Chapter 138: Truth and Falsehood

About an hour later, Fan Bei had everything arranged in the living room.

Grit-toothed, he drew three thousand spiritual cores from Dabai's system space to serve as the communication cost.

He began to pray.

"O most merciful and benevolent Sovereign, the unique entity of the endless ash-gray world, the protector of all the weak..."

As the spiritual cores vanished one by one, and as Fan Bei recounted the events, a ball of light manifested within the living room.

"Poor child, I have heard your request. I will try my best to appease Him, so that at the very least, His wrath will not fall upon other innocent lives."

Xiaobai watched the entire scene from the side, secretly thinking to itself:

It seemed this fellow truly was favored by that entity; otherwise, contact would have been impossible.

Someone like it could never accomplish such a feat.

Fan Bei hurriedly expressed his gratitude. Amidst his thanks, a thought occurred to him: if he were to allocate the remaining two system slots to the world governed by this entity, the returns would undoubtedly be massive.

He only needed to properly plan the process.

With this in mind, he began mapping out the scheme.

Two days later, the Butler System sent him a message: the people from the Sacred Land had returned. Only this time, the visitors were no longer paper figures, but the Enforcers.

***

On the Copper Fortress Plaza, a line of five men stood shoulder-to-shoulder, confronting Lin Zhongqing and Dongfang Yitong.

From left to right, they consisted of two old men, two middle-aged men, and a young man.

"You child, truly utterly ignorant! We struggled so bitterly just to achieve this shred of stability today, and you've ruined it all!" reprimanded an elderly man draped in a traditional Chinese jacket, putting on the airs of a senior.

Another old man clad entirely in a western suit chimed in, "Indeed! Fortunately, another Exalted One found it unbearable and bestowed mercy, preventing that entity from truly losing its temper and destroying the Earth. Instead, we were granted the chance to handle this internally. Now, tell us, what do you intend to do?"

The other three men remained silent, merely casting cold gazes at the pair.

There were no onlookers in the plaza; members of the Astral Chamber of Commerce had cordeloned off the entire area.

Inside several buildings bordering the plaza, people were peering out at the scene.

Lang Sheng was one of the onlookers. The sudden closure of the evil spirit mine had similarly robbed him of his cultivation grounds.

He still hadn't figured out what had happened, and it was only from the dialogue of these individuals that he faintly grasped the outline of the situation.

Lin Zhongqing had offended a high-level evil spirit, triggering all of this.

These individuals claimed to hail from the "Sacred Land." Recalling the words of an old man he had once imprisoned—who had mentioned this very term in the early days—he remembered being terrified for a long time, though nothing had ever come of it.

Consequently, he hadn't taken it to heart. But looking at it now, that old man hadn't been lying after all. It was merely that those people likely disdained interfering in such matters.

Yet the trouble stirred up by Lin Zhongqing had finally forced them to take action.

Could the other side possibly withstand this?

He was not optimistic. After all, the disparity between the two parties was far too obvious.

Furthermore, these five individuals believed that under their pressure, their opponents would inevitably bow their heads.

After all, the balance of power was stark; how could two people possibly contend against five?

While their opponents possessed a special method for purifying evil spirits, these five were living humans, not evil spirits.

"Hahahahaha!" Lin Zhongqing suddenly threw back his head and burst into laughter, leaving everyone bewildered.

"So that's how it is! I truly must thank you for providing me with this intelligence!"

"What are you laughing at?" the jacket-clad old man demanded, exasperated and flustered.

"Hmph, it's very simple. I now realize that the master hanging over your heads is nothing more than a paper tiger putting up a bold front! Only spineless cowards like you, bent on serving a new master, would imagine that entity to be infinitely powerful," Lin Zhongqing said with absolute confidence.

"What do you know?! That entity didn't strike simply because it couldn't be bothered, coupled with the persuasion of another Exalted One, which allowed you to escape with your life for now!" the jacket-wearing old man shrieked hoarsely. "You have no idea how terrifying that entity is! Simply by stepping into our world, it brought our civilization to total ruin!"

