Chapter 346: Unreasonable and Overbearing Sand Bandits (12)

【Shush—~~】

Under the moonlight, smoke and dust billowed.

A group of warriors riding giant lizards came to the camp's perimeter at considerable speed.

【Whoa~~Whoa~~Whoa~~~】

The warriors kept shouting strangely, circling the camp and kicking up even more dust and smoke.

Luosen stood in the middle of the camp observing.

About 153 warriors came, looking no different from humans, each face painted with various ferocious tattoos, wearing rough-made lizard-skin armor, and holding crude but sharp bone spears.

Then he observed their souls.

They were all very strong; the weakest was at the Seventh Ring, the strongest had reached Legendary 6.

Their soul scale was considerably stronger than that of ordinary mortals, roughly equivalent to one or two hundred Luosens.

Furthermore, their souls felt very cohesive; if an ordinary person's soul is like a loose dirt ball shrouded in mist, then these bandits' souls are like a cohesive smooth stone ball.

「Really, the environment shapes people. 」

This is clearly due to the complex and variable law-ring environment of the Lost Plane; those who cannot adapt to this harsh environment either become weaklings manipulated by others or are simply eliminated.

The sand lizard knights kept shouting strangely, circling the camp for about ten laps, and finally calmed down.

One knight who looked like a leader stepped out of the crowd, pointed his bone spear at the camp, and shouted at it.

「I am Guimian Luoluoke, chief of the Ghost Face Tribe. 」

「You outsiders entered our tribe's territory without our permission; you deserve punishment! 」

He spoke a language Luosen had never heard before, but the soul fluctuations it emitted felt very familiar to him.

He immediately queried Laifu's database and found this was a variant of the Ancient Dawn Empire's language.

Although the pronunciation differed greatly from that of the Ancient Dawn Empire's language, the corresponding soul fluctuation features changed only slightly; after a brief comparison, Luosen roughly understood it.

At the same time, he silently muttered: 【Laifu, activate the new ability training《Real-Time Dawn Language Translation》】.

「Training activated. 」

Besides that, Luosen noticed that this leader's bone spear differed from the others; a shard flashing with deep purple starlight was bound to its tip, which stirred him slightly.

【This should be a divine artifact fragment.】

Of course, since he didn't know the situation of the sand lizard knights, he stood silently waiting for Adela's response.

Adela could obviously understand the other party's language as well.

She signaled the others to be on guard with one hand, and with the other responded loudly in a somewhat stiff interdimensional language.

「Warrior, we have indeed offended. We accept punishment. But we don't know how to be punished. 」

The leader narrowed his eyes at Adela, gave a hehe smile, and said: 「Woman, you seem to understand the rules, so you should know what we lack most. 」

Adela immediately gestured to Ajia Sha behind her: 「Go fetch the prepared items. 」

Ajia Sha immediately complied.

Adela then said: 「We have 41 people here; according to the rules, we will pay you 41 pairs of sturdy, wear-resistant boots and 82 soft, breathable linen towels. 」

Before she finished speaking, the opposite leader kept shaking his head.

「No no no, that was the old rule. The rule has changed now. 」

He raised his left hand; only three fingers remained on it.

「Now, the numbers of boots and towels are doubled. Moreover, the women of your camp must spend a night with our tribe's warriors. 」

Adela frowned slightly and said coldly: 「We can accept doubling the items, but the overnight requirement is out of the question. 」

「If you insist on doing this, then we have no choice but to go to war. 」

The knight leader shrugged, a hint of cruelty showing on his face: 「Skipping the night is fine, but the amount of supplies must be increased tenfold. 」

「If you can't produce them, then let's fight! 」

Adela's brows tightened: 「Chief Luoluoke, arbitrarily changing the penalty amount is greed, a sin punishable by the Desert God. 」

While speaking, she whispered to Luosen via soul: 「We haven't prepared that much supplies; we need to get ready for battle. 」

Luosen could understand, after all, phase shifting consumes a lot of energy, making it impossible to carry too much supplies.

The battle itself wasn't a big deal; these few people weren't even worth his notice.

But judging from the bandits' aggressive attitude, they seemed to be hiding some trump card.

At that moment, the opposing knight leader let out a strange 'ge ge' laugh.

「We have indeed committed the sin of greed and have long been prepared to accept the Desert God's punishment. 」

「But I want to say, we actually endure the Desert God's punishment at every moment; more or less, it's just the difference between dying early and dying in play. 」

「Since everyone dies eventually, let's live life to the fullest while we're alive. 」

Having said that, he flicked the reins and returned to the ranks.

