How confident are you" "To die with some dignity.

Fortunately, Su Muxue was fully focused on confronting the skeletal hand and didn’t hear the whispered remarks.

Otherwise, she would’ve been furious.

Spoilers?

Who knew when the second bell would toll?

She had to achieve her goal with maximum efficiency…

Who knew if a single delay might cost her her life, leaving her trapped here forever?

Did they expect her to piece together clues while explaining her reasoning and analytical logic?

Did they think this was some escape room game?

Su Muxue had already reached the dried-up fish pond.

The middle-aged man followed closely behind, his expression tense as he scanned their surroundings, ready to react to any sudden threat.

The spot where the eerie skeletal arm had vanished was hastily covered with dirt, showing no visible traces of disturbance.

Yet the unsettling feeling lingered.

She had seen something beneath that thin layer of soil—something stirring restlessly.

Kneeling, Su Muxue prepared to inspect the black tendrils and grotesque bone fragments at the bottom of the pond.

The courtyard was unnervingly silent.

Apart from their breathing, only a heavy, deathly stillness remained.

And outside the door…

Playful bickering?

"Brother, look—she’s not sharing her findings with us. She just ran off to search for clues on her own."

"This is supposed to be a team game. The warning at the entrance said it required 5-8 players, so there must be parts where we need to cooperate…"

Liu Yuan tugged at Su Qi’s sleeve. "It’s no fun, brother."

Su Qi felt her warm breath against his ear, along with the faint scrape of her little fangs.

He tilted his head slightly, taking in Liu Yuan’s pouting face, clearly broadcasting her displeasure and desire to leave.

Gently, he patted her head in reassurance.

Meanwhile, inside the other room—

Just then—

Thud!

A dull impact.

Not loud, but in the suffocating silence, it was jarringly distinct.

Like something heavy colliding with force.

Su Muxue froze mid-motion.

Slowly, she straightened, her icy gaze shifting toward the wooden door they’d come through.

It was now shut, even veiled by a thin mist that severed the connection between inside and out.

The middle-aged man tensed instinctively, inching closer to Su Muxue.

He could sense it—the "things" in the courtyard had been disturbed.

Boom!

Another sound.

Louder this time.

The ground itself seemed to tremble faintly.

Beads of sweat formed on the man’s forehead, his breathing ragged.

Su Muxue noticed something else—the dirt where the skeletal arm had shattered earlier… seemed looser now.

A few inky threads, hair-thin, slithered up from the cracks in the soil, writhing with unnatural life.

Their target appeared to be… Su Muxue?

No, not quite.

The black filaments were more interested in the fish-scale-covered finger bones scattered near her feet—the ones coated in dark sludge at the pond’s edge.

As if drawn to their kin, or perhaps… awakening them.

The threads spread like tidewater, swiftly coiling around the pond.

The moment they touched the grotesque finger bones, the fragments twitched faintly, their fish-scale surfaces emitting an eerie glow.

Screech—

A grating, bone-chilling scrape echoed.

The finger bones were moving on their own.

Puppeted by the black threads, they jerked stiffly, struggling to claw their way out of the muck.

"Creak—creak—"

The unsettling sound of grinding bones grew increasingly dense.

Those pale finger bones scattered across the dried-up fish pond floor, pulled by thin black threads, broke free from the mud's grasp.

Trembling, joint by joint, they pieced themselves together.

In the blink of an eye, several segments of finger bones had twisted into an incomplete skeletal hand!

The black threads slithered like veins through the gaps between bones, pulsing with an ominous aura.

The assembled skeletal hand suddenly jerked upward, its five uneven, razor-sharp fingers clawing viciously toward Su Muxue!

A gust of icy wind rushed at her.

Su Muxue reacted swiftly, leaping backward just in time to evade the strike.

The moment she dodged, the spot where she had stood was torn apart by the skeletal hand, leaving behind unstable spatial fissures.

The middle-aged man’s face turned ashen. "Tenth-rank peak?!"

His voice trembled, barely coherent.

This skeletal hand was bizarre—its power didn’t belong to any known force, making its rank impossible to assess.

But in Great Xia, tearing space, even briefly, required at least tenth-rank peak strength.

