Chapter 856: Thief Saint Kills

Mo Lian turned his head to glance at Bai Ye and said calmly:

"Oh... then in that case, I'll do it. You watch from the side, and if any child tries to escape, you kill them."

Bai Ye lowered his eyelids and didn't answer.

"What? You're not willing?"

"I just don't understand. They're just a group of children; if they run, let them run. Why must you kill them... We are thieves, not butchers," Bai Ye said in a low, heavy voice.

"Then go ask the King yourself," Mo Lian sneered. "Among us five Thief Saints—Red, Yellow, Blue, White, and Black—whose hands aren't stained with blood? Starting to play the innocent little white rabbit now? It doesn't matter to me, but I will report exactly what you did and didn't do on this trip when we return... It will be up to the King to decide how to deal with you."

“……”

Mo Lian ignored Bai Ye and continued forward along the cart tracks.

Bai Ye frowned, looking in the direction the tracks led, a sharp glint flickering deep in his eyes as he pondered... Just then, the soil beneath his feet trembled slightly, and a shadow centipede as thick as a human thigh burst from the ground, lunging toward his body!

Bai Ye and Mo Lian did not possess the aura that Chen Ling had, which could disperse the calamities around him. As they walked through the Gray Realm, they had to face the constant attacks of its calamities. However, given their rank and strength, most of these calamities posed no threat to them...

Bai Ye was deep in thought and had no time to deal with this sudden calamity. Just as he was about to casually wipe the centipede out, he suddenly seemed to think of something and pinned it under his foot instead!

Bai Ye looked down at the shadow centipede struggling frantically beneath his foot, his eyes narrowing slightly...

His palm gently reached toward the centipede's head.

……

As the group moved forward, a continuous sound of crying erupted from among the children.

"I don't want to walk anymore... I don't want to walk, I want to go back and find my mom, wuwuwu..."

"I can't walk anymore, I need to sit down and rest for a while."

"It's so dark all around, I'm so scared!"

"Where's the flatbread? I want to eat flatbread... If I don't eat flatbread, I'm going to starve to death!"

After hours of trekking, most of the children had reached their physical limits. Some of the younger ones, having been in such a stifling environment for so long, lost control of their emotions and began to cry and scream uncontrollably.

Fortunately, there were a few adults in the group who took charge, doing their best to coax them and taking dry rations and water from another cart to distribute among the children.

"What are you making so much noise for?! If you keep crying, you'll attract those monsters!! Whoever cries again, I'll beat them!"

A tall, sturdy teenager of about seventeen or eighteen in the crowd knocked a child in his early teens to the ground with a punch and spoke viciously.

After taking the punch, the child cried even harder.

The tall teenager glared, lunged onto the child, and rained down punches like sandbags, leaving the child bloodied and bruised. Seeing this, an adult nearby immediately rushed over to pull them apart.

"Zhu Zhong!! What are you doing?? Are you trying to kill someone!"

"Who told him to keep crying! He's going to get us all killed!"

"Even so, you went too far! Do you have any idea how far we are from the Tian-Shu Domain? Losing this much blood can kill someone!"

The teenager called Zhu Zhong felt no guilt at all; instead, he continued to glare fixedly at the child in the pool of blood. Blood dripped from his knuckles onto the ground, though it was the deep gray color unique to the Gray Realm.

Not far away, a boy in hempen clothes silently raised his hand to cover the eyes of A-Qian, who was on his back.

"Brother Xiao Li... why is he hitting people?" A-Qian, like the other children, was frightened by the bloody scene, her voice trembling slightly.

"Xunzi said that human nature is inherently evil. Without education to cultivate a sense of right and wrong, yet possessing strength far beyond their peers... such people are often extremely self-centered, unrestrained by any rules, and act without measure," the boy in hempen clothes said calmly.

"We need to stay away from people like that, understand?"

"I understand."

A-Qian buried her head in the boy's shoulder, but she noticed that his pace was becoming unsteady and his body seemed to be trembling slightly... It wasn't fear, but sheer exhaustion.

The boy in hempen clothes was already thin, and after carrying A-Qian for several hours, his body was reaching its limit.

"Brother Xiao Li, are you tired?"

"I am," the boy in hempen clothes paused for a moment. "But we can't stop... We barely escaped from that purgatory; the longer we are delayed on the road, the more dangerous it becomes..."

"It should be fine to rest for a while, right? With those adults here, we should be safe."

"Them? They don't represent 'safety'... Have you forgotten how the Wuji Domain fell?" The boy in hempen clothes seemed to recall something, a hint of red flashing in his eyes. "This is a chaotic and dark era. Here, the only thing we can trust is ourselves."

"Oh..."

A-Qian didn't understand what Brother Xiao Li meant, but she knew he was truly tired, so she climbed down from his back to lighten his burden as much as possible.

Just as she was about to say something, a figure holding a cane gradually appeared in their field of vision on the desolate land ahead.

"Brother Xiao Li, there's an uncle ahead! He's not a monster!" Seeing this, A-Qian was startled at first, then her face lit up with surprise. "Did the Tian-Shu Domain send him to pick us up?"

Not just her, but almost all the other children had the same thought in their minds.

They had been walking in the Gray Realm for too long. Aside from the desolate, dead land and the terrifying calamities that crawled by occasionally, they hadn't seen a single human figure... In such an extremely stifling environment, everyone was longing to reach the Tian-Shu Domain as soon as possible, though they were too young to have a concept of distance.

Therefore, when they saw a long-lost human ahead—who looked like a gentleman wearing a bowler hat and holding a cane—they were instantly overjoyed!

Some children even began to wave at the man, crying out as they hurried toward him.

But the boy in hempen clothes stopped abruptly, gripping A-Qian's wrist tightly. He looked at the man with extreme vigilance and silently retreated behind the others...

"Watch out!! Don't go over there!" At the same time, the accompanying adults realized what was happening and shouted!

However, it was already too late.

As the man raised his cane and waved it casually, the dozen or so children closest to him shuddered simultaneously. Their hearts appeared outside their bodies, as if plucked out by an invisible giant hand, and were tossed onto the ground.

Thump—

Their bodies fell to the ground like stalks of wheat swept by a hurricane, and they breathed no more.