Stranger Danger

Chapter 661: Edict of Divine Thought

That was why he ultimately chose to be reborn the second way.

“Sigh...”

Dream Master suddenly let out another sigh as he stared at Su Xiu’s Nature’s Shell. Although he ultimately succeeded in obtaining Nanke, Dancer still perished as a result.

It wasn’t because of emotional reasons, of course. It was because Dancer was a member of the Eight Legions, and her death would be seen as a failure of leadership. His reputation would certainly suffer because of this.

Earth Walker and Slaughterer flashed through his mind. At the beginning, he was hoping that the commotion of the battle would lure Earth Walker and Slaughterer to their side. With the four of them together, they should have no problems retrieving Nanke from the enemy. He would not need to use “From Cocoon To Butterfly”, and Dancer wouldn’t need to die.

In reality, neither Earth Walker nor Slaughterer had shown up at all. He could not understand why.

As if on cue, a silhouette abruptly dashed out of the fog. Dream Master recognized him immediately.

“Earth Walker!”

Displeasure flickered in Dream Master’s eyes, but Earth Walker struck him with a barrage of questions before he could say anything, “What happened, Dream Master? Who hurt you like this? And where is Dancer?”

As Earth Walker reached him, Dream Master opened his mouth to answer his questions. It was at this moment he realized that something was wrong. A curved finger was growing bigger and bigger in his vision!

Every hair on his skin stood on end as a pair of butterfly wings appeared behind his back and wrapped around him. As Dream Master jumped backward, invisible ripples appeared all around him, and his person grew more and more transparent. It looked like he was right in front of Earth Walker, when in reality he might as well be existing in a completely different world.

The finger did not hit Dream Master. Instead, it struck the space in front of it.

A ripple washed out soundlessly, but its power could not be understated. Dream Master lost consciousness for an instant, and bright red blood poured down the corner of his lips. More importantly, his body grew solid once more.

He looked like a celestial who had been pulled down to the earth.

“You’re not Earth Walker!”

Dream Master exclaimed in shock and anger as he glared at Earth Walker.

“Got it in one.”

Earth Walker, or more accurately, Ye Qing answered with a smile.

Although he was talking, Ye Qing’s movements hadn’t slowed down in the slightest. Moving so fast that he left behind a trail of afterimages, he fired a crimson ray straight at Dream Master.

Kick the dog when it’s down. He had no desire to experience a web novel villain who just couldn’t stop monologuing like an idiot when the upper hand was theirs. People like that weren’t just courting defeat, but also some of the worst kinds of humiliation.

No, kicking a dog when it’s down was one hundred percent the royal road; the way of the protagonist.

Besides, this was a golden opportunity that took him much effort and waiting to create. He would have to be retarded to let it slip through his hands for the sake of monologuing.

“It’s you! You’re the man who killed Huo Hao and stole Nanke!”

Meanwhile, Dream Master finally recognized Ye Qing’s aura and put two and two together. He exclaimed in shock, “Did you design all this from the start?!”

Suddenly, he understood why Nanke’s presence had gone on and off since they entered this city.

Suddenly, he understood why Nanke had fallen into Su Xiu’s hands, and why Earth Walker and Slaughterer did not appear to his rescue.

When he recalled everything that had happened until now, all those tiny details he had regarded as harmless or insignificant before suddenly surfaced to his consciousness. Since a while ago, it had felt like an invisible hand had been manipulating events so that things would turn out this way. Now, he knew it wasn’t just a feeling.

The man before him was the mastermind behind it all.

But how did he know they were coming?

How was he able to block the Edict of Divine Thought’s ability to detect Nanke?

Why was he so much stronger than his cultivation level?

And more.

One thing for certain, the man before him was the one who designed everything. He had even lured them to this ancient city to enact his nefarious plans.

When he thought until this point, a mixture of emotions he couldn’t quite describe welled inside his heart. It was a blend of humiliation, shame, anger, hatred, and more.

Since the day he embarked on the path of cultivation, he had always been the one toying and manipulating another’s fate from a lofty place. He never imagined that he would one day become the monkey he so often toyed with... until now.

“Right again!”

Ye Qing’s voice came from behind the crimson ray.

By now, the saber force was inches from Dream Master’s forehead.

“Very good. You’re the first person ever to dare to toy with me.”

Dream Master did not seem to care about the incoming attack, however. Long before he finished talking, a dazzling, bright, and powerful golden light burst out of the top of his head and annihilated the saber force in an instant.

Ye Qing himself was thrown back by the unexpected counterattack, his feet cutting through the ground for at least ten meters before he finally managed to arrest himself. Not only that, his whole body was covered in countless tiny, dense wounds that were oozing golden light instead of blood. It made him look like a golden body arhat.

The next moment, Ye Qing sucked in a deep breath and caused his vigor to churn like a raging river, and his body to grow so hot it was as if he was attempting to refine a world inside his body. The golden light oozing out of his wounds were instantly dispelled or refined, which allowed his body to heal at a slow pace.

Ye Qing’s mind was not on his wounds, however. The sky had his full attention right now.

A golden emblazoned word—“Edict”—was floating in the sky and shining brightly. It was only one word, but it looked as vast as the sun or moon itself. It possessed the power of the sun, and the brightness of the moon.

The endless fog that covered this city and the pitch black sky this whole time cleared up in an instant. At the same time, a terrific amount of pressure and light radiated toward the ground and silenced everything.

“So, in the name of Di Shitian, I sentence you to death. May you never escape damnation.”

The Edict of Divine Thought Di Shitian had bestowed on him wasn’t just a detector. It was also his final trump card.

To be honest, Dream Master didn’t want to use the Edict of Divine Thought if at all possible. Although it was just a wisp of divine thought, Di Shitian was the sovereign of the Devas, the supreme ruler of the Eight Legions, and a champion of the Heaven Champions Ranking. To say that his power was bottomless would be an understatement. The divine thought might amount to nothing to Di Shitian himself, but it was an opportunity and a boon of a lifetime for someone like him.

If he could obtain even a small enlightenment from the divine thought, his cultivation journey and future would become so much better than they would have been otherwise. That was why he was unwilling to use it unless he had absolutely no other choice.

Unfortunately, he had reached that point. The one and only way he might survive this crisis was to use the divine thought.

Naturally, the thief must die for the price. Not only that, nothing short of true death and eternal damnation would satisfy his thirst for vengeance.

The next moment, the word in the sky shone brighter and conjured illusions of dragons, tigers, Buddhas, gods, demons, and other creatures. At the same time, a tall, imposing, and terrible silhouette wearing a magnificent crown manifested at the center of the golden light.

The silhouette looked straight at Ye Qing, and terrible pain abruptly stabbed into his eyes. As blood trickled down his cheeks, the silhouette declared with a dignified voice,

“Permission granted.”

The silhouette then lifted his finger slightly before lowering it toward Ye Qing. The dragons and tigers flew beside the finger, the Buddhas began yelling and chanting, the gods and demons roared, and many, many more illusions sprung into existence like weeds.

The finger wasn’t moving particularly quickly, so it looked like all Ye Qing needed to do to save himself was to move out of harm’s way.

In reality, he felt as if the finger had locked down the three dimensions, the four cardinal points, the eight directions, and the nine heavens. Absolutely anything and everything was suppressed.

There was nowhere for him to go; nowhere for him to hide.