Chapter 544: Inferno Without End

Suolang Baima is a very vulgar person, vulgar to the core. When Lu Yibei peered into his memories, what she saw was naked, endless desire.

And the reason he defected from The Midnight Watchers Society was precisely because, as an operator of The Midnight Watchers Society, those desires of his could never be satisfied.

He was like a ferocious, greedy beast, and there was simply no place for him within The Midnight Watchers Society.

Perhaps it was because his desires were so naked that he was so easily influenced by Lu Yibei’s charm ability.

If it had been someone with lofty ideals, little material desire, someone who took it upon themselves to benefit humanity, even all living things in the world, whether Lu Yibei charmed him or he brainwashed Lu Yibei, it would be hard to say who would win.

But people like Suolang Baima are often the easiest to deal with; as long as you temporarily satisfy his desires, you can temporarily tame the beast in his heart.

He craves the thrill of battle and slaughter, so give him unparalleled power.

He desires wealth, so give him inexhaustible treasure.

He yearns for freedom, so give him the greatest possible freedom.

Scamming and phishing, of course, the more extravagant the story, the better!

But you can’t oversell it all at once; to avoid the situation where, after the first successful attempt, you can’t fool him the second time, you have to “pay” in installments.

Lu Yibei thought, while continuously sending “signals” to Suolang Baima, silently activating royal authority and her charm ability.

Charm to beguile the mind and shake faith, royal authority to notarize promises and make them believable.

Although Lu Yibei hadn’t asked Qing Ji whether these two abilities could increase the success rate when casting spell formations, it didn’t cost anything to try.

At worst, just start over!

——–

“I promise…”

A vague voice echoed in Suolang Baima’s mind.

Immediately, as if hallucinating, he saw himself walking the world like a deity, saw endless battles, mountains of corpses and seas of blood enough to drown an entire city, saw the operators of The Midnight Watchers Society who once hunted him like a stray dog, finally cut down by his blade…

What the hallucination showed was the power he had once desperately craved but could never obtain.

Yet even after seeing such a scene, he still didn’t believe the voice’s promise to him, until he used his psychic sense to carefully probe the faint psychic energy fluctuation that accompanied the voice…

He believed, and an unprecedented frenzy rose in his heart.

That psychic energy fluctuation carried a majestic, overwhelming aura, as if a deity had notarized it, proving that everything promised was true.

No, it might even be a natural disaster that could be called a deity!

If that’s the case, maybe she really could do it! Suolang Baima thought.

Just as he was tempted by power and his mind wavered for a moment, silver-gray mist rose around him, enveloped him, and pulled his consciousness toward the location where the directional soul-summoning spell formation was being cast.

——–

Inside the dilapidated unfinished building.

Lu Yibei, eyes tightly shut, suddenly felt the psychic energy fluctuation around her tremble violently, whipping up fierce winds.

Something was coming! Could it be that the spell formation succeeded?

No way, didn’t the Ancestors say that this directional soul-summoning spell formation isn’t easy to learn, and that it’s normal to fail a few times when first practicing?

Even he himself failed five times, only barely succeeded on the sixth… Wait, oh no!

Could it be that something went wrong somewhere, and summoned some unknown entity?

Thinking this, Lu Yibei abruptly opened her eyes and looked ahead.

The dark corner of the unfinished building was already shrouded in silver-gray light, and a pale flame flickered on the open space before the incense table, constantly expanding and emitting light without warmth.

Seeing this, Lu Yibei’s heart skipped a beat. She silently stored the items needed for the directional soul-summoning spell formation into the Divine Land prototype, then took out the Pure Lotus Sword and several Alchemical Bomb 3.1 test versions.

These test version Alchemical Bombs were all modified from the last bit of stock she had left, abandoning the original transparent containers for inconspicuous, gray-black camouflaged metal containers.

Back in Tang City, Lu Yibei discovered that the mixture inside the Alchemical Bombs always glowed, and using transparent containers made it easy for enemies to spot them during use, reducing hit rate.

Although you could make up for lack of accuracy with quantity–as long as the bombardment covered a wide enough area, it was fine–but that was still wasteful.

So, after returning to Hua City, she began improving the containers for the Alchemical Bombs, resulting in these “utterly ordinary” little gadgets.

As for why it’s 3.1 and not 4.0… Mainly because only the appearance was changed, the actual power wasn’t much enhanced.

