Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

1981 Father and Son

Zhao Lie, Zhao Chong, and another six tough bandits stuck their guns at Gu Zhengyang, Han Te, and Liu Li while they all crawled onto the deck.

There was nothing but silence outside. The deck was covered in some unsubstantial dark mist, as if the boat had sailed into a world of phantoms.

Although they were all seasoned bandits from the Bloody Worlds, they could not help but sweat hard, and their teeth were clattering beyond control.

“What’s going on? Where is everybody?”

“Why are the roars dying down? Isn’t the Black Water Gang supposed to be attacking furiously from the front?”

“Ma Ku and Fei Zhong, where are you?”

Everybody stepped onto the deck fearfully. They only felt that the stars in the sky and the rays from their crystal suits were all absorbed by the mist. The objects only three meters away were already hazy and blurred. There was no telling where the deck ended at all.

As they moved forward, they finally discovered that a crystal suit seemed to be standing in the middle of the mist. The captain of the bandits was overjoyed and touched it, but the crystal suit collapsed abruptly as if it were made of glass, turning into glittering pieces and components on the ground!

The clinking noises bombarded everybody’s heart like a hailstorm.

The coldness that felt like an icy cone rose from the hearts of Zhao Lie and the captain of the bandits at the same time.

Compared to the powerful forces in the Elysian Worlds, all the Red Fire Gang had were the crystal suits of the lowest level, and most of them had been refurbished multiple times. But still, they were the ‘king of magical equipment’, highly durable.

Right now, the crystal suit had been dissected and reduced into the most fundamental components. Even the lens the size of a fingernail had been dismantled.

What was most terrifying was that the components of the crystal suit after dissection were still standing like an intact crystal suit and did not fall until an external force was applied!

There was no body or blood among the pieces of the crystal suit, as if the bandit wearing the crystal suit had been directly vaporized.

The captain of the bandits and Zhao Lie looked at each other and gulped at the same time. Crouching, they moved forward inch by inch.

They found no one at all, only a black human shape on the deck. It seemed that somebody had been lying on the ground and burning so fiercely that the deck had been left with a clear dent in the contour of the person.

The deck was made of metal. It was not difficult to leave a blackened mark on it, but to make it melt and dent would certainly require an unbelievably high temperature.

The outcome of the person who was burnt at such a temperature was not hard to imagine. They must have been completely vaporized without leaving the slightest ashes.

When the captain of the bandits and Zhao Lie swallowed hard in fright, the dark mist around finally somewhat dispersed, allowing them to see further away and hear desperate screams.

It was Ma Ku’s voice!

The tough bandits were all shocked. After they blew apart the mist and looked, the first thing they saw was not Ma Ku but Fei Zhong.

The notorious, perverted bandit from Double Dragons Valley who liked torturing the innocent had been removed from his crystal suit. He was kneeling on the ground in a weird posture, begging for mercy, but the fat on his face had stopped shivering. He had already been killed.

His face could not have been more twisted, as if his facial organs were trying to crawl out of his face and escape from his head. The lower half of his body was also contaminated by a large brown stain. It was obvious that he had peed and shat his own pants!

What kind of strength could’ve possibly removed Fei Zhong’s crystal suit in an instant, killed the bandit, and frightened him to incontinence before his death?

Zhao Lie, Zhao Chong, the captain, and all the tough bandits seemed to have been caught in the most unbelievable nightmare, their nerve endings burning hard.

Right then, Ma Ku staggered out of the black mist.

The crystal suit on his body was gone, too, revealing his bamboo-like body that was trembling nonstop. He was supposed to be a fearless and ferocious bandit, but he looked like a panicked little girl, and he shrieked in such a high-pitched voice that it almost sounded like a hen whose throat had just been slit.

“Boss Ma!”

Seeing his deformed face, the few tough bandits all felt that their blood was freezing, wondering whether they should give him a hand or immediately run.

Ma Ku’s eyes had been entirely filled with blood, and the pupils and the whites were indistinguishable. When he saw everyone, he seemed to have run into the most dreadful ghosts. The panic on his face turned into devastation, and tremendous black blood ran out of his nostrils and his mouth. While he was running, he suddenly kneeled on the ground and screamed, “Don’t come over. You’re all dead. You were all killed by me. Why are you still coming back? Argh! Stay away!”

He writhed on the ground in pain. Irregular wounds somehow appeared on his body, which did not seem to be the cutting of sharp blades but the biting of teeth and the tearing of fingernails with brute force. His skin was falling apart, and he bled hard in the most miserable way.

In his screams, Ma Ku squeezed his head hard with both hands, and his eyeballs bulged wider and wider before they finally exploded amid cracking noises.

Blood erupted out of his eye sockets like a spring. There was no telling whether he had crushed his own skull or some other uncanny force inside his head did it. The brutal bandit who had been persisting in the doctrine of one kill a day collapsed, and his body was still cramping. He could not have looked more terrible.

The scene froze the legs of all the tough bandits.

