Chapter 51 Ranch Owner_1

Thud!

It was as though a water-filled balloon had shattered.

Blood gushed forth.

Yet as the blood touched the blade, it quickly vanished without a trace, thoroughly absorbed by the blade. With the blood's nurturing, the gaps on the blade swiftly expanded, restored, as if time had reversed. Ultimately, a lavish golden pattern emerged on the bronze blade.

From a counterfeit antique on a roadside stall, it had transformed into a genuine work of art.

It looked so exquisitely crafted as if it were forged from life itself.

Ai Qing stepped back, ignoring the violent, thirsty howling from the blade, and indifferently pulled the knife from Crying Snake's throat. She flicked the blood off the blade and returned it to Huai Shi.

"It's quite useful for now, though a bit greedy. It's passable against living things with blood—having such a prohibited item circulate in the market will spell trouble, so be careful with it." She glanced at Director Fu, who seemed on the verge of speaking, "After all… collecting and storing dangerous items is also within the Astronomical Society's duties."

In such an open manner, she forcibly downgraded the Border Relic, which was undoubtedly above C-level in threat, to D-level, and then claimed it for the Astronomical Society under the guise of storage.

In one transaction, the object was now Huai's... wasn't that a bit too much?

Before he had a chance to object, Director Fu heard a noise that sent chills down his spine.

On the gradually lifeless corpse, where the warmth had not yet dissipated, blood no longer sprayed from the wound. Instead, strands of black smoke emerged from the body's limbs and bones.

The black fog, like thick liquid, slowly enveloped Crying Snake the Sublimator's corpse, seemingly swallowing it whole.

Then, a bone-chilling chewing sound began.

Every time the chewing sounded, a massive gash appeared on the body, as if it was being incessantly gnawed by something invisible, until in the end, the black mist quietly dissipated.

Within the heavy chains, there remained only a ghastly pale skeleton.

Soul or flesh, even the marrow, had completely vanished without a trace. Even if you were to boil it in a pot for a long time, you'd probably only get a pot of boiling water.

Not even calcium was left in sufficient quantities for absorption.

A breeze blew and it quietly disappeared into a cloud of dust.

The brief 'banquet' thus concluded amid everyone's stunned expressions.

"So, I'll leave the site cleanup to you,"

Ai Qing calmly nodded at Director Fu. "I'll submit a request for support to the higher-ups, and when the time comes, I hope the Social Security Bureau and the Special Affairs Department will cooperate fully."

Director Fu fell silent for a long time, then nodded his head dryly.

Clearing up the scene was now a task for the Special Affairs Department, and thanks to Ai Qing's thorough style, Huai Shi once again enjoyed the treatment of being shuttled by a private car.

It was like being a leader on an out-of-town inspection—attend a meeting, then return home with local specialties, sent back just as he had come.

"Oh, by the way, come by tomorrow afternoon."

Before she left, Ai Qing said to him, "You have a package."

A package?

The East Wind?

Huai Shi, eyeing the wheelchair-bound miss who had just leveled the ground with missiles, dared not ask further.

In any case, it felt as though with the ding of a notification, one mission had been completed. Equipment +1, materials +3, experience +5… It seemed to have even laid the groundwork for the main storyline to follow.

Many questions still lingered in his mind, but thankfully, he would soon have a way to address them.

Huai Shi took out his phone and opened his contacts.

So, which lucky friend would get the opportunity to treat him to lunch and answer his questions?

.

.

"What the hell?"

Half an hour later, in the recently most popular Whole Sparrow Banquet Hall in Xinhai, Liu DongLi spat out the tea he'd just sipped and coughed violently.

"The Purified People, huh? What about them?"

Huai Shi looked puzzled.

After catching his breath, Liu DongLi pressed his voice low, asking, "Can you confirm they're from Bliss Land, The Purified People?"

Huai Shi had just nodded when he saw him bow, opens his mouth to speak. He quickly pushed down Old Liu's hand, "Easy with the Hua Tuo's three bows, Old Pal, what in the world are The Purified People?"

"An illegal religious group."

Liu DongLi's explanation was concise and to the point. He was mopping the cold sweat off his brow, frightened, "Friend, how big a can of worms have you opened? They're all a bunch of lunatics."

"Right?" Huai Shi nodded with understanding, "I've seen it..."

Liu Dongli slapped the back of his head in anger, "Can you be serious for once, brother? If we don't handle this properly, not only are you done for, but the entire Xinhai might be gone!"

"But even if you say that, I still have no idea." Huai Shi thought for a long time, then asked, "Which is more formidable, Green Day or this?"

"..."

Liu Dongli was speechless at Huai Shi's bizarre question, not sure if he was brewing some thoughts or figuring out how to straighten this guy's train of thought.

"They're not... in the same category."

