Chapter 51: What Defines a Chronicle of a Barren Village? It Must Truly Be a Barren Village

Yinyuan Village, Saintess Valley.

A seemingly slender figure slowly crawled up to the mountain peak.

Carrying an exquisitely beautiful girl fast asleep on his back.

Looking down at the pile of bones belonging to the saintesses, the corner of his mouth curved upward as he drew a dagger from his waist.

"Resurrection! My beloved!"

"Oh, wrong channel again. It should be: Rise! My undead army!"

Wu Wang abruptly plunged the dagger into the ground.

The next second, the temperature in the previously windless valley began to drop steadily.

It reached below freezing in an instant.

A dark shadow crawled out from the tower of skulls, the mist on her face gradually dispersing until it completely revealed her tear-stained visage, a sight that tugged deeply at the heartstrings.

Following the emergence of the first saintess's grievance spirit, dark shadows began to well up continuously across the entire valley.

The mist on their faces began to disperse as well.

The shackles representing bondage and confusion quietly vanished, leaving behind only resolute and grateful gazes.

"Your righteousness is boundless, sir! This humble maiden has no way to repay you!"

The first saintess to appear knelt on both knees before Wu Wang. She appeared very youthful, and from her hairstyle and speech, she was clearly an upper-class young lady from the era before vernacular Chinese became widespread. Who knew how she had been tricked into this place to serve as a Yinyuan saintess.

The other saintesses also knelt in obeisance to Wu Wang.

Yet he merely bowed slightly, stepping aside to avoid receiving such a grand gesture.

Then, pointing down the mountain, he said, "They built their homes and lived in peace upon your corpses, enjoying festive meals flavored with your human blood, trampling upon human nature and pushing greed to its absolute peak."

"You need not thank anyone."

"Going down to take your revenge is the greatest repayment."

With that, Wu Wang completely cleared the path leading down the mountain.

He knew very well that the doom of Yinyuan Village had arrived.

They were about to pay the ultimate price for all the sins they had ever committed!

The Yinyuan saintesses exchanged glances.

Then, roaring, they surged down the mountain.

Watching their figures gradually recede into the distance, Wu Wang suddenly thought of something.

He shouted loudly toward the distance, "Right! If you happen to encounter anyone actively seeking death during your revenge..."

The saintesses paused and looked back at Wu Wang.

Only for this fellow to break character the moment he opened his mouth.

"That doesn't mean they've realized their mistake! When you meet such people, be sure to thoroughly check their courtyards, basements, and kitchen rice jars—there's bound to be a few people they wanted to hide and protect tucked away in there! Don't let them off!"

"?"

You're the habitual offender here, aren't you!

Why are you so practiced at this?!

Although the expressions of the saintesses turned somewhat bizarre, they firmly engraved Wu Wang's warning into their minds.

They would spare no one!

Once all the Yinyuan saintesses had descended the mountain and entered the village, Wu Wang looked down.

The [Ghost Piercing Dagger] had completely turned into fine powder.

Clearly, the black-hearted penguin was willing to do a good deed, but it would certainly never let itself miss out on a profit.

"The sun is out, hey~ Joyful, hey~"

"Shoulder the carrying pole, clatter-clank, clatter-clank~ Up to the mountain ridge, hey~"

Humming a decades-old little tune.

He adjusted the position of Second Sister resting on his back and walked toward Zhang Sanfeng's dilapidated shack in the distance.

He did not use a double jump, nor did he alter his posture.

After all, he was somewhat worried that the black-hearted penguin was still observing this area.

If he were caught right now as the thief of the red tentacles, he would truly be utterly and completely finished.

Fortunately, relying on Wu Wang's physical stamina and pace,

It wasn't long before he returned to the initial starting point.

Just as he laid Second Sister down properly on the bed to rest, the village outside began to echo with screams that pierced the valley.

"Ah! Ghosts! There are ghosts!"

"Retribution... retribution has come!"

"Please spare me, I didn't do anything!"

"Save me! Help me!"

"..."

The continuous screams were so sweet, ringing in Wu Wang's ears practically like heavenly music.

The arc of his smile widened noticeably.

Even his hands couldn't help but wave about.

As if conducting some top-tier choir, swelling and fading here, lingering with echoes there.

Yet it still felt like something was missing...

Boom—

Just as the thought crossed his mind, a deafening explosion echoed from down the mountain.

Followed closely by even more miserable shrieks, sounding as though immense agony had been inflicted.

"Now that's more like it, how could it be complete without drums sounding?" His smile was so wide he could hardly close his mouth.

Those magical, wonderful little tools he had buried along the paths leaving the village had finally come into play.

Flesh pierced instantly by gunpowder and steel balls propelled by explosions—even if it didn't cause instant death, the wails of ultimate agony blending into this grand chorus were nothing short of icing on the cake.

He was laughing wildly.

He was dancing.

Enthralled by destruction.

Cheering for rebirth.

The once peaceful and serene village transformed into a living hell in an instant.

The perpetrator of all this felt not a shred of remorse; deep in his heart, he even felt a little amused.

Because from his perspective, this place had been a living hell from the very beginning.

It had merely worn a facade of normalcy.

Much like the old village chief.

No matter how it was disguised, beneath that thick cotton padded coat remained his ugly body and clothes pieced together from bloody human skin.

Wu Wang admitted that he had always known he was a terrible person, exceptionally malicious in both personality and behavior.

Yet what was even worse was that he felt not the slightest intention of repenting.

