Chapter 00209: Colleagues Wish Each Other Dead
# Colleagues Wish Each Other Dead
Chapter 209
Novel: Above Destiny
Chapter 209: Colleagues Wish Each Other Dead
Workshop!
The moment the judgment and conclusion were made, everyone's eyes lit up.
Just when they thought they had come all this way for nothing, it turned out that the group they had just taken down was merely the outer security team.
After prying open the shell, they found a soft and juicy delicacy hidden inside.
Even Tong Shan's face showed a hint of joy.
However, amidst the brief silence, Ji Xue quickly sensed something was off.
She looked ahead.
Those two suspicious remnants of the Ember faction had, at some point, subtly distanced themselves from each other.
When they exchanged glances, their smiles grew increasingly warm and friendly.
But for some reason, it felt like they were just waiting for the right moment to grab something and smash each other's heads in.
"Workshop, huh…"
Ji Jue sighed deeply, his right hand resting on his waist as if he had just strained it while lying on the ground.
"Mm."
Lou Feng's hands were in his pockets, as if casually fiddling with something insignificant.
He nodded slightly, "Workshop, indeed."
Both were smiling, but the tension between their gazes was almost enough to spark flames.
"Last time, in the Rift, Brother Ji caused quite a stir," Lou Feng suddenly remarked.
"After returning to the workshop and home, I was in a sorry state for a long time. Every time I went out, people mocked me. I couldn't hold my head up. The bitterness of it all is hard to put into words."
"Yeah, yeah, last time was rough for me too," Ji Jue lamented, shaking his head.
"I was with my comrades from the Safety Bureau, chased through the Rift by a whole group of Homecoming Knights. I barely escaped with my life. At the time, I was sitting on a tricycle, crying uncontrollably, wondering if this was the only chance I'd ever get…"
"But you weren't the one who got kidnapped, extorted for money, and forced to pay a hefty ransom, were you?" Lou Feng's expression grew serious.
"You saved the person, learned the Sage's legacy. Master Ye looked down on us, I get that… but you didn't even leave us a drop of soup, did you?"
"That was never my intention…" Ji Jue shook his head firmly.
"Opportunities only come once. If you can't seize it, then let me…"
As their conversation grew increasingly abstract, Ji Xue quietly tugged at Tong Shan's sleeve, utterly confused.
"What are they babbling about?"
"Ember faction business. Best not to pry," Tong Shan sighed, his eye twitching.
Damn it, they've barely touched the workshop, and these two are already scheming how to divide the spoils?!
Typical Ember faction behavior.
The moment they heard they could loot the place, whatever little humanity they had left vanished like a deadbeat dad seeing a positive pregnancy test.
The honeymoon period was over too quickly for anyone to react.
Ji Jue shook his head, "The Lou family is vast and powerful. Why bother fighting over scraps with a poor kid like me?"
"You're poor? What does that make me?!" Lou Feng was so angry he laughed.
Bringing up family backgrounds but conveniently ignoring the gap between their workshops?!
"I'm not like Captain Tong, a pillar of his family. I'm just one step away from being the family clown. Who caused that? Ji, if you think you can hog everything, you'll have to get through me first!"
"So, do you agree?" Ji Jue asked curiously.
"What do you think?" Lou Feng snapped, no longer caring about decorum.
"Agree my ass! I don't agree one bit!"
"Round and round we go. In the end, it comes down to a fight, huh?" Ji Jue sighed.
"Who goes first?"
"Who else? You, of course!" Lou Feng snorted.
"Isn't that what Disintegration Arts are for?"
As the two bickered over how to divide the spoils, they were already pulling out various tools and equipment from their personal kits or spatial devices, hastily setting them up, cables strewn everywhere.
Like two thieves squatting in front of a vault, dividing the loot.
The preparations were intense, with no time wasted.
And not a single glance toward the workshop.
Until the equipment finished scanning and the spiritual energy signals were compiled, the results displayed…
Both of their breathing grew heavy again.
