Chapter 1247: The Chess Game

Heiyang heard these words, and his eyes instantly turned cold and stern.

"Renhou," Heiyang said in a deep voice, "you should know... lying to me is useless, right?"

"I have no choice," Renhou replied. "My teacher conveyed it that way, so I'm just passing it on as is."

"So that damned thing has already confronted Tianhu, hasn't it?"

"Yes," Renhou nodded.

Yan Zhichun could see from the side that Heiyang was very anxious, but at that moment, he had no way to help, as if two important matters were colliding in his mind.

"Is it still alive?" Heiyang asked again. "It hasn't died already, has it?"

"It was alive when it left."

"That damned thing..." Heiyang gritted his teeth. "It actually went after Tianhu without waiting for me... I'll kill you sooner or later."

"Heiyang Laoshi, you might be misunderstanding," Renhou shook his head. "Hu Laoshi didn't go looking for Tianhu—it was Tianhu who came to him."

"It came to him...?"

Heiyang wasn't sure if today's plan counted as successful or not.

After all, assembling this team had taken far too long, and the several hundred "participants" who had surged into the vehicles were a surprise to everyone, causing many plans to be disrupted.

They had thought it was a terrible start, but as the plan was put into action... it felt like many small cracks were subtly smoothed over by some force.

For example, the "Death Gate" in the "Shengxiao" had been cracked; the massive procession reached the "Huocang" without any interference; the "Tianji" moved out individually and scattered; the team in front of him was much stronger than he had imagined, with almost everyone possessing "Xianfa," and among them, one had "Ling Shi" that allowed others to stably gain "Xianfa" in a place like the "Cheli"...

And for instance, when they needed "Gatekeepers," they appeared right before their eyes.

Just this one part of the plan already had so many mysterious assists—what would it feel like if the battlefield expanded to the entire "Cheli"?

It seemed like directly above this "Cheli," there was an invisible giant hand treating all the characters as pawns, executing strategies of alliances and divisions.

It would push the right pawns to the most needed squares at every critical moment, using tactics to compensate for any lack of strength, employing schemes to overlook differences in numbers, and leading a group of ordinary pawns to checkmate the "god."

Every time Heiyang thought about how that person no longer existed, he still felt a chill down his spine.

Where was the terror in all this?

It lay in the fact that this giant hand wasn't overseeing the big picture now and adjusting strategies based on the current situation.

Instead, it had anticipated all possible events months, years, or even decades ago, and laid out the corresponding moves in advance.

Perhaps for a single move, he had spent years approaching and understanding a pawn, subtly transforming that person into a weapon suited to his hand.

In the end, he transformed himself, becoming one of the many pawns on the board, coordinating with the giant hand he had once extended in the air to attack the enemy's camp.

Among all these pawns, only he himself knew he was a pawn.

Everyone else thought they were fighting desperately for some goal that benefited them, and even the enemy was the same.

The enemy believed that not interfering with these "rebels" at this time was the most advantageous choice for them, unaware that they were already one of the pawns.

So... if Heiyang had to say who he admired most in the entire "Taoyuan," he could only blurt out that it was Baiyang.

This admiration wasn't about submitting to someone's abilities, but facing a sense of powerlessness against an unknown entity, which made Heiyang completely unable to muster any emotion of "resisting Baiyang."

If Baiyang's strength was something Heiyang could reach just by standing on tiptoe, he would naturally want to compete. But once involved in this plan, Heiyang realized how ridiculous his thoughts were—like a three-year-old child unilaterally declaring war on the Soviet Union.

"I need to hurry and send Tianniu away," Heiyang said to Renhou and the several "Renji Shengxiao." "I'll leave this place to you... I'm warning you in advance, guarding here might mean death."

"We'll all die eventually," Renhou nodded. "I was just about to tell you—if you find you can't return here, the only possibility is that we've all been wiped out."

"Alright," Heiyang nodded. "If you're all wiped out, I'll kowtow a thousand times in hell to apologize to Peiqianhu."

"Don't joke about that—we'll all be dead by then."

Heiyang turned back and gave Yan Zhichun a signal with his eyes. After the two nodded, they walked one after the other into the metal door, descending step by step down the stairs, their footsteps echoing in the dark tunnel until they faded away.

Renhou bent down and wedged his mask into the door crack, then partially closed the door.

Just as he was about to assign tactics to the people around him, he heard the sound of a door opening from the "Tianji" room in the distance.

Everyone looked toward the sound, and a withered old man and a white-haired old woman emerged from their respective doors. Renhou and his group's hearts leaped into their throats in an instant.

They had just seen Heiyang off, and now the "Tianji" had arrived—Heiyang probably hadn't expected the mission to fail so quickly, right?

For a dozen or so "Renji," they might stake their lives to stop a "Diji," but facing two "Tianji" at once with mortal bodies—what did that even mean?

No one spoke; they just stared as the two "Tianji" slowly made their way to the center of the "Ding" crossroads.

The withered old man seemed injured, his face slightly pale with dried blood at the corner of his mouth. He quickly noticed the group of strange people standing at the "Huocang" door. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then seemed to worry about the consequences of meddling, so he just shook his head, pretended not to see them, and turned the corner toward the "Cheli" corridor.

The old woman behind him was even more intriguing; she didn't seem to notice the people at the "Huocang" door at all. In her hand, she held a severed limb covered in bite marks, and she was looking around as if searching for something. If not for the horrifying object in her hand, everyone would have thought she was just an old lady who had lost her child.

The two "Tianji" swaggered right past these "Renji Shengxiao" without so much as a word, let alone any attempt to stop them.

Renhou and the others were completely baffled, feeling that the situation was different from what they had expected.

But regardless, getting past one hurdle was one less to worry about. Given how anxious Heiyang had seemed, dealing with Tianniu probably wouldn't take long—they could only hope they finished quickly.