Chapter 182 - 181: The Dumbfounded Cleaner

Chapter 182: Chapter 181: The Dumbfounded Cleaner

A grill, meat skewers, various vegetables and fruits, and even a few bottles of beer were arranged beneath the Netherworld rift inside the giant crater.

Wisps of smoke drifted up. The unique aroma of charcoal grilling fat wafted into the nostrils of everyone present.

It made their mouths water unconsciously.

"GULP!"

The Sword Nurturer and Feng Yu swallowed hard in unison. After one stimulus after another, they couldn’t deny that they were starting to feel a bit hungry.

He Xiaotian was also surprised. He hadn’t expected the Trickster to have so many skills.

Not only was his braised pork good, but his barbecue skills were also top-notch.

Look at his practiced technique, the flair with which he sprinkled the seasoning. He must have spent a lot of time as a cook back when he was wandering the country.

"Let me tell you, when you’re out on the road, you have to know a little bit of everything. Otherwise, you’ll starve to death by the roadside sooner or later. You guys have never truly been hungry. That feeling is just awful," the Trickster said with a hint of bitterness, looking as if he had suffered quite a bit in his early years.

And where did the grill and all that come from, you ask?

From He Xiaotian’s storage space, of course!

Just storing hammers in it was too much of a waste, so the guy had bought a ton of food and stuffed it inside.

He had a serious persecution complex, terrified that one day he’d be left high and dry without any supplies.

So, he had stored a large amount of meat, vegetables, fruit, and purified water in the space.

If he ate sparingly, the food inside was enough to last him for a whole month.

But tonight, these emergency rations were the unlucky ones.

And just as unlucky was the Trickster.

After all, with that much meat and vegetables, he could be grilling until tomorrow morning and probably wouldn’t even get through half of it.

There was nothing to be done about it. Who could have known that when He Xiaotian really let loose, his appetite was enormous?

The Sword Nurturer and Feng Yu, naturally, weren’t sitting idle either.

One was in charge of chopping the meat, the other of skewering it.

The golden blade finally had a chance to be put to good use.

It was just that the blade, on the verge of transforming into an Abnormal Item, was a little less than thrilled about it.

"Yo! Nurturer, your knife skills are pretty good! I didn’t know you had it in you. Why don’t you just settle down with me in Shanghai? The two of us could open a barbecue joint. We’d definitely make a killing!" the Trickster said, watching the Sword Nurturer slice a large slab of meat into pieces with a few swift strokes.

The Sword Nurturer: "..."

’Barbecue my ass!’

’I still have to travel the country collecting my blades!’

’Wait, that’s not right.’

’It seems that, apart from that little bastard Feng Yu’s ghost-head blade...’

’...the earliest of my other blades aren’t due to be collected for another year.’

Because the Sword Nurturer lineage was passed down to a single heir and they didn’t charge money for their blades, every last one of them was dirt poor.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to expand or that they were trying to maintain some so-called air of mystery.

It was that a person with the special talent to become a Sword Nurturer might not be found even once in several decades.

It was no surprise their numbers were so thin.

On top of that, they had to go out to collect their blades, spending their days constantly on the road.

Other than being pretty slick with a knife, they didn’t really have any other skills.

Ever since finishing his apprenticeship, the Sword Nurturer had gotten by on odd jobs and slaying evil spirits just to earn a bit of spending money.

Just thinking about it was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

’So... should I really team up with the Trickster and open a barbecue joint?’

"CRUNCH! CRUNCH!"

He Xiaotian sat on a small stool, downing one skewer after another. His mouth was slick with grease, and damn, was it good.

The three-man barbecue team couldn’t keep up with the demand at all.

The Sword Nurturer had to cut his train of thought short and get back to slicing meat.

’Make money?’

’I’d better focus on keeping this Boss next to me happy first!’

Meanwhile, dozens of SUVs arrived at the foot of Snake Mountain.

At the same time, a convoy of military trucks followed close behind.

Soldiers disembarked quickly and in an orderly fashion.

They then pulled out heavy weapons, began to calibrate them, and aimed them straight at the mountain’s peak.

Deputy Minister Roger led a group of Cleaners, marching rapidly up the mountain.

Although the energy signature on the detector had only been a brief flash...

...something that reached the level of a Wolf-rank disaster could never be underestimated.

What if this thing had been lying dormant and one day couldn’t hold back and decided to make a big splash? How much damage would that cause?

No one knew!

So, they had to nip the danger in the bud as much as possible.

The last battle at the Medical University was a bloody lesson.

After reaching the summit and walking for no more than a hundred meters,

the group froze in place, stunned.

A deep crater, over a thousand meters in diameter, lay before them.

What kind of power could unleash such a terrifying attack?!

"Sir, I remember there being a temple here, right? I think it was an important stronghold for the Taoist Alliance in Shanghai," a specialist who was on good terms with Roger asked blankly as he stared at the giant crater.

"Don’t tell me Shouyangzi and his people were completely wiped out?"

’How horrifying!’

It had just appeared and it had already wiped out the Diviner’s junior brother.

Don’t be fooled by Shouyangzi’s usual flakiness; he was a bit greedy, stingy, and even secretly scheming.

He looked like a typical underachiever with no ambition, a disgrace to the Taoist arts.

In reality, the guy had a great many tricks up his sleeve.

Divine Void Temple was located on the sparsely populated Snake Mountain. Apart from the crowds of tourists during the day, the nights were terrifyingly silent.

To say that nothing ever happened there would be impossible.

But for the past six months, the old Taoist had run his temple peacefully and securely.

That wasn’t something an ignorant good-for-nothing could have managed.

The group took a few steps forward, wanting to get a better look and see how deep the crater was.

It would also help them indirectly deduce just how powerful this disaster was.

But before they had taken more than a few steps, a strange expression appeared on their faces.

"Lei, why am I smelling barbecue?" Captain Su, who was walking behind, asked as he nudged Lei Yang’s arm.

"You know, now that you mention it, I am getting a little hungry," Lei Yang replied nonchalantly.

Zheng Peng and his entourage: "..."

’Can you guys be a little more serious?’

’This is a Wolf-rank disaster, a terrible event that could inflict heavy losses on us.’

’What the hell is this about being hungry?!’

Roger raised a hand, halting the group.

"I’ll go take a look first. You all stay on high alert."

With the official Minister of the Cleaners absent, he was the strongest one present.

If the disaster that triggered the red alert was lying in ambush inside the crater, a lot of people would definitely be caught in its trap.

By all logic and duty, he had to be the one to lead from the front.

Roger cautiously walked to the edge of the deep crater and peeked over.

And then... and then he just stood there, dumbfounded.

The expression on his face shifted repeatedly, and his body began to tremble uncontrollably.

The group behind him turned pale with fright.

’Has some ultimate Boss appeared?’

’Otherwise, why would their normally composed Deputy Minister be so horrified that he was trembling?’

The only one who could scare Roger this badly was the Food King, who had once appeared out of thin air and nearly killed him, beating him senseless in just three moves!

"I... I fucking..."

Roger held it in for a long time before finally letting out a curse.

It wasn’t that he had a foul mouth; it was just that the scene at the bottom of the giant crater was truly, utterly unexpected.

’I came here facing a great enemy, ready to die at any moment.’

’And after all that melodrama, this is what you show me?’

"AHHH—! X, I’m going to fucking kill you!"