Chapter 1066: 抢人？

"Hmm?"

The Butcher seemed to sense something, tilting his head slightly to look into the distance. "Tianhuai's aura has vanished..."

On the edge of the chaotic battlefield, several battered figures, covered in wounds, lay sprawled amidst the ruins. These were the Fusionists who had just fought against the two Arbitration Envoys. However, they were now at their limits; most had reverted to human form, unable to move, with severed limbs scattered around.

"All the eighth-rank beings in this city should have been controlled by the secret treasure... How could someone below the eighth-rank defeat Tianhuai?" The White-Robed Scholar, his body stained with the blood of disaster, appeared slightly disheveled. He too looked towards the direction of Tianhuai's battle, his eyes filled with astonishment.

The Butcher's brows furrowed. Without much hesitation, he turned and walked directly in that direction.

"The Twilight Society... what a nuisance."

"You're just leaving? Aren't you going to deal with these calamities?"

"They're incapacitated; they pose no threat to us. The Twilight Society is more troublesome than these calamities," the Butcher said, his tone utterly calm. "This time, we should clear them out directly."

"Makes sense."

The Scholar God nodded slightly. With his hands behind his back, his entire being dissolved and faded away like ink spreading in water. The Butcher, taking a single step, moved like an unstoppable cannonball, smashing through all buildings in his path and disappearing from sight.

After the two departed, the Fusionists, lying haphazardly on the ground, began to cough weakly.

"Cough, cough, cough... Are they going to find the Saint?"

"They're going to find the Twilight Society, right?"

"But isn't Chen Ling part of the Twilight Society? If the Saint is trying to save Chen Ling, won't that put him in danger?"

"It's fine. Old Wolf is with the Saint; if they run into real trouble, they should still be able to escape..."

"That's true... What about us?"

"Let's keep playing dead."

"Agreed."

Silently, they lay back, hands naturally folded over their bodies, peacefully closing their eyes. In the quiet, their wounds began to heal rapidly, and even severed limbs slowly regenerated. Human bodily mechanisms seemed utterly defunct in them, as if they were some kind of supernatural monsters.

"It's you!! Jian Mushroom!!"

"It's you?! Ugly... uh... the guy from the bed next door!"

Jian Changsheng, who had just arrived with the memory carrier, instantly widened his eyes when he saw Zhao Yi, looking incredibly stylish sitting atop a skeletal Direwolf.

Zhao Yi sprang off the skeletal Direwolf, gave Jian Changsheng a big hug, and enthusiastically said, "I can't believe I'd run into you here again... Oh, by the way, how's your mushroom disease?"

Jian Changsheng and Zhao Yi had met once at the Aurora Base. At that time, Zhao Yi had voluntarily offered himself as an experimental subject to the base. After several experiments, he lay in the ward in a non-human state. As for Jian Changsheng, he had fabricated a story about a "mushroom disease" to infiltrate the base, ending up in the bed next to Zhao Yi. Zhao Yi had even provided cover for Jian Changsheng when he was secretly operating within the base, forming a sort of revolutionary camaraderie between them.

Jian Changsheng scrutinized Zhao Yi, unable to reconcile the current figure with the depressed, suicidal person he remembered. After a long moment of stunned silence, he finally replied, "I'm actually fine... but you... how did you end up like this?"

"My situation... it's a long story," Zhao Yi smiled. "After a few coincidences, I'm now part of the Fusionists..."

"Fusionists? So those calamities that just burst in were your people?"

"That's right."

Seeing Chen Ling also approaching, Zhao Yi immediately got straight to the point. "We came here for two reasons: first, to rescue Chen Ling from the Usurpers, and second, to recruit him."

Recruit me? Chen Ling was stunned... and so was Jian Changsheng.

"You want to recruit him into the Fusionists? No, absolutely not!" Jian Changsheng vehemently shook his head. "Chen Ling is one of us, a member of the Twilight Society. He can't go with you..."

"Members of the Twilight Society can also join the Fusionists, right? Don't you have Fusionists in your Twilight Society too?"

"That's different!"

"Seriously, Chen Ling, you really should consider this carefully." Zhao Yi ignored the anxious Jian Changsheng and turned directly to Chen Ling. "You are a Fusionist of the world-ending calamity, and in this world, no one understands better than us how to control calamities and manage the relationship with them. Joining us could be a great help to you.

"Besides, everyone in the Human Realm is against you, so why not just come with me to the Gray Realm? Don't let our Fusionist tree-hole dwellings fool you; our infrastructure is very comprehensive, and living conditions are no worse than in the Realms.

"Also, your buddy here now has a bit of status among the Fusionists. If you come back with me, I promise to get you all set up and taken care of!"

As he spoke, Zhao Yi leaned closer to Chen Ling's ear and whispered an additional remark: "We have a lot of young, beautiful girls in the Fusionists... you know, the kind with animal ears? They've heard your stories, and they were ecstatic to hear you might be coming!"

Chen Ling: "..."

"Zhao Yi, you're really something, trying to poach people right in front of a Twilight Society member, are you?!" Jian Changsheng gesticulated wildly. "Block! Bite him!"

Nearby, Sun Bumian, who had just recovered his true form, almost stumbled weakly to the ground and rolled his eyes at Jian Changsheng.

"Regardless, thank you for going out of your way to rescue me," Chen Ling said apologetically. "But I... genuinely have no intention of joining any other organization..."

Zhao Yi scratched his head, about to try convincing him further, when a tremendous roar suddenly echoed from a distance!

*Boom—!!*

A colossal vine monster, so vast it almost blotted out the sky, burst from the ground, causing the Great Earth of the Boundless Realm to tremble continuously.

Countless eerie, dark-green eyes clung to the vine monster's surface. As its massive body surged skyward, everyone vaguely saw a farmer casually sitting on top of the creature's head, a hoe resting on his shoulder. His eyes disdainfully gazed down at Chen Ling and the others below.

"I wondered who had dealt with Tianhuai... To think, it was you."

The oppressive aura of an eighth-rank being descended once more. With a wave of his hand, dense vines retracted from the surroundings like tentacles. The ends of some vines were still wrapped around several Twilight Society members, who hung upside down in the air like fruit from a tree. Chen Ling's and the others' expressions instantly turned grim.

"One, two, three... eight, nine, ten, eleven?" Jian Changsheng counted the captured Twilight Society members, his brows furrowing tighter. "Damn it, so many of them got caught?"

Among these dozen or so individuals were several familiar faces, such as Heart 7 Jin Fugui, Coffin-Planter Diamond 10, and many other members from the 7th, 8th, and 9th generations, many of whom had been seen in the Tianshu Realm. But now, they were all tightly bound like zongzi, with only their wide eyes staring around.