Volume 4: Super-Tier Awakening & The Ancient Capital Calamity
Chapter 332
Hair-Raising Confessions: The Ancient Emperor's Awakening Conspiracy
The atmosphere inside the subterranean field interrogation room beneath the ancient walls of the Ancient Capital was suffocating and bone-chillingly cold. This was an isolated forbidden zone custom-built for top-secret emergency cases of the Judgment Court, situated thirty meters underground and wrapped in three layers of soundproof barriers and ancient magical seals. The sole illumination in this gloomy space came from a flickering blue magic-energy torch burning on the moss-covered stone walls, casting long, writhing shadows that stretched like tortured souls screaming in the abyss.
In the center of the room, a sturdy iron chair forged from swamp black-iron was anchored deep into the reinforced concrete floor. Bound tightly to it was a middle-aged man wearing a tattered dark-blue formal robe stained with dried, dark blood and crystalline ice shards. He was none of the other than a Blue Deacon of the Black Vatican—the very scumbag who had just been cornered and captured by Lin Feng and the Judgment Court team after a bloody pursuit outside the outskirts.
The deacon lowered his head, his disheveled hair hanging down to obscure half of his bruised face. Initially, when first strapped to the chair, the corners of his mouth still curled upward into a cold, arrogant, and provocative smirk. Within his bloodshot eyes, there was not a trace of the fear typical of a dying man, but rather the morbid fanaticism unique to those who had bartered their souls to demons.
“Heh... go ahead and torture me,” the deacon’s voice rasped, ringing gratingly in the quiet space. “This flesh is merely a temporary vessel. When the Lord’s grand enterprise is completed, all of you—from the mighty experts of the Holy City down to these worms in the Ancient Capital—will have to kneel at the foot of the throne of eternal darkness!”
Standing beside him, Tang Yue wore the deep-red formfitting attire designated for law enforcement agents, her stunning face as cold as an ice mountain. Her gaze toward the criminal was as sharp as a butcher’s knife. She did not waste a single superfluous word on this fanatic. As a senior enforcer of the Judgment Court, she understood better than anyone the brainwashing and mental sealing techniques the Black Vatican used on its subordinates. Ordinary physical beatings were a mere waste of effort; the only thing capable of breaking the willpower of these monsters was the most ruthless mental soul-arts.
“Do you really think that cheap fanaticism can save your worthless life?” Tang Yue said in an icy tone, her slender hand gently flipping upward as a dark-purple burst of psychic energy began to condense at her fingertips, swirling into the shape of a bizarre magical lotus. “Let’s see just how stubborn your mouth really is.”
At that exact moment, Lin Feng stepped forward from the dark corner. The young man wore a travel-worn brocade robe, his expression calm, yet the momentum emanating from his body weighed thousands of pounds, making the air in the room feel as though it were about to freeze. He slowly raised his right hand, revealing an archaic jade pendant on his wrist that radiated a warm yet infinitely dignified glow—the Primordial Dragon Pendant.
The instant the Primordial Dragon Pendant appeared, the surrounding space seemed to shudder slightly. An ancient soul pressure, carrying the supreme breath of the dragon race, slowly bore down upon the deacon’s head. This pressure didn’t target the physical body at all; instead, it directly weighed upon his mind and soul, causing the fanatical flames within the deacon’s eyes to fluctuate violently.
“It’s time to wake up from your dream.” Lin Feng spoke in a deep, warm voice imbued with a magical resonance capable of piercing straight to the soul.
Tang Yue didn’t hesitate for another second. Her finger sharply struck the center of the deacon’s forehead, simultaneously unleashing the full activation of the Mental Interrogation Secret Art—a forbidden technique of the Judgment Court, perfectly synchronized with the soul resonance from Lin Feng’s Primordial Dragon Pendant.
Boom!
A muffled explosion echoed inside the mental space of the Blue Deacon. His eyes widened to their absolute limits, the whites covered in bright red capillaries before rapidly shifting to a feral ash-gray. His body jerked violently, his hands clawing so hard into the iron chair’s armrests that his fingernails tore through the black-iron, producing a hair-raising screech.
The most heavily fortified psychological defense built by decades of brainwashing under the Black Vatican crumbled completely in the blink of an eye under the dual assault of the supreme mental technique and ancestral dragon might!
“Aaaaa...!”
A shriek tore through his throat. The deacon threw his head back toward the ceiling, tears and snot streaming down as his entire body trembled like a withered branch before a tempest. The arrogance and chilliness from moments before vanished entirely, replaced by utter panic and a primal terror before the abyss of the soul yawning wide before him.
“Speak! Spill everything!” Tang Yue commanded coldly, the stream of psychic energy pouring into his mind tightening further.
“Don’t... don’t kill me! I’ll talk! I’ll confess everything!” The Blue Deacon sobbed uncontrollably like an abandoned child, his voice broken and stuttering amidst the terrifying mental nightmare:
“The... the mastermind... is none other than... Red Cardinal Sharlock!”
Hearing that name, Tang Yue’s pupils constricted sharply, her expression turning gravely solemn. Although she had guessed it beforehand, hearing confirmation straight from the mouth of a core Vatican cadre still stirred turbulent waves within her heart. Sharlock—one of the most terrifying demonic overlords in the entire world, a monster who had hidden in the shadows across the Divine Land for the past decade, a fiend responsible for a series of shocking massacres across Europe and the Americas! He was actually right here in the Ancient Capital!
“He... what is he trying to do?” Lin Feng maintained his composure, but the icy murderous intent in his eyes had condensed into tangible reality.
