Chapter 1811: Steal

Amidst the pain throughout his body, Li Laide struggled to open his eyes.

The first thing that came into view was a pure white ceiling. He looked at the familiar overhead and fell into a trance for a moment... At the same time, a voice sounded from the side:

"You're awake?"

Li Laide turned his head and saw Mojiao sitting by the bed, peeling an apple while smiling.

"Fourth Senior Uncle..." Li Laide tried to climb out of bed, but a wave of pain came from his chest. He was forced to stop, his face deathly pale.

"Your injuries haven't fully healed yet, don't move too much," Mojiao immediately supported him, helping him sit up slowly and gently.

Li Laide rested for a while, finally remembering what happened before he lost consciousness. He looked down at his chest. Through his collar, he could see a clear, scarlet palm print full of cracks branded onto his body. It was burning with pain, as if it were not only imprinted on his skin but had also deeply branded itself into his fractured bones.

This palm... it was hit too hard.

"How long have I been unconscious?" Li Laide asked, rubbing his temples.

Mojiao thought for a moment, "About half a month."

“？”

Li Laide was stunned.

He had actually been knocked unconscious for half a month??

Li Laide recalled the scenes of that great battle, and an intense sense of powerlessness surged up... After stepping into the eighth rank, he thought the gap between him and his master would narrow, but he didn't expect the disparity in their strength to be no different from nine years ago.

If Chen Ling hadn't gone easy on him, he, an eighth-rank Thief God Path, probably wouldn't have lasted even five seconds.

Although Li Laide was disappointed, the original negative emotions of anger, irritation, and resentment had been vented during the battle. He was now calmer than ever before. Facing the chasm of strength between him and Chen Ling, there was no extreme anxiety about progress, only objective and calm thinking...

What could he do to be as strong as him?

In Li Laide’s mind, Chen Ling’s words at the ancestral hall surfaced again.

Red Star Willpower, huh...

Li Laide’s fists clenched again.

He took a deep breath, forced his body—which hadn't fully recovered—off the bed, put on his shoes with a limp, and prepared to walk out.

"Where are you going?" Mojiao immediately stopped him. "Your injuries haven't healed yet, it's best not to walk around."

"I... have some things to do."

"What things? Is it that urgent?"

"...Yes."

Li Laide was silent for a moment, "I need to... become stronger as soon as possible."

Mojiao saw the iron-clad determination flashing in those deep blue eyes and sighed silently... Sometimes, this guy was just like his master; if he was determined to do something, no one could pull him back.

"Then take this," Mojiao pulled a pair of crutches from somewhere and handed them to Li Laide. "Move slowly when you walk. If your bones break again, it will be hard to heal."

Li Laide’s mouth twitched slightly when he saw the extremely simple crutches, but after a moment of hesitation, he honestly took them... He wasn't a world-ending calamity and didn't have such perverted recovery abilities; he could only recuperate slowly.

"Right, there's one more thing."

Mojiao seemed to remember something and pulled a disc from his bosom.

"Your master already left a week ago... Before he left, he asked me to pass this to you."

Li Laide’s gaze narrowed when he saw the disc.

……

A few minutes later.

The disc’s space unfolded, and Li Laide, leaning on his crutches, returned to the center of the prison once again.

Compared to his elegance and composure last time, this time he was wrapped in bandages and leaning on a pair of simple crutches. He looked like he had absolutely no aura of the King of Fire Tamperers; he was as disheveled as one could be.

So much so that when the Crimson Heaven cultists saw him appear, they were stunned for a moment...

Then, mocking laughter and whispers echoed from the depths of the prison.

There was not a hint of emotion in Li Laide’s deep blue eyes. He just calmly fixed his gaze on the nearest cultist and raised his hands...

At this moment, in Li Laide’s perception, the Red Star Willpower, which had seemed to drift like smoke, was exceptionally clear.

Li Laide was stunned.

He seemed to realize something and looked down at his chest suddenly.

"This is..."

Beneath the branded palm print, deep within those fractured bones, some residual, minute Red Star Willpower had already seeped into his bone marrow...

Li Laide could clearly feel this Red Star Willpower at every moment. Perhaps it was precisely because of this strange coexistence over the past half-month that their aura was not only no longer strange to Li Laide, but quite familiar, as if it were a part of his own body.

So...

Was that battle for this?

Li Laide sensed that extremely minute wisp of Red Star Willpower in the air, and his deep blue eyes shone with unprecedented light!

The next second, his palm clenched suddenly!

Steal—!

*Thump!*

The cultist’s chest was once again soaked in blood, and a beating heart appeared out of thin air in Li Laide’s palm... At the same time, a wisp of Red Star Willpower drifted into Li Laide’s body.

The moment Li Laide actively absorbed the first wisp of Red Star Willpower, an indescribably profound feeling rose within him. The heavenly path leading to the God Star actually shifted slightly, pointing toward a brand-new possibility.

Is this...

Red Star Willpower??

Li Laide’s mouth curled upward uncontrollably. The power brought by the Red Star Willpower made him tremble with excitement.

He turned his head sharply to look at the hundreds of Crimson Heaven cultists in this prison, as if looking at a table of extremely sumptuous dishes, his eyes filled with unprecedented desire!

Under the gaze of such crazy and strange eyes, all the cultists inexplicably got goosebumps.

Li Laide threw away his crutches.

He limped slowly toward the terrified crowd, his bandages and trench coat projected onto the pitch-black wall by the torchlight, looking like a gradually expanding demon.

"One day, I will become as strong as you, and even surpass you..."

"Master."

……

*Hum—*

A roaring ship whistle echoed across the sky.

Above the frozen sea, a ship moved slowly across the ice-filled waters. At the very front of the deck, a figure in a brown trench coat stood alone, squinting at the end of the distant horizon.

At the intersection of sea and sky, the outline of a giant sword towering between heaven and earth slowly took shape.

The biting cold wind brushed against Chen Ling’s cheeks. In those red eyes, worry and nervousness appeared, which was rare.

"Are you sure?" Chen Ling asked in a deep voice.

"Did you... really find Jian Changsheng’s whereabouts?"