Buzz.
An invisible wave spread out in an instant.
Chen Guan’s chest tightened as though he’d been hit head-on by a battering ram. His organs and bones screamed in agony, and he almost failed to catch his breath.
Cracks instantly spiderwebbed across the crystal floor beneath his feet, spreading outward from him.
“Physical defense isn’t very effective against it.” Li Yan’s voice came from behind him, and he still showed no intention of making a move. “Its attacks break you down from the inside.”
Chen Guan exhaled softly, steadying his roiling blood and energy.
Interesting.
His figure blurred. Instead of retreating, he charged straight toward the Crystalspeaker.
The Crystalspeaker seemed somewhat surprised, but its movements were not slow in the slightest. The dozen or so crystal shards surrounding it abruptly changed direction, transforming into streaks of light that shot toward Chen Guan from all sides, sealing off every possible route forward.
When they drew within a meter of Chen Guan, all the shards came to a halt. Then they expanded outward, linking together with lines of purple energy to form a massive diamond-shaped crystalline cage that trapped Chen Guan securely inside.
“Crystallized Cage.” Li Yan watched the scene and performed his role as commentator perfectly.
“These crystals can absorb most forms of energy impact, and their physical hardness is extremely high. Once you’re trapped inside, it can wear you down to death from the outside using resonance.”
[LOL, why does Teacher keep commentating instead of fighting?]
[Li Yan: If I don’t explain things, what are you people going to watch?]
[The main problem is that Brother Coffin is too strong. To this day, we still have no idea where this man’s limits are.]
Inside the cage, Chen Guan reached out and lightly tapped the crystal wall in front of him with one fingertip.
Clang.
The sound was crisp, and the wall felt frighteningly solid.
At the same time, that invisible resonance struck again, several times stronger than before.
Chen Guan felt his bones groan. His organs seemed to be clutched by an invisible hand and violently kneaded.
But his extraordinary regeneration made up for it. He wasn’t injured, though it still hurt like hell.
“Wear me down to death?”
Chen Guan withdrew his hand and looked at the Crystalspeaker outside the cage. There wasn’t the slightest trace of panic on his face.
He could now confirm that this thing was incapable of doing anything to him.
And his newly acquired ability was perfectly suited for a situation like this. The Crystalspeaker would make an excellent sparring partner and help him raise his skill proficiency.
Voidweave.
An imperceptible force of mental energy, as fine as the most delicate strands of silk, silently climbed across every crystalline surface of the Crystallized Cage.
Li Yan, standing outside the cage, watched carefully.
He saw the supposedly indestructible Crystallized Cage, along with Chen Guan inside it, begin to blur around the edges. Its entire outline wavered slightly, like a reflection rippling on the surface of water.
The next second, the cage and Chen Guan vanished from the spot without a trace.
It was as though everything that had just happened had been nothing more than an illusion.
The Void Crystalspeaker froze as well.
Its target—and its cage—had simply disappeared.
Its smooth crystalline head turned from side to side as it tried to locate its target. That polished crystal brain of its clearly had trouble processing what had just happened.
“Looking for me?”
A voice sounded from less than half a meter behind it.
The Crystalspeaker whirled around.
A black scythe blade greeted it.
At some point, Chen Guan had appeared behind it. The scythe in his hand swept horizontally with an aura of certain death.
Splurt.
The Crystalspeaker’s elegant form went rigid.
Its upper body slowly slid off its lower half, the cut as smooth as a mirror.
The crystal shards hovering around it lost their energy supply and fell to the ground with a series of tinkling sounds.
Crack.
The Crystalspeaker’s body shattered into countless tiny crystal particles, which dispersed in the air.
Only a transparent crystal core, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, remained floating quietly in midair. Sound-wave patterns swirled inside it.
Chen Guan reached out and took the special crystal core in his hand. Sensing the strange vibrating energy contained within, he happily stored it in his item space.
Then he bent down and began picking up the diamond-shaped crystal shards scattered across the floor, one by one.
They were high-grade materials that had formed the cage. It would be a waste to throw them away.
Li Yan: “……”
He watched Chen Guan’s practiced battlefield cleanup from behind, silently swallowing the question that had reached his lips.
Forget it. He was used to this by now.
[Teacher’s face is completely speechless. Brother Coffin is way too thrifty. The atmosphere over on Xiao An’s side is totally different from this one.]
[What can you expect? Brother Coffin has a big-eating leopard to support. That kind of expense adds up.]
[Stop hurting the leopard’s feelings.]
“Awoo… belch…”
In the corner, Baobao let out a long burp, rolled over, rubbed his round belly with one paw, and continued sleeping soundly, completely unaware of what had just happened.
His behavior clearly gave the viewers another excuse to tease him. For a while, the livestream chat was filled with cheerful laughter.
Chen Guan put away the last crystal shard and dusted off his hands before walking over to Li Yan.
“Teacher, we can head to the third floor now.”
Li Yan nodded. “Let’s go.”
The two of them walked toward the spiral staircase leading to the third floor.
Five minutes later, they reached the fourth floor.
Ten minutes later, the fifth floor.
The two continued upward along the spiral staircase.
The sixth floor. The seventh floor. The eighth floor.
The guardians on each floor grew stronger. They progressed from lone elite monsters to coordinated squads of three to five, and their methods of attack became increasingly bizarre.
But to Chen Guan, there was hardly any difference.
For the most part, they died the moment they showed themselves.
Tenth floor.
When faced with more than a dozen Void Illusion Foxes capable of shifting between reality and illusion, Chen Guan didn’t even use his Trickster’s new ability. He relied solely on his powerful mental strength to dominate the situation.
The next moment, all the illusion foxes wailed in unison, as if an invisible hand had seized their brains. They fell from midair and landed on the ground, twitching in agony as purplish-black fluid poured from their eyes, ears, noses, and mouths.
In the contest of mental strength, they had run headfirst into an unshakable mountain.
Li Yan watched the scene, utterly at a loss for what expression to wear.
He couldn’t even be bothered to explain the monsters’ species and abilities anymore.
There was no point.
They all died in a single move anyway.
Sometimes, the monsters had already collapsed before he even finished speaking. What was the use of explaining their mechanics?
The livestream chat erupted in anguished complaints.
Fifteenth floor.
The guardians were crystallized trolls covered in heavy armor, capable of reflecting any damage they received.
Chen Guan immediately used Voidweave.
Before the trolls could finish charging up, their bodies began to collapse inch by inch from the inside. Their thick armor disintegrated along with them, transforming into crystal dust that filled the air.
Another silent instant kill.
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.
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
