Chapter 844: Jumping Clown

Chen Ling could feel that the Daobase artifact in his hand seemed to be single-use. Precisely because of this, once activated, its suppressive power was far beyond what other Daobase artifacts could achieve!

Once the "All Beings Seated" rule was triggered, wherever Chen Ling went, all living creatures would be forcibly pressed into audience seats, as if watching a performance that couldn't be interfered with. Chen Ling, Jian Changsheng, and Sun Bumian were the actors on stage, watched by thousands.

"Let's go!" Sun Bumian also noticed the cracks gradually appearing on the token and immediately said, "While this thing is still working, let's rush into the Gray Realm... Once we're there, they shouldn't be able to catch us."

Chen Ling and Sun Bumian simultaneously took the Cloud Steps, their figures rising into the air above the Old District.

"Wait... what about me??" Jian Changsheng watched them fly away, so anxious that he was about to bite his fingertip to use his blood-drop pendulum to follow. However, as Chen Ling flipped the token in his hand, an ethereal flight of Cloud Steps materialized beneath Jian Changsheng's feet. The token contained the essence of the God of Drama's Daobase, and after mastering its secrets, Chen Ling could temporarily create a flight of Cloud Steps for Jian Changsheng to move on.

Jian Changsheng breathed a sigh of relief and immediately stepped onto the ethereal path, catching up. The three figures thus sped out of the Old District's edge!

Watching the three escape, the members of the Twilight Society were filled with pleasant surprise. Like everyone else, they were frozen in place by "All Beings Seated." Seeing Chen Ling and the others successfully flee, their lips curved uncontrollably upwards... However, noticing the event organizers' logistics staff nearby, they dared not laugh out loud. Instead, they covered their uncontrollable amusement with shouts of anger:

"What?! They actually let those brats get away?!""My second aunt's eldest son died in Aurora City; it must have something to do with them... Let me go! I'm going to get revenge! I'm going to tear them limb from limb!!""They just got away so coolly and smoothly?! Damn it! What are the high-ranking officials of the Five Great Realms even doing?!""Damn them! Damn them all!!""The Twilight Society is worse than pigs and dogs!!""Let me go! I'm going to fight those Twilight Society villains to the death!!"

Hearing the continuous curses from these people, the expressions of the high-ranking officials from the Five Great Realms grew increasingly grim. They stared intently in the direction Chen Ling and the others had fled, grinding their teeth!

Jian Changsheng cautiously stepped onto the Cloud Steps, walking through the air. This was his first time on Cloud Steps. When he looked down, he saw nothing but empty void and the distant city streets. The feeling of nothing beneath his feet made him somewhat uneasy, and his speed was slightly slower than Chen Ling and Sun Bumian's.

"Hong Xin! I won't fall, will I?!" Jian Changsheng's face was a little pale.

"No."

"...But we're so high up now."

"What? You're a Soldier God, and you're afraid of heights?" Sun Bumian raised an eyebrow. "This height is already quite low, only a few tens of meters above the ground... With your physical condition, you wouldn't die even if you fell directly."

"Who... who's afraid of heights?! I'm just not used to flying for the first time."

Sun Bumian didn't bother to expose Jian Changsheng's "bravery." He turned to Chen Ling, "How long can this artifact last?"

"It'll last until we enter the Gray Realm, with plenty of time to spare," Chen Ling replied calmly.

"That's good."

The three walked through the void, crossing the edge of the Old District and entering the urban area of the Celestial Pivot Realm.

The originally incensed populace, upon seeing Chen Ling and the others emerge from the Old District, suddenly froze in place. The shouts and anger that had echoed moments ago now vanished. The crowded streets fell into a dead silence. Confusion, bewilderment, astonishment... pairs of eyes stared at the three figures walking through the air, as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing. After all, the representatives from the Five Great Realms had just entered, yet now there was no movement from within the Old District, and instead, the Twilight Society members had escaped? What exactly were those realm representatives doing?!

Feeling thousands of eyes fixed on them from below, Jian Changsheng felt completely uneasy. Hostility, fear, apprehension—it was like ants crawling all over him, making his brow furrow tighter and tighter. They had clearly done nothing wrong, yet to be looked at in such a way made him feel a sense of injustice.

Just then, something was thrown from the ground, soaring past the three figures below them, then falling back to the earth. The trio were slightly startled, because what flew past wasn't an attack or a pursuer, but an egg... or rather, a rotten egg.

"To hell with you Twilight demons!!" An elderly man's figure in the crowd, holding a vegetable basket, glared at Chen Ling and the others with wide, angry eyes. "Others might be afraid of you! But our Celestial Pivot Realm isn't afraid! Go back to your mothers' wombs!!"

In the dead silence, the old man's curses were incredibly clear, echoing through several nearby streets. His shouts seemed to stir the blood and resentment of some, and seeing a continuous stream of figures rushing from the Skytower in the distance, seemingly to encircle Chen Ling and his companions, they unconsciously straightened their backs! Empowered by this surge of passion and unity, more and more people began to point at the three figures in the sky and shout:

"A bunch of villains who just want to cause chaos!! You are a disgrace to humanity!""Executioners! Murderers!!""You don't deserve to set foot in human realms!! Get out!""A bunch of clowns, you won't last long! The Five Great Realms will capture you all!""You only deserve to live like rats in a sewer! Tuck your tails and run!!"

The surging public outrage solidified; countless rotten leaves, stones, and shoes were continuously thrown into the sky. However, the strength of these ordinary people was limited, and they couldn't reach Chen Ling and the others, but this didn't affect their "morale" in the slightest. Malicious curses, like feathered arrows, surged towards the trio from all directions. Suddenly, they became the targets of widespread condemnation.

"You even dared to harm our young prodigies and covet the Skytower Celestial Position?! What are you? Are you even worthy??"

One curse pierced Jian Changsheng's ears, and he shuddered. He lowered his head, his fists silently clenching. His fingernails, under uncontrollable force, pierced the skin of his palms, and crimson blood dripped from his knuckles onto the ground...

No one had worked harder than Jian Changsheng. How many life-and-death struggles, how many times on the brink of exhaustion? From the very beginning, Jian Changsheng had diligently prepared to win the Skytower Celestial Position. Apart from Kong Wang, he was the one who had killed the most in the Old District, and the one who had suffered the most and gravest injuries. He gritted his teeth, fighting all the way to the end, on the verge of obtaining the Skytower Celestial Position, and he had even stepped forward to defeat Kong Wang and protect everyone...

Yet, in the end, all he received were the words "clown" and "are you even worthy?"