Chapter 151
Chapter 151: The Truth About the Blood Moon
"Go die!!!"
Zhao Yan's blade swept toward the Watchful Scarecrow's throat!
Clang!!
Sparks flew!
Everyone was certain that this killing blow would sever the monster's head from its body.
But Zhao Yan's eyes suddenly contracted.
The blade had stuck.
The very instant it cut through the Watchful Scarecrow's surface skin—
It was caught in a layer of tenacious muscle lodged between the bones of the neck, unable to advance a single inch further.
"Heh heh heh..."
The Watchful Scarecrow turned its head. It hadn't dodged at all.
Because this body had been reforged from the Black Shark Squad's defensive Tank!
Worlds apart from the fragile cannon-fodder Scarecrows surrounding it!
"It's time to end this..."
Black flames ignited at the Watchful Scarecrow's fingertips, and it hurled them straight at Zhao Yan!
"Is that right? Then guess—why would I dare charge up here alone?"
Faced with flames capable of reducing a person to a dried husk in an instant—
Zhao Yan not only refused to retreat, he laughed coldly.
"You beast—you've been tricked!"
Hum!!
The moment Zhao Yan's words fell!
A holy, pure-white domain crashed down through the night like thunder, enveloping the Watchful Scarecrow completely!
"Hold it down!!!"
Hu Xiaoxiao let out a sharp cry and leaped out from the sea of wheat!
Both hands gripping a spiritual energy staff radiating blinding white light.
Behind her, a phantom of a white nine-tailed fox raised its head and howled at the sky!
This was Hu Xiaoxiao's Ability—Celestial Fox Illusion!
Not only could it provide group healing, it could also deploy a Slow Domain!
Zzt zzt zzt!
The instant the white light enveloped it, the Watchful Scarecrow's movements became sluggish.
Even the black flames were suppressed to a crawl!
In front of Hu Xiaoxiao, Mai Zijian drove his heavy shield into the muddy ground with both hands, shielding her behind it.
A trace of genuine shock finally flickered through the Watchful Scarecrow's eyes.
It finally understood—how had these humans slipped past its Scarecrow army blockade without a sound, and crept directly before it?
Full Map Unlock to avoid detection zones, combined with the Slow Domain to force control of the battlefield.
This squad's tactical synergy was an almost perfect counter to its monster horde!
On the other side of the battlefield, the situation was equally tense!
Bang! Bang!
Squad Captain Xin An twirled her single blade wildly, throwing everything she had into holding back the Liu Feng Scarecrow!
On the distant high ground, Lu Qi's crosshairs had locked onto the Phantom Scarecrow flickering through the darkness in rapid spatial leaps.
Two top-tier snipers were locked in a counter-snipe duel!
It was precisely because of Iron Wall Squad's frantic suppression that the White Eagle Squad's trembling girl—
Dorothy—had finally escaped the clutches of the Liu Feng Scarecrow by the skin of her teeth, tumbling into the safe zone behind the lines.
"Now then—let's see if that turtle shell of yours can still stop my second strike!"
Zhao Yan roared and wrenched the war blade free from the monster's throat by brute force, dragging with it a spray of black blood!
Then, driving from his waist, he brought the second blade crashing down!
Crack!
But just as the blade edge was about to land—
A towering, powerfully built figure stepped in front of the Watchful Scarecrow!
Squelch!
Zhao Yan's blow landed on that figure's shoulder—deep enough to expose bone!
When Zhao Yan saw clearly who had thrown themselves in the monster's path to block the blade, his eyes instantly split wide with murderous rage!
"Iron Bull!!!"
The body standing before him—
Was Iron Bull, who had only just died and been converted into a Scarecrow!
"Does it hurt?"
The Watchful Scarecrow, sheltering behind Iron Bull, let out a mocking laugh.
The neck wound Zhao Yan had carved was already knitting back together at speed as dry straw writhed and churned.
It didn't just want to kill—it wanted to use the comrades humans cherished most, to trample their dignity into the dirt!
"No...I absolutely cannot let this monster keep recovering..."
In that moment of desperate stalemate—
Dorothy, crouching in a corner at the rear, bit down on her pale lips, and a flash of resolve crossed her face!
She knew—if this monster was given time to recover, everyone here would die today.
Whether she wanted to take this risk or not, she had no choice!
With trembling hands, Dorothy reached into her chest and drew out a battered notebook she had kept close the entire time.
Across its weathered cover ran a line of English.
【Death Note】!
She pressed her thumb to her mouth and bit it open!
