Everyone had witnessed Zhang Yi's attack. Liu Jiyun, who had transformed into sand, materialized nearby. Liu Qi wore a bizarre expression. “This kid is weird!”
Not far away, the crow was also watching Xiao Qi dance.
Yet, no matter how hard it looked, it couldn't see any changes in him. “What kind of ability is this? Why is it so bizarre?”
Not only the crow, but even the monsters under the Earth Mother who had followed Zhang Yi were staring at Xiao Qi in utter bewilderment.
They couldn't comprehend why this kid had suddenly started dancing in the middle of a fight.
With a wave of his left hand, Liu Jiyun fired a sand spear at Xiao Qi.
Just as he made his move, a prompt appeared in front of Xiao Qi.
【Dance ended. Deducting current stamina proportional to the damage negated. Calculating...】
【Detected eight intelligent beings experiencing emotional fluctuations, including shock, bewilderment, and confusion.】
【Calculated damage: Concussion! (Area-of-effect damage. Imminent. Enable ally protection?)】
Reading the prompt, Xiao Qi felt an overwhelming wave of exhaustion wash over his body.
Xiao Qi quickly looked at Bai Yuwen and barked, “Protect Bai Yuwen!”
The moment the words left his mouth, the sand spear was only a meter away from him.
Suddenly, a white ripple erupted with him at the center, instantly sweeping through the entire subway station!
The instant the ripple swept past, the crow, which had been leisurely watching the show, suddenly bristled in alarm.
It looked at Buck and shrieked in a human voice, “Buck! Run!”
Buzz!
Before Buck and the others could react, the entire subway station began to shudder violently.
The very space itself seemed to warp, as if buckling under some unimaginably terrifying force.
Rumble!
The violent shaking intensified exponentially. Walls cracked, and the concrete floor shattered.
It wasn't just physical objects shaking. Standing right at the front, Liu Qi felt his entire body vibrate violently the moment the white ripple swept over him.
An excruciating pain surged from his internal organs, accompanied by a sickening wave of nausea.
Splat!
Liu Qi spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, staring at Xiao Qi in utter shock. “What did you do?!”
Splat!
Beside him, Zhang Yi also hacked up a mouthful of dark red blood, his face equally filled with bewilderment.
Buck fared slightly better. As a Ghoul, even his internal organs were protected by specialized structures. Hearing Tang Yongyun's warning,
he spun around and bolted toward the exit. However, the violent vibrations seemed to have rattled his brain, making his gait clumsy and unsteady.
Liu Jiyun was actually in a slightly better position. Since his body was composed of sand, the violent vibrations merely caused his physical form to repeatedly crumble and break apart.
Splat!
Behind them, very few of the Night Slaves and monsters possessed such resilience. Bloody gashes split open across their skin, and their bones and internal organs fractured under the intense vibration.
Boom!
A massive slab of the ceiling, heavy with soil, collapsed from above.
The ceiling slab, weighing dozens of tons, crushed a large group of Night Slaves below into minced meat.
Bai Yuwen watched the scene unfold in absolute shock.
At that moment, Xiao Qi grabbed him and bellowed, “Stop staring! Run, now!”
Dragging Bai Yuwen along, he stumbled through the collapsing, shaking subway station. As they ran, he shouted, “If you want to live, throw away that mask and trench coat! Otherwise, even if we escape, we'll only be delaying our deaths!”
He knew this vibration wouldn't be enough to kill people like Liu Jiyun. Once they recovered, they would resume their pursuit.
When that happened, neither of them would survive.
Hearing Xiao Qi's words, a complex look flashed in Bai Yuwen's exposed eyes. From the moment he obtained the mask yesterday to the high-intensity battles of today,
his Dao Heart had been utterly shattered. He couldn't fight them. He couldn't fight them at all. They weren't even on the same level.
Unless I had collected a million shadows right from the start, there was no way to win this contest. He couldn't help but sigh.
Rumble!
Just as they dashed into the exit passageway, a deafening crash echoed behind them.
Everything was collapsing. Plumes of dust billowed as every single person and monster, save for the two of them, was buried alive inside.
No, not all of them. A massive amount of sand began to seep out from beneath the rubble.
The sand coalesced back into Liu Jiyun's form. He roared in sheer fury, “Where do you think you're running?!”
Seeing Liu Jiyun giving chase, Bai Yuwen hastily ripped off his trench coat and threw it backward.
Spotting this, the pursuing Liu Jiyun immediately lunged toward the trench coat, his sand wrapping tightly around it.
