123: Chapter 123 Robbery? No, this is called safekeeping.

"Safekeeping?"

Captain Wu Ao trembled with rage, his chest tightening, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

As the dignified captain of Raven Squad and a Rank 5 Psychokineticist, he and his five team members had risked their lives to exhaust this Grade 8 Soul Demon to death.

And now, this kid wanted to take it away just by asking?

Captain Wu Ao clutched the soul crystal in his arms tightly with both hands.

Just as he was about to mobilize his Mental Energy, Li Zhengyang thrust the dragon spear in his hand forward.

The tip of the spear flickered.

Splat.

A puddle of wet, black bodily fluid splashed onto Captain Wu Ao's forehead.

A sour, rotting stench rushed straight into his nasal cavity.

Captain Wu Ao looked up abruptly.

The Tiangang Blade was hovering three inches above his head, emitting a humming sound.

Any thought of fighting back shattered into dust instantly.

He cowered.

Li Zhengyang had no intention of asking for an opinion. He reached forward and forcibly pried the Grade 8 soul crystal from Captain Wu Ao's arms.

The soul crystal was covered in mud and unknown slime.

Li Zhengyang frowned in disgust, then casually used the soul crystal to scrub it vigorously against Captain Wu Ao's high-end tailored robe.

Rip.

The million-dollar robe was suddenly marred by a large, foul-smelling black stain.

Captain Wu Ao's heart raced. Watching his clothes being used as a foot rag, he didn't dare to make a sound.

"The quality of this Soul Demon isn't even that good."

Li Zhengyang tossed the cleaned soul crystal in his hand, then glanced at the team members sprawled in the mud nearby.

"A Soul Demon of this quality could beat you all like dogs? You 'professionals' are really watered down; you clearly lack training."

The six members of Raven Squad trembled with rage.

What did he mean by 'watered down'?

This was a Martial Venerable-level Soul Demon!

You crushed it with your bare hands, and now you're here mocking us?

Li Zhengyang ignored their reaction, flipped his wrist, and stuffed the soul crystal directly into the storage space of his tactical watch.

"Alright, I'll hold onto this for you for now."

Li Zhengyang slapped Captain Wu Ao on the shoulder.

With a dull thud, more than half of Captain Wu Ao's body was slammed into the mud.

"The magnetic field in this godforsaken place is too chaotic. It's not safe in your pocket; it would be a shame if it broke. I'm a reasonable person; I'll definitely return it to you when we get out."

Captain Wu Ao, his entire side numbed by the blow, stammered.

"Re... really return it?"

"Nonsense. I, Li Zhengyang of the Pojun Division, the Northern Territory Branch Director, would I covet your lousy rock?"

Li Zhengyang said righteously, "Provided you can make it out."

After saying this, he turned and walked deeper into the Soul Demon Abyss.

Only when Li Zhengyang's back completely merged into the black mist did the members of Raven Squad dare to breathe deeply.

One member crawled over to Captain Wu Ao, his voice trembling.

"Captain, let's retreat! This guy is a bandit, a total lunatic! He plays with Grade 8 Soul Demons like they're toys. If we go any further, we're just walking to our deaths!"

"Retreat my ass!"

Captain Wu Ao wiped the black blood from his face, his expression ferocious.

"We didn't get the twenty-billion bounty, my clothes are ruined, and the Grade 8 soul crystal we worked so hard to take down was stolen! If we go back with our tails between our legs, how are we supposed to show our faces in the future?"

"But we can't beat him."

"If we can't beat him, we'll wear him out!"

Captain Wu Ao gritted his teeth, staring fixedly in the direction Li Zhengyang had left.

"No matter how strong he is, he's still flesh and blood. The deeper you go, the higher the Rank of the Soul Demons."

He scanned the surrounding team members.

"Follow him from a distance! When his Qi and blood are exhausted, that will be our time to shine."

The group exchanged glances. Greed once again overcame fear, and they nodded one after another.

