After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

"Mr. Herman, you don't need to waste your energy."

Chen Ya's voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear and powerful.

"Qinghui Medical Trust has joined forces with the Xia Kingdom investigation team and collaborated with financial regulatory agencies in seventeen overseas countries to initiate an emergency bankruptcy trusteeship application for Baita Island."

She pushed a newly generated electronic file onto the big screen.

"In accordance with the trusteeship regulations, all assets of White Tower Island, including this black tower, underground experimental equipment, and all offshore funds under your names, will now enter bankruptcy liquidation proceedings."

"The primary principle is to ensure the survival of all life on the island."

"Secondly, all research data should be sealed up."

"Your personal accounts have been frozen, and you are not authorized to dispose of any items here at this time."

The general counsel's face twitched upon hearing this, and he forced an awkward smile, saying, "Ms. Chen Ya, have you forgotten that this is international waters? It's not governed by the laws of any country. Your bankruptcy trusteeship documents are nothing but a piece of waste paper here."

"If we just press the self-destruct button, everything here will sink to the bottom of the sea, and you will get nothing."

Hermann's gaze was sinister, and his hand had already quietly moved to the red spare button under the table.

Zhou Ran stepped forward, slamming the Taihuang Black Blade, still in its sheath, onto the alloy table with a resounding thud.

The water glass on the table kept bobbing.

Then, he took out the fragment of the Grand Commander's Seal and the Underworld Retribution Order that emitted a ghostly green light from his bosom, and laid them out side by side.

"The laws of the mortal world don't apply here, but the rules of the underworld do."

Zhou Ran looked at Hermann with a calm and unwavering gaze.

"If the rules of the underworld can't govern this, then the knife in my hand can."

"You can try and see if your fingers can press faster, or if my knife can."

As Zhou Ran unleashed his aura of perfected Nascent Soul, Herman felt his breath catch in his throat, and his cultivation, built upon the foundation of the Emperor Bone Factor, crumbled like a sandcastle.

His gaze swept over Zhou Ran's back. The man named Qin San kept his hand on the hilt of his knife, like a cheetah poised to pounce. And the two men in suits, just standing there quietly, seemed to distort the surrounding light.

Beads of sweat slid down Hermann's forehead.

To fight head-on is suicidal.

"Walk!"

His eyes hardened, and he decisively slammed his hand on the button under the table!

The floor cracked open with a dark gap, and the three of them fell straight down.

"Trying to run away?"

Qin San's figure flickered, disappearing into the shadows as he continued his pursuit.

The alarm in the lobby suddenly blared, sharp enough to pierce eardrums: "Self-destruct program activated, three minutes countdown."

Zhou Ran did not pursue them, knowing that Qin San and the Demon Clan Grand Duke were enough to handle the situation.

"Xiao Rou, go to the fourth floor and protect those experimental subjects," he ordered.

"Okay." Xiao Rou replied, turning into a wisp of green smoke and rapidly sliding down the ventilation duct.

"Xu Youwei, find their escape route and cooperate with Qin San."

Xu Youwei nodded and pressed the broken hairpin in her palm down a little further.

A sharp pain shot through her, and the silver eye in her palm snapped open. The walls of the entire island appeared as translucent lines in her vision.

She saw Herman and his two companions escaping down a secret elevator to the submarine hangar at the bottom of the island.

"Eighth underground level, submarine passage, prepare to board." Xu Youwei immediately reported the coordinates.

"Bone Separation, Mysterious Shadow, seal off the underwater passage." Zhou Ran looked at the two demon dukes.

The two bowed slightly, one transforming into a black shadow, the other tearing through space and disappearing into thin air.

At this moment, Chen Ya was in front of the control panel, her fingers tapping so fast they were almost invisible, and the data stream on the screen was scrolling wildly.

"The physical circuit breaker for the self-destruct mechanism is on the third basement level. The system is locked down. I need time."

"I'll do it."

Zhou Ran walked to the control panel, raised his right hand, and the phantom of the bone pen took shape at his fingertips.

He wrote six words on the light screen:

This place must not be destroyed.

The brushstroke left a black and gold mark.

The red alarm lights in the lobby flickered rapidly several times before suddenly going out. On the light screen, the countdown to self-destruction froze at '01:24', and remained unchanged.

