A World Worth Protecting

After an unknown period of time, when Wang Baole opened his eyes and raised his head, all he saw was the blinding the sunlight filtering through the gaps between the tree leaves.

He felt as if he had been in a dream where he was being pursued. His consciousness alternated between periods of clarity and blurriness, but the indescribable pain all over his injured body jolted him awake as he quickly struggled to sit up.

“I did not die!” Wang Baole was feeling glad before the numerous gory injuries that marked his body caused him to hyperventilate. He was shocked by the severity of his own injuries that had bled through and stained his shirt red. Everything that he saw reminded him of the life and death battle that he had just survived.

“Who exactly wants me dead?” Wang Baole clenched his teeth and struggled to stand up. He let out a bitter laugh when he subconsciously reached for his pills to treat his injuries—there were none left.

“All my pills and Dharma treasures are gone…” Wang Baole swiftly checked the surrounding corpses. After some fumbling, he finally found a few Dharmic artifacts and pills. After taking a whiff of the pills, he became doubtful as he did not know their properties and was fearful that they were toxic.

After hesitating for a moment, Wang Baole sighed as he stored the pills for the time being.

“Ah, I don’t dare take the risk. I’ve been through so much to survive. It would be a waste if I accidentally killed myself in the process of healing my injuries with these pills.”

Disappointed, Wang Baole supported himself using a tree branch and limped toward the elder. He lowered his head to look at the set of red bones and fell silent for a long while before picking up his glove and storage bag.

The elder was the leader of the men in black, an exceptional individual who carried a storage bag.

After organizing the items, Wang Baole grimaced in pain—the injury on his waist was too painful. He took a deep breath, and a flash vaguely appeared in his vision.

“There may still be survivors. I have to find out who wants to kill me.” Wang Baole looked around and felt that, though his injuries were severe, his strength seemed to have recovered. He amassed the will to continue fighting and put on the glove. Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly heard a soft, weak voice coming from afar.

“Save me, save me…”

Wang Baole turned his head around, his alertness through the roof. He listened intently and assessed the situation before slowly approaching where the voice had come from. Before long, he arrived at a low-lying area. His eyes widened as he realized who it was. It was as if lightning had struck near him, his jaw hanging agape as he let out a voiceless scream.

“This… This…!”

On the ground lay a naked middle-aged man who was literally skin and bones. His eyes were sunken, and the five puppets lying beside him were also naked.

“Save… Save me…” The middle-aged man appeared to have noticed Wang Baole approaching and expressed his plea weakly with tears rolling down his cheeks.

“God, what on earth did you do to my puppet Dharmic artifacts?” Wang Baole felt a torrent of emotions, and his mind went blank. He only recovered after a moment before realizing that the man was the one of the men in black at the peak Pulse Enrichment who escaped previously.

However, that man was in an extremely pathetic state now, and this threw Wang Baole into disbelief.

“You… How desperate were you to rape my Dharmic artifacts? You even attempted to have sex with them?” Wang Baole was incredulous at what had happened. The man in black obviously appeared to be a pervert to him. In his rage, Wang Baole tried to regain control of the five puppets. He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw the five puppets opening their eyes and stored them away with a dull, aching feeling in his heart before turning to glower at the man in black.

“That was too much!”

Upon hearing Wang Baole’s words, the former peak Pulse Enrichment man revealed a look that strongly indicated that he had been wronged. He appeared wanting to explain something, but he was too weak to say anything.

“Despicable! Don’t blame me for testing the medication on you!” Wang Baole was furious and retrieved all the pills from his storage bracelet, feeding them one-by-one to the middle-aged man. After seven or eight pills, not only was the man still alive, he also seemed to have recovered slightly. Wang Baole raised his hand to punch the middle-aged man directly in the chest, further aggravating his injury as the man screamed in pain. Following which, crimson red blood spurted out his mouth.

“You pervert!” Wang Baole exclaimed. He left the middle-aged man alone before swallowing the pills that he had tested on the man. He closed his eyes to recuperate, and two hours later, it was clear that his injuries had recovered significantly. The middle-aged man, on the other hand, had become incredibly weak. His eyes filled with fear when he looked at Wang Baole.

“Speak! Who ordered you to kill me?” Wang Baole questioned as he turned his head to look at the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man hesitated. Wang Baole looked at him coldly and emotionlessly. He did not attempt to question further. Instead, he retrieved numerous other unknown pills and showed them one by one to the man before feeding them to him.

