Opening his eyes again, Ning Bei looked at the clear blue sky and smiled knowingly.
"It seems my guess wasn't wrong. The assessment isn't about defeating a peak Tang San when I'm isolated and helpless."
In his estimation, this assessment was likely testing whether he had the courage to draw his sword against an enemy in extreme circumstances. He had just dragged the Bibi Dong in the illusion down with him in the self-detonation.
"It's okay. After I complete the assessment and return to the real world, I'll add a chicken leg to Your Majesty the Pope's meal as compensation."
Getting up from his supine position, Ning Bei planned to check where he was currently located, as he wasn't sure if he had entered another illusion or returned to reality.
But his shifting gaze made him instantly freeze on the spot. As far as his eyes could see, there was barren, broken land and dilapidated city walls tens of kilometers away, making him instantly feel as if he were in some ancient battlefield.
"What's going on? Did I start at zero frames and directly enter the next stage of the assessment?"
While complaining, Ning Bei slowly got up, preparing to brush the dust off himself, but he froze again. His hands passed directly through his body and didn't touch anything solid.
"Huh? What the ghost?"
He extended his hands towards his body again, and still felt nothing solid. Ning Bei quickly looked down and found that he was currently in a strange, ethereal, transparent state.
"Did I turn into a ghost?"
After the initial surprise, Ning Bei forced himself to calm down and began to analyze the likely purpose of this assessment, but no matter how much he thought, he couldn't find any clues.
Helpless, he could only drift through the air towards the city not far away, planning to first confirm his current location before making any decisions.
But as he approached the city, he felt that it looked familiar no matter how he looked at it. After a while, looking at the clothes wrapped around the bones in the broken bricks of the abandoned city walls, Ning Bei suddenly felt a chill in his heart.
"Isn't this the Spirit Hall uniform? Also, is this Spirit City?"
Having figured out his current location, Ning Bei's thoughts instantly became chaotic. He wasn't sure if he had entered the next illusion or was still in the world after his self-detonation.
But soon, screams from a distance attracted his attention. He quickly controlled his soul to drift to the source of the sound. An old man in black was piercing the woman in front of him with a wooden vine, and beneath the woman was a young child crying loudly out of extreme fear.
The scream just now was clearly from the woman. She was not dead yet, and with a pleading look, she turned her head to the old man behind her and said,
"Sir, the child is innocent. Please spare her."
"Hmph, the Sect Master has issued an order. No life in Spirit City is innocent. Everyone here must be buried with the heroic souls of the Clear Sky Sect."
"No, you are demons, devils! How old is this child? What wrong has she done! The Angel God will not spare you!"
Seeing that begging was futile, the woman's eyes gradually became ferocious, and her words were full of exasperation. But the old man seemed to enjoy the woman's expression, a morbid smile on his face as he slowly twisted the wooden vine in his hand. The woman screamed in pain again, her eyes filled with terror.
This wasn't the end. While the woman still had her last breath, the old man extended his free left hand and summoned another wooden cone, aiming it at the little girl behind the woman. This made the already dying woman scream even more hysterically.
"No... don't."
"Angel God? If that thing really existed, it would have come out to save you two years ago. Why would it watch you survivors being slaughtered for two years?"
The woman's pupils gradually became unfocused. It seemed the old man's words had shattered her last shred of hope. Her body slowly fell towards the ground, and the smile on the old man's face grew even wider. His left hand, however, didn't slow down, and the wooden cone continued to stab towards the little girl.
Ning Bei frowned deeply from the side. He wanted to raise his hand to help the little girl, but found that he couldn't summon his spirit at all in his current state. At the same time, no matter how much he made noise, he couldn't attract the old man's attention. It seemed the old man couldn't detect his existence at all.
Just as the old man was about to succeed, a flash of fire streaked across, accurately hitting the opponent's body and instantly burning him to ashes.
Seeing someone make a move, Ning Bei's eyes instantly lit up. Looking in the direction of the attack, he felt a surge of joy, because he knew the person who had attacked. It was the Lion Douluo from the Hall of Elders, Little Angel's fourth grandfather.
But Ning Bei quickly fell into dejection again, because the Lion Douluo ignored his wave of greeting. He walked directly to the little girl, picked her up, and casually waved out a pit to bury her mother. After giving the burning corpse on the ground a look of disgust, the Lion Douluo turned and walked into the distance.
Understanding that the other party also couldn't detect him, Ning Bei immediately controlled his soul to follow, wanting to see where they were going.
Crossing the entire ruined Spirit City, Lion Douluo comforted the little girl in his arms as he arrived at a mountain valley east of Spirit City. Continuing forward, the two people and one ghost successfully reached the entrance of a hidden cave. The sounds coming from inside also caused Ning Bei to become excited.
"Fourth Grandfather, you're back?"
"Little Snow, I just rescued a little girl from the ruins of Spirit City."
A golden-haired figure quietly walked out of the cave and took the little girl from Lion Douluo's arms. Gently stroking her back, the little girl felt the gentle aura and slowly stopped sobbing, falling into a deep sleep in the Little Angel's embrace.
The Little Angel before him no longer had her former high spirits; in fact, she seemed utterly dejected. Only when Tang San was mentioned did deep hatred erupt in her eyes. Ning Bei didn't understand what had happened.
"Was it those evildoers from the Tang Sect again?"
"Yes."
After gritting her teeth, the Little Angel sighed deeply.
"Fourth Grandfather, am I completely useless?"
"How could that be? Little Snow is the best. Otherwise, your Fourth Grandfather would have also died within Spirit City."
"But Grandfather sacrificed his life for me, and Mother and A Bei also used their lives to buy me time. In the end, I still couldn't defeat that Tang San. Now my spirit is shattered, and revenge has become an impossible task. The dignified Angel God successor can only cower in this cave, living out her days."
Listening to the Little Angel's words, Lion Douluo lowered his head and fell silent. Now he didn't know how to comfort the granddaughter he had watched grow up. Everyone she cared about was gone. He couldn't even detect any desire to live in Qian Renxue's eyes. If he hadn't desperately stopped her, she might have already gone to find Tang San for a final battle.
Ning Bei, who was standing by, now completely understood everything. He was currently in a Soul State in the world after the self-destruction, and he hadn't entered the next assessment.
This meant that this assessment hadn't been completed but was still ongoing, which made Ning Bei feel somewhat at a loss.
If this assessment wasn't about courage, then how could he, in his current Soul State unable to even use his spirit, complete the subsequent assessment?
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