ang climbed down from the execution platform, touching his neck with lingering fear, the lazy youth lying on the ground nearby groaned weakly:

"I'm almost... almost dying of blood loss... you... you should save me..."

"Coming."

After casting one last glance at the rolling sea of heads in the Emerald Valley, Li Ang grabbed the 【Infected Blood Bandage】 lying beside him, treated the wounds on his lungs and throat, then rose despite the lingering agony in his body and walked toward the lazy youth hanging upside down from the Emerald Tree.

"Truly despicable!"

After being plucked from the Emerald Tree by Li Ang, the lazy youth, whose bones had been mostly bought away, complained through gritted teeth:

"A true god, yet shamelessly launching a sneak attack on me!

Damn it! If I hadn't known a true god would definitely come and made some preparations, and if you hadn't bought my injuries and forcibly pulled a wave, we might have been defeated before we even started!"

"..."

Although we are on the same side, speaking logically, when she launched her sneak attack on you, you were also plotting an ambush against her; in terms of moral standing, it seems we are equally matched?

"It was indeed very dangerous just now, but fortunately the result was still acceptable."

After perfunctorily agreeing, Li Ang, while bandaging the lazy youth, said with a hint of relief:

"The Goddess of Wealth has been killed by Elder Auntie Auntie Ai Ma. Once Elder Auntie Auntie Ai Ma finishes dealing with her, I will find a way to resolve the issues on her body, and then we will be..."

"It's not that simple."

Interrupting Li Ang's words, the lazy youth, collapsed on the ground, sighed heavily:

"After all, she is a true god. My ritual was prepared somewhat hastily, and Auntie Auntie Ai Ma has been imprisoned for so long, not in her best condition. Although we caught her off guard and destroyed her physical body, we are still far from completely eliminating her!"

As if specifically to prove the lazy youth's judgment, the moment his words fell, a piercing scream from the Goddess of Wealth suddenly erupted within the Emerald Valley, filled with rolling human... god heads.

"You... you are doomed!"

As the blood net entwined around her body was destroyed by the guillotines, releasing her from restraint, the Goddess of Wealth regained mobility. Not only did the rolling heads begin to roar hysterically, but the thirty thousand divine corpses lying beside the beheading racks also wobbled back to their feet!

"Lie down!"

As if she had anticipated this scene all along, Elder Auntie Auntie Ai Ma, whose body was covered in emerald-green wounds and whose left arm was half turned into emerald, directly drew out a slender silver rapier, stabbing it into the heart of the divine corpse beneath her feet, pinning her firmly to the ground.

Then, the oddly shaped rapier split left and right; fine iron chains wrapped around the handle clattered down, and the two semi-circular quillons bound at the tail automatically loosened and fell, transforming into two small trays bound by chains. They clinked against the blade, clearly becoming a strange scale.

Immediately, the heart of the divine corpse suddenly collapsed, and a golden heart, bleeding and beating frantically, appeared in the left tray of the scale, pressing the right tray high into the air. A huge shadow of a crocodile slowly emerged from the bottom of the Emerald Valley, greedily staring at the golden heart atop the scale.

"The Crocodile God lurks beneath the instrument of judgment; your heart is placed upon the left side of the scale."

Stepping on the struggling divine corpse, Elder Auntie Auntie Ai Ma, her face pale, took out a white goose feather with fine down, threw it toward the right tray of the scale, and then recited in a profound and obscure tone:

"The swan's feather falls upon the right side of the scale, to measure the weight of sin!"

"If your good deeds are outstanding, and your heart is lighter than the feather, you shall return to heaven and enjoy blessings."

"If you have committed unforgivable sins, making your heart heavier than the bird's feather, then the mouth of the Crocodile God shall be your destination!"

As Elder Auntie Auntie Ai Ma finished her narration, the swan feather, slowly drifting toward the right tray, seemed suddenly subjected to gravity, clattering down into the right tray and causing the left tray holding the heart to jerk upward violently.

However, as the swan feather "landed," the bleeding heart on the left was somehow activated; the originally bright red blood vanished, replaced by alternating flows of gold and black liquids, dripping and trickling onto the tray.