「Final warning: either do as I say, or wait to accept the Law Hunter's sanction. 」

Adela blinked in surprise, somewhat confused: 「Chief Luoluoke, what do you mean by that? 」

「Literally speaking, we have controlled a powerful Law Hunter. 」

「I know your travelers' tricks; don't think you can teleport away, because the law-ring of this region has been frozen by the Law Hunter. 」

As he said that, Luosen saw Adela's face turn slightly pale, the hands hidden in her sleeves instantly clenching into fists.

She whispered via soul: 「Your Majesty, the situation exceeds my expectations. 」

Looking beside her, the Dream Realm Master Naili and the Forest God Peiri also had ashen faces.

Especially the latter, gripping the divine artifact spear of annihilation with both hands, his body uncontrollably trembling slightly, resembling an ordinary person encountering an irresistible force.

Obviously, the Gods of Life have previously dealt with the Law Hunter, and all were frightened.

Luosen thought for a moment, then replied quietly: 「That's easy; we just capture them, force them to submit, and we'll be safe. 」

Adela shook her head slightly: "These bandits are all crazy desperadoes; they'd rather kill themselves than be captured."

"Moreover, since he dares to threaten us to our face, he definitely has a backup plan."

Adela paused, then spoke softly: "How about we step back and let a few female holy disciples handle it?"

Luosen heard this and was quite surprised: "Dear, are Law Hunters really that terrifying?"

"It actually ended up frightening them to this extent."

Adela gave a wry smile: "Law Hunters are the most powerful high-energy war puppets I've ever seen; they are unstoppably powerful."

Luosen wouldn't believe it, and he certainly wouldn't tolerate this humiliation.

"Give it a try; you know I'm best at using torture."

"Besides, we might not be unable to defeat the Law Hunters; they have a Law-Breaking Divine Blade, but we also have an Annihilation Lance."

Adela let out a light sigh: "Your Majesty, you are the leader; I'm only making a suggestion—exactly what to do is up to you."

Luosen nodded slightly, then said to Beilu Dandi: "Set up the anti-interference phase transmission device; if things go wrong, we'll teleport everyone away."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Beilu Dandi immediately took action.

These words immediately put the Life Gods at ease.

Afterwards, Luosen took a few steps forward to Adela's side: "Dear, I say, you translate."

"Okay."

After Adela was ready, Luosen began to shout loudly.

"Luoluoke, Law Hunters are indeed strong, but our honor is priceless. To protect our honor, we can sacrifice everything, including our lives!"

"Either you accept triple the amount of supplies, or we go to war."

"But I must remind you, before we go to war we will destroy all supplies, so even if you win, you'll get nothing!"

"This was his final ultimatum; if they didn't accept, he would resort to deadly force."

After Adela finished translating, the Knight Leader stared fixedly at Luosen, giving a grim chuckle: "Young man, you have thoroughly angered me; even if we gain nothing, I will make you taste the price of arrogance!"

"In other words, they refused."

Thus, before the leader's words even finished, Luosen acted without hesitation.

"Heart of the War God" activated immediately, drawing fifty percent of its computing power and employing a parallel combination casting technique with up to thirty threads.

In an instant, the Super Solar Heart surged forth like a tsunami, traveling through magical superconducting conduits and instantly pouring into the High Mountain Magic Cube, forming two super-massive spells.

Super Gigantic Magic Ring Prison!

Super Gigantic Soul Sigh Wall!

The total scale of the spell was 200,000 Luosen.

Because the parallel combination casting strategy was used, and the spell scale was still far below the super-gigantic limit, the casting speed reached its peak.

In less than one-tenth of a second, the two powerful converging spells were declared complete.

Only seeing, with Luosen's body as the center, the five-hundred-meter magic ring trembled slightly, and the convergence of the eleven magic rings was already completed.

At the same time, likewise centered on Luosen's body, a gigantic spherical soul shield expanded outward in all directions at a speed too fast to react.

This is the Soul Sigh Wall.

Its function is to resist soul strikes, but Luosen used it as an offensive spell, the effect being to forcibly push out the souls of unmarked hostile targets.

Shield strike is also a strike.

As long as it's fast and fierce enough, a single blow can crush the enemy to death!

In an instant, when the sigh wall swept over allies, everyone felt nothing unusual.

Another instant, when the sigh wall swept over the Giant Lizard Knight, it directly squeezed its soul out of the elemental body! The soul of an elemental life and its elemental body were combined with exquisite precision to the utmost degree.

If the soul of an elemental life is forcibly stripped away, it will inevitably suffer irreversible damage to the soul.

If it were an ordinary person, this moment would directly cause the soul to collapse, and the body would die from losing its soul.

But the soul of this plane's native is extremely resilient; although it also suffered massive damage, it did not collapse immediately.

Moreover, due to the special rule of the eleven magic rings, these souls that had left their bodies appeared within the rings and existed only briefly.

Luosen's actions were truly too fast; after the spell was completed, only over a hundred Sand Lizard Knights could be seen, their bodies—people and sand lizards alike—going limp and collapsing, devoid of vitality.

