Chapter 42

The previously somewhat noisy and chaotic Dimension 25838 suddenly fell completely silent as the candidates for the King of Soldiers were successively teleported away.

The Lord of Netherworld, who had just been fighting tooth and nail with Candidate Number 002, Silvalando, in mid-air, had now returned to the ground. He scooped the little cub—who had been desperately trying to gently blow on the hand of Wanyou—straight into his arms.

When Wanyou saw the little one being scooped into the arms of his Supreme Lord, his instinctive reaction was to snatch him back, but then he caught the sneer on the Lord's face—a sneer that appeared precisely as the Lord's gaze fell upon his still-bleeding wounds.

At the sight of that sneer, Wanyou instantly abandoned any thought of fighting his Lord for the cub.

...Because he was afraid his Lord would expose him.

In truth, the regenerative abilities of the Nether Clan were exceedingly powerful. For wounds pierced through hands and feet like his, an adult Nether tribesman required almost no extra treatment; the injuries would recover within half a day until not a trace of the trauma remained.

Although he had previously been pinned down and rendered immobile by that winged fellow, it was merely due to his inadequate strength, which made it impossible to break free from the mental suppression of those great wings.

However, once he broke the curse and returned to his original form, the wounds on his hands and feet were no longer worth mentioning.

He could have easily made his own wounds heal. Yet, when he saw the little cub feeling worried for him, grabbing his hands with those soft little palms, and puffing air onto them in a valiant effort to soothe his pain, he suddenly lost all desire to heal his wounds.

Being somewhat greedy, he wished to monopolize the cub's purest concern and worry for as long as possible, so he deliberately kept his wounds from closing.

Yet, the moment their leader appeared, this little scheme lost all meaning.

Wanyou could only stand up somewhat unwillingly, still gazing with eager eyes at the cub now held securely in the leader's arms.

...

The little one remained as docile as could be when he was gathered into the arms of the Lord of Netherworld. Yet, once he was settled comfortably there, he did not forget the 'injured' Wanyou. He immediately turned to the Lord and said, "Mingming, Youyou is hurt! Youyou bled so, so much blood! It hurts, we need to blow on it!"

Though the little one was not yet old, he could already express a great deal, even if his speech occasionally retained a childish, innocent, and disjointed charm.

Nevertheless, the Lord of Netherworld instantly grasped the meaning behind Su You's words—he was saying that Wanyou was injured, the bleeding wouldn't stop, it hurt terribly, and someone needed to heal him quickly.

Draped in purple robes, the Lord of Netherworld looked down at the innocent and adorable little fellow in his arms, gently ruffled his hair, and then cast a glance at Wanyou. The warmth he held for the cub vanished entirely from his eyes, replaced by an icy glare that screamed, 'You are already a dead man.'

Of course, Wanyou knew this was because he had deceived the cub and thereby incurred the Lord's wrath. Quickly, he wiggled his hands and feet slightly, broke into a wide smile, and thrust his almost entirely healed hands right in front of the cub's eyes.

"Look, You-You, the leader has healed my hands! You-You is amazing, thank you for helping me find the leader to heal my injuries!"

The little one had never expected Wanyou's hands to heal in the blink of an eye.

With a gasp, he widened his large, beautiful eyes in surprise, stretched out his tiny hand to gently stroke the back of Wanyou's hand, and exclaimed in an admiring tone, "Wow! They really are healed!"

With that, the little fellow did not forget to turn back and bury himself into the embrace of the Lord of Netherworld, praising him with the most sincere and fervent tone: "Mingming, you are so amazing! Not only can you fight the great angel, but you can also heal Youyou's injuries!"

The Lord of Netherworld gently ruffled the little one's hair and praised the cub in return: "Youyou is also amazing, for helping me break the curse upon my people."

"The curse that has plagued us for a thousand years could not be broken, which makes Youyou even more remarkable."

Praised by the Lord of Netherworld while his head was being petted, the little fellow proudly puffed out his chest—though he didn't quite understand what kind of curse Mingming and the others had suffered, both Mingming and Youyou looked so happy now!

Meanwhile, seeing his Lord and Master petting the cub's head, Wanyou felt a fierce wave of envy wash over him. He was dying to reach out and rub the cub's head a couple of times for his own satisfaction.

Alas, the cub was currently held tightly in their Lord's arms, keeping Wanyou completely out of reach.

Wanyou could only trail along sheepishly, filled with endless regret that he hadn't let his wounds heal sooner. If he had only allowed his injuries to mend while the Lord was busy fighting that winged creature, he probably would have won the cub's worshipful gaze, and then he could have held the cub and puffed his hair to his heart's content!

At this thought, Wanyou regretted it a thousand, ten thousand times over.

Naturally, the cub held in the arms of the Lord of Netherworld had no inkling of Wanyou's inner thoughts. Looking around for a moment, he raised his head to gaze at his system, System 001, and could not help asking, "Tongtong, why has the great angel disappeared?"

