Chapter 4022

The spiritual weapon stabbed forward, and the automatically lengthening long staff directly hit the middle-aged man flying in the air, pinning him to the wall of the room. That long staff even pierced through his chest, making him unable to move like a nail.

But the middle-aged man, who had already made up his mind, actively ignited almost all of his own life force after finding that he could not break free no matter what. In the raging flames, his materialized body was completely transformed into flames, and Xia De even sensed a "Life Fire Seed" within those flames.

This kind of relic that could directly elementalize a person was at least rated at the level of a Ringed Mage.

Having lost the constraints of a physical body, the middle-aged man escaped from under the long staff. His life force was permanently depleted every moment, allowing his speed, strength, and endurance to be greatly improved. When he flew in the air again, his speed had already broken the sound barrier.

The flame humanoid crashed towards the Shushi on the low bridge, but the Eleventh-Ring Shushi didn't even summon his life ring. The long staff in his hand returned to its normal size. After chanting a spell softly, the runes on the surface of the long staff lit up. The spiritual weapon, which originally did not possess any energy attributes, showed signs of frost. When the long staff was swung forward again, it had completely transformed into an ice elemental form.

Boom!

Fire and ice collided in the air. Amidst a huge creaking sound, the walkway in the air broke, and the grating plates fell into the sewage sedimentation tank below with a splash.

The Eleventh-Ring Shushi hovered in the air, the spiritual weapon in his hand shattered, and he rubbed his right hand but was not injured. As for the middle-aged man, he was directly knocked away by the blow of the spiritual weapon. When he finally managed to stabilize the firelight constituting his body in the air, the firelight was already very dim.

He did not attack again. After swaying in the air, he plunged headfirst into the sewage sedimentation tank below.

So the Eleventh-Ring Shushi in the air landed and joined his two companions. He wanted to cast a spell again, but was stopped by the "Construct Master" Schluch Lake:

"The powerful life force we were looking for turned out to be hidden here."

The liquid in the sewage tank was boiling violently. Beneath the liquid, which was covered in oil and foam, a dazzling firelight could be vaguely seen growing larger and larger, until the "giant," which was composed of countless melted corpses and only had an upper body, emerged from the sewage tank.

The highest point of its head had already exceeded the position of the broken walkway, and the middle-aged man, as the core, turned into a ball of firelight, embedded in the chest position of this rotting corpse giant.

"Corpse polymer, no, those corpses still have life force. He deliberately brought those victims with relatively strong life force back here, maintaining their withered state, letting them struggle on the edge of life and death in this sewage tank, as spare life energy... How many people did he kill in total?"

This looked somewhat similar to the scene during the battle of the Holy See of the 【Creation Sect】, but the life force supporting these corpses to stick together was all normal. A huge body meant it was easier to be hit, but the middle-aged man clearly didn't want to win purely by his own physical form.

At this moment, he connected all the reserve energy with himself at once. The life force that was about to wither made the firelight at the chest of the corpse giant turn into a dim yellow color. From the surface of the giant's body, in the cracks between the various corpses, the expanding dim yellow light became more and more dazzling. Xia De immediately understood what the other party was about to do.

"He wants to self-destruct? Be careful—Night Veil Seal!"

Boom!

The giant, having opened its arms, ignited all its life force, transformed it into the power of "Wither," and exploded directly. The dim yellow firelight swept across the entire area, and even the "Construct Master" immediately cast a spell to resist.

Xia De wanted to extract his own life force to integrate into the seal, but Miss Luweiya pressed his hand:

"Chaos Crawl!"

The shield formed by shadows blocked the three of them. When the withered firelight approached, it was directly twisted in nature by the power of chaos, transformed back into a fire of abundant life force, and then blocked by the night veil summoned by Xia De.

The remains of the corpses flew everywhere with the explosion, but this kind of pure life force eruption did not cause too much impact on the factory building itself.

After the power of Wither subsided, when Xia De looked around again, the "Construct Master" and his party did not go to find the whereabouts of the middle-aged man, but used some small mechanical devices to capture the life force contained in the scattered corpses that was about to dissipate.

Firelight also appeared from another direction. People dressed like the attackers on the night of the charity banquet also didn't bother to hide themselves, also holding up a glowing eye to absorb the vast life force that escaped after the corpse giant self-destructed.

And outside these traitors and the three people from the 【Blood Spirit School】, at the high window of the sedimentation room, two strangers who had been observing the situation outside the window for a long time also broke in. Although they had no identification marks on them, judging by their scholar robes and temperament, Xia De was inexplicably convinced that these two belonged to the 【Truth Society】, and they also took out strange props to attract the life energy that was about to dissipate.

"Are these people looking for this place just for this life energy?"

