Chapter 167 - 136: Time to Reveal the Health Bar, Hidden Boss

Chapter 167: Chapter 136: Time to Reveal the Health Bar, Hidden Boss

As it spoke, the gray humanoid slowly shrank, transforming into a young child just a few years old.

"To think you actually found this place."

Immediately after, the child rapidly grew, his straight back hunching over as he morphed into an old man with blurred features.

It continued to shift its appearance like this, its voice constantly switching between various tones, looking incredibly eerie.

The group exchanged glances. Seeing this bizarre creature, they couldn’t help but feel an inexplicable sense of dread.

"You seem to have a better head on your shoulders than that guy under the Holy City." Seeing that the entity hadn’t revealed a health bar, Yu Zhun wasn’t in a hurry to attack. He spoke slowly, "Why turn people into Giant Demons?

"Why make them slaughter their own kind?"

"Why?" The gray humanoid let out a cold laugh. "That brings us to a story that happened in this valley a long, long time ago.

"This valley was once the original dwelling place of humanity.

"But with the arrival of an unprecedented drought, humanity fell into a period of extreme food scarcity.

"They ate all the trees, starved until they had to gnaw on dirt, and ultimately... turned their eyes toward their own kind."

The gray humanoid slowly narrated in a hair-raising voice.

"In order to survive, they fed on their own kind.

"At first, it was only the dead. But then things spiraled out of control. Even the weak and living became meals on their plates.

"By the time a spring rain finally fell upon the earth, ending this unprecedented drought, the hundreds of thousands of people who once lived here had been reduced to a mere ten or twenty thousand.

"They survived, but they dared not face the sins they had committed. In the end... they chose to flee this valley.

"They built cities far away from the valley, leaving the kin they had devoured... here forever."

As the gray humanoid’s voice fell, the underground space seemed to brighten a fraction. Only then did the group clearly see that behind this incredibly massive Curse Altar lay countless bleached bones.

Yu Zhun and the others’ pupils shrank in unison. The more timid girls in the party couldn’t even stop themselves from stumbling backward.

The bones of hundreds of thousands of people appearing in such a manner was simply too horrifying. Few of those bones were even intact; the shattered fragments still bore gnaw marks.

"HEH HEH HEH." The gray humanoid on the altar let out another low, cold laugh. "They tacitly buried this history.

"They raised the banner of being the Guardian of the Human Race, built the Holy City, and had the so-called King and Great Sage manage the Human Race’s order.

"But do you know how that massive drought came to be?"

The gray humanoid pointed at the necklace in Yu Zhun’s hand.

"That drought was caused by the King and the Great Sage in order to forge that.

"They secretly extracted all the life force in the vicinity, forming this Chain of Life. Thirty-six springs that supplied humanity’s growth and survival dried up simultaneously. Their actions brought disaster upon everyone.

"While everyone was cannibalizing each other, they never repented for their sins, nor did they make the truth public. They merely hid in the dark, coveting the might of this power.

"Although they distributed a tiny fraction of that power to others after leaving the valley in exchange for support, who would shed a tear for the hundreds of thousands who died?

"On this sinful land, only a bunch of sinners and their descendants live."

The gray humanoid chuckled darkly, its voice making everyone’s hair stand on end.

"They thought they could cover everything up this way.

"But they never expected that the resentment of hundreds of thousands of the dead would birth me—a Demon formed purely of malice.

"I took everything from them, turning those who once devoured their own kind into man-eating Giant Demons.

"The people turned into Giant Demons are fully conscious, yet they cannot control their own bodies. The Chain of Life granted them a formidable strength that humanity cannot resist. They will destroy their own race with their bare hands!

"And all of this is the retribution they deserve!"

As the gray humanoid’s voice sharply pitched upward, the countless white bones behind it began to tremble in unison. It was as if endless resentment and injustice were rushing straight at them, causing the eyes of Yu Zhun’s squad to redden as they swelled with that very same murderous intent and fury.

"Chairman Yu, is the requirement for a perfect clear really to Rescue all the humans and Giant Demons, instead of killing them?" Zhou Yunhao spoke with a hoarse voice. His tightly clenched fists and bloodshot eyes indicated that his emotions had already been swayed by the gray humanoid.