Whenever the light, translucent golden liquid spilled out, the tray would rise slightly; when the dark, heavy liquid gushed forth, the tray holding the heart would press down violently.

After about half a minute or so passed, the heart of the Goddess of Wealth completely deflated. The turbid black liquid, mixed with a little pale gold, had already filled the tray, pressing the right tray holding the feather high into the air.

"Hiss... gulp, gulp..."

Before Elder Auntie Auntie Ai Ma could pronounce judgment, the crocodile shadow at the bottom of the Emerald Valley had already lifted its head in delight, emitting a low, hoarse hiss. The ground beneath the thirty thousand divine corpses suddenly turned into a murky swamp, and shadow after shadow of crocodiles emerged...

"Get out!!!"

Just as the dense mass of crocodile shadows rose above the "water surface," preparing to feast on the bodies of the "sinners," the heads piled in the Emerald Valley shook in unison, suddenly casting off the thorn crowns on their heads, glaring at the crocodiles with gaping maws and shouting: "What kind of thing are you? Dare you covet my flesh and blood? Get out! Go back to the realm of the dead! This is not a place for you!"

Having temporarily roared the stirring Crocodile God into submission, the divine corpse pinned by Elder Auntie Auntie Ai Ma struggled once more, gripping the thin sword stabbed into her own heart with both hands. Ignoring the flesh torn open by the blade, she relied on sheer brute force to pull it upward with all her might.

Meanwhile, the countless heads piled in the valley turned their heads in unison, glaring at the pale-faced Auntie Auntie Ai Ma from all directions, veins bulging and eyes full of viciousness as they roared:

"I am a true god! A true god! And you are merely a mortal!"

"Listen well! No matter what I have done in the past, you have no right to judge me!"

"The only thing you can do is kneel before me! Offer all your value! Even your very soul! Surrender everything to me!"

As the Goddess of Wealth continued to struggle, the long sword stabbed into her chest was indeed slowly pulled out, and the countless crocodile shadows lingering in the Emerald Valley timidly closed their mouths, hesitantly retreating a bit. Although they had not completely left, they seemed ready to turn and flee at any moment.

"It's over; this time we probably can't even destroy her physical body."

Seeing this scene, the lazy youth on the mountain peak, gazing at Auntie Auntie Ai Ma's emerald-fied hand, sighed mournfully and said with deep regret:

"Auntie Auntie Ai Ma's condition is worse than I thought. I thought she could at most fail to activate the 【Coffin of the Dead】 and couldn't destroy the soul of the Goddess of Wealth, but I didn't expect she couldn't even hold up the 【Satisfying Scale】."

"Senior Tang Mu!"

Watching the situation in Emerald Valley take a sharp turn for the worse, Hearing Li Ang couldn't help but say urgently:

"Stop just talking here—think of something! Like another ritual, or…"

"How? With what?"

He weakly raised his right hand, showed Hearing Li Ang his shriveled veins, and said with some irritation:

"Just now, to trap her, my blood nearly drained dry. With you wrapping that crappy bandage on me, the best you can do is keep me from dying of organ failure—there's been zero replenishment.

And occult rituals, when you get down to it, are just tricks to borrow power. Whether borrowing from the world, from other true gods, or from the past and future, you still need something for me to borrow from.

But this place isn't part of our world—it's a special space built from a fragment of the Harvest God's 【Blessed Land】. I can't borrow power from the original world at all.

And the owner of this place is the Goddess of Wealth. For any other true god's power to enter, she has to allow it. Even if I set up a ritual, I still can't borrow anything! If you ask me, we'd better take advantage of the fact that Auntie Auntie Ai Ma can still hold on and first… uh… what are you doing?"

Watching Hearing Li Ang pull bottle after bottle of liquor out of the mirror world and chug them down with both hands, the weary youth couldn't help but be stunned, then said with a completely blank look:

"Hey, what are you doing? This isn't the time to retreat, so why are you drinking?"

"After I finish… gulp gulp… maybe… gulp gulp… I can help!"

