Chapter 284

Endless yellow sand, withered stretching to the sky; across the vast land, as far as the eye can see, only broken walls and ruined remains, with not a trace of vitality.

But in this apocalyptic wasteland, a roaring engine sound suddenly rang out, and a swift, electric-like figure cut through the waves, leaping out of the dangerous sandstorm.

As a beautiful parabola was traced, the violent metal construct that landed on the ground turned out to be a pale yellow sports car.

He used the windshield wipers to clear the thick layer of dust on the glass, the man in the driver's seat laughed heartily and slapped the steering wheel hard.

"Beautiful! Yellow Hornet, we successfully defeated the great sneeze of Lop Nur!"

From the car's speaker came a squeaky, twisting electronic sound; after trying for a while, it finally managed to speak a complete sentence.

"We still need to cross about half of the Afro-Asian continent to reach Dakar, but not far ahead lies Autobot City; do we need to resupply there?"

Autobot City……

Ji Ming lowered his head in thought, wondering whether to first go find T-X to play poker, or to first arrange a meet with the twin dancers to play Landlord.

But just then, a thunderous roar came from the horizon; he looked up and saw that there was a towering, massive half-human, half-horse creature, as tall as heaven and earth, and her eyes, shining like the sun, were fixed on him.

"Holy shit!"

Now Ji Ming had no mood to be carefree; he quickly turned the steering wheel and floored the accelerator in the opposite direction of the centaur.

However, the Yellow Hornet suddenly seemed to turn into a Yellow Snail; its previous lightning-fast speed dropped to slower than an old ox, and no matter how hard he tried, it could only inch forward.

Yet hearing the approaching thunder rumble behind him, Ji Ming, who had just been scared witless, suddenly calmed down.

"Alright, it seems the fun time is ending again; I thought I could really get a look at that mighty handsome guy..."

He slumped back in the soft seat like he'd given up, took out a Hua Zi cigarette from his jacket pocket, lit it, and took a deep drag in the increasingly irritating smoke.

In a heavy boom, likely the sound of the opponent's armor clashing as they threw their weapon, Ji Ming closed his eyes.

"Cough cough cough……"

After being choked awake, he opened his eyes again to find the familiar ceiling before him.

It turned out that all of that was merely the bizarre dream of a giant-creature and machinery enthusiast……

He turned his head, gazing at the snowflakes falling from the sky, smacked his lips to savor what he'd seen in the dream, but suddenly felt that the more he pondered it, the stranger it tasted.

Although he hadn't lacked similar dreams before, since becoming a transmigrator he rarely dreamed anymore; this long-awaited pleasant dream only reminded him of his endlessly fickle fortune.

Alright, then let's recall what we saw in the dream.

The cosmic monster‑level Ke Li Si Ting suddenly appeared, then spread its hooves and chased after me, then threw a Ma Mao at me, then…

Wait.

That final dull thud—could it really be the sound of armor colliding? It sounds more like…

"Boss, could you replay that once more?"

【Boom—. MP3】

This is clearly the sound of something exploding, and it's not in a dream but in reality!

Actually, this disturbance isn't that big; at least it's a considerable distance from the commercial district in the southern part of the Inner City—not even ordinary people, even professionals who are a bit dazed wouldn't notice anything unusual.

But who made Ji Ming, who knows plenty of inside info about Sunshine City and also knows that something big is about to happen, become so vigilant lately, with his ears unusually sharp?

He quickly put on his clothes, returned to full battle gear, and hurried out of the Clinic to seek nearby Guardian Knights to take action.

However, as he pushed the door open, he suddenly felt his body go limp; if he hadn't quickly grabbed the door frame, he would have embarrassingly collapsed to his knees.

But before he could even be shocked that he could be attacked even at home, he felt his strength surge back, even more violently than before.

Ji Ming didn't know what was happening to his body, but knowing he shouldn't stay long, he immediately teleported to the underground city.

But this strange state hadn't ended; as soon as he tried to stand up after returning to the curtains, his strength dissipated again.

Then, before he could even let out a cry of surprise, his strength was replenished, principal and interest.

"Are you playing with me?"

Anyway, having escaped to the safe house, Ji Ming simply gave up and sat down on the ground, refusing to get up.

But he was just lying down physically, not mentally; he used his thoughts to bring up his interface, took a glance, prepared for a thorough check, and immediately discovered the problem.

Because the strength and agility values in his top slot were going crazy, constantly fluctuating as if a variable resistor had been installed.

