Chapter 181: Successfully Hunting the Evil God

At the same time—

Downstairs, beneath the apartment building—

At the distant intersection—

Song Xu and his crew were racing toward the building at full speed.

“Hmph.” Song Xu sneered inwardly. “The big truck’s only for ramming people.”

“If we’re rushing somewhere, don’t forget—we’ve got a top-tier courier and two elite food delivery agents. When it comes to speed and load-bearing capacity, they blow minds.”

At that moment, Song Xu and two fellow Construction Cult followers were each being carried on the back of two delivery workers and one courier. Their bodies streaked through the traffic in a blur of afterimages.

Noticing Huoshan’s impatient string of messages, Song Xu replied: Hold on. We’re here.

…

Inside the apartment.

Huoshan exhaled in relief as he watched the figure before him—so full of reluctance—finally retreat.

Then, seeing Song Xu’s message pop up saying they’d arrived, he relaxed even more. “We’re finally safe.”

Moments later, Huoshan perked up as Song Xu entered the room. He opened a hidden compartment and rushed over with joy. “You finally made it, brat!”

But as he caught a proper look at the man’s face, Huoshan’s gut clenched with unease.

“His face... looks kind of stiff…”

“He seems…”

“Not Song Xu?”

Then he glanced at the man’s pants—and it hit him. “Son of a—! That’s the guy from earlier! He changed his face to look like Song Xu? He knows Song Xu’s info? He even knew he was supposed to come up here?”

The person who just entered was Zhang Yu, having reshaped his face using Crimson Marrow Primordial Energy to imitate Song Xu’s appearance.

But the disguise was rough. Had Huoshan taken a closer look, he would’ve spotted the inconsistencies instantly.

Unfortunately, in his panic, Huoshan missed the obvious.

Seeing Zhang Yu approach with a smile, Huoshan let out a startled yell and tried to backpedal—

But Zhang Yu vanished in a blur and lifted him off the ground with one hand.

“Finally caught you,” Fu Ji chuckled. “Zhang Yu, hurry! Use the method I taught you—pin him down! Don’t let him move!”

Zhang Yu drove his palm hard into the Evil God Plushie, sending tremors through Huoshan’s core.

According to Fu Ji, while these Evil Gods wield great divine power when activating their rituals, their true bodies are surprisingly fragile—which is why they go to such lengths to evade the Righteous Gods’ detection.

This plush bear, while it looked like nothing more than a toy, could still suffer real damage through physical force.

And because Huoshan’s consciousness was housed inside with full sensory feedback, violent impacts could disorient his mind—like motion sickness.

After thoroughly rattling the plush, Zhang Yu grabbed the black orb that housed Fu Ji’s essence and slammed it against the bear’s head.

Dark divine power surged—Fu Ji had successfully suppressed Huoshan’s awareness for now.

“Ha! It worked, Zhang Yu!” Fu Ji whooped. “He’s temporarily under my control!”

One after another, ritual logs flashed before Fu Ji’s eyes as she muttered, “Let’s see what rules he imposed on his little followers…”

Suddenly, the sound of tearing air filled the night—six figures shot across the sky, rapidly closing in on the apartment.

Bai Zhenzhen: Yuzi! What the hell are you doing up there?! They’re already here!

Zhang Yu didn’t even have time to check his phone. Hearing the rapid approach, he knew they’d be at the door in seconds.

…

The six-man squad led by Song Xu charged through the busted door and into the trashed room.

There sat the Evil God Plushie on a chair.

And kneeling reverently before it—from the side, it looked like Li Quan.

Seeing the plushie unharmed, the six let out a faint sigh of relief.

Though Song Xu frowned. “Li Quan’s back already? Paid the fine and posted bail that fast?”

As they stepped in, “Li Quan” scoffed and snapped, “What took you so long?! Do you have any idea how badly Master was frightened?”

“As Evil God followers, how dare you leave your Master unguarded like this?”

“Now kneel!”

The bear plush on the sofa trembled slightly, letting out a displeased snort.

Despite lingering doubts, the six cultists immediately dropped to their knees and began apologizing to Huoshan.

“Forgive us, Master. We came as fast as we could…”

“We’re sorry for the delay…”

“Master, we’ll make them pay!”

But the longer Song Xu stared at “Li Quan,” the more wrong it felt. The facial features weren’t quite right.