They stared at each other in silence, the ghostly flames of the Ember faction flickering uncontrollably in their eyes.
Ravenous…
Without a doubt, the workshop was right beneath their feet!
---
Beneath the ruins of the shopping mall, pale lights flickered as sharp alarm sounds echoed endlessly.
Du Deng gasped for breath, his body drenched in cold sweat as he stared at the screen displaying the message: [Signal Disconnected].
Just moments ago, when the alarm interrupted his work and he stormed out of the workshop, he thought some idiot had accidentally triggered the alarm or violated the rules.
But the projection didn't show the usual scenes of idiots dumping garbage or disrupting spiritual energy circuits.
Instead, it was a sea of crimson.
A massacre.
Out of nowhere, a group of Chosen Ones had descended, cutting down the outer guards like vegetables, turning them into scattered fragments in less than two minutes.
Before he could even react, it was all over.
Dead.
All dead!
If the temporary workshop's preset modules hadn't activated the camouflage the moment they detected the environmental changes, the blades would already be at his throat.
What's going on? What happened? Where the hell am I?
Did the Dragon Sacrifice Society betray us? Did the Heretic Cult renege on their deal? Did the monks from the Leakless Temple forget to take their meds? Or did my teacher find out I've been secretly contacting the Heart of Heaven Society behind his back?
No, none of that makes sense.
It doesn't look like the work of the Corrupted… it's more like…
Damn it, the Safety Bureau is here?!
The moment he realized this, the last holdout was crushed like a bug by Jiang Xuan.
Only Du Deng, the craftsman, remained hidden in the workshop, drenched in cold sweat, collapsed on the ground, unable to get up.
Calm down, calm down!
Even if it's a temporary workshop, my preparations were thorough.
The entire workshop is embedded in the earth's bones, integrated with the surrounding area for kilometers, stable as a mountain.
The external illusionary camouflage overlays reality, a defense personally crafted by my teacher.
They won't find anything, they'll definitely leave.
They absolutely won't notice, they absolutely won't discover…
At that moment, the eyes of those two bastards on the ground locked directly onto the workshop, staring straight at it!!!
They saw it!!!
Du Deng swallowed dryly, instinctively trying to retreat, but instead of standing, he crawled, utterly panicked: Don't panic, Du Deng, don't panic!
No matter what, this is my workshop.
They definitely can't handle it.
As long as I don't make a mistake, stay put, and wait for rescue…
Then, he saw Lou Feng pulling out various specialized equipment designed to dismantle the workshop's outer defenses.
He couldn't hold back a scream!
Only colleagues wish each other dead.
The ones most eager to raid a craftsman's workshop are always other craftsmen!
Seeing Lou Feng so well-prepared, Du Deng was drenched in sweat, almost screaming.
Next, he saw a scar-faced pretty boy placing his hands directly on the workshop's outer entrance.
Immediately, the alarm for spiritual energy detection blared again!
Is he planning to go straight for it?!
As a fellow Ember faction member, he knew this routine all too well: first, spiritual energy sensing to analyze the workshop's structure, then find the weak points… Wait, this doesn't look like detection!
It looks more like… invasion?
After a moment of terror, Du Deng froze, then couldn't help but erupt in anger.
Who the hell do you think you are?!
Hierarchical suppression is common among Chosen Ones.
Within the same faction, stronger members often dominate, control, and suppress weaker ones.
This is especially true for the Celestial Origin faction—once there's a gap in rank, the suppression is absolute!
The Ember faction is no exception.
A piece of work painstakingly crafted by an apprentice can be easily reverse-engineered and analyzed by a craftsman in minutes, leaving no secrets.
In cases where the gap is more than one rank, the stronger party can even forcibly seize control of the weaker one's alchemical creations.
But who the hell are you?!
Du Deng tremblingly put on a pair of glasses, analyzing, observing, and thinking carefully.
But no matter how he looked at it, this was just a kid in the Awakening stage, not even close to being a craftsman.