After struggling to explain for a while, he could only spread his hands and say, "Look, Green Day is a bunch of anti-social lunatics, but their main thing is just to attack the Astronomical Society, you get me?"

After thinking for a long time, Huai Shi slapped his knee, "You mean like the heroes of Liangshan, right?"

"...Approximately similar in nature, I guess. Although the heroes of Liangshan and Green Day aren't exactly good birds, their main goal is still to storm Tokyo, take the birds' place, and then the eldest becomes Emperor, the second becomes the second Emperor, I become the General, and so on. So, at the end of the day, it's really all internal strife."

Liu Dongli sighed and set down his teacup, "Let's get back to The Purified People, though their nature is more complex than Green Day's."

"Uh-huh, go on." Huai Shi nodded and quietly took notes.

"Their base is outside the Border, in a place called Paradise of Bliss, located in Hell. Even the Astronomical Society can't grab the coordinates to wipe them out in one fell swoop. Over the years, they've caused quite a stir, and it's said that Manchester went under just like that... But ultimately, their greatest threat isn't themselves; it's what's behind them."

When Huai Shi heard the name Manchester, a place he seemed to have heard of somewhere, he paused for a moment, but quickly got sucked back in by Liu Dongli's following words:

"What they worship is one of the twenty-four Elements of Destruction calculated by the Astronomical Society based on the prophecy of the former President. Calling it a God wouldn't be an overstatement — 'The Ranch Owner.'

"Element of Destruction?" Huai Shi was astonished, "Why does something that sounds so awesome have to be called the Ranch Owner? Does it raise cattle or what?"

"...Pretty much."

Liu Dongli said numbly, "It's called an Element of Destruction because, in the Astronomical Society's assessment, it's something that has the probability, the ability, or the qualification to destroy the Current Circumstances.

It's not something gentle like a nuclear bomb, but something more twisted and subversive. To put it simply, it has the power to completely transform the Current Circumstances into Hell...

You can think of it as The World Destroying Great Demon King.

With such stature, there are said to be twenty-three others like it, and currently, only a few have been publicly disclosed. One of its remnants is something you've probably seen all the time."

He pointed towards the sky outside the window.

Huai Shi stretched his head out curiously to look at the pale blue afternoon sky dome, puffily dotted with white clouds, among which traces of fish swam, mingling within the coral, casting ripples of water shadows toward the ground.

At first, he was puzzled, then confused, and finally, he was struck with astonishment.

"Wait, Coral Cloud?"

"Correct."

Liu Dongli took a sip of tea with a poker face, "To be precise, it's called The Old Gaia, representing the destroyed old world... that's far too remote for you. What's floating around in the sky right now, those Coral Clouds are its corpse.

The Ranch Owner, the Heavenly Kingdom, the Piper, The Old Gaia, the Man in Grey, the Golden Dawn... among the nine publicly known Elements of Destruction, the Ranch Owner ranks first.

According to the rumors circulating in the dark, it's even linked to the secret of the mass extinction of the old Gods in the year 1650. The waters behind it run deep, deep enough to drown ten thousand of you.

So, are you scared now?"

"..."

Huai Shi fell silent for a long while before raising his hand, "Excuse me, I think I just heard... Heavenly Kingdom?"

Liu Dongli looked at him bewildered for a long time, "Ah, yes, the Heavenly Kingdom, in the literal sense of the word, as in Heaven. The detailed information isn't within my scope of knowledge. What's with the question?"

"Nothing, just asking, just asking."

Huai Shi smiled awkwardly, feeling like he had heard the term somewhere before but couldn't quite place it, so he just scratched his head: "You haven't explained why the Ranch Owner got such a weird name?"

"Simply put, it's all about the food chain."

Liu Dongli scratched his head, picked up his chopsticks, and drew a circle around everything Huai Shi could see, finally stabbing into the recently served Sparrow Hot Pot, lifting a sparrow leg:

"You see, to the delusional Purified People, this world is a huge food chain, spanning the Current Circumstances, the Border, and Hell.

Just like sheep eat grass, people eat sheep; if the clergy regard believers as their flock and themselves as shepherds, then wouldn't the person commanding all these shepherds at the top of this twisted Hellish food chain be the Ranch Owner?

After being distorted by Hell, the essence of godhood, the Ranch Owner is unquestionably a malevolent deity.

The entire world is nothing more than a giant ranch to it, and all living beings are but its feed.

And what The Purified People pursue is to merge with their God at the end of the ultimate contraction and cycle of this food chain, becoming an incarnation of the Ranch Owner... In reality, the so-called Paradise of Bliss is just a dinner plate to the Ranch Owner, and they are merely tools for cleaning the dinnerware, even these tools themselves are edible biodegradable materials... like so."

He paused, then crammed the braised sparrow leg into his mouth, crunching loudly:

"Now, do you understand?"