Although the life force contained in the corpse giant was not enough to compare with the life force of the flesh deformity Xia De saw in the 【Polluted Blood Factory】, in this era, this life force gathered due to the relic could already be considered very large.

None of them used a fire source, because none of them were able to transform life energy into a fire source, merely letting it temporarily enrich. Seeing that all three parties were busy with their own affairs, Xia De signaled Miss Luweiya and the Tenth-Ring young lady not to show themselves first. He walked alone towards the sewage sedimentation tank just now, and the others didn't pay any attention to him at all.

The middle-aged night watchman was actually still alive. He did not disappear in the explosion. His whole body was burned to charcoal, and his body surface was covered with fire marks. At this moment, he was floating in that sedimentation tank. The remaining bit of life force kept him from dying immediately, but this life force only made him suffer greater torture before death.

When Xia De came to his side, preparing to take off the ring on his finger, the charred humanoid actually tried hard to ask Xia De a question:

"If it were you, would you rather live coldly, or die so brilliantly?"

Xia De didn't even look at him:

"Dying in a sewage treatment tank doesn't look like dying brilliantly in any way, so your question is meaningless."

"Yes, life, has no meaning."

The middle-aged man's corpse turned into ashes in the firelight, and the ashes with sparks gradually disappeared into the sewage. But before that, the relic ring was pinched up by Xia De. The ring looked like it was made of brass, and it felt inexplicably warm to the touch. The ring face was a piece of yellow amber, and the inner ring of the ring was engraved with ancient runes—

【The reversal of prosperity and decline is the true meaning of the flourishing and withering of all things.】

The very familiar sentence structure made Xia De raise his eyebrows. He touched the yellow amber on the ring, and the extremely clear power of "Wither" made him even more surprised. As long as this ring was touched, it would inevitably lead to one's own "Wither." Except for Xia De, who had the protection of the "Fire Source" mark, he couldn't think of anyone else who could safely use this ring directly:

"Is it really just a relic, not a demon?"

He didn't recognize what this ring was, so he didn't easily put it on his finger. At this time, he turned around and looked at the three parties of "Church Traitors," 【Truth Society】, and 【Blood Spirit School】, who were still collecting the life energy that had not completely dissipated.

Xia De could actually do the same thing. The fire source belonging to him was in his pocket. Life force without an owner like this didn't need to be extracted by casting spells at all, and could be absorbed directly using the "Fire Source." Although this meant that the fire source would become more powerful, it also meant that this normal life energy would be polluted by disaster, which was a disguised enhancement of the power of disaster.

So Xia De wouldn't do this.

Watching people busy with their own affairs, Xia De thought of the incident last Friday night when the 【Magic Eye Club】 and the 【Son Alliance】 fought fiercely for that safe aggregate, which made Xia De suspect that all these people had the same goal.

"You..."

Seeing that everyone was still busy with their own affairs and no one paid attention to him, Xia De opened his mouth and asked:

"Are you here tonight just to obtain this life energy?"

Still no one paid attention to Xia De. Life force dissipated very quickly, and they couldn't waste time. Xia De sighed, feeling that these people were like wild animals fighting for food. He didn't continue to speak, standing by the sedimentation tank and waiting patiently.

Sure enough, after the three parties had collected most of the life force remaining here, the "Construct Master" said to those people from the 【Truth Society】 and 【Blood Spirit School】:

"Leave your containers, and I can let you go."

The other two forces clearly had no such intention. The two professors from the 【Truth Society】 didn't say a word, as if they were waiting for something. They had clearly seen this Thirteenth-Ring Shushi just now but still chose to appear, clearly having calculated that there was still a possibility of escaping.

As for the three people from the 【Blood Spirit School】, they also didn't say a word and looked towards the entrance of the sedimentation room.

I don't know when, a man in a red formal suit appeared there. Seeing everyone looking at him, the man walked out of the shadows at the door and came into the factory building illuminated by the moonlight outside the window. His appearance was exceptionally young, but his temperament didn't look like a young man at all. A smile hung on the corner of his mouth, and he was not afraid of that Thirteenth-Ring Shushi at all.

The "Construct Master" Schluch Lake frowned, and then asked very calmly:

"Blood Weeper Hermons, your injuries are completely healed, right?"

When Xia De saw the "Blood Weeper" in the snowy mountains, he was still a weathered middle-aged man. At this moment, the image he displayed was clearly a young man around twenty-five years old, his skin condition was so good that he looked like he was only in his teens, and his eyes were exceptionally spirited.

Xia De felt vast life energy from his body. That kind of life force with exuberant vitality could clearly only appear in the body of a teenager in the growth stage.

?? PS: Spring Festival extra update 7/10.