High Stakes Gamble

As usual, Chen Guan stepped forward and expertly picked several cores of decent quality out of the dust.

Leaning against the wall, Li Yan watched the genius crouched on the ground, seriously scavenging through the trash. The corner of his eye twitched uncontrollably.

No matter how many times he saw it, he still couldn’t get used to it. This genius was far too down-to-earth.

The twentieth floor.

The corridor here was exceptionally spacious. Its guardian was a Void Hydra the size of a small shuttlecraft.

Its nine savage heads could simultaneously spew energy breaths of different attributes, creating a devastating elemental storm.

“Eighth rank. Mixed elemental attacks. Be careful of its regeneration—”

Li Yan had only gotten halfway through his warning when he stopped himself.

Because Chen Guan had already charged forward.

Facing the overwhelming, multicolored breath that was powerful enough to melt the entire corridor, Chen Guan neither dodged nor retreated. A flash of crimson fire swept across the scythe in his hand.

Raging Flame.

A crimson blade-light, condensed to the absolute limit, cleaved out against the elemental storm.

Wherever it passed, all the elemental energy ignited and vanished into thin air like erased pixels.

Fine red lines appeared simultaneously across all nine heads of the hydra.

The next moment, all nine heads slid from their necks.

The enormous body crashed to the ground, leaving behind only a basketball-sized core. Within it, what looked like a nine-colored nebula slowly churned.

Chen Guan walked over and happily stored the core away. Then, out of habit, he kicked around the area to see whether any scraps had been left behind.

Li Yan watched all this in silence. In the end, he merely let out a long breath.

Fine.

He was still too young. He had actually thought a mere eighth-rank monster could make this kid stop.

If this had happened six months ago, Chen Guan wouldn’t even have needed Li Yan to risk his life and attack. The kid himself could have chopped down those foolish beasts that didn’t know their place.

This kid might really be able to fight his way through the entire tower.

The two continued upward.

When they reached the spiral staircase leading to the twenty-third floor, Chen Guan stopped for the first time.

It wasn’t because the monster was too strong.

In his arms, Baobao, who had been sleeping like the dead all this time, suddenly jerked.

“Awoo…”

A heavily suppressed whimper rose from deep in its throat, filled with pain.

Chen Guan’s heart sank. He immediately lowered his head.

The soft purple fur covering Baobao’s body stood on end. Fine arcs of purple electricity darted uncontrollably across its skin, crackling loudly.

Its body trembled, its limbs curled inward, as if it were struggling in the grip of a nightmare.

“What’s wrong?”

Chen Guan crouched down, carefully set Baobao on the ground, and pressed a hand against its back.

A scorching heat traveled through his palm, so hot that he instinctively pulled his hand away.

Then, just as quickly, the heat turned icy cold—wildly unstable.

“It’s losing control.”

Li Yan had appeared beside him at some point. His towering body cast a shadow over them, and his voice was grave.

He could sense a vast and abnormal energy rampaging inside the little leopard, like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

The source of that energy was the core of the Void Crystal Turtle.

The aftereffects of that great feast were only now truly taking hold.

“Awoo! Whimper…”

Baobao’s cries grew increasingly anguished. Crystalline tears even gathered at the corners of its tightly shut eyes.

Deep within its purple fur, strands of black patterns began to emerge, carrying an ominous aura of the void.

Its body was being forcibly transformed by the excessively massive void energy.

Just then, from the depths of the twenty-third-floor corridor came the unsettling scrape of carapace against carapace.

A huge monster, something between a spider and a scorpion, slowly crawled out of the darkness.

Its head, made up of countless compound eyes, locked onto the two humans at the entrance to the stairs. It let out a threatening hiss.

Another eighth-rank guardian.

But this time, Chen Guan didn’t look up. He didn’t spare the monster even the slightest bit of attention.

Every ounce of his focus was on the little creature writhing in agony at his feet.

“Teacher, keep an eye on things for me.”

Chen Guan didn’t even raise his head. His voice was no longer calm; it was so heavy that it was frightening.

Li Yan didn’t answer. He simply stepped forward, his mountain-like body blocking the newly appeared monster from Chen Guan.

For the first time since entering the tower, genuine lightning burned in his bronze-colored eyes.

A general’s duties could wait.

But his student’s summoned beast could not be allowed to come to harm.

“Aaaah—!”

A sharp cry of anguish forced its way from Baobao’s throat.

Its beautiful purple fur looked as if it had been splashed with ink. Strands of black void patterns spread wildly from beneath its skin, threatening to swallow the pure purple completely.

Scorching heat and freezing cold alternated madly within its tiny body. Every shift was accompanied by the faint sound of bones being forced out of place.

Chen Guan’s face darkened until it looked as if water might drip from it.

He knelt on one knee, his palm hovering over Baobao’s back. He could clearly feel the loss of control inside its body.

Two entirely different powers were tearing it apart from within.

One was Baobao’s original lightning power—pure and overbearing.

The other came from the Void Crystal Turtle’s core: an incomparably cold and sinister void energy.

The latter was trying to drag the former, along with Baobao’s very life force, into the abyss.

“I knew it,” Baal’s voice rang out in his mind. For once, there was no trace of amusement in its usual gloating tone. “The power of the void isn’t something just any stray cat or dog can digest. This little one’s foundation is too weak. It won’t be able to endure it.”

After all, Baobao had never belonged to a particularly powerful species. The reason it had made it this far was because Chen Guan had spent popularity points to help it break through.

And now it was trying to undergo another transformation. Its species was its greatest limitation.

Baal’s words were not without reason.

But Chen Guan ignored it.

He tried sending a thread of his mental power into Baobao to soothe it. The moment that strand made contact, however, it was torn to shreds.

No.

Meeting force with force would only make things worse.

“Whimper…”

Baobao’s consciousness had already grown hazy. The golden slit pupils had lost their focus, while the instinctive pain drove all four paws across the hard floor, leaving behind pale scratches.

In its perception, it was sinking into a cold, dark ocean. Countless unseen hands tugged at it, trying to tear it apart and reassemble it into some strange, unfamiliar monster.

It wanted to call for help, but no sound came out.

Just as it was about to be completely swallowed by the darkness, a familiar scent stubbornly drifted toward it—the only thing it could still grasp as it sank.

The smell of dried fish.

And grilled meat.

And the reassuring scent that clung to its master, like grass after rain.

Baobao’s scattered consciousness instinctively struggled toward that scent.

It didn’t want to become some other monster.

It hadn’t eaten enough of the grilled meat its master made.

Boom!

A tremendous explosion, accompanied by the acrid smell of something burned, shook the entire corridor.

The eighth-rank spider-scorpion monster had already been smashed into a shower of crystal fragments by a single punch from Li Yan.

He turned around and walked to Chen Guan’s side, his towering figure enveloping him.

“Every living thing faces a desperate gamble when it reaches the threshold of advancement.”

“Humans do. Animals do too.”