Spoke profound Chinese

Chen Guan held Baobao, who was sleeping like the dead, and stared at the door made of fluid. Beyond it lay bottomless darkness, with only rings of purple halos slowly rotating within, like a bizarre nebula vortex.

Li Yan watched him, curious to see how far Chen Guan could go.

Clear it? An absurd guess inevitably surfaced in his mind.

Holding Baobao, Chen Guan stepped into the swirling halo first.

The scene before him suddenly opened up.

They found themselves in a broad circular corridor, with neither a visible beginning nor an end.

The walls of the corridor were made of a translucent, amber-like substance. Countless vein-like structures could be seen inside, pulsing with a dim purple light at a fixed rhythm.

The entire space resembled the intestines of some enormous beast.

“These walls absorb energy-based attacks.” Li Yan rapped his knuckles against one of them. It gave off a dull, fleshy thud. “Don’t waste your strength on them.”

Chen Guan acknowledged him as his mental power spread outward like a tide.

The corridor was very quiet. Apart from the faint glow pulsing through the walls, there were no signs of life anywhere.

But the silence itself was abnormal.

“Aw-ooh… meat…”

In Chen Guan’s arms, Baobao smacked his lips. His nose twitched twice on its own, as if he were already digging in within his dream.

He could even speak profound Chinese now?

Amused, Chen Guan adjusted his hold to make Baobao more comfortable, though his footsteps never stopped.

The two of them proceeded one after the other, following the circular corridor for several hundred meters.

Scattered black crystals began to appear across the floor ahead of them, likely the result of the creatures killing one another.

“Be careful,” Li Yan warned. “They’re coming.”

The moment he finished speaking, humanoid figures formed from black crystals began emerging from ahead like zombies.

Their numbers continued to grow. Soon, dozens of them had completely blocked the corridor.

These things stood around two meters tall and were made entirely of coarse black crystal. Unsettling red light flickered at their joints. Their heads were irregular clusters of crystal, while an identical crystal core was embedded in each of their chests as a power source.

“Crystalized Servitors.” Li Yan looked at the monsters as they swayed to their feet and summarized them concisely. “Their physical defenses aren’t strong, but there are a lot of them. Once their cores are destroyed, they self-destruct. Be careful.”

Chen Guan placed Baobao in a relatively safe spot by the wall, then slowly straightened up. A huge black scythe appeared in his hand.

Using Voidweave against these cannon fodder would be a waste. Physical exorcism was far more economical.

The instant he put Baobao down, all the Crystalized Servitors’ clustered heads snapped toward him in unison, and the red light in their chest cores flared brightly.

The next second, sharp whistles split the air.

Dozens of razor-sharp black crystal shards shot toward Chen Guan like a torrential downpour.

A split second before the crystal rain descended, Chen Guan vanished from where he stood.

His figure transformed into a ghostly shadow skimming along the ground, weaving through the gaps between the densely packed shards. His scythe dragged across the floor, bursting into a trail of sparks.

Thwack!

The scythe easily cleaved the first Servitor at the waist. The blade swept upward, precisely shattering the core in its chest.

The Servitor froze. The red light in its chest began flashing frantically.

Chen Guan didn’t even spare it a glance. With a turn of his body, he was already beside another Servitor.

Boom!

A violent explosion erupted behind him, sending a shockwave mixed with countless tiny crystal fragments in every direction.

But the shockwave was nowhere near fast enough to catch him.

His figure flashed through the formation of dozens of Crystalized Servitors. Each appearance was accompanied by the black arc of his scythe and the shattering of another core.

Thwack! Crack! Boom!

The sounds of slicing, breaking cores, and successive explosions rang through the deep corridor.

Li Yan stood in the distance with his arms folded, watching the black shadow stroll calmly through the blazing explosions. His bronze-colored face betrayed no emotion, but something strange gleamed in his bell-like eyes.

This kid cuts these things down like chopping vegetables.

A moment later, he found the thought understandable.

After all, the kid had cut down the creatures outside just as easily. The ones on the first level were only slightly stronger, and Li Yan still had no idea where Chen Guan’s limits lay.

In less than a minute, the corridor fell silent once again.

The floor was covered in blackened scorch marks that still smoked, along with countless fragments of black crystal powder. The air reeked of the acrid smell of burning crystal.

Chen Guan slowly emerged from the smoke of the final explosion. He shook off his scythe, put it away, and then walked toward the piles of crystal powder with practiced ease.

He kicked through the powder, his movements so skillful they were almost heartbreaking.

Ding.

A crystal core the size of a fingernail, glowing with a faint red light, rolled out from the powder.

Chen Guan bent down, picked it up without even looking at it, and tossed it into his storage space.

Even a mosquito’s leg was still meat. Frugality was a virtue.

He immediately began scavenging, carefully searching through the piles of black powder for anything that had escaped notice.

Watching Chen Guan smoothly transition into such practiced garbage picking, Li Yan’s lips twitched uncontrollably.

“Aw-ooh… fragrant…”

Baobao seemed to have caught the scent of something. He rolled over in the corner, the tip of his tail weakly curling before he sank back into deep sleep.

“I say…”

Li Yan finally couldn’t hold back. But when the words reached his lips, he didn’t know what to say. In the end, he managed only three words.

“…Carry on.”

He gave up trying to correct Chen Guan’s behavior. Besides, this wasn’t the first time he had seen it. He might as well get used to it.

Chen Guan stored away the last crystal core, dusted off his hands, picked up his little tagalong, and followed along contentedly.

After walking for a while longer, they reached a spiral staircase leading upward. It was made of the same amber-like material.

“The second level is above,” Li Yan said, stopping before the stairs. “The guards will be stronger.”

Chen Guan nodded and stepped onto the stairs, still carrying Baobao, who was continuing to feast on a dream buffet.

As they climbed, the purple light flowing through the surrounding walls grew increasingly intense.

The moment they stepped onto the corridor of the second level, a deep roar came from somewhere in the distance.

Chen Guan turned his gaze toward the depths of the corridor. A figure was emerging from the darkness.

It was a nearly three-meter-tall humanoid creature, slender in build and composed entirely of translucent quartz crystal.

Its head had no facial features, only a single complete multifaceted crystal that refracted the light in a bizarre manner.

“Void Crystalspeaker. Eighth-tier.” Li Yan’s voice came from behind him. “Don’t let its appearance fool you. That roar just now came from it. It isn’t an ordinary sound—it can shatter your internal organs directly.”

Chen Guan settled Baobao in a corner near the entrance. The little fellow seemed to sense the change in his surroundings and curled up uneasily, a meaningless rumble rising from his throat.

Chen Guan stood straight and rolled his wrists as he watched the Crystalspeaker approach step by step.

The Crystalspeaker seemed to have no eyes, yet the crystal forming its head turned precisely toward Chen Guan. The crystal shards floating around it began spinning faster, producing a teeth-grating hum.

The next moment, it raised one slender arm and pointed at Chen Guan from afar.