Monster Paradise

by LightNovels

343-

8. Chapter 8

Chapter 851: City

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lin Huang used his Divine Telekinesis to inspect the jade slips one by one and found out that all six of them had cultivation methods recorded in them. However, those were incomplete methods which could only get someone to immortal-level at the most.

The system of these cultivation methods was completely different from the usual cultivation system outside. Instead of elevating by killing monsters, it involved internal cultivation.

They belonged to the same system as the Twisted Fate Scripture Lin Huang had cultivated before, but these methods had a much lower threshold than the Twisted Fate Scripture.

One must know that Lin Huang had to cultivate the Army Attack Tactics to level 10 before he could learn the Twisted Fate Scripture. The threshold stopped most cultivators out there from developing the method.

However, the difficulty in cultivating the methods recorded in these jade slips was just slightly higher than cultivating the Army Attack Tactics. Basically, anyone who was on holy fire-level was eligible to cultivate them.

To Lin Huang, it was easy to cultivate these methods to immortal-level. However, since the method content did not include anything beyond immortal-level, it prevented him from identifying if these methods were similar to the Twisted Fate Scripture whereby they required the cultivator's innate ability to develop them. He had no idea what level those methods could get a person to.

If it could get someone to virtual god-level and the requirement was low, it would mean that many powerhouses would be elevated to virtual god-level in the future.

It was great news to a certain extent because the more powerhouses there were, the more force could be used to fight the Abyss Brink crisis.

However, it was bad news for Lin Huang and Mr. Fu.

Mr. Fu was the only Virtual God in the continent (at least for the moment). Although he was dying, he could still fight anyone who was less powerful. His rivals and those who wanted him dead dared not do anything to him for now.

As soon as the new cultivation system spread out, there would be a boost in Virtual Gods in the world and Mr. Fu would be in danger. Lin Huang had yet to mature entirely. Even though he could fight imperial-level powerhouses by using all of his trump cards, he could not fight demigods at all, let alone virtual god-level powerhouses who were even more dominant.

Lin Huang was thinking a lot while holding the jade slips in his hand. Eventually, he decided to keep this a secret for the time being. He planned to discuss this with Mr. Fu after getting out of the ruins to decide what to do about them then.

Whether others would discover this secret or not, there was nothing that Lin Huang could do about it. All he could do was to let God take the wheel.

After putting the jade slips away, Lin Huang glanced at the Dark Water Boa while a ferocious gleam flashed through his eyes. "Kill it. Kill those little demons too. Spare no lives."

In the next second, the one-eyed boa's humongous head exploded right away. Its headless carcass fell onto the ground while black blood spilled all over the place.

The heads of the tens of small demons more than ten kilometers away exploded like watermelons falling from a high place. All of them turned into headless carcasses.

After putting the one-eyed boa's headless carcass away, Lin Huang brought Bloody back to the inn.

A couple of them had fallen asleep at the inn.

Tan Lang sat on the couch as he was on night watch duty. Seeing Lin Huang coming in, he asked while keeping his voice low, "Is it done?"

"Mm-hmm." Lin Huang nodded.

Li Jia sat on the bed with his legs crossed, only opening his eyes upon hearing their conversation. He looked at Lin Huang with a rather surprised expression. "So quickly?"

Although the Black Dragon Mountain was not far from them, it was rather difficult to find monsters on the mountain range that stretched a hundred miles across.

"I was rather fortunate to have found that snake monster not long after I got there."

"It's not a sky dragon?" Shen Tao, who was sitting aside, asked.

"No, it's a boa."

"Go to bed early. Get a good night's rest. We've no idea what's the condition in the city that we're going to tomorrow." Tan Lang stopped the few of them from chatting.

Lin Huang had something on his mind and had no mood to chat anyway. He went to a vacant bed and lay on it after taking his jacket off.

Shen Tao and the rest figured he must be tired, so they did not bother him.

Lin Huang did not sleep at all that night. Although his eyes were shut the whole time, he was thinking about the methods and tactics in the jade slips.

They headed straight to the closest city the next morning the moment the sun rose.

They had no idea that the news about the immortals coming to town had spread early that morning.

The innkeeper and the servant found out that the ten paupers who were staying in the dormitory last night were immortals.

However, Lin Huang and the rest had arrived in the city when the news spread.

Cities would collect fees from commoners and warriors, but it was free for immortals.

Lin Huang and the rest found out from the local authority in the little town last night that immortals held an exclusive privilege in this world and they were treated properly everywhere they went.

The ten of them waited for the city gates to open before they descended from the sky, attracting many to watch. The city guards welcomed the ten of them into the city, smiling all the way.

The reason they did that was because they did not have any local currency. They had borrowed money from the officer at the local authority to pay for their accommodation at the inn and stayed in the cheapest dormitory. If they did not reveal their immortal identities, they would need to pay a large sum to enter the city.

"Can we go to a market or an auction? At least, get us some local currency. It feels terrible to not have any money," Shen Tao was the first to suggest as soon as they entered the city.

"I agree. Experiencing the life of a pauper for a night is more than enough," Li Jia added immediately, "Also, I want to stay in a room of my own tonight. You guys have stinky feet."

"That excludes me. My feet have no odor," Shen Tao defended himself immediately.

"I'm talking about you. The odor on your feet's stinkier than salted vegetables that have been marinated for 18 years." Li Jia glared at Shen Tao when he said that.

"Alright, stop fighting. Let's go to the market and get some money from selling monster carcasses." Finally, Tan Lang could not take it anymore and interrupted the conversation.

Soon, they found a market that was exclusively for immortals. Each of them took out a few monster carcasses that they had killed in the ruins and sold them for money.

The first monster carcass Lin Huang brought out was the one-eyed boa that Bloody had just killed by making its head explode. He then brought out two high immortal-level monsters carcasses which heads were destroyed and could not be used for parasitization.

Looking at the monster carcasses in their mortifying condition, Tan Lang and the rest looked at him rather oddly.

"I didn't know you've got a fetish of blowing monsters' heads up," Shen Tao rubbed his nose and teased softly.

Lin Huang did not bother to explain anything. He had always assumed the identity of a psychic on the Stairway Tree. A psychic who used flying daggers to attack a monster's crucial parts such as its head would indeed cause its head to explode.

The currency used to purchase monster carcasses at the market was the same currency used by immortals: the spirit stone.

It was the gray crystal that Lin Huang had found in the storage ring earlier.

A high immortal-level monster carcass could be sold for between one to ten million spirit stones.

After selling just a few monster carcasses, they went from broke men to rich men.

Having gotten their hands on spirit stones, Tan Lang stayed at the market for a little while and brought the rest to an inn called the Hidden Dragon Inn after speaking to some people around.

He heard that the owner of the Hidden Dragon Inn was a powerful immortal and that the inn was most frequented by immortals in the entire city. They only took spirit stones at the inn and no commoners' currency was accepted.

As soon as they stepped into the inn, Lin Huang and the rest sensed the cultivators' aura. There were holy fire- and immortal-levels.

However, the most powerful powerhouse there only had an aura of mid-immortal-level, which was far behind Tan Lang and the rest who had a combat strength of immortal-level rank-9.

Tan Lang gave Shen Tao a signal upon noticing many cultivators ogling them.

Shen Tao took a step forward and spread out his terrifying immortal-level rank-9 aura in the inn. The inn then fell into dead silence from the pressure.

Some of them who had been looking at them with ill intentions seemed petrified now.

After sending out the intended warning for a moment, Shen Tao withdrew his aura and turned to the counter. "Servant, get us ten premium rooms!"

The servant actually had a combat strength of golden flame-level, but he was nothing compared to the ten of them.

He was shocked after sensing Shen Tao's aura earlier. He only snapped back to his senses when he heard Shen Tao speaking to him, so he greeted him passionately.

After checking them in, he eagerly brought them to look at the rooms on the third floor right away.

He only returned to the counter on the first floor to work on other stuff after they had picked ten rooms that they were satisfied with.

"So, what should we do now?" All ten of them gathered in Tan Lang's room.

"We'll wait for the people from the government residence. According to the person I spoke to at the market, the governor will meet any immortal-level powerhouses who enters the city. It should apply to us." Tan Lang got Shen Tao to release his aura intentionally so that the news of their arrival would spread out faster.

"As soon as we manage to speak to the governor, many of our questions will be answered."

Just as Tan Lang expected, the deputy governor Lu Wen visited Lin Huang and the rest early the next morning. He invited them to the government residence.

Naturally, they did not decline the request since that was their intention. They then followed Lu Wen and the two guards in silver armor into the monster car.

The monster car appeared to be the size of a horse carriage from the outside, so theoretically, it would be a little crowded carrying four adults.

Lin Huang and the gang hesitated a little when they were getting in. After all, there were ten of them in the group. Together with Lu Wen and the other two, that would make a total of 13 of them. It would be too small for all of them to squeeze into even if they were to stand. However, they went in anyway upon seeing Lu Wen waving at them from the car.

As soon as they stepped into the monster car, they realized that the interior of the monster car was a rather spacious guest lounge.

Lu Wen poured some tea for them and began to chat while smiling.

Lin Huang and the gang learned about the rough situation going on in the city from him.

The city's authority body was called the government residence. It was similar to the Union Government outside, which was the proper, official organization of this world.

The city was run by a governor and his two deputies. The three of them were picked among the most compelling powerhouses in the entire city.

Apart from the governor and the deputy governors, there was another institution called the elder institution which was made of 12 powerhouses.

The elder institution was responsible for making decisions about a variety of meetings and they shared the same voting power as the governor and the deputy governors.

One could say that the development of the entire city was set and guided by the governor, the deputy governors, and the elder institution.

Apart from that, there were also immortal guards responsible for protecting the city.

The qualification to be an immortal guard was rather low as one could enroll themselves as long as they had holy fire-level combat strength. The entry assessment was very simple; more than 95% of holy fire-level powerhouses could pass. Only a minority of them who had zero battle experience would be disqualified.

Naturally, that was just the requirement for ordinary immortal guards.

There was an independent legion among the immortal guards called the honorary immortal guards that specially took immortal-level powerhouses in. It was said that they would only be eligible to join if they brought back three immortal-level demons that they had killed themselves.

The two guards wearing silver armor who had come to the inn with the deputy governor were the two captains of the honorary immortal guard. The duo had a high immortal-level combat strength. Judging from their aura, they were not much weaker than the deputy governor.

The monster car was driven by a humongous deer beast. Although the deer beast had no wings, it could leap into the air and fly. Despite carrying more than ten people in the carriage, it seemed to feel no weight and its feet seemed to move as light as a feather.

In less than three minutes, Lin Huang and the gang arrived at the entrance of the government residence in the monster car.

As soon as the monster car stopped, Lu Wen guided them into the government residence. The two immortal guards in silver armor stopped following them and stayed at the entrance.

Lu Wen led them into the meeting room and got someone to serve them tea.

"Please wait for a moment. The governor will be here soon."

Not long later, a tall, middle-aged man walked towards them just when the tea was done being served.

The man had a similar height with Shen Tao, which was over 1.9 meters, but he was much more muscular. Even his aura was alike; he was on his way to break through to imperial-level.

Lin Huang and the rest knew who he was without guessing as soon as he opened the door.

The man chuckled happily and introduced himself, "I'm Zhou Yun Long. Welcome to all of you!"

"This is our governor," Lu Wen stood up and added.

Lin Huang and the rest stood up to greet him.

After some light banter, Zhou Yun Long sat in the main seat while the rest remained where they were sitting.

"I realized that all of you have extraordinary abilities. I wonder where you're from." Zhou Yun Long went straight to the subject in an instant.

Tan Lang grinned as all of them had discussed what they were going to say yesterday.

"Governor, the ten of us come from a secret sect called the Heaven Alliance. Our sect has been hiding in the forest since tens of thousands of years ago and the door has just been opened recently. The ten of us are sect brothers. We're the first batch from the sect to come into the world after so many years."

"A secret sect from tens of thousands of years ago?!" Zhou Yun Long and Lu Wen's pupils shrunk when they heard this.

A sect that had existed for tens of thousands of years must be terrifyingly powerful.

Zhou Yun Long might not believe it if someone else had said this, but apart from Lin Huang, the rest of them had the same aura as he did. Two of them had a more powerful aura than he did, which made him sit on the fence now.

After taking a careful look at the ten of them, Zhou Yun Long's eyes eventually landed on Lin Huang.

"Is this little brother from the same sect as all of you?"

Just when Tan Lang was going to speak on behalf of Lin Huang, the latter gripped his shoulder immediately.

"It seems like you're skeptical of my ability, governor?" Lin Huang took a step forward and smirked faintly. He did not say much.

"Come out, Herculean King!"

As soon as he spoke, a gigantic golden ape appeared in the courtyard out of nowhere while its terrifying aura shot up into the sky.

The Herculean King roared ferociously into the sky at Lin Huang's subtle cue. The entire government residence shook when the roar was released. The roar even spread throughout the entire city, shocking many.

Many of them thought there was a demon attacking the city, so the immortal guards dashed towards the source of the roar and surrounded the Herculean King that was even taller than the buildings in the city.

"Everyone, retreat!" Zhou Yun Long told them to back off as he watched.

The reason why he ordered them to do so immediately was that he was really afraid the giant ape would kill his immortal guards. He clearly sensed that this giant ape's aura was just as mighty as his.

"So, this little brother's a Demontamer. It's I who was being rude," Zhou Yun Long apologized to Lin Huang and he looked at him rather respectfully now. He was not terrified by Lin Huang's ability, but he was respectful of a Demontamer.

Even Lin Huang had no idea that there were very few Demontamers in the world and the few top sects desired such people. Currently, there were only two top sects that had one Demontamer each, and they were pampered and trained by the sects at all costs. The two Demontamers had more powerful abilities than Lin Huang did, but their demon-taming ability was not as impressive as how he summoned this giant ape.

Since Lin Huang had revealed his hand, Zhou Yun Long and Lu Wen stopped doubting their identities as hidden sect disciples.

After recalling the Herculean King into its card form, Lin Huang noticed that Tan Lang and the rest were looking at him in a rather odd way.

He had summoned the Herculean King at the Stairway Tree before. Back then, the Herculean King's combat strength was only immortal-level rank-2 and many of them knew that. Now that just half a month had passed, the Herculean King's combat strength had skyrocketed to immortal-level rank-9. Such an acceleration in combat strength was incredibly terrifying.

Since confirming Lin Huang and the gang's identities, Zhou Yun Long's attitude was much friendlier now.

"I wonder how can I help you since you came to our Gushan City."

"We're just here to ask around. We want to know how has this world changed. After all, our sect's been hidden for tens of thousands of years. We have limited information about the outside world," Tan Lang finally told them their objective of being there.

"That's easy. I'll give all of you access to the library and the government residence's database. All of you can come anytime you want to access the information. You can ask Lu Wen directly if you've any questions at all." Zhou Yun Long made the arrangements immediately.

"Governor Zhou, there's something that I think you should know," Tan Lang called out to Zhou Yun Long who had stood up and was about to leave.

"Yes?"

"Actually, we're not the only hidden sect that's been coming into the world recently. There are tens of them. A portion of them are like us who want peace, but there are some of them who are devil cultivators. They kill and take, and they are the essence of evil."

The devil cultivator that Tan Lang was talking about were the people from underground organizations. As soon as they discovered human cities, they would definitely kill and loot without respecting the house rules. The devil cultivators of this world were a similar bunch and they would do anything for resources.

"There are hidden sects with devil cultivators?!" Zhou Yun Long frowned when he heard the news. He asked after a moment of silence, "How are the devil cultivators' abilities compared to all of yours?"

"Their personal abilities are similar to ours, but there are some devil sects that have released many disciples this time… Possibly up to 100 people." Tan Lang shared this information because he knew that they were fighting the underground organizations. As soon as they bumped into each other in this world, a battle was unavoidable, so he thought of asking for the locals' help.

"100 people who have similar abilities as you all do." Zhou Yun Long inhaled sharply.

"Although we don't have cold, hard proof whether these devil cultivators are on their way, I thought it's better for you to prepare ahead before the battle so that you won't be caught off-guard when the devil cultivators arrive."

For the next two days, the ten members of the Heaven Alliance were divided into two groups.

A team of three stayed in Gushan City mainly to source for information while the other group of seven was assigned the task to hunt for items. They came to an agreement whereby the seven of them would share the items they found with all ten of them aside from the monster carcasses that they obtained.

Lin Huang chose to stay in Gushan City where he was responsible for collecting information at the library.

For the past two days, apart from the library closing at night, Lin Huang practically did not leave the library at all. With Bloody's help, he was wading through a sea of information rapidly each day.

This world had a completely different cultivation system compared to the outside world.

In the outside world, life wheel-level cultivators were called "mortal-levels" in this world. The more common name for them would be "warriors".

People on one level higher, which was holy fire-level, were called "mortal transformation-levels" there.

Meanwhile, immortal-levels were called "ascendance-levels".

People on the next level, which was imperial-level, were called "human immortals".

Lin Huang read about even higher levels which were the earth immortals and the celestial immortals. He speculated that those were Virtual Gods and True Gods in the outside world.

Since the ancient books had such complete recording on different levels, Lin Huang was sure that there must have been Virtual Gods and even True Gods in this world. However, he was not sure if there were any now.

Ever since they entered the foggy area, the most powerful local powerhouse that Lin Huang and the rest had seen was just ascendance-level which was the same as immortal-level. They did not even see a single human immortal (imperial-level).

Full of doubts, Lin Huang skimmed through many other books, but he did not find any explanation about the disappearance of human immortals. Eventually, he had to ask Lu Wen about it.

Hearing the question, Lu Wen looked at him rather oddly, but he explained anyway, "You should know that people on ascendance-level will have to go on the Immortal Path to obtain immortal roots in order to elevate to human immortal-level, don't you?"

"I know that." Naturally, Lin Huang knew about the requirement to get to human immortal-level. "We've never seen any human immortals until now. Is it because it's difficult to go on the Immortal Path?"

"Difficulty isn't the only factor…" Lu Wen looked helpless as he let out a long sigh while shaking his head. "Throughout these tens of thousands of years, nobody came back alive after taking the Immortal Path. Not even one!"

"How can that be?!" Lin Huang was shocked to hear that.

"Aside from humans, the same goes for those demons too. Everyone who goes on the Immortal Path goes missing," Lu Wen continued further, "There has been a rumor in the past 1,000 years that the Immortal Path in our world has been cut off."

"You mean there are no human immortals in this entire world?" Lin Huang queried immediately.

"I'm not sure if there're any now." Lu Wen shook his head, feeling helpless. "All I know is that there were human immortals in this world tens of thousands of years ago. Even more potent powerhouses existed. But one day, all the powerhouses above human immortal-level vanished out of nowhere. Later on, something happened to the Immortal Path. Since then, nobody has ever elevated to human immortal again. The stars above seemed to be cut off as well, so there's no way for human immortals to elevate to earth immortals."

"People on mortal transformation-level live up to 1,800 years, while ascendance-levels can go up to 3,000 years. No matter how powerful a human immortal is, he can only live up to 10,000 years. In order to live, they have to seal themselves. Since then, there've been fewer and fewer human immortals in this world. Now that tens of thousands of years have passed, nobody knows if those human immortals who sealed themselves are still alive. Furthermore, there are no longer any ascendance-level powerhouses who dare to go on the Immortal Path now."

"Didn't any human immortal try to take the Immortal Path to see what went wrong?" Lin Huang could not help but ask.

"Of course, there were. Many human immortals volunteered to take a look at it when the Immortal Path went wrong. But just like the ascendance-levels, none of them come back alive."

Speaking to Lu Wen provided Lin Huang much more information that was not recorded on the books.

However, he had yet to confirm whether there were still any living human immortals in this world.

While Lin Huang had his hands full in the city, outside, Tan Lang and the rest did not stay idle.

The seven of them maimed and slaughtered all the way even when they encountered demon kings. Small demons were just appetizers to them.

Moreover, with Li Jia the Bug Master with them, they managed to dig out everything, no matter how secretively the demon kings and demon leaders hid their treasures.

In the short few days, the seven of them killed almost every single demon within a 1,000-kilometer radius around Gushan City.

They obtained over 200 storage rings alone.

In the middle of the night, the Heaven Alliance members sat in a circle once again.

Tan Lang took out all of the items they obtained and began to distribute them.

"I really couldn't fight the complete ascendance-level monster that we encountered today. I might not really have been able to kill her if we didn't fight her together," Tan Lang could not help but lament over the rather unsuccessful hunting experience that happened that day.

"But there's so many good stuff in her lair. I'm guessing there are three storage rings that belonged to powerful peak ascendance-level powerhouses. There are billions of spirit stones in the spirit cards and many rare metals too. There's even a storage ring with a demigod relic!"

Although they had different cultivation systems in this world, the weapons and equipment could be activated and used through Life Power.

"I'll give everyone the Life Crystals after I sell the demigod relic when we're out. We'll share the other items equally as we agreed. Put those items that you don't want aside. Don't throw them everywhere."

After distributing the items, the remaining ones were just miscellaneous items.

Lin Huang collected all of the jade slips from the miscellaneous pile.

In reality, Li Jia had discovered the local cultivation methods in the jade slips on the first day. He was a Bug Master after all and he had extra sensitive spiritual energy compared to others. It was a piece of cake for him to find out about the secret.

However, the methods recorded in those jade slips could only get a cultivator to ascendance-level.

Furthermore, he had lost all interest in the jade slips since he found out that it had been tens of thousands of years since any human immortals appeared in this world.

However, those jade slips were treasures that were hard to come by to Lin Huang.

Since he was done browsing for the information two days ago, he began to run simulations of the methods from the jade slips and those that he had found in the library in his head. He wanted to know how it was like to cultivate them.

Surprisingly, he found out that the simulation of the methods boosted his proficiency in the Twisted Fate Scripture.

His cultivation of the Twisted Fate Scripture had been increasing bit by bit initially, but since he performed a simple simulation of the methods in the jade slips recently, his proficiency skyrocketed.

In those few days, he came close to the one million points required for the first rotation in the Twisted Fate Scripture.

Lin Huang used his Divine Telekinesis to read all of the jade slips as soon as he received them. He was surprised to find two methods that allowed one to cultivate straight to human immortal (imperial-level).

After the distribution of items, Lin Huang and the other two shared what they found for the day.

Meanwhile, Tang Ning, who was in charge of communicating with the government residence and market, broke a piece of bad news.

"The underground organizations are on the move. They've seized seven out of the 21 cities. The news was blocked a few days ago and was only spread out today. For now, we know that those underground organizations who have started wars include Dynasty, the Purple Crow, the Saint, and Charm…"

This happened a few days ago in North Sand City.

It was evening when Nie Jun returned to an inn in North Sand City after a whole day of hunting.

"Waiter, get me four catties 1 of oxen meat, three ounces of boiled peanuts, and a bottle of flower wine."

That was a classic warrior's meal.

However, Nie Jun was not a warrior. To be exact, he was not a warrior at that moment. He had been practicing martial arts for years and only joined a cultivation sect after spending 30 years in martial arts and advanced to mortal transformation-level.

Although he was already a great mid-ascendance-level cultivator, a warrior's habit was forged in his blood.

He was not fond of staying in a crowded, luxurious inn with other cultivators. It was not that he had no spirit stones to spend; he despised talking about things cultivators were always going on about. Compared to that, staying with warriors gave him peace of mind.

Looking at those drunk warriors who were chowing down on meat and gulping swigs of wine, he felt like he was looking at the very person he used to be. However, those brothers who used to dine and drink with him had passed away. He could not find anyone who would drink with him now.

After ordering from the waiter, Nie Jun headed upstairs right away.

The waiter knocked on his door with a tray as the sky was getting dark.

"Sir, the food you ordered is ready."

"Come in."

The waiter opened the door and placed the tray on the table. He then turned around and left, shutting the room door as he went out.

Nie Jun stood up and walked to the food that was served on the dining table. He did not bother to use the chopsticks as he grabbed the sliced meat with his hands directly.

A mouthful of meat, a sip of wine, followed by a mouthful of appetizer.

Soon, the plates on the table were emptied.

After swilling the last drop of wine, Nie Jun put the bottle down and belched loudly.

Just when he was ready to get up, he felt a sense of danger coming from behind. Before he managed to react, a silver dagger was on his neck, causing him to sweat.

"Don't make a sound and get up slowly." A deep voice came from behind.

"Brother, if you're robbing me, my storage ring's on my left middle finger. Just take it. I promise I won't come after you." Nie Jun raised his left hand to show the attacker the storage ring on his left hand.

The reason he did that was because he was sure that the person was a professional assassin. Only a professional assassin would be able to find a place to hide himself perfectly in such a small room to the extent that Nie Jun did not realize his existence throughout his meal.

Looking at the person's speed, his ability was definitely on par or even more powerful than him.

Pain flared from Nie Jun's left hand just when he spoke.

"I warned you not to make a sound."

Nie Jun looked towards his left hand and noticed that his left middle finger had been chopped off simply because he had spoken. The person was obviously ruthless.

Nie Jun's heart sank to the bottom at that moment. Not letting him speak would mean there was no room for negotiation. He had met people of all walks of life during his 30 years in martial arts, so he roughly knew what kind of person he was dealing with from the signals the person sent.

'It seems like I won't be able to escape death today.' Nie Jun forced a smile quietly and did not attempt to speak again. He knew the person would give him an even more intense warning if he were to talk again. The person might kill him right away.

"Pick up the plates and bring them to the door."

Nie Jun placed the plates and wine bottle onto the tray as he was told. As he walked to the door and opened it, the dagger distanced from his neck all of a sudden.

Nie Jun's eyes lit up, but he noticed that something was off just when he was going to run. A thread that was as thick as human hair wound around his neck.

"I'm glad that you didn't do what you were attempting to do. Otherwise, your head wouldn't be on your neck right now," said the deep voice from behind.

Nie Jun was sweating all over his forehead. He just realized what had sliced off his finger earlier.

After opening the door, Nie Jun bent at the waist and placed the tray on the ground.

As he got up, a short blade appeared from his right pocket. He cut through the narrow space between his neck and the transparent thread. He squatted down as he did that, causing him to dodge the threat from the colorless thread.

Without the thought of fighting the man, Nie Jun pumped his legs in an attempt to run.

However, both of his ankles screamed immediately. His body lost balance and he slumped onto the ground.

At the same time, he finally saw how the assassin looked like. It was a skinny man who was covered in a black robe and wore a black mask on his face. There were two oval holes on the mask, revealing his black, cold and emotionless eyes.

"Smarty pants." The man in the mask walked towards Nie Jun slowly.

Nie Jun lay in a pool of blood, appearing like he was dead inside.

After closing the door, the man grabbed Nie Jun's collar and threw him onto the chair in front of the dining table.

Nie Jun had lost his will to fight since his legs were severed together with his chance to run. He just allowed the person to do anything to him.

The man took out a syringe from his storage ring and injected it into Nie Jun's arm.

Without knowing what its contents were, all Nie Jun could feel was his whole body turning numb. Not only could he not speak at all, but he also could not even move a finger now.

Later on, he watched the man bring out a dagger and slice open his skull slowly…

Before his consciousness blacked out, he heard the man in the mask mumble faintly, "Let's see if there's anything that I want in your head…"

…

In the middle of the night, 20 people in masks wearing black robes gathered in a dark room. Although their masks were all black, each mask was of a different design.

"How's the investigation going?" It was a lady who asked that question. There was a red ruby the size of a thumb at the forehead area on her mask.

"I've got something," spoke up a skinny silhouette. His mask was exactly the same as the person's who had killed Nie Jun earlier.

"I caught a fella who was on his own today. His combat strength is on par with mid-immortal-level aI found something pretty useful in his head."

"They call people on imperial-level human immortals in this world. It has been tens of thousands of years since any human immortals have shown themselves, and there's nobody who has elevated to human immortal-level for the past tens of thousands of years.

"Currently, the most powerful people in this city are the three governors who have a combat strength that's on par with immortal-level rank-9. The three of them are the enemies that we must face.

"Apart from that, the people that we must be careful of should be the honorary immortal guards. It's said that all the honorary immortal guards in every city have mastered battle formations and with their abilities, they can fight human immortals that are less powerful."

"Did we alert anyone?" The lady asked.

"No, the earliest they'll discover the body should be tomorrow morning," said the skinny man confidently.

"Then, let's do as we've planned. We'll move out today." The lady in the ruby red mask seemed to be the leader of the pack as she made all the arrangements immediately.

"There are only 20 of us from Charm who came in. We're not like those major organizations like the Union Government, the Hunter Association, and Dynasty, so we have to try our best to minimize our losses in battles and maximize our advantages. After midnight, all of you will kill every living thing in the government residence as fast as you can and rob the treasury. Try to leave before the honorary immortal guards come."

It was before daybreak in North Sand City.

20 black silhouettes gathered around the government residence quickly and hid in dark corners. Nobody noticed their existence since there was a wall outside the government residence.

"Go!" As a lady's voice transmission came into their ears loud and clear, two silhouettes moved almost simultaneously.

Two black rays flashed through the air like needles.

In the next second, two honorary immortal guards that were guarding the door pressed their temples and collapsed onto the ground quietly.

Before they fell, the two black silhouettes dashed towards them immediately and dragged the two bodies into the bushes.

From attacking to handling the dead bodies, the entire process took less than two seconds.

After settling the guards, the 20 black silhouettes slipped into the government residence.

They slunk out of the dark corners and scattered around, beginning the official hunt.

In the government residence, the powerhouses, who were in deep sleep, died silently in a variety of ways.

Some of them had their heads severed right away, some had a blade pierced through their head while some had tiny needles stabbed through their heads. There seemed to be no wounds on the surface.

In the governor's room, Wei Yun who was sitting with his legs crossed on the bed opened his eyes all of a sudden.

"Who is that?!" He fairly sensed that he was being watched by a poisonous snake in the shadows and would experience a fatal attack anytime.

"You've quite an extraordinary sensing ability…"

A black silhouette revealed itself from the shadows slowly. There was a black mask on her face and a red ruby mounted on the forehead of her mask.

"An assassin?!" Wei Yun's pupils shrunk a little. Although he saw the lady before him, he did not sense her existence at all. Only a top professional assassin would be able to hide her aura to such an extent.

"You got that right. I'll reward you for that!" The black-robed lady walked towards Wei Yun slowly, not seeming to be in a rush to kill him. "Why don't you choose how you want to be killed?"

"I choose for you to be dead instead!" Wei Yun got up and launched his attack. He threw a hard punch at the lady's face right away.

However, a silver ray lit the room up all of a sudden while a spike bayonet pierced through Wei Yun's face.

The room fell into dead silence.

After removing the spike bayonet from Wei Yun's face, the lady took out a white handkerchief and wiped it in her hand.

"I forget to tell you that I'm not only good in assassinating, but I'm also pretty good at fighting too."

After wiping the blood off the spike bayonet, the lady then tossed the bloody handkerchief onto Wei Yun's deformed face and opened the door as she turned around.

At the door entrance, the 19 black-robed men gathered and waited.

"There's still 57 minutes before the honorary immortal guards change shifts. Let's look for the valuables as fast as we can…"

What was happening in the North Sand City government residence was happening in a few other cities at the same time.

The only difference was that the people and the plans in each city.

After one to two days of lurking, the underground organizations only revealed their ruthless side after finding out there were no imperial-level powerhouses in this world.

The massacre in government residences and plundering of resources were nothing.

Some of them carried out massacres in the entire city.

Powerhouses such as the Seventh Prince were almost invincible when they fought people on the same combat strength. They broke through the honorary immortal guards' battle formations easily. Moreover, since all underground organization members were genius powerhouses on immortal-level rank-9, nobody at the government residences could fight them.

The whole world was plunged into a panic of invasion and plunder.

…

In the middle of the night, the Heaven Alliance members gathered again.

"I've two pieces of bad news," Tang Ning spoke in all seriousness before they distributed the items.

"People from the Saints invaded the city today. Over three million in Fenglai City were killed. Nothing was left."

All of them were horrified to hear that.

"How did that happen? Don't they only use virgins for their sacrifice? Why do they have to kill everyone in the city?" Tan Lang was a little puzzled.

"Their sacrificial ceremony was interrupted. They killed the entire city in their rage, saying that they had to do that in order to put out their god's anger," Tang Ning explained while feeling a little helpless.

"Did nobody from the Union Government and the Hunter Association do anything?" Lin Huang asked while frowning.

"The Union Government has their hands full dealing with Dynasty for the past few days, so they wouldn't have time for this. Dynasty has robbed two cities and tens of smaller towns. If nobody stops them, I wonder how much resources will be taken away."

"The Hunter Association's dealing with the Purple Crow, so it's hard for them to spare time to help as well. The adventurers are the only ones that are allocating people to try and stop the Saints and prevent them from doing more harm."

"How about Charm and the heretics? Are nobody dealing with them?" Shen Tao asked immediately.

"That's the second bad news." Tang Ning looked perturbed all of a sudden. "People from Charm seem to be coming for us…"

Everyone was overwrought with anxiety upon hearing what Tang Ning said. The room fell into pin-drop silence.

"Should we retreat? We've no upper hand if we're dealing with Charm," Li Jia consulted Tan Lang, "If we're fighting, we still have the upper hand to win if we fight one-on-one. But they have double our people, the odds of us winning are slim. Moreover, Charm is an organization of professional assassins. Their people are experts in assassination and other sneaky techniques. It's impossible for us to watch out for their attacks."

Tan Lang became silent and nobody knew what he was thinking about.

"I think it's possible for us to give it a shot," Lin Huang could not help but speak up, "We can work with the government residence to fight them. In that case, the number of people from Charm will no longer be their upper hand. In terms of assassination, we've Li Jia who's skilled at sensing. I suppose they won't be performing at 100% with their sneaky techniques since Li Jia's with us. I've some techniques in that aspect, so I should be able to help. Moreover, we can ask for help from the union organization. We just have to stall until the rescue team arrives. We don't have to kill everyone from Charm."

Although Lin Huang said that they would not have to kill everyone from Charm, he was already thinking about how to kill all of them in one shot and take everything that they had plundered.

He even thought of getting away from the group and hunt for the people from Charm if Tan Lang and the rest decided to retreat. After all, they had sent themselves to their doorstep and he could not let them get away just like that.

After a moment of silence, Tan Lang finally spoke, "Retreating without trying isn't who the Heaven Alliance is. Even if we have to fight Dynasty, we'll fight and not retreat! Our enemy is Charm this time, so not only will we stay, but we must also win! However, this battle is a tough one and some of us might even die. Please be prepared for that and don't take any chances.

"We're from the Heaven Alliance. We're the No. 1 genius organization in the world! We'll show everyone in this battle that we, the Heaven Alliance, deserves the No. 1 title!"

Lin Huang knew nothing much about Charm.

He only knew it was the No. 2 assassin organization in Division 3. Overall, ability-wise, they were slightly weaker than the Purple Crow and the heretics. However, they were considered an outstanding underground organization.

The assassin organization that ranked No. 1, Shadow Killer had their hands full with the opening of another set of ruins in Division 2 lately. They allocated most of their powerhouses from the Division 3 branch to help, so they did not participate in the Fallen God Land this time.

Lin Huang knew about the news of Charm before Tang Ning broke it to them.

He had been getting Bloody to monitor all the organization's movements.

Apart from Charm, even Dynasty and the Union Government were under Bloody's watchful eye.

He had gained a better understanding of these underground organizations through Bloody's projections in the past few days.

To those people, humans were no different from animals.

They were killing people, destroying entire cities, and making people puppets. There was completely no limit to what they did.

Since Charm had sent themselves to their doorstep this time, it was only natural that Lin Huang would not let anybody live.

Bloody projected a video when the sky turned dark. There were 20 black-robed men going at full speed in the video.

"They'll be here soon. They're just less than 1,000 kilometers away."

"Let's go. We'll go meet them."

Lin Huang crushed a Provisional Specific Transformation Card and he turned into Spectre slowly. He penetrated the wall and glided down deep into the ground through the wall. He then tore towards the gates of the city.

After getting out of the city, he headed straight to the battle location that Bloody had picked and surfaced from the ground. He then removed the card's effect.

The reason why he did all this was because he did not want Tan Lang and the rest to see his real ability.

Lin Huang had decided on going up against Charm since the beginning.

It was just a distraction when he talked about asking the union organization to help. He did not really plan to get Tan Lang and the rest to fight Charm.

It was true that every one of the Heaven Alliance members had a compelling ability. Their combat abilities might even be more powerful than the members of Charm. However, it was difficult to deal with Charm since they were experts in assassinating. The deaths and casualties of the Heaven Alliance members would be inevitable if they were to fight.

He would rather interrupt the operation in the middle, kill all of them, and reap all of the rewards all for himself.

Not long after he arrived, he saw the 20 Charm members speeding in the sky.

He hovered into the sky slowly and blocked their way.

"You're not allowed to enter." Lin Huang's calm voice went into all of their ears.

"Kill him!" A lady's voice rang out without hesitation.

One of the black-robed men disappeared and appeared next to Lin Huang in the next second. He pointed a dagger straight at Lin Huang's face.

