Lord of Prayer - Chapter 105 - 90: Waiting Online, Pretty Urgent
Chapter 105: Chapter 90: Waiting Online, Pretty Urgent
Erin was completely stunned.
Such a terrifying explosion… was-was it caused by the bomb she threw?
A sense of panic, the fear of a naughty child being caught, welled up inside her. ’If-if Father and Mother find out, they’ll definitely ground me, ban me from eating sweets, and make me copy the lady’s handbook a hundred times…’
But… but…
She stared blankly at the brilliant, surging burst of flames. But it was so beautiful…
’Is this what setting off fireworks feels like?’
Erin’s heart pounded nervously. Joy, fear, and excitement all tangled together. She had clearly done something wrong, yet she felt an inexplicable, intense thrill she had never experienced before. It made her head spin, and she even felt a little… like she wanted more.
Just then, her vision blurred. The smiling, somewhat deranged Mr. Zhou Chen vanished from before her eyes, charging toward a woman in the distance.
“Go, now!” Zhou Chen’s expression was grave and serious. He looked like a hero willing to risk life and limb to save his comrade as he dashed toward Li Xiaoxiao.
Li Xiaoxiao, who had survived thanks to her plant barrier, couldn’t help but freeze for a moment. She had figured it out long ago—there was a mole in their organization. For the Star Association to show up so quickly, and even attack so decisively despite the risk to civilians, meant they knew the situation here perfectly well.
Although she really didn’t want to suspect Zhou Chen… he was just too suspicious. For something like this to happen on his first visit, coupled with his Star Association background, it was hard not to suspect him of being an undercover agent. That was why she had tried to run off on her own earlier. When disaster strikes, you can only trust yourself.
But Zhou Chen’s current reaction was a complete surprise to Li Xiaoxiao. He didn’t look like an agent…
’No… even if he isn’t an agent, I can’t trust him anymore…’ Li Xiaoxiao’s eyes turned cold. Thick Devil Vines erupted from the ground, lashing toward Zhou Chen like a frenzy of demonic tentacles.
“What are you doing?” Zhou Chen roared as he dodged, displaying the perfect amount of shock, confusion, and anger…
“…” Li Xiaoxiao didn’t answer. With a grim face, she manipulated the Abyssal Plants to form a barrier, defending against the gunfire coming from all directions.
The massive explosion Zhou Chen had engineered completely destroyed the Shadow Demon Pool the Gentleman had been brewing for so long. Without the obstruction of the Shadow Monsters, the Operators immediately began firing and closing in on the Gentleman and Li Xiaoxiao.
The armor on the Operators was all equipped with an Advanced Defense Array, and the material itself was sturdy, so an explosion of this magnitude couldn’t harm them. As for the Cyan Flame, it was ineffective without direct physical contact, so the explosion caused no friendly fire casualties.
The Gentleman, however, being the closest, was not so lucky. The Shadow Demon Pool was part of his Extraordinary Ability, suffused with his turbid Spirituality. And Cyan Flame was an attack that specifically targeted the Spiritual Realm.
Thus, the Shadow Demon Pool, with its vast coverage, became one giant pile of fuel.
Even for a Tier Two Corrupter like the Gentleman, the resulting damage was hard to bear. He felt as if he were inside a boiling furnace. Every thought, every inch of his skin, was engulfed in raging flames. He couldn’t even tell if it was his body being seared or his spirit being burned.
BANG BANG BANG… A torrent of Enchanted Bullets rained down. Dark blossoms of blood bloomed across his body. The bullet holes they gouged out were horrific, deep enough to reveal bone.
The Gentleman grit his teeth against the pain. His body sank, spreading out like a drop of thick ink in water, and quickly faded into a phantom before vanishing completely.
The dense wall of plants withstood the hailstorm of bullets. At its core, Li Xiaoxiao was panting heavily, her face growing paler by the second. Her Extraordinary Essence was nearly depleted.
Just then, the shadow at her feet began to squirm unnaturally. A figure silently emerged from it as if from water—it was the Gentleman, drenched in his own blood.
The Gentleman quietly extended his Walking Stick and tapped Li Xiaoxiao with it.
POOF! With a puff of white smoke, Li Xiaoxiao transformed into a cute little white rabbit.
Just as the Gentleman reached out to grab the white rabbit’s ears, a deep, sinister Chaos Fire erupted from its body. It was a blessing from the King of Chaos. Li Xiaoxiao instantly returned to her original form, and a sharp vine shot up from the ground, piercing the Gentleman through. It tried to fling him away, but only the vine itself whipped through the air.
The Gentleman stood in the same spot, his body now dim and blurry. He had already entered his Phantom State and suffered no damage. He extended his Walking Stick again, but a prepared Li Xiaoxiao blocked it with a poisonous flower. POOF! The poisonous flower turned into a small plastic flower.
It seemed to be a magic wand.
RAT-TAT-TAT…
The machine gun whirred, spitting fire. A metal storm, like a thunder-and-fire whip, swept toward them as countless red-hot shell casings were ejected from the weapon.
Zhou Chen, who had been dodging the vine attacks, had a drastic change in expression. He bent his knees and leaped high, pushing off a thick vine in mid-air to launch himself backward. After a full seven-hundred-and-twenty-degree rotation, he landed perfectly in a rather beautiful gymnastic pose, safely out of the machine gun’s firing range.
’Are these guys trying to get some personal revenge?’ Zhou Chen glanced at the Operators who were firing. ’So petty. All I did was make a big star-shaped explosion and bomb you a little. It’s not like you got hurt…’
Under the high-speed barrage of the machine gun, plant debris flew everywhere. The wall of vines, grass, and flowers was visibly disintegrating, on the verge of being torn to shreds.
