Chapter 159: Scammer

Reeling from pain, almost fainting, Li Huowang rushed forward, his longsword swinging down heavily, slicing off a large piece of Erbing's entire face and revealing her bloody, mangled flesh underneath.

He gripped her by the neck, lifting Erbing's entire body directly off the ground, and shouted to the others who were still fighting, "Stop fighting!! Look at this! She's the one from the Disillusionment Sect! You've all been deceived by her!"

However, what greeted Li Huowang was a crossbow bolt that lodged itself in his abdomen. They were utterly consumed by bloodlust.

Even if it had been a misunderstanding before, the corpses on the ground made it impossible to undo it. Regardless of what had transpired, the current reality was undeniable.

Li Huowang forcefully threw Erbing to the ground. After brutally crushing all the bones in her hand, he strode towards the center of the battlefield, shouting, "Xiao Man, keep an eye on her!"

Watching Li Huowang's frenzied killing spree amidst the crowd, Erbing chuckled.

Xiao Man's sword was instantly at her throat. "You're like this, and you're still laughing?" she snapped. "You'll have something to cry about soon enough!"

Erbing laughed even louder. As several faces rapidly flickered across her features, Erbing's face transformed into a new one.

"Oh, if I don't laugh now, when will I?" she quipped. "It's so amusing to play with one's own life like this, isn't it?"

At that moment, Jiang Yingzi, who was nearby, was not glaring resentfully at Li Huowang as usual.

Instead, she was staring at Erbing's face with a very complicated expression. She had just seen the face of Elder Yan Jianxi among the flickering features.

Ultimately, the group retreated. They didn't leave because they had recognized Erbing's deception, but because they had suffered too many casualties and were utterly defeated.

As the sky slowly lightened, the sound of horse hooves and camel bells gradually faded into the distance, leaving behind a battlefield littered with corpses and a few riderless camels.

The sun slowly rose above the Gobi Desert horizon, making the blood on the ground and on everyone's bodies appear even redder.

Li Huowang, covered in wounds from head to toe, stood in the pool of blood like a statue.

Neither side was entirely at fault. However, under the deception of the Disillusionment Sect, they had ultimately reached a point of no return.

Jiang Yingzi watched everything unfolding before her. She appeared somewhat flustered, seemingly deep in thought.

"Hahaha, good! Kill them well!" Erbing, now a mere torso, burst into laughter.

Her voice caught Li Huowang's attention. Li Huowang laughed along with her, then threw away the sword in his hand, turned, and stumbled towards her.

After roughly shoving a wound-healing pill into Erbing's mouth, Li Huowang turned to Xiao Man, who was nearby, and said, "Go fetch the trauma medicine we bought in town."

"What?" Xiao Man thought she had misheard.

"Didn't you understand what I said?!" Li Huowang snapped. "Get the trauma medicine! Hurry!!"

Once the trauma medicine was brought, Li Huowang carefully sprinkled it onto Erbing's intestines, which had spilled out from her abdomen.

Li Huowang laid out the blood-soaked torture instruments that had been tucked into his lower garment before her and asked softly, "Will you speak?"

Erbing was immediately taken aback. "Did you ask me anything?" she replied.

Erbing's flaccid right hand, limp from broken bones, was flipped over. An iron prying tool was inserted under a fingernail and immediately leveraged upwards.

Five fingernails were pried off in quick succession. Li Huowang looked at Erbing again and asked, his breathing heavy, "Will you speak?"

"What exactly do you want me to say?" she retorted.

"Will you speak!" Li Huowang, his eyes full of malice, extended his sole arm and brutally plunged his fingers into her eye socket.

Accompanied by Erbing's shriek, that vibrant eyeball was cruelly crushed by Li Huowang. "Will you *fucking* speak!" he roared.

"Senior Brother Li, are you alright?" Bai Lingmiao asked, approaching with a hint of timidity.

Li Huowang took a deep breath and stood up. He turned to face her and said softly and gently, "I'm fine. Help me check on the others. If anyone is too severely injured, remember to use the Grand Shaman's Dance to heal them."

As soon as Bai Lingmiao left, Li Huowang stomped his foot down on Erbing's intestines, which were on the ground. His voice, filled with hatred and malevolence, erupted from him again. "Will you speak!!"

He didn't actually want Erbing to say anything; he simply wanted to retaliate against her. This entire situation was her fault, and Erbing had to pay the price.

The torture instruments Li Huowang had previously commissioned usually only saw a few of their pieces used, while others had never been put to use.

But at this moment, they finally served a purpose.

As they became stained with blood, one by one, Erbing, once a seductive beauty, transformed into a bloody, mangled pillar of flesh.

This bone-deep pain caused Erbing to faint and regain consciousness several times.

Yet, no matter how severe the torture, she showed no sign of begging Li Huowang for mercy.

From her mangled body, she used her sole remaining eye to gaze at Li Huowang, who was becoming increasingly deranged before her. A hint of a smile appeared in her eye. She laughed, and her laughter grew louder.

The more Li Huowang tormented her, the louder her laughter became.

Gazing at the dying Erbing before him, Li Huowang, his breathing ragged, completely lost his patience. He aimed his longsword at her chest and raised it.

"Li Huowang, wait a moment," a voice suddenly cut in. "Could you ask her a question for me?"

The sudden voice made Li Huowang pause. He turned his head to look, only to find it wasn't one of his fellow disciples, but his own hallucination, Jiang Yingzi.

Her expression appeared very conflicted, as if she feared something, yet also anticipated something.

"Could you ask her if the massacre four years ago was committed by their Disillusionment Sect?"

Before he could process the anomaly of his hallucination, the revelation she spoke completely stunned Li Huowang.

Li Huowang's pupils instantly constricted, and peculiar theories erupted in his mind.

When he asked Erbing Jiang Yingzi's question, Erbing laughed again.

"Hehehe~ Are you sure you weren't the one who killed them?" she scoffed. "Be more confident! You're a Heart Seed! Killing tens of thousands of people would be nothing to you, wouldn't it?"

No sooner had she finished speaking, Erbing's last remaining eye was completely crushed.

"You did it!" Li Huowang roared. "You committed the massacre four years ago!! You framed me for it!"

As Li Huowang's cries rang out, Jiang Yingzi's body nearby began to destabilize. She started to cry.

She dragged her scarred body to Li Huowang's side. "Li Huowang, I was wrong," she choked out. "It was the Disillusionment Sect who killed my whole family, not you. We were all deceived by them."

Before Li Huowang could say anything, she wiped away her tears and said, "Li Huowang, I know it's a bit much to ask for this now, but can you avenge my family? If you help me, I'll tell you something crucially important to you."

Li Huowang was about to ask a question, but then he instantly snapped back to reality. "Why am I talking to a hallucination?" he muttered.

"I'm a hallucination, the monk is a hallucination, but Danyangzi isn't!" she countered. "He's real!"

"Those elders of the Aojing Sect were replaced by people from the Disillusionment Sect long ago," she continued. "You were deceived by them! They didn't get rid of Danyangzi for you at all; they just hid him deeper! Your personality is still being influenced by Danyangzi!"

No sooner had Yingzi finished speaking, her entire fragmented body gradually vanished. "I'm sorry..." she whispered as she faded.