Then Dorothy lunged forward, sifting through the dried straw that had scattered across the ground when Zhao Yan's first slash struck the monster—
And picked up a single stalk stained with the Watchful Scarecrow's black bodily fluid!
Blood as ink!
Straw as brush!
Dorothy pressed that stalk against a blank page in the notebook.
With her own blood, she wrote 3 characters.
【Watchful Scarecrow】!
Rip!
Dorothy tore out the page bearing the name in one swift motion.
Then she folded it together with the stalk serving as the medium, rapidly shaping it into a paper doll!
"Let me...see you off one last time."
"Go to hell, monster!"
Dorothy's eyes burned crimson. Both hands strained—and she tore the paper doll to shreds!
"Aaaaahhhh!!!"
The instant the paper doll was torn apart—
Dorothy suddenly let out a cry of anguish!
Her entire body collapsed to the ground, hands clutching her throat and heart.
She convulsed and thrashed wildly in the mud, blood-tinged tears streaming from the corners of her eyes!
This was the trump card she had kept hidden all along.
Sequence 095—【Death's Agent】!
So long as she possessed the target's blood or a physical medium from their body, combined with her own blood—
She could create an absolutely bound Curse Doll.
And at any distance, she could inflict any torment or extermination upon the target she chose!
But...
Those who toy with death shall, in turn, be toyed with by death!
As the one who set it in motion, she must endure a Backlash of equal intensity to what the target suffers!
This pain was pure spiritual damage—no physical wound was left—but the agony sufficient to drive a person insane—
Was not reduced by a single fraction!
Beyond that, this Ability also carried a long-term Backlash side effect.
It would gradually erode her Presence in the real world.
Which was why she was always forgotten by others.
Even Alexander and Angel, who had been around her since childhood—
Never recognized her for that very reason!
And at this very moment!
At the center of the battlefield!
Bang!!
The Watchful Scarecrow, mid-taunt at Zhao Yan, suddenly froze rigid where it stood!
From the inside out, it detonated in an instant!
Dried straw, black blood, and shredded flesh erupted across the sky!
And even...
The grey-black eyeball buried deepest within its chest cavity—the one that served as its core—
In that same moment, shattered into grey powder along with the tearing of the paper doll!
Dead?!
An S-Grade Boss—killed in an instant, just like that?!
Every single person on the battlefield was utterly stunned.
Even Zhao Yan stood frozen on the spot!
"Dorothy?!"
"Good God, Dorothy, what happened to you?!"
Andre, finally snapping back to his senses, at last noticed the blue-haired girl convulsing in agony on the ground behind the lines.
He scrambled forward desperately, screaming at Xin An in the distance.
"Xin An! Get your healer over here! She's not going to make it!"
But then...
Bang!!
Andre's call for help hadn't even finished—
Xin An was kicked squarely in the chest and sent flying!
It was the Liu Feng Scarecrow!
It hadn't stopped moving at all!
"Xin An!"
Mai Zijian and Lu Qi went pale!
"What the f*ck...what's going on?!"
Andre's face was filled with disbelief.
He watched as the Scarecrow horde—rather than ceasing action because the Boss had died—
Became even more savage in their assault, and completely lost it.
"Why?! The core eyeball was already ground to ash!"
"The main body is already dead, isn't it?! Why won't these monsters die?!"
"Why hasn't this wheat field disappeared?!"
Hearing Andre's despairing screams—
Zhao Yan, blade in hand, didn't look down at the pile of shattered straw and dust.
Instead, he raised his head.
Fixed his gaze on what hung suspended high in the night sky above...
That blood-red moon.
It was flickering now—brightening and dimming in pulses.
"No...we've all been deceived..."
"This isn't its true body."
"This cursed wheat field isn't either..."
Zhao Yan raised his hand and pointed at the blood moon gazing down upon all of them.
"Its true body..."
"Is that..."
"That moon hanging in the night sky—the Red Moon!"
"What?!"
Andre couldn't hear what he was saying.
But following the direction of the pointed hand, he looked up and was horrified to find the blood moon—
Was flickering like a malfunctioning light bulb, brightening and darkening in rapid succession!
"What the f*ck is that supposed to be a moon?!"
"Who has a moon that flickers like a light bulb?!"
"That's obviously a monster in disguise!"
Andre erupted in fury. "That rotten piece of sh*t!!!"
But just as his roar fell—
Hum!
From within the grey-black eyeball's remains, a single black flame flickered back into existence—recongealing!