Problem was, Huoshan usually commanded them remotely, and Song Xu rarely saw Li Quan in person. That’s why he hadn’t recognized the imposter right away.

In a flash, Song Xu leapt to block the exit, eyes narrowing.

“You’re not Li Quan!”

As the others turned to stare, Zhang Yu’s features shifted subtly, Crimson Marrow Primordial Energy twisting his appearance into a different stranger entirely.

“No. I’m not Li Quan.”

“And now you’ve all exposed yourselves… as Evil God followers.”

The room erupted into panic. Flames surged from within their bodies, growing hotter and hotter.

“Shit!” Song Xu shouted. “Kill him! If we eliminate him before the ritual backlash hits, it doesn’t count as a leak—we might survive!”

Unlike Zhang Yu, who had been discarded by Fu Ji and later managed to suppress her, these six had always been under Huoshan’s control. The ritual contracts they’d accepted included clauses like: don’t harm Huoshan, don’t reveal your cultist identity…

And now they’d violated those terms.

The image of Zhou Tianyi self-immolating at the abandoned building flashed through Zhang Yu’s mind. Back then, Zhou Tianyi had also combusted because he’d exposed his affiliation.

Zhang Yu had later asked Fu Ji about this. She’d explained that Evil Gods often embedded such rules in their rituals to prevent tracking by the Righteous Gods.

Once exposed—whether deliberately or not—the ritual backfired automatically.

Fu Ji’s scan of Huoshan’s ritual logs had just confirmed that.

As the six followers’ skin flushed red-hot, Zhang Yu muttered, “Truly a brain-dead ritual.”

But Song Xu roared in desperation, the ritual timer ticking down inside him. He lunged.

“If we kill him now, we still have a chance!”

The others followed, fury in their eyes, pouring all their strength into one last suicidal charge.

Six Qi Refining Realm elites—each radiating lethal intent—rushed Zhang Yu with an oppressive force unlike anything he’d ever faced.

The pressure boiled the air. Fists, palms, kicks—six deadly attacks all converged at once, ready to tear him apart.

But Zhang Yu merely smiled, lunged forward—and snatched up the plush bear.

Don’t harm the Evil God!

The six cultists froze in mid-air, eyes wide. They swerved at the last second, unable to strike.

The abrupt change in trajectory, after unleashing full-force attacks, made their qi and mana surge wildly—they nearly coughed up blood.

Zhang Yu seized the chance. His qi surged as black Formless Cloud Qi engulfed them.

“What the hell is this?!”

Blinded by the black mist, Song Xu reacted swiftly, assuming it was obscuring their vision. He roared and launched a palm strike to clear the haze.

The others did the same, shredding the mist as if it were storm clouds.

The Formless Cloud Qi, which even Yu Xinghan had struggled to dispel in thirty minutes, was scattered in under half a second by the six of them working together.

But in the same instant, a loud crack rang out—the window had shattered.

One delivery cultist reacted fastest, leaping out like lightning in pursuit.

The others, feeling the burning ritual backlash intensify, followed without hesitation.

A few floors wouldn’t kill them.

All they cared about now was killing Zhang Yu.

Yet what they saw falling from the window wasn’t a person—but a smashed wooden stool.

“He threw the stool to break the window? He didn’t jump?”

Back inside the room, Zhang Yu was still there—hidden in a shadow cast by the Great Sun Qi Sea Technique.

He’d used the bear to force the six to abort their attacks, then obscured them with Formless Cloud Qi, shattered the window with the stool—and slipped into the shadow.

Now, standing in that patch of darkness, he blended in perfectly, like just another part of the room.

Listening to the shouts and screams outside, Zhang Yu sighed.

“Ah… the power of information asymmetry.”

He picked up the plush bear and calmly walked out.

Moments later, six fire-wreathed figures hurtled back toward the building—but before they could re-enter, each burst into flames and crumbled to ash, vanishing into the night sky.

Minutes later, a swarm of constables arrived and sealed off the entire floor.

Soon after, under the awed eyes of the constables, the Songyang City Inspectorate arrived to begin their investigation.

Meanwhile, Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen returned to the apartment after recovering surveillance footage from the abandoned building.

They both turned eagerly toward Fu Ji.

“Hey,” Zhang Yu asked, “can we finally upgrade our potential now?”