"Are you looking for ?"
Su Chen hovered in the air, gazing down at the group below with complete indifference. His eyes carried the detached calm of soone regarding corpses that simply hadn't stopped breathing yet.
The man chained like a dog suddenly trembled with excitent the mont he saw Su Chen. Tears stread from his eyes as he tried desperately to speak, but only bloody gurgles escaped his ruined mouth.
The Black Tiger Gang mbers instantly recognized the youth floating above them. Yet none of them felt any joy. Because this person could fly… and in this world, only sixth-tier powerhouses could fly.
"No—wait, you can't possibly be sixth-tier. You have wings! True sixth-tier experts fly without wings. You must have obtained so kind of inheritance!"
The tattooed man's eyes lit up with naked greed when he noticed the pair of wings on Su Chen's back. If he could seize such an inheritance, why would he still be stuck serving in a petty gang like Black Tiger? The profits alone would tempt even legendary sixth-tier powerhouses!
But in the next instant, the youth in the sky vanished.
A gentle breeze brushed past.
The tattooed man felt sothing warm trickle across his cheek. He reached up instinctively—his fingers ca away bright red.
He looked down.
A familiar face stared up at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes—lifeless.
It was one of his own subordinates.
The tattooed man turned stiffly.
Every single mber of the Black Tiger Gang lay dead around him. Only he remained, standing alone.
"Take to the Black Tiger Gang's headquarters."
The tattooed man opened his mouth to snarl sothing defiant—only for a blade to press against his throat. The razor edge and the warm stickiness of fresh blood silenced him instantly.
"Sir… no problem at all."
He did not want to die.
The chained man crawled painfully to Su Chen's feet. He knelt and kowtowed again and again, bloody tears mixing with the dirt as he tried wordlessly to beg.
"Why bother?"
Su Chen looked down at him calmly. "Because of your selfishness, people who could have lived are now dead. You want to save you—but this is your retribution. Cause and effect devour their own."
Su Chen turned away, leaving the man wailing on the ground. There was no pity in his heart. He had already given them the chance to survive.
Su Chen forced the tattooed man to lead him back to the entrance tunnel of the Dwarf Earthly Rift.
Fresh corpses now littered the passage—adventurers who had entered the rift. Every one of them had been killed by the Black Tiger Gang, stripped even of their clothes.
Guards still stood watch at the entrance, but to Su Chen, they were no different from ants.
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"Sir, they don't know what's really happening in the rift. They're just following orders from above. Please spare them, sir."
The tattooed man watched one brother after another fall, his voice trembling as he begged.
Su Chen shook his head.
"If I spare them, what about the people who died in ignorance at their hands?"
He carved a path straight out of the tunnel. By the ti the people outside reacted and tried to slam the profound iron gate shut, it was already too late.
"He's one of our thirteen hall masters."
The tattooed man pointed at a man with a handlebar mustache and introduced him in a low voice.
"Stray Dog, you actually betrayed Black Tiger Hall!"
The mustached man's face twisted with rage when he saw the tattooed man leading a youth out of the rift.
Su Chen was already standing in front of him.
"Why collude with the dwarf tribe to slaughter your own people?"
Su Chen pressed the blade directly against the man's throat.
The mustached man gave a wretched laugh. "Those idiots ca into the dwarf rift looking for resources. They never realized—they were the resources. Rifts are dangerous. A few explorers dying inside is perfectly normal."
Su Chen shook his head.
"You're lying."
The mustached man's pupils shrank violently. Before he could even struggle, Su Chen's blade flashed once. The head tumbled free, rolling across the dirt with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
Su Chen closed the entrance to the Dwarf Earthly Rift. Under the tattooed man's trembling guidance, he headed straight for the Black Tiger Hall's main stronghold.
Inside the hall, Su Chen moved like a ghost through an empty graveyard.
"You must be the Third Hall Master of Black Tiger Hall."
Before him stood an elderly man with gray-streaked hair and a monocle perched on one eye.
A ninth-layer Spirit Sea realm powerhouse.
"Young man, arrogance has a price."
The old man narrowed his eyes. Behind him materialized a three-eyed black serpent.
Su Chen swung his blade in a single, casual arc. The three-eyed serpent split cleanly in two and dissolved into black mist. The old man coughed up a mouthful of blood and flew backward.
The next instant, he felt cold steel against his throat.
The old man let out a long sigh. "The Yangtze River's waves push the old ones forward… What do you want to know?"
Su Chen spoke indifferently. "Tell —why collude with the dwarf tribe to slaughter your own kind?"
The old man laughed bitterly. "Nothing but profit."
Su Chen shook his head. "You're lying. But I don't care."
He killed the old man and continued deeper into the hall.
The Second Hall Master was absent.
Su Chen arrived at the location of the First Hall Master.
The First Hall Master was a fifth-tier Spirit Soul realm powerhouse.
What caught Su Chen's eye was the statue enshrined at the center—not a god, not a Buddha, but a dwarf.
"You're surprised?"
The First Hall Master caught the flicker of astonishnt in Su Chen's gaze.
Then, with a trace of madness in his voice, he continued: "The dwarf tribe is the god of our Black Tiger Hall. The sole purpose of our existence is to serve the dwarf tribe and provide them with sacrifices."
This ti, he spoke the truth.
Su Chen thought of the Jiang family—generations who had sacrificed everything for Longxia—and asked the question burning in his mind.
"The dwarf tribe is such a weak race. Why would you willingly beco their slaves?"
The First Hall Master laughed, the sound filled with bleak despair. "You don't understand… You simply don't understand. Behind every Earthly Rift and Heavenly Rift stands a deity. Only humanity has no deity watching over us. Even the weakest dwarf tribe has the protection of a god…
"Humanity will eventually be devoured and enslaved. Though the dwarf tribe is weak now, with a deity's blessing, they will one day grow strong. When that day cos, Black Tiger Hall will submit to a divine-favored race and preserve the last ember of humanity."
He took a deep breath and murmured, "I've told you so much so you can die with understanding. Now you may die."
Su Chen suddenly found the whole thing both laughable and tragic.
"Deities? They're nothing but a bunch of defeated, lingering wretches clinging to life."
Why had no forbidden-zone creature ever forced humanity to worship them? Because in the current cosmos, the only Emperor was human! What those forbidden-zone beings dared not do… was mistaken for abandonnt, for weakness.
Su Chen raised his blade. The Heavenly Yang Imperial Divine Blade technique unfolded. A dazzling streak of knife-light flashed through the First Hall Master's vision.
In a single strike, the entire Black Tiger Hall was razed to the ground.
Su Chen turned to the tattooed man standing beside him.
"You recognized my identity?"
The tattooed man nodded slowly.
"You are Commander Jiang's son. I know I won't leave here alive today… but I believe you… Perhaps you can change this world."
Blood poured from his mouth as he whispered his final words: "Be… be careful… of the Celestial God Cult…"
Before Su Chen's eyes, the tattooed man dissolved into a cloud of bloody mist.
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