193: Chapter 193 The Reviving Statue

After knocking the civilians unconscious, Nie Ning didn't linger and prepared to check other places first.

With his current speed, he should be able to arrive before those people ran into trouble.

But Nie Ning had only flown about a hundred meters when he felt a strange sense of malice.

At that moment, Sensen tugged at Nie Ning's clothes and pointed back toward the Mermaid Square.

Sensing that something was wrong, Nie Ning immediately turned around and returned to the square.

What met his eyes was that perfectly intact Mermaid Statue.

Nie Ning frowned slightly at the sight.

He had clearly felt the strange mental fluctuations on the statue disappear just moments ago.

Yet in the blink of an eye, not only had the statue been restored, but that strange mental fluctuation had reappeared as well.

And...

Nie Ning looked in front of the statue; the man he had knocked unconscious was still standing there, and the crowd in the small forest was likewise walking toward the square.

"A mental illusion?"

After realizing this, Nie Ning's Spiritual Power radiated outward, quickly scanning the surroundings to find any discrepancies.

However, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

It appeared he had likely entered this mental illusion barrier a long time ago.

Furthermore, because it was a mental-type ability, even his Malice Perception was being interfered with, making it impossible to accurately locate the Corruptor.

After a brief thought, Nie Ning's powerful Spiritual Power surged out, sweeping across the surroundings like a tidal wave.

The Corruptor's strength was clearly inferior to Nie Ning's.

The surrounding scenery began to change as the originally beautiful small square was submerged in a decaying aura.

The entire square became as if mixed into a quagmire; the filthy environment was a world apart from before.

Nie Ning looked at the center of the square again, where the original Mermaid Statue had been replaced by a three-meter-tall statue with a pig's head and a human body.

The Pig-headed Statue had a bloated figure, held a wooden black rake, and wore tattered light blue cloth clothes; it was covered in crawling maggots and looked extremely disgusting.

The people in the square had also taken on a different appearance.

Their bodies were twisted and their faces bizarrely shaped, looking as ugly as randomly kneaded playdough.

"It seems they're beyond saving."

Nie Ning sighed softly.

At that moment, the Pig-headed Statue looked up at Nie Ning, and the rake in its hand instantly elongated by dozens of meters, swatting toward Nie Ning in the air.

Nie Ning lightly raised his arm, and a large number of Ice Chains struck from all directions, firmly binding the Pig-headed Statue.

The rake swatting at Nie Ning also stopped half a meter in front of him.

Without any overly flashy maneuvers, Nie Ning waved his hand, sending dozens of Wind-Thunder Blades toward the Pig-headed Statue.

This was the benefit of being strong; most of the time, one didn't need to worry about whether magic power was sufficient, and powerful mental control allowed for the manipulation of even more spells.

Boom, boom, boom...

A series of explosions rang out, and in the blink of an eye, dozens of wounds appeared on the Pig-headed Statue.

Now wounded, the Pig-headed Statue began to shake its body, and a large number of maggots burst open and transformed into flies, swarming toward Nie Ning in the sky.

Nie Ning's expression remained indifferent as he raised his right hand above his head.

Terrifying fire elements began to gather, and in a few moments, a massive fireball two meters in diameter coalesced.

Just the scorching heat radiating from the fireball was enough to burn all the incoming flies into ashes.

The Pig-headed Statue opened its large mouth, which was dripping with black saliva, and spat out a swarm of black flies toward Nie Ning.

Seeing this, Nie Ning decisively threw the fireball in his hand and quickly approached the Pig-headed Statue, pushing through the incoming black flies.

The Pig-headed Statue pulled hard on the rake bound by the Ice Chains, but after a few attempts, it found that it couldn't move the rake at all.

Seeing the fireball approach, the Pig-headed Statue actually reached out its fat, massive hand in an attempt to block the Explosive Fireball.

Nie Ning snapped his fingers, and the massive fireball exploded violently.

BOOM!

The scorching airwave instantly engulfed the square and all those mutated people.

Once the explosion subsided, only a huge crater remained on the ground, and the Pig-headed Statue, along with the corrupted ones, had completely vanished.

Nie Ning clapped his hands in satisfaction.

One could only say that being strong felt great!

If it were his previous strength level, even just the mental illusion wouldn't have been so easy to solve.

But after reaching the Third Rank, facing these recently born Corruptors felt like the satisfaction of bullying children.

At that moment, a vine stretched out from his backpack and tugged at Nie Ning's head.

Nie Ning looked down to see Sensen looking at him with an expression as if she were looking at an idiot.

"What are you so happy about? Did you actually finish off the Corruptor?"

Sensen's voice was soft and sweet, but her tone was laced with a hint of disdain.

Hearing this, Nie Ning looked at the crater and realized that he might not have destroyed the Pig-headed Statue's true body.

Just then, a firework flared up over the city, and Nie Ning sensed the Spiritual Power fluctuations it carried.

Clearly, the apprentices in the city had all encountered Corruptors.

Nie Ning didn't delay; his Ice Wings flapped gently, and he launched himself like a cannonball toward the nearest signal source.

...

A few breaths later, Nie Ning arrived at a street and saw a Clown Statue about two meters tall.

The clown's entire body was rotten, and it was hopping and skipping through the street while laughing hysterically.

Not far away, several people lay in pools of blood, including a Wizard Apprentice.

This was the price of facing a Corruptor.

A Witch Apprentice's survival rate against a Corruptor was less than thirty percent.

This was because Corruptors were not weak even when they were first born.

Back then, Nie Ning had been purely lucky to encounter a Human-Faced Balloon that had just been born and hadn't had time to cause trouble yet.

If that Human-Faced Balloon had killed a few more people, he might not be standing here so safely now.

That was why Nie Ning had been so furious when Lida couldn't exchange for potions; he felt those bastards at The Federation headquarters weren't human, giving others no way to survive at all!

They were simply using apprentices as disposable consumables!

Nie Ning looked at the hopping clown, severed its five limbs with several Wind-Thunder Blades in a wave of his hand, and then completely incinerated it with an Explosive Fireball.

Without staying long, Nie Ning immediately rushed to another battlefield.

Even though Nie Ning acted quickly, he only managed to save two of the six apprentices; the items provided by The Federation simply couldn't withstand Corruptors of this level.

By the time Nie Ning reached Elvis's vicinity, Elvis was fighting a massive humanoid statue.

The humanoid statue was about ten meters tall and was the statue of the founder of the city of Radiac.

It was made entirely of brass, but it had been stained a dark gold by the Power of Corruption, and its durability was much higher than those statues made of stone.

Nie Ning opened with several Explosive Fireballs to force the Brass Statue back.

Seeing Nie Ning's arrival, a look of surprise and joy appeared on Elvis's face.

Although his strength was greater than the Brass Statue's, using powerful witchcraft in the city would accidentally injure nearby residents.

Since the City Lord's Mansion was busy evacuating the residents, he could only focus on stalling the Brass Statue.

Now that Nie Ning was here, his pressure was instantly reduced by quite a bit.

...