“He... he has found...” The deacon trembled, coughing up a mouthful of fresh blood as his body spasmed from the excruciating agony tearing through his sea of consciousness. “He has found the lost underground palace map of... the Imperial Mausoleum!”
The Imperial Mausoleum!
Even Lin Feng and Tang Yue had to draw in a sharp breath at those four words. That place was the eternal forbidden zone of the Ancient Capital, where the Undead Emperor rested alongside millions of ghostly soldiers and spirits from a millennium ago. It was far more than a mere ancient tomb; it was the epicenter of a massive natural array connecting the realms of the living and the dead in this region.
The deacon continued to wail in panic, spilling details that made one’s hair stand on end and spine turn to ice:
“They... they aren’t just after the treasures inside the mausoleum... Sharlock’s plan is a million times bigger than that! He wants to use... to use Blood-Stained Madness!”
“Blood-Stained Madness?” Tang Yue blurted out in shock.
“That’s right... an ancient magical poison refined from the vital essence of tens of thousands of commander-level demons...” The deacon sobbed, tears mixing with blood streaming down his chin. “They have secretly laced this blood essence into the underground water supply system and dispersed mist across the entire Ancient Capital over this past period. All they are waiting for is the moment of celestial upheaval, when the continuous cycle of blood rain lasts for a full... a full forty-nine days...”
He swallowed hard, his eyes bulging with terror:
“That bloody rain will activate all the accumulated resentment of this land over a thousand years! When that happens, everyone... all twenty million residents living in the Ancient Capital... from the elderly and young children to powerful mages... every single one of them will be instantly transformed into vengeful spirits and blood offerings!”
“They want to use the lives of twenty million people as sacrifices?!” Tang Yue trembled with indignation, her hands clenching into fists so tight that her nails pierced deep into her flesh, drawing beads of fresh blood. This cruel scale far surpassed any atrocity recorded in human history. This was no longer mere terrorism; this was the total genocide of the largest mega-city in the north!
“That’s not all... there’s more...” The deacon laughed miserably, the sound resembling the weeping of evil spirits. “Sharlock’s ultimate goal... is to use the sea of blood and grievances of twenty million people to forcibly awaken the Ancient Emperor! He wants to... wants to turn the Ancient Emperor into a World-Destroying Demon God completely under the control of the Black Vatican! With that power, they will flatten the Holy City, trample every superpower in the world, and conquer the globe!”
The underground room sank into a dead silence. The deacon’s confession struck like a thousand-ton boulder against the minds of everyone present. Both Lin Feng and Tang Yue fell silent before the overwhelming horror of this insidious, ruthless, and inhumane conspiracy. A plot hatched over a decade, exploiting the geography of the Ancient Capital to strike straight at the heart of human magical civilization.
Tang Yue stepped back half a step, her face turning pale as a sheet. She murmured: “So... the recent anomalies in the outskirts, the mysterious disappearances, were all part of that forty-nine-day blood rain cycle... We underestimated the scale of their ambitions...”
Lin Feng remained silent. He withdrew the Primordial Dragon Pendant, his gaze as deep and unrippled as a winter lake. Yet beneath that outward calm, a furnace of wrath raged like magma at the bottom of a volcano. He stepped forward, bending down to lock eyes with the utterly panicked Blue Deacon. His voice was as cold as frost from the nether realms:
“The plan is grand, and the scale is remarkably thorough. But do you really think that mere underlings like you, alongside the cover of a few traitors in the light, could effortlessly disperse Blood-Stained Madness into the water supply of an entire mega-city for months without being detected by the military or the Judgment Court?”
Lin Feng paused for a beat, his razor-sharp gaze drilling deep into the man’s psyche:
“Tell me... who on the inside opened the back door for you? How were you able to activate such an intricate underground array right under the noses of the military and the major clans without facing any resistance?”
The Blue Deacon heaved ragged breaths. Under the oppressive weight of Lin Feng’s gaze, the final line of defense in his subconscious threatened to shatter. He gaped, his chest heaving violently, as if that name were so terrifying that even under such brutal torture he still harbored a trace of dread. Yet under the spell’s influence, he could hold back no longer.
A bizarre, distorted, and crazed smile suddenly broke across the deacon’s sweat-drenched face. He jerked his head up, staring straight at Lin Feng and Tang Yue, before letting out a shrill laugh:
“Ha... ha ha ha... You want to know who helped us?”
Tang Yue felt a chill crawl down her spine as an overwhelmingly ominous premonition struck.
The deacon bulged his bloodshot eyes, his laughter dying away into a razor-sharp whisper echoing through the sealed chamber:
“Because... among those sitting in the highest leadership seats of this city... the very people shouting day and night about protecting the Ancient Capital... there are those... who are one of us!”
Boom!
The moment those words fell, the entire subterranean interrogation room seemed to shudder violently.
Tang Yue stepped back in shock, her face drained of all color. She could never have imagined such an answer. A mole! Not just ordinary pawns, but someone sitting in the highest leadership chair of the Ancient Capital! Who could possibly hold such immense power? Who could pull the wool over everyone’s eyes to coordinate with the Black Vatican in executing this monstrous conspiracy?
At that exact moment, outside the soundproof barrier, a sharp emergency alarm pierced the night—the highest-level alert, sounding only when the city faced imminent annihilation!
Lin Feng straightened up, the corners of his mouth twitching into a bone-chilling cold smile as a flash of extreme danger ignited in his eyes.
He turned toward the doorway, where the flashing red warning lights began to blink frantically, completely shattering any remaining illusion of a false peace outside.