Chapter 313
“Commerce God Sect? What’s that? Have you guys heard of it?”
“Never heard of it. Is it a faction from one of the noble families?”
The crowd murmured in low voices.
Chi Hao clapped his hands, cutting off the discussion. He spoke loudly, “My Commerce God Sect doesn’t belong to any noble family. We worship the God of Commerce and serve as the god’s representatives in the human world!”
“This place is already under the protection of the God of Commerce. Those of you with malicious intentions will absolutely not be able to enter!”
“I know what you’re trying to do, but I won’t stoop to your level.”
“It’s getting late. Go back for now. Come here again tomorrow to trade, and I’ll let bygones be bygones!”
Chi Hao wasn’t actually naive — he knew exactly what these people were plotting.
However, his mission was more important than anything else. That was the lesson he’d been taught since childhood.
Whether he had once pledged loyalty to the Fortress, or now to the Commerce God Sect, slacking off was never an option.
Especially now, with Yunqing and the Divine Emissary putting their trust in him — how could he not give it his all?
So for now, there was nothing more important than completing trades. Once he gained enough experience and leveled up to Lv21, unlocking the protective barrier, then he could deal with these people later!
Unfortunately, his attempt to step back was not respected.
“We don’t care what Commerce God Sect you’re from! Just come with us, or hand over all your supplies, and we’ll let you go,” said the burly man who had spoken with Mu Sheng earlier.
Chi Hao couldn’t help but sneer. “Don’t take me for a sick cat just because I haven’t shown my claws.”
As he spoke, he released the pressure of a Level 5 ability user.
Most of the people surrounding him were low-tier ability users. When they felt Chi Hao’s overwhelming presence, they all faltered.
The burly man stepped forward quickly.
“Chi Hao, so what if you’re a Level 5? There’s so many of us. You think we’re afraid of you?”
“Try me then!”
Chi Hao took a step forward, moving slowly, and with each step, the flames on his body grew stronger.
The burly man’s eyes lit up as Chi Hao came out of the encirclement.
He raised his hand, just about to command everyone to attack, when Chi Hao suddenly lunged forward like a leopard and charged straight at him.
The burly man hurriedly summoned a wall of earth to block him.
“Boom!”
A loud explosion rang out as the earthen wall shattered into pieces.
All the burly man saw was a flash of red, and then Chi Hao’s fist rapidly enlarged before his eyes. He barely had time to harden his face into stone.
Chi Hao’s fist smashed directly into the stone face, and blood gushed out.
But Chi Hao seemed unfazed by pain. He immediately followed with a knee to the man’s stomach and unleashed searing flames upon him.
“Hahaha! I have earth abilities. I’m just one minor level below you. You can’t burn me to death!”
The man took the hit but reacted fast — in the next second, he turned his entire body to stone.
“You’re a fire user, and you dare fight me in close combat? Are you tired of living?”
He swung his stone fist at Chi Hao, who didn’t dodge. A fireball formed in his hand and met the punch head-on.
“BOOM!”
Another explosion rocked the area. This time, the burly man’s entire arm was blown apart, and his body was sent flying.
He crashed to the ground. Though his body was still stone, the fire on him kept burning fiercely, showing no signs of going out.
“Aaaah—aaahhhhhh—!”
The man screamed in agony, rolling on the ground. One of his companions, a water user, quickly used their ability.
A large water orb dropped on him — but the flames weren’t extinguished.
Even worse, the fire started to spread along the water, licking at everything in its path, terrifying the onlookers into retreating.
The fire wasn’t afraid of water.
This shattered everyone’s understanding of elemental powers. Even Mu Sheng, watching from afar, was stunned.
The burly man quickly used up all his power. When his stone form faded, the flames consumed him entirely.
Chi Hao looked on coldly. His face had been cut by flying debris, and blood ran down in thin streams.
Yet he showed no sign of pain.
Bathed in firelight, the red-haired young man looked like a god of war.
The man’s screams gradually faded.
“Anyone else?” Chi Hao asked in a low voice.
Everyone stared at him, dumbfounded, and began backing away in fear.
Someone in the crowd who had seen Chi Hao before finally remembered: he was a warrior trained by the Fortress — a weapon to fight beasts, and also, potentially, a human killing machine.
At last, when the first person turned and fled, the rest followed in a panic.
Chi Hao watched them flee without giving chase.
After this display of force, doing business should go a lot smoother, right?
When the last of them ran off, Chi Hao turned to head back to the stone hut — only to see Mu Sheng standing off to the side, staring at the still-burning corpse.
“How did you do that?” Mu Sheng asked.
“Tch, like I’d tell you a combat secret like that.” (In truth, he had used fuel!)
As Chi Hao spoke, he couldn’t help but grimace in pain. “Hss… that really hurts.”
Shaking his hand, he turned and walked back.
Mu Sheng watched him disappear into the stone hut. Then, finally, he stepped to the front of the courtyard.
