177: Chapter 177 Since you don't want to be dignified, then I'll help you be dignified.

A raging tide of flames swept through the long street like a breached dam, violently tearing up the bluestone slabs along its path.

The shockwave from the explosion, mixed with countless sharp shrapnel and rubble, slammed into Qin Ji's body. Even though he reacted with incredible speed, activating a defensive stance and leaping backward the instant he triggered the blast, the world-obliterating shockwave was simply unavoidable.

"-12800!"

"-15600!"

"-32000!"

A dense cluster of damage numbers floated up above his head.

As the dust settled, Qin Ji was seen kneeling behind a broken wall. His black robes were riddled with burn holes, and his health bar had plummeted to a dangerous one-third. This wasn't from direct enemy attacks; it was purely the aftermath of the sea of fire he had to endure to clear the mines.

"Cough..."

Qin Ji casually wiped the blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were as cold as eternal, unmelting black ice.

This battle of attrition was maddening.

That madwoman Gu Feng Nalin had no intention of facing him head-on. Instead, she had turned the entire city into a giant meat grinder. He hadn't even seen her yet, and just clearing the obstacles had cost him most of his health. This feeling of passively taking hits was extremely unpleasant.

"Like playing hide-and-seek, do you?"

Qin Ji straightened up, and the [book of life and death] materialized in his hand once more.

A dim light flickered at his fingertips. Without the slightest hesitation, his finger brushed over the name 'Violent Little Bear'. The previously death-gray characters instantly faded.

Then, the stroke of the pen changed direction.

A new name, dripping with murderous intent, was inscribed onto the page.

Gu Feng Nalin.

...

Tianxing City, Resurrection Altar.

An eerie sense of agitation hung in the air.

Violent Little Bear huddled in a corner of the altar, hugging his head, his body trembling uncontrollably from overwhelming fear. He was waiting for death, waiting for that Soul-deep erasing power to descend upon him again.

One second. Two seconds. Ten seconds.

The expected instant death did not occur.

Instead, a damage number ticked up once per second.

"-100."

"-100."

It was neither painful nor itchy, not even as fast as his natural health regeneration.

"Huh?"

Violent Little Bear was stunned. He touched his neck in disbelief, then looked at the 15-minute "book of life and death - Reprieve" countdown displayed above his vision.

"Not dead? I'm not dead?!"

Immense joy instantly washed away his reason. He leapt up from the ground, grabbed a poor Soul who had just resurrected nearby, and shook him frantically. "Bro, did you see that! I'm not dead! Snow Emperor can't kill me! Hahaha!"

The passerby looked at him as if he were insane, roughly shook off his hand, and scurried out of the resurrection point, cursing under his breath.

In the live stream, the tide of comments shifted.

"That's it? Where's that instant-kill Aura from before?"

"Continuous damage for 15 minutes? 100 per second? What kind of curse is that? It's not even tickling."

"Looks like Snow Emperor's Divine Artifact has a cooldown, or maybe it's out of energy."

"Streamer got lucky. Didn't even die properly."

Seeing the barrage of doubts and jokes, Violent Little Bear wasn't angry. Instead, he felt a wild, post-survival euphoria. He wiped the snot and tears from his face, offering the camera a smile uglier than crying.

"Brothers, this round wasn't a loss! Being the one to force Snow Emperor to his limit, I, Violent Little Bear, am unique!"

Although most viewers were there for the spectacle and didn't even send a free gift, seeing the viewership count in the top right corner of the stream skyrocket tenfold, Violent Little Bear knew in his heart.

This beating was worth it.

As long as there was hype, haters were still fans.

What he didn't know was that the man who controlled life and death had stopped merely because killing him was a waste of time. That fatal slot was being reserved for someone more significant.

...

Deep within the City Lord's Manor of Gu Feng City.

Gu Feng Nalin stood before a crystal ball, watching the image of a dust-covered, battered Qin Ji. A smug, cold smile curled at the corner of her mouth.

"Snow Emperor, nothing more than this."

She swirled the red wine in her glass, the crimson liquid leaving bloody trails on the sides. "What does it matter how high your attack power is? As long as you can't find me, as long as you step into a trap, even if it's just bit by bit, I can grind you to death in this city."

If Snow Emperor advanced just fifty more meters, he would trigger a chain of poison explosion traps.

At that point, his remaining one-third health would definitely not hold.

