Ice Age Apocalypse: I Hoard Billions of Supplies-Chapter 1045: The Child-Taking Box

Chapter 1045: The Child-Taking Box

Because of the Strange magnetic field in Mist Valley, Qinglong did not know what had happened to Zhang Yi, Billy the Kid, or the Soul Reaper.

But he clearly understood one thing.

Zhang Yi was still alive, and could still help him buy time against an opponent.

If Zhang Yi were harmed, he would completely lose his chance to seize the Divine Source.

So he had to act!

The moment Billy the Kid emerged from the underground cavern was the perfect instant for the ambush he had long prepared.

This strike let him gain a small advantage.

Qinglong let out a sharp, piercing cry, a sound like a whale yet shrill and bright like a baby.

"Myriad Glazed Display!"

In an instant, from his elegant, enormous body erupted thousands upon thousands of beams of light, all surging toward Billy the Kid!

Billy the Kid's eyes hardened, and he slipped aside to dodge. It looked slow, but he skillfully evaded each of Qinglong’s countless attacks.

Then he finished reloading and, in a flash, fired six bullets in return!

His attack was ephemeral. Given Qinglong’s enormous size, there was no real need to dodge.

But as the bullets neared that sleek, glazed, glassy body, a slick radiance suddenly bloomed across it.

Around the Dragon God's body, space itself seemed to warp. The instant the bullets touched that light, they slid away as if a knife had struck meat smeared with grease, glancing off elsewhere.

This was not a spatial technique.

It was one of the Weak Water Glazed Dragon God's abilities, Weak Water Glaze.

Its surface contained a special force that could distort incoming physical attacks.

Qinglong and Billy the Kid were not strangers to each other.

Above the East Sea, they had clashed at least three times before, though each time they had held back and not fought to the death.

Though Billy the Kid usually had the upper hand in their encounters, Qinglong's abilities meant he had never suffered major losses.

If both decided to risk their lives, the outcome would be unpredictable.

At this moment, Billy felt wary too.

If he killed Qinglong but was gravely wounded, someone else might swoop in and take the prize.

On Star Island, there were surely other superhumans who had not yet revealed themselves.

Everyone preferred to wait for others to fight to the death and then be the opportunist who cleaned up the winner—no one was a fool.

It was better to wait for the Soul Reaper to finish Zhang Yi, and then all handle Qinglong together.

Qinglong and Billy both understood this tacit calculation.

With what they knew of each other, unless they fought like they had nothing to lose, it would be hard to settle things quickly.

So neither was willing to go all out; they probed and held back while testing one another.

But an unexpected pair of arrivals disrupted the battlefield.

As the two battled fiercely, two figures walked out from beyond the edge of Mist Valley.

Qinglong and Billy cut off their attacks with perfect timing and halted.

When they could see them clearly, both their eyes filled with surprise.

The newcomers were superhumans from Neon: Tsukuyomi and Kagutsuchi.

Billy narrowed his eyes and stared at them.

"What are you doing here?"

He hadn’t expected those two to show up.

To him, Neon’s superhumans were only mid-tier caliber.

Even Amaterasu, who billed himself as Neon’s top fighter, only had a superhuman ability index of 9,500 points.

Tsukuyomi Karasenshu and Kagutsuchi Amatsu Tenshi were both superhumans with indexes of 9,500 points.

At the start of the war they might have been useful on the island.

But here in the heart of Mist Valley, who wasn’t close to Epsilon level?

Their strength plainly wasn’t enough.

Qinglong adjusted his massive body in silence, turning from facing Billy to now facing both Billy and the Neon superhumans.

A three-way stalemate formed.

Karasenshu did not answer Canero’s words. She simply gazed, entranced, at the pillar of yellow light shooting into the sky, her face lost in intoxicated rapture.

"Ah~ I finally found it! So this is Divine Source material? It is so beautiful—I'm utterly captivated."

Canero was beginning to sense something was wrong.

He had never fully trusted the Neon people. From what he had been taught, Neons wore humility on their faces but had a bone-deep spirit of betrayal—you could call it overturning the established order.

"Did you come to assist me?"

Canero narrowed his eyes and spoke coldly once more.

"Assist? No. I have always believed we are merely cooperating."

Karasenshu shook her head indifferently.

Beside her, Amatsu Tenshi wore a wicked grin like a villain gloating over a successful plot.

"Now our cooperation has yielded the best result: we found the Divine Source."

"Now we are competitors. Whoever gets the Divine Source will depend on their own ability!"

Qinglong remained silent. He did not know what turmoil had erupted within the joint forces.

In any case, any split inside the opposing side was great news for him.

Because the magnetic interference prevented information from reaching the outside, the two command centers had no idea what was happening here.

So here, there were no rules—anything went.

The Neon superhumans dropped their disguises entirely.

Canero sensed something off. He glared at Karasenshu, a mocking smile at his mouth: "You want to compete with me for the Divine Source material? Do you have that kind of power?"

Karasenshu covered her mouth and laughed, the sound wild and unrestrained.

"Hahaha! Mr. Canero, you'll find out soon enough whether I have the strength!"

Her expression turned sinister and cold as a specter.

Amatsu Tenshi took a half step back and looked at Karasenshu with cautious fear.

Karasenshu's hands slipped out from the wide sleeves of her miko robe—sleeves no one had ever seen from her before.

Those pale hands clutched tightly to a box the size of a birdcage.

"The place I was born is a small village called Thousand Crows Village, where an ancestral witchcraft tradition has been preserved. During times of war, villagers used this witchcraft to protect themselves. Its name is the Child-Taking Box."

"The method of making it is to kill a pregnant woman who has reached seven months gestation, extract the unborn child from her womb, place the fetus inside the box, and then consecrate it with a prayer ritual."

"The more sacrificial offerings used, the stronger the curse-power of the Child-Taking Box becomes."

She murmured those chilling words.

As she slowly unsealed the Child-Taking Box, a thick, nauseating black smoke shot out and then poured entirely into the huge oni-like spirit behind her.

"The Child-Taking Box I possess was fed with ten thousand sacrifices. An unsurpassed Oni God Child!"

Author's Note