The battle was becoming increasingly difficult. An Changqing dodged an attack and retreated to Su Yuehe’s side. “If we keep this up, we’re too passive.”
He looked ahead. “This maze is looping.”
Su Yuehe had noticed it too and nodded. “The marker I left is gone. The space is shifting.”
“We need to find a way to break the loop.”
An Changqing thought for a second.
“Since we can’t force our way through, let’s follow its logic.”
Su Yuehe asked, “What is its logic?”
An Changqing pointed at the endless stream of villagers surging toward them. “Creating chaos.”
...
Chen Guan stood at the far end of the passage, watching the moving structures without rushing to act.
He noticed subtle changes in the murals.
The surrounding noise was fading.
The sounds of battle between An Changqing and Su Yuehe grew distant. Long Ao’s thunderous destruction of stone pillars was also shrinking.
The frequency of the space had shifted. A chill crept into the air.
In Chen Guan’s vision, a scroll slowly unfurled, cutting off all external clamor.
“Brother Xuanwu.”
A young girl’s voice rang in Chen Guan’s mind.
Her tone was playful.
“We meet again.”
Her sudden appearance didn’t surprise Chen Guan—he had already anticipated something like this. He asked, “Why are you here?”
Santai let out a soft laugh. “Because everything here is somewhat connected to me. I came to reclaim my own power, but it seems I won’t need to lift a finger.”
“Or do you need big sister to give you a hand?”
Her voice was teasing.
“No need.”
Chen Guan’s reply was flat. So the murals were indeed related to Santai. The unknown was the only thing truly terrifying. Now that he knew whose power this was, he had nothing to fear.
But one question still nagged at him: Was this connected only to Santai, or to the entire Guiyuan group?
He wouldn’t get an answer for now, and there was no need to rush.
“Alright, then. I won’t disturb your enjoyment.”
Santai’s voice faded.
Silence returned.
Chen Guan knew she was still somewhere in this space, watching from a corner. He hadn’t expected her to share Baal’s fondness for spying.
“Is there no end to this?!”
At the other end of the maze made of stone pillars, Long Ao’s roar shook the entire space.
He shattered the monster’s head with a single punch.
The scattered black mist coalesced again nearby.
“Disappear for good!”
Long Ao took a deep breath, muscles swelling, veins bulging beneath his exposed skin. A terrifying force gathered within him.
“Infinite Combat: Hundredfold Force.”
The ground beneath him cracked and crumbled as he launched himself like a cannonball, driving a straight punch forward.
The air compressed around his fist.
A sharp shriek pierced the air.
The black mist monster didn’t even have time to react—it was devoured entirely by the force of the punch.
There was no sound of bones breaking, no splatter of blood. The monster simply evaporated mid-air, with not even a wisp of black mist escaping.
Yet Long Ao felt no relief.
The shattered monsters splattered black blood, and where it hit the metal floor, it hissed and corroded the alloy, sending up layers of black smoke.
“Damn it. This blood is weird.”
Long Ao retreated, looking at the mess around him, his expression grim.
On the other side.
An Changqing and Su Yuehe stood back to back, dozens of villagers with vacant eyes cornering them.
“Yuehe, we can’t drag this out any longer,” An Changqing said urgently, using his scabbard to deflect a swinging iron rod.
“These people are being controlled, but their life force is being drained continuously.”
Su Yuehe looked at the numb faces. She didn’t let compassion linger this time.
“I understand,” she replied softly.
Her usually gentle aura turned cold.
An Changqing wanted to say something, but Su Yuehe had already pressed two fingers to her forehead like a blade, a strand of eerie blood-red light swirling at her fingertips.
“By my name,” she intoned.
“Souls return. Slumber.”
An invisible pulse rippled outward from her. All the charging villagers trembled, a flicker of struggle passing through their hollow eyes, then they collapsed in unison, sinking into deep sleep.
Su Yuehe swayed, her complexion worsening.
An Changqing steadied her, letting out a silent sigh. Another forbidden technique.
She had thrown caution to the wind; techniques she had never once revealed before were now being unleashed one after another.
“I’m fine.” Su Yuehe pushed his hand away, her voice weak but her gaze resolute.
“First, find that bastard.”
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The crisp sound of applause came from deep within the temple, amplified through speakers to every corner.
“Magnificent.”
“Truly magnificent.”
A refined male voice rang out. At the far end of the temple, on the highest altar, a figure materialized.
He held a tattered black parchment scroll in his hands, a smile of admiration like one appreciating a work of art on his face.
“As expected of the son of President An and the daughter of the Council Chair,” Yue Teng said, looking down from above, his eyes brimming with morbid zeal.
“Your resistance has added the perfect flourish to this grand ceremony.”
He gave an elegant bow, as if taking a curtain call.
“Allow me to reintroduce myself.”
“Yue Teng.”
“Descendant of the first-generation Devotee under the Sovereign.”
He caressed the scroll in his hands, his tone prideful.
“My family has lurked beneath this land for centuries, waiting for this day.”
“Descendant of the Devotee?” An Changqing’s voice was ice-cold. He stared up at Yue Teng on the high platform, not a trace of fear in his eyes.
“You’re nothing but rats hiding in the sewers.”
“Surviving by sucking the life out of innocent people.”
“Reviving a god?”
An Changqing’s lips curled into a sneer.
“Don’t give your disgusting slaughter a grand excuse.”
Yue Teng laughed.
“Slaughter?”
“Master An, you’re wrong.”
He wagged a finger, his tone feigning pity.
“Greatness always demands sacrifice.”
“Their lives will become the steps for the Sovereign’s return to this world. This is their honor.”
As he finished, he pressed a mechanism at the edge of the altar.
Hiss.
In Long Ao’s area, thick green mist erupted from cracks in the stone walls.
“Hold your breath!” An Changqing shouted, his voice piercing through the barriers and reaching Long Ao’s ears.
Long Ao cursed, spun around, and punched the stone wall behind him.
Boom.
He was thrown back by an even stronger force. The wall’s surface shimmered with layers of densely packed spirit inscriptions.
“This wall has counter-force inscriptions,” he growled.
The toxic fog swallowed him.
“Long Ao, listen to me.”
“Aim for the third brick on your left. Hit it with your strongest strike,” An Changqing’s voice was calm.
“Got it.”
Long Ao gathered all his power into his right fist.
An Changqing thrust his sword into the space before him.
“Shift the stars and move the constellations.”
Before the tip of the sword, space rippled like water, and a twisted gateway of light took shape.
“Now.”
Long Ao threw a heavy punch through several stone walls.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
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)
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
