Chapter 1119: Justice
White Tiger gazed at the direction Xuanwu had left, his mind wandering for a brief moment before he turned his full attention to the situation at hand.
He recalled that it had been a long time since he had wielded such frequent and powerful "Immortal Arts." Now, he felt an unprecedented surge of energy coursing through him.
A long-lost sense of ease and relief began to spread through his body. Every cell and pore gradually relaxed, as if all his worries had been cast aside.
The sufferings, confusion, and sorrow of the past were now veiled in a blurred white film due to his overuse of the "Immortal Arts," making them indistinct in his mind.
He only wanted to kill.
The "Immortal Arts" he unleashed had evolved from the initially harmless "Gale" into the lethal "Thick Woods" and "Flaming Burst."
But why was he standing here killing people...?
What were these people trying to do...?
He had forgotten.
All he knew was that he had been waiting here alone for a long time, perhaps just waiting to kill?
No... White Tiger hesitated. Hadn't he killed before earlier?
How many had he killed that time?
He had forgotten that too.
White Tiger's eyes began to fill with bloodshot streaks, and murderous aura radiated from him in all directions. This unsettling state put everyone on high alert.
Seeing this, Zheng Yingxiong immediately pulled away from Han Yimo and ran toward the tangled crowd. The pungent odor near him was so intense that he clearly felt his nose starting to bleed, but at this moment he could not afford to care; he could only raise his hand to cover his nose and mouth in panic.
Amid the countless "fragrant" scents, one unique smell pierced through all of them, shooting straight into his nostrils.
"It's 'killing intent'..." Zheng Yingxiong shouted as he ran toward Yan Zhichun. "Be careful!! It's an extremely dense 'killing intent'!"
Upon hearing this, Yan Zhichun glanced in Zheng Yingxiong's direction and immediately realized the situation was turning dangerous. She then shouted, "Take cover! Protect yourselves!"
Before everyone could react, White Tiger suddenly raised his hand toward the sky.
A strange force field began to emerge around White Tiger. The air between him and the others started to warp from the intense heat.
Yan Zhichun had no time to think. A flurry of tactical ideas flashed through her mind in an instant.
Many of the nearby "Jidao" practitioners were unable to dodge because they were fully focused on unleashing their "Echoes," but White Tiger was clearly about to use a lethal move. These front-line "Jidao" were the main fighting force and absolutely could not die here.
Yan Zhichun closed her eyes, then shifted her stance. The people behind her instinctively lined up in a column. She extended her left hand forward and her right hand backward.
The dozen or so people behind her all made the same gesture. They grabbed the hand of the person in front of them, while those behind them did the same in turn.
Everyone’s face showed shock, but when they realized that the one controlling their movements was "The Jidao King," they relaxed slightly.
At the critical moment, Yan Zhichun jerked her left hand backward with force. She felt an enormous pulling power, like a steel cable, coming from behind. At that instant, everyone withdrew their left hands, pulling the person in front of them backward. Yan Zhichun, standing at the very front, bore the greatest force and was almost hurled backward at high speed.
She quickly severed her "Conviction" and canceled the vertical "Heartsteal" connection, then switched to a horizontal one, reconnecting to the twenty people on the front line. Those twenty individuals suddenly felt as if they were being dragged by something massive, and they too flew backward in large arcs.
Among them were Jiang Ruoxue and Zhou Mo.
Almost at the same moment, the space in front of White Tiger exploded with a tremendous blast—
**BOOM!!**
Although the crowd had already begun retreating rapidly under Yan Zhichun's pull, they were still thrown into disarray by the enormous shockwave from such close range.
As Jiang Ruoxue flew backward, Lao Sun caught her. Zhou Mo landed and agilely rolled once before getting to his feet.
Though everyone was battered, the casualties were few. The massive explosion had only caused three or five people to vanish in an instant, while most of the rest suffered only minor injuries.
"Tch!" Zhou Mo cursed loudly. "How is that possible...? Does 'Flaming Burst' not even need a medium?!"
"Medium...?" Jiang Ruoxue paused.
"Normally, 'Flaming Burst' has to act on an object..." Zhou Mo said, bewildered. "What have these people turned their 'Echoes' into? Can they directly explode in the air without a medium?!"
Jiang Ruoxue hesitated for a moment. "Isn't... 'air' a medium?"
"What—"
Still shaken, Zhou Mo looked at the space in front of White Tiger. If Jiang Ruoxue was right, then White Tiger's "Flaming Burst" was far more adept than he had imagined.
He hadn't caused an explosion all around himself—after all, that would damage the giant bell and the display screen behind him. Instead, he had only made the air directly in front of him undergo a localized "Flaming Burst."
This was no longer just using air as a medium; it was causing separate but connected pockets of air to individually detonate.
"I AM THE WHITE TIGER!!"
White Tiger tilted his head back and roared, his voice piercing through the plaza and echoing all around.
"Drop your weapons... and revel in the slaughter."
Everyone felt the words were somewhat familiar, but they should never have come from White Tiger's mouth.
The crowd surrounding the plaza, mobilized by the "Longhorns," had packed the area tightly. They only knew that a fight had broken out in the center of the plaza, but they didn't know exactly which factions were battling, so they had merely watched up to now.
But when they heard the old man in the center proclaim himself as "White Tiger," they instantly understood the battle lines.
What factions? It was clearly White Tiger single-handedly resisting the "Rebels."
With the target so clear, everything outside the white-robed old man in the plaza was an enemy.
"Support White Tiger!" a "Participant" suddenly shouted.
"Support White Tiger!" Voices from all directions echoed the call.
At that signal, countless onlookers from all around surged into the plaza. Since not all of them had attained the status of "Echoers," some even carried wooden sticks and iron pipes as weapons.
In the blink of an eye, the "Jidao" were completely surrounded. The outer ring had already begun engaging the "Participants," and the scene instantly turned into chaos.
At the center of the storm, Yan Zhichun frowned as she surveyed the surroundings. Although she had mentally prepared for this feeling, its arrival still filled her with deep conflict.
The "Jidao" believed they were just. The "Divine Beasts" believed they were just. Even the "Participants" who had rushed to help believed they were just.
Three sides, each with different purposes, had forcefully joined the battlefield. With the "Jidao" caught in the middle, could they still have a chance of victory?
But before she could formulate her next tactic, she saw ragged-suited "Human-Level Zodiacs" starting to gather from all directions.