It was the Watchful Scarecrow!
Its life force had not been severed!
It had disguised itself as No Words Needed!
This time, what recongealed from the rubble was only a single arm gripping black flames.
But within this absolutely silent domain—where everyone's guard had completely collapsed—that was already more than enough to be lethal!
And its target this time was not the strongest combatant, Zhao Yan.
It was the one staring blankly at the blood moon—God!
Cut off the head to cut off the snake!
It would prioritize eliminating this Ability user who posed the greatest threat to it!
Whoosh!
That ruined arm hurled the black flame from its fingertip—straight at God!
"No—!"
Andre wanted to shout a warning, but not a single sound could escape!
In that one second between life and death, only the briefest flicker of hesitation crossed his eyes—then he lunged forward!
And shoved the dazed God out of the way!
While he himself—took the full hit!
Boom!
The instant the black flames made contact with Andre, they ignited his flesh directly!
Andre became a man on fire, screaming in silence within a soundless world!
"Andre!!!"
Xin An, clutching her chest in agony, her eyes splitting at the corners.
"You filthy mongrel! I'll hack that hand of yours into bloody pulp!!!"
Zhao Yan's eyes burned red as he charged forward recklessly, blade raised, intending to reduce that ambushing arm to nothing—
But just as he closed in!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
3 muffled gunshots rang out from empty air!
They were the pirated Word Spirit bullets!
Zhao Yan crossed his blade to deflect—but the invisible bullets carried terrifying force!
They passed straight through the blade itself and punched through Zhao Yan's left chest!
"Argh!"
Zhao Yan stifled a grunt as 3 blood flowers bloomed across his chest.
He bit down hard enough to crush his own back teeth, horror surging through his core.
‘This is No Words Needed's gunshot Ability! This beast had even managed to simulate that!’
‘The power was too great—I can't take it head-on!’
"Go!"
Zhao Yan suppressed the searing agony, grabbed the dazed God by the arm, and rolled clear of the battlefield's center in a series of tumbles.
And God—had become a mess of tears by now.
He turned back, eyes locked desperately on Andre, who was being consumed by black flames on the spot.
He understood perfectly—the Squad Captain had turned into this because he'd thrown himself in to save him!
He wrenched his mouth open as wide as he could, wanting to scream until his throat tore.
Wanting to go save his Captain—but the Silent Domain held him like an iron cage.
All he could do was stand in this voiceless hell—
And watch helplessly as Andre's life slipped away, moment by moment.
Rustle, rustle, rustle!
At that moment, the shattered eyeball on the ground recongealed into the Watcher's Eye once more.
This time, the eyeball burrowed into Iron Bull's Scarecrow body lying on the ground!
As dried straw and flesh intertwined, Iron Bull's shell was forcibly reforged.
Once again, it transformed into No Words Needed in a black button-up shirt.
It rolled its neck and walked up to Andre's side.
"Become one of us...prey."
Andre knelt on the ground, his whole body charred black and withered.
He labored to lift his head, and with the last shreds of his remaining reason, waved at Zhao Yan and Xin An in the distance!
“Run! I'll hold it here!”
The next second!
Andre poured out the last dregs of energy within his body in a single surge—
And launched his final strike at the Watchful Scarecrow!
"Useless resistance."
The Watchful Scarecrow didn't even spare him a glance—just threw a single punch!
Bang!
It shattered Andre's last-ditch energy beam completely in an instant!
Andre was brutally sent flying dozens of meters, crashing into the mud—his survival unknown.
"Andre!!!"
Xin An's heart screamed.
But in the next moment—
Xin An froze. Zhao Yan, barely breathing through the pain of his wounds, froze.
Even the Watchful Scarecrow, which had been stepping forward to convert Andre into a puppet—
Also froze!
Because everyone watched in stunned horror as—
Andre, collapsed in the distance, the black flames burning across his body...
Like a candle guttering in the wind...
Went out entirely?!
"What is going on?!"
Time rewound to 1 minute prior.
At the wheat field's edge, more than 10 kilometers away.
Shadow, leading Liu Ruyan and Luo Kun, had not continued running for their lives.
Instead, they had chosen a clearing—and sat down where they were to rest and regroup.
In this wheat field, without stamina, you wouldn't even have the strength to fight back when a Scarecrow found you.
"Think it through carefully."
Shadow posed the question.
"Has anyone noticed—is there anything off about its Tribulation Flame?"
Luo Kun leaned against the earth, breathing hard, and reacted immediately.