Their souls drifted within the magic ring prison, looking bewildered.

They still didn't know what had happened.

Not to mention the bandits.

Apart from Adela and Beilu Dandi, the two great gods, the others in the camp still hadn't reacted.

Luosen looked toward the gradually awakening soul of the bandit leader Luo Luo Ke, and unleashed the Voice of the Heavenly Soul.

"Mortal, who exactly is being arrogant now?"

Luo Keke stood dazedly on the silver sand, his gaze shifting back and forth between the physical body on the ground and the distant camp several times, terror gradually appearing on his face, and with a "plop" he knelt on the ground: "Wrong~~ we're wrong~~ please let us return to our bodies."

Luosen grinned: "Too late!"

"Unless the Creator descends, you will never think of returning to your bodies; you will gradually die in despair."

After saying that, he moved his thought again, activated Soul-Seizing Technique, directly pulling Luo Keke's soul before him, and pressed his natural scepter against its skull.

"Then let me take a good look at your soul, to see how you control the hunters."

Having said that, just as he was about to act, he suddenly felt that the gazes of the people around him were strange.

Turning his head, he saw that most of the Life Saints were looking at him with the fearful gaze one reserves for a great demon.

Then he looked at the Life Gods.

The Master of Dreams, Nali, was greatly shocked, but not because of his own action; rather, because of the speed and strength of his strike.

The God of the Wilderness, Perry, frowned tightly, yet he strongly disapproved of his own operation of interrogating the soul.

Looking at Beilu Dandi again, she wore an indifferent look.

Last was the Goddess of Life Adela, yet she too knit her brows slightly.

Luosen was never one to act rashly, so he used soul whisper to ask: 'Adela, is there a problem with my approach?'

Adela also replied via soul whisper.

'Of course you can, but it's best not to do this in front of the saints. For this violates my life doctrine and will frighten them.'

Luosen understood; on one hand it violated the life doctrine, on the other it was the natural fragile psychology of the weak.

After thinking, he asked: 'But the interrogation must proceed; do you have any good ideas?'

'Why not leave it to Naili? Her dream realm is the best diversion.'

Luosen understood at once and turned his gaze to Naili.

'Miss Naili, I've heard your dream realm can redeem evil souls; then entrust these bandits' souls to you.'

Naili naturally understood and nodded: 'As you wish, Your Majesty.'

With a thought, she unfolded her dream realm, enveloping all the bandits' souls, and sang in a gentle tone:

'Lost souls, find peace in the dream realm and return to the Creator's embrace.'

Moreover, this method is indeed far more refined, and the life saints are much more at ease.

Luosen thought to himself: 'Looks like I should pay attention from now on, not handle things so blatantly, lest I ruin my reputation.'

Reputation is still useful; unless there's no choice, it's best not to acquire a bad reputation like 'cruel, cold-blooded, violent.'

Of course, this doesn't mean bad deeds can't be done, but rather that one must pay attention to the method.

There's no helping it; humans are such hypocritical, complex beings—most despise bloody slaughter, yet they can enjoy its benefits with a clear conscience.

In a past life on Earth, one country took this to the extreme; after carrying out ethnic cleansing, they even specially created a holiday to soothe the psychological trauma.

Naili's professional skills were strong; soon she obtained the answer she wanted.

Obviously, this was not good news, as her face turned deathly pale.

She whispered via soul: 'Luoluoke indeed controls a hunter, and has set it as his life guardian.'

'As long as he dies, the hunter will be activated and take revenge for him.'

Luosen understood: 'In other words, we will soon face a hunter?'

'Exactly.'

Everyone present instantly turned ashen; even the Goddess of Life Adela could not stay calm.

She immediately said: 'Your Majesty, let's withdraw now while we can.'

How to withdraw? Naturally by phase shift to flee.

Luosen, however, wanted to meet the hunter; seeing everyone around terrified, he said: 'You all withdraw first.'

No sooner had his words fallen than the Forest God Peiri began phase transmission.

'Hum~'

A white light flashed on his body, his figure blurred for a few seconds, but immediately cleared again.

The phase shift succeeded, but the person did not actually move.

Luosen carefully sensed the state of the magic ring and immediately understood the cause.

'The magic ring has developed a very intricate fold; unless it is undone, any shift will leave you in the same place.'

This knowledge came from the pioneer Dilaiks.

Such magic ring folding techniques are a major secret art of the Dawn Empire, developed to its utmost.

Not only can it block phase shift by folding, but multiple folds can also construct a magic ring labyrinth—quite interesting.

Adela urgently asked: 'Can it be undone, Your Majesty?'

Luosen could certainly undo it, even right away, but he intends to meet this hunter.

Thus he said: 'I can undo it, but I need some time; first, defend.'

(End of chapter)