Chapter 551: You Are Not Even Worthy of Being a Chess Piece

"Shao Pincheng, you have done so much 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, could you please..."

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

A finger pressed onto 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 are actually not being corrupted!"

"That's right, Lord Shen, are you very curious why you haven't discovered anything unusual about me?"

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

"No, that's not right. If you aren't being 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 is happening. Those people were all infected without knowing it, and they never even paid attention to the changes in themselves."

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

"Lord Shen, you are so clever, why don't 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 clever. But you shouldn't have, you really shouldn't have come 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 his opponent. He knew that in front of such a top-tier expert, no amount of caution was too much.

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

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

This wave of negative energy was different from the others; it contained a portion of the original power and was not rootless, making it 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 single one of them had 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 all over the ground, and in an instant, his whole 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 toward Shao Pincheng step by step.

"Shen Yu, you!" Seeing Shen Yu walking toward him, Shao Pincheng, who had been smug just a moment ago, was immediately so frightened that he retreated repeatedly.

Even these terrifying visions and the pain that permeated his entire body seemed unable to stop his forward pace; the now completely bloodied Shen Yu continued to approach him.

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

The bloodied 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 his neck and hoisted him up fiercely.

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

"But my heart and my actions, everything I have done, have always been with a clear 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 the words fell, 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 illumination of the Hao Ran Qi, these negative energies rapidly perished until not a trace remained.

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

"Why? Why is it like this!" Not long after this dark, fundamental 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 his entire body completely devoid of strength.

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!"

Letting go, he allowed Shao Pincheng's body to fall to the ground. Shao Pincheng was now completely broken, unable to even stand steadily.

"Impossible, it was clear that as long as there was negative mental power provided, I could possess a constant stream of power, and I could continue to grow."

"Those powers were all mine, why has it turned out like this!"

While looking in terror at his completely withered hands, which were like dry skin, Shao Pincheng raised his head and glared at Shen Yu with a cannibalistic gaze.

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

"How pitiful, haven't you realized it 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?

"You are curious why your power is gone? You are even more curious why your body has become like this?"

"Don't you understand yet? 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 terror, disbelief, and a refusal to believe, or even a desire not 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; everywhere there is negative emotion, negative spirit. These are my endless sources of power."

"As long as those lowly commoners 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 commoners 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 you have been discarded."

"That is right, that might be your only sustenance, perhaps even your object of faith. 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 this 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, with your life completely withered away from constant consumption! You, from beginning to end, are not even as good as a Chess Piece!"