Chapter 2032: Taking Hostage

Although the person before him was nothing more than a lowly piece of trash unworthy of a second glance, this very individual had once dared to provoke him. Before he could crush him, however, he had been witnessed fleeing in a most disgraceful manner.

How could he forget!

After his initial surprise, a twisted mix of excitement and amusement spread across his face, as if he had just rediscovered a lost toy.

"It's... you!" Yun Che seemed to have just recognized him as well, uttering the same two words, but his tone was much heavier.

As he spoke, he slowly took a step back, but then immediately halted, his expression gradually regaining its calm. He then softly called out his name: "Meng Jianzhou!"

In the Lin Yuan Realm, Hua Cairi had called out his name. Meng Jianzhou watched Yun Che's hesitant move, wanting to flee but then stopping. The smile on his lips grew more contemptuous and playful. "I imagine by now, you've had enough time to understand the status my name represents. Hmm? Run, why don't you run? Do you know you can't escape and are simply waiting for death, or are you hoping to beg for mercy, dreaming that I'll spare your wretched life?"

"Beg for mercy? Heh..." Yun Che chuckled softly, adopting a fearless posture as if resigned to his fate. "The esteemed son of a Divine Lord of a Divine Kingdom, who in the eyes of the world should be like a shining star in the heavens, yet you openly committed lewd and wicked acts in a remote borderland, which is already sickening. And now, in this Sea of Mist, you're resorting to such despicable methods to harm innocent people."

"Someone as despicable as you, are you even fit to be a Divine Lord's son? Are you worthy of my begging for mercy?"

"Hahahahaha!" Meng Jianzhou, far from being angry, burst out laughing. "They say the bravest people in this world are those who know they're going to die. What a pity; is that all you've got with your desperate insults? As expected, plebeians are plebeians. The Abyss Dog I crushed an hour ago barked more pleasantly than you."

Yun Che smiled faintly, his voice instead softening as he unhurriedly said, "Meng Jianzhou, it seems your status in the Divine Kingdom of Weaving Dreams is quite low."

That one sentence instantly stiffened the wicked smile on Meng Jianzhou's lips.

"A Divine Lord's son of noble birth, lauded with praise, would never condescend to bully the weak. Only a waste — one whose talent, cultivation, and character are inferior among all the imperial princes and princesses, who is looked down upon and ridiculed by others, and whom even his own parents disdain to look at — would resort to tormenting the weak to seek that pathetic sense of superiority and control."

The smile vanished from Meng Jianzhou's lips, and even his fair, delicate face was tinged with an ashen hue.

Every word Yun Che spoke mercilessly jabbed at his sore spot.

Facing Meng Jianzhou's slightly altered expression, Yun Che slowly extended a finger, making a gesture of disdain. "There's trash everywhere, and the son of a Divine Lord is no exception. And you are the dirtiest, foulest one."

"I imagine your siblings are ashamed of you, and Divine Lord Wumeng, who sent you out for experience, must surely wish you would die outside. After all, who wants an abominable bedbug mixed in with all their children?"

After these words were spoken, Meng Jianzhou's reaction was far more intense than Yun Che had anticipated.

His entire face turned a visible shade of livid purplish-red.

Tsk tsk... Yun Che thought to himself: It seems this fellow truly isn't doing well in the Divine Kingdom of Weaving Dreams. He couldn't have built up this expression without hundreds or thousands of years of suppressed resentment.

Meng Jianzhou slowly raised his hand, his fingers convulsively clenching. He desperately tried to maintain his composed certainty and arrogance of being in control, but he simply could not suppress the malevolent and distorted light in his eyes.

"Heh heh... heh heh heh!" He let out a strange laugh, momentarily unable to conceive of a torture method sufficient to vent the rage and hatred in his heart by killing Yun Che. "Very good, excellent. As a reward, I will bestow upon you a... nightmare that will make you regret ever coming into this world!"

By the latter half of the sentence, he could no longer maintain his composure; both his voice and expression had become hideous.

"Just you? A half-step Divine Extinction Realm, yet a waste who only dares to loiter in the outer reaches of the Sea of Mist?" Yun Che's face showed not a trace of the humility and fear Meng Jianzhou wished to see. His tone and gaze held only contempt, as if standing before him was not a Divine Lord's son, but merely a pile of trash he disdained to look directly at. "Divine Lord's son? Heh... what a disgrace! Someone like you, I'd consider too lowly even to be my son!"

As his voice fell, and Meng Jianzhou's eyes suddenly flared with rage, Yun Che's profound energy abruptly burst forth, sweeping him away in a gust of wind as he instantly darted into the Sea of Mist.

