Making a Move

Inside the helicopter, Liu Zhian looked down at Ningcheng under the torrential rain. The visibility from up here was only slightly better than on the ground.

A faint smile played on his face. “This is my first time seeing Ningcheng in the rain from the sky. Thank you for helping me fulfill a dream, Chief Peng.”

Seeing this, Peng Fei said coldly, “Countless people are going to die because of what you're trying to do. I don't know how you can still laugh!”

Sitting across from him, Liu Zhian's smile remained unchanged. “Why wouldn't I laugh? I'm the one who stands to benefit. Am I supposed to cry after making a fortune? Besides, Chief Peng, do you really think you have me completely cornered?”

Peng Fei stared at him, his face gradually turning cold. “We'll see if you can still laugh once we reach the military camp. If you confess the Liu family's plans right now and tell me where that person is, I can guarantee you'll suffer a lot less physical pain once you're inside.”

Hearing this, Liu Zhian leaned back against his seat. His smile vanished, and he stared at him expressionlessly. “Peng Fei, bring on whatever tricks you've got.

“Do you really think my Liu family would dare establish the Church of the Earth Mother without any backing? We all have just one life. Let's see if you guys are actually unkillable.”

With that, he closed his eyes and ignored Peng Fei entirely.

Veins bulged on Peng Fei's forehead in anger, but a look of solemnity flashed deep in his eyes.

If the Liu family really had that person's help, even the government couldn't guarantee a victory in a direct clash.

A military camp appeared ahead, and the helicopter began its descent.

By seven in the evening, the rain had grown even heavier.

Inside the hospital, Peng Fei looked at Zhang Yi with a grim expression. “That kid Liu Zhian is too tough. Even under torture, he won't say a word.”

“It doesn't matter. The armored units have already entered the city anyway. When the time comes, we'll just steamroll the church directly,” Zhang Yi said calmly.

This had long been within his calculations. He looked at Peng Fei. “Is the artillery unit ready?”

“They're ready. If anything goes wrong with the armored units, we'll immediately order the artillery to level the Church of the Earth Mother. No matter what tricks they have up their sleeves, once the church is gone, everything they've built will be dust,” Peng Fei replied with a nod.

He looked at Zhang Yi with a hint of admiration. The man always thought several steps ahead, executing his plans one calculated move after another.

A smile appeared on Zhang Yi's face. “In that case, make your move. This time, Wang Pingcheng will be in the spotlight while you operate from the shadows. We might just have to rely on you.”

Just as they were preparing to act, inside the hospital basement.

A middle-aged man in a white lab coat was pushing a long flatbed cart loaded with a vast array of bottles and jars.

He pushed the cart to a secluded corner where a minivan was parked. Two men were standing behind it.

Seeing him approach, the two men quickly walked over. They lifted a metal sheet on the cart, revealing a corpse hidden beneath it.

One of the men slid open the minivan's side door, revealing the interior. Over a dozen corpses were stacked neatly inside the cargo area.

After tossing the body inside, they immediately slammed the door shut. One of the burly men picked up a black briefcase. “Fifty thousand dollars per corpse. There's seven hundred and fifty thousand here. You'd better keep your mouth shut about today.”

The middle-aged man opened the briefcase, his face twisting with greed at the sight of the green bills packed inside. “Don't worry, gentlemen. If this gets out, I'll go to prison too. If you need more, we can keep working together. Right now, so many people are dying from that unknown plague that the morgue is almost overflowing.”

Hearing this, the two men merely smirked, got into the minivan, and quickly drove away.

While all the inspectors in the city were focused on the Church of the Earth Mother, buyers of corpses were appearing at various hospitals and even crematoriums.

They came and went in minivans disguised as delivery vehicles, completely unnoticed.

Driving through the city's rain, these minivans headed to an area two streets behind the Church of the Earth Mother.

This area was originally part of the city's outskirts, leaving nothing but industrial warehouses.

All the vehicles entered one of the warehouses, where people immediately stepped forward to unload the corpses.

Inside, the corpses were piled together, forming a mound seven to eight meters high. A faint, putrid stench of decay wafted from the pile.

Standing guard around the warehouse were men dressed in black suits, their expressions alert and vigilant.

Among them, an exceptionally stocky young man standing over two meters tall stared at the corpses. “Give me a count. How many do we have so far?”

Hearing Liu Ziping's question, a young man quickly jogged over to report. “Brother Ping, we've received 1,423 corpses so far. The other brothers are still out collecting. We should be able to hit two thousand tonight.”

These bodies had already cost them over seventy million dollars, but this amount of money was a mere drop in the bucket for the Liu family.

“Not enough, still not enough. Tell them to raise the price to one hundred thousand. Try to get three thousand tonight. If that's still not enough, go dig them up! As long as there's still flesh on them, it works!” Liu Ziping turned to him, his gaze freezing cold.

