Chapter 1329: The Frozen Face

Chen Ling felt wonderful.

He had completed three Zhan Sha, mastered soul abilities, his strength had skyrocketed, and Wu Yi had become the new Poison Chief. The hidden dangers of the Abyss of Ghostly Mockery had been completely swept away, and he had thoroughly taken control of the entire World-Ending Territory!

Compared to being kicked out of the South Sea Realm not long ago, everything now felt like a dream. Unknowingly, he had grown to an outrageous degree...

If he were given a chance to return to the human realms now...

No, there was no such chance.

Chen Ling couldn't go back, nor did he want to. Being a free and unfettered King of Calamities in the Abyss of Ghostly Mockery—wasn't that much more comfortable than returning to the human realms?

He had everything here: power, influence, status, dignity... He felt wonderful.

That night, Wu Yi killed many poisonous insects that challenged him;

That night, Chen Ling drank another whole jar of Five-Poison Wine.

He returned to his underground palace, dead drunk, unable to even walk steadily, like a red-clad male ghost silently intruding into the empty hall, flickering and eerie to the extreme.

Just then, Chen Ling saw his reflection in the mirror-smooth floor tiles...

He suddenly froze in place.

"How could this be..."

In the reflection, he was wearing that familiar bright red theatrical robe, but his face... was still the face of the "Black-Robed Drama Shadow."

Only now did Chen Ling realize that although he had recovered his theatrical robe after the third Zhan Sha, his face hadn't returned to its original state... It was like a side effect left over after he devoured the Black-Robed Drama Shadow.

His face felt as if it were clogged by something, and even using [Faceless] couldn't change it.

Jet-black skin, scarlet pupils, blurred features, and even red paper scraps would occasionally peel off his face like old wall paint. He looked nothing like a human, more like a terrifying monster.

At this moment, he no longer looked like Chen Ling; instead, he fit the "Mockery Calamity" image even better.

Chen Ling's fingertips gently rubbed his cheek.

"Is this... the price of gaining power?"

He had devoured the Mockery Calamity's power too quickly, to the point where this body couldn't digest all of the Black-Robed Drama Shadow. Those stubborn parts had deposited on his face like toxins...

Chen Ling tried using [Paint the Crimson Face], and it did have some effect. Chen Ling could feel the toxins accumulated on his face beginning to melt, but the process was extremely slow. If he wanted to completely recover his original face, it would take at least several months.

During this time, he would have to live with this hideous, eerie face of a calamity.

After a brief frown, Chen Ling relaxed.

It didn't matter.

He was the Mockery Calamity now anyway, so what if he looked like a calamity? What if he couldn't get his original face back?

Living with this group of poisonous insects, perhaps his current face was actually more appropriate, more fitting for blending into the Abyss of Ghostly Mockery!

He carried the wine jar, took a fierce gulp, a drunken smile curling at the corner of his mouth again, and turned to continue stumbling into the darkness...

The red clothes fluttered like a lonely butterfly, drifting away on its own.

……

Xuanyu Realm.

Violent rumbling sounds erupted from the edge of the realm in the distance. The earth trembled, and hideous cracks began to extend across the surface.

"Is the fighting over there that intense already?"

In the fields a dozen kilometers from the edge, Jian Changsheng looked at the visibly withered rice paddies around him, his expression extremely grave.

The aura of calamity from the Falsehood Mountains had already seeped into the earth through the distant battlefield. The fact that even fields this far away were affected was enough to prove that the war on the front lines was already quite brutal.

Beside him, Jiang Xiaohua silently sat up from the dirt, grumbling unhappily:

"Too noisy, I can't sleep..."

"Tsk... Meihua, when do you think they'll finish fighting?"

Jiang Xiaohua shook his head honestly.

"I don't know."

"...Forget it, asking you is a waste of time."

Jian Changsheng looked around, muttering, "That guy Fangkuai said he was going to scout the battle situation. He's been gone for most of the day, why hasn't he come back yet?"

"Maybe he's dead." Jiang Xiaohua blinked.

"..." Jian Changsheng was speechless. "If you've got the guts, wait for him to come back and say that to his face."

Before Jian Changsheng could finish speaking, he suddenly seemed to notice something. He grabbed Jiang Xiaohua's arm and ripped off the bandage, revealing a large patch of fair skin.

At the same time, a mysterious power radiated from Jiang Xiaohua's body, directly hiding both their auras without a trace.

The next second,

Several streaks of light flew across the sky at high speed!

These figures all radiated Eighth-Rank auras. The leader looked toward the battlefield, raised a palm, and giant shadows resembling coffins began to be outlined in the void, with a massive amount of Seventh and Eighth-Rank auras gushing out from them.

"Yo, isn't that an old acquaintance?" Jian Changsheng, hiding in the field, raised an eyebrow when he saw the man's face.

"Who?"

"You forgot? That adjudicator proxy from the Wuji Realm, Eighth-Rank Puppet God Path, the older brother of the Esoteric Sect's Young Sect Master."

"Oh..." Jiang Xiaohua nodded, not knowing if he remembered or not.

After Tianhuai's figure streaked across the sky, he disappeared at the end of the battlefield. A moment later, even more terrifying rumbling sounds erupted from the distance.

At the same time, a sneaky figure arrived in the field.

"Fangkuai! Over here!" Jian Changsheng waved at Sun Bumian.

Only then did Sun Bumian see the hidden Jian Changsheng and his companion, and he walked over quickly.

"How is it?"

"Very intense," Sun Bumian said gravely. "On the Xuanyu Realm side, the Esoteric Sect has almost fully mobilized. In terms of numbers, they are far inferior to the calamities of the Falsehood Mountains, but they are all of the Puppet God Path, and each of them basically controls more than one puppet, so they aren't at that much of a disadvantage...

I just saw Tianhuai enter the fray as well. He has hundreds of puppets; he should be able to help the Xuanyu Realm stabilize the situation faster."

"So it's a stalemate..." Jian Changsheng was thoughtful. "What about the Delusion Calamity? Xuanyu doesn't have a Demigod sitting in command, so they shouldn't be able to hold it back."

"That's the problem," Sun Bumian paused for a moment.

"I searched the entire battlefield and didn't find any trace of the Delusion Calamity... It's as if it didn't participate in this war at all."

Jian Changsheng was extremely surprised. "Is it that confident? Does it think that even without its own intervention, these calamities under its command can crush the Xuanyu Realm? Or is it..."

"Or is it wary of the Xuanyu Lord," Sun Bumian added the second half of the sentence.

"I think this is the more reasonable guess. It knows that once it intervenes, the situation will become a crushing defeat. Once the Xuanyu Realm is pushed too hard, they will directly awaken the Xuanyu Lord... choosing to perish together."

"It's afraid of the Xuanyu Lord?"

"Who knows..."

"Then what do we do? Keep waiting here?"

Sun Bumian pondered for a moment. "I think we can't just wait passively anymore... We must take the initiative!"