When used together with Paper Cicada Immortal, it could also shield Paper Cicada Immortal’s psychic energy fluctuation–a double benefit!

It’s just that engraving a solidified spell formation onto every Alchemical Bomb container was too much work for Lu Yibei to handle alone, so she had already asked Du Sixian to help procure them.

Once the new batch of Alchemical Bombs paired with Paper Cicada Immortal is made, they should be ready to use.

However, she already had an idea for the 4.0 upgrade: just engrave a solidified spell formation on the metal shell to shield against psychic sense detection.

Time ticked by, second by second. After more than ten seconds,

that cluster of pale flames spread to its limit, then suddenly began to spiral, forming a surging vortex.

Immediately after, a pitch-black, profound void, like a lifeless eye, slowly opened at the center of the vortex, as if a tiny rift to the underworld had been torn open.

Deep within the rift, something was writhing, carrying a distinctly inhuman, unsettling aura.

Cold, dark, and filled with the stench of death.

The faint psychic energy scattered in the air around them grew inexplicably heavy, trembling and emitting a faint shriek, as if resisting the arrival of whatever was emerging from the vortex.

Lu Yibei gripped her sword in her right hand and cradled a bomb in her left, silently recalling the incantations for various spell formations, ready for anything.

She was fully prepared–if anything strange crawled out of the vortex formed by the spell formation, she would immediately unleash a full set of “Calamity standard combos.”

According to Qing Ji, if the directional soul-summoning spell formation went awry and summoned some unknown entity, it had to be dealt with at once, or the consequences would be unimaginable.

After all, those uninvited guests often came with intense malice.

[It’s coming out.]

The premonition flashed through Lu Yibei’s mind. Without a second thought, she hurled the Alchemical Bomb in her hand.

No matter if what she summoned was Suolang Baima or not, she’d blow it up first and ask questions later!

If it really was Suolang Baima’s soul, even if she blew him up, she could just summon him again. It would even save her the trouble of sending the soul off after the summoning.

If not… well, she’d just be seizing the initiative and catching it off guard! Lu Yibei thought.

The next moment, a black shadow shot out from the vortex, landing before her and instantly condensing into a chaotic silhouette, much like an unformed haunting.

Suolang Baima, awakened from the silence of death, steadied himself on the open ground before the altar. Feeling the breeze brushing against his body, he was overjoyed and abruptly opened his eyes. A pale gleam flashed in his cloudy gaze.

But as he gathered his wits and looked toward the powerful presence that had summoned him here, his already muddled mind was instantly flooded with question marks, growing even more confused.

Where am I? Who is this woman? Wait! What does she want?

While Suolang Baima was pondering, two fist-sized metal spheres flew from Lu Yibei’s hand, tracing an arc and landing at his feet with two soft clinks.

In the next instant, a small, crimson handprint appeared on each metal sphere. The glow of the handprints intensified in a blink, and then…

They exploded.

“Boom—-!”

A deafening blast turned Suolang Baima’s vision blinding white. The shadow of death closed in, filling him with terror.

The entire unfinished building trembled. The floors above and below were blasted through, leaving two holes over five meters in diameter, blown straight through. Flying debris, swept up by a violent wind, carried searing heat and dazzling arcs of electricity, rampaging through the cramped space.

In the final moment before his consciousness faded, Suolang Baima realized he had been betrayed after all, and let out a mournful wail, “You lied to me—-!”

“Cough, cough!” Hiding in the shadows, Lu Yibei coughed, fanning away the thick smoke before her, muttering, “Why does this guy talk so unpleasantly?”

“How is that lying? That’s called ‘the above content is for reference only, everything is subject to actual circumstances, and final interpretation belongs to Calamity.’ Besides…”

“Just answer me–wasn’t that Alchemical Bomb powerful!?”

With that, she waited a moment. When the smoke in the corridor cleared, she once again took out the materials and items needed for the directional soul-summoning spell formation, preparing for a second attempt.

This spell formation was truly wicked; just because it worked once didn’t mean it would work every time. In her view, before performing a directional soul summoning for Hu Chuan, she needed much more practice.

Since she could successfully summon Suolang Baima, it proved that summoning him was safe. At the very least, she should practice on him a hundred times or so until she mastered the spell formation, right? Lu Yibei thought.

So, she lit the incense candles, offered the sacrifice, recited the ritual words… The second directional soul-summoning practice began.

From the silence of death, Suolang Baima awakened once more, his mind in chaos.

