The Grand Universal Casino in the north of the city was the most prosperous casino in all of Unredeemable City.
At one of the Pai Gow tables, the stakes were enormous, and the battle was in full swing.
The cyan chips represented Dao Essence Stone currency.
A gambling table involving Dao Essence Stone was far beyond comparison with those games wagered with gold and silver.
The Pai Gow tiles played at this table were carved from ivory and inscribed with Dao runes, which could largely isolate the prying eyes of supernatural powers.
At this moment, a person with a Chicken Bone Mask covering their face sat in the northeast position.
The mask was simple, but the pheasant feathers stuck all over their head made them look dazzlingly colorful.
They wore a flower-patterned robe, their neck hidden behind the collar, making it difficult to tell their gender. The hands exposed outside the robe were slender and fair.
In a place like Unredeemable City, no manner of dress was considered strange.
A pile of chips was heaped before this person, clearly indicating a run of good luck. They rubbed a tile between their fingers. The mask hid their expression, but their eyes looked quite pleased.
Just then, a figure walked straight over.
No one at the gambling table would normally pay attention to what was happening around them, but the newcomer's completely unrestrained aura still forced the gamblers to look over.
"Oh my, what a handsome one."
The Chicken Bone Mask wearer's eyes lit up at the sight of his face. His voice sounded like a chicken with its throat pinched. He was a man, as it turned out, though why his voice was so shrill and piercing was anyone's guess.
"I am Zhu Weiwo." The newcomer walked up to the table and stared straight at the Chicken Bone Mask wearer. "Chicken Mask, do you know me?"
The Chicken Bone Mask, one of the Twelve Bone Masks of the Bone Path, had been hiding in Unredeemable City for half a month.
Chicken Mask's gaze still rippled with amusement. In that pinched voice, he laughed, "The number-one genius of Zhuo Kingdom's younger generation. How could I not know you? Wait a moment. Let big sister finish this hand, then I'll go outside and play with you slowly~"
His attitude was relaxed and his tone flirtatious. He did not take Zhu Weiwo's threat seriously.
Zhu Weiwo looked left and right. The gamblers were shouting and making a racket, and the atmosphere was feverish.
"I remember..." he said in a rare, wistful tone. "There was a Grand Universal Casino just like this in Maple City."
"What nonsense are you spouting? The Grand Universal Casino has a huge operation and vast wealth. Where could you not find one?" roared the burly man sitting at the other end of the table. "If you want to play, sit down and wait for the next hand. If you don't, get lost!"
The instant his voice fell, a long spear slashed diagonally past his neck, pierced through his collar, knocked over his chair, and pinned him to the floor.
It was so fast that no one managed to react!
The burly man himself was a ruthless killer who had taken countless lives, yet that single spear still scared the courage out of him, leaving him afraid to make another sound.
Chicken Mask remained unmoved. He merely caught hold of the gambling table and complained, "Hey, hey, hey, watch it! I've got a double-heaven hand!"
Of course, he was not afraid.
This was the Grand Universal Casino. As the burly man had said, the Grand Universal Casino had branches across many countries and possessed enormous power and wealth. Few dared to massacre people inside the Grand Universal Casino.
This branch of the Grand Universal Casino stood in Unredeemable City. To preserve his life, Chicken Mask had paid a considerable amount of life-gold. Many people wanted him dead, but so far no one had been willing to pay the ransom.
Moreover, he was already at the peak of the Soaring Dragon realm and possessed other trump cards. He had no reason to be afraid.
In his eyes, Zhu Weiwo had come here to issue a threat and frighten people. That was the most he could do.
So Chicken Mask continued to tease him casually, completely at ease.
"What are you doing? Let him go!"
The Grand Universal Casino's extraordinary cultivators quickly closed in.
"My sigh is finished," Zhu Weiwo said blandly.
He reached out and slowly pulled the spear from beside the fallen burly man's neck.
"Your time is finished too."
As he spoke, he thrust the spear straight at the Chicken Bone Mask wearer!
He treated the gamblers filling the room and the many casino cultivators as though they were nothing, treating the rules of the Grand Universal Casino and Unredeemable City as scraps of paper!
Even Chicken Mask, one of the Twelve Bone Masks of the Bone Path, had always been violent and utterly willful. Yet at this moment, he was shaken.
What shocked him more than Zhu Weiwo's strength was his courage!
The long spear came straight at his head. A point of cold light pierced the air. Under the violent friction, heat spread and sparks burst forth.
The strike had begun so casually, yet the farther it advanced, the faster and fiercer it became.