However, a black silhouette appeared at that moment. The black-robed man became stiff all of a sudden.

The bunch of Charm members saw a black spear protruding out of their partner's chest. There were neat purple patterns on the spear.

"How dare you compare your speed with Kylie's? You must be crazy…" Lin Huang mumbled softly.

Just as Kylie was done with killing the man, Bloody completed its parasitization. It controlled the black-robed man to draw the spear out from his body slowly. He then stood next to Lin Huang and looked at the Charm members who had once been his partners.

Watching that strange phenomenon, the Charm members had fear in their eyes. They clearly sensed that their partner had been dead earlier, but he was now alive. More outrageously, he had now become Lin Huang's partner.

"Who exactly are you?!" The leading lady asked fiercely.

"Lin Xie from the Heaven Alliance," Lin Huang reported his name and the sect he belonged to.

The lady was stunned to hear him. She did not expect Lin Huang to reveal his name. However, she thought that the name was rather familiar.

"Lin Xie? Are you the Lin Xie who ranked No. 1 on the Stairway Tree scoreboard this year?!" A black-robed man could not help but exclaim.

They were many Genius Union members in all organizations and naturally, that included Charm.

Many of them had actually seen pictures of Lin Huang, but the combat strength of the Lin Xie on the Stairway Tree's scoreboard was very different from that of the person standing before them. The change in attire and hairstyle was also another factor why they did not recognize him.

"He should be the real Lin Xie. He looks exactly like the picture. Also, Lin Xie's an Imperial Censor," confirmed another black-robed man.

'It can't be! Since when does Lin Xie have such powerful combat strength? Wasn't he only crimson flame-level a few months ago?!' Many of them thought secretly, 'His ability's terrifying…'

"Lin Xie, are you trying to stop us on your own?" The leading lady took a step forward, her terrifying aura spreading all over Lin Huang.

Lin Huang did nothing about the pressure exuding from her aura. He had killed more than one imperial-level yellow gold-rank powerhouse, so an immortal-level rank-9 powerhouse who had an ability comparable to imperial-level black gold-rank could not scare him.

"Firstly, I'm not on my own. I've got summoning beasts. Secondly, I'm not planning to stop all of you. I'm planning to kill all of you." Lin Huang took a step forward as well as he corrected her.

"Nonsense!" The lady screamed and turned to order the people behind her, "I'll fight the summoning beasts and all of you will kill him!"

As soon as the order went out, the 18 black-robed men attacked Lin Huang from all directions. Meanwhile, the lady gripped the spike bayonet tightly and charged at Kylie.

Lin Huang stood where he was without moving, his face remaining calm.

Kylie did not flinch at the sight of the black-robed lady dashing towards her. As she waved her hand, 368 of her Nephilic Judge army advanced.

All of the Charm members were stunned when they saw a bunch of silver-armored monsters coming out of nowhere.

The Nephilic Judge army formed their battle formation as soon as they arrived and surrounded all of the Charm members.

"We've surrounded all of you," Lin Huang declared while smirking faintly.

"Retreat!" Looking at the battle formation, the lady knew they could not win this battle, so she ordered them to retreat immediately.

"Kylie, kill all of them. Spare no lives!" Lin Huang was cold as he ordered.

"Kill!" Kylie hissed the word softly while her Nephilic Judge army attacked in an instant.

The Charm members attempted to break the formation, but it was to no avail.

In less than a minute, all 18 of them were killed. The female leader was the only one left.

"Lin Xie, my father will definitely come for you if you kill me! He's an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse. We came into the Fallen God Land together this time!"

"He won't find out." Lin Huang's tone was calm as he said, "It's fine even if he does."

Although she was powerful, she did not last more than three minutes when Kylie joined the battle formation. Kylie's spear pierced through her heart, killing her.

After recalling Kylie and letting Bloody performing parasitization on all 19 of them, Lin Huang summoned the Inferior Imp to destroy the battleground with meteors. After confirming there were no traces left behind, Lin Huang returned to the room at the inn quietly.

It took him less than 10 minutes to leave and return to the room.

When it was slightly after 10 at night, Tan Lang instructed Lin Huang to meet.

Tan Lang led all the Heaven Alliance members and went to the government residence.

In order to fight Charm, Tan Lang made a plan with the government residence. He even asked the Union Government and the Hunter Association for backup.

Lin Huang pretended as if he knew nothing about the extermination of Charm. He went to the government residence with the team.

They waited until 7 o'clock in the morning but nothing happened.

"Can we go back to our hotel room and get a decent rest?" Lin Huang yawned as he was really sleepy.

"It's daytime now. According to Charm's fighting behavior, it's less likely that they'll fight us now." Li Jia's bug did not detect anything unusual.

"Let's continue waiting. They might be waiting for us to slack off before fighting us." Still, Tan Lang was worried.

One day and one night had passed. Of course, the exterminated Charm would not appear.

"It has been two days and they haven't done anything. What if they've retreated because there are too many of us here?" Shen Tao speculated.

"Let's continue waiting." Tan Lang remained alert.

Lin Huang was speechless. Had it not been for him not leaving any traces, people would have known that Charm and the rest had been killed. Tan Lang would not have asked everybody to stay up all night with him either.

"I'm fooling myself…" Lin Huang had no choice but to stay up all night with them as well.

However, it did not last for a very long while. In the afternoon, Li Jia received a message from the Union Government.

"You guys don't need to wait here anymore. The people from Charm won't come. They've been killed."

Apart from Lin Huang, everyone felt doubtful after listening to what Tang Ning said.

"Were they attacked by the Union Government?" Tan Lang's first thought was that the Union Government had done something.

"No." Tang Ning shook his head. "We did nothing this round."

"The Union Government would definitely admit if they were the ones who did that. It's a military glory." Shen Tao seemed to have something to comment about the people from the Union Government. "From the message they sent, they mentioned that they didn't do anything, so they're definitely not the one."

"If it wasn't the Union Government, how can they confirm that the people from Charm are dead?" Tan Lang continued asking.

"There are two augurs in their team. Both of them got the same prediction results – 20 of them from Charm were killed. None of them managed to survive it," Tang Ning told them what the Union Government said.

The crowd then no longer suspected the truth after knowing that it was the prediction results of the two augurs.

It was said that the main criteria of being an augur was to possess an ability related to time. The secret of being an augur was related to time, without which, regardless of how knowledgeable the person was, one would be unable to become a true augur. A true augur had to be capable of using the secret of time, exploring the past and predicting the future.

The two augurs were, of course, true augurs as they were chosen by the Union Government and were sent to the god's land.

Since the two of them received similar prediction results, it meant that the prediction had come true.

"Does the augur know which organization did it?" Lin Huang paid attention just as Tan Lang asked this question.

It would still be fine if the Heaven Alliance knew about it. In fact, he did not want the Union Government to find out about his true abilities.

Somehow, Mr. Fu being set up had something to do with the Union Government. In addition to the Union Government being a very large organization, nobody knew how many of them were Mr. Fu's enemies.

Despite the fact that he did not leave any traces, the augurs possessed unique abilities, so they might have seen something.

"The officers from the Union Government said that the two augurs attempted to check who did it. However, they didn't manage to do so. Both of them saw a scene where meteorites struck the ground," Tang Ning shared what he heard.

"Meteorite showers?" Other than Lin Huang, the rest of them were confused.

"Meteorite showers… Is there any chance that this is a prediction?" Tan Lang said while stroking his chin.

"I've really seen meteorites streaking across the sky a few days ago," Shen Tao suddenly said, "Right before the sky turns dark."

"Are you sure?" Tan Lang immediately asked.

"I guess my eyes didn't fail me. Did anyone of you happen to see that?'

The crowd shook their heads, including Lin Huang.

"It's on the east of the city. The meteorites struck somewhere less than 300 kilometers away from the city." Shen Tao could remember it clearly.

"Bring me there," Tan Lang immediately requested. It seemed like he would only feel relieved after seeing the dead bodies of the Charm members. "Li Jia, follow me. Let's see if we can find any clues over there."

Tan Lang asked two other people to follow after him and they headed towards the east of the city.

Since the three of them had left, Lin Huang was not worried. He was pretty sure that they would be unable to discover anything there.

"Did you manage to find it?" Lin Huang, who was lying on a deck chair under the sun, gradually opened his eyes to look at Tan Lang.

"We found a meteorite crater, but there's nothing there."

Lin Huang frowned without saying anything. He took his hat off to cover his face and continued sleeping.

"Since the augurs have already come out with the prediction results, I guess we don't need to be really particular about what has actually happened," Li Jia advised.

"Yes, that's right. Instead of wasting time investigating this issue, why not let everything work as usual? Our main purpose of entering the ruins is to get more resources," Shen Tao suggested.

"Let it be." Still, Tan Lang did not reveal what he was worried about as he shook his head. "Let everything end here and have a good rest. We'll leave Gushan City early tomorrow morning and head towards Enlightenment City!"

"Are you going to leave Gushan City?" Li Jia asked.

"We've hunted most of the monsters at Gushan City within 3,000 kilometers. It's time to go to the next station." Tan Lang nodded. He had prepared for this earlier. His initial plan was to overcome the danger before leaving. However, since Charm had been wiped out, there was no need for them to stay there any longer.

Gushan City seemed peaceful that day. However, there were many rumors going around. The news regarding the extermination of Charm soon spread to most of the organizations.

"Exterminated? Nobody managed to survive and not even a single dead body can be discovered?!"

"Do you think that the Union Government did this?!"

"I guess the Heaven Alliance is incapable of doing so since there're only 10 of them. It's less likely that they can wipe Charm out without injuries."

"Although Tan Lang from the Heaven Alliance is strong, Ye Ye from Charm is not that much weaker than him. He's incapable of defeating Charm on his own. Unless Chan Dou was the one who did that, he could've also probably done so."

"Could it have been the human immortals?"

There were all kinds of speculations regarding the extermination of Charm.

The underworld organizations kept a low profile after receiving this news as what Charm encountered was really weird.

Most of the Union Government were thrilled upon receiving this news. A minority of them was worried about it. If it was an unknown who had done this, the level of threat in this world would be beyond their expectations.

The people from the Heaven Alliance did not ask about it any further. The next morning, Tan Lang and the rest left towards the second government residence.

Enlightenment City was a capital situated on the north-western border of the land. It was one of the few cities that had not been seized by any organization.

The Heaven Alliance members took the whole afternoon to arrive at the Enlightenment City.

After settling into their accommodation, they planned their attack strategy once more.

Only one liaison was required this time and the nine of them could join the fight.

However, Lin Huang summoned the Herculean King to replace his position in the team whilst he stayed in the city.

Tan Lang and the rest did not have any objections.

The ability of Lin Huang's summoning monster far surpassed his and it was rather suitable to join the fight compared to Lin Huang.

After having their lunch, Tan Lang and his team left.

Lin Huang and Tang Ning, who was the liaison, stayed in the city.

Because of their relationship with Gushan City, Lin Huang and Tang Ning were easily given the authority to enter the library when they arrived at the capital.

After bidding Tang Ning goodbye, they then headed towards the library on their own.

Since he had never revealed his sword skill at the Genius Union, Lin Huang was unable to train his sword skills. Recently, he discovered that practicing the methods in this world could increase his depth of skill in the Twisted Fate Scripture. Therefore, Lin Huang decided to memorize as many training methods as possible in this world.

It would not be difficult for Lin Huang. He could perfectly memorize all the content that he had gone through with his Divine Telekinesis. He did not need to read it with his eyes. Instead, he just had to skim through all the content with his Divine Telekinesis.

Lin Huang soon found the books he wanted in the library. He then sat on the floor next to the book rack, quickly skimming through them.

With his Divine Telekinesis, he could scan one page of words in less than 0.01 seconds. In fact, it would be much faster than his speed of flipping the page. If it were not because of the other people in the library, Lin Huang would have read the book with his telekinetic threads whereby hundreds of telekinesis threads would turn the page at the same time. He could finish reading a book within seconds.

The requirement of the training method for The Twisted Fate Scripture was not high. As long as the method was mortal transformation-level and above, there would be a substantial increase in his familiarity with the skill. At least, this was what happened in the second rotation.

The library did not lack any mortal transformation-level training methods. Lin Huang managed to find hundreds of them in Gushan City's library. However, the ascendance-level training method was extremely rare and there were only a few of them.

However, Lin Huang was not in a hurry. He was currently practicing 35 types of mortal transformation-level skills and he had already gotten into the second rotation of the Twisted Fate Scripture.

The requirement to break through the third rotation had doubled where it required two million points.

Lin Huang spent the entire afternoon memorizing all the methods available in the library of the Enlightenment City.

More than 120 of them were different from the methods available at Gushan City and three of them were on ascendance-level.

At night, when Tan Lang and the rest of them returned, they were elated. Lin Huang and Tang Ning asked what had happened but they were reluctant to tell them.

After they had distributed all the rewards at night and Tang Ning confirmed that there was nobody spying on them, he then whispered a secret, "I found out that the 'internal elixir' created by the body of a monster is the 'crystal core' we mentioned. The Life Power within it can be extracted rapidly."

"I discovered that the Life Power can be extracted earlier. However, the Life Power that can be extracted is only 50% of the total Life Power," Lin Huang described his observation.

"Extraction and the speed of extraction are two different things." Tan Lang looked at Lin Huang in excitement. "What I meant is that the crystal core can quickly replenish the Life Power that's been drained during a battle. As long as there's a sufficient amount of crystal cores, there'll be no way to use up our Life Power!"

Everybody's eyes brightened and even Lin Huang was startled.

He had Divine Fire in his body as well as 10 Life Wheels. He did not lack Life Power, but it did not mean that the others did not need it though.

In fact, many of them would not simply activate a powerful skill because they were afraid that their Life Power could hardly sustain it.

If a person could have inexhaustible Life Power, one could activate their most potent skill until their opponent died.

Previously, Lin Huang could kill the yellow gold-rank monsters with ease despite being a black gold-rank because of this.

The news meant nothing to Lin Huang. However, it was positive news for the rest of them.

"Luckily, I didn't sell any of the monster carcasses that I've previously killed. I can now dig out all the crystal cores from the carcasses!" Shen Tao exclaimed happily like a kid.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? I've fed the carcasses to the bug." Li Jia sulked.

'I'm glad that my summoning monsters don't need any food. Otherwise, I'd have fed them with the monster carcasses too,' Lin Huang thought to himself, 'Although I don't need those crystal cores, if I were to sell them to the outside world, they could probably fetch a good price. If I were to collect more, I might be able to even earn a set of demigod-level telekinetic weapon!'

The price of a demigod-level telekinetic weapon was at least 10 times of an ordinary demigod relic.

Lin Huang was not interested in the beginner- and intermediate-grade demigod relics.

An ordinary expert-grade demigod relic cost at least 100 billion Life Crystals. One might not be able to buy a telekinetic weapon of a similar grade with 1.5 trillion Life Crystals. It was much more expensive than an ultimate-grade demigod relic.

Just as Lin Huang was calculating how many crystal cores he would need to exchange for a telekinetic weapon, Tan Lang suddenly chuckled and inched closer to him.

"Lin Xie, let me tell you something."

Looking at Tan Lang's revolting smile, Lin Huang was petrified and he leaned backward. "Deputy chief, please don't do that to me. I'm only interested in women."

"Hey…" Tan Lang's smile became stiff and he slowly took a step backward. He then said, "I just wanted to ask if you want to sell your Herculean King?"

Lin Huang glared at Tan Lang. "No!"

It was within his expectations. However, Tan Lang still looked disappointed after listening to his reply.

He then took a glance at the Herculean King, whose body had shrunk, that was standing next to Lin Huang. The Herculean King noticed his sidelong glance.

"Do you want to fight?" The Herculean King stared at him.

Of course, the Herculean King would not be able to fight Tan Lang. Its abilities were only slightly stronger than an immortal-level rank-9 in the Heaven Alliance. Compared to Shen Tao, his strength was still unknown, let alone Li Jia and Tan Lang who were much stronger than Shen Tao.

However, Tan Lang did not get angry. Instead, he grinned at the Herculean King because he really liked it.

He paid close attention to the Herculean King's abilities in fights. It had immense strength and terrifying defensive ability. Apart from that, it had a very strong battle instinct as well. If he were to train its combat strength, it would definitely be a very formidable companion.

Tan Lang would not have asked Lin Huang about it if he did not like it.

Of course, the Herculean King was unwilling to make such a change. It knew the benefits of following Lin Huang. Its upgrade to mythical-level was just a matter of time. Getting an upgrade in its bloodline would not be difficult either. The Herculean King felt that the man named Tan Lang was just slightly stronger than it was and that it would definitely surpass him in the future. How could he be its master!?

Lin Huang was reluctant to sell the Herculean King and he was unable to anyway since Xiao Hei had never activated the function of canceling a monster contract.

After knowing that the crystal core in a monster's body could rapidly replenish one's power, Tan Lang and the rest became more passionate about fighting.

The next morning, they left the city and began hunting for monsters although it was only seven o'clock in the morning.

Lin Huang then returned to the hotel room after having his breakfast. He took out an ascendance-level monster carcass, digging out the crystal core with a dagger.

The crystal core in the monster body was known as an internal elixir.

The crystal core in Lin Huang's hand was the size of a male adult's thumb and it was colorful.

He could clearly sense various types of energy stored in the crystal core as he held it in his hand. Life Power alone occupied about 50% of it.

Just as he was about to give it a try, from its hidden place up his sleeve, Bloody whispered, "The crystal core looks delicious."

"What?" Lin Huang was stunned and he had a peculiar facial expression on his face.

It was not his first time extracting a crystal core. Bloody could see everything clearly from his sleeve every extraction. It had never mentioned that it felt like eating the crystal core. This was the only time when Bloody seemed to crave the crystal core.

"Is there anything special about this crystal core?" Lin Huang asked.

"I don't know. I simply feel that it has a sweet fragrance and it smells like a very delicious kind of candy." Bloody then slipped out of Lin Huang's sleeve, lingering around the crystal core.

"A candy kind of smell?" Lin Huang smelt it and he frowned. He could not smell anything.

"Let it be. Just eat it." Since Lin Huang could not find out the reason, he did not bother to ask any further and tossed the crystal core to Bloody.

Bloody immediately twisted its tentacles around the crystal core and quickly pitched it into its mouth.

After a short while, it closed its eyes as if it was enjoying it tremendously.

"Was it that good?" Lin Huang thought to himself.

After a couple of moments, Bloody gradually opened its eyes, shifting its gaze towards the monster carcass where its crystal core had been extracted. "I guess I know what's happening."

"Do tell." Lin Huang was keen to know more.

"After eating the crystal core, I've inherited its memory. I even obtained two abilities from the owner of the crystal core," Bloody shared what he received after eating the crystal core. It then continued, "If I'm not mistaken, only the crystal core that's compatible with me will give such a weird craving.

"As for why I had such a weird craving, I suppose the answer lies in my genes where I can sense things that are beneficial to me, just like how most of the creatures are born with the ability to sense danger, but the strength of one's ability to sense it will be different.

"Moreover, I think the crystal core doesn't only work for me. It should work for Bai and the rest too. However, I think the crystal cores that we need will be rather different."

"Didn't you sense anything when you see the monster carcass?" Lin Huang asked again.

"No, I didn't. I only sensed it after the crystal core was extracted. Perhaps, the monster carcass has isolated the effect of the detection ability." Bloody shook its head.

"Alright, I got it." Lin Huang nodded his head.

After summoning Kylie, Lin Huang brought Bloody to Kylie's mini world.

He looked for open space and took out all the monster carcasses that he had collected in the past few days.

The monster carcasses piled up like up a mountain and there were more than 10,000 of them.

However, only about 100 of them that were on ascendance-level could be compared to immortal-levels. The rest were on mortal transformation-level.

Lin Huang then summoned Bai, Lancelot, Killer, the Death Knight, and the Fallen Knight as they were monsters with weapons in their hands.

"I have a task for you. Dissect all the monster carcasses and extract their crystal cores." Lin Huang decided to slack off and summoned his monster pets to do all the work. "After extracting all the crystal cores, I'll need to sort them out, so you're not allowed to eat first. Try to keep the carcasses in their complete form and don't eat them first. I'll need to exchange them for crystal cores."

They were excited the moment they were summoned. However, after discovering the reason why they were being summoned, they suddenly looked bitter.

"Is it suitable to use the human idiom 'break a butterfly on a wheel' here?" Bai turned its head towards Bloody and asked.

"Yes," Bloody answered seriously.

"Every 100 carcasses dissected will be given a day's worth of junk food as a reward." Lin Huang extended his finger.

Lancelot's eyes immediately lit up. "May I look for helpers?"

"Yes, you may." Lin Huang inclined his head.

Without a moment of hesitation, Lancelot summoned the sword slayers and began dissecting.

The rest of them immediately worked on them as well.

Kylie caught a glimpse of Lancelot's sword slayers. She then whistled and the Nephilic Judge army instantly arrived.

"Dissect all the monster carcasses and try not to damage them." After she pointed at the dead bodies, more than 300 of the Nephilic Judges began dissecting the carcasses.

Kylie stood next to Lin Huang, turning her head towards him. "There aren't that many monster carcasses. Do I need to hunt for monsters?"

"No, you don't need to do so for now." Lin Huang shook his head. Seeing Kylie's disappointment, he then explained, "There's something strange about this world. Let's talk about your upgrade after leaving this place."

Kylie nodded her head and did not say anything else.

After leaving Kylie's mini world with Bloody, Lin Huang headed towards the library and began looking for information regarding the internal elixir from the monster's body.

After reading for the whole afternoon at the library, Lin Huang still did not manage to find out about the exact explanation regarding how consuming the monster's internal elixir could result in inheriting its memory. However, there were a few articles that mentioned humans becoming monsters after consuming the monster's internal elixir.

One of the articles was very remarkable.

The main character of the story was a person called Mo Fei. He was very powerful and had killed countless monsters. One day, Mo Fei arrived at a small town. The people of the town were very friendly to him. However, everybody in the town would turn into monsters at night.

With a lot of effort, Mo Fei spent almost the entire night killing all the monsters. As the sun rose, he sat on the green staircase at his hotel with his saber. He then realized that all the monsters he had killed the night before were actually humans. He only realized that he had encountered a monster called an incubus. The monster set him up, causing him to exterminate all the humans in the town.

With guilt and hatred, Mo Fei began hunting for the incubus. It took him decades to hunt for the monster and his hatred grew even stronger. Eventually, he finally found a way to enter the dreamland and managed to find the incubus.

After a brutal fight, he murdered the incubus. Due to his intense dislike for the incubus, he ripped the incubus apart and devoured its internal elixir. He then became an incubus that was even stronger with many negative emotions.

"Is the story telling us that you won't go through whatever you're going through now if you hadn't done what you did?" Lin Huang described how he felt in the first place after reading the story.

In the next few days, Lin Huang was busy practicing the training methods in this world, improving his familiarity with the Twisted Fate Scripture.

Tan Lang and the rest were extraordinarily keen on fighting monsters. Sometimes, they would even hunt for monsters overnight.

Nobody knew whether it was because there had been an increasing number of hunters or because their aggressiveness in hunting monsters had increased, but the number of monsters Tan Lang and the rest killed had doubled.

Just as everybody from the Heaven Alliance was busy dealing with their work in the northwest of the city, a group of people who had invited themselves appeared at one of the northwest mountains.

They were clad in golden armor and the leader was a man that was 20 years old. His hair was all combed up his forehead and he was wearing a golden coat.

As they entered the Fallen God Land, everybody could easily recognize that it was the team from Dynasty which was led by the Seventh Prince.

"Are you sure this is the place?" The Seventh Prince turned his head and looked at a man wearing a vest. "There's nothing here."

The man in the vest looked like he was about 20 years old, and was rather plump and friendly.

"Yes, this is the place. We can't see anything here because some skills that have been activated deter us from seeing the door," said the plump man with a smile. "However, I've already found a way to activate the door from the governor's knowledge."

After finishing his sentence, the plump man took a step forward, rapidly creating 10 fingerprints.

As soon as the last fingerprint was created, loud crashes echoed in the air.

It sounded like a gigantic golden door was gradually being pushed open.

The sound grew louder and soon, the shadow of a huge red door was quickly formed in mid-air. Before it was completely created, the door opened.

"It took so much effort to come here. It won't go unrewarded." The Seventh Prince guffawed. "Let's see what they have here in the Luotian Sect!"

After uttering those words, the Seventh Prince then entered through the door and the rest of the people from Dynasty immediately followed after him.

Right after everybody entered, the red door gradually closed and there was nothing.

The people from Dynasty began murdering and robbing as soon as they entered this world. They pillaged a few cities and towns. To ensure that there was nothing in this world that could threaten them, they began to attack the government residence.

If the Union Government had not stopped them, they might have robbed more than three government residences.

Since the Union Government was now having their eyes on them, Dynasty knew that it would be impossible to continue robbing the government residences. Therefore, they shifted their focus to the sects.

The treasures stored by the organizations that had existed for thousands of years would be no lesser than a government residence and they probably had more than a government residence.

With this in mind, the people from Dynasty retrieved the memories of the governor and the deputy governor that had been killed. They managed to find information regarding the sect. Activating the door of the Luotian Sect that was situated northwest of the mountain forest was one of the pieces of information they found out.

Striding over to the door, a broad staircase appeared right in front of them. The staircase stretched all the way as if it could arc across the sky.

"If you happen to bump into anyone, there's no need to talk nonsense with them. Just attack and slaughter them all!" instructed the Seventh Prince.

The people from Dynasty reacted in outrage after listening to the instruction of the Seventh Prince.

100 of them moved upwards from the staircase.

After a short while, the Seventh Prince saw the living beings.

A few of them were in blue robes and their hair was bunned up. They looked like 11-year-old kids that were holding brooms, sweeping the staircase.

However, the Seventh Prince showed them no mercy. He grinned instead.

Holding two combat swords in his hands and with his arms spread wide open, he passed through the kids at an extremely fast speed by maintaining a low-level flight.

After a short while, blood began oozing out of their necks. Soon after, their skulls fell down to the ground, rolling down the stairs.

The headless bodies in the blue robes then fell down to their deaths.

"Hahaha…" After killing the weak children, the Seventh Prince seemed to be very proud of himself and he laughed loudly.

As the Dynasty members moved further forward, there was an increasing number of teenagers that were sweeping the floor in their robe.

The people from Dynasty then started a massacre.

These children were aged from 7 to 16 years old. Some of them had not begun their cultivation and the strongest one was only on mortal-level.

None of them was on mortal transformation-level. Obviously, the people from Dynasty had bumped into the weak ones.

As they fought and reached the end of the staircase, the Seventh Prince and the rest then saw some buildings.

Two muscular men in armor on mortal transformation-level were stationed at the entrance. Both of them could see the Seventh Prince advancing from afar.

"You're not allowed to enter! This is the Luotian Sect and you're not allowed to do whatever you want here!" One of the men in armor shouted at them.

The reply he got was a bloody sword glow.

The one who attacked was the person standing next to the Seventh Prince who majored in sword skills.

He was an immortal-level rank-9. The mortal transformation-level would be unable to dodge his attack. In fact, they did not even have the chance to capture the movement of the attack.

A red glow struck and the two men in armor were killed at almost the same time. Blood spattered all over the ground.

Witnessing what had just happened, the people behind the door screamed.

"Kill!" The Seventh Prince instructed again.

99 of the Dynasty members gushed into the buildings and began a new round of carnage.

Many of the ascendance-levels from the Luotian Sect finally revealed themselves, defending against the fight.

However, the Dynasty members were incredibly strong and their members were the top among the rest of the immortal-levels. Despite the fact that there was a greater number of humans on ascendance-level compared to Dynasty, they were unable to take advantage of the situation.

The Luotian Sect was soon defeated and a few of the ascendance-levels had died. However, although a few of the members from Dynasty were injured, their fighting spirit was not affected. Instead, they got more aggressive.

The members of Dynasty grew stronger each time after a dangerous fight. They teetered on the edge of death every time they completed a mission.

Of course, the people from the Luotian Sect could not be compared to the Dynasty members as the only real battle experience the disciples trained by the Luotian Sect had gone through were fights in the arena.

The Luotian Sect had members who were on immortal-level rank-9. However, when they encountered the people from Dynasty, it only proved which one of them was the winner.

Witnessing his members being defeated and many of them being killed, they were pressured by their opponent.

In his green robe, the chief of the Luotian Sect struggled for a long time. He then made up his mind, turning his head towards a kid standing next to him.

"Ling Quan, bring my token along and ask the patriarch to please show up!"

This happened at the mountain behind the Luotian Sect. A young Taoist priest in blue robes who looked 12 or 13 was running clumsily in the dense forest. Though a little clumsy, his steps were agile and sturdy.

Soon, he arrived at the cliff behind the mountain.

The wall of the cliff looked as smooth as a mirror; there was not even a single weed growing on it.

The young Taoist priest went to the wall and knelt onto the ground. He took the golden token before his chest out.

"It's Disciple Ling Quan's pleasure to meet all patriarchs!"

"Wicked men have invaded our Luotian Sect. There've been many deaths and casualties. The Sect Leader asked me to bring the sect token to ask the patriarch to show himself!"

After he was done speaking, the young Taoist priest then banged his head against the wall that was as smooth as jade.

For every blow of his head, he would hold his head up and shout, "Patriarch, please show yourself!"

He repeated that over and over again while his voice echoed in the mountain forest. The young Taoist priest's forehead was bleeding from the violence, but that did not stop him at all.

After banging his head for over 20 times, the young Taoist priest felt a little dizzy and he heard someone sighing softly.

Not long later, a cloud of mist appeared on the wall of the cliff. The wall that was as smooth as a mirror vanished completely and was replaced by the mountain with a crack on its surface.

Many gray-robed Taoist priests ran out of the crack and arrived at the foot of the mountain.

A white-haired old man with a long beard walked to the young Taoist priest with a horsetail whisk in his hand and spoke politely, "Is your name Ling Quan?"

"Yes." The young Taoist priest lifted his head, his eyes blurry with tears.

"You're good." The old man brushed his hand on the young Taoist priest's head. The wound on his forehead was healing at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye. It was good as new in the blink of an eye.

However, the young Taoist priest did not seem to care about his forehead as he spoke while choking up, "Patriarch, please help us…"

"Alright." The old man nodded lightly and turned to look at a middle-aged man. "Ming Jing, stay here to take care of this kid."

"The rest will follow me!" The old man flew into the sky as soon as he was done speaking. The remaining 20 or so of them flew to catch up with him.

Looking at the patriarchs leaving, the young Taoist priest finally could not hold himself back and wailed out loud while kneeling on the ground.

The Taoist devotee named Ming Jing squatted down and patted the young Taoist priest's back. "It's alright. Everything's alright…"

"Who dares to mess with my Luotian Sect?!" A scream that sounded like an explosive thunder echoed in every corner of the Luotian Sect.

The spirits of the Taoist priests in the Luotian Sect were lifted upon hearing that voice while the people from Dynasty looked terrified at that moment.

As immortal-level rank-9 powerhouses themselves, the people from Dynasty were familiar with an imperial-level powerhouse's aura.

Hearing the Taoist priests screaming 'the patriarchs have shown up', the people from Dynasty came to a realization that the legendary human immortals had presented themselves.

"I can't believe these old things are still alive!" A sense of fear flashed through the Seventh Prince's eyes. He clearly sensed there were more than 20 imperial-level people coming at a rapid speed. The most powerful one was even more powerful than imperial-level yellow gold-rank. The person was on at least imperial-level white gold-rank or even imperial-level purple gold-rank. The Seventh Prince knew he was no match for that person.

"Retreat!" Without hesitation, the Seventh Prince ordered them to fall back.

He was the first to turn and run. As he did, he remembered to grab the plump man who opened the door.

The people from Dynasty stopped fighting their opponents immediately when they realized that the Seventh Prince had retreated and began to run down the mountain.

"Don't let those vile creatures get away!" A green-robed Taoist devotee shouted.

The Taoist priests ran after the people as fast as they could. They no longer feared them, knowing that the patriarchs were standing behind them.

Sword rays shot in the air one after another, chasing the people from Dynasty.

Due to their rich battle experience, the people from Dynasty knew they could not fight them. They dodged the attacks instead of fighting back. Some of them, who could not dodge, defended the attacks forcefully. They would rather be hurt than battle the opponents. The strategy worked well as they were getting further and further away from the Taoist priests behind them.

Just when they were feeling slightly relieved, more than 20 silhouettes came after them at a rapid speed.

The Dynasty members had a drastic change of expression. They evidently sensed that the ones who were coming after them this time were imperial-level powerhouses!

"How dare you come to our Luotian Sect's doorstep and kill our people? I don't care who you are. You must leave your lives here today!" The leading white-haired Taoist devotee shouted ferociously. As he swung the horsetail whisk, hundreds of sword rays solidified in the air.

The sword rays shot down like arrows one after another. With an intense whistling, they pierced through the Dynasty members' chests.

The single blow killed half of the hundreds of Dynasty members while over 20 of them were badly wounded.

Only about 20 of them who had demigod armor were not injured by the sword rays.

Fear flashed through the Seventh Prince's eyes. The blow alone gave him a clear picture that the old Taoist devotee with horsetail whisk was definitely a supreme powerhouse on imperial-level purple gold-rank. His ability might be just a level lower than a demigod's.

Although the sword ray earlier vanished after colliding with his expert-grade demigod armor, the single attack drained close to a third of his Life Power.

Shock flashed through the old Taoist devotee's eyes after noticing that more than 20 of them were unwounded from his attack. Soon, he realized these people had a high defense armor on them.

The bunch of human immortal-level powerhouses attacked the Dynasty members who were injured together with the old Taoist devotee.

"Don't kill all of them. Keep a few of them for interrogation!" The old Taoist devotee ordered and proceeded to chase the members that were running away.

He swung his horsetail whisk in the air again. Another hundred of sword rays consolidated. They were firing at the Seventh Prince and the rest like arrows.

Nobody was wounded in this round of attack, but a few of them clearly experienced a significant deceleration in their flying speed due to the intense exhaustion of Life Power from the demigod armor which drained the already low Life Power in their bodies.

The old Taoist devotee noticed that instantly. "Running low on Life Power, eh?" He swung his horsetail whisk. As a result, five ropes were divided and attached to the five men whose speed were decelerating. The ropes captured the five of them. "Got them!"

Having been caught by five human immortals, they dared not fight back at all.

They knew very well that their Life Power was exhausted and they recalled the demigod armors. They would die sooner if they were to fight back now. Logically, they would rather pretend to obey now and look for an opportunity to escape later.

The remaining 18 of them were fleeing since the five had been captured.

Knowing that the Seventh Prince and the rest experienced major exhaustion of their Life Power from the armor they were wearing, the old devotee attacked them from far away again.

The third wave of sword rays shot across the sky. A dozen Dynasty members had worn their Life Power out completely. They could not even fly any further and plummeted straight to the ground. A couple of them were spitting blood, badly wounded.

A bunch of Taoist devotees stepped forward to capture them immediately.

Seeing that the remaining six had arrived at their door, the old Taoist devotee swung the horsetail whisk while hundreds of sword rays blasted out again.

At that moment, the Seventh Prince turned around all of a sudden and crushed a jade token.

An intense tremor came from the sky out of nowhere while a fissure appeared in the air, blocking the old Taoist devotee's attack.

A terrifyingly compelling aura came out of the crack.

Shaken, the old Taoist devotee stopped chasing after them and halted the other Taoist devotees behind him.

Suddenly, the crack was torn open while a gigantic human hand came out of it and headed towards the Taoist devotees.

"Retreat!" The old Taoist devotee yelled and swung the horsetail whisk at the same time.

A giant crystal-clear sword that was hundreds of meters long appeared in the air and smashed towards the gigantic hand.

The people from the Luotian Sect were petrified as they watched this round of collision.

The giant sword was crushed bit by bit by the gigantic hand. Even the old Taoist devotee, who had formidable abilities, could not help but spit a mouthful of blood out.

However, thunder exploded in the sky when the giant sword was about to be crushed entirely and the gigantic hand was getting nearer to the old Taoist devotee.

Black lighting bolts came from above unexpectedly and landed on the gigantic hand hard.

The gigantic hand was crushed into pieces as a result of the attack.

The old Taoist devotee landed on the ground slowly. Fortunately, another gray-robed Taoist priest managed to grab him.

Watching the door that was closing and the six who had disappeared, the few human immortal-level Taoist priests attempted to go after them, but the old Taoist devotee stopped them.

"Forget it. There's no need to go after them. These people have powerful techniques and they might have more."

Although the other Taoist devotees were unwilling, they could only let it go recalling the gigantic hand.

"Lock those who are still alive up. Interrogate them separately!" A gray-robed Taoist devotee waved and told the rest.

Meanwhile, the old Taoist devotee looked at the direction where the black lightning had appeared and mumbled softly, "The appearance of thunder means that catastrophe is upon us. We didn't manage to escape this in the end…"

In Enlightenment City, Lin Huang had been performing simulated cultivation on a variety of local methods while his Twisted Fate Scripture had advanced all the way to rotation No. 4. All he needed now was eight million mastery level to proceed to rotation No. 5.

