Beating Instances through Words Left by the Dead

Chapter 555 - 270: It’s Common Sense to Apologize by Exposing Your Belly

Looking at the scorched scene before him, where more than half of the area had turned into a burnt origami house, the Painter’s mindset collapsed.

Despite his best efforts to salvage it, only the basic structure of the heavily damaged origami house could be preserved. Its growth progress bar was completely reset, and its grade fell to B-Level.

The Origami Domain suffered damage; the accumulated Papermen were all turned to ash.

The Painter couldn’t understand why, when Wu Chang was clearly unaware of the origami house’s existence, his attacks could follow the papermen and damage the essence of the origami house.

Even more perplexing was why the moment the origami house was attacked, his connection with it was severed, preventing him from immediately sensing the anomaly and redirecting the damage back to himself.

If time could reverse, given a hundred choices, he would always choose to take the damage on behalf of the origami house.

Now, well, for a short time—no, for a very long time—the origami house will be unusable.

After using Mamba Iron Elbow, Wu Chang’s thoughts cleared, and the temperature dropped, but according to the law of energy conservation, the red heat didn’t disappear; it merely transferred onto the Painter.

The Painter wanted revenge on Wu Chang, but without the origami house, let alone evading Wu Chang’s keen Inspiration, it’s likely he would be detected by the Earthly Divine Kingdom the moment he stepped into Wanghai City.

Expose his identity in reality?

This thought only lingered for a moment before the Painter dismissed it.

With Wu Chang’s strength, even if his identity were exposed, no one in the Desolate Realm could threaten him. Once the Earthly Divine Kingdom opens, not even a nuclear strike could break through the barrier of Divinity.

Exposing Wu Chang’s identity would only cause him minor trouble, nothing significant.

Also, judging by Peace’s current actions, Wu Chang, like him, is not prepared to deeply join any faction, making it inevitable for him to be targeted by the Bright Society, leading to conflict.

Exposing Wu Chang, forcing him into the spotlight, and possibly driving him to one of the Four Major Organizations or the Bright Society would waste the hard-earned opportunity and create an unnecessary strong adversary.

The Painter sighed, suddenly realizing he had no means of taking revenge on Wu Chang.

The deal of exchanging the origami house for the portal of all worlds was a huge loss.

He looked at the paperman maid still waiting at the door, "Speak, what new intelligence have you received?"

The paperman maid said, "Informants from the White Tower conveyed that during the recently broken-through Hymn Company dungeon, the Iron Armor Corps used the leaves and branches of the World Tree to guide Bright Society members to descend, including Joy, to seize a certain item."

"When Joy was about to succeed, a conflict erupted between Peace and Joy, with Peace directly slaying Joy’s descending clone and seizing the Hymn Company dungeon. The high echelons of the Four Major Organizations have concluded that they should avoid provoking Peace in the short term and send Peace into the Realm of Reason as soon as possible."

Upon hearing this news, the Painter’s first reaction was, "Why didn’t you say earlier?"

Paperman Maid: "..."

If the paperman maid had a soul, she would surely throw a couple of punches at the Painter.

The Painter also realized his mistake, laughed at himself, and waved, "I understand, you may leave."

Had he known earlier, he would have left Wanghai City with the portal of all worlds and avoided provoking Wu Chang.

Regret, immense regret,

He looked at the scorched origami house and smiled bitterly, "Even Joy suffered before that kid, why did you provoke him?"

Wanghai City, Emotion Art Gallery.

Wu Chang initially only intended to elbow the Painter to teach him a lesson. Though his in-game nickname was Doesn’t Eat Beef, he was far from being a pushover.

But he didn’t expect that with one elbow, Lu Langfeng wouldn’t have a nosebleed, but would instead burst into flames with a boom.

Not only Lu Langfeng, but many artworks hanging on the walls in the Emotion Art Gallery were knocked to the ground by his elbow, twisted into human forms, and then caught fire.

Among the burning human figures, he saw the male art student who had previously led him into the studio.

These artworks were all puppets controlled by the Painter.

Before Wu Chang could overcome his surprise, the entire Emotion Art Gallery caught fire. He saw the gallery emanating various emotions amidst the flames, which culminated into pain and dread before dissipating.

He left before the gallery became engulfed, standing on the street outside, looking at the roaring flames consuming the gallery, utterly bewildered as the instigator.

Did I do this?

Did I inadvertently summon a spirit that brought along the 4 AM fire in Los Angeles?

Though unclear about the specifics of what had transpired, his Inspiration told him that his elbow probably inflicted more pain than anticipated.

All-Knowing Crystal, was this part of your scheme as well?

Wu Chang gazed at the blazing fire that even the firefighters couldn’t contain, feeling even more eager to activate the All-Knowing Crystal.

The fire at the Emotion Art Gallery lasted for two hours, burning the entire gallery to the ground, leaving nothing behind. The gallery owner, Lu Langfeng, went missing.

Wanghai City’s most famous tourist spot culminated in such a scene, leading to a large number of people in Wanghai holding it accountable, prompting a city-wide firefighting safety campaign.

But these are later events. Wu Chang didn’t pay attention, only sneezing a few times amidst the numerous merchants cursing Lu Langfeng when they were tormented by fire safety drills.

Almost simultaneously with the blaze at the Emotion Art Gallery, the Erosion Dungeon beneath the Management Bureau completely shattered, with Wu Chang, Sword Star, and others returning to the fifth underground level.