Villain Rescue System (XI)

Was what happened last night discovered?

This damn octopus knows that I'm the only one who has eaten the food, so now it starts forcing me?

Shang Li looked calm, but alarm bells were ringing in his heart.

He immediately blocked Cui Lan's claws that were reaching for the table, then turned his wrist and took the bright red apple in front of his wife.

After all this was done, 031 came back late, "Host, don't worry! I just tested these three apples, there is no problem. 】

Shang Li: “…”

His expression remained unchanged, as if nothing had happened, and he readily put the apple into his mouth and took a bite.

Cui Lan glanced at the person next to him in confusion, and silently took the one in front of Shang Li.

Luo Qinglian, who was sitting on the other side of the two people, looked back and forth between the two people in confusion. Finally, he picked up the apple in front of him and took a careful bite.

The taste is just average.

It doesn't have any indescribable foul smell, nor is it some kind of powerful spiritual fruit.

She hesitated for a moment and chose to continue eating.

Since the senior and the Dark Current leader both ate the food, there shouldn't be any problem... right?

The three of them had their "breakfast" quietly under Gululu's gaze and returned to Jinsha Street.

The giant octopus priest can be regarded as a qualified tour guide. Every time we arrive at a place, he can start talking about its historical stories endlessly.

Shang Li listened for a while and found that most of it was nonsense.

So he ignored it and focused his attention on the hand that his wife was holding.

But as soon as Gurulu paused, he would immediately join in, allowing the old man to continue talking self-absorbedly.

Time passed little by little, and they arrived at the edge of the town unknowingly.

Shang Li had already recognized that the direction they were heading was very similar to that of the team last night.

Seeing that the pink octopus was still trying to crawl towards the crack in his memory, the inexplicable sense of crisis in his heart completely overwhelmed him.

Shang Li believed that he had lived for twenty-two years and had not been without danger, let alone that he was not really in desperate situation now.

But the sense of crisis caused by the dark abyss was much greater than before, a bit like... the feeling of being almost annihilated by Cui Lan ten years after he traveled through time.

He glanced at his wife in front of him, then turned back to glance at Luo Qinglian who was in a daze because he couldn't understand the local dialect. He knew clearly in his heart:

I must not show all my anxiety now.

But you still have to escape when it's time to escape.

Shang Li paused and took advantage of the giant octopus's words to ask, "Mr. Priest, do you want to go further?"

Gululu turned around and a question mark popped up in his mind.

"You know, we humans are not in good health."

Shang Li frowned slightly and put on a pitiful look, "Especially me, I'm already so weak that I need my companions to support me, why don't I go back now..."

"Oh no, young man."

Gululu suddenly interrupted Shang Li.

The octopus's two small round eyes instantly locked onto the red-eyed man, and the old voice finally revealed a hint of the pressure of a hundred-year-old.

"We have already embarked on the road to meet the Central Government. How can you just go away if you want to regret it?"

What audience?

Before Shang Li could fully react, energy as huge as a mountain pressed down on his head.

The latent power in Gululu's body was instantly revealed. In just a moment, the released energy almost overloaded the entity in the chip.

"!"

Shang Li's legs went limp.

"Senior Shang?!"

Luo Qinglian immediately reached out to help.

"Are you okay?"

Cui Lan's worried voice came from above, close at hand.

Before his knees hit the ground, he grabbed Shang Li's shoulders in time, saving that person from the fate of kowtowing to an octopus.

This dead octopus...

Shang Li shook his head, stood up from Cui Lan, and reached out to silently stop Luo Qinglian who was preparing for battle. Then he smiled and said to Gululu, "I'm sorry, I didn't think it through for a moment. Now please lead us forward."

The current situation is not like the rift he just came through and the domain built by the Superpower Bureau. Facing monsters that are countless times stronger than himself, he thought that he would not be able to handle it as easily as before.

That little bit of superficial cleverness is useless in the face of absolute power.

"Oh, a good kid who knows how to correct his mistakes."

Gulu waved his tentacles, "I forgive you for briefly going astray."

Shang Li smiled but didn't really smile. "So, we are going to meet the Central Commander now?"

"Of course." Gululu responded.

The closer he got, the more panic Shang Li became.

Fortunately, Cui Lan held his hand and clenched it slightly, giving him some comfort.

When we reach that crack...

No, there are no cracks at all.

He slightly widened his red eyes.

What appeared before my eyes was a crystal staircase leading to a higher place.

The crystal staircase is only one person wide, but its length is conservatively estimated to be over a thousand steps, and there are no handrails on either side.

The stairs are carved with simple and ancient patterns. Under the pale yellow light, the entire crystal reflects the colors of the rainbow, shining brightly, like a heavenly road leading to the abode of gods.

At the end of the stairs, there is a floating ball of light.

The shape of the edge of the light ball kept twisting, as if a fireball was burning in the sea, making it impossible to tell whether the deep sea was illuminated by the sun penetrating from outside the sea surface, or by this "sun" soaking in the water.

The three of them took a deep breath at the same time.

Such a high staircase, yet no one noticed its existence on the way here.

