Ch 361: One More Thing
Just as Zhou Chenwu was about to untie Xu Chunhua, Gu Yuan suddenly shouted, “Zhou Chenwu, you idiot, don’t let your guard down!”
Hearing this, Zhou Chenwu was startled. He quickly stopped his actions, turning to look at Gu Yuan. However, the instant he turned his head, his gaze was caught by another shocking scene—the people he had personally killed were coming back to life!
“What’s going on? Is it the Myriad Wonders Gate’s rules again?”
Zhou Chenwu stared in astonishment at the scene before him, various possible explanations flashing rapidly through his mind.
At that moment, the mysterious voice rang out again: “I forgot to mention! People tied to the pillars and playing the role of good people can use special abilities, while villains who are killed cannot use any special abilities.”
After hearing this, Zhou Chenwu’s anger burned. He roared uncontrollably, “Damn it, you son of a bitch, you were definitely doing this on purpose! You’re only telling me about this crucial rule now!”
Zhou Chenwu cursed inwardly, realizing he had fallen into a carefully designed trap.
Xu Chunhua was just an ordinary peasant woman, incapable of any miraculous skill. Even if he could use his cultivation technique, it would be useless.
Because the Martial Family’s cultivation technique requires an army to be fully effective, and in this enclosed space, there was simply no army.
Just as Zhou Chenwu was feeling annoyed, the woman with braids tied to the pillar suddenly spoke, “If I couldn’t use my cultivation technique, I might really have died at your hands.”
As soon as the woman with braids finished speaking, her neck, which had been broken by Zhou Chenwu, visibly realigned at an incredible speed. The veins under her skin throbbed, as if living creatures were wriggling beneath her flesh. With a slight struggle of her wrists bound to the stone pillar, the rough hemp rope not only didn’t break, but instead tightened like a living snake, embedding deeply into her flesh—this was the true trap of the rules: good people could not leave the pillars, and the ropes would never break on their own. The so-called “killing” was merely to force out the good people’s special abilities; once they used their special abilities, the ropes would tighten, allowing the Myriad Wonders Gate to kill more people.
At this time, he threw out a thin, long thread.
“My ‘Soul-Returning Thread’ specializes in binding the souls of living beings.”
The woman giggled, her voice as sharp as fingernails scraping across a stone slab, “You smashed my bones, I can grow them back; but if you’re entangled by this rope, your soul will be crushed.”
Before her words fell, another strong man whose temple Zhou Chenwu had smashed suddenly opened his eyes, black blood flowing from his eye sockets: “My ‘Blood Bone Curse,’ touched by my blood, with every step you take, your bones will loosen.”
His bound fingers curled with difficulty, and the pool of blood flowing from his temple seemed to have a life of its own, crawling toward Zhou Chenwu’s feet.
Zhou Chenwu quickly took a half-step back, his heel kicking a piece of a token.
He then saw clearly that all the “good people” were moving—white air puffed from the chest wound of the man in the gray shirt, and broken bones were “clicking” back together in his chest; the man with the bushy beard had his head twisted at a bizarre angle, yet he could clearly articulate words: “The Seven-Person Team’s ‘Symbiotic Technique,’ if one doesn’t die, the whole team doesn’t die. What you killed were just our outer shells.”
Xu Chunhua suddenly screamed. Zhou Chenwu turned his head and saw that spikes were growing on the hemp rope of the elder from the five-person team, slowly piercing into her arm. A cruel smile appeared on the elder’s withered face: “Don’t be afraid, girl, once your blood soaks the rope, you can break the curse for me.”
Zhou Chenwu’s anger flared, and he lunged at the elder. But as soon as he approached the pillar, the woman with braids shouted, “Entangle!” The hemp rope binding the elder suddenly split off a strand, whipping toward Zhou Chenwu’s ankle like a whip. He hurriedly dodged to the side, but was still grazed on his lower leg. The instant the rope touched his skin, it felt like a branding iron, burning a string of blisters, causing him to stumble backward in pain.
“Don’t touch the rope!” Xu Chunhua screamed, the spikes on her arm already piercing her flesh, blood flowing down the stone pillar. “Their abilities are all connected to this rope!”
Only then did Zhou Chenwu understand that his previous “kills” were useless, instead acting as a key to activating their abilities.
He looked at the increasingly deep bloodstains on Xu Chunhua’s arm, at the “good people” tied to the pillars using the hemp ropes to unleash various killing moves, and suddenly clenched his fists—no weapons, no cultivation technique, the only thing he could rely on were these hands that had smashed countless people’s heads.