Of course, he had forgotten one crucial detail.

This wasn’t Great Xia.

The stability of space here far surpassed that of Great Xia.

Su Muxue ignored her uncle.

Her focus remained entirely on the reanimated skeletal hand.

Having missed its first strike, the skeletal hand didn’t pause.

It braced against the ground as more scattered finger bones were swiftly ensnared by the black threads, absorbed and fused into its structure.

The skeletal hand grew in size, its form becoming more complete, even beginning to extend upward as if reassembling into an arm.

The black threads writhed, bones clattering.

"Creak!"

The skeletal hand moved again—this time, its target wasn’t Su Muxue, but the middle-aged man behind her!

Its speed was even faster than before!

The man had no time to dodge, watching helplessly as the ghastly, twisted claw lunged for his face.

He could only hurl his briefcase forward.

"Purge!"

The man roared, and the briefcase exploded, dozens of yellow talismans scattering like startled birds.

He bit his fingertip and drew a bloody sigil in the air—the blood coagulated into a crimson seal hovering midair.

The flying talismans seemed drawn to it, instantly arranging themselves into an Eight Trigrams formation.

"Heaven and Earth decreed—"

"Evil be cleansed—"

Before he could finish the incantation—

"Crack—"

The entire Eight Trigrams formation shattered like a brittle potato chip.

The talismans’ cinnabar inscriptions burned away in midair. The man coughed up blood, staggering back several steps.

Utter devastation.

His proudest defensive technique hadn’t even lasted a second before being crushed like a toy.

Was this the power of tenth-rank peak?

Even if the undefeated Jiangxia Guardian were here…

There was no time to consider whether the Jiangxia Guardian could win.

The man’s expression twisted as he swiftly formed another hand seal. "Burn the wicked!"

The scattered talismans ignited simultaneously, azure flames surging back along the black threads.

But the threads coiled around the skeletal hand writhed, absorbing the "Purging Flames" like a sponge soaking up water.

At the critical moment—

Su Muxue spun around and shoved the middle-aged man aside.

The skeletal claw barely grazed her arm as it slashed past.

The sleeve was torn, revealing a shallow red mark that burned with a stinging pain.

The middle-aged man lay sprawled on the ground, staring in shock at his chest.

With a sharp crack—

The surface of the heart-protecting mirror split into a spiderweb of fractures.

A spiritual treasure capable of withstanding a direct strike from a tenth-tier expert had nearly been destroyed just by grazing a mere finger’s force?

Yet Su Muxue showed no reaction, her cold face devoid of any excess emotion. "Uncle, I’m going to use that move."

The middle-aged man’s expression turned grave.

Su Muxue was different from him.

Her rapid rise to the ninth tier at such a young age was due to her "inheritance"—something vaguely similar to a Cardholder’s "unique talent," yet fundamentally distinct.

"What are the odds?"

"Enough to die with some dignity."

Gritting his teeth, the man struggled to his feet, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth as he looked at Su Muxue with a complicated gaze.

His voice was hoarse. "Fine…"

Su Muxue didn’t turn back, the sharp lines of her profile tense.

She raised her right hand, her pale fingertips tracing an arcane pattern in the air.

Something seemed to stir in the atmosphere—

No, not just something.

A presence.

An invisible ripple expanded outward from her.

Her aura surged violently.

By burning a portion of her own life essence, she forcibly activated her inheritance, drawing power far beyond her current tier!

This was a true last resort.

At best, her cultivation would regress. At worst… she would perish, body and soul extinguished.

In the ancient era of immortal cultivation, such desperate techniques had been relatively common. But in this age, they were nearly extinct…

"Slash!"

A crystalline, translucent sword materialized with her clear shout.

As the blade descended, each tremor sent fine cracks spiderwebbing through space.

It carved a flawless arc of light—

"Clang!"

The metallic clash sent a ring of black ripples exploding from where the sword met the bone spike.

The crystalline blade shattered instantly.

And the skeletal hand…?

The tip of its longest fingernail was cleanly severed, spinning through the air.

Skeletal Hand: ???

Su Muxue: …

Middle-aged Man: …?