The grand sacrificial celebration of the previous night could not compare in the slightest to the splendor of this living hell.

Trot-trot-trot—

Watching the living person markers on the map gradually decrease until only a scattering of them were still struggling,

Wu Wang's expression gradually returned to normal.

Because he saw one of the markers running in his direction.

And very fortunately, the landmines along this path had mostly been stepped on and cleared already.

Staggering, the person actually ran right up to the dilapidated shack.

Creak—

Pushing open the unlocked wooden door,

A middle-aged man covered in blood, with tattered clothes and lacerated skin, stumbled inside.

He was on the verge of total exhaustion.

Catching sight of the familiar little madman before him,

Uncle Li managed to squeeze a sentence out between his teeth: "Secondwa... save Uncle Li... hurry and hide me!"

Yet immediately afterward, he heard the little madman let out a snort of laughter.

And heard him ask with a chilling, bone-deep coldness, "Uncle Li, why hide? Shouldn't I be running away with you? I'll take you into the forest to escape right now!"

"No... don't... don't go into the forest." Uncle Li no longer had the capacity to ponder why today's little madman was speaking so normally.

His courage was on the verge of being shattered by terror.

Wu Wang sneered, "Why not go into the forest? Is it because you know that within three days of the grand sacrifice, no one can leave Yinyuan Village? Then why on earth did you pretend to open the lock on Zhang Sanfeng's door on the first day?"

At these words, Uncle Li froze.

His gaze began to dart about evasively.

That was right! Knowing full well that leaving was impossible during the grand sacrifice, and that entering the forest might spell extreme danger, why had he hypocritically unlocked Zhang Sanfeng's wooden door and let him escape?

"Cat got your tongue? Then I'll tell you." Wu Wang hoisted his submachine gun and continued, "Because your house, your food, all belonged to Zhang Sanfeng's family. After his parents died, the village distributed those belongings to your family, who weren't very well-off at the time."

"Now, seeing that Zhang Sanfeng is about to come of age, if he doesn't die in this Yinyuan grand sacrifice, everything you took must be returned to him in full. That's the rule of the village."

"To avoid having to cough up what never truly belonged to your family in the first place, you'd rather let him escape into the forest before the sacrifice and get lost there forever than risk any accidents."

"And you even put on a hypocritical show of a soft heart in front of your own wife."

"Stop pretending. You're just another beast wearing human skin and eating blood-soaked bread."

Every word Wu Wang uttered struck heavily upon Uncle Li's heart.

His already exhausted body felt on the verge of collapse.

He could not fathom how these matters had come to light.

How had the secrets deep within his heart been completely excavated?

Little did he know that during Wu Wang's infiltration of the village, he had already inquired about nearly all of it.

Coupled with the [Gaze of Truth] peering into people's hearts and Wu Wang's genius logical deduction,

Uncovering all of this had been effortless.

Click—

Wu Wang ejected the magazine.

A flicker of hopeful light flashed in Uncle Li's eyes.

Could it be that the other party was going to spare him?

Only for Wu Wang to press a palm down on his face, and then, with utterly brutal force, grab his facial features and drag the man right outside the dilapidated shack.

At this moment, hundreds of eerie and terrifying dark shadows stood waiting there.

They were waiting for this final sin to be purged.

"Trash like you isn't worth wasting my bullets on. The ones who should judge you are them; you can ask these saintesses if they can forgive you." Wu Wang spat toward Uncle Li, who was trembling too weakly to stand.

And turned back inside the dilapidated shack.

The dark shadows closed in gradually, pinning down the paralyzed and terrified Uncle Li.

Heart-wrenching screams resounded through the valley once more.

The starting point was also the end point.

All of this transformed into the final period of the musical movement.

[Instance Dungeon "Chronicles of a Barren Village" has completed hidden conditions]

[Turned this place into a true barren village]

[Please check your hidden rewards]

[Remaining time in instance dungeon: 10 minutes]

————

In reality, an alarm sounded with a red alert in the Instance Dungeon Regulatory Department of a certain provincial Bureau of Strange Affairs.

They were the department responsible for overseeing supernatural occurrences in the real world.

Now that Spirit Calamity players had integrated into society,

Supernatural phenomena were bound to crop up from time to time.

Therefore, every branch of the Bureau of Strange Affairs paid extraordinary attention to the monitoring of supernatural occurrences in the reality.

"Where has an incident occurred?" The director asked with some urgency.

A red alert—it seemed he had only ever heard of it once in the several years since the branch was established!

This indicated that the supernatural occurrence was extremely likely to involve malicious attacks against human society.

And it was highly probable to be an external attack, not an internal player issue.

" Boss, strong malicious energy fluctuations are coming from deep within Yinyuan Mountain in our province."

"This energy fluctuation also seems to be mixed with a certain message."

The technical department was exerting all its effort to parse the message the energy sought to convey.

A moment later, the regulatory personnel received feedback.

His expression turned extremely unnatural.

He reported back uncertainly, "It's been parsed."

"The other party seems to be saying—Arrogant penguin and damned lower lifeforms, He has returned."

"The detailed address has also been captured."

"The ruins of a place called Yinyuan Village within Yinyuan Mountain."

"Five years ago, a bizarre supernatural incident erupted there."

"Overnight, not a single soul survived in the entire village, turning it into a barren village."

"The case file for this incident is currently classified at Confidential Level A."

"The case file code name is—Chronicles of a Barren Village."