Chen Ya exhaled a breath of stale air, her fingertips tapping incessantly, forcibly connecting the underlying database of White Pagoda Island to the Qinghui Trust's server.

"Global live stream is now live."

Chen Ya switched the main control screen to the external network.

In an instant, the scene of the White Tower Island lobby appeared simultaneously on the screens of hundreds of mainstream media outlets and financial institutions around the world, along with the evidence of human experimentation on White Tower Island that Chen Ya had just compiled.

The lists of children who were bought and sold, and the patient data of those with implanted chips, were presented to the world in a waterfall-like format.

Overseas, the financial giants who were still operating for the White Tower Council cut off all financial transactions as soon as they saw the irrefutable evidence.

Oran Capital's stock triggered a circuit breaker in pre-market trading, and the websites of several multinational pharmaceutical groups were flooded with angry messages from the public.

The overseas capital chain of Baita Island has completely collapsed.

Meanwhile, on the eighth underground level, there is a submarine hangar.

Just as Hermann and his two companions rushed into the submarine, before they could even close the hatch, a dark blade of light descended from the sky.

Qin San stood atop the submarine, holding a long sword.

That single cut severed the submarine's propulsion system and control compartment, leaving a smooth, mirror-like cut.

Herman crawled out of the ruins, his face covered in insulating oil and blood. He looked at Qin San in front of him, as well as the two demon dukes blocking the exit of the passage. The last glimmer of light in his eyes went out.

"Where is Xu Xuance?"

Xu Youwei's voice came from above the corridor. She walked down the stairs, her silver eyes fixed on Herman.

Herman gritted his teeth and remained silent.

Xu Youwei snorted coldly, and the silver eye in her palm lit up.

In the distance, in an isolation room marked "Critically Ill Patients," several people in hospital gowns were trembling violently.

"No need to pretend anymore."

Xu Youwei walked over and kicked open the isolation door.

The people inside were not patients at all, but Herman's family members, along with several council members disguised as experimental subjects.

One of the old men was Xu Xuance, an elder of the Penglai Discipline Hall.

Xu Xuance looked at Xu Youwei, forcing a complex expression: "Youwei, I am your grandfather's junior brother, you can't..."

"We had no relationship when you offered me as a sacrifice to the Moon Emperor."

Xu Youwei was too lazy to listen anymore. She shot out a beam of light from her silver eye in her palm, piercing through Xu Xuance's dantian and sealing off all his spiritual power.

In the hall, Zhou Ran looked at Herman and the others who were being escorted up by Qin San.

Hermann's body was restrained, but as he looked at Sample Number One in the center of the hall, he suddenly burst into laughter:

"Zhou Ran, do you think you've won?"

Sample number one has been awakened. Its cleansing process was forcibly suppressed by you using rules, but the imperial bones inside its body are alive.

As long as it's there, the cleaning will continue. You have no control over it!

Sample 1 had now reached the edge of the freezing zone. The black and gold patterns emanating from it were spreading outwards along the ground, causing the alloy floor to crack wherever it passed.

Zhou Ran looked at Sample Number One and pondered in his mind.

This sample is the carrier of the rules. If it is destroyed by force, it will inevitably trigger the higher-level self-defense rules left by the Emperor's son, causing the entire island and even Jiangcheng to be judged as completely polluted.

However, if it is not stopped, its instinct will continue to release cleansing waves.

Zhou Ran gripped the Taihuang Black Blade tightly, and with a swift movement, appeared in front of Sample Number One.

Instead of swinging his sword to slash at Sample One's body, he pointed the tip of his black sword downwards and plunged it heavily into the alloy ground beneath Sample One's feet.

The black and gold threads of the Demon Emperor's authority flowed down the blade into the ground, transforming into a massive black magic array that suppressed the entire frozen zone.

"I don't need to control it."

Zhou Ran looked at Herman and spoke.

"All I need to do is cut off your connection with it."

Zhou Ran raised his left hand, and the bone pen wrote in the air: [This item has no connection to the White Tower Council.]

As these words fell, the remaining gray-black patterns on Herman's body suddenly began to peel away, turning into ashes and dissipating.

Herman's body aged at a visible rate; his hair turned white, his skin sagged, and he collapsed to the ground.