"What those useless fools from Black Wind City and Ice Snow City couldn't do, today, it will be accomplished by my hand..."

Before she could finish her sentence.

"Crack."

The wine glass in her hand shattered without warning, splashing the expensive carpet with scarlet liquid.

The smile on Gu Feng Nalin's face instantly froze.

"-92500!"

A massive purple damage number, like the scythe of death, abruptly floated up above her head.

No attack trajectory, no magical fluctuations, not even the slightest premonition.

"Who?!"

Gu Feng Nalin whirled around, her gaze sweeping the surroundings in panic. The empty hall held only rows of indifferent, flickering candle flames.

From the shadows behind her, an Old Servant in Green Robes silently manifested, his gaunt face grave. "Young Miss, there are no Life Qi fluctuations in the vicinity. It's not an assassin."

"-92500!"

Another terrifying damage number appeared.

Gu Feng Nalin's face instantly turned deathly pale. She frantically opened her status bar, only to find it clean, with no debuff icons.

But the damage was real!

Over ninety thousand per second!

"How is this possible..." Gu Feng Nalin's voice began to tremble. "I am a Peak third-turn mage, my health broke through fifty million long ago. What skill can ignore defense and cause this kind of damage? A head-locking curse? Or a Karma-based weapon?!"

Fifty million health sounded like a lot.

But against a damage rate of ninety thousand per second, it was merely a countdown of a few hundred seconds.

Ten minutes.

In just ten minutes, she would die like a bled-out chicken, for no apparent reason.

"Heal... I must heal!"

Gu Feng Nalin snapped back to reality. The instinct for survival made her judge instantly. Only by entering Gu Feng City's Resurrection Altar and utilizing its overpowered 5% per second regeneration Aura could she offset this bizarre damage rate.

She pushed open the window, her gaze piercing through layers of buildings, fixed intently on the white spire at the city's center.

However.

Below that spire, at the only path to salvation.

A black figure stood quietly.

The man held an exaggeratedly designed black longbow, with a fat man wielding a broken tower shield beside him. He stood there casually, yet like an insurmountable mountain, firmly blocking the only road to the altar.

"Snow Emperor..."

Gu Feng Nalin gritted her teeth so hard they nearly shattered, her nails digging deep into her palms. "He's waiting for me. He knows I'll go to the altar."

This was an overt scheme.

Either wait for death in the City Lord's Manor, or charge out and face that god of slaughter in a decisive battle at the altar's entrance.

"Young Miss." The Old Servant in Green Robes' voice was as rough as sandpaper. "Staying is death. Going is a slim chance at survival. But if we can just reach the altar's range, even one step, relying on its restorative power, we have a sliver of hope."

"I know!"

Gu Feng Nalin took a deep breath. The fear in her eyes was gradually replaced by a crazed, ruthless ferocity.

Since there was no avoiding it, she would fight with everything.

"If Snow Emperor wants a frontal battle, then he shall have it."

She slowly straightened her back. Her originally elegant and dignified demeanor abruptly changed. A chilling, decaying, nauseating Aura erupted from within her. Her fair skin instantly turned ashen-gray, and two ghostly green flames ignited deep within her pupils.

The Old Servant in Green Robes' pupils contracted sharply. "Young Miss, you're revealing your undead attributes now? Once your true form is exposed, you'll be wanted across the entire continent by the forces of Light!"

"If I'm about to lose my life, what do I care about a bounty?!"

Gu Feng Nalin let out a piercing shriek. Her entire body transformed into a gray afterimage, directly smashing through the window lattice and hurtling toward the direction of the altar.

"Let's go! Kill him!"

...

Altar Plaza.

Qin Ji watched quietly as that gray streak of light approached at extreme speed from the direction of the City Lord's Manor. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

"Finally decided to come out."

He didn't stand up, nor did he even raise his signature Black Desolation Breath-Severing Bow. With a flick of his wrist, the longbow vanished, replaced by a wooden whip that was entirely golden and covered in profound, mystical runes.

The god-beating whip.

"BOOM!!"

The moment Gu Feng Nalin landed, the bluestone slabs beneath her feet cracked in a web of fractures. Without a single word of preamble, she slammed both hands onto the ground. The previously flat plaza instantly erupted as a giant, five-meter-tall white-boned skeleton burst forth from the earth.

