Despair

A dozen minutes later.

From the collapsed ruins of the subway station, a dust-covered Buck crawled out from a pile of rubble. “Damn it, I failed the mission again.”

“It doesn't matter. I never expected you to secure the item in the first place. They are smarter than you; you're no match for them,” a flat voice said.

Tang Yongyun materialized in front of him, and Buck looked up at him.

At the sight of him, Buck's face lit up with joy. “Boss, as expected of you!”

Behind Tang Yongyun, two crows were perched, each holding the mask and the trench coat in their beaks.

He turned to scan the surroundings. Sand covered the ground everywhere, and numerous law enforcement vehicles and troop carriers were parked in the distance.

Some vehicles were pierced through or sliced in half, while others were still burning. The ground was littered with mangled corpses.

On a nearby building, several helicopters had crashed, their wreckage engulfed in flames.

The entire street looked like a post-apocalyptic wasteland; not a single soul was left alive.

“Where is that sand guy? Did you kill him, Boss?” Buck looked around, feeling a bit puzzled when he didn't see Liu Jiyun's corpse.

Tang Yongyun glanced around and turned to leave. “Almost. But those two from the Liu family no longer have the chance to participate in the upcoming struggle for the Lord of Evil's items.”

Manipulating doom against creatures with a massive power gap didn't consume much energy. However, against someone of Liu Jiyun's caliber, especially with his unique abilities, it was a different story.

Attempting to manipulate doom to kill him would consume so much energy it would practically drain him dry, hindering his performance in the subsequent struggle for the items. It simply wasn't worth it.

Ultimately, I'm still a bit lacking in strength. If I can seize this opportunity with the Lord of Evil to achieve a massive breakthrough, killing him won't require so much effort next time, Tang Yongyun thought. His body suddenly burst apart, and countless crows took flight into the sky.

Seeing this, Buck hurriedly ran forward.

Dozens of crows trailed above him. These crows could jam nearby electronic devices, preventing Buck from being tracked.

Just a few minutes after they left, the rubble on the ground burst open once more.

A white worm, three meters long and two meters thick, burrowed out of the earth.

The worm opened its mouth, revealing a mass of slime, and spat out a sticky, fluid-covered figure.

Zhang Yi struggled to his feet. He stared at the surrounding ruins and the corpses of the government personnel littering the street behind him.

He clenched his fists tightly. “It seems going head-to-head with them is out of the question!”

He had originally hoped to rely on the support of the Earth Mother to crush the Liu family, but now it seemed he had to call for reinforcements.

With a thought, a devout look appeared on his face. Supreme Earth Mother, your servant requires aid!

The moment his thought formed, far away in an ordinary city of a million people in the Nanming Kingdom.

The residents here went about their daily routines with blank, vacant expressions, acting like mindless puppets.

In the center of the city, high above a cathedral,

the Earth Mother's massive face, spanning hundreds of meters, hovered in the air. She constantly and automatically emitted a unique, radiating energy that interfered with all electronic devices.

Even if satellites in space were aimed directly at it, they would only capture a normal, peaceful scene. The Earth Mother's presence was completely invisible to them.

Her eyes were half-closed. The arms that once filled her eye sockets had vanished, leaving only cold, aloof, and golden eyes.

Surrounding the cathedral, a sea of people knelt on the ground, stretching as far as the eye could see.

These people wore fanatical expressions. They were the original residents of the city, which was now entirely under the control of the Earth Mother.

Even if outsiders wandered in, they would inevitably become her believers, who would then spread to other cities to preach her word.

As long as she had enough believers, the power of faith would allow her strength to rise once again.

“Supreme Earth Mother, your servant...”

At that moment, Zhang Yi's voice echoed in her mind.

The Earth Mother's colossal face shifted slightly, the flesh upon it expanding and contracting.

An invisible ripple spread outward, and the fifty believers kneeling at the very front suddenly stood up.

With fanatical looks, they stared up at the Earth Mother and cried out in unison, “It is our greatest honor to serve the great Earth Mother!”

The bodies of the surrounding believers suddenly dissolved into masses of flesh and blood, surging toward the fifty chosen ones and merging into them.

Their appearances began to warp and change. They continued to absorb the flesh and blood of tens of thousands of people until the surrounding kneeling crowd was completely wiped out.

A spatial distortion rippled in front of these mutated believers, and they vanished on the spot, directly teleported to Yangcheng by the Earth Mother.

Yangcheng.

Two hours after the collapse of the East District subway station.

Deep within a sewer pipe, on a concrete ledge raised above the murky water,

Bai Yuwen's brow was furrowed. “Are we really going to stay here forever? They should have left by now. I still have some sway with the authorities. Should we contact them?”

Opposite him, a completely drained and utterly exhausted Xiao Qi fought to keep his eyes open. “Don't bother. If they were of any use, would they have failed to protect you? I can't hold on any longer. Keep watch for a bit; I'm going to sleep.”

He had realized that the crows tracking them wouldn't enter the sewers.

Watching Xiao Qi drift off to sleep the moment his eyes closed, Bai Yuwen fell silent. Even the authorities are probably powerless against these formidable supernatural beings. The world has truly changed.

Only now did he truly wake up to reality.

Seven or eight kilometers away, outside the ruins of the subway station,

a small squad of soldiers was cautiously approaching.

They looked at the corpses of their comrades littering the ground, their expressions tense.

Only after they managed to reach the subway station did they finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The squad leader pulled out his walkie-talkie and spoke rapidly, “Command, this is Squad One. We have entered the scene. No sign of any enemies!”

“Understood. I will order clean-up crews to head over immediately,” a weary, aged voice replied from the other end of the line.

Hearing this, the squad leader pulled out his phone to record a video of the scene, transmitting it back along with photos of their fallen comrades they had taken on their way in.

Inside the underground fallout shelter,

Lu Senyu and the others stared at the incoming photos and videos, the entire room falling into a dead silence.

“The number of fallen soldiers has exceeded a thousand, and sixty-three military vehicles have been destroyed. Yet, the damage we inflicted on them is zero!” the elderly garrison commander said, his face ashen.

The gap was simply too astronomical. Cleaning up a few Night Slaves in the morning had led him to believe that supernatural beings were nothing special.

But tonight, his confidence had been utterly crushed.