Chapter 170: The Bewildering Mystery

"Shao Pincheng, after all you have done over these years, it is time for you to pay the price!"

Watching Shen Yu's fingers drawing ever closer, Shao Pincheng's face was full of panic.

"Shen Yu, Lord Shen, can we..."

"Sorry, we cannot! A person must be responsible for their own actions!"

A finger pressed against his forehead, and Hao Ran Qi surged in instantly, yet deep within Shao Pincheng's Spiritual Sea, there was not the slightest trace of negative energy.

"You have actually not been corrupted!"

"That's right, is Lord Shen very curious why you haven't discovered a single abnormality in me?"

At this moment, Shao Pincheng raised his head; the panic on his face was gone, replaced instead by a sly look.

"No, that's not right, if you haven't been corrupted, how do you know what I am talking about?"

"That's also not right, even if you were corrupted, you should be completely unaware of what happened; those people were all infected without knowing it, and didn't even pay any attention to the changes in themselves."

"How did you know why I was investigating you? Could it be you!"

"Lord Shen, you are so smart, you guess!"

In an instant, a terrifying force enveloped Shen Yu. This powerful negative energy was on the verge of drowning him in a split second.

"So the negative energy in you wasn't lurking in your Spiritual Sea, but had completely merged with your body. How could this be..."

"So you are the source after all. No, you are merely a medium!"

"Shen Yu, oh Shen Yu, you are indeed smart. But you shouldn't have, you really shouldn't have gotten so close to me, otherwise how would I have had the chance!"

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Shao Pincheng retreated desperately while carefully guarding against the person opposite him. He knew that in front of such a top-tier expert, one could never be too careful.

If the other party moved a little finger, he would be finished.

This suddenly appearing negative energy seemed to stir up the desires suppressed in his heart, as well as all kinds of negative emotions, and his killing intent began to leak out inadvertently.

This time, the negative energy was different from the others; it contained a portion of the original power and was not like duckweed without roots, so it was extremely difficult to deal with.

For a moment, countless figures seemed to appear before Shen Yu's eyes; he was very familiar with the faces of these figures, every one of them having been killed by his own hands.

It felt as if countless figures were surrounding him, desperately tearing at and devouring his flesh and blood.

Endless waves of pain struck him, flesh and blood scattered everywhere, and in an instant, his entire body seemed to become a bloody mess.

This was clearly an illusion, yet it felt completely and utterly real.

But facing all this, Shen Yu remained completely unmoved, walking step by step toward Shao Pincheng.

"Shen Yu, you!" Seeing Shen Yu walking toward him, Shao Pincheng, who had been feeling smug, was immediately so scared that he retreated repeatedly.

Even these terrifying visions and the pain that permeated his entire body seemed unable to stop his forward pace; Shen Yu, now completely covered in blood and gore, was still closing in on him.

"Are you trying to ask why I am unaffected, why I am not afraid?"

The bloody figure raised his head, Shen Yu's gaze extremely calm.

"I remember their faces; every one of them was indeed killed by my own hands, but I feel no ripples in my heart when I see them."

"Because every one of them deserved to die, including you!"

Walking up to Shao Pincheng, he grabbed him by the throat and hoisted him up fiercely.

"Do you know, I admit that I am indeed quite ordinary, and not a truly pure person. Sometimes, I am both greedy for money and lustful; one could say I am not perfect."

"But my heart and my actions, what I have done, have always been clear of conscience. These people are all wicked to the core, and every one of them has hands stained with blood. Killing them, killing you, I have nothing to be ashamed of!"

"Since I have no shame, what is there to fear!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the Hao Ran Qi within Shen Yu's body shone brilliantly, driving out all the negative energy completely. All the visions before his eyes dissipated into nothingness.

Under the radiance of the Hao Ran Qi, these negative energies perished rapidly until not a single bit remained.

Even that most original power shattered and dissipated after struggling for a short while.

"Why? Why is it like this!" Not long after this dark, original power dissipated, Shao Pincheng's cultivation realm began to regress rapidly.

From the Transcendence Realm, he became a Grandmaster, then from a Grandmaster he became a master, then a Xiantian Expert, and finally, his entire aura even fell below the Hou Tian Realm, and it was still regressing.

Shao Pincheng's whole body also withered rapidly and aged at high speed, until finally he was as decrepit as an old man of eighty or ninety, as if even moving was a struggle.

This was the feeling of life reaching its end, with no strength left in his entire body.

Shen Yu didn't need to do anything; his body had already been riddled with holes from the corruption. It had been fine before only because there was enough power to support his broken frame.

But now, with his realm regressed and his cultivation gone, his current strength was simply insufficient to support his continued survival.

"So that's how it is, you were just a Chess Piece after all!"

He let go, allowing Shao Pincheng's body to collapse to the ground. Shao Pincheng was now completely broken, unable to even stand steadily.

"Impossible, it was clear that as long as I had negative mental power to nourish me, I could possess an endless stream of power, and I could continue to grow."

"Those powers were all mine, why did it turn out like this!"

While looking in horror at his hands, which were as withered as dead skin, Shao Pincheng looked up and glared at Shen Yu with man-eating eyes.

"It's you, it must be you, give the power back to me!"

"How pitiful, haven't you realized yet? You are just a discarded pawn now!"

Standing in place, looking down from above at Shao Pincheng, who was slumped on the ground, there was not a trace of pity in Shen Yu's eyes.

Reaching this point today was entirely his own doing; what did it have to do with anyone else?

"Are you very curious why your power is gone? Are you even more curious why your body has become like this?"

"Don't you understand yet? It's because you were never the source; you were just a tool, merely a medium used by others to spread negative energy."

"Just like a tool used casually, now that the tool is no longer useful, it naturally has to be discarded."

"And you should know, there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world; this is the price!"

"No, you are lying to me, that's impossible!"

With his power almost completely dissipated and his life reaching its end, Shao Pincheng felt nothing but horror, disbelief, and a refusal to believe.

"I spread those mental powers out and infected the entire upper echelon of Xichuan; everything was perfect."

"The people of Xichuan are living in misery, and everywhere there is negative emotion, negative spirit; these are my endless sources of power."

"As long as those lowly people complain, resent, and remain unreconciled, with their constant offerings, my power will never disappear."

"It was you who killed those corrupt officials and pacified Xichuan, which gave those lowly people hope and kept them from despair. Yes, that is exactly it!"

Seeming to feel that he had discovered the root of the problem, Shao Pincheng gradually became quiet. Regardless of the situation, for him, there was actually only one outcome.

"Truly pitiful and pathetic; even now, you still do not believe that you have been discarded."

"That is fair; that was perhaps your only sustenance, perhaps even where your faith lay. Being discarded is indeed hard to accept. But facts are facts; you cannot change them just by deceiving yourself!"

Shen Yu seemed to understand why Shao Pincheng was like this; even though he was afraid of being killed, he would not be this hysterical.

Only by being abandoned by the person one trusts most and treats as one's sustenance would one become so manic and uneasy.

Therefore, such a person is truly pathetic.

"Shao Pincheng, if I have guessed correctly, the reason you only infect the high-level officials of Xichuan is not because you do not want to infect more people, but because every time you split a portion of negative energy, it causes great damage to your Original Qi, right?"

"You spread negative energy, but those split-off negative energies do not appear out of thin air; they are cultivated with your own life."

"While you think you are obtaining power continuously, your actions are actually constantly devouring your own life and exhausting your spirit!"

"So even if I do not take action, one day you will still end up like this, your life completely withering away through constant consumption! You, from beginning to end, are not even as good as a Chess Piece!"