"There is! Of course there is! Its Tribulation Flame burns too slowly!"
"Earlier, Liu Feng rolled and writhed on the ground for a long time before burning to death."
"But in the kill records—No Words Needed's Tribulation Flame took only 3 seconds to burn a Scarecrow to ash!"
"Mm."
Shadow gave a nod, casting an approving glance at Luo Kun. "That's one of them."
"But I noticed a second discrepancy."
Shadow shifted her gaze toward Liu Ruyan, who was meditating with her eyes closed.
"This key detail—you're the most fitting person to answer it."
Liu Ruyan opened those almond-shaped eyes of hers.
"No need to probe."
"In fact, not long ago, I already saw through the nature of that so-called Tribulation Flame."
She patted the Frost Sword Case at her back—and with a mechanical click, the case opened.
Luo Kun and Shadow discovered—
The black flame clinging to its surface had gone out!
Compared to before their earlier escape—
Not a single flying sword had decreased in number!
Meaning the Tribulation Flame had stopped burning!
"The true Tribulation Flame Ashen End is a Time Law—it fundamentally cannot burn lifeless objects and equipment."
Liu Ruyan said coldly.
"The Scarecrow's so-called Tribulation Flame..."
"Actually, calling it 'Black Flames' would be more accurate."
"It was capable of scorching my S-Grade Frost Sword Case!"
"And the reason it could burn my equipment..."
"Is that at its root, what it burns is not the intangible flow of time!"
"But Energy!"
"Not only living people—any object carrying Ability fluctuations will equally be treated as fuel and incinerated!"
"And the reason I stopped using my flying swords to escape—was to cut off the energy supply between myself and the Frost Sword Case!"
"Without energy feeding it, it becomes water without a source, and naturally cannot keep burning!"
Hearing this brilliantly precise analysis, Luo Kun felt revelation wash over him!
Though inwardly he was reluctant to admit Liu Ruyan's excellence—
The facts were before his eyes. Her combat intelligence and powers of perception were genuinely terrifying!
"I see now..."
Luo Kun murmured to himself. "The human body's structure is different from equipment."
"As Ability users, every meridian in us is saturated with energy, and our life force is converting into Ability at all times."
"While those black flames are extracting and burning the energy inside our bodies—"
"That process is also, in a roundabout way, causing our cellular tissue to wither and die!"
"It uses an illusion—to achieve the effect of making people age, which looks just like time being burned."
"Coming across as authentic when it's actually fake!"
Shadow gave a small nod—this matched the hypothesis she had quietly formed from her own observations.
The moment the 3 of them uncovered this hand—
Buzz!
Up in the sky, the suspended blood moon suddenly began flickering—brightening and dimming without warning.
All 3 raised their eyes simultaneously, sharpening with a cutting edge.
As people who had personally witnessed the Watchful Scarecrow's true body take form—they remembered clearly.
That grey-black eyeball had originally squeezed out through a crack splitting open in this blood moon!
"Take us up there, Liu Ruyan."
Shadow rose to her feet. "Let us go to the sky and see for ourselves what lies there."
Liu Ruyan's brow furrowed. "Impossible."
"My Frost Sword Case is already severely damaged—the remaining flying swords absolutely cannot sustain carrying people that high."
"Don't worry about that. I'll give you full support from below."
Luo Kun suddenly stood up.
Liu Ruyan turned her head and fixed him with a look of pure disdain.
"Drop that look—like you're staring at trash."
Luo Kun met Liu Ruyan's gaze, none of his usual combativeness present.
"If we make it back to First Base alive, I'll immediately file a voluntary transfer request with the military."
"You and I are incompatible in principles—we don't share the same road, so there's no point walking it together."
"From now on, the path is wide enough for both of us to take different sides."
"Consider this grand escape trial—"
"The final dance of our Blade Squad, 7th generation."
Luo Kun had thought it through completely.
When two people's values were fundamentally opposed, forcing them together would only harm everyone involved.
Better to part ways early—no point wasting words on it.
Liu Ruyan looked at the resolve in Luo Kun's eyes and said nothing to mock him.
Which was as good as accepting the proposal.
Hum!
Liu Ruyan formed her Sword Seal!
The great sword reappeared, carrying the 3 of them, and shot upward toward the high-altitude blood moon like a rocket!
Wind cut like blades!
When the flying sword forcibly climbed to several hundred meters—
The damaged Frost Sword Case let out a cry of distress, and Liu Ruyan's complexion turned ashen.
"Rise!!!"