Seizing this brief distraction, the two burst out of the passageway.
Boom!
The moment they emerged, the passageway behind them collapsed completely.
Behind them, a massive sinkhole nearly two hundred meters long yawned open.
Rumble!
Around the sinkhole, several buildings over a dozen stories high were beginning to tilt and collapse.
A continuous, thunderous roar echoed as plumes of dust from the collapsing structures shot dozens of meters into the air, blanketing the surrounding area for hundreds of meters in a thick grey shroud.
“Ah!”
“Help!”
“I'm pinned down! Someone save me!”
“Ah, it hurts! It hurts so much!”
Screams of agony echoed through the dust. Xiao Qi listened for a moment, his expression turning conflicted.
He was no bloodthirsty maniac. Just a few days ago, he had been an ordinary office worker. Seeing so many people die because of him made his stomach churn with guilt.
Noticing his expression, Bai Yuwen spoke up. “What, feeling guilty? Don't let it get to you. Given the scale of the fight down there, even if you hadn't caught them in the crossfire, those other monsters would have.”
“Caw!”
Before Xiao Qi could reply, the harsh cawing of crows echoed from the sky.
Both of their expressions changed instantly.
“Hurry, take off your mask and throw it to them!” Xiao Qi urged.
Unless these monsters got some benefit, they would never let them off so easily.
Bai Yuwen quickly pulled off the mask and, without a second thought, tossed it high into the air.
The moment he lost the mask, his body shrunk back to its original size. Xiao Qi grabbed him like a helpless chick and bolted.
Emerging from the dust, over a dozen crows were just about to dive-bomb the duo when they spotted the airborne mask.
One of the crows immediately veered off and caught the mask in its beak.
The remaining crows, however, wheeled around and continued their pursuit of the two.
Once they ran clear of the dust cloud, they realized the crows were still hot on their heels.
In a panic, Xiao Qi yelled at the top of his lungs, “Stop chasing us! Stop chasing us! That sand guy took all our supernatural items! Great ones, please spare our pathetic lives!”
In the sky, a crow stared down at the trench coat-less Bai Yuwen, its eyes glinting with calculating intelligence. The trench coat is indeed gone, but that ring should still be on that kid.
A few crows continued to trail the duo, while the rest circled high in the sky.
Wuuu! Wuuu!
Just then, the wail of sirens echoed from the street to their left.
Dozens of law enforcement vehicles were speeding down the road, followed by an endless convoy of military-green troop carriers.
These troop carriers were even towing artillery pieces. Behind them came armored personnel carriers and tanks.
Whirrr! Whirrr!
The thrumming of helicopter rotors echoed from the distant sky.
Over a dozen attack helicopters, loaded with portable missiles, were heading their way.
Beneath a streetlight, Tang Yongyun looked up at the approaching military forces, his face expressionless. “They really aren't afraid of death, sticking their noses into a fight of this scale. Do they still think this is some playground squabble like this morning?”
Bang!
The collapsed subway station suddenly erupted as sand spewed out like a torrent of water.
Within the shifting sand lay Liu Qi, covered in blood, his limbs broken and unconscious.
The quicksand expanded to five meters, ten meters, twenty meters... At its center, a ten-meter-tall sand giant resembling Liu Jiyun materialized.
Physical attacks were largely useless against him, so a mere cave-in wasn't even enough to scratch him.
The moment the sand giant appeared, he noticed the flock of crows circling in the sky.
His gaze shifted beyond the dust cloud, landing on the young man holding the black mask beneath a streetlight. His expression grew grave. “Are you the master of these crows?”
In Ningcheng, these crows had slaughtered quite a few government personnel. If one excluded the Church of the Earth Mother incidents, the crows had killed even more people than they had.
Tang Yongyun replied calmly, “Hand over the trench coat. Out of respect for the work your Liu family has done for Mr. Zhao, I will let you leave.”
Upon hearing this, the sand giant's face grew even more solemn. “Mr. Zhao... Are you referring to Destiny? However, if you want this trench coat, you'll need more than just empty words to take it. Besides, I am rather interested in that mask in your hand as well.”
Tang Yongyun didn't say another word. Instead, the crows in the sky began to shift their formation.
Neither of them paid any attention to the arriving military forces or the missile-laden helicopters.
Boom!
Noticing the shifting formation of the crows, Liu Jiyun unleashed the sand beneath him once more. It swelled massively, surging toward Tang Yongyun like a devastating flood.
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