When the cub spoke to the system so openly right in front of them, both the Lord of Netherworld and Wanyou felt a slight tremor in their hearts.

As living entities within the secondary dimension of 25838, even though they had previously existed in a cursed, chaotic state, they were well aware that these foreign entities were dropped into their Nether Domain with certain hidden agendas.

And since they were outsiders, there would inevitably come a time when they left.

Much like that winged creature who had been fighting him earlier, only to be forcibly teleported away against his will.

The Lord of Netherworld knew that once that same teleportation array appeared, the cub in his arms would likewise be forced to leave their Nether Domain.

With the looming possibility of this happening, a deep urge bloomed within the Lord's heart to keep this cub trapped in the Nether Domain forever.

Yet, in the end, he remained silent, uttering not a word, and feigning ignorance of the conversation between the cub and his spirit tool.

System 001 looked at the Lord of Netherworld, who was holding the cub tightly in his embrace. Usually gentle and calm, the King of Soldiers System 001 suddenly felt that the life forms of this dimension were somewhat overly clingy.

Still, meeting the bewildered gaze in the cub's eyes, it chose to answer his question first: [Congratulations, Youyou. Both the leader and the tribe of Dimension 25838 have submitted to you. The main system has judged that it is entirely meaningless for the remaining candidates to continue competing in Dimension 25838. Therefore, the other candidates for the King of Soldiers will be teleported to a new dimension for the next round of elimination matches.]

The little fellow, nestled safely in the arms of the Lord of Netherworld, felt rather dizzy upon hearing 001's reply: "Eh? Did everyone go to a new amusement park? Then what about Youyou?"

System 001 used its gentle, magnetic voice to soothe him: [Youyou has already successfully passed the evaluation of this elimination match. Your next task is to help every single member of the Nether Clan break their curse and recover.]

As a Main God-tier system, System 001 naturally knew how bizarre the current situation was.

Logically speaking, if Su You had already completed his mission, there was no need to linger in Dimension 25838. Su You should have continued as a candidate for the King of Soldiers, following the rest of the contestants to a new secondary dimension to participate in the next round of elimination matches.

Yet, the mission transmitted to it by the main system was to keep Su You stationed in Dimension 25838, allowing him to lift the curse for every single cursed Nether tribesman here.

To this end, the main system had even broken precedent by designating this task as Su You's objective for the next stage of the elimination matches, offering a massive amount of merit points as a reward.

As long as Su You successfully broke the curses for all the Nether tribesmen, he would advance directly to the top twenty tournament as the top-ranking contender of the next elimination round.

This was entirely too bizarre.

System 001 knew that certain data and information specifically shielded against it must be hidden within this anomaly. Otherwise, given its authority and database reserves, it would have been impossible for it to fail in unlocking this secret.

However, even if the main system or Saint Gilbert had blocked a portion of its information, the King of Soldiers System 001 was still capable of piecing together the information it desired by analyzing Su You's various performances across Dimension 25838.

...

For instance, all these changes must have originated from the tears shed by the Nether tribesman just moments ago.

System 001 could sense a vast and pure life force contained within the gemstones formed by Wanyou's tears. Especially when Wanyou's fresh blood stained those gemstones and he gifted them to Su You, that power became so intense that even System 001's perception was affected.

At that exact instant, the power of those gemstones grew so formidable that the energy within this dimension began to experience a boiling, warping effect.

That boiling, distorted energy only subsided after the cub stuffed those blood-stained gemstones into his little pockets.

It was also after the appearance of those gemstones that System 001 faintly sensed someone connecting to its system perspective—and the entities accessing it possessed authorities that far surpassed its own.

As a system with Main God-tier capabilities, the only ones capable of overriding its system authority were virtually the Omniscient Brain Saint Gilbert of the Dark Universe Corporation and the upper echelons of the Dark Universe Corporation itself.

Realizing this, looking back at the strange demands and tasks issued by the variety show's main system, it wasn't hard to guess what had caused all of this.

It was because of... those miraculous gemstones.

System 001 had no doubts whatsoever; it was certain that the main system allowed the cub to stay behind in this dimension precisely because of Saint Gilbert's command.

And that command was issued entirely because of the existence of those gemstones.

System 001 surmised that the reason the Nether tribesman's tears transformed into gemstones brimming with such potent life energy was not because of some innate racial trait, but most likely because of the cub himself—perhaps because the cub had broken their curse, or perhaps due to some other reason.

Thus, Saint Gilbert had used the main system's hands to transfer all the other candidates for the King of Soldiers away into a new dimension, leaving only the cub behind.

This was because Saint Gilbert hoped to use the cub's hands to 'manufacture' even more of those gemstones pulsating with immense life energy.

Naturally.

Regarding these speculations, System 001 had no intention of telling the cub. It simply relayed the official mission assigned by the main system to the little one.