The skeleton, jade-like in appearance, wielded a bone shield and a rusted giant axe. Violent Soul flames burned in its hollow eye sockets. With an Aura that seemed to crush everything, it brought its axe down directly toward Qin Ji's head.

"DIE!!"

Gu Feng Nalin's voice was sharp and piercing, utterly inhuman.

The Old Servant in Green Robes followed closely behind, his form splitting into several ghostly shadows, his dagger aimed straight for Qin Ji's back.

Faced with this pincer attack from front and back, Qin Ji didn't even bat an eyelid.

He simply took a half-step back, evading the Old Servant in Green Robes' fatal strike. Then, the god-beating whip in his hand moved like a mountain goat hooking its horn, tracing a golden arc in the air before whipping backhand toward the seemingly immovable giant skeleton.

"Crack!"

An incredibly crisp sound of a whip.

No earth-shattering explosion, no dazzling magical light effects.

That not-particularly-thick wooden whip landed lightly on the giant skeleton's leg bone.

"CRACK—"

The jade-white bones, capable of withstanding forbidden spell bombardments, instantly became covered in cracks like a brittle biscuit the moment they made contact with the god-beating whip.

Immediately after.

"BOOM!"

The giant skeleton let out a silent wail. Its massive body lost all balance, crashing heavily to its knees before Qin Ji, stirring up a cloud of dust.

That damage number, reaching into the millions, made Gu Feng Nalin, who was about to unleash follow-up magic, halt her actions abruptly.

"This... how is this possible?!"

Her eyes widened, filled with shock and terror within those ghostly green pupils.

This was her life-bound undead summon, the [Skeletal Monarch], possessing extremely high physical damage reduction and magic resistance. Even a full-power strike from a warrior of the same level would at most leave a white mark on its bones.

How could it be forced to its knees by a single whip strike?!

"Undead attributes?"

Qin Ji held the whip with one hand, his gaze playfully sweeping over Gu Feng Nalin's ashen-gray skin and the Death Qi swirling around her. "So that's it. This is your trump card? Or rather... this is how you became City Lord?"

The sensation from that whip strike just now confirmed one thing for him.

This thing had no health points.

It wasn't a conventional monster, nor an equipment summon. It was a pure, rule-based construct formed from concentrated Death Qi.

And in the worldview of "Realms", there was only one source capable of granting players such pure undead power.

The God of the Undead.

Qin Ji's gaze gradually deepened.

In his past life, it wasn't until the Late Stage of the game that the undead rebellion erupted within the Star Kingdom. That was when players learned that the upper echelons had long been infiltrated.

But what time was it now?

The Early Stage of the game's launch.

A City Lord of Gu Feng Nalin's level was already completely undead?

"First that Archmage Abid, and now the Gu Feng City Lord." Qin Ji murmured to himself. "It seems the revival progress of that God of the Undead is much faster than I imagined."

Something that didn't happen in his past life was now occurring ahead of schedule.

The only variable was himself.

Was it because he had plundered too many resources, or because the appearance of the [book of life and death] had provoked that deity who controlled death?

"What are you saying?!"

Gu Feng Nalin couldn't make out Qin Ji's muttering, but his gaze, which seemed to see through everything, filled her with unprecedented panic. She shrieked, forcibly suppressing the fear in her heart, her hands frantically forming seals.

"No matter what you know, you must die here today!"

Countless pale arms reached out from the ground, grabbing for Qin Ji's ankles. The temperature in the air plummeted, as if even the light was being devoured by this dense Death Qi.

However.

Qin Ji merely let out a soft sigh.

Since he had confirmed her nature, there was no need to waste any more time. For an expert who toyed with Souls, physical exorcism might not be the most efficient method, but it was certainly the most satisfying.

"I originally intended to leave you with a whole corpse."

Qin Ji flicked his wrist. The runes on the god-beating whip suddenly blazed with light, golden radiance erupting and instantly dispelling the surrounding gloom. "But since you insist on showing this ghostly appearance, then I'll help you... achieve a bit more decency."

The last sliver of the setting sun's afterglow was swallowed by the golden light. Qin Ji's figure leapt high into the air. The long whip in his hand, like a furious golden Dragon, carried the majesty of judging all things, smashing down fiercely toward the surging undead Death Qi. Those violet-gold pupils seemed especially cold amidst theFlying everywhere bone fragments, like a judge descended to the mortal world, ready to strike out this filthy entry from the ledger of life and death.