Scarlet blood splattered across the screen behind the stage.
The drumbeats and bamboo flute music on both sides of the stage vanished instantly!
Everyone froze, their pupils shrinking abruptly. The thick stench of blood sobered their alcohol-induced haze. They staggered to their feet, faces etched with disbelief.
"You..."
Gudao's gaze slowly lifted from his bloodied chest to Chen Ling's face.
As if recalling something, he gasped,
"Y-you're... that kid's... brother?"
Blood gushed from his throat, slurring his words. His expression was one of sheer terror.
"You enjoy tearing people's hearts out?" Chen Ling's face was splattered with blood, his eyes blazing with hatred and madness. "Today... I'll gut you clean!"
"Give me a knife!!"
Chen Ling reached toward the void behind him.
A sharp dagger at the waist of a stunned Bingquan Street resident below the stage suddenly trembled violently!
As if gripped by an invisible hand, the dagger was wrenched from its sheath and sent howling toward Chen Ling at the center of the stage—
The "audience" was cooperating with his performance.
Chen Ling caught the dagger and stabbed it into Gudao's chest like lightning, slicing downward through the bloody hole his hand had torn. In an instant, Gudao was eviscerated!
Gudao's mouth fell open, and he tried to howl in agony, but the blood choking his windpipe turned it into a gurgling whimper.
Blood and organs spilled from the gash. Gudao collapsed to his knees, frantically trying to stuff his innards back in, but his movements soon stilled...
He was dead.
His pupils reflected the blood-soaked stage and his own demise... mostly, terror and helplessness.
Chen Ling stared at Gudao's kneeling corpse, his expression unchanged. It was his first kill, but fueled by hatred and adrenaline, he felt almost nothing—except a faint nausea.
He didn't notice the black star flickering faintly in the snow-filled sky above.
"Chen Ling?! Are you insane?!!"
"As a law enforcer, you killed without reason!! You'll be punished!!"
Qian Fan's pupils dilated as he roared at the sight.
On the bloodstained stage, the red-robed figure slowly turned...
The teenager's face was still spattered with warm blood. Clutching the dagger, he looked down at) the terrified crowd, his eyes brimming with killing intent and madness!
At that moment, the dense bloodstains on the stage screen glowed faintly, like countless scarlet eyes opening in the darkness, seated in an empty audience auditorium, watching it all.
[Audience Expectancy +5]
Whoosh—
With a soft sound, all the torches in the mansion extinguished simultaneously.
"Punish me?"
Chen Ling laughed coldly. He slowly raised a finger, dipped it in the warm blood on his cheek, and drew a crimson mark beside his eye... The image of Chen Yan, once adorned with red makeup, overlapped with Chen Ling's face, making his aura instantly eerie and bloodthirsty!
He was the spirit Chen Ling and the spirit Chen Yan, a performer in a lonely play under the gaze of the "Apocalypse" disaster.
"Who are you to punish me?"
"Who among you... can punish me?"
The next instant, the red-clad figure vanished from the stage.
A dagger slashed through the void faster than anyone could react. A muffled groan followed as a Bingquan Street resident closest to the stage staggered, blood spurting from his neck, and collapsed.
Li Mang, Old Sixth and the others were panic-stricken. They had all fought against Chen Ling before and knew how terrifying the opponent was.
The most critical thing was that they had all come to the celebration for pleasure, and almost no one had brought a gun, at most hiding two cold weapons on their bodies... But even when they had guns in the tavern, they hadn't been able to deal with Chen Ling, let alone now?
The red ghost shuttled through the seats, frantically reaping these people's lives. As he killed more and more people, Chen Ling had completely overcome the slight shadow of nausea and instead became inexplicably skilled.
In the vast snow, a bloody and strange massacre was taking place in the mansion.
At the same time,
Hundreds of meters away from the mansion.
"To actually attract the attention of the 'Military Divine Path'?" Standing under a snow-covered tree, Chu Muyun gazed at the mansion in the distance. "I didn't expect he's really a genius... in killing."
"Not just the 'Military Divine Path'."
From the void, the figure of a man shrouded in shadow slowly emerged.
"Didn't you notice? The star of the 'Witch Divine Path' is also reacting..."
"'Witch Divine Path'?" Chu Muyun was startled. "What's his connection with the 'Witch Divine Path'? Why would he attract it?"
"No idea."
"But don't you find it strange?"
"What?"
"How can a Fusionist trigger the attention of a Divine Path? Moreover, he's a Fusionist carrying the 'Apocalypse' level..."
"That's not strange. He's just attracted attention, as if his talent has been noticed by the Divine Path, but he hasn't truly obtained [Divine Favor]... The path to connecting with the gods won't be left for monsters."
"I see."
"But this kid is indeed crazy and ruthless. Your judgment is good."
Chu Muyun smiled faintly but said nothing.
"But he's going to be in trouble next."
"Why?"
"I can smell it." The shadowy man paused. "That law enforcer named Qian Fan has the aura of a 'sacrificial vessel' on him."
...
In the mansion.
As Chen Ling's blade rose and fell, seven or eight Bingquan Street residents died one after another.
Without hot weapons, these Bingquan Street residents almost uniformly chose to flee, but their speed was far inferior to Chen Ling's with [Killing Dance]. They had just run to the front courtyard when they were successively hunted down!
"Brother Fan! What do we do?!" A law enforcer asked urgently.
"He should have already obtained [Divine Favor] and stepped onto the Divine Path..." Recalling the scene where Chen Ling had taken the dagger out of thin air earlier, Qian Fan's face was extremely grim. "Damn it, which Divine Path has he actually walked on?"
"Doesn't that make him a law enforcement officer?" Another law enforcer turned pale. "How can we possibly fight him?"
"Why hasn't Brother Ma come yet?!"
"It's too late... If this continues, not only will Bingquan Street be completely wiped out, but we may not even save our own lives."
A fierce look flashed in Qian Fan's eyes. He reached into his arms and took out something wrapped in black cloth, which appeared in his palm.
As he gradually unwrapped the black cloth, a broken finger bone was exposed to the air...