"Foolish!" Lin Zhongqing retorted. "That was the power of the Ethereal Realm, not its own. When it comes to understanding the Ethereal Realm, independent people like us far surpass bootlickers like you—lackeys who treat an external enemy as their master!"

"Enough idle chatter! It seems we must teach you ignorant girl a harsh lesson before you understand what it means to 'forbear for a moment of calm, step back to find a vast open sea.' Only by swallowing our humiliation today can we hope for a good life tomorrow," the suit-wearing old man added.

Dongfang Yitong suddenly spoke up. "Foolish! True progress is never achieved through forbearance! It is forged through struggle! Those who only know how to endure can ultimately become nothing more than numb, submissive subjects. Only those with fighting spirit within their hearts are qualified to truly carve out a new future!"

"Damn you!" The two old men could no longer contain themselves and made their move.

By contrast, the other three men remained entirely inactive.

Accustomed to standing high above others, barking orders that no one dared disobey, how could they tolerate the appearance of a thorn—no, *two* thorns in their side?

They desired for others to submit while they basked in the prestige of their alien masters to bully the weak.

Conversely, the three men usually functioned merely as hired thugs, long accustomed to being oppressed. Hearing what the two youths had to say, they didn't feel much antipathy at all, and even faintly agreed.

Dongfang Yitong blocked Lin Zhongqing, stepping forward to engage the two old men in battle.

Everyone assumed the battle would be a protracted affair.

Yet the outcome was decided so swiftly that it left people utterly dumbfounded.

Dongfang Yitong's figure flickered like a wraith, moving with the wind as he brushed past the two old men.

The two old men, however, froze with wide eyes, looking down at the two gaping holes in their chests. Without uttering a single word, they dropped dead on the spot!

"Hahahahaha, and here I thought you two had been running your mouths for so long that you must possess some genuine strength. Who would've thought you wouldn't even have the reflexes to match!" Lin Zhongqing shook her head dismissively.

The remaining three men instantly froze in shock!

Of those two old men, one was proficient in the legendary ancient martial art of Tai Chi, excelling at using softness to overcome hardness, while the other mastered the no-holds-barred combat techniques of modern sports, excelling at meeting force with force.

And yet, they couldn't withstand even a single round against the opponent?

Watching the battle unfold from behind the scenes, Fan Bei shook his head. Humans were, after all, only human, bound by physiological limits. Their reaction times and processing speeds were severely restricted; how could they possibly compete with advanced artificial intelligence?

Especially since the Butler System, fueled by Lin Zhongqing's sparing no expense in "pay-to-win" upgrades, had rapidly evolved to an astronomical degree.

In his past life, once AlphaGo emerged and effortlessly swept human players in Go—the pinnacle of intellectual games—it made people realize that relying purely on human capability to compete against machines was utterly hopeless.

Human advantages lay in the accumulation of knowledge and innovation, not in short-term calculations, competitions, or combat.

The prowess of the Butler System far surpassed that of the AI by countless multiples, especially since it also possessed mystical enhancements rather than being a mere AI.

Without uttering a single harsh word, the three men turned tail and fled!

Filled with surging fighting spirit, Lin Zhongqing turned to Dongfang Yitong and said, "Let's go, Brother Dongfang! We're going straight to smash their nest!"

"Mn. The worst mistake it could have made was accepting mediation, thus exposing its own hollow foundation," Dongfang Yitong said calmly.

Only then did Fan Bei comprehend their logical reasoning. So that was how it was.

Much like the late Qing Dynasty, when would foreign powers ever accept mediation? It was simply when a single nation could no longer break the Qing's resistance forces and had to resort to the negotiating table to extract concessions.

Pity that the Qing never possessed a genuine will to resist. After all, they were merely a group of slave-owners themselves; selling out the interests of their slaves in exchange for continued glory and wealth presented no barrier to them at all.

But now, these two individuals were entirely different.