Chapter 122: Divine Punishment Descends, Soul Snatched

The Demon Egg Cannon was gone, and so was the portion of the sand dune within the light pillar's range, leaving a semicircular gap whose cross-section curled with wisps of white smoke.

The Demon Egg's outer shell was also gone, revealing its internal structure — dozens of crystals in red, yellow, blue, green, cyan, indigo, and violet tangled together. Freed from the outer shell's restraint, the crystals paused for a moment, then dropped with a crack, landing on the cross-section of the sand dune that had been blasted by the light pillar.

A string of crisp cracks rang out — the crystals had actually smashed through the sand dune's cross-section. On closer look, the cross-section had somehow been fused by the high temperature into a thin glassy crust.

Ma Yueer suddenly felt his legs go weak. He recognized what that light pillar was — Holy Light Radiance, something he had once seen in a magic book.

The kind of magic book imbued with magical illusion: open it, and the contents would come alive, vividly presenting themselves before you.

He had snatched it from a noble ransom hostage, and it had a limited number of viewings — by the time it reached his hands, only one viewing remained. But that single viewing left an indelible memory, because the final villain had been evaporated by a radiant pillar of light.

Of course, what stayed with him even more were the vivid female characters inside — princesses, female knights, duchesses, queens, and the like, with particularly generous page space, all of which he experienced firsthand from the protagonist's perspective.

But when that very holy light capable of evaporating a villain in one strike appeared before him, his legs went weak on their own, because he realized he seemed to be standing in the villain's shoes.

"My… my Demon Egg, my Demon Egg… the Demon Egg Cannon…." Goblin engineer Waligu wept in grief.

His life's work, evaporated just like that. The materials for the Demon Egg Cannon had taken him half a lifetime to gather, and the most crucial among them was a branch of the World Tree capable of breaking down magic crystals.

Such a key material was a matter of chance, not demand. The one inside the Demon Egg Cannon he had only gotten his hands on by taking advantage of when the World Tree fell ill and the elves distributed diseased branches on a large scale.

Because it was a diseased branch, its decomposition ability wasn't great — the Demon Egg had to spin at high speed to activate the decomposition function, causing the stable crystal structure to produce unstable chain breaks, triggering a chain reaction and violently releasing the crystal energy.

He might not get another chance to obtain a World Tree branch in his remaining years. Was his life's work really going to vanish like this?

Ma Yueer listened, irritated, and said impatiently: "Cry, cry, cry — you couldn't even fire a single shot. Someone, lock him up."

"No, you can't do this — you swore a divine oath to release me," Waligu shouted.

"But you didn't fulfill the agreement — you never fired it," Ma Yueer spread his hands and said sympathetically.

"No, that's not what our agreement was. Our agreement was that whether you hit the target or not, you had to release me. You think your little wordplay trick would escape the notice of the God of the Undying? Release me now," Waligu said furiously.

Although he didn't believe in gods — well, perhaps — occasionally he still paid respects to the God of Knowledge. Especially as a child right before an exam, he would still pray to the God of Knowledge, though not very devoutly, because he himself didn't believe in gods and trusted his toolbox more.

But not believing in gods didn't mean he could stand by and watch someone violate a divine oath.

"So what if I used a little trick? The gods don't care, none of your business. Even if I violate the divine oath, so what? The God of the Undying will forgive me. La la, la la la, la…."

Seeing others angry made Ma Yueer happy — especially watching someone furious yet unable to do anything to him, which delighted him even more. He couldn't help but break into a dance.

But after a few "la la"s, he heard the terrified voices of his subordinates behind him: "B… boss, y… your back."

Ma Yueer turned his head and saw that at some unknown moment, a phantom had appeared behind him. The phantom wore a suit of armor, black mist swirling around it, and seemed somewhat bewildered as it tilted its head and looked at Ma Yueer.

Stranger still, atop the phantom's head sat a flowerpot, in which was a small sapling, peering out over the pot's edge.

