MJWCATFPITWOC Chapter 80

Chapter 80: The Culprit

That thought flashed through everyone’s minds, and instantly, their hair stood on end, and they didn’t even dare to breathe loudly. They couldn’t imagine what kind of behemoth could cause the ground to tremble as it walked.

The disciples who had been clamoring to go out just a moment ago were now frozen in place, as if their pressure points had been struck, not daring to move at all.

Shen Yucheng was also startled by this sudden turn of events. He frowned deeply, warily surveying his surroundings. Through the window, he saw that the villagers had no reaction to the sound, still standing there blankly. This was clearly not normal behavior.

The tremors grew more and more violent, as if the earth were about to tear apart. With each tremor, the disciples inside the house would bounce up a little.

If it were any other day, this scene would surely have been laughable, but at this moment, they only felt a chill run down their spines.

However, just as their fear reached its peak, all the earth-shattering tremors suddenly stopped, leaving behind a deathly silence, as if they had never happened at all, and everything before had been an illusion.

A disciple tremblingly raised his head, tears still clinging to his eyes, and was about to speak when he saw Shen Yucheng raise his index finger, signaling him to be quiet.

Then, Shen Yucheng held his breath and leaned closer to the window. The moment his gaze focused outside the window—

A giant eye was staring straight at him.

A chill, like an electric current, instantly coursed through his entire body. His pores contracted, and his back turned cold.

That eye, without any warning, “swoosh—” turned to the lower right, its gaze accurately locking onto Shen Yucheng.

“!!!!!!”

Shen Yucheng reacted first, abruptly taking a few steps back. No matter what this thing was, he needed to create some distance first.

The disciples standing by the door trembled, and the sword in their hand fell to the ground with a clatter, sounding particularly jarring in the deathly silent night.

The other disciples stared blankly at the sword on the ground. After a moment, a shrill scream erupted, and then, the long-suppressed fear burst forth like a breached dam, and screams echoed throughout the house.

The team leader tried to calm everyone down, but clearly, he himself was so frightened by the scene that he didn’t know what to do, and he tightly grabbed the disciple beside him.

The mental pressure on the disciples was already within Shen Yucheng’s expectations, but…

He looked at that ridiculously large eye.

This was beyond his expectations.

The appearance of this thing completely shattered the disciples’ psychological defenses.

Just as he was pondering how to deal with the situation, suddenly, a familiar sense of oppression came from all directions, causing his entire body to go numb.

This feeling was not coming from that giant eye. He could clearly feel a pressure, just like the feeling he had years ago when he was tied up in the temple.

This wasn’t coming from that giant eye, but from…

He didn’t even need to confirm it. The next second, the wooden door was violently struck, and countless hands were desperately pounding on the door panels, wriggling at the doorway, trying to squeeze in.

The disciples by the door were so frightened that they retreated again and again, and Shen Yucheng also retreated to the center of the house, standing in front of the disciples. The old wooden door couldn’t withstand such an impact at all, and it collapsed with a crash in just a few strikes, revealing a dense mass of figures.

The villagers had been attracted by the disciples’ voices, and were now standing at the doorway, looking even more bizarre than before. Their skin was bloodless, their eyeballs were bulging, and they even carried a rotten odor, like a group of corpses that had been dug up.

“Ah!!!”

The disciples couldn’t help but scream.

This scream seemed to be the villagers’ trigger, and their stiff, immobile bodies suddenly moved. They limped and lurched toward the house.

At the same time, there was a dull thud from the roof, and the roof tiles shattered, sending stone fragments flying.

“What’s going on up there?!”

Shen Yucheng glanced out the window, and the giant eyeball had disappeared. In its place was its massive body. It had shifted its target and was now lying on the roof, looking for a way to grab them.

With villagers in front and a giant creature behind, the team leader inside the house completely lost his composure, and the disciples were crying incessantly. Shen Yucheng quickly scanned his surroundings, and his gaze landed on the wall on the side.

