Chapter 355: Stage B Ends

"Who are you?"

Tianji lowered his massive head, his gaze flickering as he stared at the unfamiliar human male before him.

He was certain he had never seen this man before—not even once.

"The man who's going to take your life."

Yan Jing smiled faintly, dispensing with any further nonsense.

The phantom of a massive tree emerged behind him, growing wildly. Countless thick vines spread across the stairs and walls, forcefully piercing through the specially reinforced surfaces and bursting them apart.

Fear Stance Second Form.

Yan Jing held almost nothing back. A towering tree instantly occupied half the building. Grayish-white ribbons pulled him upward, merging him with the giant tree and the architecture itself.

Tianji had originally considered fighting back, but the moment he sensed the vast, ocean-like weird energy surging around Yan Jing, fine beads of sweat immediately seeped from beneath the white fur on his forehead.

Something was wrong!

This was the intuition forged from years of brushing against life and death. The danger posed by this human male, who now looked more like a monster, absolutely exceeded his imagination.

Without any hesitation, he turned and fled.

His thick, reverse-jointed legs sprinted wildly upstairs. The sharp claws on his ten-meter-long arms drove into the walls above like steel nails, anchoring his body and pulling him upward with blinding speed.

But just as he was about to crash through the iron door to the rooftop, several thick, pitch-black Thorns blocked his path, coiling tightly around the door and sealing it shut.

"This is the boundary of the battlefield."

Suspended in the air, Yan Jing stretched his mouth in a grin that reached his ears. His scarlet eyes looked as though they had been tempered in hell. At this moment, he retained no semblance of human form.

"Throw a peace sign, Mr. Tianji."

Yan Jing's words rang in Tianji's ears. In the next instant, he lost his final sliver of a chance to escape.

Beneath the building's outer shell, in spaces invisible from the outside, the massive tree of Thorns gradually closed in, tightening...

Two minutes later.

A mangled Tianji collapsed heavily to the ground.

He looked as if he had suffered some gruesome torture. His massive body was riddled with bloody holes, and things resembling either tentacles or Thorns poked out from within.

Most of his snow-white fur had fallen out, directly exposing hideous, striking dark-red flesh to the air. The remaining fur was stained with gore, tangled and matted.

Half of his giant white head had been hollowed out, leaving only a single eye staring at the ceiling in despair.

"There's one thing I don't understand."

Tianji's breath was barely a thread.

"Why did you push Zhou Mo out?"

At this stage, if Tianji still hadn't figured out that the man before him was behind this entire incident, he would truly be an idiot.

But he couldn't figure out why Zhou Mo had to be the one pushed to the front.

If this man already knew his location and possessed that video, there shouldn't have been any need to coerce Zhou Mo at all.

"There's too much to explain. Let's leave it for next time."

Yan Jing spoke softly, driving the Thorns in his hand straight into Tianji's skull, extinguishing his final trace of life.

After advancing to the Fourth Tier, Yan Jing—having activated Fear Stance Second Form combined with the Potion of Heracles, the Power of the White Stone, and the Fear Bird Form—was already capable of utterly crushing a Fifth Tier like Tianji.

A system prompt popped up before his eyes.

[Dungeon settlement in progress...]

[Quest "The Framer" settled. The player led the team to successfully prevent Tianji's crime and executed Tianji. Quest Evaluation: S+ (Highest rating is S+).]

[Dungeon Overall Rating: S+]

[Reward settlement in progress...]

[Basic Rewards: 3% Experience, 40,000 Eerie Coins]

[S+ Rating Extra Rewards: 40% Experience, 40,000 Eerie Coins, Physical Enhancement Potion 3, Ritual Blessing Coupon (Bound Item) 1, Will of the Seven Stars (Tianji), Inner World's Platinum Box]

[Chaos Mode Extra Rewards: 20% Experience, 20,000 Eerie Coins, Lucky Scratch Ticket *1]

[Dungeon Exit Countdown: 00:05:00]

Meanwhile.

On the other side.

Qi Ming, hidden in the crowd, and Zhou Xian, who was wreaking havoc on the streets in his human identity, both received the system prompt for quest completion.

Completed?

The Dungeon is over?

Both of them wore expressions of utter bewilderment, staring in disbelief at the quest rewards before them.

An S-grade rating!

A Ritual Blessing Coupon!

A Silver Box!

"I guess I finally know how he levels up so fast..."

Zhou Xian let out a bitter laugh.

Fortunately, he had long known that Yan Jing was far from ordinary and harbored no thoughts of trying to emulate him.

He had only come this time to leech a Ritual Blessing Coupon.

But Qi Ming was different.

"It's over... it's over?"

His eyes widened, and he took a deep breath.

In his estimation, this was absolutely going to be a protracted war. It wouldn't have been out of the question for it to last a month or two.

Yet now he was being told... it was already over?

But he hadn't even done anything...

Even so, he had managed to piggyback his way to a Silver Box. Just what exactly had that man done to alter the course of the Inner World to such a massive extent?

"No wonder that guy Zhou Xian told me before entering the Dungeon not to expect to learn anything..."

A trace of bitterness showed at the corners of his mouth.

How the hell was anyone supposed to learn from this?

...

...

"A Platinum Box? It seems the Peace Heavenly Kingdom's social system really is much more robust than it looks."

The last time Yan Jing had obtained an Inner World's Platinum Box was when he killed Wei Nantian.

