Chapter 496: Human Emperor

The moment Wang Meili gently placed the crown imbued with power on Lu Yibei’s head, Lu Yibei immediately understood what the PL girl meant by “a little bit of risk.”

In a daze.

A constant buzzing filled her ears, as if it were an illusion. Amidst the buzzing, Lu Yibei heard a low whisper.

“Born as a deity, speaking its own name…”

“Born as a deity, speaking its own name… Wherever the sun and moon shine, wherever wind and rain reach, all must obey…”

It was as if a box sealing something terrifying had been opened inside Lu Yibei’s body.

Even in a state of deep sleep, she could feel a violent torrent of psychic energy gushing from the opened box, inflating her body like a balloon.

Just as Lu Yibei thought she was about to explode, the core entity of the mythical type haunting, which had long lain dormant due to suppressing the Hundred-Armed Giant’s power, suddenly grew restless.

Scorching psychic energy, carrying an astonishing heat, surged through her body, invading her lungs, piercing her bones, as if clinging to her soul, burning fiercely.

Everything that had surged into her body with the crown was “ignited,” leaving only the essence that could not be burned, slowly merging into her shell.

An indescribable pain instantly engulfed her, causing her to let out an unconscious, hoarse wail.

In the small, radiant dining room, Lu Yibei floated in midair, her entire body seemingly crystallized, translucent skin cracking inch by inch, releasing terrifying psychic energy fluctuations.

In an instant, a terrifying force completely destroyed and pulverized the small house, sweeping out in all directions with a buzzing roar.

“Crack–crack–!”

Amid the soft sounds like shattering crystal, Lu Yibei’s body rapidly “collapsed,” blood gushing from within her, evaporating into a mist before it even hit the ground.

The next moment, with a thunderous boom, her body, like the utterly destroyed house, exploded and vanished on the spot.

Did I… just explode? Lu Yibei thought.

As her consciousness gradually drifted away, she vaguely heard a whisper in her ear.

“Still can’t bear it? Looks like I’ll have to give her a hand!”

“……”

That voice… was it the PL girl?

A final thought flashed through Lu Yibei’s mind, then her consciousness fell into silence.

——–

Afternoon sunlight spilled down.

Jiang Li walked along the streets of Hua City, pausing from time to time to perform divination, seeking Lu Yibei’s whereabouts.

Once, twice… ten times…

With each divination result appearing before her, she was certain she was getting closer and closer to Lu Yibei.

However, just as she finished her fifteenth divination, staring intently at the crystal in her hand awaiting the result, she suddenly noticed something strange.

According to the divination, Lu Yibei should have been right nearby, but for some reason, she suddenly ended up somewhere very far away.

So far away that the feedback from the divination was almost equivalent to “no such person.”

How could this be? Could it be that Lu Yibei is no longer in this special space? Or did something go wrong with my divination? Jiang Li frowned.

She was just beginning to suspect that some step in her divination had gone awry to produce such an absurd result, when suddenly, a change occurred.

The bright sunlight abruptly dimmed. In the sky, complex incantations appeared among the piled clouds, shining brilliantly like stars.

Terrifying psychic energy fluctuations arose out of nowhere, enveloping the entire city, making the air hot and sticky, as if magma was surging through the void.

Next, pedestrians, vegetation, buildings on the street… everything rapidly disappeared before her eyes. Everything in the city was breaking apart, and when she came to her senses, she was the only one left on the street.

The once clean and tidy street visibly decayed and rotted, reinforced concrete collapsing, rust appearing on metal signs, the road surface riddled with bottomless

“Boom–boom–!”

Terrifying rumbles echoed through the empty city.

Amid the thunder, the ground cracked open, and like flowers blooming, dark red flesh emerged from the fractured earth, shrieking as it fused together upon contact.

Soon, massive dark red figures appeared, breaking free from their restraints, revealing hideous faces, stretching and writhing as they crawled, leaving behind a trail of sticky, foul-smelling blood rain.

Staring at those massive figures, Jiang Li’s gaze deepened. She had a feeling that those huge, twisted forms were all part of a single entity, all flesh of the Beast of Inheritance.

As she pondered, thick fog spread through the city, swallowing everything.

——–

In a daze, Lu Yibei felt someone slapping her face, each slap heavier than the last, making her cheeks sting with pain.

Amid the series of face-reddening “smack smack” sounds, Lu Yibei jolted awake, opened her eyes, and saw the dilapidated, crumbling rooftop, as well as the pale, weak-looking PL girl. “You’re awake? Now the buff on you is fully stacked. You can go die now!”