This bizarre combination left Ma Yueer stunned for a moment, so stunned he couldn't even muster fear: "I… is this the God of the Undying?"

Hearing the words "God of the Undying," the phantom seemed to finally react. It nodded at Ma Yueer, then suddenly thrust both hands forward.

When the phantom swung its hands, they seemed to be empty, but at the very moment of the swing, a massive scythe materialized, wrapped in rolling black mist, and swept across Ma Yueer's neck — then the phantom vanished.

Ma Yueer stood there dumbly, motionless.

"Boss? Boss?" After a good while, his terrified subordinates cautiously approached, called out to Ma Yueer a few times, got no response, and finally had to steel themselves and give him a light push.

Ma Yueer's body crumpled softly to the ground, his face frozen in its last expression, pale, thoroughly dead.

"Ah! Ah!! Divine punishment! Divine punishment! Boss… bo… Ma Yueer blasphemed against a god and was cut down by one! Nothing to do with me, nothing to do with me — God of the Undying, it was all Ma Yueer's doing, nothing to do with us!" Ma Yueer's subordinates were scared out of their wits, dropping to their knees with a thud to kowtow and confess, as waves of solidified soul flames rose up.

The phantom was, of course, Seeing Ange, though he himself was quite bewildered at the moment. He vaguely sensed someone saying something about the God of the Undying, and then vaguely saw a goblin and a human.

That human looked rather familiar — wasn't he the first one who had dodged his attack and run up onto the sand dune?

Something about divine oaths, something about dying on the spot — Seeing Ange listened, utterly bewildered; he had never encountered such a situation.

But he did catch that human's inner monologue: "Turn around… after the blast… violate the divine oath, hahaha…"

So this human had been preparing to violate a divine oath — but what did that have to do with him?

After standing dumbly for a while, the human on the sand dune pushed out a strange contraption and loaded onto it a ball with a powerful magical reaction. Seeing Ange certainly wasn't going to let that ball hit him, so he let out an "Aw!" on the spot and pointed at the contraption.

The angel skeleton, long unable to restrain itself, snapped its wings open — Holy Light blazed.

Not long after the strange contraption was evaporated, Seeing Ange saw Ma Yueer's phantom again. The other said something to him, but Seeing Ange didn't catch it clearly — he only heard the words "God of the Undying."

Huh — the Undying Divine Spark was on him, so "God of the Undying" meant him, didn't it?

Seeing Ange, now somewhat understanding, immediately swung his scythe at Ma Yueer's phantom. The scythe swept through the phantom, the phantom vanished, and a soul fire appeared on the scythe.

"I seem to have… hooked a soul over," Seeing Ange tilted his head and murmured. But after speaking, he didn't hear the familiar response, and turned to look — Lord Nai Ge Li Si wasn't there after all.

He plucked Ma Yueer's soul off, intending to ask Lord Nai Ge Li Si about it later, but then he sensed something else. He leaned over to look at the spot where Ma Yueer's phantom had vanished and saw some solidified soul flames, carrying intense emotions of terror and fear.

"Too messy, would have to equalize value, don't want it," Seeing Ange murmured.

The gist was that the emotions in the soul flames were too chaotic and hard to equalize in value, so he simply didn't want them.

Having said that, Seeing Ange raised his scythe and pointed at the sand dune: "Aw!" — Take them out, for daring to wreck my field!

"Aw!" The little zombie, the angel skeleton, Luther, and Lightning all raised their hands (hooves) together. — Charge! Take them out!

But just then, the earth began to tremble. A rumbling roar rolled in, and atop the sand dune, great clouds of dust rose up. A black line appeared on the endless stretch of sand dunes, surging forward like a tide.

"Aw!" Seeing Ange shouted, turned tail, and ran — as decisively as when he had been driven out of the cavern by the Ash Bone Skeleton back then. — So many of them, go back and call for reinforcements, run!