For the past few days, Bloody had come up with all the types of crystal cores needed for the monster card.

Lin Huang traded the unwanted crystal cores with Tan Lang and the rest for all the crystals cores that could whet his monster cards' appetite.

Naturally, Tan Lang and the rest thought it was a little odd, but Lin Huang did not explain much about it. All he said was that the Herculean King and the rest of his pet monsters found some crystal cores delicious. Those rejected crystal cores were those that they found yucky.

For that, Lin Huang even got the Herculean King to eat a crystal core that he liked. Since the Herculean King enjoyed himself, whatever doubts Tan Lang and the rest had were cleared. Naturally, Tan Lang suspected Lin Huang might be hiding something, but he did not delve further.

"I've recorded how everyone felt and the effects every time they consumed those crystal cores." Bloody carried out a series of comprehensive recording. "I think I've got the approximate effects of the crystal core now."

"Tell me more." Lin Huang was interested in learning about the crystal cores.

"According to my current observation, every time they consume the crystal core, they obtain the memory of the crystal core's owner. However, they won't be able to inherit 100% of its contents. Moreover, different skills have different probabilities of inheritance. The highest one was above 90% while the lowest one was less than 20%. I'm speculating that the success rate of inheritance should be related to our skill slots.

"As long as we don't elevate, the main branch of our skill slot will remain the same. Meanwhile, the skills that we obtain through these crystal cores will only appear at the very end of our skill slot. The closer the skill that can be placed on the main branch of the skill slot, the higher the chances of the skill being accepted and the higher probability of inheriting it. On the contrary, the more conflicted the skill is with the development of the skill slot, the easier it is to be rejected by the skill slot and the lower the probability of inheriting it.

"The main branch of my skill slot is parasitical ability. Almost all parasitical skills turned into branches in my skill slot. This is the precursor of the core crystals being absorbed into my body. However, there's a division in parasitical skills too. I'm developing more into group parasitization at the moment, so group parasitical skills will be easier to be assimilated into my skill slot and has the highest probability of being inherited.

"Moreover, my parasitical control is more focused on refined control, so low-level or parasitical skills that have poor control will be expelled from my skill slot by instinct, mainly because such skills aren't exactly useful to me. They might even burden my elevation and development of skills unnecessarily in the future. They contribute zero value to my skill slot, so the inheritance probability will be lowered automatically."

"I get it now." Lin Huang somewhat understood what Bloody meant. "Find time to discuss with Bai and the rest about the direction of their development. You guys will decide which crystals cores to consume by yourselves. I won't interfere with that."

The more skills one had did not guarantee better performance. After all, everyone had limited time and energy, so it was impossible to master each skill to their peak.

Nevertheless, some people could master a group of skills to their peak and that allowed them to become a formidable powerhouse. For instance, the demigod Qi Muxiong who had virtually invincible telekinesis could fight equally with a True God despite having a demigod's body.

One of the reasons why Lin Huang gave up being a firearms master was because of the powerful telekinesis ability that he had. The battle direction of a firearms master would overlap with what he was cultivating. Another reason was that he did not have extra time and energy to cultivate that.

If he were to insist on picking up firearms, his cultivation speed might be heavily affected by this sideline while his ability would definitely not be as great as it was now.

The most powerful talent that he was mainly cultivating was Sword Dao. The telekinesis which he was talented in came in handy. It had undoubtedly saved him a lot of time when it came to his elevation.

It would not hurt for him to work on those side skills such as sorcery, firearms and mechanical mastery when he reached a bottleneck in his main cultivation.

After all, there would be times when his Life Power or telekinesis would be limited. By then, he could rely on those side skills.

Since he was done speaking with Bloody, Lin Huang went into the simulated cultivation again.

Not long later, Bloody slipped out of Lin Huang's sleeve all of a sudden.

"People from Dynasty have appeared. They're coming to the city that we're in!" Lin Huang stopped his cultivation immediately upon hearing that.

A couple of hours ago, he heard from Bloody that the people from Dynasty were coming northwest and had entered a mountain not far away from Enlightenment City. They vanished all of a sudden when they went into the mountain.

Lin Huang was rather skeptical when he looked at the six people Bloody projected.

"Only the six of them?"

"Yes, just the six of them. Apart from Seventh Prince, the rest don't seem to have much Life Power left in them," Bloody confirmed, "I was watching them the last time and Seventh Prince noticed my Leech Pods immediately, but he didn't notice them at all this time. Although I'm further away compared to the last time, under normal circumstances, he should be able to notice me. However, he hasn't until now. Seems like he's in a rather bad condition.

The Leech Pods were far away and they could not really see their faces clearly. However, Lin Huang had outstanding eyesight and instantly noticed their gait. "From their flying speed and clumsiness, they seem to be running for their lives."

"Should we attack them?" Bloody hesitated. "The people that are coming after them must have terrifying ability judging from the fact that they rendered Dynasty so inept and only six of them have survived."

"We can't let go of this opportunity to attack them. As soon as they enter the city, it's difficult for us to find them when they go into hiding. Judging from their character, they'll definitely attack the Heaven Alliance as soon as they're healed." Lin Huang knew underground organizations very well and had no sympathy for this bunch that was with Seventh Prince. "Moreover, the enemy's enemy should be treated as friends. People who are after Dynasty probably won't attack us if they see us stopping and killing Seventh Prince."

After making up his mind, Lin Huang brought Bloody out of Enlightenment City secretly.

As the Dynasty members ran for their lives to Enlightenment City, they had to travel 500 kilometers. Lin Huang hovered in the sky casually while waiting for Seventh Prince and the few injured Dynasty men patiently.

In less than 20 minutes, Seventh Prince appeared with the Dynasty members as expected.

Seventh Prince noticed a silhouette that was blocking their way from a distance. At first, he was shocked as he was afraid it was the old Taoist devotee who had caught up to them. However, he realized that it was a young man upon closer inspection. Furthermore, he found the person's face familiar.

"Lin Xie of the Heaven Alliance, what are you doing here?" Seventh Prince squinted a little to scrutinize Lin Huang when they flew closer.

He was familiar with Lin Huang since he was a member of the Genius Union too.

Before entering the Fallen God Land, he recognized Lin Huang immediately after taking a glance at him. However, he did not bother to talk to him because he thought he was weak.

Lin Huang blocking their way now caused him to feel insecurity that came out of nowhere.

"I'm here because I know you guys would come. I'm here to kill all of you," Lin Huang said casually and did not hide what he was planning to do at all.

"Kill us? Just you alone?" Disdain filled Seventh Prince's face but he secretly had his guard up. He spoke to the five Dynasty members behind him through voice transmission, "This fella's behaving weirdly. He might be planning an ambush. Try to attack him on my cue."

"Yes, it's just I alone." Lin Huang nodded in all seriousness.

"Lin Xie, I might be really scared of you if you have the same combat strength as I do which is immortal-level rank-9. But you're only immortal-level rank-3. Speaking to me like that will bring your death forward faster." Seventh Prince did not think that Lin Huang was alone. He suspected that the rest of the Heaven Alliance were hiding nearby. With their current condition, they might not be a match with the ten Heaven Alliance members. Moreover, they were out in the open while their enemies were hiding, so they were at a disadvantage in their given situation.

"Seventh Prince, I thought you'd have the ability to see beyond a person's combat strength. I've overestimated you," Lin Huang teased.

Seventh Prince's lips twitched. He was not sure what kind of irritating words Lin Huang would say if he were to continue to speak to him. He could not help but interrupt him right away, "Alright, quit your act. Get Tan Lang and the rest out. Do you really think we don't know that you have people hiding nearby?"

At least, they could see what they were dealing with if the people from the Heaven Alliance revealed themselves, so they could attack their weaknesses.

Lin Huang spread his arms wide helplessly. "It's only me this time. Tan Lang and the rest are still busy hunting monsters. They don't even know that all of you are in the northwest."

"I'd be stupid to believe you." It was clear that Seventh Prince assumed Lin Huang had backup hiding.

"It seems like all of you really doubt my abilities." Lin Huang shook his head helplessly. "If that's the case, I'll show you a little of what I'm capable of doing then." Lin Huang moved his left hand slightly as soon as he was done speaking. More than 2,000 immortal-level rank-9 Parasitic Puppets that were hiding in the pet spatial ring emerged out all at once.

Lin Huang had bought the pet spatial ring to disguise his identity as an Imperial Censor. It had always been empty until Bloody gained a massive amount of Parasitic Puppets recently, so Lin Huang put all of them into it.

After all, if he were to put them in Kylie's mini world, he would first need to summon her to get her to open it to let all of the Parasitic Puppets out.

Keeping them in the pet spatial ring not only allowed him to skip a step but summoning them directly also suited his character as an Imperial Censor.

The people from Dynasty were shocked to witness the thousands of immortal-level rank-9 monsters appear out of nowhere.

Seventh Prince immediately sensed that the monsters were all triple mutated. He looked extremely horror-struck at the moment. He finally comprehended that what Lin Huang said was the truth. He really was alone as he did not need any of the Heaven Alliance members to help him at all.

"We've surrounded all of you," Lin Huang said for the second time with a smirk.

Although Seventh Prince was arrogant, he knew his capability very well. Not long ago, he had retreated from the imperial-level purple gold-rank old Taoist devotee because he knew it was time to flee.

Looking at the army of thousands of pet monsters, he was sure that it was time for them to run again.

"Retreat!" His voice transmission went into the ears of the remaining five Dynasty members. Without even waiting for a response, Seventh Prince stepped back immediately. He turned around and flew as fast as he could towards the direction they came from.

Meanwhile, the remaining five of them were scrambling for their lives in different directions.

Apart from Seventh Prince, none of them had the confidence to fight the Parasitic Puppets army before them. Furthermore, their Life Power was exhausted. They might not be able to fight one of them given their current condition, let alone a whole army of them.

Anyone would be dumb not to run when encountering such enemies!

However, Lin Huang and Bloody expected them to respond in such a way.

Lin Huang stood where he was while watching them with his hands in his pockets. He was not afraid of any of them escaping.

Bloody, on the other hand, was just getting busy.

"Dragnet formation!" As Bloody issued the order, the Parasitic Puppets spread out quickly and surrounded the six of them in the air like a giant web.

"A battle formation?!" The fear in Seventh Prince's eyes intensified when they were surrounded.

He could guess how Lin Huang managed to obtain such insane points on the Stairway Tree now. If he had such a monster army, he would be able to secure No. 1 on the scoreboard easily too.

However, he had no idea that the 'truth' that he believed in was not the truth at all. Lin Huang did not have such an army when he was on the Stairway Tree. The Parasitic Puppets army had just been raised less than a month ago.

Bloody carried out the next step ruthlessly after surrounding the six of them.

"Killer Spider!" The name of the battle formation was Killer Spider, and not Killing.

The army was divided into six groups which separated the six of them. There were more and more monsters participating in the groups, just like spiders trapping their prey with their spider web.

Seventh Prince struggled to get out of it, but he could not since the group formation had now changed.

The other five were attacked by the five mini monster groups continuously. Their Life Power became depleted one after another and they were smashed into heaps of meat after their demigod armor was obliterated.

In less than a minute, Dynasty was down to one member: Seventh Prince.

Although he could not see their condition, Seventh Prince clearly sensed that their breaths were disappearing one after another. He was the only one left in the end.

He could also tell that the monsters were coming for him since the five of them had perished.

More than 2,000 monsters were attacking him from far away. His Life Power that had been depleted to less than a third seemed to be dropping at a horrifying speed.

He attempted to escape from the attack but he would still be surrounded eventually. None of the pet monsters in the battle formation was wounded from his retaliation.

Realizing that it was impossible for him to run, Seventh Prince finally panicked. "Lin Xie, I surrender! Get them to stop! I'll give you everything I have as long as you're willing to let me go."

Soon, he heard Lin Huang's voice booming outside the monster horde coldly, "Surrender? Do you think this is a match?! Everything that you have will belong to me anyway when you're dead."

"Lin Xie, I'm the Prince of Dynasty. If you kill me, Dynasty will definitely come for you! As long as you're willing to let me go, I guarantee that I won't tell anyone about you attacking us and I won't reveal your real abilities to anyone." Seventh Prince attempted to turn things around one last time, hoping that Lin Huang would change his mind.

"Dynasty will come for me even if I don't kill you. Don't you forget that I've already taken five lives from Dynasty. On the contrary, Dynasty wouldn't be able to find me as easily if I killed you. Nobody would think an immortal-level rank-3 powerhouse like me would be able to kill the Holy Son of Dynasty. Also, your guarantee is worth nothing. To me, only a dead person is the best at keeping secrets."

"Lin Xie, are you a man for hiding behind your monsters? Kill me if you're man enough!" Seventh Prince went insane after confirming that Lin Huang would not let him go. He then tried the very last possibility — getting Lin Huang to show himself.

"Such a dumb way to instigate me!" Lin Huang shook his head helplessly when he heard the taunt and gave Bloody the last order, "Kill him!"

"Consolidation!" The thousands of monsters consolidated into a gigantic battle character in a human form immediately as ordered.

Lin Huang was a little bewildered when he saw the battle character that looked 80% like him. A sword was the only thing that was lacking.

The battle character that was up to 1,000 meters tall clenched its right fist tightly while its body turned into a bow-shape. It charged forward and threw a hard punch at Seventh Prince.

It was a punch that could kill an imperial-level crimson gold-rank powerhouse. As it collided into Seventh Prince's chest, the force of the punch stirred the air within 100 kilometers.

Seventh Prince was flung away from the attack and crushed more than ten huge mountains behind him.

The demigod armor on his body was damaged from the attack immediately while his chest caved in. All of his organs were crushed. There were almost no bones that were intact in his body. Even his skull was cracked.

Bloody had avoided attacking his head in order to cast parasites on him later.

The attack killed Seventh Prince who had less than a tenth of Life Power left in him.

After getting Bloody to perform parasitization on the people from Dynasty, Lin Huang cleared the battlefield and put the Parasitic Puppets army away into his pet spatial ring.

He then summoned the Inferior Imp and gave a similar order as he did the last time, "Settle the battlefield. Use a couple more meteorites this time."

After watching over 10 meteorites falling from the sky and smashing the entire battlefield into ruins, Lin Huang left Enlightenment City with Bloody secretly after making sure there were no traces left.

Returning to the hotel, Bloody then reported what had been retrieved from their memories, "The place that Dynasty previously went to was the Luotian Sect. They initially wanted to plunder the sect. However, the members of the Luotian Sect have awakened the human immortals that were sealed. One of the elder Taoist priests who possesses the strongest ability is on par with the purple gold-rank. He's capable of killing half of the people from Dynasty in one blow. Seventh Prince only managed to escape along with five other people with his life-saving skill."

"So, there really are human immortals!" Lin Huang felt thrilled on the inside but he kept his cool. "Since there are human immortals from the Luotian Sect that managed to survive up until now, there are probably other human immortals from other sects that are still alive."

"There could be demigods or those that are even stronger," Bloody added.

"Does the governor and deputy governor of the city have any relationship with the sect?" Lin Huang asked.

"Yes. Many of the immortal guards are from the sect. Only a few of them who trained themselves will take this position up." Bloody acquired this information from the plump man who had inherited the governor's memory.

"Is there any other useful information?"

Bloody thought for a while before it decided to share, "There's a strange apocalyptic prediction. The plump man retrieved it from the governor's memory too."

"Do tell."

"A strike of thunder heralds the arrival of disaster. The forming of a phenomenon, a chaotic tribulation," Bloody uttered the prophecy. "I guess it doesn't really mean anything. It might just be something they said during the ancient times."

Lin Huang pondered for a while. He had no idea what it could mean. Soon, he snapped out of his thoughts and did not think any further about it.

Two days had passed.

Tan Lang and the rest returned and the ten Heaven Alliance members gathered again.

After distributing the items they obtained, Tang Ning reported the information he had received in the past few days with a weird facial expression. "The government residence has recently received a few weird messages."

"A city situated in the east disappeared abruptly. A few places at the Thule City which is located in the north of the government residence are also haunted. In the south, a sudden snowstorm broke out at Luohua City. The entire government residence was covered in snow in just one night. As for the deserted area in the west, a town has appeared out of nowhere…"

After listening to Tang Ning's report, Lin Huang's heart skipped a beat. He could clearly remember the last two phrases in the prediction: "the forming of a phenomenon, a chaotic tribulation."

"Can you please tell in detail?" Lin Huang immediately requested. "What do you mean by the town suddenly disappearing?"

"All the buildings and residents in town have disappeared. There's only open space there as if nothing has ever existed."

"The exact opposite happened in the west of the government residence. A town suddenly appeared out of nowhere with about 100,000 residents there. There are warriors and cultivators. According to the people in the town, they've been staying there for tens of thousands of years. However, many cultivators who go there to hunt said that they've never seen the town before. They're pretty sure that the area used to be an open space.

"As for the haunted Thule City, nobody has managed to figure out what's the reason behind the strange incidents. A family hears the sound of crying babies every day. The crying can be heard irregularly and most of the time, it comes from one of the small rooms. A cultivator has investigated this issue, but nothing odd has been discovered. Another family sees shadows in the house from time to time. The shadows are like images that nobody can capture. The weirdest part is that in another house, they smell the aroma of food when it's time to eat. It can be the smell of roasted pork, soup, or steamed rice.

"The snowstorm that hit Xueluo City for a whole night has engulfed the city. Only the third floor of a few three-story buildings aren't buried in snow. Fortunately, that was just ordinary snow and nobody was injured."

Tan Lang and the rest did not pay much attention after listening to the news from Tang Ning.

Lin Huang was the only one who frowned as it reminded him about the prophecy.

"Lin Xie, are you okay?" Tan Lang soon noticed that something was wrong with him.

Lin Huang hesitated for a while. He then told him about the prediction.

"I accidentally came across an ancient book when I was at the library of Gushan City. There's this stanza…" Part of what Lin Huang spoke was the truth as he shared coming across the prophecy from an ancient book.

"A strike of thunder heralds the arrival of disaster. The forming of a phenomenon, a chaotic tribulation." Tan Lang and the rest frowned as they heard the saying.

"Is the phenomenon referring to our current situation?" Shen Tao asked.

"That's possible." Lin Huang nodded his head.

"Listening to that, I suddenly recall that when I received the information regarding the strange phenomenon from the rest of the government residences, one of the deputy governors was there. He had a strange facial expression and left immediately as soon as he received the information." Tang Ning frowned. "I guess the governor and the deputy governor must have known something about this."

"I'll ask more about it." Tan Lang felt that things were not that simple. "Any other information?"

"There's another important message." Tang Ning bobbed his head with a serious facial expression.

"One of the sects called the Luotian Sect was attacked. According to the description, it was probably the people from Dynasty who did it." Tang Ning paused for a while as he said, "It's been said that the attack has caused a big scene, causing all the patriarchs at the Luotian Sect to be unsealed. More than 20 of the human immortals have shown up. The people from Dynasty have disappeared in the past few days. Perhaps, they're all dead."

"The people from Dynasty are all dead?!" Tan Lang and the rest were stunned.

"According to the abilities of the people from Dynasty, they might not all be dead if they encounter a yellow gold-rank. Perhaps, the abilities of the human immortals can be compared to the white or purple gold-rank." Tan Lang was familiar with the overall abilities of Seventh Prince and the people from Dynasty. "It seems like this world is much more complicated than we think."

"I guess the people from the sect aren't unreasonable. As long as we maintain a good relationship with the government residence, it's less likely that they're going to attack us." Lin Huang could understand the sect as he had grasped the knowledge from the memory retrieved by Bloody. "If they aren't friendly, we can just leave the foggy world and try not to have any conflict with them."

"That's what I was thinking." Tan Lang nodded his head. "Since the Fallen God Land is so big, we can explore other places."

"That's it. I'll head over to the government residence to ask about the unusual phenomenon tomorrow." Tan Lang made further arrangements. "We'll only need six people, including the Herculean King, for tomorrow's monster hunt. We'll need two people to stay at the government residence for safety purposes. Who's going to stay?"

"I'll stay. I have stronger senses." Li Jia was the first to suggest.

"I'll stay here too." Shen Tao volunteered to stay there as well.

"Alright. Li Jia and Shen Tao will be in charge of safety at the government residence. Lin Xie and Tang Ning will remain at their original positions. The Herculean King and the rest will follow me to go monster hunting."

The next morning, Tan Lang arrived at the government residence because he doubted the prophecy. However, the door of the government residence was closed and the entrance was blocked by a team of honorary immortal guards.

Under normal circumstances, the door of the government residence would be opened at 8 a.m. sharp. There would be two honorary immortal guards stationed in front of the entrance and four people to work in shifts. The team would change every three days. Other than the leader of the team, the members would take turns to be on duty.

In the government residence, there was a team of 13 honorary immortal guards that was responsible to be on patrol duty. The leader would take the lead and the team would be rotated each day.

The entrance was now blocked by a team of honorary immortal guards. That being said, something must have happened at the government residence.

Tan Lang frowned and rushed to the leader of the team. "What happened?"

The leader could recognize Tan Lang at first glance and he was familiar with the people from the Heaven Alliance. Aside from his sleeping hours, Tang Ning from the Heaven Alliance had been staying at the government residence most of the time. He knew that Tan Lang was the leader of the Heaven Alliance and he exuded an aura that was much stronger than that of the governor.

"Mr. Tan Lang…" The leader seemed troubled as he was being questioned. "The deputy governor instructed that we're not allowed to reveal anything that happens in the government residence. I can't tell you anything. Please don't ask about it anymore. I'm sorry. The entrance to the government residence has been blocked and nobody can enter or leave." The leader shook his head.

"Alright, I don't want to trouble you. You may look for us at the inn if there's any problem that you can't settle." Tan Lang took a glimpse at the door that had been shut and left as if he had something in mind.

Returning to the inn, Tan Lang gathered everybody and told them what he had encountered at the entrance of the government residence.

"Any chance that an unusual phenomenon has occurred at the government residence?" Lin Huang was the first one to ask after hearing the report.

He actually knew what was happening at the government residence through Bloody's Leech Pods. However, he could not tell them that.

"That's possible," Li Jia agreed with Lin Huang, "If the government residence was under attack, they shouldn't be reacting this way. Furthermore, the inn is less than a kilometer away from the government residence. If there's a battle, it's impossible for us not to be able to sense anything. However, it's possible for the unusual phenomenon to appear without a trace."

"If it's something serious, we shall stay here and not go hunting for monsters. Let's wait for the news from the government residence." Tan Lang was still worried about it.

"There's no need to do so. Li Jia and Shen Tao are here. Don't worry and go hunt for monsters." Lin Huang did not want Tan Lang and the rest to slow his progress down. If they did not go on a monster hunt, he would obtain lesser crystal cores. "If there's no news from the government residence for three days, are you going to wait here for three days?"

"The Herculean King shall stay here. You need an imperial monster for safety purposes." Tan Lang was worried about Lin Huang's safety as Chan Dou had asked him to take good care of Lin Xie.

"Ask the Herculean King whether if I'm lacking imperial monsters or not." Lin Huang shook his head and smiled.

The Herculean King turned its head and looked at Tan Lang. "Among all the imperial monsters he has, I'm considered as the one with the weakest abilities."

Everybody from the Heaven Alliance was astonished when they heard that and they stared at Lin Huang in surprise.

"The Herculean King is just being humble," Lin Huang said with a smile.

Of course, the Herculean King knew that Lin Huang actually wanted to hide his abilities, so it did not say anything else.

"Oh, you really scared the crap out of me!" Listening to Lin Huang's explanation, Tan Lang then looked at the Herculean King with a burning desire while thinking to himself, 'It knows how to be humble. Its intelligence is comparable to humans.'

Realizing that Tan Lang was looking at itself with a strange expression, the Herculean King that was initially standing on the left side of Lin Huang stepped back.

"It doesn't want me." Seeing what the Herculean King did, Tan Lang became gloomy.

After the discussion, they decided to follow last night's plan whereby Lin Huang and the three others would stay there and the Herculean King and the rest would go on a monster hunt.

After Tan Lang and the rest had left, Tang Ning headed towards the government residence to ask for more information. Lin Huang and the others stayed at the inn.

After a short while, Tang Ning returned. He was stopped by the honorary immortal guard outside the government residence as well and did not manage to get any useful information from them.

Seeing Tang Ning being blocked, Li Jia was triggered.

"It sucks to be kept completely in the dark about this. Let the bugs detect what's actually going on."

"We must stay calm," Lin Huang disagreed with Li Jia. "The government residence has blocked the information. This means that they don't want anyone else to know about this. Something strange just happened to the whole world. The government residence doesn't completely trust us. If we were to investigate this, it'll be fine if they don't discover us. However, they're going to lose trust in us if they find out. Especially at this point of time when it's been proven that there are sects and human immortals backing the government residence up, we have to build a good relationship with the government residence. Don't get ourselves into too much trouble.

"Moreover, if the government residence needs help, they'll definitely look for us. If they don't, it simply means that they're capable of solving the problem and they don't need our help. If we were to investigate this by ourselves, they might think that we have other intentions."

"What Lin Xie said makes sense." Shen Tao nodded his head in agreement with Lin Huang.

"Let's not think about this anymore. Get on with your work. Otherwise, take a good rest." After Lin Huang finished his sentence, they went back to their own rooms.

The three of them then exchanged glances with each other and left.

In the afternoon, the deputy governor came to the inn along with the honorary immortal guards. They were looking for Lin Huang and the rest.

Obviously, they were incapable of solving the problem and they had to ask for help from the Heaven Alliance.

Looking at the Heaven Alliance members, the deputy governor felt awkward.

"What's happening? Can you please tell us now?" Li Jia had been itching to ask about this for the entire afternoon. He finally had the chance to do so now.

"An unusual phenomenon has occurred at the government residence this morning. There are now two governors," said the deputy governor helplessly. "It took us the entire afternoon and we can't figure out who's the real governor…"

"Are you sure that it's caused by the unusual phenomenon? Could it be somebody disguising themselves as the governor?" Tang Ning asked.

"I don't think so. He knows a lot about the secrets of the sects, including the governor's private matters. No outsider would know this." He Tao, the deputy governor, shook his head. "The only possibility must be in relation to the unusual phenomenon."

"What can we do?" Lin Huang asked. He had already known about this early in the morning because Bloody's Leech Pods had been monitoring the situation in the government residence. However, he was unable to identify who the real governor was through Bloody's screen.

"We have no idea what to do. That's why we're here to ask for your opinion." He Tao looked helpless.

"Perhaps there's nothing we can help since you're unable to recognize him as well." Shen Tao shook his head.

"Let's go and have a look." Li Jia was interested in this dilemma. "However, we can't promise that we'll know what to do."

"Alright!" He Tao had no other choice, allowing Lin Huang and the rest to give it a try.

Lin Huang and the rest followed Deputy Governor He Tao to the city. The city gates remained closed just like they were in the morning. However, they were not stopped by the honorary immortal guard troop this time. Instead, He Tao brought Lin Huang and the rest to the government residence as he wished.

He Tao brought a few of them straight to the meeting hall.

There were two governors sitting in all seriousness in the meeting hall. They were drinking tea and they did not even bother to look at each other.

To Lin Huang and the rest, the two looked exactly the same. There seemed to be no difference between them.

They had large eyes, thick brows, and a mustache. They had the same body size and height. Even the way they drank their tea was the same.

"You guys are here!" Seeing Lin Huang and the rest, both of them stood up almost at the same time to greet them.

Shen Tao stepped forward and walked around them, chuckling with his eyes wide. "The both of you really look the same!"

As Lin Huang observed them, he fixed his eyes on the duo's storage rings on their left hands. He then asked the Deputy Governor upon noticing that the two storage rings were exactly the same. "Have you checked their storage rings?"

"We have." Deputy Governor He Tao shook his head helplessly. "The items in both rings are exactly the same. So are the inner garments they're wearing. There's nothing more, nothing less. They've also gotten us to check the weapon armors which ownership has been claimed. Theoretically, it's impossible for there to be a second Blood Dragon Halberd, but after our thorough investigation, we found out that the duo's Blood Dragon Halberds are real."

"How is it impossible to have a second Blood Dragon Halberd?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"It was my master who made the Blood Dragon Halberd exclusively for me. The main material to make it was the entire spine of the one and only blood dragon," the governor on the left explained, "There's no other blood dragon in the world."

"My master was dying when he was making the Blood Dragon Halberd. He passed away on the third day the Blood Dragon Halberd was made," added the governor on the right.

Lin Huang went completely silent after hearing that and he did not ask further.

"Since you've gone through the things that they have, how about their bodies?" Li Jia asked.

"The governors initiated us to check their bodies," He Tao responded, "Not just the appearance of their bodies, but even the inside of their bodies look exactly the same. There's no difference between them."

"May I investigate further?" Li Jia looked at both of them. "You might feel a little uncomfortable during the process. I need you to tolerate it a little."

"No problem."

"I'm fine too."

Li Jia walked to them and held their arms in each of his hands. "Please don't resist."

As soon as he was done speaking, countless black bugs crawled out of his sleeves and burrowed into the skin on both of their arms.

They wanted to pull their arms back by instinct, but resisted the urge immediately, allowing the bugs to crawl into their bodies.

The bugs that Li Jia used this time were much smaller than those that he used for the investigation the last time. They were approximately a tenth of an ant. Completely black, they did not seem to have the ability to fly.

Those little bugs penetrated the duo's skin easily and disappeared into their bodies.

The two governors began having a slightly odd expression on their faces as soon as the bugs entered their body.

"It's a little ticklish. Please bear it, or else you'll chase the bugs away," Li Jia reminded.

Around five to six minutes later, the bugs returned to Li Jia's sleeves after crawling around their bodies twice.

The two governors were relieved.

Li Jia closed his eyes in silence for a little while after releasing both of their arms. He only opened his eyes later and shook his head helplessly. "I was checking their muscles and bones. I'm so sorry, but I don't find anything different between them."

"There's nothing else that I can do. They're all yours now." Li Jia looked at Lin Huang and the rest with his arms opened.

Tang Ning thought about it for a while and asked, "When was the first time the both of you met? What exactly happened?"

"I saw a person in my bed when I opened my eyes this morning." The governor on the left peeped at the one on his right as soon as he was done speaking.

"I've been busy the past few days and didn't get enough rest. Because I was exhausted last night, I slept all the way until the morning. When I woke up, just like he said, I noticed a person in my bed, which is ridiculous!" The governor on the right had a more detailed explanation.

"How could both of you not sense anything since someone appeared so close to you?" Tang Ning asked while frowning.

"I should've been able to sense it immediately under usual circumstances, but I really didn't sense anything this time. My mind was completely blank when I saw him. I thought I was hallucinating," explained the governor on the left.

"It's the same for me. I didn't sense anything. I just noticed a person sleeping next to me when I woke up." The governor on the right provided the same answer.

"Is there any surveillance around?" Tang Ning turned to ask Deputy Governor He Tao who was standing at the side.

"There's none in the bedroom, but there is at the entrance. I've already checked both surveillances at the bedroom entrance and didn't find anything out of the ordinary."

"Alright then. There's nothing I can do here." Tang Ning thought about it and realized there was no longer anything worth asking. The questions that he came up with had been asked by the government residence this morning.

The rest then looked pointedly at Shen Tao and Lin Huang.

Lin Huang turned to ask Shan Tao, "Do you have any suggestions?"

"No." Shen Tao shook his head. "I've been observing them when you guys asked your questions. The observation proved that they're the same person."

Lin Huang nodded while smiling. "You're right about that. Indeed, they are both Governor Tu Ming."

"Lin Xie, what do you mean?" Both of the governors were triggered upon hearing that.

"If I'm not mistaken, the phenomenon must've cloned another Governor Tu Ming. That's why we can't find anything different between them," Lin Huang voiced his observation, "When the both of you said it's impossible to have two Blood Dragon Halberds in this world, I suspected it might possibly be cloning done by the phenomenon's force. Governor Tu Ming isn't the only thing being cloned, but everything that comes with him was duplicated too. That's the reason why there are two storage rings with exactly the same contents and even two identical Blood Dragon Halberds."

"So, is there any way to identify which is the clone?" The two governors asked almost in unison.

"There's no way." Lin Huang shook his head. "Even the clone doesn't know he's a clone. With the complete memory of Governor Tu Ming, the clone thinks he's the real one."

"What should we do now?" Deputy Governor He Tao asked immediately.

"I don't think we should do anything about it." Lin Huang raised his brow. "Since the clone possesses Governor Tu Ming's complete memory and wouldn't do any harm to the government residence or the city, I don't think there's a need to distinguish them apart."

"Moreover, no one can tell who the real Governor Tu Ming is before the phenomenon fades away. So, why waste all this effort in futile?"

"But who knows when is the phenomenon going away? It wouldn't affect much if we don't have a governor for a couple of days, but what if the phenomenon goes on for a couple of months or even years? Without the governor, there are many things that we won't be able to do," He Tao said while looking worried.

"Who says you have no governor? All of you can use both of the governors now. A clone isn't an outsider in disguise. He won't be exposing anything, so why can't you use him?" Lin Huang asked like it was a no-brainer.

Deputy Governor He Tao looked at Lin Huang with his eyes wide open. He had no idea what to say at the moment. "We can do that?!"

"Other government residences can't have two governors even if they wanted to. It's a steal." Lin Huang raised his brow again. "Alright. Since it's been solved, we should head back to the inn now."

Lin Huang turned and left after patting He Tao's shoulder. The rest of the Heaven Alliance followed him while wearing smiles.

The puzzled He Tao and the two governors who were staring at each other were the only ones left.

Lin Huang really had no idea what to do about Governor Tu Ming.

The phenomenon cloned the entire person. It did not only apply to every single cell in his body, but even his soul was also duplicated entirely. There was no way to tell who was the real person and who was the clone.

However, the phenomenon was indeed something that did not require solving.

Lin Huang did not follow up on Governor Tu Ming since then. He only heard the news coming from the sect and that the two governors had left Enlightenment City together from Tang Ning.

The city regained its peace a few days after the strange phenomenon.

Tan Lang and the rest would still come back once every few days for supplies as well as to distribute the rewards.

Tang Ning would consolidate the news regarding the phenomenon from various places. The frequency of the phenomenon was getting higher and higher. Although it did not cause any severe trouble at the moment, everyone knew that the peace was just temporary.

Li Jia released his bugs to every city to monitor them. With his monitoring, Lin Huang stayed indoors even more now.

Shen Tao was the only one was bored. He was currently on the brink of elevating to imperial-level. The reason he had yet to elevate was that he had yet to find a suitable imperial-level monster.

One would have to kill an imperial-level monster to obtain the Life Base of its Life Palace in order to elevate from immortal-level to imperial-level. If one were to treat a Life Palace as a building, the Life Base would be the blueprint. One would only be able to construct a building with a blueprint. Obtaining a monster's Life Base was to form the foundation of Life Palace.

The reason why Shen Tao entered the Fallen God Land was to find a suitable imperial-level monster. However, he had not seen any imperial-level monster ever since he entered the foggy area. After killing ascendance-level monsters with Tan Lang for a while, the slaughter was almost one-sided which did little to help his cultivation. Hence, he decided to stay in the city.

However, he was getting bored these days.

He looked for Li Jia for battle practice, but the latter rejected him with the excuse of being busy.

He even lowered his pride to ask Lin Huang to allow him to practice his sword skills with his summoning beast. However, Lin Huang rejected him, saying he did not want his summoning beast to be killed by Shen Tao.

In reality, Lin Huang's Lancelot and the sword servants under him were suitable to practice sword skills with Shen Tao. If it Lancelot elevated to pseudo-mythical-level while fighting Shen Tao, it was uncertain who would be killed.

Lin Huang did not want to expose his abilities, so he rejected Shen Tao directly.

For the past few peaceful days in the city, Lin Huang maintained his usual lifestyle whereby he proceeded to cultivate the simulation of local methods. He stayed in ever since Li Jia got his bugs to monitor the situation. The Twisted Fate Scripture had broken through rotation No. 4 within a few days and entered rotation No. 5.

He would need 16 million mastery levels to get to rotation No. 6 of the Twisted Fate Scripture. Although it was quite impossible to break through in such a short period of time, Lin Huang insisted on doing the simulation in his room every day.

Meanwhile, Bloody was monitoring the entire world. Lin Huang would know what happened in the world each day even before Tang Ning did.

In the morning, Bloody interrupted Lin Huang out of nowhere as he was cultivating after breakfast as usual.

"Something's happened!"

"What's that?" Lin Huang knew Bloody would not interrupt his cultivation if it was something minor.

Bloody projected the images captured by a couple of Leech Pods right away.

In the images, gigantic gullies appeared in the ground out of nowhere. The gullies were deep and endless, but the Leech Pods detected many monsters crawling up from the walls of the crevasses continuously. There were countless monsters. There were so many of them that it was horrifying.

This was happening in more than one location. Bloody had already projected eight locations.

"Are those monster hordes?!" Lin Huang frowned a little. Although he foresaw that the world would end sooner or later, he thought it was unreal when the problem surfaced.