Or rather, the solid deck had become a thick swamp, and a hundred pale, decayed hands were extending out of the swamp and grabbing their legs, making it impossible for them to move away.

In the middle of the black mist, an enormous object that looked like an altar moved close slowly, which turned out to be a spiritual puppet that looked somewhat clumsy.

The deep red indicator was flickered, adding to the mysteriousness. The jigsaw and the drill emitted coldness that the dark night could not hide. The Fiend Star carved on the surface on the iron shell, after being contaminated by the scattered blood, looked like a hideous smile from every perspective.

“How—How is it possible?”

The tough bandits, Zhao Lie, and Gu Zhengyang were all astounded. They found it hard to believe that it was a seemingly clumsy and crude spiritual puppet that had tortured and butchered Ma Ku and Fei Zhong.

“Take it down, or none of us are getting out of here!” Zhao Lie roared crazily and opened fire at the spiritual puppet first.

The nerves of all the tough bandits had been tightened to their limits. Now that somebody had started, everybody unleashed all their firepower, raising a metal storm on the front part of the deck!

Zhao Lie, however, grunted when everybody opened the fire before he flew backward as if he were hit by an uncanny force.

He did not forget to drag his son along as he flew away. He also pushed the backs of Gu Zhengyang, Han Te, and Liu. While the three of them were shoved to the center of the battlefield, his own speed of escape was significantly boosted.

Dragging Zhao Chong, Zhao Lie ran to the end of the deck without caring about anything else.

Feeble screams echoed behind him, and the storm of bullets came to an abrupt halt only half a second later.

The spiritual puppet had slaughtered the bandits as if it were slapping several annoying mosquitoes.

Zhao Lie was horrified, and Zhao Chong’s face had completely blanched.

When the father and the son dashed to the end of the boat, half running and half crawling, their legs were shot by bullets from more than ten directions.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

The leg joints of their crystal suits as well as their own knees and ankles were blown up. The two of them screamed at the same time and rolled on the deck, leaving a deep trace of blood.

Raising their heads, they discovered that the battle at the front of the Village of Peace had ended at some point. The lake was now as bright as daylight under the illumination of a hundred searchlights.

Even if they jumped into the water, there would be no way that they could escape.

“Dad!” Zhao Chong was panicking. In tears of remorse, he shouted, “What do we do? What do we do now?”

“Don’t be anxious. I’ve made thorough preparations.” Zhao Lie’s eyes dimmed. The muscles on his lips trembled as he looked at the spiritual puppet that was approaching from the black mist. Touching his son’s head, he gnashed his teeth. “I’ve made thorough arrangements at the end of the ship. There will be a slim chance of survival as long as you jump off. I’ll hold the enemy back for a while. Just run to the Bloody Worlds!”

“What?” Zhao Chong was confused, delighted, and sad. “What about you, Dad—”

Before his voice died down, all the brilliance in his eyes froze. There was nothing but horror and bewilderment.

It was because Zhao Lie had stabbed a dagger into his head through his jaw. After the spiritual energy surged out, all his brain matter was damaged.

Zhao Chong was unable to say anything anymore. He collapsed in his father’s cold arms.

“I’m sorry, son.”

With tears of blood flowing out of his eyes, Zhao Lie mumbled, “Fei Zhong was right. There are a million things that are scarier than death in the Land of Sins. Your personality and your capability mean that you cannot survive in the Bloody Worlds… I already tasted the misery twenty years ago, and I will not let you bear the agony that I once bore in the past!”

Talking and smiling miserably, Zhao Lie looked at the spiritual puppet that rolled over slowly, as well as Gu Zhengyang, Han Te, and Liu Li, who moved out from behind the puppet.

None of them expected Zhao Lie to be so cruel that he would give his son a quick death after seeing that there was no hope of escape!

“Captain Zhao…” Gu Zhengyang said gravely.

“Cut the cr*p, leader. If you win, you are the king; if you fail, you are a rebel. Such things happen in the Land of Sins every day. What’s there to be surprised at?” Weird green brilliance beamed out of Zhao Lie’s face as he spoke. “If I say that everything I’ve done is for the continuity of the Village of Peace, would you believe me?”

Gu Zhengyang was silent.

“Also,” Zhao Lie said, “if you had adopted my suggestion a few years earlier, we would’ve conquered all the villages in the hundred square kilometers around us, and the Village of Peace would be three to five times stronger than it is. In that case, I would never have taken the Red Fire Gang or the Black Water Gang’s side, instead fighting side by side with you against the bandits to establish our own enterprise. Do you believe me?”

Gu Zhengyang sighed and nodded. “I do.”

Zhao Lie was slightly dazed. His eyes were frozen as he breathed his last breath and said, “Forget it. It doesn’t matter now. Do you know that living is really f*cking exhausting, leader?”

The moment he stabbed the dagger into his son’s head, he had bitten the poison capsule inside his teeth.

The poison had taken effect, and his whole face seemed to be on fire. His muscles and his soul withered at the same time, and he slowly collapsed onto his son’s body, not moving anymore.