The young man's face paled under his gaze. He quickly replied, “Yes, sir!”

With that, he hurried off to arrange the price hike.

Liu Ziping stared at the corpses, a trace of anxiety in his expression. The Earth Mother required at least ten thousand bodies.

Currently, they only had a few thousand cultists, and even with these corpses, they had barely scraped together half the required amount.

Now that the authorities had their eyes on them, it was no longer possible for the Church of the Earth Mother to expand rapidly.

On the other side, several law enforcement vehicles were parked outside the Church of the Earth Mother.

Inside one of the cars, an inspector kept his eyes glued to the outside.

He watched as people dressed in red cult robes continuously streamed toward the church. “This is a total cult. So many people are still coming even in this pouring rain.”

“Fortunately, we caught it early. The higher-ups have decided to deal with them so they don't bring ruin to Ningcheng,” the inspector beside him said.

In front of them, a massive crowd of cultists stood outside the church under their umbrellas.

The church doors swung open. Once the cultists at the front walked inside, the doors slammed shut again.

From a nearby building, an inspector watched the opening doors and tried to record the scene.

However, he found that his camera screen kept flickering and losing focus, as if disrupted by some kind of interference.

Inside the church, Liu Wen emerged wearing a mask. He was ready to begin the harvest.

He looked at the cultists and spoke in a booming voice, “My children of the Earth Mother, you have all seen the situation outside. The Church of the Earth Mother is being threatened by wicked men. They do not wish for the Earth Mother to descend, nor do they want the evils of this world to be purged. In the face of such malevolent forces, it is time for us to offer ourselves so that the Earth Mother may descend sooner!”

As he spoke, he suddenly tore off his mask, revealing the six eyes beneath it, which flared with a crimson light.

The cultists below stared blankly at the six eyes, their expressions turning completely vacant. Traces of white mist—visible only to Liu Wen—began to drift out from their bodies.

Guided by Liu Wen, a small portion of the white mist was absorbed by him, while the majority flew into the stone face of the Earth Mother behind him.

Having absorbed their spiritual essence, the stone face trembled slightly.

The cultists collapsed to the ground one by one. Though they were still breathing, they would never wake up again.

A small door in the corner opened, and over thirty Night Slaves dressed in suits walked out.

Grabbing a person in each hand, they dragged them toward the small door.

The open door led to the underground—a massive subterranean space, which was precisely what Liu Wen had valued about this location in the first place.

In less than a minute, the Night Slaves had dragged every single cultist present down into the basement.

The wooden doors on both sides swung open once more, and another batch of cultists filed in.

Batch after batch entered, but none came out. This strange phenomenon quickly caught the attention of the inspectors watching outside.

“What the hell? Why is everyone going in but nobody's coming out? Can that church even hold that many people!” Inside one of the vehicles, an inspector sat up straight as he watched the scene unfold.

“We should report this anomaly first.” The inspector in the passenger seat pulled out his phone, preparing to call it in.

Outside, unnoticed by him, a figure was rapidly approaching.

A middle-aged man dressed in cult robes dashed out of an alley, charging straight toward the law enforcement vehicle.

The middle-aged cultist aimed a shotgun at the passenger seat, his expression crazed. “No one shall stop the descent of the Earth Mother!”

The window shattered as a dense spray of buckshot tore the upper body of the passenger-seat inspector to shreds.

The other inspector was also caught in the blast, his head blown open, killing him instantly.

Gunfire erupted repeatedly as several cultists appeared outside, firing various firearms at the law enforcement vehicles.

Inside a nearby four-story building, an inspector monitoring the situation from above gasped, his breath catching in his throat. “How do they dare?! These absolute lunatics!!!”

Even though they knew the government was watching them, they still dared to open fire.

He immediately reached for his walkie-talkie, wanting to alert the others.

With a sharp sound, the window was shattered by a round object. The inspector instinctively looked down.

A hand grenade had rolled to a stop just two meters in front of him. Staring at the grenade, his face twisted in horror. “Holy sh—”

From the outside, the fourth floor suddenly exploded, sending a shower of glass and stone fragments raining down.

Down on the street, Liu Qi watched the fourth floor go up in flames.

He reached up to touch the mark on his face, which had only just stopped swelling. His eyes burned with madness. “Wang Pingcheng, you'd better wash your neck and wait for me!”

In all his life, no one had ever dared to slap him in front of so many people.

Ten minutes later, every single cultist inside the church had been carried down into the basement.

Liu Wen reached up and tore off his cult robes. He turned to look at the increasingly bizarre stone face of the Earth Mother behind him. “I'll leave the rest to you.”

The church doors opened, and Liu Ziping walked in expressionlessly. “Patriarch, please rest assured. As long as I draw breath, not a single enemy shall set foot in this place!”

Liu Wen nodded and walked out.

It was time for him to stretch his old bones as well.