The others were breathing heavily as well, each of them wearing expressions of anger.

Yu Zhun didn’t speak. He ruthlessly pinched his own thigh, forcing himself to shake off the external emotional influence. After a moment of silence, he walked step by step toward the piles of bones behind the altar.

He gently picked up a fragment. Looking at the gruesome bite marks on it, he suddenly spoke softly.

"Tell me...

"Is their anger truly because they were treated as food by their own kind, or because some bastard is twisting the truth right in front of them?"

"You..." A deeply hidden flash of unease flickered in the gray humanoid’s Crimson eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean..." Yu Zhun turned his head and looked at the gray humanoid. "Stop acting.

"After saying all of this, you’re merely trying to bewitch us into giving up on destroying the altar.

"Let me ask you a few questions, alright?"

Yu Zhun walked toward the gray humanoid step by step.

"The Human Race’s Holy City is only inhabited by the King and the Great Sage. So, who could have been responsible for the loss of the Great Sage’s treasure?

"Who set up that Curse Altar in the Holy City?

"Why does the Giant Race have normal Giant Demons and Elite Giant Demons, yet no one has ever seen the Giant Demon Race Leader?

"Where is the Great Sage... right now?

"And finally, these hundreds of thousands of bones."

Yu Zhun pointed at the piles of white bones beside him.

"When people eat people, do they chew up the bones as well?"

With every question Yu Zhun asked, the gray humanoid involuntarily took a step back. By the end, it had retreated all the way to the edge of the altar.

Its constantly shifting, blurred appearance had, at some unknown point, quietly grown clear. It had turned into an old man whose skin was covered in a deathly gray pallor, dressed in tattered luxurious robes and wearing a gilded crown.

Yu Zhun calmly looked at the old man who had revealed his true form.

"You aren’t a Demon formed by the resentment of the dead at all.

"You are the Human King, corrupted by the Demon.

"And he!"

Yu Zhun casually waved his hand. The piles of bones automatically parted to both sides, revealing a straight path leading deep into the skeletal remains. At the end of the path was a Giant Demon trapped by numerous chains. His physique was far more burly than that of an ordinary Giant Demon, yet his eyes were filled with loneliness and sorrow.

"He is the Great Sage, and also the only one not under your control...

"The Giant Demon Race Leader."

The group standing behind Yu Zhun shuddered in unison.

As Yu Zhun pacified the fury of the bones, the influence affecting them gradually dissipated, and they finally regained their composure. Hearing the dubious points Yu Zhun raised, and seeing the gray humanoid who had turned into the Human King, as well as the Giant Demon Race Leader deep within the bones, their expressions shifted to shock and confusion.

"Rich Girl, you asked me earlier how Giant Demons who had eaten people could face themselves if they turned back into humans." Yu Zhun paused slightly.

"But what if the Giant Demons never ate people?

"The one who ate them was him."

Yu Zhun pointed at the corrupted Human King.

"Under his control, the Giant Demons treated humans like livestock. They regularly captured people and sent them here to become his food."

"So that’s how it is," Ji Xiaoyu said, a look of sudden realization dawning on her face.

If the Giant Demons hadn’t actually eaten people and everything had been forced upon them, then once they reverted back to humans, there was naturally hope for them to be accepted again.

"Yun Hao, give this to the Great Sage." Yu Zhun handed the necklace in his hand to Zhou Yunhao.

"To him?" Zhou Yunhao hesitated a little. "Is that really okay?"

"Of course." Yu Zhun smiled. "Why don’t the Giant Demons act hostile toward us, but the ones serving as the Guardian of the springs do?

"Because the Giant Demons acting as the Guardian of the springs are the King’s lackeys. They’re stopping the Great Sage, who is trapped deep underground, from regaining the necklace."

"I see... I’ll give it a try."

After hearing Yu Zhun’s analysis, Zhou Yunhao took the necklace and mustered up the courage to walk toward the Great Sage, who was incarnated as the Giant Demon Race Leader.

"No!"

The corrupted King revealed an expression of uncontainable fury. Murderous intent flashed in his eyes, and the entire altar rumbled and trembled in response.

He strode toward Zhou Yunhao, attempting to block his path.

Yu Zhun stepped in front of him.

"Time to show your health bar, hidden boss."