Suddenly, something unexpected happened.
The Gentleman tapped his Walking Stick firmly on the ground. He and Li Xiaoxiao vanished in plain sight, just like magicians performing a vanishing act on stage. By the time the bullets tore through the plant barrier, they only whistled through empty air.
’Where’d they go?’
Zhou Chen was stunned. ’Is that Walking Stick really so magical?’
“They’ve teleported to the third floor!” Jiang Che’s voice crackled over the comms channel.
Dozens of Operators leaped directly up through the gaps in the floorboards to give chase, while a few others stayed behind on guard.
“Let’s go, let’s go, we need to get out of here,” Zhou Chen said, going back to pick up his sack and waving Erin over. Now was the time to leave.
He wanted to go after Li Xiaoxiao and the Gentleman, but he couldn’t just leave Erin behind. It wouldn’t take long to get her to a safe place and then come back.
The two of them hurried toward a breach on the first floor, but a tremendous RUMBLE suddenly echoed from above. Zhou Chen reacted instantly, yanking Erin back by the shoulder.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The floors collapsed one after another. Countless shattered bricks and concrete fragments smashed onto the ground, kicking up a thick cloud of dust. Two figures could be vaguely seen grappling within it.
One was the Gentleman. The other was a young man with sharp features and fierce, aggressive eyes. It was the Steward codenamed “Ghost Wolf.”
His body was partially transformed into that of a Werewolf. His teeth had become sharp saber-toothed fangs, his nails were sharp and deadly, and his pupils were completely inhuman—a ghastly green, glinting with a vicious light.
The Gentleman looked a little disheveled. He never would have imagined that after using his Walking Stick to teleport himself and Li Xiaoxiao to the third floor to escape the machine gun fire, he would have the terrible luck of running into a Steward from Eternal Fire. The man had charged him without a word, locking him in a deadly struggle and allowing Li Xiaoxiao to escape in the chaos.
And in order to buy Li Xiaoxiao enough time to escape, this Steward had decisively smashed through the floors, using a relentless, storm-like assault to force him all the way from the third floor back down to the first!
“Such a willingness to die for your cause is truly admirable.”
Though he was in a sorry state, the Gentleman flashed a smile of approval. His form turned Phantom, evading Ghost Wolf’s monstrously strong punches and kicks. With a mere thought, he dragged Ghost Wolf’s feet into a Shadow Demon Pool that had formed from his own shadow.
Ghost Wolf strained with all his might and broke free with sheer brute force, silently continuing his assault.
“I’ll give you a chance to live. Leave Eternal Fire and join Fallen Paradise. We need fresh blood like you,” the Gentleman said, dodging left and right as he extended a sincere invitation.
Ghost Wolf didn’t speak, answering with his actions instead. His attacks grew even fiercer, every punch and every claw packed with terrifying, monstrous strength.
“If that’s how it is…” The Gentleman sighed in resignation. His figure abruptly vanished from in front of Ghost Wolf. Only a Walking Stick emerged from Ghost Wolf’s shadow.
A casual tap.
POOF! Like an exaggerated magic trick, a puff of white smoke rose. Ghost Wolf’s head, torso, arms, and legs all came apart, clattering to the ground in a heap.
Strangely, Ghost Wolf wasn’t dead. Not a single drop of blood was spilled, and all his separated limbs could still move, just like a volunteer in a Human Body Cutting magic trick.
“You should know, the only reason I’m not killing that lady is because she has information I need. You, on the other hand, are of no use to me.” The Gentleman extended his Walking Stick, as if to tap the center of Ghost Wolf’s forehead.
Suddenly, his senses twitched. He whipped around and tapped, turning an Alchemy Bomb into quicksand.
Zhou Chen’s eye twitched. He wasn’t trying to save Ghost Wolf; he just wanted to use the opportunity to land another cheap shot on the Gentleman and buy some time. He hadn’t expected the man to react so quickly.
“Heh, did you really think I’d fall for that again?”
The Gentleman sized up Zhou Chen, raising an eyebrow slightly. “I can see the hidden hatred in your eyes. Combining that with your act of revenge…
Ah, now I remember. A month ago, I attacked a Star Association squad and devoured all of their Souls. But one person was lucky enough to hold on until the rescue team arrived… you’re that Lucky One?
How interesting. In just one month, you became an Ascender and even mastered Alchemy. Was it the thirst for vengeance that drove you? It seems hatred really is the world’s best catalyst.
But how did you restore your Soul?”
At this point, the Gentleman paused, as if a possibility had occurred to him. He studied the Avenger before him with a look of slight astonishment. “Or could it be… you’re still in a state of having a fragmented Soul?”
Just then, Jiang Che’s voice came over the comms channel:
“Zhou Chen, find a way to stall the Gentleman. Not for long, just fifteen seconds. The other Operators will be there by then.”
…Zhou Chen let out a scornful scoff. “Take a guess.”
He tossed the sack to Erin and said calmly, “You go on ahead. I’ll deal with this filthy Corrupter.”
Erin caught the sack and heaved it over her shoulder. She knew it wasn’t very ladylike, but she had no choice. Besides, she knew she would only be a burden here, so she turned and left without hesitation, leaving behind only a word of encouragement: “Good luck, Mr. Zhou Chen!”
The Gentleman paid her no mind, merely asking with a curious smile, “You seem quite confident. Where do you get that courage?”
’Yeah, where do I get this courage…’ On the surface, Zhou Chen was as cool as a cucumber, but on the inside, he was freaking out.
’Okay, I’ve made my threats and struck my pose. Now it’s time to deal with a more realistic problem.’
’What should I do now that I’ve just provoked a Tier Two Corrupter?’
’Waiting online for an answer. It’s urgent.’
