Chapter 53: Village Annihilation

This was the first time Lady Chen had moved against an enemy.

All previous attacks had ended with nothing more than a glance.

Her pure white jade hand gently pressed against Fang Yue's chest.

Fang Yue's body stiffened; an icy coldness, colder than anything he'd ever known, surged through her palm and into his body.

In that moment, Fang Yue had a strange feeling—as if every secret within him had been laid bare.

Fortunately, the feeling came quickly and vanished just as fast.

Just as Fang Yue thought he was dead, he saw Lady Chen withdraw her hand.

Lady Chen tilted her head slightly, gazing at Fang Yue with confusion, her dark brows lightly furrowed.

"Not yet mature?"

Lady Chen's voice carried a clear, detached quality, yet the content of her words left Fang Yue utterly baffled.

Not yet mature?

What did that mean?

Fang Yue couldn't understand, but he suddenly remembered how Lady Chen had killed that player—she'd drained over a thousand HP in an instant.

She'd instantly killed everyone else, never leaving a single survivor.

Yet he was the only one left alive—even his HP had been precisely controlled, exactly 199 points!

Not a single point more, not a single point less!

It was as if her control over power was so refined she applied not an ounce more, nor an ounce less—as if she could dictate the exact amount of damage she wished to inflict.

The only thing Lady Chen hadn't anticipated was that, in this short time, his HP had fully recovered.

But it didn't matter—his life was firmly in her grasp; she could kill him anytime she wished.

As Fang Yue thought this, the surroundings suddenly blurred.

When clarity returned, the night wind howled—he was now high in the air, held aloft by Lady Chen's single hand.

Below, flickering fires clustered around the Di He, with countless shadows gathered together.

Except for the Di He, the entire Gu Yue Cun was pitch black, eerily silent—as if every living soul in Gu Yue Cun had converged in one place.

The people inside the Di He all stared blankly upward, watching Lady Chen leap high into the sky.

No one knew what Lady Chen intended to do, or why she had taken Fang Yue away alone.

Then, they saw Lady Chen raise her hand for the second time.

Her left hand became a blade; in midair, she slashed downward at the Di He's empty space.

Crack!

The Di He's incredibly hard, eggshell-like stone exterior suddenly split open with a jagged crack—then paused for a moment.

Boom!!!

The Di He split cleanly in two, revealing within a massive, blazing fire of Human Soul.

Like a being freed from restraint, the Human Soul fire surged violently with the wind, growing in moments into a towering hundred-meter column of flame.

The Human Soul was burning! Wasting away! Disappearing!

The foundation upon which Gu Yue Cun had stood for generations had been destroyed.

Gone. Nothing remained. Gu Yue Cun… was over.

Everyone believed so.

Lin Ling stared blankly at the shattered Di He, then collapsed to his knees with a thud, his heart hollow.

He wanted to say something, but nothing came out; he felt dazed and numb—suddenly, a sharp pain struck his chest, and he vomited blood, as if he'd aged ten years in an instant.

Others wailed, cursed, screamed…

All sounds intertwined, spreading despair.

Only the players felt little emotion—only grim expressions.

"Damn it! Monster attack was bad enough, but now they've wiped out the newbie village?"

"I'm sick of this! This garbage game—can't it just give people a chance to live?!"

"Fuck! I spent two days grinding stats, and now some weirdo wipes the village—I have to die with it? Screw this! I'm quitting!"

"You just grinded stats—I grinded NPC affection! And now the NPCs are dead! You won't believe it—this weirdo gave one glance, and my NPC with 15 affection points died! I'm the one who really wants to throw up!"

The players' curses and complaints were drowned out by the villagers' desperate wailing, causing not the slightest ripple.

Normally, hearing such words would instantly drop their affection to negative numbers without explanation.

Now, no one had the energy to care about these players.

"I told you so! I told you so! Ye Ge wouldn't listen to me!!"

Niu Niu yanked Xiao Hu's hand hard, shouting in fear: "I said it was a weirdo attack—the whole village was doomed! Ye Ge wouldn't listen to me! If he'd run with me back then, we wouldn't be in this mess!"

As chaos erupted below, Fang Yue was carried by Lady Chen and landed on the eave of the tallest mansion near the Di He.

Looking down, the villagers cried out in anguish.

Looking beside him, the weirdo gripped his hand tightly.

Gone. Truly gone.

Fang Yue wanted to cry but had no tears left.

Though he didn't know why Lady Chen spared him, he assumed it was only a matter of when he'd die—there was no path to survival.

Everyone was in despair; the world seemed plunged into darkness.

The hundred-meter-tall Human Soul fire suddenly flickered.

Its height dropped from a hundred meters to eighty—like fuel running low, teetering on the edge of extinction.

Now, the villagers grew even more terrified and hopeless.

Someone gritted their teeth, suddenly leapt up, and threw themselves into the Human Soul fire without a second thought.

Whoosh!

The Human Soul fire shot up a few centimeters at once, then quickly began to sink back down.

"Burn! I am willing to be human kindling! To fuel the Human Soul fire! Please, Captain Lin, pull yourself together! Take charge of the situation and repair the Di He as quickly as possible!"

A Deputy Captain of considerable prestige within the Guard Team suddenly let out a great roar, then turned and leapt straight into the raging Human Soul fire.

Whoosh!

This time, the Human Soul fire leapt up several more inches. It seemed that depending on one's cultivation and strength, or perhaps one's remaining lifespan, the fuel provided by the burning differed as well.

With someone taking the lead, a number of hot-blooded folk in the crowd also stepped forward one after another.

Most of these people were members of the Guard Team; only a small portion were ordinary villagers.

They were all willing to give their lives for the village, and the village in turn had the duty to look after the families of these heroes.

This was the rule of Gu Yue Cun, and one of the foundations upon which Gu Yue Cun had managed to survive in this world.

Lin Ling, swept up by the atmosphere, also felt an impulse to throw himself into the Human Soul fire at once and become a piece of firewood.

But he could not!

Chen Mu was dead, Hua Wuye was in Heavy Injury and unconscious, and Fang Yue had been carried off by something bizarre.

In all of Gu Yue Cun, only he remained to take charge and steady the situation!

Though it was hardly decent of him, Lin Ling felt immensely relieved that Lady Chen had only taken Fang Yue and damaged the Di He, with no further moves after that.

Otherwise, Gu Yue Cun would not have even the last shred of room to struggle.

As Lin Ling forced himself to rally and led the villagers in a final act of self-rescue,

As Fang Yue was being carried by Lady Chen in a few great leaps to the village entrance,

From the damaged Di He at the center of Gu Yue Cun, a pillar of white light suddenly shot up into the sky!

The white pillar pierced the heavens, bright as broad daylight, illuminating all of Gu Yue Cun!

This pillar of white light came suddenly, came strangely.

Tonight, strange things in Gu Yue Cun kept happening one after another; Lin Ling could barely keep up.

He, like the people around him, was utterly stupefied, staring dumbly up at the pillar of white light.

Within the white pillar, amid the burning of the Human Soul fire, a human silhouette could faintly be seen, its face full of astonishment.

Lin Ling peered closely at the figure, then gave a sudden start as though he had recognized something. Overcome with emotion, he dropped to his knees on the spot, tears streaming down his face.

"Welcome Lord Han back to the village!!"

……

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(End of chapter)