Theoretically speaking, as a high‑dimensional being whose true form has descended, he might not be completely immune to physical harm in this world, but curses, poisons and other sneaky tricks can still be ignored.

So there is only one possible cause for this situation—

While browsing the skill list, Ji Ming also sensed the righteous qi within his body, discovering it was exactly as he had thought.

At this very moment, the righteous qi inside him kept increasing and decreasing, and with it the level of the 'Righteous Qi Cultivation Technique' kept rising and falling, and the feedback values also kept going up and down.

"Good heavens, is my merit acting like a DJ scratching records in my dantian? Why does it keep going up and down!"

At this very moment, the DJ scratching his merit.

"Alright, who else wants to be buried alongside your great Captain Fei En?"

Using the Ma Mao in his hand, he cut down another mercenary lunging at him, and Ke Li Si Ting wiped the blood from the blade clean with a dead man's garment.

No matter how you say it, he's a veteran of the mercenary alliance, an extremely experienced human operator, and Fei En's rule within the Storm remains quite solid.

Even within the mercenary corps, there are not a few who, even knowing he's dead, still wish to remain loyal to him, even to the point of foolishly sacrificing their lives to avenge him.

If Ji Ming had initially chosen Ke Li Si Ting as the opening move, under equal conditions he would definitely have chosen to first kill a batch of the most fiercely resistant, utterly unswayable elements—killing a few to warn the many—first slashing more than half of the internal dissenting voices within the organization, and then talk about it.

The rest would all be rounded up, patiently coaxed, kindly persuaded, like taming a hawk, waiting for them to surrender.

If successful, they'd all be kept in a high position, well fed and watered, held up as excellent examples—but without any authority.

If not, they could still serve as a moving dead horse worth a thousand gold, used to showcase one's excellent image of 'valuing talent, loving talent' and 'respecting the virtuous and humble'.

After all, human lives are important; when facing evil ones, killing need not be stingy, but it must absolutely not be overdone.

However, Ke Li Si Ting, who is only forty this year, is still a pure‑hearted young girl, while Ji Ming is already twenty‑eight; in terms of wit, she simply can't outplay him.

Moreover, now that the slaughter knife is in her hand and she holds the power of life and death, she can't be bothered with these trivial matters.

These people have always been bad seeds; they're bad seeds day after day, and will remain bad seeds for life.

I can't be bothered to reason with them; they don't deserve to hear it.

Nothing to say, justtu (slaughter) it!

And when she swung down her Ma Mao, she suddenly felt that the one lunging at her was not a ferocious mercenary group member, but Ji Ming.

That ungrateful, clueless wretch who needed to be locked in a cage with iron chains by oneself, kneeling on the ground and mercilessly whipped to be conquered……

Well now, killing people wasn't that easy before, but once such an exciting fantasy took hold in her heart, Ke Li Si Ting almost went mad with killing.

Therefore, from the perspective of Positive Qi Judgment, the situation unfolding here is simply this.

A group of people and horses was driven mad by Ji Ming's merciless words, deciding to embark on a slaughtering path for him, and even finding it more enjoyable the more they killed, the more addictive it became.

——Although this wasn't Ji Ming's subjective intention, it still somewhat counts as incitement, so merit must be deducted!

What, those killed by the group of people and horses are all irredeemable villains who followed a demon leader and committed many beastly deeds?

——Good riddance, break out the champagne! The world is better now, merit must be heavily added!

If Ji Ming knew the Merit Calculator was going crazy like this, he would surely complain loudly.

No, are you dead? You can't just lump this thing together for judgment, can you?

Clearly one down, one up, my merit should be slowly rising, so why does eating something good end up tormenting me for no reason?

Unfortunately, as a newly added part of world law, Positive Qi Judgment is equally heartless, it fundamentally has no emotion nor room for negotiation.

Regardless of whether Ji Ming knows why his merit is increasing or decreasing, he can only sit on the ground and wait for this period to slowly pass.

Fortunately, even though Ke Li Si Ting is very interested in tuning Ji Ming, the Mountain People Mercenary Alliance simply doesn't have enough people for her to kill to that extent!

She merely made a small move, killing a mere one or two hundred, and she saw that the mercenaries before her had all dropped to their knees, kowtowing and weeping.

"Huh?" ——Wondering what this bunch of villains is up to.

"Mm." ——Suddenly realizing the reason.

"Ah." ——Discovering that her purpose has finally been achieved.