"There are eight of these at the moment, but I speculate that there'll be even more later on." Bloody's tone sounded negative.

"These gullies… Why do they look a little like the Abyss Brink?" Lin Huang realized all of a sudden after taking a closer look at the eight images.

"You noticed it too. Indeed, those are the eight main branches of the Abyss Brink, but they're much smaller," Bloody spoke while projecting another image.

It was shot from an aerial view far from the ground. He could see the eight gigantic intersecting gullies on the ground. There were like the frame of an umbrella.

"How are the abilities of those monsters that are crawling out of the abyss?" Lin Huang could not sense the monsters' abilities through the images, so he could only ask Bloody.

"I've only seen holy fire-levels at the moment. There isn't even one immortal-level monster." Bloody added as soon as it was done speaking, "But I'm suspecting this is just the first wave of the monster horde. There might be immortal-level monsters and even imperial-level monsters after this."

"I'm sure that the other government residences will hear about this since it's such a huge commotion. Let's see what they're going to do and we'll plan later on." Lin Huang frowned.

He did not think much about it before this since this world might be built by a bunch of survivors from the ancient times. However, now it seemed like it was not as simple as he thought.

The eight gigantic gullies that were similar to the Abyss Brink made him realize that this world might not be as straightforward as he believed.

Tang Ning returned from the government residence in the afternoon.

As expected, he brought back the news about the monster hordes.

The government residence asked the Heaven Alliance for help, hoping that they could fight the monster horde together. Apart from that, they expressed that they were willing to pay the price of an equivalent value.

Tang Ning sent the message to Tan Lang and the rest who were hunting out there.

They rushed back before the sky turned dark and had a meeting with the two deputy governors and the bunch from the Heaven Alliance at the government residence.

The people from the government residence explained the situation, which was similar to what Bloody had observed.

The Heaven Alliance members noticed that something was off as they studied the eight intersecting gullies.

After some discussions, the people from the Heaven Alliance returned to the inn while Tan Lang gathered them around.

"What do you guys think the eight gullies look like?" Tan Lang glanced at everyone.

"What else do they look like? They're the eight main branches of the Abyss Brink." Shen Tao was the first to speak while the rest nodded in agreement.

"Now, I'm suspecting whether this world's made of ancient survivors." Li Jia's suspicion was aligned with what everyone was thinking about.

"I think the Union Government should know something about it, but they won't release the news easily now," Lin Huang voiced his speculation.

"Why don't we capture some of the people from the Union Government and interrogate them?" Shen Tao grinned.

"Are you trying to create trouble?" Tan Lang stared at Shen Tao.

"There are 200 of them from the Union Government coming in this time. The ordinary members shouldn't know that much about it. If you want, you should capture those EA.2 members." Lin Huang looked at Shen Tao while grinning.

Shen Tao looked troubled when he heard what Lin Huang said.

The Union Government's intelligence agency Agency EA had sent three EA.2 members into the Fallen God Land this time. Each of their abilities was on par with the Heaven Alliance's Tan Lang or Dynasty's Seventh Prince. Shen Tao would definitely be defeated if they were to fight one-on-one.

Because of the three of them, even Dynasty's Seventh Prince would have to make way if he bumped into the Union Government's team.

"The Union Government would have to collaborate with the others to survive the crisis this time. They'll share the news sooner or later," Lin Huang continued, "I think our priority now is to handle the monster horde with the government residence and reap all of the benefits that we can!"

Meanwhile at the Luotian Sect Hall, Sect Leader Duan Mu Rui sat on the main seat uneasily. There were 24 human immortals sitting in both rows next to him, all of them exuding a majestically powerful aura.

The bunch of human immortals was discussing how should they handle the arrested Dynasty members. As Sect Leader, Duan Mu Riu had been listening quietly. He sat with his back straight, not daring to interrupt from the beginning until the end.

Although he was the Luotian Sect Leader, among the 24 people who were present, his grandmaster ranked the last in seniority. Most of them were even great-grandmasters.

As the people were in the zone of discussion, a messenger burst into the hall all of a sudden.

"Sect Leader, all patriarchs… There's an emergency coming from the city!"

"We'll talk about it when the meeting is over!" Duan Mu Rui frowned and waved him away.

"Wait." The old, white-bearded Taoist devotee sitting on Duan Mu Rui's left lifted his head to look at the messenger and turned to Duan Mu Rui. "Sect Leader, let him speak since it's an emergency. We won't have any results for our discussion anytime soon anyway."

"You're right, Patriarch." Duan Mu Rui nodded immediately.

The white-bearded Taoist devotee holding a horsetail whisk was the most senior among the patriarchs. He was the old Sect Leader who had decided to seal the door tens of thousands year ago. Including the time he sealed himself, he was close to 13,000 years old.

Duan Mu Rui knew that the old Taoist devotee had no right to bypass him to command the messenger just like that. Instead, he was showing his respect to Duan Mu Rui as the Sect Leader.

"What's the emergency? Please, speak."

"A piece of news has come from the government residence. Gigantic gullies have appeared in several locations early in the morning. They've found eight gullies so far which have spread across the entire continent." The messenger disciple provided a summary of the news. "Also, there's a massive amount of demons crawling out of the gullies. Looking at the current situation, they're all mortal transformation-level demons."

The entire hall fell into dead silence as soon as the messenger reported that.

Besides Duan Mu Rui, even all of the patriarchs, including the old, white-bearded Taoist devotee were stunned.

"Have you confirmed the authenticity of the news?" The old Taoist devotee was the first to snap out of his shock and asked immediately while frowning.

"I've confirmed it. More than one government residence has found out about this. Moreover, the Wuchen Sect, the Xiaoyao Sect, and the other sects heard about this before we did. There are rumors saying that they're opening their doors," said the messenger respectfully.

The hall fell into a dead stillness once again.

The old Taoist devotee could no longer consider Duan Mu Rui's position and he said to the messenger directly, "Contact the government residence now. We want to know more about it."

The messenger stepped forward immediately and contacted the government residence after bringing out a communication crystal stone.

After talking to the government residence, the people from the Luotian Sect looked horrified. The old, white-bearded Taoist devotee looked at Duan Mu Rui after asking the messenger to leave. He seemed to be hesitating if he should ask him to leave too.

Noticing his great-grandmaster's hesitation, Duan Mu Rui stood up on his own and said with cupped hands, "I'll make a move."

"No need. Stay. You need to know about this sooner or later," sighed the white-bearded old Taoist devotee softly and he signaled Duan Mu Rui to stay in the end.

"It must be those outsiders who brought this disaster upon us!" A middle-aged bearded Taoist priest was the first to speak, unable to hold it back any longer. "If not for them, the thunder wouldn't have appeared! We should ask them to leave!"

It was clear that the Luotian Sect found out that organizations such as Dynasty had come from outside.

"Indeed, it's the outsiders who have brought this, but why are you complaining now?" The fat Taoist priest sitting next to him said while shaking his head, "Even if we were to ask them to leave now, would the phenomenon disappear and the disaster be averted?"

"Now that the disaster's here, it's unwise to declare war with the outsiders. I think it'll be better for us to fight this with them." An old Taoist devotee with white hair disagreed too. "There are quite a number of them, after all. There are over 5,000 people while most of them are complete ascendance-levels and some of them even have an ability on par with human immortals."

"These people are greedy! They dared to fight our sect for resources." The bearded Taoist devotee was resolute in his objection. "Aren't we afraid that they'll stab us in the back if we were to collaborate with them?!"

"I've got the same concern too." The silver-haired old Taoist devotee sitting on Duan Mu Rui's right could not help but speak up while frowning. He had his silver hair knotted in a bun with a black hairpin.

"These outsiders come to our world for resources. Looking at their behavior, they don't seem to be treating us as their human partners but merely survivors of ancient times. To them, our time has long ended, so our dying would be something acceptable to them. Even if we come to an agreement, as soon as the disaster comes at full force, they can exit our world anytime they want and let us die."

"No matter what, I don't trust those outsiders." The silver-haired old Taoist devotee smacked the ground with the walking stick in his hand.

"Junior Brother, I understand your concern," addressed the old, white-bearded Taoist devotee with the horsetail whisk finally while stroking his beard. "But there are dozens of different organizations coming from outside. We shouldn't generalize them. Also, about the trust issue, there's a way to solve it."

All of them had their eyes on the white-bearded old Taoist devotee when he spoke sagely.

"All they want are resources, so that's what we'll give them then," said the old Taoist devotee while smiling lightly as he stroked his beard. "We'll give them as much as the effort they put in."

"We actually don't need mutual trust. All we need is an employment relationship. I believe these people will definitely accept being employed. After all, they're here for the resources."

"I think Junior Uncle's idea's great." The white-haired old Taoist devotee nodded to show agreement. "An employment is more stable than an alliance. Moreover, we're the employer who holds the power."

"This seems to be the only workable solution at the moment." The fat Taoist priest nodded lightly.

"I think we can discuss this employment with the other sects and share the resources for the employment. If we share resources, each sect will only have to contribute a small part of it," added the white-bearded old Taoist devotee.

The few of them who disagreed became silent.

"Since there are no better suggestions, let's vote now." The white-bearded old Taoist devotee glanced at everyone. "Those who agree with the employment, please raise your hand."

Including Duan Mu Rui, among 25 of them, only six of them did not raise their hands.

"19 to 6. The voting results are very clear," announced the old Taoist devotee while smiling, "So, it's set!"

"Senior Brother!" However, the old silver-haired man sitting across him spoke again, "Since you said that, should we release the people from Dynasty, return the resources to them and get them to fight for us?"

"Of course not." The old man stood up with a smile. "Since they're prisoners, they'll get a different treatment naturally."

"Give them a slave imprint and train them to be our battle slaves! Show the outsiders that our sect isn't to be underestimated!"

Monster hordes broke out the night the gullies were formed.

From the images Bloody projected, Lin Huang saw the bone-chilling number of mortal transformation-level monsters crawling out of the abyss.

They were like countless ants gushing out of the core of the entire continent, spreading towards all directions. Everywhere they passed turned into barren land.

Over 200 towns were destroyed in one night while seven cities were besieged by the monster horde.

The situation was still alright in the cities due to the city walls and formations to protect the cities since the monsters were blocked outside the cities.

However, almost all of the towns turned into ruins. Apart from the ascendance-level powerhouses who managed to run in time when they realized how bad the situation, the rest became monster food.

Looking at the scenes, Lin Huang could not help but recall the world outside of the ruins. Perhaps this would happen when monster horde broke out of the Abyss Brink a few years later.

The next morning, Tang Ning spread the news of monster horde breaking out in all the locations not long after he arrived at the government residence.

Lin Huang knew about it last night and he could not sleep because of that.

However, Tang Ning brought another piece of news. The sects had a mass-resurface and over 80 of them founded an alliance organization: the Sect Alliance.

All of the outsiders knew that war was at their doorstep upon hearing that news.

Apart from Tang Ning, everyone from the Heaven Alliance gathered in the inn.

"We've no idea what this alliance organization, the Sect Alliance, thinks about us." Tan Lang was a little concerned.

"Judging by Dynasty and those underground organizations' doings, I'm afraid that we outsiders can't win the trust of these local sects." Li Jia shook his head while looking bitter. He was not optimistic about this. "Even if they know we come from different organizations, they wouldn't change their perception about us. After all, we come from the same world as those underground organizations. It's a little difficult for them to work with us."

"It's fine if we don't work together. We can continue to hunt for monsters for resources as long as they don't chase us away." Shen Tao was unwilling to let go of the monster crystal cores that could replenish his Life Power rapidly.

"Tang Ning wasn't chased out of the government residence this morning. That shows that the probability of us getting chased out of this world is rather low." Lin Huang was rather clear about this. "The monster horde has broken out, so I suppose the sects won't want to waste their efforts on us."

"If I were in the high management of a sect, I'd definitely be keen to use the outsiders to fight the monster horde. After all, most of the 5,000 people who came in are on par with complete ascendance-levels while some of them even are on par with human immortal-level powerhouses. Such a force will be great to share the burden of the monster horde," Lin Huang voiced his thoughts. "There should be wise men in the sects. I think it's quite possible that they would want to work with us. I'm just not sure what kind of collaboration method will they implement eventually."

Tang Ning came back from the government residence when it was close to noon.

They knew the Sect Alliance must have decided to collaborate looking at the excitement written all over his face.

Tang Ning only spoke with a wide grin after gathering all the people from the Heaven Alliance.

"The Sect Alliance has come up with a decision. They want to work with us in the form of employment. The 83 sects have founded a Glory Treasury together. I heard there are treasures from mortal transformation-level to celestial immortal-level in there.

"We outsiders will help them hunt monsters and we'll get Glory Points. Later on, we can use the points to redeem treasure.

"Also, there'll be a Glory Ranking. A one-star Glory will receive a 10% discount on redeemable treasures, 20% for a two-star Glory, 30% for a three-star Glory… 50% for five-star Glory while the highest will be 70% for a seven-star Glory."

Tang Ning excitedly explained the conditions roughly and projected the rules of the hunting points that he had retrieved from the government residence.

'Glory Ranking

'One-star Glory: 100 Glory Points

'Two-star Glory: 1,000 Glory Points

'Three-star Glory: 10,000 Glory Points

'Four-star Glory: 100,000 Glory Points

'Five-star Glory: One million Glory Points

'Six-star Glory: Ten million Glory Points

'Seven-star Glory: 100 million Glory Points'

…

'Redeemable points for treasures of each rank (excluding Glory Ranking discount)

'Points to redeem mortal transformation-level treasure: 1 – 100 points

'Points to redeem ascendance-level treasure: 10 – 1,000 points

'Points to redeem human immortal-level treasure: 1,000 – 100,000 points

'Points to redeem earth immortal-level treasure: 100,000 – 10 million points

'Remarks: Some unique items might exceed the points system'

…

'Respective Glory Points for each beginner-stage, intermediate-stage, and advanced-stage mortal transformation-level demon carcass: 1 point, 2 points, 4 points

'Respective Glory Points for each beginner-stage, intermediate-stage, and advanced-stage mortal transformation-level demon internal elixir: 2 points, 4 points, 8 points

'Respective Glory Points for each beginner-stage, intermediate-stage, advanced-stage, and peak-stage (including complete-stage) ascendance-level demon carcass: 10 points, 20 points, 40 points, 80 points

'Respective Glory Points for each beginner-stage, intermediate-stage, advanced-stage and peak-stage (including complete-stage) ascendance-level demon internal elixir: 20 points, 40 points, 80 points, 160 points

'Respective Glory Points for each beginner-stage, intermediate-stage, advanced-stage, peak-stage and complete-stage human immortal-level demon carcass: 1,000 points, 2,000 points, 4,000 points, 8,000 points, 16,000 points

'Respective Glory Points for each beginner-stage, intermediate-stage, advanced-stage, peak-stage and complete-stage human immortal-level demon internal elixir: 2,000 points, 4,000 points, 8,000 points, 16,000 points, 32,000 points

'Respective Glory Points for each beginner-stage, intermediate-stage, advanced-stage, peak-stage and complete-stage earth immortal-level demon carcass: 100,000 points, 200,000 points, 400,000 points, 800,000 points, 1.6 million points

'Respective Glory Points for each beginner-stage, intermediate-stage, advanced-stage, peak-stage and complete-stage earth immortal-level demon internal elixir: 200,000 points, 400,000 points, 800,000 points, 1.6 million points, 3.2 million points'

…

"Did they set the redeemable points all the way to 1,000 points for one monster carcass when it comes to human immortal-levels on purpose to encourage us to hunt more imperial-level monsters?" Shen Tao shook his head while querying with a smirk. "Earth immortal-levels too. The points skyrocket to 100,000 points each. It's too bad that the equivalent of an Earth immortal is a Virtual God. We'll have to see if we manage to do that by then."

"The redeemable points for monster carcasses and crystals cores are just a false hike. Didn't you see that the points for the treasures increase as well?" Li Jia who was standing aside noticed. "It's a steal if we redeem low-level treasures, but redeeming same-level treasures would still be a high price."

"In order to obtain more discounts, we'll still have to kill more monsters while redeeming monster carcasses and crystal cores to level up in the Glory Ranking. I wonder who came up with this. It's pretty brilliant." Lin Huang could not help but compliment after taking a careful look at the rules.

"If we don't kill any imperial-level (human immortal-level) monsters, we'll need to kill at least 600 immortal-level rank-9 (peak-stage ascendance-level) monsters to get to four-star Glory. It's quite difficult. To get to five-star Glory, we'll need to kill 1,000 monsters even if the monsters are on imperial-level black gold-rank (beginner-stage human immortal-level).

"Judging from that, most people will be stuck on three-star Glory for quite some time and they can only elevate to four-star Glory at the most. To the Sect Alliance, they might not really be at a loss if they were to sell the items at a discount of 30% or 40%. What a thorough calculation in these set of rules!" Lin Huang did some calculation and found out that it was a little difficult for him to elevate to five-star Glory, let alone the others.

"40% is actually not bad. That's better than not collaborating and buying the items from other stores at full price," Tan Lang pointed out. He calculated secretly after hearing Lin Huang's observation and realized that it was indeed difficult to elevate to five-star Glory.

"Indeed. No matter what, we've come to an agreement now," Lin Huang acknowledged. In reality, this was what everyone wanted. Even without working together, the people from the Heaven Alliance hoped they could stay in this world to hunt for monster crystal cores (internal elixirs). However, they were more motivated since there was this set of rules.

"Chief, now that monster horde has broken out and there are so many monsters, we'd have a higher efficiency if we hunt on our own than in a group. I think we should do this separately," Shen Tao suggested all of a sudden, seeming very enthusiastic.

"Then, we'll hunt separately then since there are only holy fire-level monsters in this wave. We still have a rapid replenishment of Life Power with the crystal cores, so the risk's low." Tan Lang glanced at them and agreed with Shen Tao's suggestion knowing that was what everyone wanted.

Lin Huang was secretly elated. Hunting alone would mean that he could use all of the techniques that he did not want them to know about.

The monster horde broke out in the central area. Enlightenment City which was at the border of the northwestern area only had a small monster horde at the moment.

As soon as the order to hunt individually came from Tan Lang, the ten Heaven Alliance members departed in the afternoon.

Lin Huang summoned Bing Wang and headed straight to the gully of the abyss. All of the monsters they encountered along the way froze into ice sculptures that seemed alive.

It was the same even when they encountered triple mutated immortal-level rank-9 monsters. With Bing Wang who had the ancient Frost Flame Ape's bloodline, they could not escape their fate of turning into ice sculptures no matter how powerful they were.

Lin Huang put all of the ice sculptures away in his storage rings along the way. Fortunately, he had gotten many storage rings from the rewards earlier. Otherwise, he might not have enough space in his Emperor's Heart Ring.

In reality, these holy fire-level monster carcasses and crystal cores were worthless to him. Although the monsters had low combat strength, the crystal cores in the bodies might be useful for his Monster Cards' skills. Moreover, as long as there were many carcasses, he would be able to redeem a lot of Glory Points. Hence, he decided to collect the monster carcasses in the end since he had enough space. It would be dumb not to do so.

After over an hour collecting monster carcasses while sitting on Bing Wang's shoulder, Lin Huang finally saw the true form of the gully.

There were massive numbers of mortal transformation-level (holy fire-level) monsters gushing out of the gully. It looked like a burst pipe from which water was rushing out of it.

"Go!" As soon as Lin Huang ordered him, Bing Wang dashed into the crowd of monsters without hesitation.

Everywhere he stepped would turn into white frost. With him as the center point, everything around him would start to freeze.

Besides the monsters that were diving at him, the grass, flowers, and even the soil on the ground froze into ice that was harder than metal.

In a few breaths, Bing Wang passed through the monsters and arrived at the edge of the gully.

"Let's go down!" Lin Huang issued a new order without thinking much.

Bing Wang hopped into the gully and tore towards the bottom of the abyss.

Lin Huang looked at the walls around along the way. There were mortal transformation-level monsters everywhere like the walls were full of crawling ants.

The gully was immensely deep. Even with Bing Wang's speed, they only arrived at the bottom half an hour later.

After they arrived at the bottom, Lin Huang summoned Bai, Lancelot, Thunder, and Kylie.

The reason he summoned them was that they were just like Bing Wang who had a compelling group of killing techniques.

Naturally, Charcoal and Bloody Robe had similar techniques too, but one of them used Dragon Flame while another used lava. They would destroy the monster carcasses. Lin Huang decided to not summon them after giving it some thought.

Tyrant, Malachian Fiend, and the Herculean King were like tanks in the battlefield which made them suitable for group kills under usual circumstances. Lin Huang figured they might just crush the monster carcasses entirely, so he did not summon them. Holy fire-level monsters were rather weak after all.

Hunting was the second priority for summoning Kylie whereby the main objective was to help collect monster carcasses.

Her Nephilic Judge army had tremendous speed. Also, she could put away the piles of monster carcasses in her mini world.

Naturally, Kylie was unsatisfied with her assigned responsibility. She only agreed to do it when Lin Huang promised to put aside a tenth of the monster carcasses for her Nephilic Judge army as food.

The hunting was almost a bloodbath.

Bai turned Vampire Particles into bloody threads which penetrated the holy fire-level monsters' hearts and brains easily. Monster carcasses were strewn all over the place with no wounds on them wherever the threads passed by.

Lancelot summoned the Sword Dominator, the Luminescent Angelwing, the Frigid Swordswoman, and a few sword servants who were experts in group battles while he killed rapidly with his Sword Manipulation all the way.

Little black swords were flying in the air and pierced through the monsters' bodies one after another quickly.

Thunder's attack was the most straightforward. It summoned thunderclouds directly as it flapped its wings and aimed for the ground. All of the monsters that were struck by the bolts of lightning fell onto the ground.

To prevent it from destroying the monster carcasses, Lin Huang especially reminded it to maintain the intensity of the lightning bolts so that it was enough to kill immortal-level rank-2 or rank-3 monsters.

As usual, everywhere Bing Wang went turned into a land of snow while all of the monsters froze into ice sculptures.

Kylie did not fight at all. Instead, she summoned her Nephilic Judge army to move all of the monster carcasses into her mini world. Meanwhile, she was standing on Bing Wang's shoulder watching the fight just like Lin Huang was.

Lin Huang's four summoning beasts fought all the way slowly towards the center of the gully.

When it was almost night time, Lin Huang and his bunch of summoning beasts had traveled almost 150 kilometers deep into the gully. Bloody roughly calculated the number of monsters killed. There were at least 800,000 monsters.

"The speed of accumulating points is so much faster than I imagined. It seems like going down the bottom of the gully was a wise move." Lin Huang had excitement written all over his face. He would achieve at least millions of Glory Points with those 800,000 holy fire-level monsters. It would mean that he had elevated to five-star Glory in merely one afternoon.

"I'm already eligible to enjoy 50% off the treasures. Judging from the speed of accumulating points, I guess I'll elevate to seven-star Glory in a few days. I'll be enjoying a 70% discount by then which countless people will envy."

As a matter of fact, Lin Huang's body was a great advantage in such a situation.

The Divine Fire in his body continuously provided Life Power to his Monster Cards, allowing Bai and the rest to unleash all the skills that they possessed as they wished. That was how they managed to achieve such a high killing rate.

Without the Divine Fire providing Life Power, Bai and the rest would not be able to withstand such speed of killing for even half an hour. As soon as half an hour passed, their Life Power would be drained. They would not even be able to run by then and would drown in the endless amount of monsters.

Even the human immortals from the sects dared not come to the bottom of the gully of the abyss following the breakout of monster horde this time. Lin Huang was the only one who had the guts to do this due to his abundant Life Power.

However, although they had endless Life Power, Bai and the rest had limited strength.

The hunt went on until past eleven at night where their strength began to drop while their hunting rate was decreasing.

"Alright, that's all for today." Lin Huang finally stopped the hunt upon noticing that.

After recalling Bai and the rest, Lin Huang summoned Bloody Robe to make a cave in the wall using lava to be his temporary shed. After entering the cave, Lin Huang got him to seal the cave entrance with the cooled down lava to prevent monsters from coming in at night.

As soon as a human elevated to transcendent-level, he would have a strong adaptative ability. Without oxygen, a holy fire-level human could live for two to three days. Meanwhile, an immortal-level powerhouse could live ten days to half a month without oxygen.

Moreover, Lin Huang would only need a night's rest in such an enclosed environment.

He brought his tent out in the cave. After setting it up, he got Bloody Robe to guard outside while he went into the tent.

Due to his excitement, Lin Huang chatted with Bloody until past 1 a.m. before he fell asleep.

Bloody did not tell him about the progress of Tan Lang and the rest before he fell asleep. For the entire afternoon, they had killed almost zero monsters because Lin Huang had wiped their prey out.

Lin Huang felt refreshed when he woke up early the next morning.

After washing up and having some snacks that he had prepared beforehand for breakfast, he put away the tent and broke out of the cave.

Countless monsters surrounded his field of vision as soon as he exited the cave.

They were scurrying towards all directions at the bottom and crawling upwards on the walls continuously. They were like an army of ants migrating on a large scale.

Soon, many monsters noticed Lin Huang's presence and jumped to attack him.

Observing that, Lin Huang summoned Bai, Lancelot, Thunder, Bing Wang, and Kylie immediately.

As soon as Bai was summoned, he attacked at lightning speed the moment he saw the monsters targeting Lin Huang.

He turned his Vampire Particles into a couple of sharp blades. A few monsters were killed directly as he attacked in a flash. There was not even a drop of blood as the monsters were slashed in half. The carcasses dropped onto the ground.

Meanwhile, Lancelot, Thunder and Bing Wang landed on the ground one after another and began a new round of killing as they looked around.

Bai then joined the killing spree instantly.

The four monsters that were experts in killing as a group entered the herd of lambs like tigers. Eventually, the mortal transformation-level monsters were killed one by one.

As the monsters were killed, Kylie summoned her Nephilic Judge army to begin collecting their carcasses.

Lin Huang turned to look at the monsters that had been initially behind him while looking a little puzzled. Those monsters that had passed him and his summoning beasts by did not turn back to attack. Instead, they were running in all directions. Those monsters that were crawling on the walls also did not jump down to attack him or his summoning beasts. They continued crawling upwards as if nothing else mattered to them.

"These monsters are behaving rather oddly," Lin Huang said softly with a frown. "If this is a normal monster horde, no matter where I am, they would treat me as their target as long as they can see or sense me. They would want to kill me no matter what, but those monsters that passed us ignored me completely. They didn't turn back to attack. Instead, they proceeded with their journey. The only exception were those that saw me right before they attacked me."

"There are two possibilities." Bloody attended to Lin Huang's confusion. "The first possibility would be that they're moving or they're escaping. Hence, they don't have the time to care about you. Some of them attacked you not because you're human, but simply because you're blocking their way.

"The second possibility would be that they've received a powerful order. Compared to the order, you're nothing, so they decided to ignore you and follow the order."

"This isn't something bad. At least, it means that we can go forward without having to kill all of the monsters along the way," Bloody added.

"Do you mean minimizing the hunting zone and speeding up?" Lin Huang raised his brow when he heard what Bloody said. "If that's the case, wouldn't Tan Lang and the rest have more pressure on them?"

"They don't even have any monsters to kill at the moment." Feeling helpless, Bloody told Lin Huang about Tan Lang and the rest who had nothing to do since yesterday afternoon until the night due to him slaying all of the monsters.

"Besides Tan Lang and the rest, a couple of government residences in the northwestern area and the Luotian Sect were affected too. Because of us hogging all of the monsters, they didn't get many kills yesterday.

"Also, the Luotian Sect couldn't help but send two teams out to investigate last night. Fortunately, the monster horde went back to normal after we went to sleep last night. Their teams encountered the monster horde not long after that and they retreated.

"Li Jia sent a couple of bugs to investigate as well. Luckily, his bugs have a limited range which is less than 300 kilometers, so he didn't find anything."

"Ahh, okay, I've overlooked this." Lin Huang thought he would kill as many monsters as he could to minimize Tan Lang and the rest's burden, but he never realized that he would confuse them instead.

"Alright, we'll go as fast as we can to get to the central area of the gully and begin the hunt there. We can ease the pressure off the people outside and at the same time, we won't kill the monster horde entirely." Lin Huang came up with a new plan immediately.

"We can do that before the advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters appear," Bloody nodded. "But as soon as the monster horde levels up and the advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters come out, I'm afraid it's a little difficult for us to survive in the center of the gully with our abilities. We can only guard one of the gullies."

"Sure, let's do that then." Lin Huang understood what Bloody meant.

As soon as the monster horde leveled up, the advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters would have the equivalent combat strength of immortal-level rank-6 to rank-9 monsters. Such monsters would be difficult for Bing Wang and the rest to kill in one hit if their defense was slightly more powerful. Some triple mutated immortal-level rank-9 monsters even had the ability to fight Bing Wang and the rest. As soon as they were attacked by one of those monsters, it would be hard for them to come out of the monster horde. By then, the risk of losing their lives there would be high.

After giving Bai and the rest a new order, Lin Huang and his army began to speed up towards the central zone of the gully.

The closer it was to the central zone, the lower the terrain was and more spacious too. It was like a narrow, fan-shaped slope.

The closer Lin Huang was into the center of the gully, he realized there were more and more monsters ahead of them.

Bai and the rest fought together like arrows continuously shooting into the sea of monsters that were in front of them. They ignored the monsters that were surrounding them left and right.

The monsters that passed them did not turn around to attack. Instead, they were whizzing towards the northwestern direction.

After changing the hunting plan, Lin Huang and his army sped up so much more that they could travel up to 1,000 kilometers per hour.

When the sky was turning dark, Lin Huang finally saw the central zone which was the end of the intersection of the gully.

It was a gigantic sunken pit that looked like a huge crater. There was a huge hole in the middle of the crater.

To Lin Huang, the eight gigantic gullies looked like eight slender legs that expanded from a humongous spider while the sunken hole was the spider's heart.

Lin Huang got Bai and the others to go into the bowl-shaped crater to kill the monsters while he stood by the edge and peered down. It was pitch black. Apart from the various monsters that were crawling up tens of meters around the edge, he could not see anything else down there.

"This must be the center of the abyss…" Lin Huang used his Divine Telekinesis curiously but he sensed nothing. It was like his Divine Telekinesis had entered a land of nothingness.

"Bloody, release a few Leech Pods down there and see," Lin Huang said to Bloody since his effort was to no avail.

Bloody released a few Leech Pods immediately. The pods were going towards the center abyss slowly.

However, Bloody shook its head after a short while. "The communication was cut off. I'm not sure if someone shot them or if the Leech Pods floated somewhere else."

Lin Huang gazed at the center of the abyss for a while and eventually shook his head. He gave up on the thought to jump into it to discover for himself.

He turned to look at the countless monsters within the hundreds of kilometers radius in the gigantic crater. Lin Huang was elated all of a sudden. "This is a great place to reap Glory Points!"

Time passed by. It was the fifth day since the monster horde broke out.

Throughout the past five days, the combat strength of the monsters that had been gushing out of the abyss was increasing day by day.

It was just monsters on the beginner-stage mortal transformation-level on the first day, but there were intermediate-stage mortal transformation-level monsters beginning to appear on the second day. On the fifth day, there were already intermediate-stage ascendance-level monsters appearing, which combat strength was equivalent to immortal-level rank-4 to rank-6 monsters.

To Tan Lang and the rest, the pressure increased day after day.

On the fifth day since the monster horde broke out, most of the Heaven Alliance members could no longer take the pressure and had to retreat back to Enlightenment City.

Even Tan Lang returned to Enlightenment City when the city door closed on the fifth night.

As soon as he returned to the inn, Tan Lang gathered the people from the Heaven Alliance. He glanced through everyone, all members were there while Lin Huang was the only one missing.

"Didn't Lin Xie come back?" Tan Lang asked while frowning a little.

Chan Dou had assigned Tan Lang a mission which was to take care of Lin Xie's safety. He was a little worried when he noticed Lin Xie's absence.

"He didn't. We haven't been able to contact him via the communication ring." Shen Tao shook his head. He had tried contacting Lin Huang a couple of times yesterday, but his attempt was futile.

They could not use the communication system in their Emperor's Heart Ring there, but it worked for the local communication ring. The function was nothing less than the Emperor's Heart Ring. For convenience, all of them had one of their own.

However, since Lin Huang had been in the gully for the past few days, the communication ring could not receive any reception outside of the abyss.

"He didn't reply the messages?" Tan Lang asked again.

"No. I've sent a few messages to him, asking him to contact me as soon as he sees my messages, but he didn't reply since yesterday. I'm guessing that he's somewhere that has no reception."

Tan Lang said nothing and used his communication ring to call Lin Huang directly. However, the call did not connect.

Since the call was not connected the first time, he called again, but it was the same result.

"It can't connect…" Tan Lang frowned.

"It shows that he might still be alive," Tang Ning comforted, "The communication ring here is different from the Emperor's Heart Ring whereby the communication ring's reception won't be affected when the person is dead. You can still call, just that nobody will pick up."

"What if the person is dead and the communication ring is broken?" Tan Lang glared at Tang Ning. He knew not having any reception did not mean that Lin Huang was dead.

All of a sudden, Tang Ning fell silent. If Lin Huang was dead and his body was trampled by the monsters, there was a high chance that his communication ring was broken. A broken communication ring would have the same no-reception mode just like what happened when they attempted to call.

"I'm not worried about Lin Xie. Remember that he killed so many monsters on the Stairway Tree?" Shen Tao comforted Tan Lang while wearing a smile.

"There'll be advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters coming out of the abyss tomorrow. Do you think he has the ability to kill monsters that are equivalent to immortal-level rank-7 to rank-9?!" Tan Lang shook his head helplessly. "Even I would have to avoid them if I encountered monsters of such a level!"

Even though Tan Lang had an ability comparable with imperial-level crimson gold-ranks, he dared not guarantee that he could kill all of the advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters alone. The reason was that being attacked by monsters of such level would cause severe damage to him.

"Perhaps Lin Xie has a way of his own. Nobody saw exactly how he killed the monsters on the Stairway Tree earlier." In reality, Li Jia was very curious about how Lin Huang managed to obtain such a high score on the Stairway Tree.

He was a Bug Master. On a certain level, it was a branch of the Imperial Censor. He had always wanted to see Lin Huang's full blast combat strength as an Imperial Censor.

"Don't worry, Imperial Censors usually have much more survival techniques than us ordinary people do. Moreover, Lin Xie isn't a reckless person. If he knew that the situation's out of hand, he'll definitely come back." Shen Tao stepped forward and patted Tan Lang's shoulder.

Tan Lang went silent for a moment. A strange thought popped into his mind after he calmed down, and he could not help but say it out loud, "Do you guys think it's true what the Herculean King said the other day about his ability being the least powerful among all of the summoning beasts that Lin Xie has?"

Shen Tao and the rest had their eyes wide open when they heard that and they fell into a dead silence.

They knew the Herculean King since they had fought together before. The Herculean King was not only a triple mutated beast. It had an ancient beast bloodline too. His ability was much more powerful than most of them who were present. He was just a tiny bit lagging behind Shen Tao who was about to elevate to imperial-level.

Shen Tao chuckled awkwardly a while later. "Then, Lin Xie's ability's really terrifying."

Just when the people from the Heaven Alliance were discussing Lin Huang, he had just ended the massacre of the day.

On the second day that he entered the gully since the monster horde broke out, Lin Huang had been getting the kills for his Monster Cards in the central zone of the abyss.

It was like a job to him every day whereby he would hunt for 17 hours from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. Throughout the four days, he had killed more than four million monsters in total.

Lin Huang estimated that he could obtain at least 30 million Glory Points just by selling the monster carcasses alone.

He called off the hunting when it was close to twelve midnight.

"That's all for today. Let's rest well tonight. Tomorrow will be the last day that we'll be in the abyss." After entering the cave that he had been staying in temporarily for those few days, Lin Huang recalled Bai and the rest into their card forms and summoned Bloody Robe.

Lin Huang did not sleep right away after getting Bloody Robe to seal the cave. Instead, he got Bloody to project the images taken at the bowl-shaped crater.

It was the sixth day since the monster horde had broken out after midnight. As expected, there were advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters that began crawling out of the abyss. There were countless of them.

"Looking at the progress of monsters coming out of the center abyss, there'll be peak-stage ascendance-level monsters coming out after midnight tomorrow and there'll be human immortal-level monsters the day after that, which are equivalent to imperial-level black gold-rank monsters. And there'll be imperial-level crimson gold-rank monsters coming out three days later…" Lin Huang shook his head while forcing a smile. "Can the sects of this world really handle such an impact?"

"According to my current observation, these sects are actually formidable. However, the chances of them defeating imperial-level monsters aren't high." Bloody was pessimistic about this crisis. "Even if an imperial-level monster horde were to happen in the outside world, we might need many demigods to fight together to solve the crisis. However, there's not even one demigod that's surfaced in this world until now."

"Maybe the demigods are hiding just like those sects before," Lin Huang teased. Even he did not believe what he had just said.