Golden light enveloped it, and beams of light suddenly burst from the cracks in the wooden house.

From the outside, it would seem as if the entire house was about to explode from the inside.

“Boom—”

With a loud bang, thick smoke billowed out, and a large hole was blasted in the left wall.

“Quick! Go through!” Shen Yucheng roared, and dozens of figures dashed through the smoke. Then, whenever they rushed into a house, a golden light would flash across the wall, and then it would explode with a bang, and the disciples would run through quickly.

The villagers’ pace couldn’t keep up with the speed at which Shen Yucheng was blowing up houses. The disciples’ initial panic gradually turned into astonishment, then into shock, and finally…they followed Shen Yucheng to escape like a group of chicks, and they actually felt a strange sense of pleasure.

It was like going on a spring outing, fun and exciting.

However, just as they rushed into a certain house, Shen Yucheng suddenly stopped, standing in front of the wall, unmoving.

After a series of thrilling escapes, the disciples had already unconsciously regarded Shen Yucheng as an existence more reliable than the team leader. Seeing him stop, they immediately stepped forward and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Shen Yucheng reached out and pressed his hand against the wall, his expression grave: “I can’t blast it open.”

“What?!”

The disciples’ hearts sank sharply, and the excitement they had felt just now disappeared without a trace, as if they had fallen into hell.

Shen Yucheng looked around and realized that they had unknowingly returned to A-Yan’s house. The walls of this house were incredibly sturdy, and no matter how much he exerted his strength, they wouldn’t budge.

The disciples looked back and saw that the villagers, who had been left far behind just now, were now approaching step by step. Their footsteps weren’t fast, but they were unusually suffocating.

“What do we do? They’re coming again!” The disciples were panicking, their gazes all falling on Shen Yucheng. “Yucheng, think of something quickly!”

Shen Yucheng: “…” When did these people become so familiar with him?

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on such things. He took a deep breath, his gaze returning to that strange wall. If this wall really had a defensive barrier set up on it, then his full-strength attack might trigger a backlash, and then all the disciples behind him would probably die here.

He gritted his teeth. If it were just him alone, this situation wouldn’t be worth mentioning…

“That’s right, why do you have to care about them?”

A familiar voice rang out in his heart, and Yan Quanye’s tone was disdainful: “They’re just some slow-moving, incompetent villagers, and an unknown giant beast. As long as you want, these things are nothing at all. Why are you making yourself so miserable?”

Shen Yucheng’s heart skipped a beat. Yan Quanye’s words swirled in his mind, like a question from his own heart.

The villagers were getting closer and closer, and some of the disciples gritted their teeth and rushed forward, but because they couldn’t bear to hurt the villagers, they could only endure the punches. Their figures looked disheveled in the moonlight, but they still stood firmly in front of Shen Yucheng, trying to block the villagers’ steps.

Shen Yucheng looked at all of this, and he couldn’t quite describe what he was feeling.

He actually understood that what Yan Quanye said was right. It could even be said that he himself had once had such thoughts in his heart.

He had no obligation to lead this group of disciples, who were of no benefit to him, to escape. He could have left on his own and looked for the real culprit, instead of being trapped in this predicament like he was now.

This wasn’t the best choice.

Suddenly, a villager slowly walked toward him, holding a sharp dagger tightly in his hand, and slashed at him.

Shen Yucheng stared blankly at this scene, his palm already gathering spiritual energy, but at the moment he was about to strike.

“Clang!”

Shi Zhong suddenly rushed in front of him, using his body to block the blow. His arm was cut by the blade, and blood instantly dyed his sleeve red.

He gritted his teeth, held on desperately, and turned his head to shout at Shen Yucheng: “Senior Yichen! Leave these to us to block, you can think slowly, we believe in you!”

Shen Yucheng was stunned.

He looked at the figures of the disciples desperately resisting, and some kind of indescribable emotion surged up.

