Chapter 450: Shattered Sanctuary

Boom! Boom! Boom!

In the deceptive Little Town, the ground beneath Lu Xin suddenly trembled as if the very earth was shaking.

Entire blocks of houses collapsed, and the roads rippled like waves. Groups of people, some kneeling and others sitting, burst into grief, shattered by the shock—many completely breaking down and vanishing from this world, while others suddenly fainted.

Lu Xin looked up to see enormous crosses plummeting from the sky.

Each of these crosses was so heavy, towering some thirty to forty meters high, and fashioned in the form of a man standing upright with arms outstretched. Their sharply pointed feet slammed into the ground, cratering it into spiderweb-like pits.

A total of four crosses landed at the four corners of the town.

At the top of each cross was the face of a white man with deep, piercing eyes.

The appearance of these four crosses propped up the town, delaying its collapse and creating a unique field.

……

“I never expected you’d break in using such a strange power,” a voice called.

“Even more, I never thought you’d dare to pollute my world…”

From each of the four crosses, he spoke at once, their voices overlapping with an echoing resonance.

The sound was heavy and potent, leaving one’s mind in a daze.

Lu Xin was mildly astonished as he glanced at the cross on the town’s edge, meeting the cold, indifferent gaze of the Calamity Archbishop.

He remarked, “Your Chinese is really impressive.”

“?”

Strangely, all four faces of the Calamity Archbishop twisted into bizarre expressions simultaneously.

His thoughts scrambled briefly before he resumed with cool indifference, “So you used some fraudulent method to connect with the spiritual realm of the Disaster Museum, then exploited that bond to break its inner logic and cause damage? You seem overly confident, but when it comes to certain matters, your execution is far from professional.”

“Calamity cannot be polluted by such a simple method…”

“Being overly clever is the greatest weakness of an Ability User…”

“……”

“Sssssss…”

Countless blood vessels and nerve tissues extended from him like chains, or perhaps venomous serpents endowed with their own life.

They surged chaotically from all directions toward Lu Xin, their tips shockingly sharp.

The sound of vivid, rubbing scales of these serpents filled the air, making one’s scalp tingle.

“Crush them…”

The doll behind him was about to move forward, but Lu Xin pulled her back.

“Let me handle this!”

Since entering Happy Town, this girl had been his main support.

She had indeed performed well, but now her reserves of mental power were nearly exhausted.

If he were to borrow strength, he could only draw on the suffering of those around him.

Their agony would affect the doll.

Moreover, the spiritual entities of these people were extremely fragile at this moment, and Lu Xin didn’t want to see them crumble.

So he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Of course, aside from that, there was another, less important reason.

Simply put, Lu Xin was rather angry…

……

……

“Thud…”

Something heavy pounded once within his chest.

Lu Xin’s eyes turned blood-red.

The distorted force field around him instantly expanded to a size of three or four meters, resembling either a cocoon of light or another kind of vessel.

“Crack! Crack! Crack!”

Nerves and blood vessels, flung from the crosses with piercing sounds, embedded themselves one after another into Lu Xin’s surrounding force field. Repelled by his will, they could not get close to either his body or the doll’s, suspended in mid-air.

On appearance, it looked as if they had actually pierced into a glass bottle, struggling within.

……

“Actually, you’ve got it a bit wrong…”

Lu Xin, facing the ever more desperate onslaught of nerves and tissues trying to invade him, tensed up.

Yet his expression remained calm as he earnestly addressed the Archbishop, as if explaining amicably:

“I entered this world not to pollute it with such methods…”

“Nor was I here to confront you in this manner.”

“……”

“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Just as his words ended, countless nerves and blood vessels snapped simultaneously, their breaking sound like shredded strings filling the air.

Then, with his force field still pulsating around him, Lu Xin took a heavy step forward.

The entire town seemed to warp under the pressure of his movement, as if twisted like deformed steel.

“You think you can stand against me in my own world?”

Around the town, the furious voice of the Calamity Archbishop resounded.

At the same time, more blood vessels and nerves surged over like a writhing mass of serpents.

Numerous mental tendrils burst out from all four directions, spreading like a net.