"We could still hunt the last day tomorrow. We must leave the abyss tomorrow at midnight," Bloody reminded Lin Huang in all seriousness while looking at him. "There'll be peak-stage ascendance-level monsters coming out the day after tomorrow which is equivalent to immortal-level rank-9. Some of them might even be just as strong as us. Furthermore, there are many more monsters than what our own numbers."

"I understand." Lin Huang shook his head, feeling helpless. "Seems like it's not possible to obtain 100 million points to achieve seven-star Glory after all."

"The Sect Alliance's point system was never made for anyone to achieve seven-star Glory or even six-star Glory. It'd be great if you achieved six-star Glory to purchase items at a 60% discount," Bloody smiled as it said, "If you really want to achieve seven-star Glory, you'd need to sell the crystal cores as well."

"It's not worth redeeming points with crystal cores here. I'll only sell them when I get out. Then, I should be able to get a better price." Lin Huang was very sure of that. Such an item that could replenish Life Power at a high speed would definitely be something that countless people would fight for out there.

Just when Lin Huang was ready to sleep after chatting with Bloody for a while, he heard a dumbfounded gasp from Bloody.

'What's wrong?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"It's the people from the Union Government. They're trying to come down to the abyss now…"

Lin Huang thought it was a little puzzling when he saw the image that Bloody projected. 200 of them from the Union Government initiated the slaughter of the monsters along the way down to the central zone of the abyss.

"What's this? Isn't it a little too late for them to only come to the center abyss to stop the monsters now?"

"I'm afraid their objective isn't that simple." Bloody gave a completely different opinion. "They've come down on the first day the abyss was formed. They even attempted to enter the crater in the center abyss but they failed. I'm guessing they're here for the crater."

"I don't think you've told me about this before." Lin Huang raised his brow when he heard the explanation.

"You were in cultivation when they came and they only stopped by for less than half an hour. They gave up and left after trying a few times, but their attempts were to no avail. I didn't think it was something important and they didn't come back since then. That's why I didn't mention it to you," Bloody explained.

Lin Huang did not dwell on that. Instead, he asked while frowning. "They're trying to get into the crater. Is it because they knew there's something in there? But why do they choose to come today?"

"As soon midnight passes, the monsters that are crawling out of the crater will become advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters. Wouldn't the pressure be even bigger if they go in now?" Lin Huang thought it was rather hard to understand.

"If it were me, I would try every way I could possibly think of to get in if I failed on the first day, but they only started trying again today since they failed the first time. Moreover, they did this right when midnight passed. It shows that they might have possibly mastered the way or the pattern of getting into the crater.

"There's another thing that seems a little odd now that I think about it. They rushed to Weiyang City which is closest to the central zone as soon as the gully was formed. They've never left Weiyang City since then.

"Looking at their behavior, they must've known something about the crater. Even if they're not entirely sure about the situation in there, they must've confirmed there's something that they want in there. That might possibly be the ultimate objective of why they entered the ruins," Bloody voiced its speculation.

In the projected image, the battle formation made by 200 of the Union Government members was formidable. They killed almost all the monsters that they encountered along the way.

Their goal was not to kill all of their enemies but to travel as fast as they could. They managed to get to the abyss from Weiyang City which was 200 kilometers in less than ten minutes.

They jumped down without hesitation as soon as they arrived at the abyss and made their way to the bowl-shaped crater. All of the monsters they encountered along the away were killed by the compelling Union Government army. They did not even collect any monster carcasses.

Another ten minutes later, this powerful Union Government army opened a bloody path and finally arrived at the border of the crater.

A tall lady walked out of the crowd. She wore a big white coat and seemed to be the leader of the pack. She looked down the crater as she walked to the edge and turned to shout at the people behind her, "Begin the experiment now!"

Three Imperial Censors summoned twelve immortal-level rank-9 monsters while the others guarded them.

Although the twelve monsters were all on immortal-level rank-9, they were just double mutated while their abilities seemed ordinary.

Under the three Imperial Censors' command, the twelve monsters hopped into the crater together.

Nine of them were torn into pieces by the monsters that were crawling up as soon as they jumped in while another two were attacked. Nobody knew if they survived. Only one of the twelve managed to dodge the monsters' attack and disappeared into the abyss.

After waiting for two to three minutes, the three Imperial Censors looked at their pet spatial ring with their heads down.

One of the Imperial Censors lifted his head after checking it thoroughly. He said to the people helplessly while shaking his head, "All dead."

Subsequently, the second one lifted his head. "It's the same on my side. None of them survived."

The last one only spoke after the second person was done speaking, "One of mine survived. I guess the first round of experiment's complete."

"Go on with the second round of the experiment!" The leading lady nodded.

The three Imperial Censors carried out another round of summoning whereby they summoned another twelve monsters.

Just like before, they were all on immortal-level rank-9 and double mutated.

The twelve monsters jumped into the crater under the three Imperial Censors' command.

A few minutes later, an Imperial Censor nodded at the leading lady again. "I have two monsters that survived. The second experiment is complete."

"Begin with the last round of experiment!" The leading lady ordered again.

Soon, the new round of experiment was accomplished while only one of the twelve monsters that jumped down survived this time.

"Since the three rounds of experiments were successful, we can go in now." A man wearing a white robe nodded at the leading lady. His attire was out of tune with the Union Government's uniform, but nobody seemed to have an opinion on that.

As soon as he spoke, the white-robed man was the first to jump into the crater. The leading lady did not have the chance to stop him even if she wanted to.

Seeing the man disappear into the crater, the leading lady followed suit while frowning slightly. The rest of them from the Union Government then jumped in too.

Lin Huang was stunned watching the projection.

"All of them jumped?!"

"I've attached two Leech Pods on two of them," Bloody said while grinning, "For some reason, I failed to look at the images the Leech Pods sent back, but I could sense that the two Leech Pods are still around this time."

"Let's go in too." Lin Huang's interest was piqued all of a sudden. Although he had reaped a number of great rewards throughout these few days from killing monsters, he thought it was rather boring. Now that he found something interesting, he would not want to miss it naturally.

"The Union Government has formed an army of 200 who are experts in battle formation. I'm afraid it's not safe down there." Bloody was unwilling to take the risk.

It preferred to fight as long as it could master the situation. Its instinct was to avoid such an unknown area at all costs.

"No matter how powerful this battle formation from the Union Government's army is, they'll never beat your battle formation. None of them is a match for me when it comes to personal ability." Lin Huang had faith in Bloody and himself. "I think it'll be easy for us to handle the risk that they could handle."

"Moreover, judging by the Union Government's huge effort of forming such a team, the treasures in the crater must be exotic!" Lin Huang's eyes lit up as he spoke about this. "Let's follow secretly behind them."

Bloody knew that since Lin Huang had made up his mind, it was futile for it to stop him, so it did not bother wasting its effort on doing so.

The exuberant Lin Huang did what he said right away. He put the tent away immediately and got out of the wall as soon as he donned his clothes.

He then summoned Bai and the rest to kill all of the monsters along the way before arriving at the border of the crater. After recalling all of the Monster Cards apart from Bloody, Lin Huang jumped into the crater without thinking twice.

Lin Huang looked around as he hovered in the air.

Everything that he was observing was a little different than what he had imagined before going in.

It was clear that he was not hovering underground but above an isolated space.

The sky was gray, and there was an unpleasant, pungent smell lingering in the air. The stench undoubtedly came from the few volcanoes that had smoke billowing out of them not far away.

One of the volcanoes was erupting where an insane amount of burning lava was flowing out from the crater. It drowned the burnt soil on the ground and connected with the dark-red lava river, making it even more disastrous than ever.

Although the ordinary lava could not cause any physical damage to ascendance-level monsters, the swarm of monsters decided to dodge the lava river and the erupting volcano. After all, monsters that lacked strength would not want their flesh to be burned by lava.

Lin Huang saw the Union Government members that were a distance away after taking a glance around.

They were forming a battle formation and zooming towards the direction in which the monsters were coming out. They seemed to be gunning for the source of the monster horde.

However, they appeared rather beaten although the battle formation was formed successfully.

The monsters were a little different from those on the outside. All of the monsters that sensed their existence attacked them, including those that had already passed them. They turned around to attack the people at full force.

The members were surrounded by the monster horde entirely now. Unlike before, the only threat they had faced earlier was the monsters ahead of them. Unfortunately, now monsters from all directions and even angles were attacking them.

Lin Huang only took a moment to complete his observation.

However, the monsters noticed him in the next moment. As they surged toward him, Lin Huang did not attack impulsively. He slid under a gigantic ungulate monster's abdomen, ignoring the monsters that were coming at him. Then, he crushed a Transformation Card.

In the next second, Lin Huang turned into a little black snake the size of a thumb with red patterns all over his body. He slithered below the monster's abdomen together with a tiny purple snake which was Bloody. Its body was compressed to the same size as the Eclipse Boa that Lin Huang had transformed into.

The monsters that were chasing Lin Huang realized that his aura suddenly vanished out of nowhere. They left helplessly after their failed attempts to detect them.

The two little snakes turned into red and purple ferocious gleams as they traveled among the monsters.

Many of the monsters saw them, but they did not attack. It was clear that the monsters treated Bloody and Lin Huang who had transformed themselves as one of themselves.

Lin Huang was secretly glad. The idea of using a Transformation Card came to him out of nowhere. He was taking a risk to see whether he would be attacked if he did that. He did not expect it to turn out so well. They were completely ignored even though they were traveling the opposite way.

"The people from the Union Government are going to the source of the monster horde. There might be treasures that they are after," Lin Huang said to Bloody through voice transmission, "Let's go there before they do."

Lin Huang raced against the current of the monster horde with Bloody as soon as he spoke.

They were so tiny that they were traveling among the monsters' legs, so they did not affect the flow of the horde at all.

Meanwhile, the Union Government army that was far away did not notice them at all. The duo passed them in a few seconds after their great efforts to struggle through less than ten kilometers in the monster horde.

Lin Huang and Bloody finally arrived at the source of monster horde after traveling for over an hour against the current. Lin Huang had to crush the second Transformation Card along the way to extend the duration of the transformation.

Lin Huang and Bloody were stunned when they saw what was happening at the source.

All of the monsters thronged from the gigantic crater before them.

However, there was a giant black dragon, which was thousands of meters long, perching on top of the crater. It seemed like it was in a deep sleep, but its aura was so powerful that Lin Huang and Bloody felt core-chilling fear despite being so far away.

"What a terrifying aura! That dragon must be at least a Virtual God!" Lin Huang and Bloody hid behind the other volcano and watched the dragon quietly.

"Why are both of you hiding? This Nightmare Dragon has been dead for a long time. It's just a carcass now." The stone tablet's thick voice came into Lin Huang's ears all of a sudden.

"Are you sure it's really a carcass and not just sleeping?" Lin Huang felt the compelling aura of that giant dragon. He found it hard to believe that it was already dead.

"Of course, it's a carcass! Why do you think that a True God wouldn't have noticed you when you're so close to it?" The stone tablet asked him back as if he was stupid.

"Maybe it noticed us, but couldn't be bothered to do anything because we're too weak." Although Lin Huang was in doubt, he believed the stone tablet.

"Do you still want the God Figurine?" The stone tablet did not want to argue with Lin Huang so it brought that up right away.

"Yes!" Lin Huang answered without thinking twice.

"This dragon carcass is actually a God Figurine," revealed the stone tablet, "It's just that it still has the very last remnant of will which is the reason why it isn't in the form of a God Figurine."

"Do you mean I'll have to fight this true god-level giant dragon in order to obtain the God Figurine?" Lin Huang was speechless to hear that. He did not think he could win.

"You don't fight it. You fight the gush of will that it has left," corrected the stone tablet.

"What's the difference?"

"The difference is that it's just a gush of will."

"You might as well not answer me…"

"Its gush of will extremely weak now. In fact, it's so weak that it can't drive this dragon carcass to fight. It's just using some sort of ability that the dragon carcass had when it was still alive. The ability's restricted due to the strength of the will."

Lin Huang finally understood the stone tablet after the explanation. He was finally relieved. "So, what should I do?"

"Simple. Turn back to a human, activate this gush of will, then destroy it! As soon as this last gush of will disappears, this dragon carcass will turn into a harmless God Figurine."

"Can I destroy it directly without activating it?" Lin Huang asked shamelessly. He could actually guess the answer to this question but he could not help asking anyway.

"You wish!" The stone tablet teased then explained in all seriousness, "Your will has to be tens of folds more powerful than this dragon's will when it was still alive in order to destroy its current will directly. Without activating the gush of will, it'll stay in this dragon carcass forever. It might take hundreds of thousands or even millions of years to fade away slowly on its own."

"Alright then…" Lin Huang looked helpless as he knew that was the answer he would get anyway. "So, how do I destroy it?"

"Just keep fighting it. When it's activated, it'll drain itself every minute and second. Fighting will only speed up the draining."

"So, how long does it take to destroy it completely?" Lin Huang proceeded to ask.

"From the intensity of its will that I can sense, it'll take three days at the most for it to be completely drained as long as it stays activated. If it's in battle mode, the duration will be shortened by heaps. It might not even be able to take it for a day if the fight's intense enough."

'You sound like you're making it up,' Lin Huang thought to himself secretly, but he did not seem to have any other option now.

If he did not do anything now, it would be harder for him to do it the next day when the monster horde leveled up to peak-stage ascendance-level. The chance of achieving this would be even slimmer.

After some thought to himself, Lin Huang finally made up his mind.

"Let's do it for the God Figurine!"

"The Nightmare Dragon's a pureblood dragonkin whereby it's a true god-level powerhouse when it becomes an adult. As opposed to many other dragons, it masters the soul-type power, especially spirit methods.

"It can traverse through dreams of different living beings as it wishes and alters reality with dreams. If they kill a person in the dream, the person will be dead in reality.

"An adult Nightmare Dragon can even materialize something in dreams into reality, including living things. Just like this world that both of you are in now, it's been reified by the remnants of this Nightmare Dragon's energy."

Lin Huang was completely shocked upon hearing the stone tablet.

"You mean these volcanoes, the lava, the monster hordes, and the entire underground space are products of this Nightmare Dragon?"

"Besides this underground space, even the entire foggy area above is too," revealed the stone tablet, stunning Lin Huang even more. "However, the things that were reified on land was interfered with by another force."

"Do you mean that even the government residences, the sects and even the people in the cities are…" Lin Huang's eyes flew wide and suddenly, he felt like his head was too small to consume all this information.

"That's right. They're all materialized by the dragon."

"So, True Gods are so powerful that they can do this?" Lin Huang inhaled sharply.

"Not all True Gods. In reality, most of the true god-level powerhouses can't do this," explained the stone tablet immediately, "Reification and traversing in dreams are the Nightmare Dragon's innate abilities. Because of these two abilities, the Nightmare Dragon's clan made it to the top of pureblood dragonkins.

"Moreover, the reification of the entire foggy area isn't entirely the work of this Nightmare Dragon. There's another true god-level monster which seems to also have a similar reification ability," the stone tablet added. "Also, these two monsters were top True Gods when they were still alive. Their will has traveled through countless eras, but they're still there, which proves that they were the best of the best when they were still alive."

"There's another will? Would it appear to help the other one?" Lin Huang questioned immediately. He did not have full confidence in handling one, and he did not think he would win if both of them were to challenge him together.

"From what I've observed, these two wills are rivals. The other gush of will should be glad to see you killing this Nightmare Dragon's will," assured the stone tablet while grinning. "Alright, let me tell you the possible battle patterns the will might carry out in detail…"

After hearing the stone tablet's detailed explanation and analysis, Lin Huang had a thorough understanding of his opponent and found out that defeating it was possible.

"No matter how powerful it used to be, it's just a remnant of a will right now. It doesn't even have complete consciousness. All that it's left with is its battle instinct. You don't have to be stressed about it. Just treat it as an ordinary opponent," reminded the stone tablet later on.

"Alright." Lin Huang nodded.

He did not remove the effect of the Transformation Card immediately. Instead, in the Eclipse Boa's form, he slithered to the Nightmare Dragon's head which was above the volcano. He only removed the effect of the card and revealed himself then.

In reality, being close to the carcass of the Nightmare Dragon was immensely uncomfortable because there was a gush of terrifying energy remnants being released from the dragon carcass at all times. The energy was on at least virtual god-level.

Although Lin Huang had the same ability as it, which was the Holy Power, due to the major difference in combat strength, he could not enter the area tens meters from the dragon carcass. He could not land on the dragon carcass either, so he hovered more than ten meters above the dragon's head.

Bloody, on the other hand, hid deep in Lin Huang's sleeve and dared not show itself. Even with the Holy Power from Lin Huang's body, it felt uncomfortable being so close to the dragon carcass.

As soon as Lin Huang unveiled his aura, the monsters around lifted their heads to examine the aura. Soon, their eyes locked onto Lin Huang who was above the dragon's head.

Many monsters roared and tried to get closer to him but they were repelled by the Dragon Power. They simply could not reach Lin Huang.

That was a technique the stone table had taught Lin Huang earlier, which was to avoid unnecessary confrontation as much as he could.

Furthermore, the stone tablet also hinted to him that getting close to the dragon carcass was the best way to activate the remnant of the will.

"Avoiding confrontation really worked!" Lin Huang trusted the stone tablet even more now looking at the crazy number of monsters roaming the crater as if they were ants on a heated pot. Still, they did not dare to get close to him.

"I wonder how long does it take to activate its will." Lin Huang looked down to study the dragon carcass beneath his feet.

Right at that moment, the dragon carcass opened its eyes slowly. It stared deadly at Lin Huang with its black, crystal-like eyes.

Lin Huang was shocked to see that. Even his heart skipped a beat. Cold sweat was dripping down his back and he dared not move now.

"Don't worry. It's just scaring you. With its weak will, making those eyes open is the best that it can do." The stone tablet's voice came instantly.

Lin Huang was stunned to hear that and calmed down upon noticing that the dragon carcass did not move a couple of seconds later.

"Scared the sh*t out of me! I thought it came back to life." Lin Huang patted his chest and released a long whoosh of air.

Realizing that staring at Lin Huang was to no avail, the remnant of the will could not help but roar, "Worthless ant, are you seeking death?!"

Naturally, that did not come from the dragon carcass, but directly from thin air. However, the remnant of the will shifted the source of voice to the dragon carcass, making it sound like the carcass was speaking.

"Is this all you have?" Lin Huang did not panic at all this time as he had seen through the little trick. "You should just destroy yourself and give me the God Figurine if this is all you've got."

"I'm going to kill you!" Another shriek came.

However, there was a commotion among the monsters all of a sudden. The countless monsters that were repelled by the Holy Power earlier began to rush towards Lin Huang in madness.

Lin Huang grinned. "This is what I've been waiting for!"

Bai, Bing Wang, Lancelot, Thunder, Charcoal, and Bloody Robe that were experts in killing groups of monsters appeared around Lin Huang in the next second.

In order to get the monsters to kill Lin Huang, the remnant of the will weakened the Holy Power on its carcass, allowing those monsters that were dying to kill Lin Huang to surge in.

However, Lin Huang seized the opportunity to summon his summoning beasts that were experienced in group kills while he landed a meter away from the dragon carcass slowly. Within that distance, the monsters could not get close to him even with the weakened Holy Power. It would be equivalent to Lin Huang entering the safe zone again.

He lifted his head to watch the one-sided massacre above excitedly. Popcorn was the only thing that was missing from his hands.

"Shameless!" The remnant of the will's voice boomed again.

"Hey, it was you who attacked me with the monsters first. What's wrong with me using my summoning beasts?" Lin Huang looked like he had done nothing wrong. "I'm an Imperial Censor, so it's my pride to use my summoning beasts to fight. Have you seen any Imperial Censor who fights with his own hands while neglecting his summoning beasts aside?"

The stone tablet predicted the battle pattern of the remnant of the will completely.

At the start, the stone tablet had told Lin Huang that the chances of the remnant of the will initiating a fight was slim as it would want to minimize exhausting its energy. Its likeliest attack would be to use the dragon carcass to drive the monster horde to attack him.

As expected, all it did was to hold back the dragon carcass's Holy Power to allow the monster horde to get closer to Lin Huang so that they could initiate an attack.

However, Lin Huang was smarter than it was. He entered the range of the Holy Power as well as summoning his Monster Cards to fight the monsters.

If it were not for him wanting to obtain more monster carcasses and crystal cores, in reality, Lin Huang would not bother summoning Bai and the rest. All he had to do was to hide in the coverage of the Holy Power since the monsters outside would not be able to touch him at all. He could just activate his Dark Mirror for long-distance attacking.

Meanwhile, the remnant of the will would speed up the drain on itself no matter which form of energy it was using. It was draining for it to suppress the dragon carcass's Holy Power too, but it was just a minor depletion. However, the more it suppressed the Holy Power, the more draining it would be.

The remnant of the will had no solution to Lin Huang hiding in the range of the Holy Power. Lin Huang seemed to have a rather powerful defense against the Holy Power whereby he was not affected just by staying in its coverage.

Feeling helpless, all it could do was watch at that moment. It hoped the monsters could kill Lin Huang's summoning beasts as soon as they could to weaken his ability.

However, Bai and the rest were all triple mutated. Moreover, with the effects of the Rebirth Card and the Blood Thickening Card, their ancient beast bloodlines and god's blood made them the top of the food chain among the immortal-level monsters.

The killing was one-sided when they encountered advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters.

Although there were the occasional monsters on par with an immortal-level rank-9, Lancelot, who possessed Sword Dao Territory, would annihilate them if they were not already killed by the first hit from Bai and the rest.

Now that Lancelot had elevated to pseudo-mythical-level Ruthless Sword Dominator, the radius of his territory had doubled to 18 kilometers. Anything within his territory would not be able to escape from him. He did not even need to move to kill by swinging his sword from where he was. His attack strength was just as powerful as Killer's who was also on pseudo-mythical-level. Even a triple mutated immortal-level rank-9 monster could be killed by one swing of a sword as long as the monster did not possess some unique defense ability or technique.

Seeing that the battle had turned one-sided and the massacre of the monsters went on for a few hours, the remnant of the will finally realized that such a level of the monster horde was not a threat to Lin Huang at all.

Initially, it thought that the monster horde would drain the Life Power of Lin Huang's summoning beasts even if they could not kill them. However, the Life Power in the summoning beasts maintained at their peak even a few hours after that; there was no decline in their Life Power at all. It then realized that the human standing before it was tougher than it imagined.

"I thought the remnant of a true god-level powerhouse's will would be compelling, but it seems like I've overestimated you," Lin Huang teased, "I can't believe that you need to use the dragon carcass to draw the monster horde to attack me! Didn't you inherit the Nightmare Dragon's reification ability? I'll definitely run away if you reified a human immortal-level monster horde."

"There's no need to do that. Your summoning beasts will definitely not be able to handle the next wave of monsters!" As soon as the remnant of the will's voice echoed, the monsters that crawled out of the volcano beneath the giant dragon carcass elevated to peak-stage ascendance-level. Their aura was on par with immortal-level rank-9 monsters.

Sensing Lin Huang's aura, the monsters began to join in the battle with Bai and the rest like they were rabid.

'It interfered with the release of the monsters directly as expected.' Lin Huang was not surprised by that.

The stone tablet had reminded him before that its reification ability would exhaust its energy faster and it would not stop draining. Compared to the interference of the monster release, although the exhaustion was major, the exhaustion would not proceed as reification did. However, the tablet suspected that the remnant of the will would only use such a technique once.

Now that their opponents had elevated from advanced-stage to peak-stage ascendance-level, Bai and the rest felt a hike of pressure.

It was easy for them to kill advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters that were on par with immortal-level rank-7 to rank-8s in one hit. However, now that they were fighting monsters of the same level as they were, their upper hand was taken away. It was difficult for them to kill those monsters in one blow. It now took them a few hits.

Nevertheless, it was not a dead end for Lin Huang. Bai and the rest were not his trump cards after all.

"Come out, Killer, the Evil Dominator, Kylie, Warlord, the Death Knight, the Fallen Knight, and the Dark Crescent Snakes!" Lin Huang yelled to summon the best army he had: two pseudo-mythical-level monsters, a Nephilic Judge army, a mechanical army, and two knights who had the combat strength of imperial-level crimson gold-ranks when they fought together.

Bai and the rest felt the pressure being lifted by heaps as soon as the eight monsters joined the battle.

The remnant of the will was stunned to see those monsters that had a compelling aura on par with human immortals joining the battle all of a sudden.

Soon, Killer and the rest showcased their stunning abilities.

Killer and the Evil Dominator, who had an imperial-level crimson gold-rank substitute and two imperial-level crimson gold-rank knights, were exterminating the monsters like a piece of cake as soon as they encountered all the monsters. It was almost one slash per monster for them; it was as easy as slicing vegetables.

Kylie's Nephilic Judge army fared very well as they killed hundreds of monsters at once and commenced the second round of killing right after that. The cycle never ended like they were chomping on a bunch of chives.

Warlord was amazing whereby he began the battle with his 100,000-strong mechanical army. They outnumbered the monsters that approached them. Although his mechanical army could not kill peak-stage ascendance-level monsters in one blow, no monster could withstand his high-frequency shooting. Ammunition was fired as if they were free-of-charge. If not for Lin Huang's never-ending Life Power supply, he would have gone soft within 30 seconds attacking like this, at the most… Err, I mean, his Life Power would be exhausted and he would become weak.

Moreover, the mechanical army could be recycled instantly as soon as they were destroyed. The same applied to those used ammunition too.

"Shameless! You have more support than I do!" The remnant of the will almost cursed when it saw Warlord attacking.

"It's not enough for them. You should send more," Lin Huang could not help but tease again as he noticed that the speed of the monsters coming out of the crater was slower than Warlord and the rest while Kylie's Nephilic Judge army was so bored that they began to collect carcasses.

"You…" The remnant of the will was so mad that it was speechless.

"Please just bring out whatever you have. Since peak-stage ascendance-levels don't work on us, you should reify human immortal-level monsters. Maybe it would work." Lin Huang looked calm as he planted the idea.

"You're just depending on your summoning beasts. Without them, you're nothing!" The remnant of the will turned calm all of a sudden while a black ray shot out of the dragon's eyes. It caught Lin Huang off-guard. In a flash, the black ray penetrated his eyes.

Suddenly, Lin Huang could no longer move.

The giant dragon above the crater closed its eyes slowly.

Meanwhile, although Lin Huang, who was hovering above the giant dragon carcass, had his eyes opened, he could not move as his aura was being suppressed entirely.

Sensing Lin Huang's aura changing, Bai and the rest had a drastic shift of expression. They were stopped by Bloody's voice transmission just when they were about to dash toward him.

"Don't worry, Master's fine. Just do your part and guard outside. Don't let any monsters come in."

Bai and the rest were relieved to hear that.

Hiding in Lin Huang's sleeve, Bloody was rather worried. It knew that Lin Huang was not wounded in that situation. Instead, he had been pulled into dreamland by the remnant of the will. It was uncertain whether Lin Huang could leave the dream alive.

Meanwhile, in the present dreamland.

All that Lin Huang felt was a flash before his eyes before he found himself in a quiet place when he snapped back to his senses.

He was still where he had been earlier. The giant black dragon that was in a deep slumber was still beneath his feet while it occupied the same volcano.

However, there was no monster horde around. Even his summoning beasts had vanished.

Not only had Bai and the rest disappeared, but even Bloody that had been hiding in his sleeve was nowhere to be seen too.

The giant black dragon beneath him opened its eyes all a sudden and ridiculed with its mouth wide open, "Being a Demontamer's such a weak profession. You're nothing without your summoning beasts!"

"If I'm not mistaken, this should a dream. Am I right?" Soon, Lin Huang realized what had just happened.

The stone tablet had also foreseen this.

"That's right, and this will be where you die!" The remnant of the will's voice boomed again.

"Well, I'm not sure about that." Lin Huang shook his head while smiling. "Although we're in a dream while your level of exhaustion is much lesser than direct reification, your Life Power will still continue to drain even in a dream. Moreover, the rules apply similarly in reification whereby the more powerful and more monsters you summon, the more power you'll drain. The more intense our fight is, the more the exhausting it is for you to maintain the dreamland."

"Neither of us knows whether I'll die in this dreamland or you'll be completely drained first."

"Seems like old man Gong Sun has told you a lot," said the remnant of the will, puzzling Lin Huang.

"Old man Gong Sun?"

"Stop playing dumb. There are only two True Gods' will in this world. Moreover, apart from old man Gong Sun, nobody knows about my existence, let alone my techniques."

Lin Huang barely understood what the remnant of the will meant. It thought that the other remnant of the will had gotten him to go there. It put Lin Huang in doubt as old man Gong Sun sounded like the family name of a human but according to the stone tablet, the other True God's will was also a monster.

Lin Huang did not bother to explain the remnant of the will's misunderstanding as he did not want to expose the stone tablet's existence.

Since Lin Huang kept mum, the remnant of the will thought that he was admitting its speculation.

"It's useless even if old man Gong Sun told you about my techniques because, I'm the ruler of the entire world in this dreamland!"

As soon as the remnant of the will proclaimed that, an insane amount of monsters began rushing out of the crater beneath the giant dragon. Just like a beehive that had been poked, the monsters tore toward Lin Huang as though the floodgates were opened.

Lin Huang had a slight change of expression at that second. He summoned Killer, the Evil Dominator, Lancelot, Charcoal, Grimace, Kylie, Bloody, the Imp, Warlord, the Death Knight, the Fallen Knight, and the two Dark Crescent Snakes.

Killer, the Evil Dominator, and Lancelot had combat strength of pseudo-mythical-level which was on par with imperial-level crimson gold-ranks. As long as Lin Huang provided them with endless Life Power, they would have stunning lethality among an imperial-level black gold-rank monster horde.

Combined, the two knights and the two Dark Crescent Snakes were on par with pseudo-mythical-level combat strength.

Meanwhile, the reason he summoned Charcoal was that the intensity of its Dragon Flame could wound imperial-level black gold-rank monsters. Even though the Dragon Flame was not enough to kill, it could cripple the monsters on a wide scale.

The Imp's Meteoric Descent, on the other hand, could cause casualty to imperial-level black gold-rank monsters.

Although Grimace's magic could hardly kill any imperial-level black gold-rank monsters, it would work wonders to cause confusion among the monster horde.

Kylie, Bloody, and Warlord had armies of their own. Their armies were much more powerful than their own personal abilities.

Beneath, the remnant of the will was stunned as soon as the 13 monsters were summoned.

"You're pretty smart to master the basic rule of the dreamland so soon."

"Someone's stellar at teaching," Lin Huang complimented with a faint smile.

Naturally, he was not talking about old man Gong Sun like the remnant of the will thought, but about the stone tablet.

The remnant of the will was indeed the ruler of the dreamland. As long as it was not exhausted, it was almost invincible in this dreamland.

However, it would need to connect its own dreamland with Lin Huang's forcefully to pull him in.

On a certain level, Lin Huang, who was dragged into the dreamland by the Nightmare Dragon, was also the ruler of the dreamland too.

However, the Nightmare Dragon knew the rule of dreamland like the back of its hand. That was how it managed to defeat the others in this world who were also the rulers as easy as pie.

It was just like a professional chess player dragging a rookie who knew nothing about the rules of chess into a chess game. Although the rookie had the same number of chess pieces as the professional player did, it was almost impossible for the former to win.

Although Lin Huang had learned about the rules of this dreamland from the stone tablet, it was impossible for him to master it as soon as he entered the dreamland. All he could do was to follow the stone tablet's instruction, which was to start with the things and ability that he had in order to familiarize with the rule.

The rule of this dreamland was very simple: anything that you believed in would come true.

Lin Huang believed that he possessed Monster Cards, which was why even though it was his first time entering the dreamland, he could summon his Monster Cards in a snap.

The remnant of the will thought that Lin Huang would panic because he was dragged in from the outside world and would not know what to do when his summoning beasts were nowhere to be seen. Never did he expect Lin Huang to summon his summoning beasts again calmly as soon as he got there.

The monsters that he summoned in the dreamland completely inherited the true abilities of Bloody and the rest. They were ridiculously compelling.

Although it was gravely difficult, they managed to fight back against those beginner-stage human immortal-level monsters that were on par with imperial-level black gold-ranks.

Lin Huang even noticed that the dragon carcass controlled by the remnant of the will had a slight change of expression.

"Since beginner-stage human immortal-level monsters can't defeat you, I'll see how you fight advanced-stage human immortal-level monsters!"

It had been half an hour, and a huge chunk of the remnant of the will's energy had been drained. Its effort was to no avail. To prevent any unforeseen circumstances, the remnant of the will went all out and increased two ranks of the monster horde.

As soon as it spoke, the advanced-stage human immortal-level monsters that were comparable with imperial-level yellow gold-rank monsters began crawling out of the crater. Their aura was so powerful that it was bone-chilling.

Monsters of such a level surpassed the abilities of Lancelot and the rest ability even though they were on pseudo-mythical-level. The only monster that could match them was the parasitic army under Bloody. However, even with Bloody's parasitic army, the most that they could do was to fight six to seven imperial-level yellow gold-rank monsters at once. They would not be able to handle any more than that.

Lin Huang observed the monster horde beneath him while frowning slightly. He recalled all of his Monster Cards eventually. He knew that he had to bring out the real trump card now.

Even Lin Huang himself would only have an ability which was on par with an imperial-level white gold-rank by using the knights combined or an imperial-level crimson gold-rank substitute,

Even so, it was rather difficult to kill an imperial-level yellow gold-rank monster in one blow. It would be possible if he encountered an imperial-level yellow gold-rank monster with a normal defense ability, but one hit was definitely not enough if he was to encounter monsters that had a powerful defense or some unique defensive skill.

Moreover, due to the combat strength limitation of his body, Lin Huang had a limited time maintaining imperial-level crimson gold-rank combat strength. It was almost impossible for him to fight the advanced-stage human immortal-level monster horde that was on par with imperial-level yellow gold-rank on his own.

However, Lin Huang did not seem panicked at all as he watched the monster horde approach.

He had more than one trump card to handle that sort of trouble. There was one that he had never used in battles, which was the God Figurine's Combat Soul.

Lin Huang had killed more than four million monsters throughout the past few days since the monster horde broke out. Although those were just holy fire-level and immortal-level monsters, the change in volume caused an impressionable qualitative change. The number of monsters killed elevated the three Combat Souls in Lin Huang's body from imperial-level crimson gold-rank to imperial-level yellow gold-rank.

The three Combat Souls took on the physical appearance of the Protoss' God Figurines. Using the True Spirit in the True Spirit Guide as their template, they were made from spiritual energy extracted from Divine Fire. If one were to consider the rarity of the monsters, they might far exceed that of quadruple mutated mythical-level monsters.

Lin Huang knew very well that even he would not be able to defeat these God Figurines' Combat Souls with the same combat strength.

Moreover, God Figurines' Combat Souls were almost indestructible physically. As long as his Divine Fire provided them with infinite energy, the God Figurines' Combat Souls would have no limitation in their strength at all whereby they could fight forever without feeling exhausted. One could say they were definitely a valuable battle conquest weapon.

Without hesitation, Lin Huang summoned the three God Figurines' Combat Souls as he thought about this point.

The three God Figurines' Combat Souls solidified above Lin Huang's head instantly. However, he wanted to chuckle when he saw how they looked like.

There was a skinny little sapling that was only around three meters tall, a little white cat that was smaller than a palm, and a little elephant the similar size as a Swine Beast.

The three combat souls seemed underaged no matter how he looked at them. They did not seem to have the ability to fight at all.

"Are you really summoning three young beasts' Combat Souls that have no combat strength at all to fight? Are you here to make fun of yourself?" The remnant of the will was stunned when it saw this and it teased while laughing.

Lin Huang had no idea what caused the combat strength of the three Combat Souls not to be sensed by outsiders. However, he clearly sensed that the three Combat Souls were all imperial-level yellow gold-rank. He did not doubt the three little beasts' abilities at all.

"Let me see what you've got, you little beasts." Hearing Lin Huang's order, the three Combat Souls whisked toward the monster horde.

The remnant of the will smirked on the dragon's face. It was waiting to guffaw when the three little beasts drowned in the monster horde. However, the expression on its face soon turned into shock and surprise.

Without waiting for the monster horde to come closer, the tiny sapling shook its branches and released a glaring golden ray instantly.

As soon as the golden ray shone on them, all the monsters began to burn. In less than three seconds, the tens of thousands of monsters were burnt to ashes.

One must understand that those were advanced-stage human immortal-level monsters that were on par with imperial-level yellow gold-ranks. Tens of thousands of them were exterminated by the tiny sapling in one hit in the blink of an eye.

The two little beasts, on the other hand, were just as capable.

The little white cat the size of a palm hovered in the air alone. As it scratched the air with its sharp claws, five silver threads were formed. All of the monsters were sliced into six wherever the threads passed, and they died on the spot.

Including the monsters that had a defensive ability that was on par with imperial-level white gold-rank, they were as fragile as a sheet of paper under the little white cat's claw attack.

Meanwhile, the little elephant had a more direct way of attacking.

