Chapter 36: Who Among You Can Punish Me?

Scarlet blood splattered across the screen behind the stage. The drums and string instruments on either side of the stage instantly fell silent!

Everyone froze, their pupils suddenly constricting. The intense smell of blood suppressed the alcohol in their systems, and they shot to their feet, their faces etched with disbelief!

"You..." Bone Blade's gaze slowly lifted from his blood-soaked chest to Chen Ling's face. He seemed to remember something. "Are you... that kid's... brother?" A large amount of blood gushed from his throat, making his words incoherent. His expression was one of extreme horror.

"You enjoy tearing people's hearts out?" Chen Ling's cheeks were covered in blood, and his eyes gleamed with intense hatred and madness. "Today... I'll rip you clean out too!"

"Give me the knife!!" Chen Ling raised his hand to the emptiness behind him.

At the waist of a stunned Ice Spring Street resident below the stage, a sharp dagger suddenly vibrated violently! As if an invisible hand had grabbed the hilt, it was yanked from its sheath and flew whistling towards Chen Ling at the center of the stage!

The "audience" was cooperating with his performance.

Chen Ling gripped the dagger, plunging it like lightning into Bone Blade's chest. Following the bloody hole he had opened with his hand, he sliced downwards, disemboweling him in an instant!

Bone Blade uncontrollably gaped, the extreme pain forcing a guttural scream, but the blood continuously gushing from his throat choked his windpipe, leaving only a muffled, agonizing moan.

Blood mixed with organs flowed out from the gash. Bone Blade softly knelt to the ground, his hands frantically trying to stuff everything back in, but after only a couple of fumbling attempts, his movements slowly ceased... He was dead. Reflected in his pupils were the blood-soaked stage and his own life... but mostly, terror and helplessness.

Chen Ling looked at Bone Blade, who had died kneeling before him, his expression largely unchanged. This was his first kill, yet perhaps due to the surging hatred and adrenaline, he felt little... only a faint touch of nausea. He didn't notice that, at that moment, a black star faintly glowed in the heavily snowing sky.

"Chen Ling?! Have you gone mad?!!"

"As an enforcer, you're killing indiscriminately, without reason!! You will be punished!!" Qian Fan, witnessing this, involuntarily widened his eyes and immediately roared.

On the blood-stained stage, the figure in red slowly turned... The young man's cheeks were still covered in warm blood. He clutched the dagger, looking down at the terrified crowd below, his eyes filled with murderous intent and madness! At that moment, the dense bloodstains on the stage screen behind him faintly glowed, like countless crimson eyes opening in the darkness, sitting in the ethereal audience, watching everything.

Audience Expectation: 5

Whoosh— With a soft sound, all the torches in the courtyard extinguished simultaneously.

"Punish me?" Chen Ling chuckled softly. He slowly raised a finger, dipped it in the warm blood on his cheek, and traced a bloody mark at the corner of his eye... In a haze, Chen Yan, who once wore rouge, overlapped with Chen Ling's face, and his entire aura instantly became demonic and bloodthirsty! He was the ghost of Chen Ling, and also the ghost of Chen Yan, a character performing alone under the gaze of the "Doomsday" calamity. "You, by what right do you punish me?" "You... who among you can punish me?"

The next moment, the red-clad figure vanished instantly from the stage. Simultaneously, a dagger sliced through the air so swiftly that no one present could react. Then, a muffled groan sounded, blood splattered from the neck of an Ice Spring Street resident closest to the stage, and he fell to the ground.

Li Mang, Old Six Sun, and the others turned pale with fright. They had all fought Chen Ling before and knew his terrifying capabilities. Most crucially, they had come to the celebration to enjoy themselves, so almost no one had brought guns; at most, they had hidden a couple of cold weapons on their person... But even when they had guns in the tavern, they couldn't deal with Chen Ling, so how could they now?

The red specter weaved through the crowd, frantically harvesting lives. As more people were killed, Chen Ling completely overcame any lingering shadows of his grim actions, instead becoming unnervingly proficient.

Amidst the vast snowfall, a bloody and bizarre massacre unfolded in the courtyard.

Meanwhile, a hundred meters from the courtyard.

"He actually attracted the attention of the 'War God Path'?" Chu Muyun stood under a snow-laden tree, his gaze fixed on the distant courtyard. "I never imagined he was truly a genius... at killing."

"Not just the 'War God Path'." From the void, the figure of a man shrouded entirely in shadow slowly emerged.

"Didn't you notice? The 'Witch God Path' star has reacted too..."

"'Witch God Path'?" Chu Muyun was startled. "What does he have to do with the 'Witch God Path'? Why would he attract the 'Witch God Path'?"

"I don't know." "But don't you find it strange?"

"What?"

"How can a 'Fuser' attract the attention of a God Path? And he's even a 'Doomsday' level Fuser..."

"There's nothing strange about it. He merely attracted attention, as if his inherent talent was noticed by the God Path, but he hasn't truly received divine favor... The path to godhood is not for monsters."

"I see."

"But this kid is truly crazy and ruthless. Your judgment is good."

Chu Muyun smiled faintly but said nothing.

"But he's in trouble now."

"Why?"

"I smell it." The shadowy man paused for a moment. "That enforcer named Qian Fan has the aura of a 'Sacred Relic' on him."

The Courtyard.

As Chen Ling's hand moved, dagger flashing, seven or eight Ice Spring Street residents fell one after another. Without firearms, these Ice Spring Street residents almost uniformly chose to flee, but their speed was no match for Chen Ling, who possessed a "Dance of Slaughter." They were hunted down consecutively as soon as they reached the front yard!

"Brother Fan! What do we do?!" an enforcer hastily asked.

"He must have already received divine favor and entered a God Path..." Qian Fan recalled the scene of Chen Ling conjuring the dagger from thin air, his face extremely grim. "Damn it, which God Path has he truly embarked upon?"

"Doesn't that make him an enforcer officer then?" another enforcer asked, his face pale. "How can we possibly fight him?"

"Why isn't Brother Ma here yet?!"

"It's too late... If this continues, not only will Ice Spring Street be completely annihilated, but we might not survive either."

A fierce glint flashed in Qian Fan's eyes. He reached into his embrace and pulled out an object wrapped in black cloth, which appeared in his palm.

As he slowly unwrapped the black cloth, a fractured finger bone was exposed to the air...