Chapter 135: I Hate It When People Smurf!

Within Longxing County.

Almost at the exact moment of Wang Ping's death, Chenlong—who had been practicing his forms and polishing his Divine Intent—suddenly sensed something. His expression instantly contorted.

A second later, crimson flames ignited across his body. The Divine Armor Wang Ping had been wearing abruptly materialized, returning to Chenlong. Yet, seeing this brought Chenlong no joy. His face darkened instead, and an intense killing intent erupted in his eyes.

"That brat... died?"

How is that possible? I even lent out the Divine Armor. Who could have killed him?

The First Seat had specifically followed him. With the First Seat there, if a genuinely fatal crisis had arisen, she should have pulled him out ahead of time.

Why did this happen?

At this thought, Chenlong's mind fell into such turmoil that the flames on his body flickered violently several times. It took him a long while to regain his composure and stop his lapse in control.

"It's fine. He can resurrect."

"I just don't know if his resurrection method is reliable, or what tier it is. If the tier is too low and someone interrupts the process, things will be bad."

Chenlong reached into his robes and quickly pulled out a small booklet—the Tribute Hall's exclusive Divine General Registry. Seeing that the ink belonging to Yin Hu had not vanished, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. The name that kid left behind is still there. There is still room to salvage this afterward."

In Great Shun, resurrection was nothing rare.

As a top-tier faction in Great Shun that frequently engaged in bloody battles with extraordinary persons and evil entities, suffering a consistently high mortality rate, the Tribute Hall naturally possessed its own methods of resurrection.

That method was the Divine General Registry.

As long as someone personally wrote their name within it, they would be recorded. Even if they died, they could be resurrected through sacrificial rituals.

Chenlong himself had experienced this once.

Of course, upon resurrection, their name would vanish from the Divine General Registry. Rewriting one's name in it would invisibly shave away a portion of a person's destiny.

Thus, it could not be used frequently. Using it too many times would only render one's destiny increasingly tragic, causing them to die in ever more arbitrary ways until they could eventually no longer afford the price of resurrection. Therefore, the Tribute Hall constantly warned all its tributes never to treat resurrection as a trump card to act recklessly.

After all, there was no such thing in this world as a resurrection without a price.

Whoosh...

Right at that moment, a gentle breeze suddenly kicked up in the courtyard. Along with it came an ethereal voice: "There is no need to worry. Yin Hu is perfectly fine."

"First Seat!"

Chenlong shuddered and immediately looked toward the breeze. "Iron City Mountain is merely a single blessed land with only three Loose Immortals. How could they have killed that kid?"

The ethereal voice replied in an exasperated tone, "With your meager level of skill, why ask so many questions? Settle down and polish your Divine Intent properly. When you break through to the Great Grandmaster Rank, then you can ask about these things."

As the voice faded, the gentle breeze in the courtyard also died down, indicating she had left. Seeing this, Chenlong could only sigh helplessly. He was just about to resume his forms when he saw Xugou walk out from the adjacent room, rubbing his sleepy eyes. "Brother, what just happened?" Xugou asked curiously.

Chenlong's face instantly darkened at the sight.

"With your meager level of skill, why ask so many questions? Settle down and polish your martial arts properly. When you break through to the Grandmaster Rank, then you can ask me about these things!"

Xugou: "???"

...

Great Peace Mortuary.

Wang Ping opened his eyes. Looking at the towering tome before him, he let out a long breath before his entire body went limp, collapsing to the ground as if paralyzed.

He had survived again!

Almost immediately, the towering tome flipped its pages with a rustling sound. On the blank sixth scripture scroll, large blocks of text continuously formed, accompanied by flashing images.

Finally, the words slowly settled into place.

[Scroll Six: Sacrificial Substitute]

[There are many unlucky fools in this world who take the fall for others, but you are one of the very few who actively volunteered. When the Heaven-Stealing Thief discovered you, his mouth nearly twisted off from grinning so hard.]

[Upon activating this scripture scroll, you may designate targets and transfer any damage they receive onto yourself. There is no limit to the number of targets.]

Wang Ping: "..."

Was this scripture scroll mocking him!?

Wang Ping's head throbbed with anger. By now, he had naturally figured it out: the Heaven-Stealing Thief's original plan to rescue Ye Chao had absolutely nothing to do with him.

It was simply because he had actively shown up and taken Ye Chao's identity, allowing the Heaven-Stealing Thief to discover he possessed such an ability, that the thief shifted the plan onto him... In other words, when he smugly thought he was making high-tier plays, he was actually the one getting played by the Heaven-Stealing Thief.

"But can you really blame me for this?"

Wang Ping abruptly glared at the towering tome. "I admit I messed up this time, but even if I am ninety percent at fault, aren't you at fault too?"

"This was premeditated! Someone was pulling the strings!"

"Taiping Sutra, you definitely planned all of this!"

At the end of the day, the root of everything was his transmigration into this wretched place called Longxing County. Every single event had erupted around this focal point.

Daoist Nun You, Shouchong, Liansheng Bodhisattva.

Madam Su, Chen Luoyan, Ye Chao.

Just because he had landed in Longxing County, he ended up crashing headfirst into this series of utter messes. How could anyone say the Taiping Sutra wasn't manipulating things from the shadows?

This caused a thought to involuntarily spring up in Wang Ping's mind:

'Is this broken cheat trying to force me, its master, to work hard by whatever means necessary?'

Thinking about it carefully, while the hellish difficulty of the Longxing County starting zone had nearly killed him several times, it had correspondingly allowed him to grow at a rapid pace.

