Many things happen without warning.

Just like turmoil and collapse, just like disaster and death.

Even though there are many clues that are alarming in advance, no one knows how these spreading clues will gather together in the burial under the Nine Earths, and when they will grow into such exaggerated spores of disaster.

How effective are the eradication and vigilance, the review and consideration over and over again?

And when it broke through the ground, floods spread over the dams, heavy rain fell from the sky, and tsunamis swept across the country, apart from the only preparations, there was only passive response.

Just like this moment.

Ten minutes before the sudden change in Quancheng.

The sky-high flames rose and burst out from the wilderness outside the outpost.

Association's construction site.

The piercing siren stopped abruptly as the circuit was destroyed. At the huge construction site, huge equipment stretched out to the sky like towers, dazzling electric lights emerged, and countless spiritual essences were scattered among them.

The torrents, explosions and chaos dyed the dark night sky into a sickening color.

What spread immediately afterwards was the terrifying pollution that spread beyond Quan City.

In the original material storage warehouse, huge storage tanks that were transported in at an unknown time now set off a chain of explosions, and the pollution and evil dust collected in the massive recycling and processing department rose into the sky from the storm.

, in an instant, the entire construction site was transformed into a demonic realm.

The pollution that countless craftsmen and apprentices had worked hard for the past few days and extracted day and night was now dumped on everyone's heads again in this form.

Mutations sprouted like bamboo shoots after a rain, sprouting from the ground, from the walls, from the pipelines, and from every inch of the air. Erratic illusions continued to appear, and one after another, wailing figures crawled out of the mud and blood.

Obviously a few seconds ago everything was continuing normally, everyone was following step by step, seizing all the time for emergency construction, but after just a few snaps of the fingers, everything had changed beyond recognition.

On the broken tower made of flesh and blood, strange eyes opened one after another, overlooking everything.

The overall design that was once extremely normal, but slightly complicated, now shows no resistance amidst the erosion of evil, and even seems to be as normal as it should be, naturally reduced to what it is today.

With a large number of ectoplasm circuits being dismantled and reconnected, everything quickly changed beyond recognition.

It's like an ancient landscape scroll, with a few brush strokes and dirty ink marks, it transforms from a beautiful landscape into a hellish mud plow.

After the disguise was stripped away, the malice hidden in it from the beginning of the design emerged, revealing a sinister appearance that even the creator had not expected.

Laughing ferociously.

Wails were everywhere, and screams and cries were endless.

The survivors struggled in the spreading smoke and pollution.

What's going on? What the hell? What on earth... happened?

After the initial impact and pollution erosion, the apprentices and craftsmen who were lucky enough to survive the explosion core struggled in embarrassment and tried to call for rescue.

But after a moment of confusion, the smart person hid all his aura, lurked, and ran away without looking back.

Three feet of ice cannot be frozen in one day.

The most evil Rome has been built, so facing the tragic city in front of us at this moment, it is best not to think about turning the tide, but to save lives first.

Whether it's a mole, a trap, or a piece in some big chess game...

——The Association and the Security Bureau can no longer be trusted!

"Teacher, save me, save me...Teacher, teacher..."

Behind the door, shouts from the sea of ​​fire came.

The master, who was covered in blood, awkwardly pulled a steel bar to prop up his body, staring at the tragic scene with an expressionless face. He watched helplessly as his students were gradually burned in the flames, and there were pieces of blood breaking out of his body.

Tentacles emerging from the shell and even many alienated organs.

For a moment, Zhou Zhong opened his mouth, wanting to say something.

But amid the thick smoke and burning, he could not make a sound. He raised his incomplete arm and pointed his remaining fingers at the student's face from a distance.

The sound stopped suddenly.

The corpses in the flames no longer struggle, and just return to dust.

In the thick smoke, there were turbid tears mixed with blood streaked down the face, but it was not clear how much sadness was...

He turned his head away, propped himself up, and staggered out of the fire scene. He opened his mouth and roared, shouted, and cursed silently. His voice seemed to be burned out by the flames, along with his white hair.

It wasn't until he finally rushed out of the broken temporary workshop, staggering, and gasping for breath that he saw the figure standing in the middle of the construction site.

There was no trace of embarrassment or trauma, and the mottled short hair was dancing slightly in the scorching wind.

It's like waiting for a long time.

Look back and examine.

"Huh?"

She raised the corners of her eyes slightly and looked over: "Did you actually survive?"

At that moment, Zhou Zhong looked at her indifferent expression, and then looked at the dying craftsmen and apprentices at her feet, whose life or death was unknown. He couldn't help it anymore, his eyes were scarlet.

"Ye Xian!!!!"

Zhou Zhong's expression twitched, "Are you crazy! Actually... actually... even if you have a grudge against me, other people..."

