349: Chapter 349 The Value of 300 Horror Movies!

"Bastard... you coward!!!"

Helan Que was completely infuriated!

Humiliation, regret, and the rage of being played in the palm of someone's hand made his eyes instantly turn bloodshot.

He sprang up from the ground like a crazed beast, roaring at the top of his lungs toward the thick, impenetrable black mist surrounding him:

"Get out! Come out here, you damn coward!!!"

"What kind of skill is it to hide in the dark and steal things! What kind of hero are you to sow discord!"

"If you've got guts, come out and fight me head-on! Even if I die, I'll take you down with me!!!"

Helan Que's angry shouts echoed in the empty black mist, causing the surrounding leaves to rustle.

However, the only response he received was a deathly silence.

The mysterious person wearing the Faceless Man mask seemed not to exist at all, not even granting him a single echo of mockery.

As Helan Que continued to curse, his voice gradually faded.

He panted heavily, his chest heaving violently, gripping his battle saber with both hands, vigilantly scanning the surrounding darkness.

Just then.

Yan Qinghuan, inside the light barrier, suddenly seemed to realize something terrible.

He straightened his back abruptly, an unmistakable look of terror appearing on his pale face.

"Helan Que..."

Yan Qinghuan's voice trembled violently, as if an ice cube were stuck in his throat:

"Did you... did you hear Chu Tiankuo's voice after that?"

This sentence was like a rusty, dull knife, ruthlessly dragging across Helan Que's Heart.

Helan Que stiffened.

He regained his senses, his Brain beginning to rapidly replay everything that had just happened.

From when they discovered a fourth person.

To when they released their grip simultaneously.

To him attacking wildly in a frenzy.

And then to him knocking Yan Qinghuan out of the shield, and the two of them arguing here for a long time.

During this time, a full several minutes had passed!

But...

Ever since the moment they let go, Chu Tiankuo's voice had never appeared again!

No exclamation, no obstruction, not even the sound of the air being broken by drawing that heavy, edgeless sword!

The team leader of Nanhai Academy, a peerless Peak Fourth-Order sword cultivator, had just like that, at the moment they let go, seemingly been wiped out of existence as if erased from thin air.

"Chu... Chu Tiankuo?"

Helan Que's voice was already starting to tremble.

He tentatively shouted into the surrounding darkness.

No response.

"Chu Tiankuo! Brother Chu! Stop joking around!"

Helan Que staggered forward two steps, his hands clawing wildly at the air, his voice thick with a crying tone:

"This isn't funny! Say something! Where are you?"

"Chu Tiankuo!!!"

Helan Que began to roar frantically in all directions; he even channeled his Kuangsha, firing aimlessly into the surrounding black mist, attempting to elicit even the slightest sound of a counterattack.

But.

There was only endless darkness and deathly silence around him.

That patch of black mist was like an insatiable black hole, ruthlessly devouring all his sounds and hopes.

"Gone... it's all gone..."

Looking at the mist around him, which was so thick it seemed like ink about to drip, the battle saber in Helan Que's hand dropped to the ground with a "clang."

He, the top genius chief of Kuangsha Academy.

At this moment, his Legs went weak, and he knelt heavily onto the cold soil.

He covered his face with his hands, his body trembling uncontrollably.

Despair.

True despair, like a tide, completely submerged him.

And the culprit behind all this was currently, leisurely, in the deepest part of the black mist.

The black-robed person wearing the Faceless Man mask floated quietly in mid-air, with bottomless ink-colored clouds beneath his feet.

His right hand casually held the back of a person's collar; that person was in tattered white clothes, eyes tightly closed, face pale, clearly already in a deep coma.

It was none other than the Nanhai Academy chief, Chu Tiankuo, who had been right beside Helan Que just a moment ago before suddenly "evaporating" from the world.

The eyes beneath the Faceless Man mask were without a ripple, and his movements were smooth and flowing, so practiced it was heartbreaking.

He swiped his left hand over Chu Tiankuo's fingers, and that high-level storage ring embedded with a Water-Avoidance Bead obediently fell into his palm.

Afterward, the Faceless Man, as if discarding a bag of useless trash, loosened his five fingers.

"Whoosh—"

Chu Tiankuo's unconscious body fell vertically, instantly disappearing into the churning ink-colored cloud layer below.

The moment it made contact, a force of space enveloped him, forcibly teleporting him out of Forbidden Zone No. 009.

Tossing the loot around for a moment to play with it, inside the sleeping Jiang You's internal world, the [Organ Chat Group] was conducting an abstract and hilarious post-battle review.

[Brain] sat on the throne of consciousness, slowly adjusting his glasses, a cold smile of "everything is under control" curling at the corner of his mouth:

"See that? Brothers."

"The three hundred classic horror movies we played on loop in this Slacker Ruler's head while he was sleeping a while back weren't watched for nothing!"

"A true top-tier hunter, when facing prey, doesn't need any clashing swords or flying flesh and blood. As long as you control space, deprive them of their senses, and combine that with a bit of appropriate psychological suggestion..."

"We don't even need to lift a finger; this extreme atmospheric pressure is enough to make these self-important geniuses collapse their own psychological defenses!"

[Kidneys (rubbing hands with some hesitation)]:

"Brother Brain, our actions... are they a bit too ruthless?"

"Those few outside are the chiefs of the top prestigious schools in Great Xia, usually so arrogant. We're rubbing them into the darkness like catching chicks, not even giving them a chance to fight back..."

"Won't this leave them with some serious psychological trauma, causing these youngsters to wet the bed when they get up at night in the future?"

[Right Hand (temper flared instantly, knuckles cracking loudly)]:

"Wet the bed, they deserve it!"

"Who the hell told them to have nothing better to do than gather hundreds of people to form some Anti-Jiang You Alliance and target us all over the map?"

"This is called self-defense! We didn't strip them naked and hang them on a tree; that's already us being civilized and promoting new trends!"

Just as [Right Hand] was ranting, [Legs], who hadn't spoken much, suddenly issued a soul-searching question in the group:

"Wait, brothers..."

"Dozens of them ganging up on one person, that definitely counts as shameless gang-bullying."

"But..."

[Legs (hesitating slightly)]:

"Now Brain is devising the strategy, I'm responsible for movement, Right Hand is responsible for the sneak attack, Kidneys are responsible for opening the space pocket... several of our body parts are going up together to beat one of them..."

"Does this count as gang-bullying?"

"..."

The group instantly fell into a dead silence.

This question was too far out of bounds, directly touching the blind spots of both biology and ethics.

A group of villainous organs actually fell into an extremely abstract and serious academic discussion over the definition of "gang-bullying."

"Stop it!"

[Brain (interrupting everyone's nonsense with black lines on his forehead)]:

"We are one entity! What do you mean five against one? That's called the perfect embodiment of coordinated combat!"

"Alright, the lesson has been taught, and the horror atmosphere has been set. Hurry up and collect the toll from the remaining three troublemakers; don't dawdle here!"

"On this map, there are still plenty of fat sheep carrying high-level resources waiting for us to restock! Time is money!"