"Trying to... escape?" Meng Jianzhou's gaze turned sinister, his teeth clenched. It was only at the moment Yun Che unleashed his profound energy that he realized the other's cultivation was actually at the second level of the Divine Master Realm.

He remembered that in the Lin Yuan Realm, Yun Che's cultivation was at the peak of the Divine Sovereign Realm. Now, in just six or seven months, he had actually crossed a major realm and a minor realm!

But at this moment, he clearly had no time to ponder these things. Besides, there was no essential difference between the Divine Sovereign Realm and a second-level Divine Master under his power.

In his extreme fury, he chose not to use soul control, but instead surged forward, several times faster than Yun Che. His splayed fingers reached directly for Yun Che's back neck.

He wanted to personally tear Yun Che apart, slowly, piece by piece, flesh and bone.

Although Abyss Dust offered some concealment, the enormous cultivation gap made Yun Che's perfectly timed, full-speed escape seem like a joke in Meng Jianzhou's eyes.

In the blink of an eye, he had already closed in on Yun Che to within a few steps, his five fingers, gleaming with cold light, aimed directly for Yun Che's throat.

Just then, Yun Che, whose figure would have been grasped by him in the next instant, suddenly halted. He then turned to face Meng Jianzhou, revealing an exceptionally eerie smile.

Yun Che activated his Yama Emperor State, and his palm suddenly reached out toward the approaching Meng Jianzhou. The terrifying pressure he unleashed far exceeded the limits of the Divine Master Realm, causing Meng Jianzhou to instantly suffocate, his pupils widening as if to tear apart.

But he was unable to stop his momentum in time, and he violently crashed into Yun Che.

Bang!! Following the violent impact was a shrill scream and an even shriller sound of shattering bones. In that instant, Meng Jianzhou's arm and body seemed to have slammed against the most terrifying heavenly hammer in existence. All five fingers of his remaining right hand were utterly shattered, and bone fragments flew everywhere. His protective profound energy was instantly obliterated, and his supposedly formidable body was easily pulverized like rotten earth. A cold hand broke through his sternum, directly striking into his chest... cruelly gripping his heart meridian and internal organs between its five fingers.

Tear!!

A soul-shattering roar echoed, and the space above Yun Che fractured, revealing a profound light radiating terrifying pressure.

Yun Che was not flustered in the slightest. With one hand, he tightly clutched Meng Jianzhou's heart meridian and internal organs, while with the other, he seized his neck, locking him firmly in front of himself. "Come on, make your move. Let's see if he dies first, or I die first!"

For the current Yun Che, Meng Jianzhou was no longer a threat in the slightest.

The truly terrifying thing, however, was the guardian secretly following him.

That old man, clad in a grey robe, with short hair and a long beard!

That old man very likely possessed a mid-level Divine Extinction Realm cultivation, making him an opponent Yun Che absolutely could not contend with. Furthermore, given his cultivation and age, his experience was bound to be immensely rich, and being in the Sea of Mist, his vigilance would naturally be at its peak. Out of caution, Yun Che first provoked Meng Jianzhou, then "seized the opportunity" to flee, luring him to approach actively. This was all to avoid triggering the grey-robed old man's alarm. Now, he had successfully seized Meng Jianzhou's life before the old man could even make a move.

"You... mmmph!" A pained and fearful groan escaped Meng Jianzhou's mouth. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he had suddenly fallen into a nightmare, his soul scattered. A moment ago, the other was merely a toy to provoke him. But in an instant, his life was already firmly in the other's grasp... He had never known that the sensation of one's life being held between someone's fingers could be so clear. With just a slight exertion of force from the other party, his heart meridian and internal organs would be crushed to powder, ensuring his death.

In the space ahead, a grey figure slowly descended. It was the old man who had appeared in the Lin Yuan Realm that day and taken Meng Jianzhou away.

Meng Jingzhe.

At this moment, his complexion was even darker than the dust and mist of this Sea of Mist.

"Release him."

The commanding tone, every word carrying the crushing might of a demigod.

At this moment, how could Meng Jingzhe not understand that the other party had known of his presence from the very beginning, and that the preceding series of actions had all been a deliberate deception to him.

And he had indeed been fooled. It was only when Meng Jianzhou was seized and his heart threatened by Yun Che that he reacted with extreme haste... Before that, he had even been stunned for a moment.

Because Yun Che's cultivation was simply too deceptive.

Such progress in half a year was astonishing, but after all, he had merely just entered the Divine Master Realm, which was not worth his attention at all.