Without Longxing County, he wouldn't have encountered the Tribute Hall, nor would he have had any way to obtain the world's absolute peak martial arts. Much less would he have been able to slay Kongzhi—whose strength far exceeded his own—rapidly flesh out his foundation, and reach the Martial Dao Grandmaster Rank... From this perspective, such a starting point really did temper him as the tome's master.

At the same time, the Taiping Sutra itself had also gained a tremendous boost.

Prior to this, the Taiping Sutra only possessed one scripture scroll, and its only ability was to resurrect someone. Yet now, there were a full six scripture scrolls within the tome.

How glaringly obvious was this progress?

At this thought, Wang Ping couldn't help but look at the towering tome before him, only to see its light flickering on and off, as if to say: Master, you need to work harder.

My abilities as a cheat are limitless.

As for my current lackluster performance, it is mostly because you, my master, are not working hard enough. If you managed to get me seven or eight hundred scripture scrolls, would I still be so weak?

Wang Ping: "..."

This is a complete scam!!!

For a moment, Wang Ping's chest heaved with fury. Even though these were just words he had imagined, he couldn't shake the feeling that the Taiping Sutra actually thought this way.

Dammit, who the hell developed this kind of cheat?

Once I become an immortal in the future, I am definitely going to create a better one!

He had to admit, the thrill of surviving a near-death experience was truly exhilarating. Wang Ping just kept cursing and swearing, venting his emotions to his heart's content.

It wasn't until a moment later that he finally caught his breath. Standing up, he shifted his thoughts to another problem. "This time, I took on Ye Chao's destiny and even obtained a true spiritual root. I'm afraid I can't go to the Immortal Gate anymore. After all, Ye Chao's past incarnation, that True Transmission Kunlun, is obviously a wanted fugitive in the Immortal Gate."

Bringing the other party's destiny directly to the Immortal Gate...

How was that behavior any different from a wanted criminal slapping a bounty poster on their own forehead and running to the supermarket to buy cigarettes? It was practically laying his cards on the table and begging the Immortal Gate to come arrest him.

So for the short term, going to the Immortal Gate was definitely out of the question.

As for Great Shun, while resurrecting on the spot wasn't bad, what if that shameless Heaven-Stealing Thief was spawn-camping and ambushed him again?

It wasn't impossible!

'After all, that old bastard pulled something similar back when he was disguised as Shouchong...' At this thought, Wang Ping completely vetoed the Great Shun plan as well.

Since that was the case, there was only one place left to go.

At this thought, Wang Ping couldn't help but raise his head. He looked at the towering tome, scrutinizing the third portal highlighted by the Outer Heavenly Demon scripture scroll.

[Heavenly Demon Royal Court].

"Master Kongzhi, you truly are my noble benefactor."

I won't forget you for the rest of my life!

Wang Ping walked up to the portal, pondering inwardly. "Unlike the Immortal Gate, the fundamental nature of this Heavenly Demon Royal Court should be the same as Great Shun. It's a lower realm belonging to the Brahma Nation."

If he went straight to the Brahma Nation, Wang Ping would still feel somewhat guilty and anxious; after all, his current destiny was simply too conspicuous. But if it was in a lower realm, things would be much simpler. First of all, no almighty figures paid attention to the lower realms. Secondly, the cultivators of a lower realm shouldn't possess the capability to deduce his destiny either.

At the very least, the risk was much lower than staying in Great Shun or heading to the Immortal Gate.

"Once I go to the Heavenly Demon Royal Court, assuming it's safe, I can take the opportunity to survive there for a while. Ideally, I'll max out my resurrection charges before returning to Great Shun."

With this thought in mind, Wang Ping walked nervously up to the portal.

"Please, no more experts."

By this point, the Great Shun World couldn't even be considered a low-tier fish pond anymore. After all, a vicious smurfing expert like the Heaven-Stealing Thief had barged in.

And the thing he hated most in his life was people who came to low-tier lobbies to smurf. They had zero class and only knew how to crush noobs. What was so fun about crushing noobs anyway?

What? I'm smurfing too?

I'm not 'other people'!

Wang Ping smoothed out his thoughts and strode straight into the third portal.

...

Great Shun, Jiannan Circuit.

Inside an inn room where a massive battle had just occurred unnoticed by anyone, rippling lights suddenly shimmered. Two figures then stepped out.

It was none other than the Heaven-Stealing Thief and Ye Chao.

"Hmm... It seems he went somewhere else."

"What a pity. If he had resurrected on the spot, I could have settled this once and for all."

The Heaven-Stealing Thief rubbed his chin, a hint of regret in his voice. "He didn't resurrect in Great Shun, and I didn't sense anything from the Immortal Gate. Could he have run off to the territories ruled by the Brahma Nation?"

"He can resurrect like that? Worth recording..."

Right at this moment, Ye Chao—the former Immortal Gate True Transmission, Kunlun—shook his head beside him. "He's just a Mortal. Why tangle with him like this?"

"You don't understand."

The Heaven-Stealing Thief's eyes gleamed brightly. "The exotic treasure on his person is absolutely extraordinary."

"Extraordinary in what way?" Kunlun shot back.

"A mere black-headed commoner, a phantom forcibly left behind by the rebellious Grand Ancestor, stayed right under my nose for over a dozen years, and I actually never noticed he possessed an exotic treasure."

"Isn't that enough to prove it's extraordinary?"

Seeing this, Kunlun furrowed his brows.

"You mean..."

"Exactly."

The Heaven-Stealing Thief nodded. "Perhaps the karmic opportunity for me to risk entering the Eight Trigrams Furnace, survive my destined tribulation, and achieve Qi Refining to enter the Dao... lies entirely on this person."