The blood-red magical formation locked down the entire Thunder Hall the instant it took shape. An invisible suppressive force sent everyone's attributes plummeting by twenty percent.
"A Blood Demon Seal!" Lun Hui's expression darkened further as he saw the crimson barrier and the blood mist drifting through the air.
The Blood Demon Seal wasn't a magic tool — it was a special skill that players could learn, one of the rare Skill Books obtained by the Seven Sins from an ancient demonic temple.
This magical skill was fundamentally different from the ones players typically learned. It had no tier rating, and generally required at least six people to activate. Once triggered, the users would sacrifice themselves to a demon god, forming a sealing magical formation.
The power of this sealing formation depended on the number of players sacrificed — the more players, the greater the strength. Six players alone could trap a Great Lord. With over twenty people sacrificed now, anything below Tier Four Legendary had no chance of breaking free.
"Captain, why should we be afraid of them? Sure, they've got more people, but we're not pushovers!" said Yi Yun, the Shield Warrior.
Their strength was considered top-tier even in the Divine Realm. Any superpower would think twice before provoking them. The opposition only numbered around thirty. Even with the magical formation's suppression, even if these were elite members of the Seven Sins, taking them down shouldn't be difficult. There was no need to run.
"Yi Yun, it's not as simple as you think. These are all executives within the Seven Sins. Each one possesses strength and skill at minimum rivaling the current top-tier experts." Bing Ying, standing nearby, regarded the Seven Sins members across the hall and explained with a grave expression. "And among them is Di Tian, who leads their group — one of the Seven Sins' seven chiefs!"
If it had been any other superpower's expert squad — even a hundred-man team — they wouldn't have given it a second thought. But the people before them were no run-of-the-mill opponents. Every single one of them was at least her equal in strength.
"One of the Seven Sins' chiefs?" Yi Yun's face changed drastically, a chill surging through her.
She wasn't some ignorant expert who knew nothing. Quite the opposite — she possessed more intelligence than the top experts of most superpowers, being herself a prodigy nurtured by the Thirteen Thrones, a supreme guild far more powerful than the War Wolves, with information resources that dwarfed those of superpowers that had only risen to prominence in recent years.
The Seven Sins was an assassin organization that existed beyond the reach of the outside world. Its experts were countless, and its inner workings remained shrouded in mystery. Even now, the major superpowers knew precious little about the organization — they couldn't even pin down how many executives it had or who they were.
As for the Seven Sins' seven supreme chiefs, even less was known. Only three had been identified so far, and their strength was unfathomably deep. The old monsters of every major guild feared them gravely. Her strength wouldn't last more than a few exchanges against those chiefs.
She never expected that Di Tian standing right before her was actually one of the Seven Sins' seven chiefs…
"Lun Hui, I've already told you — you're not escaping today. Are you going to hand over the Thunder God Key willingly, or do I need to come and take it myself?" Di Tian's cold gaze fixed on him.
"Brother Di Tian, why bother wasting words with them? Just kill them all. Everything will be ours." Behind Di Tian, a Level 74 Berserker clad in bone-white armor with two massive deep-blue greatswords strapped to his back licked the corner of his lips as he regarded Lun Hui's group.
"Exactly. A bunch of reckless fools who dare covet something that belongs to the Seven Sins. They need to learn what the consequences are." Beside him, a Level 74 female Elementalist as cold and detached as snow, wielding a Frost Staff, spoke with equal indifference.
These two spoke, and the pressure on Lun Hui and the others intensified sharply, their expressions growing solemn.
Because these were no ordinary people — they were senior executives of the Seven Sins. The man was called Sha Gu. His strength was formidable, and his talent extraordinary. Recently, he had single-handedly assassinated a high-ranking executive of a superpower despite the man being under heavy protection, including two Domain-realm guardians.
The female Elementalist was called Qi Huang. She rarely made a move, but she had once annihilated a hundred-man expert squad from a superpower entirely on her own — and that squad had been led by a monster-class powerhouse. The superpower had wanted revenge, dispatching a thousand experts to hunt her down, but the result was a crushing defeat that forced them to abandon the effort.
Either one of these two alone would be extremely difficult to deal with. Having both act together would be nothing short of a nightmare.
"I can give you the Thunder God Key, but you have to promise to let these uninvolved people go." Lun Hui looked at the thirty-odd experts behind Di Tian and understood that escape was impossible today. Even fighting to the death wouldn't end well. Besides, the Thunder God Key had a twenty to thirty percent chance of dropping upon a player's death, and with the Seven Sins' methods, they could probably increase that odds considerably.
"Captain?" Zhuo Hai looked at Lun Hui anxiously.
He knew better than anyone how much time and effort Lun Hui had invested in obtaining the Thunder God Key. Behind it lay the inheritance and treasures of an ancient deity — surrendering it now meant all that painstaking work would be for nothing.
"Because you're handing over the key of your own volition, I can spare them. But while they may avoid death, the punishment stands. Each person turns over two Epic-grade items." Di Tian glanced at Zhuo Hai and the others, his tone leaving absolutely no room for negotiation, as though he were already granting the greatest possible mercy.
The group's faces sank instantly.
Even a single Epic-grade item was extremely precious to any superpower now, dramatically boosting an expert's combat strength. Parting with two at once was tantamount to crippling nearly half their fighting power.
"Di Tian, this is outright robbery! Even if we died, we'd only drop one Epic-grade item at most. We might as well fight to the bitter end — you won't come out of it unscathed either! And I'm a core insider of the Thirteen Thrones! They won't let this slide!" Yi Yun shot back defiantly.
Although the Seven Sins had many powerful experts, their side wasn't weak either. Between death and a last stand, they could at least take down several Seven Sins executives in the process. In that case, they'd each lose only one Epic-grade item at most — and even that probability was minimal.
The moment Yi Yun spoke, Lun Hui and Wei Yang Qian Hen mentally cursed their luck, unable to suppress their headshakes.
Yi Yun was still too young. Sheltered under a superpower's protection her entire life, she had no understanding of how an transcendent organization like the Seven Sins operated. Trapped within their seal, the Seven Sins likely had the means to force them to resurrect, meaning they'd be killed at least twice. And the death penalty each time would far exceed the normal single-level drop and one item lost — it would probably be two or three times worse.
"Oh? Then why don't we try it and see?" Di Tian looked at Yi Yun and couldn't help but smile.