127: Chapter 127 Trap? I'll just buy the entire canyon!

Lin Weiwei's warning was still echoing through the canyon, but the mutation of the bone altar had already begun!

"For... my Lord's... descent...!!"

The Cry-Torturing Ghost General let out a final shriek mixed with extreme pain and fanaticism. Its bloated, twisted soul body, like ignited grease, exploded with a bang! It wasn't a destructive explosion; instead, it transformed into a stream of pure, filthy, dark-red energy filled with countless painful memories. Like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, it was frantically devoured by the massive bone altar beneath its feet!

At the base of the altar, those skeletons that had originally seemed cluttered now lit up with eye-piercing crimson runes, forming a massive and evil summoning array! The painful energy accumulated in the Wailing Canyon over countless years was forcibly extracted and gathered by this array, forming a massive energy vortex with its center point right at the top of the altar!

"Crack... Crackle—!"

The cliff walls on both sides of the canyon began to collapse in large areas. Space itself, like fragile glass, was covered in spreading black cracks! A primitive, chaotic aura of the Abyss, filled with the most primal desire for destruction, surged out from those spatial cracks like thick black smoke!

The terror of that aura made even the battle-hardened Lei Xiao feel his soul tremble, and caused Zhang Hao's ghost body to almost instinctively dissipate! Even the Underworld Soldiers arrayed below showed a hint of commotion in their formation, despite the protection of their New Soul Armor!

A blurry, giant claw composed of pure darkness and chaotic energy was attempting to reach out from the largest spatial crack! Just the pressure it radiated was enough to instill despair in people's hearts!

"Damn it! It really is an Abyssal passage!" Zhang Hao screamed. "Boss! What do we do?! Do we take it head-on?!"

Lei Xiao gripped his giant axe tightly. Though his expression was grave, he still stood firmly at the front of the army, prepared to meet the impending terrifying impact.

Everyone looked toward Lin Chen.

However, standing at the rear of the army and looking at the nearly formed Abyssal passage and the chaotic canyon, Lin Chen didn't have the slightest hint of tension on his face. Instead, he wore an expression... similar to someone seeing a product they liked?

"Head-on? Why would we go head-on?" Lin Chen scoffed, as if he had heard a stupid question. "Fighting is so tiring, and the cost is too high."

Under the dumbfounded gazes of everyone (and every ghost), he once again raised that all-purpose system tablet, his fingers operating it frantically as if he were having a seizure!

He didn't buy any offensive weapons, nor did he summon any reinforcements.

He directly pulled up the [Real Estate Management] sub-system of the [Underworld Asset System] and locked onto the target area—"Wailing Canyon (including attached spatial anomalies)."

[Target area under evaluation...]

[Geological Structure: Unstable (Spatial Rupture)]

[Energy Environment: Extremely Polluted (High concentration of painful energy/Abyssal aura infiltration)]

[Existing Structures: Bone Altar (Evil ritual building, activated)]

[Property Status: Unowned (Underworld Public Wasteland / Illegally occupied by the Thousand Faces Cult)]

[Comprehensive Valuation: Extremely Low (Negative asset, requires significant resources for purification and restoration)]

[Suggested Forced Acquisition Price: 5 Billion nether talismans (Including risk premium and estimated subsequent processing costs)]

"5 billion? So cheap?" Lin Chen curled his lip, seemingly dissatisfied with the price, feeling it lowered his standards. But his hands didn't stop, and he directly clicked [Confirm Forced Acquisition]!

[Ding! 5 billion nether talismans consumed, forced acquisition procedure initiated! Overwriting the target area's underlying rules...]

An invisible but more fundamental and grander force than that Abyssal aura descended like a canopy, centering on Lin Chen and covering the entire Wailing Canyon and those spatial cracks!

At this moment, time seemed to freeze.

The giant Abyssal claw struggling to emerge from the spatial crack suddenly stiffened!

The bone altar that was frantically extracting the canyon's energy to stabilize the passage saw its crimson runes flicker violently, like a lightbulb with a bad connection!

All the violent energy within the entire canyon, whether it was painful energy or Abyssal aura, became "tame" and "orderly," as if a harness had been placed on wild horses. This was because the foundation of their existence—the "ownership" of this space—was being forcibly rewritten!

[Ding! Acquisition successful! You have obtained 100% ownership and disposal rights of "Wailing Canyon (including 1 unstable Abyssal passage)."]

The system's notification tone was crisp and pleasant.

In the next second, Lin Chen looked at the system tablet and, as if closing an unnecessary application, lightly tapped the option to [Clear Abnormal Spatial Nodes].

"No—!!!"

A roar filled with disbelief and extreme rage, as if coming from the very bottom of the endless Abyss, exploded from the other end of the nearly stabilized passage!

Then, under the stunned gazes of everyone (including the entities on the Abyssal side), those spatial cracks spread throughout the canyon were smoothed over as if by an invisible hand, healing and vanishing at a speed visible to the naked eye!

The giant Abyssal claw that had already halfway emerged, radiating a terrifying aura, began to rapidly dissolve and disintegrate from its fingertips, as if it had been dropped into strong acid! It frantically tried to pull back, but the spatial healing speed far exceeded its reaction time!

"Poof—!"

Like a popped bubble, the final spatial crack closed.

That poor giant Abyssal claw, along with the unwilling roar of the terrifying existence that might have been behind it, was completely shut out of the Underworld!

Within the canyon, the suffocating Abyssal aura instantly dissipated.

All that remained was the bone altar, which had dimmed as its energy source was cut off, its runes extinguished, and the still-dense but no longer violent painful energy within the canyon.

silence.

A deathly silence.

The wind blew through the dark-red mist of resentment, carrying a faint wail, yet it only served to emphasize the absolute quiet of the world.

Zhang Hao's mouth was hanging open wide enough to fit a pumpkin (if a ghost could fit one). Lei Xiao held his giant axe, frozen in place, with an expression that seemed to say, 'I'm all geared up for a climax and this is what you give me?' Behind them, the ten thousand Underworld Soldiers collectively fell into a state of daze.

It... ended just like that?

What happened to the promised tragic battle? What happened to the Abyssal invasion?

It was just... bought by the Boss... and then... treated as system junk... and "cleared"?!

"Done."

Lin Chen clapped his hands and put away the system tablet, as if he had just tidied up a computer desktop. He looked at the massive bone altar and the dense, pure painful energy around it, rubbing his chin.

"Hmm, although the location is a bit poor and the environment is terrible, the energy purity is decent, and the area is large enough..."

A glint flashed in his eyes.

"With a bit of renovation, setting up an 'Extreme Pain Experience Hall' or a 'Negative Emotion Power Station' should have some potential."

(Hook: Just as Lin Chen began planning the commercial uses for this newly acquired "real estate," at the base of the dimming bone altar, a seemingly ordinary skeleton—previously saturated with the soul energy of the Cry-Torturing Ghost General—suddenly flashed a faint, cunning light in its eye sockets, a light that shared the same source as the Abyss yet was somehow different! Silently, as if melting, it seeped into the deepest part of the altar's foundation and vanished.)