It stomped one of its front feet in the air, making a terrifying wave ripple outward. All the monsters' heads exploded wherever the wave passed. It was as if something had imploded in their heads, and countless headless monster carcasses fell all over the ground.

The attack of the three God Figurines' Combat Souls astounded the remnant of the will completely.

Not even many imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses could kill that many imperial-level yellow gold-rank monsters at once as efficiently like that.

Lin Huang was shocked at that very moment. It was not his first time summoning the God Figurines' Combat Souls, but he had just done a simple test on them before this. It was clear that they had not exhibited their full strength back then. It was his first time seeing their full blast ability without holding back at all.

Lin Huang had to admit that these three Combat Souls' abilities had exceeded his expectation by leaps and bounds.

After a pregnant pause of doubts and silence, the remnant of the will seemed to recall something and shouted in rage, "This is Protoss' aura! Human prick, how dare you make the Protoss God Figurines your Combat Souls?!"

"Ahh, you see through them…" Lin Huang did not bother to hide the fact since the remnant of the will found out about that.

"You don't have to look so shocked. Yes, I made God Figurines into Combat Souls, but I bet many of you among the Protosses have activated God Figurines and made them into Corpse Slaves. Compared to what I did, what they've done is hundreds of folds worse than me! Why don't you condemn them instead?"

Even though Lin Huang told him the truth, the remnant of the will was enraged. "This is our business. How dare you, a human, do this to our Protoss' corpses?!"

"I've already done it, so what are you going to do about that?" Lin Huang grinned devilishly. "After I've destroyed you, your dragon carcass will be my next Combat Soul!"

"You're asking for death!" The remnant of the will was consumed in total fury now.

The aura of the monsters that were rushing out of the crater elevated again. From advanced-stage human immortal-level, it skipped peak-stage human immortal-level directly and upgraded to complete-stage human immortal-level. It was on par with imperial-level purple gold-rank.

The speed of the three Combat Souls' killing went through an obvious drop after monsters of that level were released.

Since the long-range attack could no longer kill those monsters in one blow, the three Combat Souls rushed into the monster horde to fight the monsters.

The little sapling pitched its few branches like whips. All of the monsters would be killed wherever the whips traveled. However, the range of the attack was now less than ten meters and the efficiency was much lower than before.

The little white cat was speeding across the monsters. It was so quick that even the imperial-level purple gold-rank monsters could not see it. It sliced all of the monsters into shreds with its claws wherever it passed.

The little elephant, on the other hand, was crashing around blindly. It would hit the monsters it encountered right away no matter what kind they were. The imperial-level purple gold-rank monsters were trampled and died from ruptured organs.

Meanwhile, the attacks of those complete-stage human immortal-level monsters did nothing to the three Combat Souls. None of the attacks managed to break their defenses.

Although the three Combat Souls only had a combat strength of imperial-level yellow gold-rank, the ability at which they were performing was close to demigod-level.

However, due to the decline in killing efficiency from the three Combat Souls, some of the monsters began to break through their defenses and raced toward Lin Huang.

Lin Huang was not alarmed at all seeing that. He brought out 23 God Crashers from his Emperor's Heart Ring while beginning to fire each one of them after connecting them with his telekinetic threads.

Tonnes of imperial-level purple gold-rank monsters were killed as soon as the God Crashers were fired.

Since it was a dreamland, Lin Huang was not worried about exhausting the God Crashers at all. He was having fun firing at the monsters without having to worry about anything.

Time passed quickly, and another half an hour flew by.

The imperial-level purple gold-rank monster horde could not get any closer to Lin Huang.

He saw the emotion the remnant of the will on the giant dragon's face clearly. It was clenching its teeth in anger.

"Are you having a spasm on your face?" Lin Huang remembered to show 'kindness' as he had time to spare while controlling the God Crashers. "Eat more food that cleanses the arteries like kelp and oatmeal."

"Do you really think that that's all that I got?" The remnant of the will growled. Even though it was not screaming, Lin Huang could hear the wrath in its voice.

As he hovered above the head of the dragon carcass, he said nothing but showed a beckoning sign to the remnant of the will beneath him with a smirk.

"You're asking for trouble!" The remnant of the will finally unleashed its fury.

The dragon carcass beneath him had two glaring white rays shining from its eyes.

Glaring white rays shot out from the Nightmare Dragon's eyes, making the entire dreamland shake.

As the white rays faded a while later, the hundreds of thousands of imperial-level purple gold-rank monsters in the horde melted like snow under the blazing sun.

The Nightmare Dragon occupying the top of the volcano that was initially dead was resurrected rapidly while its combat strength experienced a boost.

Mortal transformation-level, ascendance-level, human immortal-level… Earth immortal-level!

In the blink of an eye, the aura of the dragon carcass skyrocketed to a level that shocked Lin Huang to his very core.

"Virtual god-level?!" Lin Huang's pupils shrunk. He clearly sensed that the intensity of the aura was definitely not only on demigod-level, but even higher.

Only a real God could make his soul that had Divine Telekinesis consolidated around it shiver so violently.

As the white rays faded, the Nightmare Dragon's eyes that were looking at Lin Huang lost the rage that it held earlier. The only thing left was indifference and coldness.

It was the attitude only a superior reserved for a low-rank person. The difference of ranking was like comparing a giant dragon to a measly ant.

The Nightmare Dragon had no change of emotion at all when it looked at Lin Huang. A single word came out of its mouth calmly.

"Die!"

Just when Lin Huang was about to do something, he realized he could no longer move. It seemed like he was stuck in a space filled with glue whereby he could hardly move his fingers.

On the other hand, the Nightmare Dragon lifted a dragon claw slowly. The claw arrived less than a meter near Lin Huang in the next second.

As the claw was about to touch Lin Huang's body, a white silhouette came out of nowhere. It brought Lin Huang with it and appeared a few kilometers away in the next second. Lin Huang, who was constrained, finally broke away from it.

It was the Ninetails Lynx's Combat Soul which did that.

Meanwhile, the other two God Figurines' Combat Souls attacked the Nightmare Dragon at the same time.

The two God Figurines' Combat Souls underwent a major change in their size. They expanded to the mass of the Nightmare Dragon in the blink of an eye.

The Divine Sun Tree had fire all over while its branches turned into flaming whips that went after the Nightmare Dragon's body.

The Destructive Divine Mammoth that had black armor all over it lifted both its front legs that were covered in black metal and crushed the Nightmare Dragon.

"Get out!" As the Nightmare Dragon shrieked, a black ray came out of its body. The Divine Sun Tree's branches dangling on its body were torn apart by the black ray.

The Nightmare Dragon seized the opportunity to retaliate as it lifted its claws to smack the Divine Sun Tree's branches. The fire on the Divine Sun Tree extinguished and it flew away. Its body shrunk back to its original size in the air.

In the next second, the Nightmare Dragon threw its gigantic boa-like black tail into the air as a ferocious gleam flashed through its eyes. Its attack that came later collided with the Destructive Divine Mammoth's two front legs.

It was as if millions of thunderstorms exploded in the air while strong winds rippled like waves. Even Lin Huang, who was a few kilometers away, almost fell down from the impact.

A moment later, the Destructive Divine Mammoth let out a devastating groan and its gigantic body was slammed a distance away like a cannon. It spat a mouthful of blood out when it was in mid-air. Just like the Divine Sun Tree, its body shrunk rapidly.

Lin Huang was relieved upon sensing the condition of the two God Figurines' Combat Souls.

Only true god-level ability could destroy a true god-level's flesh. The Nightmare Dragon only had virtual god-level combat strength after all, so it was difficult for it to kill them. However, due to the vast difference in combat strength, the flesh-on-flesh collision affected the souls and wounded both of them.

The two Combat Souls might be dead now if the Nightmare Dragon had performed a spiritual-type attack that it was an expert in earlier.

The remnant of the will did not have such a technique. It was easy for Lin Huang to figure out that it did not have much energy left now. Using spiritual energy directly would deplete its will gravely.

"You won't be able to run this time!" After getting rid of the two God Figurines' Combat Souls, the Nightmare Dragon fixed its eyes on Lin Huang again with an intent will to kill. It opened its mouth wide, a navy blue force consolidating in its mouth quickly.

Lin Huang was not constrained this time; the Nightmare Dragon did not seem worried that he might run away at all. Perhaps it was because there was no way that he could flee as soon as the dragon flame went out.

Lin Huang was familiar with such a dragonkin. Naturally, he knew that the Nightmare Dragon was going to spit dragon flames.

The Ninetails Lynx that was standing on Lin Huang's shoulder sensed the crisis and arched its back, exhibiting a cat's natural behavior when it was threatened.

However, Lin Huang was extremely calm while the deadly attack was being charged. He patted the Ninetails Lynx's back. "I should be able to handle this."

As soon as he said that, Lin Huang brought out 23 God Crashers from his storage space.

Naturally, that many God Crashers would not be able to handle the virtual god-level attack. However, the 23 God Crashers before Lin Huang seemed to have a cloning ability and they began to duplicate swiftly. There were over 18,000 God Crashers in a blink of an eye.

In reality, Lin Huang only had 23 God Crashers but this was a dreamland. He could clone as many God Crashers as he wanted.

The over 18,000 God Crashers hovered in the air before Lin Huang like a navy parade.

There was a telekinesis thread connected to each God Crasher.

Sensing the unusual activity coming from Lin Huang, the Nightmare Dragon did not proceed to consolidate its dragon flame. It opened its mouth wide while dark blue dragon flames shot out. It was like a tsunami expanding toward Lin Huang disastrously.

At that moment, Lin Huang activated his Divine Telekinesis where the battalion of more than 18,000 God Crashers was fired at the same time.

Explosive red sparks formed into a gigantic shockwave instantly. The terrifying red ray of light shot out and occupied half of the sky immediately.

It was Bloody's idea to combine all the God Crashers to attack. It also Bloody calculated the angle of the arrangement.

That was the only arrangement that could get the 18,000 God Crashers to merge the attacks into one.

Naturally, such merging was only feasible in theory but difficult to do in reality. However, it was a dreamland. As long as Lin Huang could think of it and believe in it, the attack would definitely materialize.

Perhaps one God Crasher could do nothing to a virtual god-level powerhouse, but it was a different story when there were so many of them. The combo attack from the tens of thousands of God Crashers meant that the boost in power was thousands of times stronger as well. It was not to be underestimated naturally.

The dragon flame that was like an ocean wave soon collided with the gunfire that was forceful enough to tear the sky apart.

The crimson gunfire tore an opening in the dark blue dragon flames all the way to the end of the flames in an instant. The dragon flames were put out completely wherever the gunfire passed.

However, the gunfire was burning out rapidly in the process.

When it passed through the dragon flames completely, it was left with a red ball of light that was smaller than a fist.

The ball of light was then smashed by the Nightmare Dragon's giant claws.

The Nightmare Dragon lifted its head to look at its human opponent. It did not expect Lin Huang to be able to survive two of its most powerful attacks. There was fear in its eyes when it looked at him.

Lin Huang could not help but grin when the dragon flames were destroyed by the God Crashers.

He lifted his head to look at the Nightmare Dragon and spoke again, "If I'm not mistaken, I suppose your will's going out anytime now, isn't it?"

The Nightmare Dragon glared coldly at Lin Huang and said nothing.

"I still have a trump card that I've never used before. I'd like to see how powerful it is." Lin Huang sounded like he was casually chatting with a good friend. "If you're okay with it, I'll try it on you."

Lin Huang grabbed the Ninetails Lynx on his shoulder and placed it on his palm.

Meanwhile, he crushed an orange card with his other hand. It was a mythical-level Sorcerer Goddess Combat Soul Card.

The orange card turned into a salmon-colored ray and penetrated into the Ninetails Lynx's body.

Naturally, the Nightmare Dragon could not see that happening. All it sensed was that little white cat on Lin Huang's palm experiencing a ridiculous boost in its aura.

Its combat strength was elevating from imperial-level yellow gold-rank to white gold-rank, purple gold-rank…

To virtual god-level!

As the Ninetails Lynx hopped from Lin Huang's palm and hovered in the air, its body had grown to one meter long, excluding its tail.

It glared coldly at the Nightmare Dragon that was nearby. The glare alone gave the Nightmare Dragon chills.

Although they had the same combat strength on virtual god-level rank-1, the Ninetails Lynx felt like a top predator to the Nightmare Dragon.

It had doubt and confusion in its mind. It could not figure what kind of technique this ascendance-level human had performed to elevate a human immortal-level monster to such a terrifying Earth immortal-level.

However, it put the thought aside a moment later.

Sensing the threat looming from the Ninetails Lynx, the Nightmare Dragon initiated the attack without thinking twice.

Dragon flames shot out as soon as it opened its mouth. The disastrous flames were going after the Ninetails Lynx like a rolling wave. Compared to the dragon flames it released, the dragon flames Charcoal produced was complete child's play.

The dragon flames were earth-shattering as they covered thousands of kilometers in diameter.

What puzzled the Nightmare Dragon was how the white cat disappeared. The young human disappeared along with it at the same time.

Within the coverage of the dragon flames, the Nightmare Dragon could only sense the little elephant and the tree that it had attacked earlier.

The dragon flame did nothing to them; there was no charring on them at all.

Surprisingly, the unusual sapling was even absorbing its dragon flames secretly.

Right at that moment, the Nightmare Dragon sensed an intense danger coming from behind it.

It flapped its wings and flew into the sky, but it was a little too late to dodge the Ninetails Lynx's sneak attack.

A couple of ferocious rays flashed in the sky. Although the Nightmare Dragon dodged the attack that could have beheaded it, its right wing and right leg were chopped off. There were two deep wounds on its back too. They were so deep that its bones could be seen.

The single attack wounded the Nightmare Dragon severely until it could no longer move as agilely now.

'That's incredibly powerful!' The Nightmare Dragon had its guard up as it looked around, holding back its pain. Its flesh was healing at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye.

However, there was fear growing in its heart. The Ninetails Lynx charged at it, taking it over completely.

The Ninetails Lynx's untraceable hiding technique and terrifying attack speed were out of its control.

As a monster that had the same combat strength as it did on virtual god-level rank-1, the Ninetails Lynx was so much more powerful than it was!

Soon, the Nightmare Dragon felt danger coming for the second time. It was even slower than the first time since its wounds had yet to recover completely.

A tearing sound was heard.

The Nightmare Dragon's left wing was ripped off. Its left back leg was chopped off after that. The wound on its back was even more serious than before. The second cut saw a cut on its cervical vertebra.

If the first attack affected the Nightmare Dragon's ability by 20%, this attack caused it to have less than 30% ability left.

After the second attack, the Ninetails Lynx attacked for the third time without waiting for the Nightmare Dragon to heal.

The attack impacted the Nightmare Dragon's cervical vertebra again, slicing it into pieces.

Its gigantic head fell from the lack of support from its cervical vertebra. However, it did not die as it was a tough Virtual God. Still, its mobility was majorly affected.

Despair kicked into the Nightmare Dragon. This battle was unfair to it since it could not capture the Ninetails Lynx's movement from the beginning until the end. If not for its sense of danger, it would have been dead from the start. It would not have been able to survive until now.

Lin Huang, who was riding on the Ninetails Lynx's back, finally could not help but say, "Alright, stop playing."

A cat was always fond of playing with its prey, and that was a trait the Ninetails Lynx inherited, but Lin Huang thought it was a bad habit.

Naturally, the Nightmare Dragon heard Lin Huang's voice and panicked. Just when it was thinking how to buy itself time, it felt chills running down its neck and it saw a headless dragon carcass fall slowly from the sky.

A myriad of colorless ferocious rays shot out and became larger in its eyes as it thought to itself, 'Is that… my dead body?'

Watching the dragon head being sliced into tens of pieces, the headless dragon carcass turned into broken bits instantly and disappeared in the sky.

Darkness engulfed Lin Huang's vision before he snapped back to his senses completely. When his vision recovered, he realized that he had gotten out of the dreamland.

Not only were the God Crashers before him all gone, but the three Combat Souls of the God Figurines were also gone, let alone the Ninetails Lynx with the Sorcerer Goddess Combat Soul Card.

Bai and the rest were still fighting the monster horde while Bloody was still in his sleeve.

The gigantic Nightmare Dragon carcass had lost all signs of resurrecting completely while its carcass shrunk rapidly. It turned into a black sculpture the size of his palm in the blink of an eye.

Lin Huang activated his Divine Telekinesis and grabbed the sculpture that was falling into the crater right into his palm.

The remnant of the Nightmare Dragon's will was destroyed and he had finally gotten the fourth God's Figurine!

"Are you alright?" Bloody asked immediately after sensing Lin Huang waking up.

"I'm fine. I was just dragged into the dreamland," Lin Huang explained.

Bloody figured what had happened naturally seeing the dragon carcass turned into God's Figurine.

Bai and the rest were finally relieved upon sensing that Lin Huang's aura was back to normal. They then put all of their focus into fighting the monster horde.

Since the dragon carcass disappeared, the volcano finally stopped releasing monsters. However, those monsters that were already reified did not disappear. They proceeded to attack Bai and the rest in a frenzy.

Sensing the unusual aura inside the volcano, above the volcano, Lin Huang turned to order Bai and the rest, "Please take care of this for me a while more. I'm going to check out what's happening in there."

He then brought Bloody along as he entered the volcano immediately.

Soon, Lin Huang arrived at the bottom of the volcano. His eyes lit up like jewels when he saw the mountains of monster bones and metal equipment.

The volcano was where the Nightmare Dragon kept its treasures!

"These monster bones and equipment basically have no more Holy Power." The stone tablet's voice came out of nowhere. "The reification of the monster horde should've come from here. The remaining energy of the Nightmare Dragon carcass was only conducive to the monster horde."

"It seems like the Nightmare Dragon set up a formation especially to absorb the Holy Power from those monster bones and god relics before it died. But now that it has turned into a God Figurine, the formation was deactivated automatically.

"This formation has existed for at least an era. These virtual god-level monster bones and normal god relics have no more Holy Power left. There are only a couple of monster bones and god relics which I think used to be true god-level that have Holy Power left in them."

"I can use these monster bones and god relics as materials even though there's no more Holy Power in them, right?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"You can, but it's a little troublesome to process them."

"I can take care of them, but your authorization is restricted for now." Xiao Hei's voice rang out all of a sudden.

"Sure, they're all mine then!" Lin Huang smirked and got Bloody to categorize them.

"128 virtual god-level monster bones, 89 virtual god-level human bones, and 101 virtual god-level equipment that have no more Holy Power left. Three out of 12 true god-level monster bones still have Holy Power left and two out of 11 true god-level human bones have Holy Power left. There are also five out of 23 true god-level equipment that has Holy Power left, and there's one out of the five telekinesis weapons are suitable for you.

"Apart from that, there are still 128 storage rings that haven't been cleared out at the moment. We don't know how much valuable things are in them."

Lin Huang only left in satisfaction after spending half an hour clearing the entire volcano and categorizing all the monster bones and equipment into different storage rings.

He did not plan to stay after coming out of the crater.

Since the source of the monster horde was cut off, there were no more threats to the outside world. Moreover, without the never-ending monster horde, the people from the Union Government would be there soon.

Lin Huang ordered Kylie to put all of the monster carcasses away immediately as he thought about this point. Shortly, Kylie's Nephilic Judge army cleared all of the monsters away.

Lin Huang then recalled all of his Monster Cards in an instant while he turned into a tiny snake with red patterns and left the underground quietly.

It was past two in the morning when Lin Huang got out of the underground. He did not stay in the abyss.

After summoning Kylie to clear the monster horde and carcasses, he recalled her and returned to Enlightenment City with his Dimensional Portal.

When Lin Huang appeared in the room of the inn directly, Tan Lang and the rest sensed the ripple of the Dimensional Portal immediately at the entrance of the room.

"You're finally back!" Tan Lang exhaled deeply when he saw that Lin Huang was back in one whole piece. Chan Dou had asked him to take good care of Lin Huang before they went there. If Lin Huang died, Tan Lang would be caught in a difficult position.

"Sorry, I was caught up with the monster horde. It took me a while to get rid of them," Lin Huang lied while grinning.

"As long as you're back. The abyss should have high-level immortal-level monsters coming out at midnight today. We can't fight a monster horde of such a level. We've spoken to the government residence last night about the different ways to guard the city. Take a good rest. I'll tell you more details tomorrow morning." After speaking to Lin Huang, Tan Lang left while tugging on Shen Tao and the rest. "You guys, please don't disturb Lin Xie. You can talk to him tomorrow morning."

"Sure, see you guys tomorrow morning." Lin Huang sent them off while smiling and nodding.

Naturally, he could not tell them about the monster horde that was already stopped. Tan Lang and the rest would find out about it a few days later anyway.

After sending them off, Lin Huang did not sleep right away. Instead, he took a shower and immersed himself in the bathtub.

He was not sleep-deprived in the past few days, but it had been a week since he last showered.

Being in the bathtub melted the stress that he had been feeling away slowly.

Although the fight with the remnant of the Nightmare Dragon's will was just on a conscious level, he had used up almost all of his trump cards and there was not a second that he let his guard down.

He took out the Nightmare Dragon's God Figurine from his storage space and caressed the black, aura-less sculpture softly. The sculpture looked exactly the same as the dragon carcass that occupied the crater, except that it was many folds smaller now.

This God Figurine was the biggest reward that Lin Huang had ever obtained since entering the Fallen God's Land.

"This Nightmare Dragon had the combat strength of a high-rank true god-level when it was still alive. Its ability matches a True Spirit called the Nightmare Tapir in the True Spirit Guide. The Nightmare Tapir's a powerful monster that masters the spirit force. Compared to the Nightmare Dragon, even an adult Nightmare Dragon can only consider itself a baby when it comes to controlling the spirit force compared to a Nightmare Tapir."

Lin Huang shook his head after hearing the stone tablet talk about the Nightmare Tapir.

"I'm not in a rush to refine the God Figurine at the moment." To the people from the Heaven Alliance, the elevation of Lin Huang's combat strength was already mind-blowingly fast. He did not want his combat strength to advance again when the Heaven Alliance members were around.

He knew very well that as soon as he refined the fourth God Figurine, his combat strength would officially be on mid-level immortal-level. There would definitely be a big leap in his overall ability by then.

If he elevated to mid-level immortal-level, it would mean that Bai and the rest would be upgraded to imperial-level black gold-rank.

Leaping to imperial-level black gold-rank would mean that they could construct their Life Palace, so Bai and the rest would have a great elevation in their ability.

Since he had obtained the fourth God Figurine, Lin Huang asked about the fifth one immediately, "You told me that there's another True God's will in this world. Do you know where it is?"

"I've only sensed it once. It's hiding somewhere deep." The stone tablet gave a negative answer. "But I should be able to sense it if it appears again."

"Sure, please take note of that for me. Inform me as soon as that comes up." Since there was no news about that at the moment, Lin Huang did not plan to dwell on that.

After putting the God Figurine away, Lin Huang took a golden metal cube box out and put it right next to the bathtub. The box that was a meter tall opened automatically as soon as he inserted his telekinesis in. A black metal sculpture of a bird monster revealed itself.

It was the only god relic that Lin Huang found from the Nightmare Dragon's loot that was suitable for him, a true god-level telekinesis weapon.

"Such fine craftsmanship!" Lin Huang could not help but exclaim.

"This telekinesis weapon's made of 36,000 parts. It looks like it has at least two forms as a whole and separately. The whole form should be a robotic puppet while the separated parts should be similar to your telekinetic flying dagger.

"The Divine Power from this telekinesis weapon is almost wearing out, but you can't activate it with your current combat strength at all. You could put it in your body and cultivate it with your Divine Fire to restore its Divine Power."

"So, when can I use it?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"Either when your combat strength's elevated to demigod-level or virtual god-level, which is the basic standard of using Divine Power or when your pseudo-Divine Telekinesis turns into Divine Telekinesis. There are no other ways apart from these two," the stone tablet answered calmly.

"So, what should I do to cultivate it in my body?" Lin Huang proceeded to ask.

"A true god-level god relic's an item with a spirit. It'll sense it as soon as you insert your Divine Telekinesis."

Lin Huang did just that right away. He inserted his Divine Telekinesis into this telekinesis weapon.

It only took a moment for the black, metallic bird monster-like sculpture to have red sparks in its eyes. As it glanced at Lin Huang, the red sparks turned into a black ray and penetrated between Lin Huang's brows in the next second.

Lin Huang looked into his body. After some searching, he found out that the bird monster had entered his tenth Life Wheel directly and got into the blazing Divine Fire. It then hibernated in the fire.

After snapping back to reality, he realized that the golden box which contained the telekinesis weapon was gone too. His Divine Telekinesis seemed to have put it away for him earlier.

"Too bad there's no sword or armor god relic…" Lin Huang was rather disappointed after browsing through his Emperor's Heart Ring.

However, he became a little excited when he recalled there being more than 100 storage rings that he needed to sort.

He brought out the storage rings one after another and began to look through them attentively.

The more he looked, the more disappointed he was.

There were no god relics in those storage rings at all. There was not even one energy crystal. It was clear that the Nightmare Dragon had perused through those storage rings before.

There were only some metallic materials, recordings of methods, miscellaneous stuff that he could not identify, and many useless pill bottles. It had been too long. The pills in those bottles had lost their effect, so they were useless now.

Lin Huang even found two pet spatial rings in those 100-odd storage rings, but there was not even one pet monster in them. Even if there were, he suspected that they must have been killed by the Nightmare Dragon and placed in the pile of carcass bones at the volcano.

Fortunately, his search through those storage rings was not futile at all. Most of the metallic materials were in perfect condition and he could study those recordings of the methods too. He did not read through all of the methods, but he saw more than 20 sword skills.

"These sword skills should be of high quality. They are a god's collection after all," Lin Huang comforted himself after looking through all rings. "These storage rings aren't that shabby either. All of them have quite a large capacity."

Lin Huang stood up when he realized that it was past three in the morning while the water in the bathtub had gone a little cold now.

He slid into the bed, groaning, after wiping himself dry and putting his pajamas on.

"The bed in the inn is so much more comfortable!"

Lin Huang only slept for less than four hours and woke up when it was around 7 a.m. His exhaustion fighting the remnant of the will was now washed away.

To a person on immortal-level, sleeping two to three hours a day would suffice. In reality, not sleeping for a few days would not pose a problem, except that he might be a little tired.

It would not be an issue if he was fighting someone ordinary. However, the slightest deterioration in performance due to his personal condition would cause defeat. When it came to fighting, proper rest was mandatory because the worst that could happen with a poor condition would be death.

Lin Huang made it a habit to maintain sufficient sleep every day. Having sufficient sleep allowed him to do whatever he wanted to do with all the energy and focus that he had, resulting in higher efficiency compared to if he lacked rest.

In reality, many transcendent-level people did the same. They would sleep at night if they did not encounter any unusual situations.

Lin Huang bumped into Tan Lang when he left after washing up.

"Let's have breakfast together. I'll tell you about what we discussed yesterday as we eat," Tan Lang invited, wearing a smile.

The inn did not provide breakfast in the morning, but there was a noodle stall that served delicious noodles and was open in the morning not far from the inn.

The duo headed straight to the noodle stall without hesitation when they arrived downstairs.

It was still early. Most of the tables in the noodle stall were vacant; only four of them were occupied.

Lin Huang and Tan Lang walked straight in and sat at a table by the window. Lin Huang ordered a bowl of regular beef noodles while Tan Lang ordered a bowl of assorted beef noodles. They also ordered two appetizers.

Tan Lang went over the discussion they had last night in a low tone to Lin Huang before the food was served.

"We have limited immortal-level powerhouses here compared to the number of monsters in the monster horde. So, in the discussion last night, we decided that we would mainly guard the area where the two city gates are. We'll place some long-range experts in the city to patrol the city walls and prevent monsters from climbing in.

"There'll be high-level immortal-level monsters next. Although your ability's strong enough to fight them, it'll spell trouble if you drown in the monster horde. Since you're a psychic and skilled in long-range attack, you should stay in the city to guard the city walls. Just get your summoning beasts to fight outside the city." Tan Lang was worried that something might happen to Lin Huang. After all, an Imperial Censor was not known for being talented in close-ranged attacks. Moreover, Lin Huang was a psychic which made him more suitable to defend the city.

"Oh right, I've been meaning to ask, how many imperial monsters can you summon?"

Lin Huang was stunned for a moment upon hearing that question. The summoning number an ordinary Imperial Censor would have flashed in his mind before he gave his answer. "Five, at best."

Under normal circumstances, most Imperial Censors would be restricted by their soul before they get to holy fire-level and they could only handle one imperial monster. Some who were talented could handle two at the most. Those were considered talented Imperial Censors while those who could handle three imperial monsters would be geniuses.

When they got to holy fire-level especially golden flame-level, most Imperial Censors could handle two to three imperial monsters at the same time since they had ample power within their souls. Only a handful could handle more than four imperial monsters at once, which was a rare feat.

Upon achieving immortal-level, most Imperial Censors would be able to handle more than four imperial monsters. It would be normal for one to handle five, but it was rare for an Imperial Censor to handle more than six.

His declaration of being able to handle a maximum of five imperial monsters would imply that he was an Imperial Censor who was above average.

Apart from taking that into consideration, Lin Huang even contemplated the summoning beasts that he could reveal at that moment. He only had five summoning beasts with rather low combat ability.

They were the Herculean King, Bing Wang, Thunder, the Malachian Fiend, and Bloody Robe.

In reality, he was unwilling to summon the Malachian Fiend. Defense-wise, the Malachian Fiend ranked second below Tyrant. Even imperial-level black gold-rank monsters could not break through its defenses.

Fortunately, the current monster horde was only high-level immortal-level. If they were to encounter triple mutated immortal-level rank-9 monsters that had a more powerful defense, it would make sense if they could not get through its defenses. The Herculean King could do the same and the rest should not be able to see through the Malachian Fiend's unusual trait.

"Why don't you keep one with you and the remaining four follow us? We'll get two of them each at the two city gates." Seeing Lin Huang frown a little as he answered that, Tan Lang thought he was unwilling to talk about his qualification as an Imperial Censor. He then shifted the topic to the imperial monsters' abilities immediately after he was done with the arrangement.

"How are the other imperial monsters' ability compared to the Herculean King?"

"They're more or less the same, I guess." Lin Huang smiled wryly. He had 22 immortal-level rank-9 summoning beasts under him at the moment.

The top echelon with combined abilities would include the three pseudo-mythical-level monsters: Lancelot, Killer, and the Evil Dominator, as well as Bloody that owned an army, and the two knights who could merge with the Dark Crescent Snakes. Grimace who owned puppet relics, Kylie, her army, and Warlord were considered in the same echelon as well.

The second echelon consisted of Bai, Charcoal, Tyrant, and the rest. Bai, Charcoal, and Tyrant initially belonged to the top echelon, but since they were stuck on triple mutation at the moment, they did not have a significant elevation in their ability. However, Lin Huang knew that they would have abilities that were on par with Lancelot's as soon as they advanced. The Eclipse Boa, Bloody Robe, the Inferior Imp, the Malachian Fiend, and the Witch who was far away in Division 7 were in the same echelon.

Those who were in the third echelon would be the Herculean King, Bing Wang, and Thunder. The two Dark Crescent Snakes would belong to this echelon too if not for the merging skill with the knights. They would even be slightly weaker than the Herculean King and the rest.

Tan Lang was stunned to hear Lin Huang stating that his imperial monsters had similar abilities as the Herculean King did. He then recalled the Herculean King mentioning that his ability was the lowest among Lin Huang's imperial monsters.

'Was what the Herculean King said the other day true?!' Tan Lang thought to himself and lifted his head to look at Lin Huang who seemed poker-faced.

Noticing his expression, Lin Huang figured out what Tan Lang was thinking about, so he explained immediately, "My imperial monsters consist of different types whereby some of them are exceptional in close-range battle and some are great at long-distance attacking. Some have notable speed while some are experts in strength. In reality, they've different directions when it comes to their development, so it's unfair to compare them with the Herculean King. I said they're more or less the same based on their overall standards. Not all of them have the same stunning ability in close-range battles like the Herculean King."

"I see." Tan Lang was finally relieved to hear Lin Huang's explanation.

Earlier, he had secretly calculated the probability of him winning if Lin Huang had five summoning beasts that had similar abilities with the Herculean King.

What he had no idea about was that he had zero chances of winning if he were to fight the team of the Herculean King, Bing Wang, Thunder, the Malachian Fiend, and Bloody Robe.

Bing Wang had the ability to slow someone down. As soon as Bloody Robe used the Punishment Chains, Tan Lang's probability of dying would be 100%. There was no way for him to survive at all; the other three monsters did not even have to move an inch to kill him.

Naturally, Lin Huang would not let Tan Lang know about that. He was going to ask Bloody Robe and the rest not to reveal their real abilities before they headed out to fight later.

After breakfast, the duo returned to the inn since Tan Lang had told Lin Huang everything about the discussion last night.

The ten of them from the Heaven Alliance gathered at 8 a.m.

"Li Jia and Lin Xie will be staying in the city, guarding the west and the north city walls. Some people from the government residence will be guarding them too. The rest will follow me out of the city. Four will go to the east city gate while another four will go to the south city gate." Tan Lang turned to look at Lin Huang after he was done with the explanation. "Lin Xie, you can summon your imperial monsters now."

Lin Huang nodded and appeared at the entrance of the inn as he took a step forward. He crushed five Monster Cards while rubbing the pet spatial rings.

The Herculean King, Bing Wang, Thunder, the Malachian Fiend, and Bloody Robe manifested themselves almost at the same time.

The people from the Heaven Alliance including Tan Lang held their breaths upon sensing the powerful aura rolling from the five summoning beasts.

They were familiar with Bing Wang since Lin Huang had summoned him at the Stairway Tree before. However, it was their first time seeing the other three imperial monsters.

"Five triple mutated immortal-level rank-9 imperial monsters!" Shen Tao could not help but gasp out loud.

The rest of them were thinking the same but they did not say it loudly.

"What a big, handsome hawk!" Tan Lang could not help but exclaim out loud. He fixed his eyes on Thunder and could not shift his attention away.

Arrogantly, Thunder looked down and peeped at Tan Lang, then glanced away like it did not care.

The Herculean King glanced at Tan Lang as well and scoffed in disdain.

Only then did Tan Lang snap back to his senses and look at the Herculean King while feeling embarrassed.

"Alright, Thunder will stay while the remaining four will follow you guys," Lin Huang announced and spoke to Bloody Robe and Malachian Fiend secretly, reminding them not to show their trump cards.

Tan Lang then left with the Herculean King and Bloody Robe unwillingly while the other four, led by Shen Tao, brought Bing Wang and the Malachian Fiend with them.

When Tan Lang arrived at the east gate of Enlightenment City leading the other three of them from the Heaven Alliance and two imperial monsters, Deputy Governor He Tao was already fighting with six elders and 100 honorary immortal guards.

The advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters were out of the control of those ordinary immortal guards. Apart from the honorary immortal guards, no one had the ability to fight them.

Most of the honorary immortal guards from the government residence were on intermediate-stage ascendance-level. Only the leaders were on advanced-stage ascendance-level. Nonetheless, they were rich in battle experience.

They were put into teams of 13 while building a small battle formation with the leaders as the core. Each battle formation was like a complete individual, and their overall abilities were just as powerful as the Herculean King.

The five teams were at ease as they fought in the monster horde. Meanwhile, the other five teams stood on guard not far from the city, watching out for the monsters that they missed while waiting for their turn to fight later.

Deputy Governor He Tao already had attained a combat strength of peak-stage ascendance-level, so he was as strong as Shen Tao. He performed stunning Sword Manipulation and his ability was similar to the Sword Dominator who just a level below Lancelot.

The six elders were slightly weaker, but all of them had a combat strength of advanced-stage ascendance-level. Although they did not have powerful abilities individually, they had combined battle tactics that were slightly more powerful than the honorary immortal guard teams.

The disastrous monster horde was blocked three kilometers outside of the walls of Enlightenment City by the hundreds of people.

Upon noticing the mass, Tan Lang led the people into the battlefield.

All the Heaven Alliance members were genius powerhouses. Furthermore, all of them had combat strength on immortal-level rank-9. Therefore, fighting advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters that were on par with high-level immortal-levels was nothing difficult for them.

The battle turned one-sided as soon as the four of them leaped into the monster horde, especially Tan Lang who had a terrifying ability. He wore black battle armor and did not use any weapon. Many monsters were defeated the second he threw a punch at them.

He even had spare time to pay close attention to how the two imperial monsters were doing.

The Herculean King was stable as usual. He was like an invincible tank in the monster horde whereby all the monsters would be killed everywhere he passed.

Those advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters could not break its defenses at all.

After watching the Herculean King's fight with admiration, Tan Lang then shifted his attention to Bloody Robe.

Bloody Robe hovered in the air calmly while his robe fluttered in the wind. He extended a hand out of the robe all of a sudden. There was no flesh on his hand at all. Instead, there was a bone that was as white as snow with phalanges that were over 20 centimeters long.