At first glance, it looked ordinary. By the second glance, a terrifying danger had already reached the heart.
The Chicken Bone Mask wearer had no time to hesitate. He instinctively activated his strongest art.
The feathers all over his head swayed wildly. He opened his mouth and let out a shrill cry.
The sound wave exploded. Visible, semi-transparent traces appeared as the air was shaken and forced aside.
The gamblers nearby covered their ears, while the Grand Universal Casino cultivators who had rushed over retreated even faster than they had advanced.
The Twelve Bone Phantasms of the Bone Path, Rooster's Crow!
This cry imitated a rooster heralding the dawn and should have been supremely firm and yang.
Yet the Chicken Bone Mask wearer's cry was shrill and bizarre, affected and grating.
In an instant, sinister winds swept through, accompanied by faint, intermittent ghostly wails.
A rooster's crow makes the world white; when a hen crows at dawn... yin evil is born!
At this juncture between life and death, the peak combat power of the Soaring Dragon realm was revealed in full. The Chicken Bone Mask wearer displayed the confidence that came from standing among the Twelve Bone Masks of the Bone Path.
At the tip of the Candle-Burning Spear, that spark had already burned a deep crimson, as though compressed to its absolute limit.
An endless sea of fire gathered into that tiny point.
Wherever that point reached, the sinister winds melted away, the ghostly wails abruptly ceased, and the yin evil dispersed.
Everything seemed to freeze for a moment.
A huge phantom of the Rooster Bone Phantasm, like a savage giant beast, condensed before the Chicken Bone Mask wearer.
Of a rooster's entire body, the beak was the strongest and sharpest. A rooster used it to peck insects for food and to attack its opponents.
This enormous bone phantasm likewise made its beak the strongest part of its attack.
The tip of the Candle-Burning Spear touched the beak.
Only then could everyone's gaze move away from that searing, dark-red point. They saw Zhu Weiwo charging forward with his spear, his dark hair flying freely, his bearing proud and disdainful!
The Chicken Bone Mask wearer's bone phantasm collapsed almost as soon as they touched. The immense impact sent him flying, smashing through the casino wall and crashing onto the street outside.
Within the Soaring Dragon realm, the Chicken Bone Mask wearer was a renowned powerhouse. Even in Unredeemable City, where villains gathered, he was rarely inferior to anyone.
Yet he had failed to withstand even one spear from Zhu Weiwo!
Zhu Weiwo glanced at the cowering Grand Universal Casino cultivators and said blandly, "I, Zhu Weiwo, will pay in full for every loss suffered by the Grand Universal Casino."
Then, holding the spear with its tip lowered behind him, he strolled forward through the crowd toward the enormous opening the Chicken Bone Mask wearer had made.
The Grand Universal Casino cultivators were responsible for guarding the casino. It was impossible to tell whether they were seething with anger or feeling as though they had been granted a reprieve. In any case, they planted their feet and did not move a single step.
The Chicken Bone Mask wearer landed in the middle of the street, supporting himself with both hands and scrambling backward.
Panic and confusion overtook him, and even his flirtatious voice warped as he shouted, "Where are the Sin Wardens of Unredeemable City? I want to increase my life-gold! Add my entire fortune! I'll give all of it to you! Where are the Sin Wardens?"
At that moment, a lazy voice sounded from the street corner.
"Raising the amount only after danger arrives is not allowed. If you knew your life was worth so much, why were you so stingy in the first place?"
The speaker wore a single braid. His eyelids were half lowered and his eyes bleary with sleep, as though he had just climbed out of bed.
He wore the uniform of a Sin Warden Commander: a blood-red, close-fitting outfit with three black rings embroidered only at the cuffs to distinguish it from the uniform of an ordinary Sin Warden.
After speaking to the Chicken Bone Mask wearer, he turned to look at Zhu Weiwo as he emerged from the hole in the Grand Universal Casino. "You over there, kid. If you want to kill someone in Unredeemable City, you know the rules, right?"
As he spoke, he took a blood-jade booklet from inside his robe and flipped through it, clicking his tongue. "This fellow's ransom is no small sum."
The ransom for killing someone in Unredeemable City was ten thousand times the victim's life-gold.
That was the only thing the Chicken Bone Mask wearer's life could rely on at this moment.
But all he saw was Zhu Weiwo walking slowly toward him with the spear held behind him, without the slightest hesitation or calculation.
"That's your rule," Zhu Weiwo said. "It isn't my rule."
His voice was calm, but his pride and fierceness bordered on madness.