"Eh? Are we missing someone?"
Inside the grand tomb, within a pitch-black side chamber—though calling it a side chamber hardly did it justice—lay a hidden world of its own. Water from some unseen underground river flowed silently, while rows of withered willow trees stood motionless atop floating bridges.
Tan Zhuyin glanced back, a vague sense of unease creeping over him.
Luo Yexian turned around, his cross-eyed gaze serious as he counted loudly and announced, "Holy Son, sixty-four people!"
"Sixty-four my foot! We only came down with forty!"
Luo Yexian flinched, then received a smack to the back of his head. "It was thirty-two," another voice corrected.
"Eight missing? Since when?"
Tan Zhuyin’s expression darkened. He hadn’t noticed a thing.
This meant even the two Dharma Kings accompanying him had failed to detect anything amiss.
"Could the tomb’s master be the Cloud Dream Ancestral God? Can we communicate through the Ancestral God’s idol?" Luo Yexian suggested.
Tan Zhuyin considered the idea and, after a moment’s thought, retrieved the Ancestral God statue from his robes.
After a brief attempt, he muttered grimly, "Useless."
Luo Yexian and the other members of the Demon Summoning Sect tried as well, shaking their heads in frustration.
This meant one of two things: either the tomb was warded by some formation that nullified divine summoning, or the Dream God had fallen back into slumber.
The latter seemed more likely.
If it were the former, they wouldn’t have received any response earlier at all.
"Forget those missing for now. Let’s find an exit first."
Tan Zhuyin’s voice sounded oddly muffled, as if trapped, yet it carried far across the desolate lake.
The demonic cultivators pressed forward along the floating bridges.
But the bridges stretched endlessly, and though they quickened their pace, the scenery remained unchanging.
Tan Zhuyin’s patience began to wear thin.
Just as he turned to order the two Dharma Kings to intervene, Luo Yexian suddenly pointed ahead.
"What... what is that?"
The group looked—and their faces paled.
Strewn haphazardly before them were corpses. Eight of them, each bearing ghastly expressions, their eyes wide and lifeless.
"Shi Yong! How did he die here?"
"How did they die without a sound?"
"Something sinister is nearby..."
These demonic cultivators were no strangers to brutality, yet even they couldn’t help but shudder at the sight.
Worse, it meant they hadn’t made any progress at all—they’d been walking in circles.
Gurgle—
Then, without warning, the lake water churned violently. Countless shadowy figures emerged from the depths—hundreds, thousands of nightmare fiends. Yet instead of attacking, they simply stared coldly at the Demon Summoning Sect members.
Huh?
The demonic cultivators bristled with fear, but confusion soon followed.
Two figures—one stout, one lean—appeared beside Tan Zhuyin. The two Dharma Kings who had accompanied him.
"Only a higher existence could suppress the nightmare fiends’ hunger for living flesh."
......
"So this is the layout of the underground palace?"
Li Mo studied the sketched diagram of the tomb’s structure on the ground.
Tian Miao had deduced it moments earlier, and Li Mo had transcribed her calculations onto paper.
Tian Miao nodded weakly, her face pale, a trickle of blood trailing from her lips. She managed a faint smile.
"Impressive, right?"
"......"
Li Mo hadn’t expected Tian Miao to ask such a question at this moment, so he could only give her a thumbs-up, silently acknowledging her boldness.
He then handed her some rare treasures to replenish her blood—after all, they didn’t know what they might encounter in the tomb, and every bit of strength counted.
“This seems familiar…”
Ying Bing murmured thoughtfully, her delicate hand gripping the sheathed Frostblade as she traced lines on the map.
After a moment, she turned back with a serious expression.
“I know how to proceed now.”
Little Li leaned back slightly. “Ice Block, are you sure? This isn’t the Li Mo Tomb…”
“?”
Ying Bing’s grip on the sword hilt tightened imperceptibly as she recalled that map filled entirely with Li Mo’s name…
But as everyone knew, the Ice Block was a master at feigning indifference, her face a mask of cool detachment, as if she had no idea what he was talking about.
“What I mean is, the layout of this underground palace resembles a chessboard.”
“One you’ve played before.”
“Huh?”
Li Mo narrowed his eyes, studying the map, but even if this chessboard recognized him, he probably wouldn’t recognize it.
Back then, he’d been too busy showing off.
Seeing the confusion in Little Li’s eyes, Ying Bing spoke softly.
“The shifts within this underground palace follow the moves of that game.”
“The moment we stepped inside, we entered the match. On the board, some positions are lethal. If you wander in blindly, the situation grows increasingly perilous until it becomes a dead end.”
“A chess match?”
Tian Miao leaned in for a look, but her face quickly paled, and she averted her gaze.
Her expression turned vacant.
“This kind of game… someone actually solved it? How…?”
“If the match hadn’t been solved, the entrance wouldn’t have appeared,” Li Mo reminded her.
“True. I wonder who possessed such skill…”
Tian Miao mused, then shot Ying Bing an admiring glance.
“As expected of you, to recognize this as a chess match.”
“Because she was the one who solved it.”
“…”
After searching the underground palace further, the trio finally found its gate, flanked by two bronze beasts. Their pedestals were inscribed with numbers ranging from ‘one’ to ‘nineteen.’
What was the first move again?
Click—
Ying Bing twisted the left beast to ‘nine’ and the right to ‘thirteen.’
Rumble—
The earth shook violently, as if the entire underground palace were trembling—like a colossal cube being twisted by some immense force.
Then, the correct chamber shifted toward them.
Li Mo pondered.
So, this labyrinthine structure was an additional safeguard.
Ensuring only the one who solved the chess match could reach the main tomb?
“A burial site with craftsmanship so divine…”
“Just how powerful was the Summoning Demons Sect in its prime…?”
Tian Miao murmured, “Back then, they were probably still called the Summoning Gods Sect.”
She couldn’t help but wonder—what kind of existence was the tomb’s owner?
Because when she tried to deduce it earlier, all she saw was haze and emptiness.
With a deafening crash, the gate swung open.
Li Mo, gripping the Star Piercer, led the way.
…
After walking for an unknowable length of time, they arrived at a place resembling an alchemy chamber—though it dwarfed Qingyuan Sect’s Dan Ding Peak by many times.
Here, too, were nightmare guardians, but these were clearly different from the ones they’d encountered before.
Their auras were deeper, clad in long robes, their hair even streaked with white, their skin textured and gleaming.
From a distance, it looked almost indistinguishable from a living person.
Its speech was as formal as a steward's:
"One person may receive one vial of elixir per month."
Having said that, it lowered its head again, offering no explanation about the elixirs.
It seemed visitors were left to choose for themselves.
Judging by this, those who came here could leave unharmed—or even benefit—so long as they weren’t overly greedy.
However, given the passage of time, many elixirs had long since lost their potency.
"Triple Convergence Divine Pill—this has been extinct for ages. To find it here, and with its spiritual essence so well-preserved..."
Tian Miao was thoroughly pleased with her selection.
"What did I get?"
With so few elixirs still effective, Li Mo had simply grabbed a random vial.
Tian Miao glanced at it. "Udumbara Pill. Helps you sleep well."
"Here."
Ying Bing poured out the contents of her porcelain vial—four pills in total—and handed three to Li Mo.
"This is...?" Li Mo didn’t recognize them.
Tian Miao’s expression turned odd. "Something good."
"What does it do?"
"Enhances virility."
"?"
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