Probably a wild one who hadn't even attended a few classes, and now he's here trying to flip the heavens?!
You?!
You think you're worthy?!
Du Deng's expression grew increasingly ferocious as he gripped the core floating in mid-air, maxing out the workshop's countermeasures against external spiritual energy interference.
He wanted to see how this little brat would scream and burn to ashes once the matrix and workshop established a spiritual energy connection!
*Snap!*
In the sudden silence, his expression froze.
As if petrified.
In that instant, the outermost layer of the workshop's spiritual energy structure, maintaining the camouflage, lost all response without warning.
The illusionary camouflage covering the workshop shattered!
As if it had never existed…
Then, he saw the scar-faced brat, with his lecherous gaze, sleazy smile, and infuriating movements, reach out toward the workshop's outer defense layer.
*Snap!*
The alarm blared again, and the repulsion field behind the camouflage circuit lost all response!
As if an invisible hand had peeled it away from the workshop's main body, disintegrating it in a single touch, vanishing into thin air as if it had never been there.
Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong… Something's seriously wrong!!!
Du Deng stood frozen, desperately suppressing the urge to scream, unable to tell whether his heavy, chaotic breathing or the phantom ringing in his ears was louder.
He swallowed hard, feeling as if he had fallen into an icy abyss.
Could today be the day…
---
"Ah, that felt good!"
Ji Jue whistled, listening to the sharp, overlapping sounds of countless spiritual energy circuits shattering beneath his hands.
The illusions and repulsion fields had completely dissipated.
A black door finally revealed itself amidst the ruins, stripped of all disguise, weak and helpless, awaiting its impending violation…
A large amount of high-quality spiritual essence flowed into his hands, seized by the Mechanical Deity and instantly refined!
The visible surge in progress almost made him moan in pleasure.
Now, he finally understood why so many of his peers feared his teacher!
No matter how tightly structured the workshop, no matter how complex and stable the circuit formations, they were utterly useless against the Disintegration Arts.
All those defenses were like layers of paper clothing—once grasped, they were torn apart for fun.
At first, when faced with the illusion that seemed impenetrable, he had been at a loss, needing Lou Feng's assistance and Tong Shan's psychic interference to find gaps and create opportunities.
The spiritual energy composition of that illusionary camouflage layer was a mystery.
It was both meticulously crafted and wildly chaotic, a perfect blend of contradictions seamlessly connected.
Just the outer layer alone had given him a significant boost in feedback and improvement.
In terms of quality, it was on par with Professor Ye's work!
But he never expected that the hardest part of the entire workshop would be that outer layer of camouflage?!
It was truly a case of "gold on the outside, rot on the inside."
The rest was just a bunch of by-the-book, uninspired constructions, barely passable.
Even when there were occasional surprises, they all had corresponding answers in the problem sets Professor Ye had given him for practice.
With a slight adjustment to the frequency and some fine-tuning of the details, they crumbled like paper tigers.
One touch, and they jumped.
One poke, and they screamed.
No challenge at all, utterly defenseless.
At least now he knew where those bizarre and tricky problem sets had come from…
"What are you standing around for?" Ji Jue suppressed the urge to laugh maniacally, glancing at Lou Feng.
"Hurry up, press your hand down!"
Seeing the workshop's outer defenses about to shift, Lou Feng snapped out of his daze.
At his feet, two metallic beasts resembling hounds opened their mouths, and countless spiritual energy circuits extended from within, connecting to the workshop's surroundings and the iron door.
Once connected, they began to read, sense, convert, and even interfere!
Unlike Ji Jue, a wild apprentice raised at home, Lou Feng had lived the life of a true heir in Master Kong's workshop.
He had everything he needed, and then some—things other kids didn't have, and things other kids wouldn't dare to have!
Even the tools he had used to dismantle other workshops back in the day had been handed to Lou Feng by Master Kong.
