# 879
Chapter 880: Slaughter
CRASH--!
A deafening roar echoed from the shore. An Qingyu turned to look, only to see a battered fishing boat crashing against the turbulent coastline, a thick, nauseating scent of blood wafting through the air.
The rust-eaten deck had become a sea of blood. Bodies upon bodies, covered in wounds, lay sprawled across the carnage, their eyes wide open in死不瞑目—incomprehensible death.
Slash wounds. Bite marks. Holes gouged by fishing spears... The injuries varied, but one thing remained the same—their furious, twisted faces frozen in the moment of death.
These were the fishermen who had set out to sea together today.
They had died killing each other.
At that moment, a blood-soaked figure stumbled off the boat, clutching a bloodstained short sword.
"Mine... it's all mine... hehehehe..." The man nicknamed Er Zhuzi—Second Pillar—by Chen Gou stumbled forward, muttering to himself like a madman.
Suddenly, his peripheral vision caught Chen Gou kneeling on the ground and An Qingyu standing beside him.
He froze for a moment, then gripped his short sword tighter, his expression twisting back into savagery!
"Die!! Anyone who competes with me dies!!" He raised his blade high and charged toward An Qingyu like a rabid dog, accelerating desperately.
An Qingyu's brow furrowed, fury blazing in his eyes. A gleaming surgical blade appeared in his palm. He was about to throw it—
"Qingyu!!"
Jiang Er's voice suddenly erupted from the Bluetooth speaker at An Qingyu's waist.
An Qingyu's raised hand shuddered. A flicker of clarity returned to his eyes. He sheathed the surgical blade in one smooth motion, sidestepping Er Zhuzi's frenzied slash, then gently pressed his palm against the man's chest, sending him flying several meters away.
The next instant, an invisible thread shot out and bound the man tightly.
After finishing this, An Qingyu took a deep breath and relaxed.
"Thanks, Jiang Er."
He'd almost been affected again.
Even though he had been consciously controlling his emotions, he had still lost his composure and nearly lost his mind... He could clearly feel that the force affecting emotions was growing stronger.
An Qingyu raised his head toward the blood-red moon gradually emerging from behind the dark clouds. His expression grew increasingly grave.
"That moon..." he murmured to himself.
Now, he could basically confirm—the mysterious force manipulating emotions was coming from that crimson moon!
As the red moon's silhouette grew more complete, the power to control emotions would only grow stronger. When that moon was fully exposed in the sky and its light fell upon this village, every living creature would lose all reason, becoming monsters that only knew how to slaughter each other...
But why was only this fishing village's moon like this?
Could this time loop be related to that red moon?
"I'm fine. The force affecting emotions here does work on me, but the effect seems greatly diminished." Jiang Er's voice came through the Bluetooth speaker.
An Qingyu nodded. "Though your body has lost its vitality, your brain is still active, so the brain regions controlling your emotions would also be affected—just less severely than us."
"Qingyu, have you found a way to isolate yourself from this emotional influence?"
An Qingyu fell silent.
If this mysterious force driving people to kill each other truly came from that red moon, the most direct solution would be to block the light...
An Qingyu raised his fingertips. Black thorns burst from the earth, forming a massive cocoon that enveloped him and Chen Gou. He closed his eyes and focused, but the agitation and irritability showed no signs of diminishing.
Physical blocking was ineffective.
In other words, this red moon's influence on living creatures wasn't transmitted through light, but through some other unblockable medium...
Damn it! How was he supposed to handle this!?
He couldn't exactly fly up to the sky and smash that moon to pieces, could he?
If he couldn't maintain clarity under the red moon's influence, the only option was to forcefully break free from this time loop and escape the village... But the source maintaining the loop hadn't been found yet. Unless they tried to rip the loop open by force, there was no way out.
The problem was—if they had the power to tear open the loop, they would have escaped long ago.
The strongest among them was only at the "Unlimited" realm, still a far cry from—
Wait?!
At that moment, An Qingyu seemed to realize something. He sharply turned to look in the direction where Baili Pangpang, Cao Yuan, and Shen Qingzhu had left. His pupils contracted slightly.
Perhaps... they weren't entirely lacking in terrifying combat power at that level?
...
Blazing flames danced like demonic tendrils under the dim sky. The crimson moon had half-emerged from the clouds, and an eerie, chilling aura spread throughout the entire fishing village.
"Quick!! Hold her down! Get two more people!"
"Has she gone insane? How did we never notice she was this strong?!"
"Where's the barefoot doctor? Why hasn't the doctor arrived? Yaomei's about to die!"
"..."
Beside the burning houses, three men were pinning a middle-aged woman to the ground. She clutched a firewood knife, her body drenched in blood. Veins bulged across her skin, and crimson light flashed in her eyes. Her expression was utterly deranged.
Across from her, a woman with a distended abdomen lay silently in a pool of blood, already ceasing to breathe.
"Let go of me! Let go!!"
The pinned woman thrashed and howled, but couldn't move an inch. She suddenly lowered her head and bit down viciously on the man's hand gripping her, piercing flesh.
"AAAAHHH!!!"
The bitten man screamed in pain and jerked his arm back. Crimson also tinged his eyes—rage and ferocity brewing within. "You damned bitch! Trying to kill me?!"
He grabbed a brick from the nearby rubble, raised it high, and slammed it against the struggling woman's skull with a dull thud.
Blood streamed down the back of her head. Her eyes rolled back as she went limp, her breathing stopping.
"Old Li... you killed her!"
"So what? She killed Yaomei first!"
"You can't just kill her for that!"
"Damn right I killed her! And don't you dare provoke me, or I'll kill you too!"
"?? What the hell are you talking about?!"
The men standing beside the woman's corpse stared wide-eyed. Crimson seeped into the depths of their pupils as well. They glared at each other with murderous rage, like savage beasts driven by pure instinct, and lunged at one another, tearing into each other savagely.