In a haze, he felt a surge of anger, yet couldn’t recall the reason for his fury. He only vaguely remembered that he seemed to have been deceived.

At that moment, he heard a voice–a young girl’s voice.

“I promise…” As the girl’s voice echoed in his mind, an illusion appeared before his eyes.

He saw heaven again.

Strange, why “again”?

In that illusion, he possessed a palace of unparalleled magnificence, unseen by any in the world, adorned with gold, inlaid with countless treasures. Eternal lamps made from haunting core entities cast lights of every color, sketching out clear skies, blue heavens, white clouds, and rosy glows upon the castle’s dome. Deep within the palace was a treasury piled high with all kinds of psychic artifacts and materials…

Is this supposed to fool me? Who would believe that! Suolang Baima thought mockingly.

And then, he believed it.

A silvery-gray mist enveloped his body, carrying him into the unfinished building.

Suolang Baima opened his eyes, his gaze dazed as he looked around. Before he could see the one who had made him the promise and summoned him here, an ancient Broken Sword silently pressed against his throat and slashed hard…

In terror, he turned his head and saw a pair of icy eyes.

Those golden pupils flickered with a crimson light, devoid of any human emotion, like a demon god.

To see hope, only to have it crushed in an instant–what followed was a shock more terrifying than fear or despair.

As the sword rose and fell, the unformed haunting condensed from Suolang Baima’s soul dissipated once more. Lu Yibei shrugged, put away the Pure Lotus Sword, and walked toward the incense table not far away.

Thus, the third targeted summoning began.

——–

“Suolang Baima, does the soul return!”

After completing the process of casting the targeted spell formation, Lu Yibei called Suolang Baima’s name again, but received no response. She couldn’t help but furrow her brows slightly.

“Suolang Baima, does the soul return!”

She called again, but still received no response.

Lu Yibei, “……”

What’s going on? Why isn’t it working? Which step went wrong?

As she pondered, a faint sound of metal shattering suddenly reached her ears.

“Crack… crack…”

Looking toward the sound, she saw that the curved blade once belonging to Suolang Baima on the incense table had shattered, turning to powder and scattering with the wind.

The lingering regret bound to the blade had completely dissipated.

“……”

After a few seconds of silence, Lu Yibei’s willow brows arched slightly. With a thought, a string of Tibetan Heaven Beads and a waist pendant appeared in her hand.

“Heh, didn’t expect this, did you? Besides the Yibei curved blade, I’ve got more!”

Thus, the third targeted summoning spell formation began again.

——–

“I promise…”

The girl’s voice rang in his ears, jolting Suolang Baima awake. For some reason, his soul trembled, and a thick fear flooded his heart.

Then, the illusion shaped by the promise appeared before his eyes. He saw someone create a world for him.

A world with no rules, no laws, no moral constraints. He gained power surpassing any natural disaster, unmatched in the world, and possessed inexhaustible treasures. Every shackle that had once bound his freedom was broken; the whole world bowed at his feet, letting him do as he pleased…

And then, he believed it again.

Though a voice inside him desperately tried to stop him, such a promise was simply irresistible for someone like him.

She gave far too much.jpg

So, wrapped in the silvery-gray mist and brought before Lu Yibei, in less than five seconds, Suolang Baima once again met his end–beheaded.

——–

Time passed.

In less than two hours, having experienced death more than twenty times, Suolang Baima was once again run through by the Pure Lotus Sword.

At the moment he turned his head sharply, he saw those terrifying eyes again.

In that instant, something surfaced in his mind. The scenes of his more than twenty deaths flashed before his eyes, and terror exploded in his mind.

Is this the hell after death?

All this torment must be punishment for what I did in life, right?

If that’s the case, I confess! As Suolang Baima’s consciousness faded into silence, this thought flashed through his mind.

The legendary Avici Hell is just like this–countless deaths and rebirths every day, burned by fire, struck by lightning, cut by blades… Suffering the pain of life and death without pause, punished endlessly, life and death without respite, until final extinction and release.

So, he let go of everything. All those worldly desires vanished, and his heart became clear and empty.

In the next moment, all the items belonging to Suolang Baima in Lu Yibei’s hands turned to dust.

Lu Yibei, “……”

What, that’s it?

I’ve been killed by the Ancestors thousands of times and never ended up like this. Are you just a sore loser?

Tsk, people these days are just too fragile!