Lu Yibei was stunned for a moment, then shot a fierce glare at the PL girl. “What nonsense are you spouting here? Watch out or I’ll…”

As she spoke, she stood up, wanting to grab the PL girl’s collar and teach her a lesson. But as soon as she stood, she suddenly realized she was a full two heads shorter than the PL girl.

Instantly, her arrogant momentum vanished.

Lu Yibei tilted her head up, sized up the PL girl for a while, then squinted her eyes and asked, “Why are you here again? Does that mean it’s all over? Are you here to collect the power leveling fee?”

“Not even close!” The PL girl rolled her eyes at Lu Yibei. “Even if I were a god-tier power leveler, I couldn’t instantly kill the enemy, right?”

“Then what are you doing here?” Lu Yibei snapped. “Why aren’t you off handling the real business?”

“I am handling the real business!” The PL girl said seriously. “I’m here to inform you–unfortunately, your account is already ruined.”

“What the hell?” Lu Yibei was shocked.

What the heck! What does ‘ruined’ mean? Does she have to delete her account and start over?

“Simply put, your body couldn’t withstand Ms. Wang Meili’s power, nor the massive psychic energy contained in this embryonic Divine Land. It exploded! Not even a single piece of intact flesh could be found!”

“……”

Lu Yibei raised her hands expressionlessly and gripped the PL girl’s neck. “I’ll give you one more chance to rephrase that. If I’m not satisfied with what I hear, I’ll twist your neck off.”

“Let’s not talk about whether you could actually twist my neck off–even if you could…” The PL girl spread her hands helplessly. “This was something you agreed to yourself earlier.”

“I did agree, but didn’t you say there was only a tiny bit of risk?” Lu Yibei said through gritted teeth.

“Well… haha!” The PL girl let out two awkward laughs. “High probability of a low probability event–haven’t you gotten used to that by now?”

“Besides, didn’t I tell you long ago that Ms. Wang Meili’s legacy isn’t so easy to inherit? Who knew you were so fragile, you’d shatter at a touch.”

“So what you’re saying…” Lu Yibei squinted at the PL girl, frowning. “It’s still my fault?”

“Not entirely! I bear some responsibility too.” The PL girl mused. “I didn’t expect skipping class and sneaking off would be this hard.”

“Although Ms. Wang Meili was only a half-haunting, with severely incomplete power, making it hard for her to become a true catastrophe-class while alive, even so, her power still possessed some catastrophe-class traits–things that most psychics and hauntings’ bodies can’t withstand.”

“But the good news is, the essence of Ms. Wang Meili’s power has already fused with your haunting core entity. The rest is just figuring out how to repair your body.”

Hearing this, Lu Yibei frowned. “So, what exactly are the traits of catastrophe-class?”

“No way?” The PL girl looked at Lu Yibei in surprise. “You’ve already encountered Plague Taisui, Haze Deity, and Gou Meng–these catastrophe-class hauntings–and you still haven’t noticed anything?”

“……” Lu Yibei thought for a moment, then said seriously, “No!”

Although Gou Meng ranked high on The Midnight Watchers Society’s Wanted List and had a terrifying psychic energy fluctuation level, in Lu Yibei’s eyes, she was actually not much different from the pesky little sister next door.

As for Plague Taisui and Haze Deity, she hadn’t encountered the entity of the former, and she avoided the latter as much as possible–how could she have had the mind to observe them?

The PL girl rubbed her forehead and explained, “Becoming catastrophe-class is like becoming a symbol, forming an inseparable connection with some phenomenon or thing in this world.”

“Huh? How is that different from hauntings being born from haunting incidents during their spread?” Lu Yibei asked in confusion.

“Simply put, hauntings exist because there are haunting incidents, but catastrophe-class existences cause haunting incidents to happen because of their existence,” the PL girl continued.

“Just like Haze Deity and Plague Taisui–their very existence is no longer just a haunting legend, but they’ve become the symbols of smog and plague.”

“Or take Gou Meng, for example. Although she was initially granted Gou Mang’s power because of the belief of Taoyuan’s people, over time, through her continuous efforts, it was because of her existence that the people of Taoyuan believed those miraculous things could happen.”

“To put it even more simply, the world is marked by their existence, just like earthquakes and tsunamis–natural disasters that leave an indelible impact on this world.”

Lu Yibei more or less understood what the PL girl meant. She nodded thoughtfully and asked, “Then what does Ms. Wang Meili’s power symbolize?”

“People,” the PL girl said solemnly. “To be precise, the one who leads all people–in other words… the Human Emperor.”

Lu Yibei: “???”