It appears here as if it senses the arrival of a guest.

[Host, why do I feel the energy of order here? ! ]

568 suddenly exclaimed in surprise, "Could it be that the world line has been corrected without our knowledge?"

[Well, actually, I don’t know why, but I feel the energy of the rescue value…]

031 added cautiously.

Shang Li: “?”

Aren't these the same type of energy?

He squinted his eyes and looked at the underwater sun that was constantly emitting energy particles.

“That’s the hub.”

Gulu also looked at the sun in the sea and said with reverence, "He gave us birth and He gave us wisdom."

It put its two tentacles behind its back and changed its tone, "...It's strange. You paid a huge price to come here to see Him, but why do you always stop?"

"I thought you would be eager to climb the stairs and receive His gift."

Shang Li heard this and had no choice but to step forward and said, "Let's... go now."

"bite."

The heels landed on the crystal, making a pleasant and crisp sound.

The first person to climb the crystal stairs was Cui Lan.

Shang Li was stunned when he saw this, and subconsciously stepped onto the crystal.

"Is this the sun you're talking about the center?"

Luo Qinglian, who had always stayed out of the matter, grabbed him and asked, "Is the purpose of your coming here actually to find this thing?"

She tried to find some truth from the few words of the person in front of her.

From the moment he boarded the cruise ship, Luo Qinglian completely lost track of the current situation.

Under the threat of her life, she was forced to follow Shang Li to solve the criminals, and then she followed them into the rift.

We can't remain ignorant until now, can we?

Luo Qinglin said solemnly: "Senior Shang, I think as a companion I should have some right to know."

"Well...if I say I know nothing, would you believe me?"

Shang Li pulled the corner of his mouth awkwardly, while Cui Lan couldn't help but cover his face.

In fact, none of the three people present were aware of the incident.

Luo Qinglian, an outsider who was supposed to die as a sacrifice on the cruise ship, was involved purely by accident. Shang Li trusted Cui Lan because he loved the whole family and chose to blindly trust the prophet to promote the plan. Cui Lan believed in the prophecy for the last time and watched coldly without intervening.

So they were inexplicably tricked by Lu Yao into coming here.

Then, while searching for a way to leave the rift, he was forced by the octopus to be brought to the ghost hub for an audience.

I don’t know what I’m going to see next.

"If you think about it, we don't have any other choice, do we?"

Shang Li simply told Luo Qinglian what he knew, then silently glanced at Gululu, who was already a little impatient with their procrastination, and signaled with his free hand, "Even if the three of us were at our best, we couldn't beat this old thing."

Luo Qinglian pursed his lips.

She turned her head and saw that Gululu's pink tentacles were already tapping on the stones. She gritted her teeth and stepped onto the stairs.

A crisp breaking sound suddenly rang out behind her.

Luo Qinglian turned around and found that the crystal staircase that connected to the ground had been broken.

And with every step forward, the crystal steps behind you will shatter one step at a time.

"Tick, tick, tick."

The pink giant octopus was staring at them from below, and the three of them walked up in silence, accompanied by the sound of breaking things behind them.

Because of his weak body, Shang Li had to rely on Cui Lan's shoulders to drag him throughout the entire journey.

The sun in the sea was getting closer and closer as he climbed the stairs, so much so that he could clearly feel the energy particles emitted by the sun in the sea continuously dissipating through the light, penetrating the puppet and violently slamming into the main body.

[Host, why did my mission progress bar start jumping forward? ! ]

When it reached a certain step, 568 began to howl in fear.

[Host! Your rescue value seems to be about to explode! ]

031 was no less enthusiastic, and said in a trembling voice: [How did it become like this?!]

[Could it be that you are actually a great saint without any flaws in your heart, and you have just attained enlightenment, and now you are about to complete your merits and ascend to heaven? ! ]

You ask me, who should I ask? !

Shang Li felt dizzy and felt that he was on the verge of a data collapse.

The energy particles that hit the main body did not turn into its own energy, but instead aggressively swept away the energy transmitted by the two systems from the main body.

Cui Lan had already stopped moving forward.

The three of them stopped in the middle of the stairs.

Shang Li could feel the worried gazes of the people around him falling on him.

But unfortunately, neither Cui Lan nor Luo Qinglian had any way to help him recover.

They couldn't turn back. Even if they jumped down the broken stairs, there was still Gululu guarding them below.

“…”

Cui Lan sighed silently and handed Shang Li, who was leaning on him and almost dying, to Luo Qinglian for support.

"you?"

Luo Qinglian put Shang Li's arm on his shoulders and looked up at Cui Lan, "You want to go to the audience alone?"

"Um."

Cui Lan nodded slightly.

Shang Li raised his eyelids, his sight passed through the messy hair and fell on the gradually receding figure.

He could only watch in silence as Cui Lan climbed up step by step and walked to the dazzling underwater sun.

Watch him raise his hand and touch the dancing golden edge.

In an instant, the light spread and the world turned pure white.

To Shang Li’s surprise, in a flash, he fell into that dark “dream” again.