91: Taking the blame

Li Ke had just vanished into the shadows, only a moment passing.

In the mid-air outside Yan Jin Manor, the air subtly warped.

Two figures abruptly appeared.

Beneath their feet, they trod on a peculiar carpet woven from countless strands of jet-black hair.

The patterns on the carpet were intricate.

Upon closer inspection, one could vaguely discern countless outlines of distorted, suffering human faces.

This hair carpet, emanating an ominous aura, floated silently a few feet above the ground.

The two individuals standing upon it were:

One was shrouded in a voluminous gray cloak, his face densely covered with slender steel needles.

The other had a fiery figure and a pure, beautiful, almost perfect face.

They were none other than "Needle-Face" Marcus and "Golden Seamstress" Sheila.

"This is the place."

Marcus's voice was deep and hoarse.

He extended a finger, its tip wreathed in a faint, pale aura.

The aura, Li Ke a startled serpent, coiled and writhed uneasily.

Finally, it pointed towards the ruined Yan Jin Manor below.

"This aura is very faint; only when he acts can the traces be clearly pursued."

"He must have had a battle with someone here just now."

Beside Marcus, Sheila's perfectly eerie face revealed a smile of excitement.

"Two Golden-rank battle fluctuations."

"Their strength seems quite good."

She extended her crimson tongue, lightly licking her rosy lips.

Her figure then leaped from the hair-woven flying carpet, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

"It looks Li Ke this is the territory of a Bloodline noble."

"I wonder if there are any... interesting Materials."

Soon, Sheila's snow-white bare feet stepped on a piece of cold, shattered debris.

She bent down to pick it up; it was a fragment of a trout statue.

"Oh?"

A hint of surprise flickered in Sheila's eyes as she examined the fragment in her hand with interest.

"This looks Li Ke a Bloodline Secret Treasure."

"These minor nobles in such a remote place actually have some means."

Suddenly.

Before Sheila could finish her sentence,

In the distant night sky, a powerful, heart-palpitating aura fluctuation surged forth Li Ke a tsunami!

That aura was rapidly approaching Yan Jin Manor at an astonishing speed.

Sheila and Marcus simultaneously raised their heads,

The relaxed expressions on their faces instantly turned several shades more serious.

They looked towards the direction from which the aura originated.

They saw a vast expanse of faint green light abruptly appearing on the distant horizon.

Innumerable illusory schools of fish, densely packed, obscured the sky,

Carrying a suffocating pressure, they surged towards them at high speed.

And at the core of that massive illusory school of fish,

An aged figure was vaguely visible.

The old man's hair and beard were both eerily emerald green, wildly dancing in the night wind Li Ke flickering ghost fires.

His face was gaunt, aged to the extreme, as if he were an ancient corpse crawled out of a tomb.

In a flash,

The illusory school of fish was already close at hand,

The old man's figure suddenly froze above Yan Jin Manor.

In his deeply sunken eye sockets, emerald green flames burned,

Staring intently at the fragment of the trout statue in Sheila's hand below.

A furious aura erupted from him with a roar.

"Seeking death!"

Before his words faded.

That vast illusory school of fish, covering half the sky, suddenly plunged downwards!

They opened their mouths, filled with sharp teeth, emitting silent roars,

Transforming into a torrent of emerald green death, instantly engulfing and surrounding Marcus and Sheila in layers!

Li Ke a terrifying school of piranhas about to devour a prey fallen into the water.

However, the next instant.

"Buzz buzz..."

At the center of the area engulfed by the fish school,

An equally powerful aura fluctuation, full of tyranny and malevolence, suddenly erupted.

A massive sphere composed of countless steel needles shimmering with metallic cold light abruptly emerged from the fish school.

On the surface of that needle sphere, every steel needle vibrated at high speed, emitting a piercing hum.

It spun rapidly, continuously shooting out countless illusory steel needles, each as long as an arm, in all directions.

Those illusory steel needles easily pierced through the bodies of the illusory trout,

Nailing them in mid-air, then dissipating into specks of green light.

The needle sphere forcibly tore open a gap in the terrifying fish school's encirclement and rushed out.

At the same time.

"Boom!!!"

On the ground, the area covered by the fish school emitted a loud bang.

Vast swathes of illusory fish were blasted apart as if by an unseen force, scattering in all directions.

Amidst the smoke and green light, a nauseatingly massive flesh monster slowly revealed itself.

The monster resembled a writhing pile of corpses, haphazardly stacked and grafted together from countless incomplete remains.

Broken arms, twisted legs, shattered heads...

Limbs of various different creatures were crudely stitched together, forming a constantly squirming, expanding, terrifying aggregate.

It continuously extended various grotesque limbs, dragging the surrounding, yet-to-dissipate illusory trout into its massive and bloated body, emitting a bone-chilling chewing sound.

And at the chest and abdomen of that flesh monster,

A pale yet eerily perfect face was conspicuously stitched.

It was Sheila.

Her beautiful face now bore a look of morbid excitement and pleasure.

She let out a sharp, cackling laugh.

"How annoying."

"You almost ruined my newly stitched hair."

As she spoke, a long, fleshy tentacle covered with tiny suckers suddenly extended from her mouth.

The suckers at the end of the tentacle suddenly opened, firmly latching onto a relatively large illusory trout.

It was forcibly dragged into her mouth, accompanied by a spine-chilling swallowing sound.

"Holy Meal Society!"

In mid-air, the old man with green hair and beard, his face contorted by extreme rage, his ethereal green flames burning even more fiercely.

The countless illusory schools of fish around him began to rapidly fuse and devour each other.

In a flash, they transformed into a dozen or so larger and more solidified dark-green trout phantoms.

These gigantic trout phantoms slowly swam around him, exuding a heart-palpitating pressure.

"You dare to offend the great Trout Whisper!"

In the old man's eyes, the emerald green light surged.

His voice also became slow and muffled, Li Ke thunder rolling in from the horizon.

"Repay it with your filthy Souls!"

As his words fell, those dozen or so gigantic trout phantoms,

Dragging shattered spatial ripples, slowly swam towards Sheila and Marcus below.

Wherever they passed, the surrounding space emitted crisp "cracking" sounds, as if solid ice was shattering inch by inch.

In mid-air, the sphere composed of countless steel needles slightly dispersed,

Revealing the figure of "Needle-Face" Marcus.

He saw the condensation of those dozen or so trout phantoms, and his eye twitched slightly.

"Your Excellency..."

However, he had just begun to speak.

"Hahahahahahaha!!!"

Sheila below had already burst into a fit of maniacal laughter.

"You old fossil! Just you!"

Inside the gigantic corpse pile, countless stitching lines again emitted "crackling" sounds as they burst.

That massive body composed of countless corpses once again swelled violently!

Innumerable incomplete remains, Li Ke discarded garbage,

Continuously emerged, piled up, grew, and proliferated from her body.

These corpses rapidly condensed,

In an instant, they converged into an enormous arm of severed limbs.

That arm, obscuring the sky, carried a nauseatingly strong stench of death.

It slammed fiercely towards the dozen or so gigantic trout phantoms in the sky!