Hero? Are You Worthy?

What a bewitching beauty that confounds the crowd!

The most powerful Witch, also the most charming woman, had a cold and mocking smile on her lips, her crimson eyes strangely enchanting like blood.

"Such a nauseating bunch of maggots..."

"The bell of judgment... let it start ringing from here!"

Her pale, slender arms lazily stretched out, her silver hair wildly dancing behind her, the black and crimson aura emanating from Shaye Nikolass's body and soaring towards the sky above her head.

Below, in the noisy military camp, a hundred thousand Soldiers were in the throes of revelry.

Indulging in strong liquor and roasted meat, they vented their excitement brought about by the death of the Hero and the rise in military pay.

The bright moon had been obscured by dark clouds, and a massive clock hung in the pitch-black night sky, its face glowing with a sanguine sheen as the long hands slowly turned.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock...

The crisp sound, like a devilish melody capable of seizing the soul.

Finally, when the hand had eventually moved to the center...

Dong!

The time of the Funeral Bell's judgment!

A dark wind suddenly appeared.

Right at the edge of the military camp, it seemed as though a gentle breeze whispered over the tops of people's heads.

Figures engrossed in revelry abruptly stood still, motionless, their faces showing no trace of fear, even maintaining the twisted expression of excitement from before.

The next moment...

The figures silently collapsed onto the ground; their hearts had stopped beating, and like mowed wheat, they fell uniformly.

One after another, after another...

On one side, there was the silent death; on the other, the distorted celebration continued.

Those pitiful people, unaware that a great number of their comrades had perished, continued to grotesquely twist their bodies, wailing ceaselessly.

Who knows how much time passed until finally a drowsy man noticed the weirdness in the distance.

"Eh? What's happening over there, why is everyone lying down?"

Seeing people close by falling uniformly, another man curled his lips: "They're probably drunk and asleep."

Wiping his mouth nonchalantly, holding a bottle of liquor, he sauntered over: "Sleep my ass, get up and party..."

However, before he could finish his sentence, the wind, now a dark crimson, howled over his face, and amidst it, one could faintly detect a rich scent of blood.

The next second, it felt as if something was forcefully being extracted from his body, his facial muscles instantly stiffened, and his body rigidly fell forwards.

The Soldier who first sensed something wrong saw his companions continuously falling, saw the black and crimson fog writhing in the sky, and his body shuddered, snapping out of his drunken stupor by a good half: "The..."

"The Witch... The Witch has been unsealed..."

The next moment, the man's screams turned shrill as he threw away the bottle in his hand and stumbled away as he turned to run.

The man's screams awakened his surrounding comrades, and in an instant, people finally noticed the anomaly within the camp. Watching the zones brushed by the black and crimson fog, where their comrades fell in unison, everyone's complexion immediately turned pale, none brave enough to rescue their own mates, each of them simply breaking into a run.

The original revelry became, at that moment, a disaster like the end of the world.

Each person cursed that their parents hadn't given them an extra pair of legs.

The strong liquor, they could no longer care for.

Barbecue, it's too late.

The dense mass of people crammed together, and anyone who accidentally fell was immediately trampled with countless footprints on their back.

Vast swaths of unceasing, silent death pervaded; such scenes were even more terrifying than the blurred mess of flesh and severed limbs— at least with the latter, you could understand how you died. But now, one didn't even know how their lives were taken.

The thick black and red fog, ah, that was the Dark Witch's signature. This terrifying witch, who once devoured a million lives, was unsealed.

People wailed, trembled with fear, and screamed; their teeth chattering.

But no matter how fast they ran, they could only watch helplessly as the writhing mist climbed over their bodies from behind, snatching their lives away in an instant, silencing their screams abruptly.

Some were even completely petrified by terror, lying rigid on the ground, trembling lips, and pale faces as they watched the fog swallow their bodies.

"Run, the Witch is coming..."

"Dammit, get out of the way..."

"How could the Witch be unsealed? Damn it, wasn't the seal supposed to be strong?"

"Wuuu, Mom, I don't want to die... Who will save me?"

"Who, who can contend with the Witch?"

"Hero, where's the Hero? Mr. Brave, please protect us!"

Ah, I forgot.

The Hero, ah, he was already dead.

Qin Chu's Residual Soul quietly witnessed this scene, and if Qin Chu still had a body at this time, he surely would have heard that madness in the laughter.

The mist of blood kept spreading farther and farther.

It drifted off to who knows where.

The Witch's life also reached its end, her slender figure even turning semi-transparent, coughing up a mouthful of fresh blood, her little face growing even paler.

On the ground, the Witch's body swayed, lifting her head to glance at the sky, she seemed to see a thread of Residual Soul drifting there.

The Witch held her Magic Wand high, plunging it into the ground with a splurch.

The next moment, the surrounding blood mist suddenly contracted, turning into a vast vortex. An incredible suction emerged from within, Qin Chu's fragmented soul, under the influence of gravity, drifted from every corner of the Sky Dome Continent and was directly swallowed by the vortex.

Just as Qin Chu's consciousness plunged into darkness, he heard the ethereal voice of Shaye Nikolass:

"By the sacrifice of billions of Life Souls..."

...

Who knows how much time had passed when Qin Chu's consciousness suddenly stirred awake.

Who am I, where am I, what has happened?

This seemed to be a mountain peak, a barren summit without a single tree, the stone slabs bathed in silver moonlight gleaming silver-white, the night wind howling.

He was still a bit dazed!

"It worked, we've summoned the Hero again."

Familiar voices by his ear made Qin Chu somewhat irritable. He found himself standing on an altar, encircled by twelve half-corpses in coffins, old men, and one beautiful woman, apparently in her thirties.

The Thirteen Sages?

As Qin Chu stood dumbly on the altar, the youngest of the Sages, the middle-aged beauty Nadia, stepped forward. She cradled Qin Chu's hands in hers, looking up with her big watery eyes at the man before her: "Mr. Brave, I beg of you, please save our world!"

Qin Chu glared, jerking his hands away from Nadia's grasp, and cursed, "Save? To hell with…"