Even without Ji Jue, relying on the intelligence and tools within those two metallic hounds, he could slowly dismantle the workshop door from the outside in.
It would just take longer without Ji Jue's speed.
But even so, this was…
Way too fast!!!
Cold sweat silently dripped down Lou Feng's back.
The hounds' intrusion only interfered with the workshop's outer spiritual energy flow for a moment.
The moment a weakness was exposed, Ji Jue seized it, and with a touch of the Disintegration Arts, it vanished.
*Snap!*
The sound of shattering echoed again.
"Heh, heh heh, heh heh heh…"
Ji Jue chuckled eerily, facing the blockade and isolation, spiritual energy fragments flickering endlessly.
Resist all you want, the more you resist, the more excited I get!
Under Tong Shan's suppression, the workshop couldn't even organize an effective counterattack.
And with Lou Feng's intrusion, even a moment's delay in response would be crushed by the Disintegration Arts!
Faced with Professor Ye's Disintegration Arts and Master Kong's personally crafted intrusion tools, a merely passable workshop stood no chance.
With Tong Shan by their side, even the preset countermeasures and creations were rendered useless.
In less than two minutes, Ji Jue had completely stripped the workshop of all its defenses, from the outside in.
Finally, with a mournful wail from the core, even the [Earth Bone Sequence] maintaining the defenses was dismantled by the Disintegration Arts, leaving nothing secure.
"Brother Shan, see this spot here?"
Ji Jue waved, unceremoniously directing Tong Shan, pointing to a spot slightly to the left of the workshop door's center, drawing a circle.
"Here, give it a good hit."
*Boom!*
Before the words fully left his mouth, an invisible psychic blade tore through the steel, breaking into the darkness beyond the door, shredding all defenses to pieces.
"Then what?" Tong Shan asked.
"Then there's no 'then,'" Ji Jue moved aside, gesturing with his hand.
"After you, everyone. The attraction isn't big, just a few steps."
*Creak…*
With a nerve-wracking screech, the tightly shut door slowly swung open.
Tong Shan glanced back, exchanging silent looks with his teammates.
Then, identical smiles of satisfaction spread across their faces as they rubbed their hands together and marched in single file.
After waiting so long, they could finally vent some frustration…
*Crash!* *Boom!* *Bang!*
The sounds of collisions, explosions, gas leaks, screams, and bones breaking erupted almost instantly, filling the space beyond the door.
But less than half a minute later, everything fell silent again.
A translucent psychic finger extended, beckoning toward the door.
By the time Ji Jue and Lou Feng finished cleaning up and walked in, they saw a scene of utter chaos.
The hall was splattered with blood, and a bruised and battered craftsman knelt on the ground, stripped naked, his legs broken, and his right hand severed and lying on the floor.
When he saw Ji Jue striding in, he trembled uncontrollably, unable to hold back a scream.
He was even more terrified than when the Safety Bureau had stormed in and beaten him.
If Du Deng had thought Ji Jue was just a little brat before, now, in the heart of this corrupted craftsman, a verdict had been reached—eight thousand percent, this was definitely a top-tier demonic old ghost!
He had never seen such bizarre and terrifying skills.
The workshop he had poured his heart and soul into maintaining was torn apart like a cardboard box in mere moments.
Believing this was a twenty-something-year-old craftsman apprentice was as likely as him scooping out his own brain, turning it into mush, and swallowing it!
This guy, a mere Awakener?
Might as well call me an Awakener!
Thinking about how sinister and brutal the ancient alchemical craftsmen who possessed bodies were said to be, he couldn't help but shiver.
Even if he didn't know how ancient craftsmen dealt with their victims, he knew exactly how his teacher treated his materials!
If he got targeted, there would be no way to survive, no way to die…
As he trembled, drenched in sweat, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor came from in front of him.
Without ceremony, Ji Jue pulled up a chair and sat down.
He leaned forward, examining the twitching, contorted face before him.
Suddenly, he smiled.
"Name?"
(End of Chapter)