Chapter 1316: Revenge

The cloaked figure’s gaze fell upon the dense array of light points. There were millions of these points, most of them dim, representing individuals who had merely heard the name “Chen Ling” and thus shared a subtle connection with him. A smaller number, perhaps a thousand, glowed more brightly; these were people who had personally seen Chen Ling or had real-world interactions with him. In this storm of thoughts, if the former’s connection to Chen Ling was like a fine strand of spider silk, the latter’s was like a sturdy rope.

With a slight lift of his hand, the cloaked figure drew these “sturdy ropes” around him, and thousands of distinct thoughts flooded his mind. Most of these individuals were located in the South Sea Domain, with a smaller portion in the Polaris Domain, and only a handful in other domains.

As he observed the thoughts that had established connections with him, a slow smile spread across the cloaked figure’s lips. His grin was as grotesque as a demon’s!

“Those who humiliated me…”

“Will all…”

“Pay the price!!”

***

South Sea Domain.

“Yes, Mr. Zhang, what can I do for you!”

“The order we signed today? Oh, that one’s a bit special. Due to the attacks by the ‘Scornful Disaster’ and ‘Taboo Disaster,’ the supplier’s factories have largely shut down. They’re requesting an extended payment period, and I was thinking…”

“Right, right, I’ll talk to them properly again tomorrow… Well, I’m going off work now.”

A figure carrying a briefcase pushed open an office door and walked straight into the corridor. It was already evening outside, and a cold wind swept through the open windows into the hallway, making him shiver violently. Ever since the death of the Three-Eyed Giant Turtle, the South Sea Domain’s once perfect environment had been completely shattered. The now porous turtle shell allowed the frigid sea winds to funnel into the city, causing the entire domain’s temperature to plummet and bringing immense hardship to its previously comfortable residents.

The man, already simmering with resentment, frowned and muttered under his breath, “Damn those idiotic disasters…”

“They rode off on their centipedes with their tails between their legs, leaving us with this mess. They’re utterly fucking despicable!”

In his mind, the scene replayed: himself hiding in the residential complex, watching from a distance as the large red operatic robe fell to the ground. At the time, he had clearly seen the appearance of that ‘Scornful Disaster.’ Though it looked no different from a human, thinking about it now, it seemed truly vile and deserving of a beating. Dissatisfied with his own life, he had been the first to shout, “He’s the culprit!” and then unleashed a string of curses, as if blaming all the misfortunes of his life over the years on that red operatic robe. After that cathartic outburst, he had felt considerably better.

As he distractedly prepared to head downstairs and go home, an inexplicable drowsiness washed over him, as if he’d dozed off while walking.

The next moment, a cloaked figure appeared at the end of the corridor.

The man froze. As he recognized the figure, a sudden chill shot from his feet to the crown of his head! The dark operatic robe fluttered in the cold wind, and a pair of unsettling, hollow eyes stared coldly at him. Under the flickering lights, the figure’s grotesque smile was like that of a demon.

It was *him*! How was this possible?!! He was back in the South Sea Domain?!! That face was one he would never forget. All the curses he had just uttered felt stuck in his throat; he couldn’t utter a single word. He could only stare in wide-eyed terror, then let out a scream and turn to run frantically in the opposite direction!

The next second, his body suddenly tripped over something, causing him to lose balance, and most of his body tumbled out the open window! The instantaneous drowsiness he’d felt vanished abruptly. Out of the corner of his eye, the man looked back in shock at the end of the corridor; there was no cloaked figure there, as if it had all been a hallucination brought on by his exhaustion. But it was too late. Overwhelmed by fright, he had used nearly all his strength to flee, resulting in him hurtling straight out the open window. Their company was on the fifth floor of the building. By the time the man fully regained his senses, he was already falling uncontrollably through the air, and the ground was rapidly rushing up to meet him…

Thud—!!

A heavy body, headfirst, smashed violently onto the concrete pavement.

***

Screams erupted from both sides of the street as passing citizens retreated in terror. A large pool of crimson blood spread across the road.

But the shadow of death did not halt.

Almost simultaneously:

A person driving a car suddenly dozed off, dreaming that a cloaked figure appeared out of thin air before them. They then violently swerved, crashing into an open coffee shop, killing four people instantly.

On a post-disaster reconstruction site, seven or eight figures simultaneously missed their footing on the scaffolding, falling one after another to their deaths, their bodies reduced to mangled flesh.

A housewife preparing a barbecue dinner instinctively, as if her brain had short-circuited, closed the open windows. The glowing charcoal silently burned, leading to all five family members suffocating from carbon monoxide poisoning.

A pedestrian walking on the street stumbled and hit their head on the sharp corner of a flower bed.

A resident sleeping at home sleepwalked and fell from a great height.

A thirsty farmer mistakenly drank pesticide instead of cool water.

A doctor performing surgery accidentally pierced a patient’s heart with a scalpel…

Various inexplicable deaths erupted within a single minute, with thousands of residents dying tragically at the same time. It was as if the grim reaper had emerged from purgatory and, with a gentle swing of his scythe, reaped the lives of an entire street.

***

“This is…”

Inside the toy factory, Teacher Ye suddenly seemed to sense something and snapped his gaze towards the window! In his vision, a spatial-defying storm had swept across the world. A black operatic robe extended infinitely across the sky of the South Sea Domain, and “Chen Ling” resembled an otherworldly titan, looking down upon the entire domain, his colossal face twisted in a grotesque, ruthless expression.

“Chen Ling?!!!” Teacher Ye’s eyes widened, his face filled with disbelief.

Teacher Ye knew this ability too well. He knew Chen Ling wasn’t physically there, but was using a storm of thoughts to draw a group of people in… But how could Chen Ling possess the ability of a ‘Thought Disaster’?

Teacher Ye immediately closed his eyes, withdrawing his own thoughts and plunging them into the storm. Simultaneously, the outline of a solitary island emerged from the other end of the thought storm. On that island, a phantom with bewildered eyes silently floated upwards.

The island nightmare of the slumbering storm, the bizarre phantom at the end of thoughts.

The thought storm could transcend space. Even though the cloaked figure, Teacher Ye, and the Thought Disaster were located in the Abyssal Ghost Laughter, the South Sea Domain, and the Storm Island respectively, they were now all connected through this singular storm.

But at this moment, both Teacher Ye and the Thought Disaster were utterly bewildered.

“Hahahahahahaha!!!”

The cloaked figure’s grotesque, wild laughter echoed from the center of the storm. Teacher Ye sharply turned his gaze towards that direction.