Where

"Alright, you can play now."

As soon as the words fell, Lan Xiaoke, whose face had just been completely numb, instantly perked up.

"Wooo!!!!" Lan Xiaoke felt like she was back in action.

They were merely Nascent Soul stage monsters. Easy pickings!

With Ye Chuan's Human Emperor Flag suppressing the monsters' cultivation bases and her buffs maxed out, she didn't have a shred of fear left. Clutching her pink rabbit gloves, she charged out, the force of her punches showing absolutely no hesitation.

A sand worm lunged at her head-on with its bloody maw wide open. Lan Xiaoke didn't dodge or evade; she leaped into the air and viciously smashed a punch right into the sand worm's forehead.

With a crisp crack, the sand worm's hard carapace was smashed to pieces. Its massive body crashed heavily back into the quicksand, the tremendous impact kicking up a huge wave of sand. The monster twitched twice and then stopped moving.

"Hah! Is that all?!" Lan Xiaoke shouted triumphantly. She turned and pounced on the other monsters nearby. Her legs moved in a blur, and every punch landed with a meaty thud, beating the once-ferocious monsters until they howled in pain. Yellow sand splattered all over her, but she didn't care in the slightest.

Lan Xiaoke was having the time of her life now.

On the other side, Luo Xi held her spirit sword, her ice-attribute cultivation method running at full capacity.

"Swords, rise." With a light lift of her hand, a sky full of ice swords instantly took shape, shooting toward the swarming sand scorpions like a rain of arrows.

Those sand scorpions, their cultivation suppressed by the Human Emperor Flag, couldn't dodge at all. They were instantly frozen into ice sculptures. With another casual wave of Luo Xi's hand, the ice sculptures and the scorpions inside shattered into icy slag, scattering onto the boiling yellow sand and instantly vaporizing into steam.

Although Luo Xi's cultivation wasn't considered high, for some reason, her combat prowess had skyrocketed recently. She was especially adept at using her own cultivation techniques.

"I'll help."

Tian Xiaotian also summoned her spirit sword. The Azure Cloud Sword Art unfolded in her hands, its clear and cold sword ki carving silver-white arcs through the sky full of yellow sand.

The combat instincts honed in endless eerie dungeons were carved into her very bones.

Her sword moves lacked any superfluous flashiness; every strike accurately cleaved into the monsters' cores!

Clean and efficient.

Tian Xiaotian's figure twisted and leaped amidst the siege of sand worms, as light as a swift. Yet wherever her blade passed, the sand monsters fell one after another, even their souls shredded by her sword ki.

A sand scorpion secretly circled behind her, its highly toxic tail stinger thrusting toward her!

Tian Xiaotian didn't even turn her head. With a backhand slice, she cut off the stinger along with the scorpion's head. Her movements were crisp and decisive; she was no longer the little coward who used to tremble in fear when seeing Ye Chuan summon werewolves in the dungeon.

"What about you?"

Ye Chuan watched this scene silently, only to find that Ye Yue was still clinging to his arm, a cat-like expression on her face.

She clearly had no intention of making a move.

"Brother, my strength isn't good enough. I'll just stay right here," Ye Yue said, hugging Ye Chuan's arm tighter and acting coquettishly.

"Uh..." Although they weren't exactly short on manpower with Ye Chuan holding down the fort, Ye Yue was completely slacking off.

"Why don't you practice a bit?"

"Brother, I'm scared."

However, a few sand monsters decided she looked like the easiest target and stealthily burrowed out of the quicksand.

We could tell at a glance that you were the weakest!

After all, they saw that Ye Yue and Ye Chuan hadn't made a move and were just standing there.

But the moment they got within three meters of Ye Yue, the monsters' bodies suddenly emitted a sizzling sound. It was as if they had been splashed with strong acid; their hard shells melted rapidly, turning into puddles of writhing sludge.

The densely packed eyes on Ye Yue's calf slightly opened, then silently closed again.

Ye Yue acted as if she were startled.

"Brother, why did they melt on their own? So gross."

Ye Chuan: "..."

Right, why did they melt?

It must be because the weather is too hot.

As for Wang Yanran, she knew very well that her ghost-taming skills weren't high enough. Even with the monsters' cultivation suppressed, fighting them head-on would still be strenuous.

Without any hesitation, she immediately pulled out the transformation device Ye Chuan had custom-made for her. The moment her fingertip pressed the button, a dazzling white light instantly enveloped her.

"Armor, assemble."

As the white light faded, Wang Yanran was clad in a suit of armor, her aura instantly surging up several levels.

Gripping an alloy lightsaber, Wang Yanran charged out as well. The armor's strength was quite high, and in just a few strokes, she chopped those monsters into mincemeat.

In just over ten minutes, hundreds of monsters were wiped clean, leaving not a single trace behind.

The moment the battle ended, everyone instantly lost their steam.

Lan Xiaoke collapsed straight onto the sand, tossing her pink gloves to the side. Sweating profusely and panting, her little face flushed red, she cried out weakly:

"I'm dying of heat... I'm roasting to death... Why is this stupid place so sunny..."

It wasn't that Lan Xiaoke was being dramatic; even Luo Xi and the others had flushed faces and were already sweating.

The temperature in this desert floor's setting was simply too high.

Coupled with the fact that those monsters weren't weak, it was a wonder how ordinary super martial artists could ever clear this stage.

Seeing everyone looking wilted from the heat, Ye Chuan pondered for a moment, then snapped his fingers, mobilizing the Source Magic within his body.

With a thought, his words became law.

"Dark clouds obscure the sun."

The instant his words fell, the originally cloudless sky with its blazing sun suddenly churned with thick, dark clouds. In the blink of an eye, the harsh sun was completely covered!

The scorching air gradually cooled down. A cool breeze swept across the desert, brushing past everyone's cheeks. Even the boiling sand beneath their feet dropped in temperature at a visible rate, becoming pleasantly cool.

"Wow! That feels so much better." Lan Xiaoke instantly stood up from the sand.

"You can even do that!"

"Ye Chuan, conjure up some ice cream while you're at it."

Ye Chuan: "..."

Why don't you just ask for the moon?

Luo Xi also let out a breath.

"Chuan Chuan, you should have used that earlier. Look at how we've been sweltering for so long."

"Well, I saw you were all having such a good time fighting, I didn't want to interrupt," Ye Chuan said. He then released his divine sense to search for the whereabouts of the floor boss.

Ye Chuan's goal was to figure out exactly how many floors this tower had, so he didn't plan on staying in this desert map for long.

Letting Luo Xi and the others have some fun was just a matter of spending a little extra time.

"Huh?" After releasing his divine sense, besides finding some monsters with ordinary auras, Ye Chuan didn't detect a single strong individual.

"That's strange."

"What's wrong?"

"I can't find the location of the entrance to the next floor, nor can I find the aura of the guardian monster," Ye Chuan said.

"Could this be the end of it?" Lan Xiaoke asked.

"Judging from the outside, this tower has more than just a few floors, right?" A tower that stretched into the sky shouldn't just have a mere four floors.

Unless—

Ye Chuan's gaze fell on the hot sand beneath his feet.

Could it be inside?