Luo Kun roared, both eyes flooding red!
Psychokinesis formed a gigantic ethereal hand, bracing beneath the great sword's underside, forcibly injecting a second surge of propulsion into the flying sword!
The pressure on Liu Ruyan dropped sharply—but the distance to that blood moon suspended in the firmament—
Still stretched a far, daunting gap!
"I'll handle it."
Shadow, who had been gathering her strength all this time, finally unveiled her reserves in this moment!
Both hands moved faster than the eye could follow, and countless resilient Shadow Threads wove across the night sky!
"Roar!!!"
In the span of mere seconds, a sky-devouring celestial hound condensed from nothing in the open air!
It unleashed a single bark!
Shadow tied the Shadow Threads to the flying sword's tip, then launched herself upward and mounted the celestial hound's back!
"Hold on tight!"
The celestial hound planted its feet on empty air, 4 legs churning, and hauled the ice-great-sword forward, carrying them all sprinting across the sky!
Fast!
Blindingly fast!
In barely a dozen seconds, they shot directly before that so-called blood moon!
Shadow extended her hand and cautiously reached toward the blood moon's surface.
Whoosh!
Her hand passed straight through the moon's face.
Just as though she had pierced a layer of holographic projected light with no physical substance whatsoever!
The 3 exchanged glances—each saw the shock mirrored in the others' eyes.
The celestial hound released a roar, hauled the flying sword, and drove the 3 of them headlong into the blood moon's projection!
The instant they passed through—the scene that met their eyes—
Left all 3 simultaneously stunned.
Hidden inside this suspended false moon...
Was a half-mechanical, half-flesh floating factory!
Countless dark-red tubes slicked with viscous fluid connected through mid-air.
And at the factory's very center—where all those tubes converged—hovered a single enormous grey-black eyeball!
It was almost identical to the Watcher's Eye the 3 had seen on the ground!
But different in one respect...
The aura radiating from this core eyeball hidden in the background—
Was more than 10 times more bone-chilling than the one on the ground!
"Look over there!"
Luo Kun pointed to the far ends of those tubes.
Those tubes were connected to more than a thousand mirror panels!
Those mirrors were refracting and magnifying the light emanating from the central eyeball, and in the end projecting across the sky...
This blood moon enormous enough to blanket a radius of over a hundred kilometers!
"Truly divine craftsmanship..."
Liu Ruyan's breathtaking face was set in an expression of solemn wariness.
"No wonder this so-called Death Wheat Field domain is absurdly large."
"It turns out...it was forcibly amplified by these mirrors to this scale!"
Luo Kun's voice was trembling beyond his control. "How was this even done? Whose work is this?!"
"Can a mere monster truly possess this level of industrial intelligence?!"
"What we should be concerned with right now isn't who made this thing."
"It's completely destroying this artificial domain factory."
Shadow drew the jet-black dagger from her waist.
"The eyeball we saw on the ground was very likely only an independent sub-terminal!"
"That sub-terminal's purpose was to use the black flames to strip the prey's energy—"
"Then feed it back here to power this factory!"
"Now...let us smash this evil source to pieces!"
Shadow gave a cold shout, and the shadow energy across her entire body began surging wildly in concentration!
"I have to maintain the flying sword's balance to get you back down—I can't free my hands to attack."
Liu Ruyan said through gritted teeth.
"Leave it to me."
Luo Kun stepped forward.
He detonated every last shred of his mental Psychokinesis!
A colossal transparent fist—visible to the naked eye—
Condensed into form above the factory and came crashing down upon it like a hammer!
Simultaneously, Shadow struck!
"Sky-Devouring Hound Swallows the Moon!"
The celestial hound threw open its abyss-deep jaws, and together with Luo Kun's Psychokinesis fist—
One from above, one from below—they drove toward that core eyeball!
Boom boom boom boom!!!
In a single instant!
As that gigantic grey-black core eyeball shattered with a resounding crack—
The entire flesh-and-machine factory was reduced to mechanical fragments and hunks of meat!
The very same moment the factory was destroyed!
The blood moon vanished without a trace!
And vanishing along with it—
Was the Death Wheat Field that had covered a hundred-mile radius!
The illusion collapsed, the disguise torn away!
As all the wheat receded, this trial site finally revealed its original face!
It was a barren wasteland—not a single blade of grass!
And at the very center of that wasteland...
A metal hatch cover appeared before them!
That was a cellar entrance!
And it was also the source concealing all the evil and secrets of this Battle Royale trial!