Golden light slowly bloomed from his body. He thought…he probably knew why he hadn’t chosen to leave alone.

The disciples had been taking beatings for a long time without fighting back, and their physical strength was gradually being depleted. The villagers, however, seemed to have an endless source of power. When the disciples made a slight mistake, a spear was raised high, pointing straight at their chests.

Seeing that the blade was about to pierce them, the disciples could only close their eyes tightly.

“Thud—”

The imagined pain didn’t come as expected.

The disciples hesitantly opened their eyes, and the scene before them made their jaws drop. All the villagers were frozen in place. The villagers held their weapons tightly, wanting to bring them down, but golden threads in the air crisscrossed and bound their bodies, fixing them in place. They could only make “buzzing” sounds as they strained, like prey trapped in a spider web, unable to resist.

“This…” The disciples were dumbfounded.

Shi Zhong abruptly turned his head and indeed saw Shen Yucheng covered in golden light, countless golden threads shooting out from him, binding all the villagers in place.

In his heart, Yan Quanye’s voice rang out again: “Shen Yucheng, is it worth wasting so much spiritual energy for these people?”

Shen Yucheng’s expression was indifferent. He stepped forward and, under the disciples’ shocked gazes, walked step by step to the villagers.

He had never thought about whether this was worth it.

Because from the very beginning, he had no intention of abandoning them and escaping alone.

That was why he had come to this point.

Silence reigned in his heart for a moment, and then Yan Quanye said in a low voice, “Shen Yucheng…you’ve changed.”

Shen Yucheng: “…” Maybe.

He didn’t know when it had started.

Was it from the moment ten years ago when Mo Yifeng forcibly recognized him as his junior brother? Or was it from the moments he had entered the secret realm with those people and spent time with them?

The time was too long, so long that he didn’t know.

The voice in his heart suddenly disappeared, and he didn’t say anything else.

At this time, Shen Yucheng frowned slightly, and tentatively said softly, “Yan Quanye?”

His heart suddenly fell silent, and then, an extremely familiar tone rang out: “Shen Yucheng, are you out of your mind? Using that kind of voice to call me, it’s disgusting.”

Hearing this, the corners of Shen Yucheng’s lips turned up slightly: “I just heard you say some things that were really asking for a beating.”

Yan Quanye was immediately puzzled: “Huh? I didn’t say anything just now. Don’t make excuses to lose your temper at me.”

Shen Yucheng raised his eyebrows: “But that’s true… There’s no way you could say something that requires brainpower.”

“Shen Yucheng, are you looking for trouble? Don’t think I don’t understand what you’re trying to say?!”

After confirming that the voice just now wasn’t Yan Quanye, Shen Yucheng’s heart sank slightly.

Could it be that he was having some mental problems?

Otherwise, how could he have heard a voice that didn’t exist?

However, he didn’t dwell on it too much. The most urgent thing was to deal with these villagers.

The disciples had never seen such a scene before, suppressing hundreds of villagers firmly with his strength alone.

They couldn’t help but open their mouths intermittently: “Yichen… what exactly are you…”

Shen Yucheng didn’t answer. He reached out to try to control the villagers to put down their weapons, but after a moment, the villagers didn’t move, unaffected by his control.

Perhaps because these people had turned into living dead, from the moment they lost their minds, even though their hearts were still beating, they were no longer considered living people to Shen Yucheng’s Puppet Dao, and couldn’t be manipulated.

The other party could control the dead.

This thought made Shen Yucheng’s heart tremble. He might know who the culprit was who had turned the entire village into this.

Just then, the roof was suddenly blown off, and moonlight poured down, illuminating the entire house. Shen Yucheng looked up and met those cold, large eyes, which belonged to a giant stone statue.

Seeing this thing, Shen Yucheng became even more convinced of his guess.

He uttered a name in a low voice.

“Bai Guchen.”