He recalled what Chi Hao had just said, and after thinking for a moment, he began to reflect on all the unpleasant things Chi Hao had done in the past.
When his inner feelings of contempt and dislike reached their peak, he lifted his foot and stepped into the courtyard — and then…
When he came back to his senses, he had already turned around and was facing away from the courtyard.
Even though he already knew what would happen, experiencing it personally still left him a little shocked.
Was this a type of mysterious-type ability?
Such a power was actually a very effective way to repel unwanted people.
Chi Hao’s display of force had clearly worked. The next day, the undercurrents of tension in the refugee camp had significantly diminished.
He continued doing business just like before, only now the transactions took place in the courtyard of the Qingmu Grocery Store, and his trading partners were people who held no ill intent toward him.
As for the charred corpse in front of the shop — no one dared to go near it, because—
It had burned all night, and the fire still hadn’t gone out!
Chi Hao carried out his trades in a mechanical fashion. At this pace, he would probably level up to Lv21 by tomorrow and unlock the protective barrier.
However, this calm was short-lived.
Around noon, a series of loud booms once again came from the direction of the Fortress. People rushed up the hillside to look out into the distance.
They saw that the already-collapsing wall of the Fortress had crumbled even further, and several giant beasts had emerged from within.
Behind them, flocks of birds could vaguely be seen flying within the Fortress.
After these past few days, not only had the number of giant beasts in Qingmu Fortress not decreased — it looked like there were even more now…
No one knew what the casualty situation inside the Fortress was.
But when they noticed the direction those beasts were charging toward — the small hill where the refugee camp was located — no one had time to care about the Fortress anymore.
“Monsters are coming! Run!”
People screamed and began to flee downhill in all directions.
Chi Hao frowned deeply. Just a little more and he’d reach the next level — was he really going to have to give up now? But staying was also extremely risky.
The Purple-Red Sleep Pillow could only protect living beings. If the monsters made it up the hill, his newly-built Qingmu Grocery Store probably wouldn’t survive…
Just then, someone in the crowd cried out in shock.
“Look! What’s that?”
Up above Qingmu Fortress, the sky suddenly appeared to split open, revealing a rift. On the other side, a forest could vaguely be seen.
Seeing this, both Chi Hao and Mu Sheng’s expressions changed.
A space rift?
But the space rift discovered in Qingmu Fortress wasn’t located above the fortress — what was going on?
As everyone watched, massive insects began swarming out of the rift, flying in all directions.
Even from a distance, their forms were clearly visible, suggesting just how enormous they were.
“Is the apocalypse coming again?”
Despair spread across everyone’s faces. They had all lived inside the Fortress. Life hadn’t been easy there, but at least they didn’t have to constantly worry for their lives.
In the days since leaving the Fortress, they had held onto hope — that once the monsters moved on, they could return.
But now, looking at this terrifying scene, a dark cloud loomed over everyone’s hearts.
“What’s that? A giant bird?”
Chi Hao gazed into the distance and saw another huge figure emerge from the space rift.
It had wings too, but… something about its shape looked off.
“Looks like an aircraft?”
Mu Sheng was holding a telescope. As he observed the massive flying object, he said in confusion.
“Aircraft? Since when could the Fortress make something that advanced?”
Qingmu Fortress had made decent progress, but much of the technology from before the Cataclysm had been lost. At the very least, the capability to manufacture machines like this was gone.
They had developed some replacements using abilities and crystal stones — but something this large, Chi Hao had never heard of before. Maybe he simply wasn’t ranked high enough to know?
“It’s flying this way!”
The aircraft was incredibly fast. In the blink of an eye, it had passed over the rampaging beasts and was rapidly approaching them.
They thought it would just fly overhead — but instead, it stopped directly above them.
The aircraft blocked out the sky, casting a shadow over everything. Its sleek, high-tech design didn’t look like it belonged to this world at all.
The panicked crowd gradually slowed down, gazing up at the massive craft.
Could it be that someone from the Fortress had come to rescue them?
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, a hatch on the underside of the aircraft opened, and two figures leapt out.
They were both wearing black cloaks…
“Holy crap!”
Chi Hao suddenly shouted, grabbing Mu Sheng’s telescope and staring hard at the two figures.
Golden and black masks.
“It’s the Divine Envoys!”
“Divine Envoys?”
“Yeah! It must be Silverlight and Dark Moon! They came personally!” Chi Hao said excitedly. “That aircraft belongs to our Commerce God Sect!”
He was right. The two figures descending from the aircraft were Tang Yuan and Zhou Qi.
They had spent a month flying through the alternate dimension, finally reaching the area where Shanna and Bo’er were located. Before they even found the original rift near Qingmu Fortress, they saw a new one open up right before their eyes.
The fusion between the two worlds was accelerating — such space rifts would likely appear more and more frequently in the future.
Once they confirmed the rift’s stability, they flew straight through with the aircraft. To show the strength of the Commerce God Sect, they even lifted the “main store closed” restriction.
And so, this awe-inspiring scene unfolded before everyone’s eyes.