Ye Xian calmly withdrew his gaze from the roars and accusations, showing no interest.

"I'm worrying too much."

She sighed regretfully: "I thought it was a 'gentleman's sudden change' because I underestimated the heroes of the world. Now it seems that with your courage and courage, Master Zhou, squatting in your own one-third of an acre of land, squeezing and squeezing the apprentices."

Damn it, I don’t have the guts to go against the association and the Security Bureau...

Forget it, go to sleep first!"

As she spoke, she waved her hand, and instantly, from behind her, a strange shadow suddenly rose up from the dancing shadows in the blazing light. The strange shadow like a pair of wings extended without limit, and instantly enveloped Master Zhou.

In a short span of time, the ectoplasm's confrontation, invasion, defense, interference and correction began at a dizzying speed, and then ended again.

The sound of cracking is endless.

Master Zhou, who was severely injured and in a coma, saw his vision go dark. He fell to the ground and was no longer able to resist. The only thing he heard was an indifferent whisper:

"Lie down quietly and stay out of the way."

The shadows changing like wings gathered into a palm, lifted him up, and threw him into the "crowd". Zhou Zhong tried hard to raise his head and glared at Ye Xian's back, but in the end, he could no longer bear it.

Unable to hold on, I fainted completely.

Ye Xian raised his head and looked into the depths of the fire scene.

Among the distortions, the figure staggering out, his expression changed slightly, and for a long time: "I see, you have underestimated everyone in the world."

In the opening flames, the disgraced Master Kong was stunned for a moment. Looking at Ye Xian who was walking towards him expressionlessly, he froze and shook his head decisively: "It's not me!"

"I know."

Ye Xian passed by and left behind words: "I leave those burdens to you."

In this way, he walked straight behind Master Kong.

Under the flesh-and-blood broken tower, amid the dancing flames and thick smoke, a skinny and hunched figure slowly appeared from Ye Xian's progress.

From the beginning, he sat there but did nothing.

Watching all this happen quietly, watching with cold eyes, enjoying the tragic disaster and drama unfolding in front of you.

Master Kong felt as if he had been struck by lightning, dripping with cold sweat.

She just walked out of it, but in the chaos and trauma, she didn't even notice it at all. But what frightened her even more was the face of that person.

So old.

It's obviously so familiar, but at this moment it's so strange and unbelievable.

The master sent by the association is the manager in charge of all alchemy work in Quancheng, the master who proposes and controls the entire construction and all processes.

——Duan Mu!

She stiffened for a moment and glared subconsciously, but soon she gritted her teeth in shame and rage, turned around and left, taking the survivors with her without hesitation.

Only Ye Xian stepped forward step by step, staring at the old face that seemed to be forever filled with wrinkles and sorrow.

Full of curiosity.

"Master Duan is okay?"

Duan Mu smiled nonchalantly and looked at her: "What about you, Master Ye? I remember you were working in a deep well, right? That is the most dangerous place.

When the evil poured in, I thought you would die there."

"Fortunately, I have a surly personality. I don't trust anyone, I am an eyesore to everyone, and I can't trust anyone. I always make some small preparations of my own.

On the contrary, it was Master Duan who suddenly really scared me."

Ye Xian put his hands in his pockets and looked at it carefully: "I suddenly did such a big thing, but I can't see the old and broken body that I usually talk about.

Should I praise you, Lao Ji Fufeng?

It’s really not easy.”

"Easy, actually, quite easy."

Duan Mu felt no complacency, let alone any joy.

Obviously, as the initiator of all this, he should be complacent and ridicule condescendingly, but at this moment, facing Ye Xian's words, his face full of sorrow and wrinkles became older and older.

Just a sigh of exhaustion.

"As long as you are thick-skinned, you will naturally be able to fight against repeated defeats. As long as you can get up, you will naturally be indomitable... This kind of praise for losers, apart from fooling people, can only be used as poison to spread on wounds.

"

Duan Mu looked up to the sky and sighed, and couldn't help but laugh: "For so many years, everyone has regarded me as a late bloomer and an example of perseverance, but there is not a day when I don't think about it - why can't it be someone else who is a late bloomer and perseveres?

Does it have to be me?”

Ye Xian was silent and did not speak.

Since the association of Taiyi Ring, and in the minds of all craftsmen, Duan Mu's existence is simply the manifestation of inspiration itself.

At the age of thirty-one, I awakened on my own and joined the ashes. However, I had already passed the age of apprentice and wandered among various workshops, encountering obstacles and defeats many times.

When he was forty years old, he spent nine years to obtain the craftsman's license as an old ember who was halfway into becoming a monk.

Logically speaking, it should be praised so much that it should shock everyone's attention and shock everyone for a whole year.