“Want to use the rope to kill her?” Zhou Chenwu suddenly chuckled, a cruel edge in his laughter, “Then I’ll destroy your pillars first!”
He turned and charged towards the nearest pillar, the one the woman with braids was leaning against. His fist, carrying the force of the wind, smashed against the stone surface, sparks flying, and the pillar buzzing from the impact. The woman’s face changed: “Madman! This pillar is formed from the Myriad Wonders Gate’s barrier, you can’t destroy it!”
“If I can’t destroy it, I’ll shake you to death!” Zhou Chenwu ignored her, repeatedly smashing with his left and right fists, his knuckles aching, but he still managed to smash a shallow pit into the stone surface.
The woman was shaken, her newly healed neck beginning to bleed again. She wanted to control the hemp rope again, but her whole body was numb from the pillar’s vibrations, and she could only watch helplessly as Zhou Chenwu’s punches became more and more ferocious.
Seeing this, the other “good people” activated their abilities—the strong man’s blood flowed along the ground and wrapped around Zhou Chenwu’s lower leg, the elder’s spiked hemp rope turned toward his back, and the bushy-bearded man’s head suddenly fell from his neck, rolling toward his knee.
Zhou Chenwu took the blow, his knee in intense pain, but he used this force to leap up, striking out with both fists, smashing hard against the top of the pillar the woman with braids was leaning against!
“Crack!”
With a crisp sound, a crack appeared at the top of the pillar. The woman let out a scream, as if an invisible hand had grabbed her throat. The madness in her eyes faded, replaced by terror: “The barrier… you actually shattered the barrier…”
When Zhou Chenwu landed, he knelt down on one knee, the flesh on his lower leg already corroded by blood, exposing the bones.
“Bang!”
A dull thud came from the side, and Zhou Chenwu was sent flying sideways by an immense force, crashing heavily against the pillar Xu Chunhua was leaning against. A sweetness rose in his throat, and he looked up to see Scarface, the one from the Seven-Person Team who hadn’t been chosen as a “good person,” swinging his fist—these “villains” finally made their move, unable to use their abilities, they used the most primitive fists and feet, but their target wasn’t the other “good people,” but the person who had broken the deadlock first.
“The Myriad Wonders Gate didn’t say that villains could only kill good people.”
Scarface grinned, closing in, his spittle spraying onto Zhou Chenwu’s face.
Zhou Chenwu had just propped himself halfway up when the “Blood Bone Curse” on his lower leg suddenly struck, as if red-hot wires were being shoved into his bone marrow, the pain making his vision go black. The woman with braids seized the opportunity to throw out the Soul-Returning Thread, the thread, carrying a fishy smell, winding towards his wrist. This time, he couldn’t dodge, and the moment the thread cut into his flesh, it was as if countless fine needles were piercing his soul, even his breath was filled with tearing pain.
“Save… save me…” Xu Chunhua cried, the spikes on her arm already reaching her bones, and the elder’s hemp rope was still burrowing into her flesh.
Zhou Chenwu suddenly looked up and saw that the “villains” from the other teams had also moved—two men from the four-person team were working together to deal with the bushy-bearded man using the “Symbiotic Technique,” but were hit by their companion with stones, breaking their arms; the “villains” from the six-person team were even more ruthless, directly hugging the stone pillar of the man in the gray shirt and ramming it, intending to overturn both man and pillar.
Amid the chaos, Scarface’s fist came again. Zhou Chenwu endured the agonizing pain of his soul being constricted and suddenly turned sideways, using his wrist bound by the Soul-Returning Thread to block the punch.
Amid the crisp sound of two bones colliding, he slid his other fist up the other man’s arm and smashed it hard into Scarface’s armpit!
Scarface screamed, his arm instantly drooping.
Zhou Chenwu didn’t stop, using the other man’s backward momentum to shoulder-charge his chest, while firmly pulling the Soul-Returning Thread towards himself.
The woman with braids was caught off guard and crashed against the stone pillar, the blood gushing from her throat spraying the hemp rope, and the spiked hemp rope suddenly convulsed violently, loosening its grip on Xu Chunhua’s arm.
“So you feel pain too.” Zhou Chenwu chuckled, the Soul-Returning Thread tearing his wrist flesh, but he held on tighter, “Your abilities are connected to the rope, the rope is connected to your lives, right?”
He suddenly exerted force, stuffing the Soul-Returning Thread into the crack in the pillar. The woman with braids let out a heart-wrenching scream, the thread being burned by the barrier’s power in the crack, and black smoke began to emanate from her wrist.
Scarface took the opportunity to pounce from behind, and Zhou Chenwu countered with an elbow to his chin.
But the other villains also pounced.