Several hundred meters ahead, Li Zhengyang walked through the mud with his Sea of Consciousness wide open.

The movements within a one-kilometer radius were holographically projected in his mind.

The sneaky movements of the people following him behind were impossible to hide.

Li Zhengyang didn't even turn his head.

"I was worried that the Soul Demons down here were hiding too deep and would be hard to find. Now, free human mine detectors have delivered themselves to my doorstep."

High-Rank Soul Demons were extremely sensitive to the Qi, blood, and Mental Energy of living people.

The six members of Raven Squad, gathered together, were like six large human signal towers at the bottom of the Soul Demon Abyss.

Once their scent spread, the monsters hiding in the deep mud pits would all be drawn out.

Li Zhengyang slowed his pace, deliberately leaving enough distance for them to track him.

For the next full hour, the Raven Squad's worldview was rubbed into the ground repeatedly and ground into powder.

They hung far behind, hoping to wait for Li Zhengyang to suffer a setback so they could seize the opportunity to snatch items and pick up scraps.

As it turned out, they didn't see a single intact Soul Demon carcass along the way.

Ahead, there were constant booming sounds, lightning exploding in the black mist, accompanied by the screams of Soul Demons.

When Captain Wu Ao and his team cautiously crept over, the ground was nothing but black soil scorched by lightning and minced meat cut into scraps.

A Grade 8 Soul Demon, the size of a small mountain, had just poked half its body out of the mud.

A dragon spear descended from the sky.

Splat.

It pierced straight through the Soul Demon's crown to the bottom.

Li Zhengyang followed closely, landing on top of the Soul Demon's head, his hand covered in Shura armor plunging directly into the mud.

With one grab and one pull, he forcibly tore out the Soul Demon core, crushed it, and extracted the soul crystal.

Captain Wu Ao huddled behind a large rock, his body icy cold.

This is a Martial Venerable?

They had followed behind, but let alone picking up scraps, they hadn't even found a single broken bone with traces of Mental Energy.

The ground had been scraped clean, leaving nothing behind.

"Captain..." the young team member swallowed hard, his teeth chattering, "Is he ever going to get tired?"

He had slaughtered thirty Grade 7 and 8 Soul Demons in a row!

Even if you tied ten ordinary Martial Venerables together, they would have exhausted their Qi and blood long ago.

Li Zhengyang walked in front, his steps extremely steady. He even seemed annoyed that the monsters were coming out too slowly, randomly poking at the ground with his dragon spear.

Captain Wu Ao's throat felt dry, and his calves were cramping uncontrollably.

The greed from earlier had long since been ground into nothingness by this unreasonable scene of slaughter.

If Li Zhengyang turned around and discovered they were following him, their fate would be no different from those scraps on the ground.

"Retreat... stop following him, let's head back."

Captain Wu Ao finally recognized reality and turned around, preparing to slip away.

At this very moment, a sudden change occurred.

The surrounding landscape underwent a cataclysmic transformation.

The temperature in the air plummeted off a cliff.

The surrounding spatial magnetic field distorted and deformed violently.

Captain Wu Ao had just exhaled a breath, and that warm air instantly turned into tiny ice shards, falling to the ground.

An indescribable, terrifying pressure erupted from deep beneath the ground.

The surrounding spatial magnetic field distorted violently, and a cracking sound echoed through the air.

"Ah!"

Captain Wu Ao, who had just turned around, could not withstand this level of pressure at all.

He clutched his head tightly and let out a shrill scream.

Up ahead, Li Zhengyang, who had been strolling leisurely the entire time, finally stopped.

The dragon spear in his hand was planted at his side.

The thick fog before him had, at some point, transformed into an eerie crimson.

The pressure climbed steadily, crossing the boundary of a Martial Venerable and reaching that of a Martial Saint!

At the end of his line of sight, an ancient altar built from countless white bones, piercing straight into the sky, loomed in the mist.

"Found the main target."

Li Zhengyang pulled out the dragon spear and casually flicked the residual blood from the tip.