It's a pity that that year, in the same examination room as him, there was a fourteen-year-old boy with no affiliation, no foundation, no elders or teachers. He took a popular science pamphlet from the association and spent a year

, self-taught, the fourteen summaries and four principles proposed in a paper with completely wrong format established the new field of modern alchemy.

When Duan Mu proved his abilities, breaking through his own limits step by step, climbing up the ranks within the association, and attaining the position of master, that taciturn young man had already become the Master of Embers, the living sage - [Ploughmaker].

When he raised his arms with his old age and tried to revive the Convergence One Line, the prospect of the Convergence One Line was denied by Grandmaster Tianlu.

The revitalization of the Convergence Series failed. After decades of decline, he accumulated a lot of experience and made a comeback. He proposed a brand new theory and stood up from the past. However, in the master evaluation that year, he encountered a blocker called deviant and broke out.

And that person's name is Ye Xian...

The theories and results he had spent his whole life completing were already eliminated by the paper submitted by Ye Xian within five days of submission and were no longer valuable.

Even so, he never gave up and continues to explore until today.

Many tragedies, many tortures, many failures.

Duan Mu's life is almost written all over it.

No matter who encounters one of these, it would be enough to make him unable to recover, but he has stepped on all of them and overcome them all. Today, he is already a master among thousands of people, a model of late bloomer.

But no one knows how much Duan Mu hates the term 'late bloomer'.

How much I hate myself.

There is also the meager talent that is far less than those above and just enough compared to those below.

"That year, when I met you at the master evaluation, I knew that one day, you would reach a height that I could never predict in my life.

I still feel that way to this day.”

Duan Mu sighed: "I just hope that I will spend my remaining years trying my best to move forward, and a little further. As long as I can move forward, that's enough."

Ye Xian asked: "If this is the case, why did you change your mind?"

"Maybe it's because... I can't walk anymore?"

Duan Mu's expression twitched, and he seemed to be crying and laughing: "Ever since seven years ago, I have discovered that I have tried my best to study all day long, but it has no effect except to move myself and move others.

At best, it’s just standing still.”

Stay where you are and stop moving forward.

In the futile struggle, he watched the figures behind him surpass him one after another, watched the goals he wanted to chase get further and further away, and watched himself become increasingly faint, truly reduced to an old man.

When he called the wrong name of the student next to him for the fourth time, he suddenly realized how high the embers were.

Also, my body is mediocre...

"Tell me, why is this, Master Ye?"

Duan Mu looked at her with no resentment or malice, or maybe he was just trying to maintain a peaceful look. Even now, he didn't want to be looked down upon by Ye Xian.

"The embers are generous and lead me to this path. The embers are cruel and cruel, making me confused and desperate. But my life is miserable, why do I come here?

What is the use of God’s gift to me?”

He raised his hand, touched the gradually peeling old face, and murmured softly: "The gift of embers, the furnace of the world, what are you going to forge me into?

Scrap from the furnace? Or residue from the embers?”

He looked at the craftsman in front of him and asked seriously: "Is it wishful thinking to want a piece of scrap metal to turn into gold?"

"As it should be."

Ye Xian nodded decisively, "Beyond the ordinary, turn stone into gold, fade away the old form and appearance, even ordinary iron can enter the realm of gold.

Isn’t that why alchemy was born?”

"Yeah, so I looked away."

Duan Mu nodded lightly.

On that broken face, a smile finally appeared: "If you go astray, go astray. At least there is a way. I want to continue to move forward. The farther I go, the better. As long as I can take one step, it is better than the original path.

Wandering.

In the eyes of a genius like you, my shameless look must be ridiculous, right?"

Ye Xian asked calmly, "Do you care?"

"...I can no longer care about it."

Duan Mu grinned, and behind his peeling face, thick darkness and ferocity appeared, and one scarlet eye after another opened from the darkness.

At that moment, in the roaring darkness, there were countless roars and whines, which overlapped and turned into a strange echo:

"Master Ye, please help me take a look..."

He said, "Have I gone far enough this time?"

In the distance, there was a roaring and shaking sound, a huge earthquake in the world, and the white mist disturbed and dissipated, replaced by infinite darkness, like a tsunami, carrying a massive amount of aberrations and remnants, heading towards the outpost in a mighty manner!

And right in front of Ye Xian, Duan Mu's old body collapsed layer by layer, and the evil posture forged from the rotten furnace slowly unfolded, and layers of darkness gathered into a four-armed giant more than three meters long with seven eyes on his face.

, the eyes may be compassionate or cruel. Countless spiritual circuits around the body are gathered and entwined, like gold and glass.

From the hysterical laughter, the aura that towered over the original stone rose up, overwhelming all directions.

——God!!!
Chapter completed!