Above the entire town, the air was thick with this blood-stained substance, erupting into rows of fine, blood-red filaments. At one end of each filament, a sharp, grim serpent’s maw bit fiercely into the center of the town—into Lu Xin.

The scene was one of brutal splendor.

It appeared that Lu Xin, positioned at the center, could only passively endure it all.

Just like his status as a Zero Ability User, he only possessed the capacity to bear pollution.

But as the surrounding pressure grew, even his extraordinary distorted field was utterly overwhelmed.

On the brink of collapse, Lu Xin’s heartbeat grew louder—thump, thump—like drums echoing in his chest. Blue veins bulged on his skin, and his blood surged beyond the body’s limits.

“Whoosh!”

In an instant, his blood-red eyes turned completely black.

A calm smile still lingered on his face, though his lips tightened, imbuing that smile with a different meaning.

“My pity for them is just that—pity…”

“As for you, I’ll deal with you in another way…”

“……”

Meanwhile, his distorted force field began to change in an unforeseen way.

Dark particles emerged from the surface of Lu Xin’s body, looking like shadows. Each particle was distinct, bobbing and crowding each other out with a savage intensity.

Compared to the throng of crosses surrounding the town, or even his own force field, these black particles were a minuscule, almost insignificant fraction.

Yet the moment these particles appeared, the entire world shook violently.

……

“Smack!”

Lu Xin suddenly reached out and grabbed one of the tendrils.

It was a nerve-vessel strand released by the Calamity Archbishop; it had been slithering like a snake, trying desperately to invade Lu Xin’s force field. But the moment Lu Xin grasped it, the tendril vanished.

He opened his hand to reveal nothing but a clump of gray ash.

The spot where he had seized the tendril had lost all its vitality in an instant and turned to dust.

Lu Xin’s face suddenly broke into a joyous smile.

The dark particles on him quickly reanimated, darting swiftly through his entire force field.

As a result, every tendril that had penetrated his warped field was touched by these dark particles.

Then, without exception, they began to shudder violently and quickly disintegrated into fluttering specks of ash.

“How can this be?”

On the crosses all around, the Calamity Archbishop’s face twisted in horror, as if he had seen a ghost.

The tendrils reaching for Lu Xin snapped instantly—as if their heads were severed—listlessly drifting in the air.

Furious and astonished, the Calamity Archbishop bellowed as the tendrils hastily recoiled.

“Hehe…”

At that moment, Lu Xin let out a low chuckle, looking up at the surrounding archbishops.

His pupils were pitch black, and a manic, fervent excitement played across his lips as he continued,

“That is, to utterly destroy you!”

“Hahahaha…”

“……”

With that cry, he suddenly lunged forward, grabbing one of the retracting tendrils. His hand, free of dark particles, clutched it firmly. In pulling it, as the tendril instinctively recoiled, he was hoisted upward.

A look of exhilaration flashed in his eyes as he harnessed that power and dashed toward the cross.

His sympathy for these unfortunate souls was merely pity.

But for this wretched place—for you—what must be shattered, will be shattered!

……

……

“The Archon’s mental fluctuations are acting abnormally. He…”

“…is being rapidly weakened!”

“……”

Inside the RV, staring at rows of data, the Tech Priest jumped in fright, coffee drenching his body.

But he couldn’t afford to worry; he quickly extended a hand.

Yet that hand, so accustomed to pounding on keyboards, faltered in front of the precision instruments.

The sudden upheaval left him clueless about how to help the Archbishop.

So he could only stare blankly, his gaze shifting to the Old Man in the car compartment, while Qin Ran did the same.

“So, what exactly are we facing?”

“……”

The old man, his hat pulled low, remained silent for a long while before finally exhaling softly and slightly lifting his head. It was as if he had just awakened from a brief nap; his eyes were dazed at first, but soon clarity returned.

That dazed look gradually transformed into one of admiration.

He removed his hat, revealing his pale hair, and sighed gently, saying, “I told you earlier.”

“He is someone who was severely polluted—and against all odds, we managed to heal him.”

He met the gazes of the two and smiled, “But I also told you,

“The one who polluted him was that spiritual entity we now call ‘God’?”

“So he is one who has been tainted by God.”

“And most remarkably, he gained the ability to feel pity…”

“……This is the power of humanity.”