Looking at the rapier in Senior Auntie Auntie Ai Ma's hand, already half pulled out, Hearing Li Ang hurriedly tore the bandage off Tang Mu, completely healed his own throat, then chugged liquor in big gulps while stumbling toward the bottom of the valley.

"Huh?"

Startled by Hearing Li Ang's brute behavior, the weary youth, lying on the ground unable to move, watched his back as he charged down the valley, and wished he could jump up on the spot, beat his chest and stamp his feet, and give his past self—who had agreed to come help rescue people—a great big slap across the face!

No way… what the hell are you going down there for? Even if you'll be a true god in the future, with your current level-three ability, going down won't help worth a damn!

……

"Hearing Li Ang?"

Seeing Hearing Li Ang clinging to the scaffold of the execution platform, slowly making his way toward the bottom of the valley, Auntie Auntie Ai Ma couldn't help being startled. She wanted to shout at him to go back immediately—while she could still hold on, take Tang Mu and escape; whoever could run, should run.

However, the Goddess of Wealth, with her full thirty thousand fields of vision, noticed this scene even earlier.

Looking at the culprit who had somehow activated 【Verdant Dream】 and, in concert with Auntie Auntie Ai Ma, chopped off her own head, the Goddess of Wealth couldn't help but flare up in fury. She split off part of her consciousness and, controlling a head stuck on the execution scaffold in front of Hearing Li Ang, said with a cold laugh:

"Since you've come down, don't leave! You…"

"Go to hell!"

Hearing the Goddess of Wealth's words, Hearing Li Ang—who had just finished a bottle of rum—took a deliberate half-step to the side, swung the half-finger-thick bottle, and smashed it straight onto the Goddess of Wealth's forehead, forcibly cutting off the second half of her sentence.

"You?!"

Completely unprepared for such treatment, the Goddess of Wealth, her head covered in glass shards, flew into a rage. The body that was fighting Auntie Auntie Ai Ma for the "rapier" trembled slightly, and she actually let Auntie Auntie Ai Ma shove the rapier back in a little further.

At the same time, the other twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine headless divine corpses actually propped themselves up on the execution platform that had chopped off their own heads, then surged forward one after another, surrounding Hearing Li Ang as he went down the mountain.

"Don't come over! Run!"

Seeing Hearing Li Ang in danger, Auntie Auntie Ai Ma immediately bit down on her lip and put all her strength into the sword hilt, trying to force the Goddess of Wealth to withdraw the power she had diverted.

But by now, the Goddess of Wealth had been truly enraged by that bottle-to-the-head. She actually let the rapier at the lower end of the 【Heart's-Desire Scales】 fall back, refusing to withdraw her power, and instead continued controlling the other twenty-plus thousand headless selves, madly surging toward Hearing Li Ang.

Damn! Too much aggro!

Looking at the headless divine corpses madly swarming toward him, Hearing Li Ang—who had only drunk seventeen or eighteen bottles, still far from activating 【Immortal in Wine】—felt his scalp go numb. He hurriedly turned around, wanting to retreat the way he came for now and come back down once he'd drunk enough.

But he had already reached halfway down the mountain by this point. The only "way back" had long been blocked by the dense mass of headless divine corpses, sealed tight as a drum!

"……"

He could only fight!

A complete true god would definitely be unbeatable, but a headless true god whose power had been split into thirty thousand parts, whose soul had been pinned to the bottom of the valley by Senior Auntie Auntie Ai Ma, and whose head had even been chopped off—no matter what, he should be able to struggle a bit, right?

After taking out the spiked club execution device he'd found in Senior Auntie Auntie Ai Ma's office, Hearing Li Ang did not activate the abnormal ability of the 【Executioner's Set】. Instead, treating it as an ordinary weapon, he swung the spiked club in a full arc and charged head-on into the horde of gods.

Immediately after, a faintly visible ram-headed demon phantom quietly appeared behind Hearing Li Ang. With sparks of glowing red and billowing smoke that burned the lungs and set the heart afire, it once again spread around him.

"I declare this a war!"

(End of chapter)