Ke Li Si Ting, who had figured out the current situation, locked Ji Ming—who had learned to bark like a dog in his mind—back inside, and tapped the ground with the Ma Mao she held.

"How about it, do you now agree to let me become the alliance leader?"

Even tough-as-iron men couldn't bear this much killing; the remaining mercenaries were so frightened their dosage was completely cut off, and they kowtowed like pounding garlic.

"Dad, Mom, Aunt, you can be whatever you want for us!"

"Pfft……"

Just then, a strange sound suddenly came from above their heads; although no one dared to look up, the next moment the case was solved.

That was Ke Li Si Ting covering her face with her hand, unable to hold back an extremely joyful, extremely wild burst of laughter.

I have endured humiliation and borne burdens in Sunlight City for over thirty years, and finally, finally I have arrived at today!

"All right, all right, everyone get up; since everyone is willing to cooperate, let things stay as they are."

The mercenaries trembled as they rose, looking at the red, white, yellow, and bloody filth before them and on their bodies, they almost regretted ever coming to this damned Sunlight City.

Especially when the opponent flashed a smile whose width had to be measured in decimeters and softly said, "Actually you don't need to fear me; I'm still easy to get along with," they felt their excretion volume hit a new high.

Ke Li Si Ting, feeling her nose struck again:???

Um, perhaps this is just one of the necessary sacrifices on the road to supremacy……

She could only suppress the urge to pinch her nose, let her will ignore these odd smells, and produce the Pearl Family Crest her mother left her, displaying it before everyone.

"As I said before, I am a bloodline of the Pearl Family; although my family was once framed as traitorous spies decades ago, the injustice has long been cleared, and my noble status has been restored in the Shen Lin Wang Guo—do you accept that?"

The mercenaries froze for a second, then nodded with their blood-soaked heads.

Ke Li Si Ting suddenly felt that even if she didn't claim to be of the Pearl Family, if she insisted she was a Golden Elf, they would still accept it without hesitation.

But this feeling that can twist right and wrong, black and white, didn't make her feel absurd; instead it was pure pleasure——perhaps this is what conquest feels like!

"Furthermore, according to the 78th Amendment of the Kingdom Covenant, when external mercenaries suffer a major change and lose their administrator, the highest-ranking Deep Forest Nobility has the right to temporarily take charge—do you accept that?"

Tear-filled mercenaries: "Grandma, dare we shake our heads?"

They had prepared themselves to be nodding machines tonight, yet Ke Li Si Ting's next question left them all stunned, for she asked:

"Fei En is dead—how do you think he died?"

Isn't that nonsense? Obviously he was killed by using a love letter addressed to who-knows-whom as bait, then a Ma Mao pierced his abdomen, and finally the three-ring magic contained within exploded and blew him to pieces.

But no one would dare say that, for even if they didn't understand Ke Li Si Ting's meaning, they knew not to step into a thunder zone.

Seeing no one respond, Ke Li Si Ting frowned slightly, clenched her fists, and decided to give this dull bunch of subordinates a little extra motivation.

However, just then, a voice with remarkably steady enunciation appeared.

"Former Mountain People Mercenary Alliance Leader Mr. Fei En Zhu Huo died in an ambush while out on patrol."

???

Upon hearing this, everyone was shocked beyond belief; even with Ke Li Si Ting present, they still stirred for a moment.

Because if Fei En were still alive, he would certainly point at this person's nose and curse them out, for this is his most trusted deputy from his lifetime!

At this moment, the deputy also knew his comrades were surprised he hadn't followed the alliance leader away, and instead of explaining, he simply continued stating the facts.

"The death of Alliance Leader Fei En dealt a heavy blow to an alliance already lacking Vice Alliance Leader An De Lu; fortunately, the impoverished noble Miss Ke Li Si Ting Pearl appeared just then, swiftly taking charge, preserving the alliance's internal unity and stability, and preventing any loss of the Shen Lin Wang Guo's interests in Sunlight City."

Now not only the mercenaries, but even Ke Li Si Ting herself was dumbfounded.

I just wanted to blame Fei En's death on someone else, claiming it wasn't my doing—all rumors—but the other side actually started composing a spoken essay on the spot!

Even after fluently finishing his last sentence, the deputy still added one final remark.

"Because Alliance Leader Fei En is highly respected and influential, some of his elderly followers firmly believe Ke Li Si Ting assassinated him, but I, as his most intimate and trusted deputy, think all this is sheer nonsense."

"That's all."