The Thief Saint Kills
Mo Lian glanced at Bai Ye from the side, and spoke indifferently:
"Oh... Then since that's the case, I will make the move. You just watch from the side, if any children try to run away, you kill them."
Bai Ye lowered his eyelids, not answering.
"What's wrong? Unwilling?"
"I just don't understand, they are just a group of children. If they run, let them run, why must they be killed... We are thieves, not butchers." Bai Ye said in a deep voice.
"Then go ask the King yourself." Mo Lian sneered. "Among us five Thief Saints of red, yellow, blue, white, and black, whose hands aren't stained with human lives? Now you're starting to pretend to be an innocent little white rabbit? I don't care either way, but I will truthfully report what you did and didn't do on this trip when I return... How to deal with you will also be decided by the King."
"..."
Mo Lian no longer paid attention to Bai Ye, continuing forward along the wheel ruts.
Bai Ye and Mo Lian did not have Chen Ling's Aura that could disperse the Calamities around them. Walking in the Gray World, they also had to face Calamity attacks from the Gray World at all times. It was just that with their Ranks and strength, the vast majority of Calamities posed no threat at all...
Bai Ye was currently pondering other matters, and fundamentally had no time to bother with this Calamity that popped out. Just as he was about to casually obliterate the centipede, he suddenly seemed to have thought of something, and stepped on it with one foot!
Bai Ye looked down at the Shadow Centipede struggling crazily under his foot, his eyes slightly narrowed...
His palm gently touched towards the centipede's head.
...
As the team moved forward, an endless stream of crying sounds came from among the children.
"I don't want to walk anymore... I don't want to walk anymore, I want to go back and find mommy, waaa waaa..."
"I can't walk anymore, I want to sit down and rest for a while."
"It's so dark around, I'm so scared!"
"Where's the flatbread? I want to eat flatbread... If I don't eat flatbread I'm going to starve to death!"
After a trek lasting several hours, the physical stamina of most of these children had reached its limit. Some younger children, after being in a depressing environment for so long, lost control of their emotions even more, starting to cry and make a fuss desperately.
Fortunately, there were still a few adults holding the fort in the team. They could only constantly go up and coax them first, taking out dry rations and water from another pushcart to distribute to the children.
"What are you being so noisy for?! If you keep making a fuss, those monsters will be attracted over!! Whoever cries again, I will beat them!"
In the crowd, a seventeen or eighteen-year-old, tall and sturdy youth knocked down a child in his early tens with one punch, speaking viciously.
After taking a punch, that child instead cried even fiercer.
The tall youth's eyes widened in anger. He fiercely mounted the child, his sandbag-like fists raining down, directly beating him until his head was broken and bleeding. Seeing this, the adults on the side immediately rushed up to pull the two apart.
"Zhu Zhong!! What are you doing?? Are you trying to kill him!"
"Who told him to keep crying! He's going to get us all killed!"
"Then you struck way too heavily. Do you know how far away we are from the Tianshu Domain? Bleeding this much will kill a person!"
The youth called Zhu Zhong didn't feel the slightest guilt, instead still glaring deadly at the child in the pool of blood. Fresh blood dripped to the ground along his knuckles, but it was only the unique deep gray of the Gray World.
Not far away, the Hemp-Clad Youth silently raised his hand, covering the eyes of Ah Qian on his back.
"Brother Xiao Li... why is he hitting people?" Ah Qian, like the other children, was frightened by the bloody scene just now, her voice trembling somewhat.
"Xunzi said, human nature is inherently evil. Without experiencing education and cultivating a sense of good and evil, yet possessing strength exceeding one's peers... Such a person is often extremely self-centered, unrestricted by any rules, and acts without restraint." The Hemp-Clad Youth spoke calmly,
"We need to stay far away from this kind of person, understand?"
"Understood."
Ah Qian silently buried her head in the youth's shoulder, but discovered that the youth's footsteps were gradually staggering, and his body seemed to be trembling slightly... That wasn't fear, but because he was too exhausted.
The Hemp-Clad Youth's figure was inherently thin and weak. Carrying a girl like Ah Qian on his back and walking for several hours, his body was already nearing its limit.
"Brother Xiao Li, are you tired?"
"Tired." The Hemp-Clad Youth paused for a moment. "But we cannot stop... We barely managed to escape from that purgatory. The longer we delay on the road, the more dangerous it will be..."
"Resting for a while should be fine, right? With those adults here, we should still be safe."
"Them? They cannot represent 'safety'... Did you forget how the Wuji Domain fell?" As if thinking of something, a hint of redness welled up in the Hemp-Clad Youth's eyes. "This is a chaotic and dark era. Here, the only ones we can trust are ourselves."
"Oh..."
Ah Qian didn't understand the meaning of Brother Xiao Li's words, but she knew that her brother was indeed tired. So she got down from his back by herself, trying her best to lessen his burden.
Just as she was about to say something, on the desolate earth ahead, a figure holding a Cane gradually appeared in their line of sight.
"Brother Xiao Li, there's an uncle ahead! It's not a monster!" Seeing this scene, Ah Qian was stunned at first, and subsequently a pleasant surprise surfaced on her face. "Is he sent by the Tianshu Domain to pick us up?"
Not only her, almost all the other children had the same thought surface in their minds.
They had already walked in the Gray World for too long. Besides the desolate and deathly silent earth around them, there were only terrifying Calamities crawling past occasionally. They fundamentally couldn't see the slightest figure of a person... In this extremely depressing environment, everyone was yearning to arrive at the Tianshu Domain as soon as possible. It was just that they were too young and had no concept of distance.
Therefore, when they saw a long-lost human appear ahead, and one who looked like a gentleman wearing a round Fedora and holding a Cane, they were instantly incomparably excited!
Some children even started crying and waving at that person, running over quickly.
Meanwhile, the Hemp-Clad Youth abruptly stopped his footsteps. His palm tightly grabbed Ah Qian's wrist, his gaze looking at that person incomparably vigilant. At the same time, he silently retreated behind the crowd...
"Careful!! Don't go over!" At the same time, the accompanying adults also reacted, immediately shouting out!
However, everything was already too late.
As that person raised his Cane and casually swung it, the dozen or so children closest to him simultaneously trembled. One by one, hearts appeared outside their bodies from afar, as if scooped out through the air by a formless large hand, and were casually thrown on the ground.
Thump—
Their bodies fell to the ground wave after wave, like stalks swept over by a hurricane, devoid of breath forever.