Chapter 558: Candy Hawthorns on a Stick

It was still the same street, its crowds surging and seething.

Li Luo, Lu Ming, Sun Sun Dasheng, and Senior Zhu Zhu Xuan hurried forward, the four of them.

On the streets behind them, fierce battles were erupting; violent surges of energy leveled building after building flat to the ground. Yet strangely enough, even though such combat had broken out in those places behind them, the pedestrians and stall-keepers on the street Li Luo and the others had turned into were still chatting as if nothing were wrong. That peaceful calm clashed jarringly with the sounds of fighting behind them. Though it looked like a scene of bustling liveliness, it sent a strange chill through the four of them.

But they could spare no thought for it, because at the far end of this street lay the placement point for the Purifying Spirit Pearl.

Once they reached it, they could set the first Purifying Spirit Pearl in place. And once the pearl settled, it would naturally radiate a purifying force. Though it had not yet fully formed, it would be enough to cover these several streets, and when that happened, the pressure on the others would ease considerably.

"This Red Stone City is way too dangerous. So many people charged in, and in the end only the four of us are left." Lu Ming knit her willow-leaf brows. The powerful aberrations that had kept popping out earlier had clearly shaken her.

Luckily this time the four squads were grouped into one small team; otherwise, if it had been just one squad, they probably wouldn't have been able to force their way through even a single street.

"The powerful aberrations all got drawn off by the squad captains. We should be safe enough here, right?" Senior Zhu Zhu Xuan said.

Sun Sun Dasheng brandished his iron staff, his eyes blazing with wild battle-lust: "Even better if they show up—watch me smash one to pulp with one swing!"

Li Luo's mouth twitched. This Sun Sun Dasheng is exactly the same as Qin Qin Zhulu—both of them have nothing but fighting on the brain. Is every Ten Thousand Beast Phase like this loser? It gave him a bit of worry, because his third phase, the Dragon Phase, would also fall under the Ten Thousand Beast Phase category.

He hoped that when the time came, he wouldn't turn into this kind of muscle-brained loser.

While Li Luo was worrying over these thoughts, suddenly his expression hardened.

"Candy hawthorns for sale! Tasty and pretty candy hawthorns!"

On the noisy street, a vendor's cry suddenly rang out. The cry came utterly out of nowhere—the street was clearly packed with people and very loud, yet this cry clung like a maggot on bone, sounding precisely in Li Luo's ear.

He immediately looked at Lu Ming and the other two, and saw that their expressions had also turned wary and uncertain—clearly they had all heard the

sudden vendor's cry.

"Be careful!" Li Luo warned.

The four kept moving without slowing, and the vendor's cry kept coming, one call after another. At a certain moment, the crowd ahead of them was pushed aside, and a stooped figure appeared before the four of them, leaning on a pole skewered full of candy hawthorns.

It was an old woman with a deathly pale face. She gazed at the four of them, opened a mouth full of black teeth, and showed a strange smile: "Candy hawthorns for sale! Tasty and pretty candy hawthorns."

The four of them changed expression and, without the slightest hesitation, channeled their phase power, about to launch an attack at the eerie old woman before them.

But the instant they attacked, the vendor's cry rang in their ears once more, and the eyes of the four of them gradually grew vacant at this moment; the attacks in their hands dissipated along with it.

Their gazes shifted, somewhat numbly, toward the candy hawthorns skewered on the pole in the old woman's hand. As if under some kind of erosion and influence, they slowly nodded.

The old woman smiled eerily, reached out, took down four candy hawthorns dripping with vivid red, and handed them over.

Li Luo slowly reached out and took one. His expression was a little odd, as if he had begun to struggle, yet some nameless emotion in his heart made him feel an irresistible craving for the candy hawthorn before him. Right now, he desperately wanted to swallow it into his stomach.

But in the deepest part of his heart, a faint resistance to it still stirred.

And under these conflicting emotions, the candy hawthorn was slowly brought to his lips.

Just as he was about to bite down, a sudden wave of abnormally icy aura came from his wrist. That aura rushed swiftly into his body, and instantly Li Luo's somewhat out-of-control mind regained a moment of clarity.

It was a Light Stone that Jiang Jiang Qinge had given him back at Thunder Sound Mountain.

It was this very item that had now shattered, transmitting a wisp of pure light-phase power, pulling him back from the state of mind-control.

And in that instant of waking clarity, Li Luo looked at the candy hawthorn in his hand, and his pupils abruptly contracted.

How could that be any candy hawthorn? On the pitch-black wooden skewer were skewered shriveled eyeball after shriveled eyeball. Black liquid was even dripping from them now, giving off a thick stench of rot.

Li Luo's hand trembled, and the "candy hawthorn"

in his hand was flung away in a panic.

But then he remembered something and whipped his head around to look at Lu Ming and Sun Sun Dasheng. He saw that they too had vacant expressions, hollow eyes, and were holding those "candy hawthorns," about to stuff them into their mouths.

"Wake up!"

Li Luo roared out, his voice brimming with phase power, thundering like a thunderclap in Lu Ming and Sun Sun Dasheng's ears.

The sudden phase-power sound wave instantly jolted Lu Ming and Sun Sun Dasheng back to their senses. Their eyes went blank for a moment, and then they saw the "candy hawthorns" in their hands.

On them, shriveled eyeball after shriveled eyeball seemed to stare at them, radiating malice and agony.

And right now, the first shriveled eyeball was about to be stuffed into a mouth.

Ugh!

Lu Ming's face went deathly pale in an instant. She let out a shriek and frantically flung the candy hawthorn from her hand. Her delicate frame trembled, fury and terror pushed to the extreme, and she kept dry-heaving—she had clearly been disgusted beyond measure.

"What the hell, that's disgusting."

Even Sun Sun Dasheng cursed out loud, his face still showing lingering dread. He tossed the "candy hawthorn" to the ground and crushed it underfoot with one stomp.

Then killing intent flared in his eyes. The iron staff in his hand, already wrapped in ferociously violent phase power, tore through the air with a sharp whistling wind, and slammed brutally into the chest of the old woman selling candy hawthorns ahead of them.

Bang!

The latter's body was blasted backward, her chest caving in, yet the eerie smile on her face could not be concealed.

"Candy hawthorns… were they tasty?" She opened her pitch-black mouth and let out that eerie sound once more.

Li Luo, Lu Ming, and Sun Sun Dasheng stood at the ready, expressions grim, phase power rampaging through their bodies as they stayed on guard.

Crack.

And right at this moment, they suddenly heard a faint sound of chewing.

All three of them stiffened sharply. They seemed to freeze for a moment, and then in the next instant, all three of them whipped their heads around almost simultaneously.

They looked at a spot a few meters behind them.

There stood Senior Zhu Zhu Xuan. At this moment, his face was vacant, his eyes hollow, as he gripped the black wooden skewer and stuffed a "candy hawthorn" into his mouth. His teeth bit down, and black juice burst open inside his mouth.