The ground began shaking as he clenched his fist slightly. A moment later, volcanoes formed rapidly while fiery, red spiritual lava spouted out of them in a frenzy. Within hundreds of kilometers, Bloody Robe seemed to be on some sort of stage from which lava spewed out like ocean waves, swallowing many monsters. The single attack alone killed tens of thousands of monsters.

Everyone was dumbstruck watching Bloody Robe doing that. Secretly observing him, Tan Lang's jaw dropped.

Noticing Tan Lang's gaze, Bloody Robe glared at him with his blue eyes while expanding the lava river like it was no big deal. The lava was reaching out to those monsters that were further away.

As the battle was heating up at the east gate, they had their hands full at the south gate too.

Another Deputy Governor from the government residence led six elders and ten honorary immortal guard teams in the battle.

Shen Tao led the people from the Heaven Alliance and the two imperial monsters into the battlefield.

The four of them from the Heaven Alliance thought Bing Wang and the Herculean King had the same battle technique. After all, apart from their different hair color, they looked exactly like twins.

However, they realized their judgment was gravely wrong when the ground began to freeze as Bing Wan stomped down. Countless monsters turned into semi-transparent ice sculptures immediately.

Bing Wang's ability to kill groups was so much more powerful than the Herculean King's.

The advanced-stage ascendance-level monsters could not challenge his frozen ability at all.

The four of them from the Heaven Alliance secretly exclaimed that they were in luck after seeing Bing Wang's attack.

Meanwhile, the Malachian Fiend had the same battle technique as the Herculean King whereby it sprinted into the monster horde like a tank.

There would be a metal clanking noise whenever the monsters charged at him as if their offenses hit a piece of metal. Apart from that, there were no wounds that could be found on his body.

The Malachian Fiend's muscular arms were his best weapon. One monster was destroyed for every punch it threw. No second punch was needed to exterminate them.

Even Shen Tao was stunned to see that. He quietly wondered to himself if he was a match for the Malachian Fiend if they were to fight one-on-one.

Bloody had been watching the battle outside the city gates, but it did not project the scene to Lin Huang since there were people from the government residence with him.

There were two honorary immortal guard teams and thousands of ordinary immortal guards on each of the west and the north city walls.

Lin Huang was on the north city wall with the people from the government residence at the moment.

The monster horde was coming from the southeastern direction and there were teams blocking them on both flanks. Only some monsters took a detour and got close to the city occasionally.

At least, there was nothing within Lin Huang's field of vision. Apart from a couple of monster carcasses lying below the wall, there was not even one monster that was attacking in the area.

The immortal guards from the government residence were bored. Most of them had their eyes glued to Thunder that was next to Lin Huang. They could not hide the envy on their faces.

Thunder had shiny grayish-black feathers with beautiful golden patterns on them. Its body was long and elegant, and there were purple electric discharges flickering around its body occasionally.

From the looks of it, Thunder was almost perfect. Moreover, the aura that it released was almost on the same level as the governor.

This imperial monster was almost every powerhouse's desired flying mount.

Even the two honorary immortal guard leaders who were usually disciplined could not help but take the initiative to speak to Lin Huang about Thunder. "What're the attributes of this hawk?"

"It has both attributes of wind and lightning."

"Does it fly fast?"

"Pretty fast."

"What do you usually feed it?"

"Ugh, well…" Lin Huang wanted to say that he usually did not feed it and soon recalled Thunder asked for anchovies for junk food the last time, so he replied shamelessly, "I usually feed it fish…"

"I like eating snakes too," Thunder spoke through voice transmission secretly.

"Sometimes, I feed it snakes too," Lin Huang added brazenly.

As the people from the government residence chatted, in his mind, Lin Huang was caught in a pickle.

If he went to the government residence to redeem points for the insane amount of demons that he killed, the news would definitely spread quickly.

If that happened, not only would he expose his ability, but the people from the Union Government might also figure out that it was him who had taken the God Figurine away as soon as they heard the news when they got out of underground.

Although there was no need for him to fear those powerhouses from the Union Government who came into the Fallen God's Land, it was inevitable that trouble would come knocking on his doorstep.

'Should I disguise myself and redeem points from other government residences or sects?'

It was 11 p.m. and this happened in the underground beneath the gully of the abyss.

After exactly 23 hours, the Union Government army finally arrived close to the volcano where the Nightmare Dragon was after traveling across over 5,000 kilometers.

At that moment, the 200-strong army had dwindled down to 176 people. The 176 people separated into a couple of smaller groups and began their search.

Fu Qingwei frowned as she looked around. She mumbled to herself softly while feeling puzzled, "That's strange. The coordinates Gong Sun gave is somewhere around here, but why can't we find the source of the monster horde?"

As the leader of the mission from the Union Government this time and the head of EA.2, she was sure that the information was legit.

"There's something here!" Someone from one of the teams shouted all of a sudden.

Fu Qingwei headed there immediately in a flash.

One of the members in the team voiced his observation, "There seem to be battle traces on the ground and they're recent."

The other few EA.2 members landed on the ground and took a careful look around.

The marks on the ground seemed to be cut by some kind of sword, but it might be caused by a monster with sharp claws too.

Fu Qingwei scowled slightly after looking around for a while.

"The monsters around this volcano have all been cleared!" All of the teams stopped searching immediately and joined the hunting team.

Around 20 minutes later, they finally cleared the area around the volcano and the ground was revealed. The people from the Union Government could eventually see the traces left from the battle of Bai and the rest as well as the pools of blood that had seeped into the ground.

"There are many battle traces around the volcano which is obviously not the result of a fight between monsters. The blood all over the ground has been here for less than 24 hours." The few EA.2 members came up with the same conclusion after checking the area thoroughly.

They had been beaten!

"There are saber marks, sword marks, frozen marks, burn marks and gunfire marks left from a firearms master… The battle covered a wide surface. It seems like it was a one-sided, large-scale massacre. It was clearly not done by a person. Only a huge army could've orchestrated such a thing!"

"But who would know about the Nightmare Dragon apart from us?" Fu Qingwei was a little puzzled. "That fella called Gong Sun mentioned that he didn't tell anyone else when he told us about it."

"What if Gong Sun lied?" A girl dressed in a camo asked softly.

Fu Qingwei was stunned when she heard this suggestion. The truth was right before her eyes, and it seemed like there was no other explanation.

If Gong Sun had not exposed the information to anyone else apart from them, there would not have been a second group of people who knew about the Nightmare Dragon's existence and they would not have been defeated.

"I would suspect the people from Dynasty if they hadn't been killed by the Luotian Sect," a young man with a buzzcut voiced his opinion. He was also one of the EA.2 members, and his name was Fei Yun.

Dynasty was the first name that flashed through Fu Qingwei's mind because it was the most capable one among the underground organizations that came in this period. They were the most likely culprits.

However, Dynasty had been killed by a local organization. She even got someone to confirm the news when she first heard about it a few days ago.

"Maybe it's the Purple Crow or Saint, or maybe it's the heretics. The heretics have the most techniques. It seems like their style whereby they leave quietly after taking everything and avoid a face-to-face confrontation with us," said a short, muscular hunk. He was also an EA.2 member, and his name was Feng Yong.

Fu Qingwei turned to look at the man in white robes next to her. "Can you predict this?"

"The success rate isn't high since it involves god, but I can try." The white-robed man nodded.

His name was Cao Zhen, and he was the only Diviner in the team.

The Union Government had released a piece of news earlier, saying they had two Diviners working for them. The intention was to confuse people out there so that the Diviner would not be targeted by underground organizations.

The probability of an underground organization assassinating the Diviner would be high if they knew that the Union Government only had one Diviner.

However, the underground organization would consider acting if there were two Diviners. The reason being it would only work if they were to kill both Diviners since killing one was futile. However, killing two would be much more difficult than killing one, and the price to pay might be higher too.

Cao Zhen took out a tortoise shell and three coins. He slotted the coins into the empty shell and performed a complicated hand signal as he chanted.

The tortoise shell hovered in the air and began rolling by itself.

As Cao Zhen grabbed the tortoise shell after he was done with the hand signal a while later, the shell exploded. Together with the coins, they shattered into dust.

Cao Zhen's hand hung in the air and he only retracted it after a while. He shrugged his shoulders and looked helplessly at Fu Qingwei. "It doesn't work."

"Let's see if we can find anything else." Since the prediction failed, Fu Qingwei did not get Cao Zhen to try again. She pointed at the volcanoes before them. "Look through those few volcanoes too."

The people from the Union Government separated into more than ten teams and began scanning around.

Around half an hour later, the teams that were responsible in the investigation came back one after another. Their effort was to no avail.

"It seems like the organization that took the God Figurine didn't leave us anything at all." Fu Qingwei was so pissed that she was smirking at their own stupidity.

"Let's return to Weiyang City!"

"Do we go back empty-handed?" Feng Yong said a little unwillingly.

"What else can we do? There's nothing here!" Fu Qingwei glared at him in annoyance.

"Let's go back for now. The Nightmare Dragon's God Figurine has been taken and the monster horde has ended. We can always come back if we want to in the future." Cao Zhen signaled Feng Yong immediately so that he would not get himself into any more trouble.

"There are too many cultivators who practice sword and saber, so it's difficult to find out who it was. But there aren't many cultivators who have frost and fire attributes. Neither are there many firearm masters." A ferocious gleam flashed through Fu Qingwei's eyes. "Help me find out when we get out. I'd love to see which organization has the capability of beating us!"

Lin Huang was just getting into bed at the Inn at the moment. He had no idea that Fu Qingwei and the people from EA.2 were cursing him underground.

However, he figured that it was about time the people from the Union Government arrived at the Nightmare Dragon's previous coordinates.

"The people from the Union Government should arrive there soon. I wonder when will the news of the end of monster horde spread." Lin Huang did not sleep as he lay in bed. His head was occupied with things that he needed the handle later. "I must find time to excuse myself from the Heaven Alliance to trade those monster carcasses for resources after the news comes out…"

"Now the biggest trouble is that True God's will called Gong Sun. The stone tablet can't locate it as long as it's in hiding."

It was almost 2 a.m. when the Union Government army rushed back to Weiyang City after their failed mission.

They spread the news of the passing of the monster horde the next morning. However, they did not mention that they were beaten and took the credit of solving the monster horde crisis.

Lin Huang was elated to hear the news from the Union Government early that morning. The way the Union Government hid the truth was precisely the outcome he wanted.

He did not care that they took the credit. He had all of the physical benefits in his storage space anyway. All he cared about was the hushed fortune that he was getting.

However, the people from the Heaven Alliance were shocked to hear the news.

"They're worthy of their name to be daring enough to go to the gully and fight the source of the monster horde." Even Tan Lang admired the Union Government's guts.

"They've got the upper hand of people in numbers. We could've done it too if there were 200 of us!" Shen Tao was reluctant to admit defeat.

"Since the monster horde has ended, the crisis in this foggy land has been solved. I guess we should leave after clearing the remaining monsters, shouldn't we?" Li Jia lifted his head to look at Tan Lang. "The resources here are limited after all, and so is our time in the Fallen God Land."

"What do you guys think?" Tan Lang did not voice his opinion right away. Instead, he threw the question at them.

"Indeed, it's unnecessary for us to stay," Tang Ning agreed. "We've been staying in this foggy land for more than half a month. To be exact, it's the 47th day since we've entered the Fallen God Land. We're only left with less than half of the three months limit. There are still many things to be discovered in the Fallen God Land, so there's no need for us to waste our time here."

The rest nodded in assent. Lin Huang was the only one who showed no response.

"Lin Xie, do you disagree with this?" Tan Lang noticed his lack of reaction and could not help but ask.

"I would like to stay for a couple of days to get more crystal cores." Lin Huang made up an excuse. "After all, such an item that can restore Life Power instantly is rare outside."

The rest were rather surprised by Lin Huang's idea. All of them wanted to leave, but he was the only one who chose to stay. That would mean he would have to be separated from the group and go solo.

Li Jia gazed deeply into Lin Huang's eyes and looked down at the teacup on the table before him. Nobody could tell what he was thinking about.

Shen Tao was stunned for a second and objected immediately, "Lin Xie, there's no more monster horde, so you wouldn't get that many crystal cores even if you stayed to hunt. Why don't you leave with us? Our efficiency would be higher if we hunted together as a team."

Tan Lang turned silent for a moment and he seemed to recall something. He did not support what Shen Tao said. "You can stay if you really want to. This foggy area's much safer than it is out there. You could always join us out there when you get bored here."

"Thanks." Lin Huang nodded while wearing a smile.

As the Heaven Alliance was discussing their plan, the other organizations were discussing a similar topic.

Most of the organizations had obtained the resources from the government residences. The sects had presented themselves. With Dynasty's failed attempt as a warning, the underground organizations knew they could not use violence to steal.

The monster horde had ended. Apart from clearing the remaining monsters and redeeming the points for resources, it would be a waste a time for them to stay.

All the organizations were beginning to discuss leaving.

When night came, one of the inns in Weiyang City became crowded all of a sudden.

The inn had been fully booked by the people from the Union Government for the past week and no outsiders had been allowed in.

The army from the Union Government sat together in the hall of the inn.

The young man with the buzzcut, Fei Yun, shared the result of his investigation he had been working on for the entire day, "I've checked out the organization that beat us. If I'm not mistaken, it should be the work of the heretics."

"There are two firearms masters among the heretics who came in this time, and they are a pair of female twins. There's also an Element Master who has frost and fire attributes among them. Of all underground organizations, only the heretics match the battle traces left in the underground perfectly."

"I told you it was the heretics!" Feng Yong wore a proud expression, bragging that he managed to get it right.

"Damn it, heretics! How dare you beat us?!" Fu Qingwei slammed the table while looking pissed. Instantly, the wooden table turned into dust.

"Boss, should we teach them a lesson?" Fei Yun asked eagerly.

"Of course! Otherwise, they would think it's okay for them to take from the Union Government!" Fu Qingwei answered affirmatively without hesitation, but soon she calmed down. "However, wait, it's not time yet."

"Everyone's been exhausted for the past two days. Let's rest for two days and clear the monsters outside the city."

"The monster horde crisis has been solved now. Most of the organizations must be preparing to leave this foggy land, including the heretics. We'll just have to stop the heretics before they leave. Await the enemy on our own terms."

"Fei Yun, you must take note of the heretics' movement from now on. Inform me immediately as soon as there're any updates."

The heretics that were tens of thousands of kilometers away had no idea that they were taking the fall for Lin Huang for nothing.

Just because they had two firearms masters and an Element Master who possessed frost and fire attributes in their team, the Union Government targeted them and treated them as their implacable foe.

Meanwhile, the culprit, Lin Huang, who caused all these knew nothing about it.

Although Bloody's Leech Pods were monitoring the Union Government's movement, they dared not get too close.

In EA.2, Fu Qingwei and the Diviner named Cao Zhen could sense the existence of Leech Pods if they were close enough.

Bloody could only control the Leech Pods to monitor from hundreds of meters away. They could not hear what they were talking about behind closed doors in the inn.

Since he no longer had to guard the city walls, Lin Huang got the Herculean King, Bing Wang, Bloody Robe, and the Malachian Fiend to follow Tan Lang and the rest to clear the monsters.

On the other hand, he stayed at the inn to proceed with the simulated cultivation of local methods.

Time flew by and two days had passed. Tan Lang and the rest cleared all of the remaining monsters thousands of kilometers around Enlightenment City.

Apart from Lin Huang, everyone from the Heaven Alliance redeemed points using the monster carcasses and traded many resources.

Since it was unnecessary for them to stay, Tan Lang and the rest bade farewell to the people at the government residence. Apart from Lin Huang, everyone from the Heaven Alliance left on the third morning.

Lin Huang sent them off at the Dimensional Portal near the exit of the foggy land. Watching the portal close and the people disappear, he turned around and returned to his room at the inn.

Lin Huang could not get used to the empty inn since it had been crowded for the past half a month.

When he returned to the room, he had a slight change of expression all of a sudden. He released the three God Figurines' Combat Souls at the same time and shouted, "Who is that?!"

Lin Huang was sure that he had been pulled into the dreamland without even realizing it.

The reason he noticed that was because he realized Bloody was no longer in his sleeve.

He then recalled the unusualness downstairs earlier. Not only was there not a single guest at the inn, but even the owner and servants had also disappeared. The noise from the guests downstairs and the clamor of the servants was nowhere to be heard. The entire inn was so quiet that it was like a haunted house in a remote land.

A white silhouette that looked like a ghost penetrated into the wall of the room in the inn.

The three God Figurines' Combat Souls surrounded the person before Lin Huang could take a better look.

"I come in peace, kid." A man with white hair and a beard wearing a white robe stood by the wall and expressed his intention immediately.

"Are you Gong Sun?" The stone tablet in his body spoke via voice transmission just when Lin Huang managed to catch a view of the person's face. It told him that the old man before him was the other True God's will, the old man Gong Sun that the Nightmare Dragon had mentioned.

"Seems like you've learned about me from that inferior dragon." The white-bearded old man nodded while wearing a grin.

"Why did you pull me into this dreamland?" Lin Huang asked while getting the three Combat Souls to retreat some distance away although they did let their guard down.

"Because this is the only way I could talk to you." Gong Sun forced a smile while shrugging helplessly.

"After I died from fighting that inferior dragon, it did not die right away. It then used its broken fragment of its kingdom to build this world. Later on, it came up with a series of plans in an attempt to resurrect one day.

"I, on the other hand, was only left with a gush of will. When it was building this world, I slipped into the only fragment of its kingdom that it was left with when it had its guard down. An accident happened whereby I merged with the fragment of its kingdom and became a part of this world. I can't be seen by anyone, and neither can I communicate with others.

"However, the merge gave me a part of the inferior dragon's ability. So I thought of using the dreamland to communicate with others because I can only be heard and seen in the dreamland."

Gong Sun's explanation made Lin Huang let his guard down a little, but there was a suspicion that rose suddenly.

"Why did you only look for me now? It has been three days since the Nightmare Dragon's the remnant of the will vanished. Why didn't you appear right away? Why did you choose to show yourself today, when all of my comrades have left?"

"There are two reasons. The first reason is although I can neither be seen nor can I communicate, my presence can be sensed by Divine Telekinesis within a close distance. Someone among your comrades has the same Divine Telekinesis as you do. His is even more powerful than yours. I didn't want to cause any complications, so I chose to meet you after he left."

"The reason why I didn't meet you right away was that I wasn't ready yet. I watched you fighting with the remnant of the inferior dragon's will, including the battle in the dreamland. I saw everything through a unique sensing technique.

"To be honest, it's a surprise that you won. I thought you'd definitely die when it dragged you into the dreamland. I was in disbelief when you killed it. To be precise, I was in shock and felt lost.

"Destroying the remnant of the inferior dragon's will was the mission I gave myself. It was the meaning of my existence. You killing the remnant of the inferior dragon's will meant that you accomplished my mission, which made me lose my purpose.

"Whilst my head was in chaos, you left right after you were done excavating the volcano, so I lost my chance."

"Who were you referring to that has the same Divine Telekinesis as I do?" Lin Huang could not help but ask what mattered to him the most after listening to Gong Sun.

"It's the guy who looks like a kid, the one who controls bugs."

"Li Jia?! That fella sure hid it well…" Lin Huang's pupils shrunk slightly. He doubted Li Jia might know about the things that he had done secretly, including hunting Charm and Dynasty.

"Kid, I've been thinking how to thank you for the past few days, but I've no idea what should I do until today." Noticing that Lin Huang was silent, Gong Sun could not help but speak again, "Since we've met today, maybe you could tell me what would you like directly."

"Then, I won't hold back." Hearing that, Lin Huang snapped back to his senses immediately. The gloom that he had been feeling was washed away.

"If you have God Figurines, you could give me a few. If you don't, you could give me some god items relics. If there're none, I'll take demigod relics too."

"So, materials are the only reward you need?" Gong Sun was stunned to hear his demands.

"Yes, I'm very materialistic," Lin Huang admitted solemnly.

"When the inferior dragon was killed, its the remnant of the will was in hibernation for quite some time. I secretly got the people whom the inferior dragon reified to investigate the outside world for a while. At that time, the main objective was to find out about the situation outside the kingdom. Some of them who survived the trip brought some treasures back."

"I remember there's a God Figurine." Gong Sun frowned slightly as he thought for a while. "There should be a few god relics too."

"That's great!" Lin Huang's eyes lit up when he heard this. He dared not ask for much. After all, he was an African Chieftain whereby he always had bad luck regardless of what game he played.

Gong Sun extended his hand into the air and a chilly blue sculpture appeared in his hand a moment later. The sculpture resembled half of a human lady's body that was frozen.

"This Mysterious Frostwoman had powerful abilities when she was still alive. Even I had to avoid her when I encountered her on the battlefield." Gong Sun handed the God Figurine in his hand over.

"Mysterious Frostwoman…" Lin Huang accepted it immediately and realized instantly that he was in a dreamland. "Do you have the real item?"

"Don't worry. I'll send the items that you've picked to you later. Although I have no solid form, it doesn't affect me from claiming items," explained Gong Sun as he smiled.

"Great, then." Lin Huang was relieved.

Gong Sun took out a couple of items later on, all of which were all god relics.

There were a total of seven items. However, there was no sword or armor.

"Don't you have a sword or armor? A telekinesis weapon would be fine too," Lin Huang asked while raising a brow.

"No, these are the only ones that are in one piece." Gong Sun shook his head.

"They don't suit me." Lin Huang forced a wry smile while shaking his head.

"Just take them. You can trade them with swords and armor that you desire when you get out." Gong Sun shoved all of the items to Lin Huang.

"Alright, then." Lin Huang took the god relics. There was even a true god-level saber among them.

"Do you want demigod relics?" Gong Sun asked.

Lin Huang flushed and shook his head. "There's no need. I have demigod sword relics." Lin Huang was a little embarrassed that Gong Sun was being so generous.

"Is there anything else that you need?"

Lin Huang thought to himself and decided to ask shamelessly, "Method recordings, especially in sword skills, would be great."

"Although I'm not a sword cultivator, I had a good friend who was a powerful sword cultivator. His sword skills ranked the top three during our time. I've fought him countless times to elevate his sword skill and I've also examined his sword skill recordings before. He's been dead for a long time now. It'd be good if you could inherit his skills.

"Apart from him, I've also encountered some other powerful sword cultivators. I remember some of the sword skills, so I'll record whatever I have in my memory." Whether it was due to his easy-going character or if it had just been a long time since he chatted with anyone, Gong Sun was rather talkative.

He prattled non-stop with Lin Huang after settling the material rewards with him.

Through him, Lin Huang learned many secrets of this world. The world had been built by the Nightmare Dragon's broken fragment of its kingdom before it died.

The Nightmare Dragon used the energy from god items and relics that it gathered to create the monster horde. The reason being, it wanted to accumulate a massive amount of living things and sacrifice those souls in order to resurrect itself.

The remnant of its will was in hibernation most of the time and the key to activate it was the appearance of living things that possessed Holy Power. Not matter demigod or Virtual God, it would be time to sacrifice as soon as such a level of living thing was born in the kingdom.

The remnant of the Nightmare Dragon's will would wake up to activate the formation it had set when it was still alive to drive the monster horde. The purpose of the monster horde was not to kill humans on land but to boost the number of living things for the soul sacrifice.

In reality, before Lin Huang and the rest discovered this foggy land, such a sacrifice had been activated a couple of times but Gong Sun would always put it to a halt.

Gong Sun led humans generation after generation with the dreamland, getting them to fight the monster horde in order to destroy the Nightmare Dragon's soul sacrifice.

Sometimes, he would even strain its will to stop the monster horde.

After a couple of attempts, he did something on the Immortal Path directly to get it done once and for all. He made ascendance-level the highest combat strength all living things in the kingdom could have. It put the possibility of people elevating to human immortal to an end. Naturally, there would not be any demigods since then.

However, he could not bring himself to kill those tens and thousands of human immortal-level powerhouses. Although they lived, there was no way for them to elevate to Virtual God or demigod.

He even restricted the combat strength of outsiders to below human immortal-level just in case but never had he thought that the Seventh Prince would have such a demigod-level defense technique.

When the demigod energy was released, he used thunder to destroy the energy, but the remnant of the Nightmare Dragon's will was activated anyway.

Gong Sun gave a detailed explanation about the saying that Lin Huang had been wondering about. "A strike of thunder heralds the arrival of disaster. The forming of a phenomenon, a chaotic tribulation".

Strike of thunder inferred to Gong Sun killing those powerhouses who were elevating to Earth immortal with thunder to prevent the remnant of the Nightmare Dragon's will from being activated.

The forming of a phenomenon would refer to the remnant of the Nightmare Dragon's will adjusting the monster horde formation every time it woke up. Such an adjustment would affect the fragment of its kingdom, causing unique dreamland or reification.

It was night time when Lin Huang left the dreamland.

Gong Sun was gone. The Mysterious Frostwoman's God Figurine was placed on the table before him. There were also the seven god relics and a couple of jade slips.

After putting the God Figurine and god relics away, Lin Huang looked through the jade slips. He recalled something all of a sudden after putting them away for a while.

"I forgot to get Gong Sun to handle the monster carcasses for me directly… Old man Gong Sun, are you still around?"

Lin Huang was not as thrilled as he imagined he would be when he got the fifth God Figurine.

He found out many secrets chatting with Gong Sun. Not only about this foggy land, but the era in which Gong Sun lived in.

Although he cultivated methods that were similar to the Twisted Fate Scripture, Gong Sun was born in an era even earlier than Mr. Fu's.

According to Gong Sun, there were 13 True Gods in the entire world at that time, including up to 1,000 Virtual Gods and tens of thousands of demigod-level powerhouses.

It was an era that was many folds more powerful than the tribe but had been destroyed by the world connected to the Abyss Brink.

Gong Sun's story made Lin Huang's skin prickle with danger even more now.

Lin Huang then told Gong Sun about the Abyss Brink and the old man looked helpless when he heard about it.

However, his battle had come to an end. All he could do was to utter comforting words to Lin Huang.

Lin Huang only realized there were more than just sword skills in the jade slips that Gong Sun had left behind. There were three types of complete true god inheritances and over ten virtual god inheritances.

He did not sleep well after chatting with Gong Sun.

After breakfast the next morning, he left Enlightenment City as he bade farewell to the people at the government residence.

As he left the city, he changed his appearance using his disguise skill and changed his combat strength to immortal-level rank-9 before heading to the Luotian Sect.

He had over four million monster carcasses that he had yet to redeem Glory Points for before leaving this foggy land.

Although he had already obtained the biggest reward, those monster carcasses were still worth redeeming no matter how little the rewards were.

Moreover, he would redeem quite a huge amount of Glory Points from them.

Lin Huang got Bloody to do the calculation. He could redeem at least 70 million Glory Points from the four million monster carcasses. Although he would only attain six-star Glory, he could enjoy a 60% discount which was exceptional. According to the buying power of the Glory Points, he could redeem 20 to 30 god relics.

Lin Huang arrived at the entrance to the Luotian Sect's door before 9 a.m.

After the monster horde broke out, almost all the sects chose to open their doors and accept the redemption of monster carcasses and crystal cores.

Lin Huang walked into the door proudly before someone led him to the registration counter.

The elder who was sitting at the counter was a plump, middle-aged man. He had a rather high combat strength of advanced-stage ascendance-level which was on par with high immortal-level.

The plump elder seemed a little impatient as he lifted his head to glare at Lin Huang. "Fill up the form for the monster carcasses that you have and the level of the internal elixir."

"Oh." Lin Huang nodded then picked up a form and filled it up on his own.

Bloody had categorized the monster carcasses into different combat strengths while Lin Huang studied the storage rings one after another. He saw the number with a glance using his Divine Telekinesis. It only took him less than a second.

After filling up the form, Lin Huang passed it to the elder who was stunned when he first saw it. Subsequently, he was enraged.

"Brat, are you here to prank me?! 820,000 intermediate-stage mortal transformation-level monster carcasses, 860,000 advanced-stage mortal transformation-levels, 810,000 beginner-stage ascendance-levels… Why don't you just fill in 8 million or 80 million?!"

"If I do that, wouldn't the number not add up?" Lin Huang stared at him like the form was nothing out of the norm.

"Do you mean that the number will add up when you fill in 800,000?" The plump elder still thought that Lin Huang was pranking him.

"Wouldn't you find out if you start counting?" Lin Huang took out six storage rings at once. "I've categorized them into intermediate-stage mortal transformation-level, advanced-stage mortal transformation-level, beginner-stage ascendance-level, intermediate-stage ascendance-level, advanced-stage ascendance-level, and peak-stage ascendance-level."

"Ha, you even put them into six storage rings!" The elder raised his brow as he looked cynically at him. "Sure, let me count them."

The plump elder smirked after taking the storage rings. "Brat, let me warn you. You'll have to pay the price if you make me a fool. If the number of monster carcasses doesn't add up to the number you've filled today, I'll confiscate the storage rings one by one. If the numbers in all the six storage rings don't add up, all of them will belong to me. You won't be getting any Glory Points today!"

"What if they add up?" Lin Huang did not panic and grinned instead.

"If they add up…" The elder had no idea what to say next.

"I won't trouble you. I only have one request if the numbers add up." Lin Huang looked at the plump elder while wearing a smirk.

"Do tell."

"You won't tell anyone about me redeeming the points, including everyone in your sect. I don't care if you lie or whatever else, but you must keep it a secret for me." Lin Huang looked grave when he named his request.

He did not expect the elder to really keep his secret despite his request. All he hoped for was the elder to let the cat out of the bag and spread the news as late as possible.

After all, there were still organizations staying in the foggy land. Lin Huang hoped that the news would only come after all the organizations that came from outside left the area. If that was the case, the news would stay in the Fallen God Land and would not spread to the outside world.

If the news came out too early and the organizations outside heard about it, the news would almost definitely go to the Union Government, which would definitely link the news with the God Figurine being taken away. As a result, they would most probably send people to investigate.

The Diviner from the Union Government could not find Lin Huang because old man Gong Sun had helped him secretly. However, without old man Gong Sun's interference out there, the Diviner might have a way to find Lin Huang.

Lin Huang was not sure if his disguise worked on the Diviner, so he chose to be extra careful.

He had thought of killing the plump elder so the secret would die with him. However, the elder was not in rivalry with him after all, and killing ruthlessly was not his style.

Moreover, Lin Huang had no idea what kind of surveillance the sect might use whereby his tricks might draw the attention of the imperial-level experts. By then, more people would know about him redeeming points with an insane number of monster carcasses.

It would be ridiculous to put the sect to an end just to cover things up. Only a heartless underground organization would do such a thing.

As Lin Huang had tens of ideas flashing in his head, the plump elder agreed to his request without thinking much.

"Sure, I'll keep it a secret." He used two fingers to pick the first storage ring up as soon as he was done speaking. He glanced at Lin Huang while grinning. "I shall see exactly how many monster carcasses there are in this ring of yours."

The elder had a slight change of expression when he looked through the storage space. The number of monster carcasses went beyond his imagination before he could even begin counting.

The number came to his mind instantly as he scanned through the mountains of monster carcasses.

"825,179 intermediate-stage mortal transformation-level monster carcasses…" The plump elder turned to gape at the form Lin Huang filled out as he snapped back to his senses. The number on the form was 825,179 too, which was exactly what he counted.

The elder lifted his head and stared at Lin Huang in doubt before proceeding to access the second storage ring.

"851,723 advanced-stage mortal transformation-levels…" The plump elder referred to the form. The number on the form correlated to it.

The plump elder's face was a little pale now as he proceeded to check the third storage ring.

Cold sweat started dripping from his forehead when he was done comparing the number he had gotten from the third ring with the one on the form. By now, he believed that the young man before him was a god.

To him, such a massacre of demons could not have been done by a human.

As he panicked, he counted the remaining three rings and began calculating the Glory Points.

"825,179 intermediate-stage mortal transformation-level monster carcasses… 1,650,358 Glory Points."

"861,123 advanced-stage mortal transformation-level monster carcasses… 3,406,892 Glory Points."

…

"416,378 peak-stage ascendance-level monster carcasses… 33,310,240 Glory Points."

"The total would be 72,538,610 Glory Points!"

The plump elder transferred all the six rings containing the monster carcasses into the warehouse ring while his fingers trembled frantically. He then returned the six storage rings to Lin Huang as well as the credited crystal card.

Lin Huang looked into the crystal card with his Divine Telekinesis and saw the number of Glory Points in the crystal card clearly.

"Where do I redeem items with these points?"

"You redeem them from me too." The plump elder's attitude was clearly nicer now. "Everything about Glory Points is my responsibility." He handed the treasure list over to Lin Huang as soon as he was done speaking. It was a thick book with at least hundreds of pages.

"The types of items are indexed. The front is items of lower grade while those with a higher grade will be at the back."

Lin Huang nodded and browsed through the index instantly.

He did not see any God Figurines after the first round of search. He then looked at the sword relics whereby the highest one was only a demigod relic. He then looked for armor but the highest one was still a demigod relic…

"Is everything on the list?" Lin Huang asked.

"Yes," the plump elder confirmed.

Lin Huang looked through the list again to see if there were any god relics or god items, but his search was to no avail.

"I thought there are Earth immortal-level treasures? Why don't I see any?" Lin Huang asked again.

"From what I remember, there are six earth immortal-level treasures and one celestial immortal-level treasure. If there are none on the list, it would mean that somebody has redeemed them. This list links automatically with the record we have in the warehouse. The item will vanish from the list as soon as it is taken out of the warehouse."

"Six earth immortal-level treasures and one celestial immortal-level treasure…" Lin Huang immediately realized what had happened. The seven god items Gong Sun had given him came from this warehouse.

Despite feeling helpless, Lin Huang could only accept the truth.

He redeemed over 1,000 sword skills that he chose from the list. Apart from two that were mythical-level, the rest were legendary-level.

Although there was no Virtual God that appeared in this world, there were tens of talented geniuses who created mythical-level methods as a few eras had passed. However, some of them lost the inheritance.

Apart from those, Lin Huang redeemed over 3,000 cultivation methods, 11 of which could be cultivated to virtual god-level.

He then swept over 300 demigod relics in the warehouse. Among them were three telekinesis weapons, 11 battle swords and 23 armors. They were all suitable for him.

Eventually, he redeemed the remaining points for a total of over 20,000 human immortal-level monster crystal cores.

Lin Huang did not feel any pain spending all of his Glory Points at once. He even indulged in the joy shopping brought him. Redeeming items with Glory Points was like purchasing stuff with cash vouchers.

After putting all of the items he had redeemed away in his Emperor's Heart Ring, Lin Huang did not bother keeping the Glory Point crystal card, so he returned it to the plump elder directly.

"Don't forget your promise," Lin Huang emphasized again when he returned the crystal card.

"Don't worry. I, Zhao Linde, have always been a man of my word. I'll definitely keep my promise!" The plump elder pounded his chest as he spoke. "If not for my sound reputation, the seniors wouldn't have given all of the responsibilities regarding Glory Points to me."

"But it won't mean nobody will find out about this even if I don't breathe a word. You've redeemed too many treasures this time. The sects will find out sooner or later. They have their ways of finding out about anything," reminded the plump elder again.

"Just drag it out for me as much as you can. The longer it is, the better," Lin Huang responded.

"I can definitely do that!" The elder promised right away.

After spending all his Glory Points, Lin Huang was not going to stay at the foggy world any longer despite the fact that it was a blessing to him.

Getting out from the Luotian Sect, Lin Huang then entered a forest. After making sure that there was no detection skill around him, he transformed back into Lin Xie.

He then took out his dimensional relic and stepped into it.

The coordinates he had pinned on the dimensional relic was the entrance to the foggy world.

As soon as Lin Huang stepped out of the dimensional relic, he felt that something was odd before he could even recall his dimensional relic.

People dressed in the Union Government's military uniform were blocking the entrance.

Lin Huang was shocked. "Has my identity been revealed?"

Just as he wondered whether if he should brave it through the crowd, a lady in a cloak questioned, "Are you Lin Xie from the Heaven Alliance?"

"Yes, I am." Lin Huang was forced to answer her question.

"Don't worry. We're here to stop the heretics." Fu Qingwei and the EA.2 members were unable to join the Genius Union because of the Union Government. However, as an intelligence agency, they had detailed information about strong individuals in the Genius Union. Of course, there was no exception for Lin Huang who was the new talent that ranked first on the leaderboard of the Stairway Tree.

"To stop the heretics?" Lin Huang was stunned. Although he felt that it was strange, he did not ask any further. Instead, he felt relieved.

"The rest of the members from other organizations are allowed to enter." Fu Qingwei did not intend to explain any further either. Instead, she told Lin Huang that he could leave and that he did not need to concern himself about them.

Lin Huang nodded before recalling his dimensional relic and slowly flying towards the exit without anyone getting in his way.

Seeing that Lin Huang had disappeared, Cao Zhen who was in his white robe frowned.

"The guy named Lin Xie isn't as simple as we think." An augur's instinct was said to be exceptionally accurate.

"Of course, he isn't. He's just a holy fire-level but he's managed to rank first on the leaderboard of the Genius Union's Stairway Tree." Fu Qingwei smiled, nodding her head. "His training speed far surpasses that of an ordinary person's."