This time, Tianji's scheme targeted the entirety of Peace Heavenly Kingdom, yet it still only yielded a Platinum Box. This meant that even without Yan Jing's interference, Tianji's plan wouldn't have caused a catastrophic impact on Peace Heavenly Kingdom in the end.

Someone else probably would have stepped up to stop it.

Yan Jing nodded, not feeling disappointed.

A Platinum Box was already quite good.

Previously, he had opened ones that yielded the Power of the White Stone, the Gloves of Chaos, and even the Potion of Heracles.

Moreover, what he valued most was the experience.

[Player Name: Yan Jing]

[Player Title: Chaos Missionary]

[Player Level: Fourth Tier, Experience (92.1%/100%)]

[Ritual:

Day Selection Ritual: Fear Sapling (Purple-Black)

Calming Rite: Lord of Execution's Silk Thread (Black)

Incense Burning Rite: Wings of Praying for Death - Chongming (Orange-Red)

Rite of Summer and Winter Sacrifices: Stone Immortal (Semi-Corpus) (Red)]

"I'll hit the Fifth Tier next time."

Yan Jing's eyes flickered.

It was said that the quest difficulty to advance from the Fourth Tier to the Fifth Tier would spike sharply. It was also the turning point where a Personal Title transitioned into an honored sovereign title.

"Alright, time to go."

He turned and left. If his guess was right, the Seven Stars would soon find this place.

...

...

Within an unknowable space.

Sitting on a bench, Fei Yu and the Fear Bird were cracking melon seeds and discussing their thoughts after watching Yan Jing's operations.

"Absolutely exquisite."

The Fear Bird sighed in admiration, but quickly realized her stance wasn't quite right and immediately corrected herself:

"No, I should say extremely insidious and cunning."

"As expected of the Young Master." Fei Yu nodded, loudly cracking her melon seeds before looking at the Fear Bird.

"But I didn't understand that last question either."

"What question?" the Fear Bird asked.

"The one Tianji asked right at the end."

Fei Yu spoke softly.

"Oh, that."

The Fear Bird perked up. Acting like someone excitedly writing a review after watching a great movie, she began:

"To explain that, it's better to review the entire incident from the beginning."

"Go ahead."

"First, Tianji made the opening move. He used Happy Water to activate the Feral Genes within a portion of the bionic species."

"At that time, the ones countering him were Boss Rat and Zhou Mo."

"For Boss Rat, taking action was to stop Tianji's conspiracy. But for Zhou Mo, it wasn't. To Zhou Mo, it was a chain reaction. Two of his council members were already dead. If the Law Enforcement Agency had another accident now, he'd be kicked out of Muke District."

"Therefore, he contacted Song Haozhe to suppress public opinion, and then chose to push Zhao Jiucheng out as a meat shield."

"In this regard, whether it was this bastard, Boss Rat, or Zhou Mo, they all actually used the same method. It's just that Zhou Mo chose Zhao Jiucheng as his shield, Boss Rat chose the leader of Intellect Brain, while that brat Yan seemed to choose Zhou Mo, but in truth, he chose Tianji."

"After finishing that part, Zhou Mo absolutely had to die because his value had been fully exhausted: making Zhao Jiucheng, Jia Wei, and Zeng Qing switch sides."

"A true psychological defection, not forced coercion."

"After that, a dead Zhou Mo was obviously far more useful than a living one. So the bastard killed Zhou Mo and then brought his corpse to Zeng Qing."

"That was deterrence."

"'I can send Chen Xiaojing in, I can kill Zhou Mo, and naturally, I can kill you too.'"

"Afterward."

"Because Zhou Mo had already countered Tianji's move and suppressed public opinion, Tianji was forced to make another move."

"He must have used some method to stir up the public first. This also caused Song Haozhe and Zhou Mo to argue, which was an unexpected bonus."

"Of course, from the bastard's perspective at the time, he didn't know what method Tianji had used. It was only later that he learned it was likely someone named Yuheng."

"After that came a period of silence."

"Whether it was Boss Rat or the bastard who replaced Zhou Mo, both were waiting for Tianji's next move—which would be the start of the true conflict."

"At 12:00 AM, violent incidents suddenly surged. That must have been when Tianji started activating the feral bloodlines on a massive scale."

"Anticipating that the conflict was about to erupt, the bastard arranged to meet Yaoguang."

"The excuse he used was flawless. He made a deal with Yaoguang, but it wasn't to stop Tianji—he even provided assistance."

"Yet his true purpose was to locate Tianji's position, using it as an opportunity to record his ultimate killing blow: the video."

"Actually, at that point, as long as he released the video, Tianji was as good as dead."

"But he didn't. That's exactly where this bastard is the most vicious!"

The Fear Bird grew agitated as she spoke, as if recalling a memory she dared not look back on:

"That's just how he is! He holds back the final killing blow to make you drop your guard, making you think it's not too late and that you can still fix everything yourself. By the time you realize what's happening, it's already too late!!"

"He's a complete bastard!!!"

Her pupils trembled:

"Just like this time! Why didn't he bring out the video right from the start? Because he knew that with the video in hand, the situation would definitely reverse later on. The more Tianji did now, the greater the backlash the Seven Stars would suffer once the tables turned. Moreover, he could use this chance to fish in troubled waters and achieve his other goals."

"A bastard, he's just a bastard!"

The Fear Bird was trembling slightly all over. Next to her, Fei Yu quickly reached out, pulled her into her arms, and gently patted her back:

"It's okay, it's okay, it's all over now."

"But the Young Master isn't a bastard. You're not allowed to say that next time."