But the profound energy that suddenly erupted when Yun Che countered Meng Jianzhou just now... if his perception wasn't mistaken, it was actually a pressure comparable to that of a demigod!

Although Meng Jianzhou was good-for-nothing, he still possessed a half-step Divine Extinction Realm cultivation, albeit one cultivated with countless Abyss Crystals, yet he was instantly defeated.

This clearly proved that... the demigod-level might was no illusion or mistake.

"Release him?" Yun Che's gaze showed not a hint of fear towards the Divine Kingdom's demigod. Instead, it was as if he were staring at an idiot. "Wouldn't I be utterly dead then? How do you have the nerve to utter such foolish words?"

Meng Jingzhe's brows suddenly furrowed deeply, his heart filled with three parts murderous intent and seven parts suspicion. Setting aside the opponent's profound energy, which was utterly inconsistent with his cultivation level, he knew Meng Jingzhe's and Meng Jianzhou's origins, yet he showed no fear and dared to utter such insults!

"Master Zhe... save me... save me!" Meng Jianzhou trembled, his voice quivering. His heart meridian felt caught in a devil's claw. The proximity of death, seemingly only a hair's breadth away, left him too terrified to even struggle, his entire body trembling like a sieve from head to toe.

This Divine Lord's son, of noble birth, pampered, and one who took pleasure in tormenting others, displayed a far more disgraceful ugliness when facing death than most mortals.

"Silence!" Meng Jingzhe reprimanded lightly, his cold, sharp gaze piercing Yun Che. "Who are you?"

"Yun Che," Yun Che answered indifferently.

A name that didn't align with any faction in his memory. Meng Jingzhe continued, "Since you know who he is, you should understand how foolish your actions are!"

"Foolish? Hahahahaha!" Yun Che scoffed directly. "If I don't hold his life, I'll die. So in your eyes, dying is what's right, and seeking to live is foolish? If that's the case, why are you still standing here? Why don't you hurry up and die? Or are you actually calling yourself an idiot?"

"..." Meng Jingzhe's face remained impassive, his gaze growing colder. "I'll say this one last time: release him, or else..."

Rip!!

Yun Che's fingers, clenched around Meng Jianzhou's neck, directly pierced into his windpipe, bringing forth a large splatter of blood and Meng Jianzhou's hoarse, miserable shriek, like a dying gander.

"You!!" Meng Jingzhe took a step forward, his eyes wide with fury.

Yun Che slowly lowered his gaze, smiling as he said, "Otherwise what? Kill me? Fine, although this Meng Jianzhou is just a stupid, foul piece of trash, he is still, at least, a Divine Lord's son by status. Dragging him down with me as a burial offering wouldn't be too much of a loss."

Meng Jingzhe's facial features twitched slightly, and profound energy surged between his fingers, yet he dared not release even a bit of it.

"Come on, make your move." Yun Che provoked him wantonly, even brazenly stimulating him. "Aren't you from the Divine Kingdom of Weaving Dreams best at soul power? Don't you want to see if I'll have enough consciousness left to crush this Divine Lord's son's heart meridian after my soul is attacked?"

At this moment, Meng Jingzhe suddenly felt a chill run through him. He was shocked to discover that his demigod aura, demigod soul pressure, and even the four words "Divine Kingdom of Weaving Dreams" were utterly useless against the person before him.

This was a madman with bizarre power, a bizarre soul, who completely feared no death, disregarded consequences, and left no room for compromise!

"Don't... don't... don't move... don't make a move..."

Meng Jianzhou, his windpipe pierced, desperately emitted hoarse sounds. He remembered something at this moment and frantically shrieked, "You... release me... I am the son of Divine Lord Wumeng..."

"My soul has a soul imprint placed by my Father God... If I die... everything I see and hear in the ten breaths before my death... will be transmitted to my Father God... Even the Sea of Mist... cannot... cannot stop it..."

"That would be even better!" Meng Jianzhou's words, clearly meant as a threat, instead caused Yun Che's eyes to gleam with excitement. He looked at Meng Jingzhe, smiling, and said, "In that case, Divine Lord Wumeng will know that his son, under your personal protection, actually died tragically at the hands of a mere Divine Master with no background."

His lips slowly curled into a grin. "Helping Divine Lord Wumeng get rid of his most useless and worthless son—what a great merit that is. At that time, how will Divine Lord Wumeng reward you? I'm truly curious."

"..." Meng Jingzhe's expression barely maintained its calm certainty, but his grizzled long beard trembled faintly and uncontrollably.