After every few pills, Wang Baole watched for the man’s reaction. If he seemed to recover slightly, he threw the man another punch. If his condition seemed to worsen, Wang Baole continued feeding him with the pills.

As time passed, the middle-aged man weakened further under the torture. He seemed to have thought it through thoroughly, keeping quiet even when he had been fed a poison. Due to this, Wang Baole had no choice but to feed him an antidote.

“Nice, you are tight-lipped, huh?” Wang Baole was infuriated as he quickly thought of ways to handle the middle-aged man. However, when facing a person like the middle-aged man who began with a plea for help but was now no longer fearful of death, Wang Baole was at a loss.

Suddenly, an idea flashed across his mind as he raised his right hand to reveal the five puppets that had been kept in his storage bracelet.

The very appearance of the puppets instantly caused the middle-aged man to tremble. His eyes filled with fear, and he began to speak without Wang Baole saying a single word.

“I’ll speak… I’ll speak! Don’t be rash… keep… keep them away!”

The middle-aged man’s reaction brought relief to Wang Baole. He had only wanted to try it out, but he had never expected the result to be this shocking. He could not help but wonder if the middle-aged man had really raped his Dharmic artifacts or if something else had actually happened.

“I only know that it was a request from Ethereal City. I have only heard the leader mention it once. The other party seems to be the son of a big shot!” The middle-aged man spoke urgently, tears welling up his eyes.

Wang Baole’s eyes revealed a look of coldness. He had his suspicions before, and listening to the man’s words, he became more certain of his suspicions.

The son of a big shot… Lin Tianhao? I took over his position as Head Prefect, and he wants to kill me? Or is there another reason I’m not aware of? Right, if I’m dead, Cao Kun and he could become Head Prefects again. They likely could have had influenced the Vice-Chancellor as well; otherwise, they would not have been able to give me the order to return to the Dao College.

The desire to kill flashed across Wang Baole’s mind. He had not realized, but after experiencing this incident, his ruthlessness seemed to have increased. However, he understood that his opponent was not to be belittled; he would not be able to fight head on with them to seek revenge, but if he played by the rules and made them pay for their actions, revenge was possible!

“Put them away, please. Please, I beg of you…”

As Wang Baole analyzed the situation in his head, the middle-aged man’s pleas interrupted his train of thought. When he looked at him, the middle-aged man was already trembling, the fear in his heart stronger than ever.

This made Wang Baole troubled. He looked again at the middle-aged man, then at his puppets, pondering over the fact that had it not been his puppets trapping the man, he would have actually died there.

The puppets actually had such a function as well… Wang Baole felt that he suddenly became more knowledgeable and immediately thought of the mysterious man on the island that Xie Haiyang had mentioned. Inevitably, he grew suspicious.

He wanted to buy the puppets and yet still demanded so much. Could it be that he had ulterior motives? No, it shouldn’t be. Wang Baole felt that his thoughts were too extreme, so he shook his head to suppress his suspicions. He fed the middle-aged man with some pills again to knock him out before securing him below his arms and leaving.

The middle-aged man needed to be kept alive!

Wang Baole followed the path that he had initially come from, passing through the Pond Cloud Rainforest. Along the way, he checked to see if there were other survivors. Before long, he arrived at the location where he met the mosquito and stopped right in his tracks.

I remember that there were four aircrafts that crashed, and another escaped. Wang Baole looked up to the sky, searching through his memory to arrive at the moment when the four aircrafts crashed.

After checking thoroughly, he found no other survivors. However, one of the aircrafts did not crash too badly, and though everyone aboard had died, the aircraft could be considered a Dharmic artifact. Thus, as a Head Prefect of the Dharmic Armament faculty, he tried to fix the aircraft by himself.

After several hours, Wang Baole managed to partially repair the aircraft, such that it was capable of reaching Ethereal Dao College. He lit the ignition, and with a low hum, the aircraft rose into the skies above the Pond Cloud Rainforest, traveling further away.

On the aircraft, Wang Baole knocked the middle-aged man out once again, causing him to be immobilized due to his severe injuries but not to the extent of killing him. It was only then that he could relax. Thinking about the life-and-death situation that he had been in previously, the fear exploded, and he began shaking uncontrollably.

This world is too dangerous. After I return to the Dao College, I must be more diligent and train harder.

Before long, Wang Baole was filled with emotions. As he turned to look at the Pond Cloud Rainforest outside the window, he saw a mountain range with five peaks a distance away.

“Eh?” The moment his eyes fell on the mountain range, Wang Baole let out an exclamation—that was exactly where his father had said that he had found the mask!

“Shall I… go take a look?”