"Even if he's a genius, he's still much weaker than Zang Yi," remarked Feng Yong who was short yet muscular as he was quite bitter.

Fu Qingwei's facial expression changed and she immediately glared at Feng Yong with a fierce whisper, "Don't simply talk about Zang Yi!"

The EA.2 members immediately kept quiet.

…

Of course, Lin Huang did not know that the EA.2 members were discussing him in the foggy world.

Getting out of the foggy world, he returned to the Fallen God Land again.

The Leech Pods which Bloody had left there were soon activated.

About ten minutes later, Lin Huang then received the updated map of the organization and the distribution of monsters.

Seeing Bloody's result of the distribution, Lin Huang was startled. "Is this the right one? Why have the number of monsters increased compared to 20 days ago?"

"Yes, the number of monsters have increased," Blood confirmed, "There seems to be a unique rule being imposed on the ruins whereby the undying species and the spirit types can be constantly summoned."

It came to this conclusion because part of its Leech Pods had parasitized in the monsters' bodies. The monsters being parasitized had witnessed the changes and their memories were stored. Right after the Leech Pods were activated, the stored memories would be transferred to Bloody's knowledge base.

Lin Huang frowned. "It's actually a good thing to us. We have more monsters to hunt now."

"However, based on the map, aside from a few of the unknown regions, it seems like most of the places have been explored." Lin Huang studied the map carefully again. He could not find a suitable location to go monster hunting.

After exploring for tens of days, the union and the underworld began to unite their members. They no longer fought solo. The organizations divided the Fallen God Land into small segments like a whole cake.

"There are fewer people in the forest situated in the northeast. The level of the monsters over there isn't high and it's only occupied by a few of the smaller organizations. However, although there are fewer people over there, they are scattered all over the place. We can easily bump into humans when we hunt." Bloody did not have any good suggestions. "Other than that, we have control of the central region which is the largest area. There are many monsters over there, but it's occupied by three big organizations."

"If we can't find a place to hunt for monsters, let's go for those that are occupied." Lin Huang was much more confident now after fighting the Nightmare Dragon's will. "Let's see if there's any region being occupied by the underworld."

"That's great," Bloody sighed in relief.

Previously, Lin Huang did not want to have any conflict with humans. However, since 50 days had passed, the humans seemed to have scattered all around the Fallen God Land. He was unable to look for a suitable place to hunt for monsters where he would not bump into humans.

Bloody soon circled 12 regions and he numbered them accordingly.

"12 of these places are being occupied by the underworld and there's no union around them. I've numbered them from the weakest to the strongest.

"Region No. 1 has the weakest overall ability whereby the strongest monster is on crimson gold-rank and there are only three of them. It's been taken over by the Purple Crow, Saint, and Charm. There are seven of them on black gold-rank and tens of them are on immortal-level. The strongest member is on yellow gold-rank.

"Region No. 12 has the strongest overall ability. It's occupied by Dynasty, the Purple Crow, Saint, and the heretics. The four strongest people are on white gold-rank and there're a total of 13 imperial-level. None of them is on immortal-level. The strongest monster is on purple gold-rank and there are only three of them."

"Let's start from region No. 1 then." When it came to fighting the underworld, Lin Huang would not hold back his ability.

He summoned Thunder which went all out and arrived at region No. 1 in less than an hour.

After recalling Thunder, Lin Huang summoned the three pseudo-mythical-levels, Lancelot, the Regal Sword Killer, and the Evil Dominator. He summoned the two knights, the two Dark Crescent Snakes, and Kylie as well.

After the large-scale slaughter in the foggy world, the combat strength of Kylie's Nephilic Judges had leveled up to immortal-level rank-9. However, only a few of them had gone through their third mutation. Despite the fact that many of the monsters from the foggy world exhibited dark attributes, only a few of them had completed their third mutation. Regardless of how many mutated or double mutated monsters were killed, the Nephilic Judges were unable to upgrade to Nephilic Angels. Over the past 20 days, there was only a subtle increase in the number of Nephilic Angels.

When they returned to the Fallen God Land, it was a great opportunity for an upgrade.

Be it Kylie's Nephilic Judges or Lancelot and the rest, they were capable of fighting a crimson gold-rank. This was also the reason why Lin Huang had summoned them this round to hunt for monsters.

"Let's kill all the immortal-levels as soon as possible. There are many of them. If we were to fight the crimson gold-levels, they'll probably inform the rest if they discover there's a fight going on. After killing all the immortal-levels, we'll have to kill the black gold-ranks followed by the crimson gold-ranks." Lin Huang soon distributed the tasks to each of them.

Guided by Bloody, Kylie and the rest soon left and went after their hunting targets.

In less than 15 minutes, Kylie and the rest had secretly killed the first batch of monsters. Those who were on immortal-level rank-9 were unable to fight Kylie's Nephilic Judges, Lancelot and the rest at all.

Before they could inform anybody, they were all murdered.

The imperial monsters soon targeted the second batch of monsters after being guided by Bloody.

Only one out of seven of the black gold-ranks was not killed and managed to inform the others about the battle.

Despite having caught the attention of the three crimson gold-ranks, the outcome of the battle was a foregone conclusion.

Bloody suddenly changed his mind, making the black gold-rank the bait. He managed to bait the three crimson gold-ranks. Kylie and the rest then besieged them.

Three waves of battle ended within an hour.

Region No. 1 had officially become Lin Huang's territory.

Singing in the Victory

After taking over region No. 1, Lin Huang summoned Bai and the rest.

All the immortal-level rank-9 and imperial-level monsters at the region were involved.

Lin Huang initially intended to insert the God Figurine into his body as he wanted to visualize the True Spirit Encyclopedia to train his combat soul.

After he thought about it carefully, he knew that he had to stay at the Fallen God Land for more than a month. If he could not level up to immortal-level rank-4, the combat strength of Bai and the rest would remain at immortal-level rank-9.

The combat strength of Bloody's Parasitic Puppet would be restricted as well. The highest level of combat strength they could achieve would only be crimson gold-rank. They had to sell the yellow gold-rank monsters that had been killed.

As for the combat strength of Kylie's Nephilic Judges, they would all be stuck at immortal-level rank-9 as well.

The same thing would happen to Lancelot's sword servants as well.

Despite his careful consideration, he decided to level up to immortal-level rank-4. The Fallen God Land would be opened for three months. Although it was a little too soon to upgrade one rank higher in three months, it was still possible.

After he made up his mind, he then inserted the Nightmare Dragon's God Figurine into his fourth Life Wheel. His combat strength immediately upgraded to immortal-level rank-4.

As soon as he got to mid-level immortal-level, the combat strength of Bai and the rest had automatically leveled up to the first rank of an imperial-level – black gold-rank.

Guided by the inherited memory, in addition to Bloody's suggestion, the Life Palace of Bai and the rest could soon be formed.

Lin Huang did not slack at all. Since he already owned the fourth combat soul, he decided to hide in Kylie's mini world. He then crushed an Epiphany Card and entered a state of visualization.

Eleven days later, the combat soul of the Nightmare Tapir was formed. Its appearance looked like a saber-toothed tiger. However, it had an elephant's trunk. Its body was surrounded by revolving white clouds.

The combat strength of the combat soul was slightly weaker compared to the other three as it was currently on black gold-rank. Lin Huang was not in a hurry. He knew that as Bai and the rest hunt for monsters, spiritual energy would be inserted into his body. It was just a matter of time for the upgrade in the combat soul's combat strength to happen.

As he got out of Kylie's mini world, it was already late at night on day 11.

After communicating with Bloody, Lin Huang then knew that Bai and the rest were guided by Bloody and were now hunting in region No. 4.

The ability of Bloody's army grew again. The number of black gold-rank Parasitic Puppets and crimson gold-rank Parasitic Puppets had increased to 188 and 73 respectively. As for the yellow gold-rank Parasitic Puppets, there were already 10 of them. Although they were still insufficient to kill the white gold-rank monsters, it would not be difficult for them to defeat an ordinary white gold-rank.

As for Kylie's side, almost a third of the Nephilic Judges had leveled up to black gold-rank. The number of triple mutated Nephilic Angels had exceeded 260. About 100 of them had not evolved.

Lancelot had an additional sword servant as well. He had 18 slots in total for sword servants and there were two more remaining. Among the 16 sword servants, half of them had leveled up to black gold-rank.

The Evil Dominator had three additional yellow gold-rank Golden Cicada Substitutes. Bloody gave it a chance to kill since he could obtain a human substitute just by performing a kill. Bloody could still make use of the dead bodies to create Parasitic Puppets.

Bloody had arranged everything in good order and it was unaffected by Lin Huang.

"Are there any humans or monsters that majored in sword?" Lin Huang asked.

"Among the humans, there are 13 immortal-levels who majored in sword and there are two imperial-levels."

"As for the monsters, there are eight immortal-levels. There's one imperial-level that's on yellow gold-rank. It has very strong abilities. The Regal Sword Killer, Lancelot, and the Evil Dominator had to team up to be able to kill it."

"I noticed that if the Regal Sword Killer happens to kill any monsters or humans that majored in swords, it can completely duplicate its opponent's inheritance and merge the capabilities with its Sword Dao," Bloody shared what it accidentally discovered.

"If that's the case, I won't use the Golden Cicada Substitutes that often. Let it duplicate the inheritance." Lin Huang was stunned when he heard that. Soon, he smiled and nodded his head in understanding.

Although the use of Golden Cicada Substitutes allowed him to obtain the inheritance of a sword major that was killed, not using the Golden Cicada Substitutes would not have much of an impact on him.

Bloody then quickly duplicated the Sword Dao inheritance and sent it to Lin Huang.

Two days had passed. Bai and the rest had almost cleared everything in region No. 4.

Early in the morning on day 14, Lin Huang and his imperial monsters rushed towards region No. 5.

By now, three days had passed. All the immortal-level rank-9 and imperial-level monsters in region No. 5 had been wiped out.

The imperial monsters then headed towards region No. 6.

Lin Huang had been practicing the skills he used in the foggy world every day. There had been a substantial increase in his familiarity with the Twisted Fate Scripture.

Besides that, there was an upgrade in the Nightmare Tapir's combat soul in Lin Huang's body as well. As Bai and the rest had been hunting for several days, the combat strength of the Nightmare Tapir's combat soul had advanced to crimson gold-rank.

Aside from that, Bloody and Kylie's troops grew stronger each day.

As for Bloody's side, the number of imperial-level Parasitic Puppets had been constantly increasing. After getting to black gold-rank, Bloody did not have much faith in the immortal-level Parasitic Puppets.

The combat strength of Kylie's Nephilic Judges was improving each day. Nephilic Judges upgraded to Nephilic Angels each day.

Just as they were singing in victory, what they did managed to attracte the underworld's attention.

"Who's messing with us?! We've lost six imperial-levels and two yellow gold-ranks in half a month! Including three of them who died previously, there are only three of us who are alive!" Lei Jie, who clad in his black coat, was infuriated.

As the leader of the Purple Crow, in order to obtain more resources, he had divided nine of the members into three teams, so there were three members in each team. Other than his team, the members from the other two teams had all died.

The Purple Crow had invested a lot to train each of their core members. The Purple Crow would definitely not be able to accept losing nine core members in one single mission.

As the team leader, Lei Jie would be severely punished after they had completed the mission. Despite the fact that he was very powerful and was on purple gold-rank, he would not be forgiven.

"According to the information I have, they're not coming after us. Dynasty, Saint, Charm, and the heretics were attacked as well. All the teams were killed. Six out of 12 of the regions taken by the underworld had been attacked. None of us managed to survive it," Zheng Nan shared the information he had.

"Do you mean that someone's trying to fight all the underworld organizations?!" Lei Jie found it unbelievable.

"You can say so." Zheng Nan nodded his head.

"It sounds like the people from the Union Government and the Hunter Association are trying to kill us with the ruins." Lei Jie narrowed his eyes.

"Regardless of who's the culprit and which organization they're from, they're really strong. They're at least on white gold-rank and there must be more than one person.

"Regardless of how strong they are, their abilities are only on par with mine. No demigods are allowed to enter the ruins," Lei Jie scoffed. "Do you know where are they going to attack next?"

"I've come up with the order in which they'll launch an attack. They fight according to their overall abilities and will fight from the weakest to the strongest. It shouldn't be difficult to identify the next region that they're going to attack," Zheng Nan said without any facial expression.

"Old Lei, I suggest not stopping them alone." Right this moment, the one-eyed man said, "If there are two or more purple gold-ranks, we'll die."

"That's what I was thinking too." Zheng Nan nodded and agreed with him. "If we were to stop them, we better team up with Dynasty and Saint. Since they're also suffering great losses, I guess they won't turn us down."

"Alright, you shall make the arrangements for that." Lei Jie kept quiet for a while and agreed. "Tell them not to bring their yellow gold-ranks along. It'd be best if there are three or more purple gold-ranks."

On the 17th day after Lin Huang had returned to the Fallen God Land, Bloody along with Bai and the rest had already cleared region No. 6.

There were more than 200 black gold-rank Parasitic Puppets in Bloody's troop and the number of crimson gold-rank Parasitic Puppets had increased to 82. It had 15 yellow gold-rank Parasitic Puppets as well.

As for Kylie's side, about half of the Nephilic Judges had leveled up to black gold-rank. The number of triple mutated Nephilic Angels had exceeded 280 as well. They were now getting closer and closer to their target.

Lancelot got an additional sword servant and out of the 18 sword servant slots, there was only one last slot remaining.

The Evil Dominator obtained two yellow gold-rank Golden Cicada Substitutes while Killer inherited two Sword Dao skills.

Although it seemed like there were no changes in Lin Huang's body, the Nightmare Tapir's combat soul in his body was becoming stronger each day. Despite being yet to level up to yellow gold-rank, it was improving. His training in the Twisted Fate Scripture remained at the fifth rotation. As for the 16 million points that he required, he had accumulated more than half of them.

The Fallen God Land seemed peaceful. In fact, there were many things going on.

In the afternoon of day 18, Bloody that was controlling its army of parasites suddenly whispered, "The four organizations, Dynasty, the Purple Crow, Saint, and Charm have done something. It seems like they're heading to our next destination – region No. 7."

"It seems like they've discovered our route. They're here to stop us." Lin Huang did not feel surprised. He knew that they would definitely fight back since he was seizing their territory. "How many of them are there? What's their combat strength?"

"There are only 13 of them. There are four purple gold-ranks and nine white gold-ranks," Bloody told him what he could monitor from afar, "We're incapable of fighting them. We've got two solutions.

"The first one is to clear all the monsters in this region and immediately leave. Look for a place to hide. Dynasty and the rest won't know who attacked them. It's less likely that they'll suspect us.

"The second solution is to skip region No. 7 and go straight to region No. 8. If they happen to come after us, we can escape to region No. 9. We can hunt while we escape all the way till region No. 12, but we have to quickly kill the monsters there. It's rather beneficial for us to do so, but at the same time, it's much riskier."

"I'd suggest a third solution then." Lin Huang grinned after listening to what it said. "After clearing region No. 6, we go straight to region No. 7. After killing those who block us, we can attack all the 12 regions without any obstacles.

"There are four purple gold-ranks and nine white gold-ranks. Are you sure you're able to handle them?" Bloody had never seen Lin Huang's combat souls launch an attack as the God Figurines were only summoned in the dream thus far.

"Yes, I'm sure. Don't worry." Lin Huang patted Bloody's head.

Bloody dodged away from Lin Huang's palm, raising its head and asking Lin Huang with a serious expression, "I'd like to know the probability of winning the fight."

"100%," said Lin Huang as he grinned widely.

"Alright, let's follow your solution then." Bloody then felt relieved.

It took them another two days to completely clear region No. 6. Lin Huang then recalled Bai and the rest, keeping only Bloody with him. He rested for the whole night and after taking his breakfast, he summoned Thunder and headed towards region No. 7.

Lin Huang arrived at region No. 7 on the 21st day before 9 a.m.

At region No. 7, the six imperial-levels who were responsible for looking after the region had left. Only 13 of them were there to stop them.

Lin Huang did not try to hide anything and soon, he drew their attention.

From the monitoring screen, a young man who was about 20 years old descended from the sky riding on a beast. After recalling the beast, he gradually walked towards them, shocking them.

"There's only one person?!"

"It seems like he knows that we're here to stop him. He came right to us."

Through the monitoring screen, they were unable to sense the strength of Lin Huang's aura. They could vaguely feel that their target was not as weak as they thought.

"Have you seen this person before? Why do I feel that he looks somewhat familiar?" Huang Tianqi from Dynasty was staring at the young man in the screen and he frowned.

"I find him familiar too." Lei Jie actually found that he seemed to know this man. However, he could not recall where he had seen him before.

"If I'm not mistaken, he looks like Lin Xie from the Heaven Alliance…" said Zheng Nan who was from the Purple Crow, but he was unsure.

The Genius Union was really a very powerful organization. However, regardless of how strong it was, it would only accept holy fire-levels and immortal-levels. All the members who had achieved imperial-level would automatically leave the Genius Union.

Compared to organizations like the Union Government and Dynasty, the Genius Union was more like a school. Regardless of how excellent a person was in school, not many of the outsiders would know about this, just like how an imperial-level would not pay much attention to who the strongest among the immortal-levels was. They might have seen it on the news but could not really remember who he was.

"Are you sure he's the one?" Lei Jie's facial expression was strange after listening to Zheng Nan's speculation. "I remember that I saw Lin Xie only being on holy fire-level a few months ago."

An old man with a white bear who was in a Saint's robe said confidently, "He's Lin Xie. His combat strength is already on immortal-level rank-3."

His name was Xie Pengshan. He was the leader of the Saints. Being on purple gold-rank, his combat strength was on par with Lei Jie and Huang Tianqi's.

"Lin Xie is the Saint's hunting target. That's why we paid close attention to him," Du Long who had a scar on his face explained as he stood behind the old man with the white beard.

"So, do you mean that this immortal-level rank-3 has killed all the members at the six footholds? There are hundreds of immortal-level rank-9s and more than 20 imperial-levels. There are five yellow gold-ranks as well!" The leader of Charm, Yu Hong finally exclaimed in disbelief.

Everybody remained silent after listening to what he said.

It was impossible for the young man to do so. Even if it was Chan Dou who was one of the Five Princes and Huang Wuji who were now on immortal-level rank-9, they would be incapable of killing a yellow gold-rank. They could only fight them face-to-face, let alone an immortal-level rank-3.

It would be useless even if they had a God Crasher. An immortal-level rank-3 would be unable to capture the movement of a yellow gold-rank. It was impossible for a God Crasher to hit a yellow gold-rank.

"Could he be here purely by accident?" Zheng Nan asked, carefully looking at the rest of them.

"I don't think so. He's not trying to kill any monsters and he came straight to us." Lei Jie shook his head.

"Since that's not possible, there's only one remaining possibility." The killing intent from Huang Tianqi suddenly grew. "He's the one who attacked the foothold!"

Lin Huang flew to the coordinates Bloody gave him easily. He landed slowly when he saw a building that looked an ancient castle.

There was no such complete building left in the Fallen God Land at all. The ancient castle was just a structural-type relic.

Most structural-type relics of such a big scale were expensive. Relics of the same quality were just slightly cheaper than a battleship, but its price-performance ratio was lower than a battleship.

A battleship was an attack weapon that was similar to a God Crasher. Furthermore, it was mobile. However, apart from having a higher defense compared to a battleship, such a structural-type relic only had the upper hand of being much smaller than a battleship.

However, compared to a battleship, such a structural-type relic could not contain large-scale weapons or travel. Its practicality was much lower.

In reality, structural-type relics were not entirely redundant. Some of them were more practical.

The most practical one would be a battle fortress which was also popular. Such a relic could contain a massive amount of large-scale weapons. Furthermore, it was a mobile relic in the form of a fortress. On a certain level, its practicality was even higher than a battleship in wars. However, its cost was over ten times more expensive than a battleship of the same level. It was rare with less than ten of them in the entire world that people knew of. It was even lesser in quantity than god relics.

Naturally, there were still people who would purchase such structural-type relics as it was great for showing off.

As soon as it was activated in the wild, everyone would know that you were rich.

Just like the ancient castle before Lin Huang's eyes, it would be in high demand at an auction. It could be easily sold at the price of a demigod relic.

To be honest, most people could not afford it. Even demigods would not spend money on such a thing.

It was completely useless to Lin Huang who was all about practicality. He would rather dig a cave in the mountain wall.

However, his mood boosted when he saw this relic.

The reason being he was sure of one thing — the people who were coming to stop him were pretty rich!

Lin Huang took a careful look at the entire ancient castle as he landed slowly.

The ancient castle occupied over 300,000 square meters on the ground. The main building was five floors tall while the walls were 12 meters tall. The round sentinel tower was almost 40 meters tall.

Although he could not see what was happening inside the ancient castle, Lin Huang was very sure that the people there were watching him.

Indeed, through the window in the ancient castle, Huang Tianqi and the rest were observing Lin Huang who came alone.

"His combat strength's only immortal-level rank-4…" The 13 of them sensed Lin Huang's combat strength clearly and doubt rose in them at the same time.

An immortal-level rank-4 person had killed imperial-level yellow gold-ranks?

"Whether it was him who killed the people or not, there's no reason for us not to meet him since he came here on his own." Huang Tianqi grinned. He was the first who got up and leaped out as soon as he opened the window.

The other three imperial-level white gold-rank Dynasty members caught up with him without hesitation.

The four of them landed on the wall at the entrance of the ancient castle with one of them standing in front.

Lin Huang lifted his head and looked above the entrance. He glanced at the three imperial-level white gold-rank members behind Huang Tianqi and eventually fixed his eyes on Huang Tianqi.

'People from Dynasty?' Lin Huang identified the few people right away. Only people from Dynasty would dress in that poop-yellow color on the streets.

Huang Tianqi, who was dressed in golden armor, stood on the wall looking down at Lin Huang who was beneath. He released his imperial-level purple gold-rank aura without holding back towards where Lin Huang was.

The three imperial-level white gold-rank members behind him staggered back immediately and leaped to the top of the main building. They were afraid of being impacted by the terrifying aura.

Naturally, Lin Huang, at whom the aura was aiming, sensed Huang Tianqi's show of power. However, an imperial-level's aura was just child's play to him since he could withstand the petrifying aura coming from a god like the Nightmare Dragon's carcass.

Huang Tianqi's suppressing aura was considered powerful among the imperial-level purple gold-ranks. Lin Huang felt it like it was a gentle, soothing breeze coming at him.

Huang Tianqi had been observing Lin Huang's change of expression. However, apart from his clothes fluttering slightly, what he expected to happen never did.

He thought Lin Huang would kneel onto the ground and would not be able to get up from his terrifying aura.

Under normal circumstances, an ordinary immortal-level rank-4 cultivator would definitely kneel down as soon as he encountered an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse's aura. He might not be able to stand up from such powerful aura.

However, Lin Huang who possessed Holy Power was clearly an exception. The probability of him kneeling was slim even if he were to encounter a virtual-level powerhouse's aura.

Huang Tianqi's trick was completely useless on him.

The remaining people in the ancient castle had a slight change of expression when they witnessed that.

Huang Tianqi had already released all of his aura. Even the couple of imperial-level white gold-rank members in the ancient castle were rather suffocated while three imperial-level purple gold-rank members looked grave. However, Lin Huang who was at the center of suppression seemed like nothing was happening to him.

"Now, I'm beginning to believe it was him who destroyed our six footholds." Lei Jie from the Purple Crow had his guard up a little as he looked at Lin Huang.

"Something's definitely up with this fella." Xie Pengshan from Saint stared deadly at Lin Huang while narrowing his eyes.

Although Yu Hong from Charm said nothing, he was gripping a short dagger in his left hand. It was clear that he was ready to attack anytime now.

Lin Huang's current level of ease was completely impossible for an immortal-level rank-4. In reality, it was impossible for anyone on immortal-level to feel as comfortable as him. It was impossible for even supreme geniuses such as Chan Dou and the Five Princes to be at ease facing Huang Tianqi's powerful aura. One must know that Chan Dou and Huang Wuji had combat strengths of immortal-level rank-9 while Lin Huang was only on immortal-level rank-4.

"Hahaha… Lin Xie from the Heaven Alliance, it seems like everyone in the world underestimated you." Huang Tianqi's intent to kill rippled rapidly all over his body.

"I'm flattered," Lin Huang replied calmly with a smile. His tone was light and there was no pressure on him at all. "I wonder which Duke of Dynasty are you?"

"Huang Tianqi!" Huang Tianqi announced his name.

"Oh, so you're Duke Qi," Lin Huang raised his brow when he heard the announcement.

He had heard some names of the imperial-levels from Chan Dou before entering the Fallen God Land. Huang Tianqi had a combat strength of imperial-level purple gold-rank, and his ability could easily rank the top three among the over 300 imperial-level powerhouses who entered the Fallen God Land this time.

"Lin Xie, since you've heard of my name, let's not beat around the bush." Huang Tianqi recalled his terrifying aura and stared deadly at Lin Huang. "What's your intention coming here this time?"

"Duke Qi, why are you asking this when you already know what my intention is?" Lin Huang could not help but laugh when he heard the question.

"Was it you who killed the people in the six footholds?!" Huang Tianqi's eyes turned icy gradually. He had an affirmative answer to the question despite asking it out loud.

"I guess," Lin Huang did not deny it but he added instead, "Although I didn't do it myself."

Lin Huang's straightforwardness caught them by surprise, but Huang Tianqi and the rest were stunned when they heard what he said later.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I have assistants." Lin Huang smirked while the four God Figurines' Combat Souls' silhouettes appeared out of thin air.

Yu Hong from Charm revealed himself almost at the same time. His severed arm holding the short dagger fell to the ground less than three meters behind Lin Huang. He staggered tens of feet away from Lin Huang rapidly, staring fearfully at the little white cat that landed on Lin Huang's shoulder.

Looking at the severed arm that was tumbling onto the ground, Huang Tianqi and the rest gaped in shock at the little white cat on Lin Huang's shoulder as their pupils shrunk.

The single blow alone chopped off Yu Hong's arm. It proved that the little feline that seemed harmless had the ability of at least an imperial-level purple gold-rank or even higher.

Besides the nine imperial-level white gold-rank people, even Huang Tianqi and the other three imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses had fear in their eyes when they stared at the little white cat.

Apart from Lin Huang, each and every one of them was a top powerhouse in the underground organizations. They were familiar with Yu Hong from Charm. Appearing only 25 or 26, he was an androgynous young man who ranked No. 10 as a supreme assassin among the imperial-level powerhouses in the entire continent. Even demigod-level powerhouses could only make it to the top 15 in the Assassin Leaderboard.

Even the other three imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses present dared not say they would survive his assassination.

However, such a top world-ranking assassin not only failed to attack the little white cat, but his arm was also severed.

Furthermore, Huang Tianqi and the rest did not see the white cat attacking.

Its stealth technique seemed to be more terrifying than Yu Hong who was an assassin. Moreover, its attack speed seemed to be even faster than his.

What bothered Huang Tianqi and the rest even more were the other three little monsters that were similar to the white cat.

There was a little sapling, a little elephant, and a little leopard with a long snout. They looked like baby monsters that had yet to mature.

The white cat performed an ability that almost overcame Yu Hong. How about the rest of the little monsters?

"You're such a hot-head. I told you that I have assistants, but you came at me anyway." Lin Huang turned to tsk at Yu Hong as a smile remained on his face.

He had actually summoned the four God Figurines' Combat Souls when he recalled Thunder but the Ninetails Lynx hid them in the alternate dimension.

Nobody could sense them in the alternate dimension, but they could see what happened in the main dimension. That was why the Ninetails Lynx had come out of the alternate dimension the moment Yu Hong performed the sneak attack, resulting in his severed arm.

Yu Hong sensed the intent to kill that came out of nowhere, so he recalled his attack and retreated immediately. His response saved his life, but it was a little too late. His arm had been chopped off by the Ninetails Lynx's sharp claws.

"If I'm not mistaken, you must be a Nightingale from Charm, aren't you?" Lin Huang continued in his chatty tone, "I wonder how should I address you?"

Nightingale was the title given to Charm's imperial-level powerhouses. They were actually similar to the Hunter Association's elder.

"Yu Hong," Yu Hong said his name coldly. His severed arm was healing at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye. He was eager to buy himself more time.

"Yu Hong… That name sounds rather familiar." Lin Huang picked up the severed arm as he spoke. He took the short dagger from the severed limb and put it away into his storage space. He then simply tossed the arm to the ground.

He did that smoothly before Yu Hong. There was no shame in his action at all.

Yu Hong was so pissed that his face turned livid.

The dagger that Lin Huang had taken as his reward was an expert-grade demigod relic that Yu Hong had just bid for at a high price not long ago. It was also one of the two most expensive pieces of equipment that he had with him. It had become Lin Huang's just like that as if he deserved it.

"I can't recall where I've seen this name before. Never mind, I won't dwell on it." Lin Huang had no intention to humiliate Yu Hong. The Emperor's Heart Ring that he was using came from an underground organization. He would look at the underground organization's leaderboards when he was bored. The Assassin Leaderboard was one of them. However, he would usually only remember the top three names on all the leaderboards while the names after that would just seem familiar to him.

Yu Hong's name fell into the latter category. He thought it was familiar, but he could not really pin down which leaderboard on which he saw that name and which ranking he was on.

Moreover, some of the organization members that entered the Fallen God Land this time, including Charm, were not very open to the public. Chan Dou had no idea who Charm had sent, so he only mentioned them when he spoke to Lin Huang. He had no idea that Yu Hong was a top world-ranking assassin at all.

However, whatever Lin Huang said was treated as an intentional humiliation to him. He was so mad that he was going to explode.

"Yu Hong, I can't believe you're being underestimated!" Another two silhouettes joined the fray as a voice was heard.

The person who spoke had a Purple Crow trench coat on him. His body was heavy-built and he carried a gigantic blade that was over two meters long on his back. The blade was slightly taller than he was.

The other person wore the Saint's white robes. He looked old with a long, white beard that reached his chest, and the way in which he looked at Lin Huang was rather demented.

"If I'm not mistaken, the both of you should be Lei Jie of Purple Crow and Saint's second messenger Xie Pengshan," Lin Huang identified the duo immediately.

The gigantic blade on Lei Jie's back and Xie Pengshan's white beard were their distinctive features. Moreover, Chan Dou had shown Lin Huang both of their pictures when he briefed him.

Yu Hong looked even more terrible now that Lin Huang had identified the duo.

Huang Tianqi and the rest were thinking to themselves, 'This fella must be doing this on purpose.'

"Lin Xie, since you recognized me, there's a suggestion that I'd like you to hear," said Xie Pengshan who was in white robes while wearing a smile.

"Do tell," Lin Huang said while raising his brow with a smile.

"There are four of us on imperial-level purple gold-rank. The rest of us can fight you as long as we constrain your four summoning beasts for a moment. I admit that you have a stunning talent as an Imperial Censor, but no matter how powerful you are, you shouldn't have the ability of an imperial-level white gold-rank. Hence, it's impossible for you to win this battle.

"How about this? We'll forget about everything you've done in the past as long as you agree to join the Saint. We can communicate with the other three organizations for you and give the respective compensation to put the rivalry to an end. Apart from that, we'll also make you our First Holy Son of Division 3 and cultivate you with all our might."

Huang Tianqi and the rest were dumbstruck by Xie Pengshan's suggestion out of nowhere.

They were about to fight but he was recruiting openly now?

Xie Pengshan's action made Huang Tianqi and the rest fell into deep thoughts.

Lin Xie's overall ability was indeed stunning. Bringing him back would be much better than killing him directly. He was only on immortal-level rank-4, but his summoning beasts were already so powerful. Would that not mean he would be invincible when he reached imperial-level?! Such a genius might be even more powerful than the Five Princes such as Chan Dou if anyone were to cultivate him…

Lin Huang finally spoke just when Huang Tianqi and the rest were considering if they should change their strategy.

"Firstly, I'd like to correct you. These four little things aren't summoning beasts. They're my Combat Souls." Lin Huang knew why Xie Pengshan would think that his Combat Souls were summoning beasts. The reason being that it was impossible for ordinary people to have Combat Souls that were more powerful than the person himself.

Huang Tianqi and the rest were stunned to hear that while they stared at the four little monsters with their eyes wide open.

The three imperial-level yellow gold-rank and one imperial-level crimson gold-rank monsters were all Combat Souls?! Are you not only on immortal-level rank-4?!

"Secondly, I'm afraid the Saints won't be able to put the conflict I have with Dynasty and Charm to an end." Everyone could not help but listen attentively when he said that.

Was there some deadly grudge?!

Were his parents killed by people from Dynasty and Charm?

Or was it his siblings?

Or was it his girlfriend that he had known since he was a child?

"I bumped into Dynasty's Seventh Prince and Charm's entire squad when I was in the foggy world." Lin Huang smirked slightly. "I killed all of them."

To Dynasty, every Prince was the top Duke candidates. As soon as they elevated to imperial-level purple gold-rank, they would be the top powerhouse among imperial-level powerhouses and become the person who held the most power in the entire Dynasty.

Huang Tianqi, for one, was elevated from a Prince. Apart from a few demigods, his ability ranked No. 2 in Dynasty's Division 3 branch.

The death of a Prince would be treated as a serious event the same level of the death of an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse.

Not only did that mean Dynasty had lost a potential top imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse, but it was also a humiliation to them too.

Whoever killed Dynasty's Prince would mean that he created a rivalry with the entire Dynasty. Even if it was a demigod-level powerhouse who did it, Dynasty would come after him with no mercy.

Throughout the hundreds of years, Bai Qi from the Union Government was the only person who had killed a Dynasty's Prince and managed to live peacefully.

It was not that Dynasty did not attack Bai Qi, but two demigods had died while three demigods were severely wounded as a result of the two fights. They had to give up eventually.

Lin Huang killing Dynasty's Seventh Prince would mean that he had planted an irreversible, deadly rivalry with Dynasty.

Such a grudge could not be solved by compensation. To Dynasty, repaying with blood was the only solution.

Xie Pengshan of Saint forced a smile helplessly while shaking his head upon hearing Lin Huang's situation.

The conflict he had with Dynasty alone made him give up recruiting Lin Huang entirely because taking him in would mean declaring war with Dynasty.

Although Saint was also a top underground organization, it was slightly behind Dynasty. It was not worth declaring war with Dynasty just for a Holy Son.

Killing the entire Charm's immortal-level squad would mean making enemies with Charm too.

Taking Lin Huang in would get himself into a rivalry with two major organizations, and Xie Pengshan knew how much of a loss that would be.

One must know that Charm's Division 3 branch had sent a third of their immortal-level geniuses for the search in the Fallen God Land this time.

The entire squad dying in Lin Huang's hands was equivalent to a third of Charm's future pillar of support being killed in the cradle. Such animosity was nothing less than Dynasty having their Prince killed.

Yu Hong's intent to kill was rising rapidly as he looked at Lin Huang. He was not mad about Charm's loss. He was mad because his daughter was Charm's immortal-level squad leader this time.

More than 20 days ago, he found out that his daughter had been killed in the foggy world. He had been depressed for the past few days because he had no idea who the murderer was and unable to avenge her.

Never had he thought that the murderer would appear before him right now and admit his own doing.

Yu Hong had not said anything no matter how Lin Huang had humiliated him earlier. Now that he found out that Lin Huang was the one who killed his daughter, he could no longer hold his fury back and shouted out loudly, "Lin Xie, you killed my daughter. I'll kill you today!"

"Your daughter?" Lin Huang was stunned to hear that. He then recalled the day when he had annihilated Charm's squad. The lady said her father was an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse who was also in the Fallen God Land and would definitely avenge her. Never had he thought he would really bump into the lady's father that day.

"Are you talking about the leading lady? She did say that her dad is an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse."

Yu Hong stared deadly at Lin Huang. What he had just said confirmed the fact that Lin Huang truly did annihilate the entire Charm's squad. If looks could kill, he would have murdered Lin Huang tens of millions of times by now.

Meanwhile, the rest who were listening to their conversation that involved the grudge had different expressions of their own.

Xie Pengshan noticed that Huang Tianqi was looking at him. He knew it was time for him to speak now. "Since there's such a conflict, we the Saints organization, will not interfere. We'll give up recruiting Lin Xie." The four underground organizations stood on the same side once again as soon as the Saint made that statement.

The rest of them gave up on the thought of recruiting completely.

The Purple Crow and Saint were mainly fearful of Dynasty and had no intention to be rivals with Dynasty.

Charm, on the other hand, held a grudge with Lin Huang. As the leader, Yu Hong treated Lin Huang as his eternal foe, so it was impossible for Charm to recruit him at all.

Meanwhile, for Dynasty, no matter how powerful Lin Huang's talent was, the rules were the rules. One would have to pay the price with their life if they killed a Holy Son, so it was impossible to recruit the murderer into the organization. If such a thing happened, there would be many geniuses who would come after Dynasty's Princes just because they had stunning talent and potential.

If that happened, would there be any dignity left for Dynasty?

Since the four major underground organizations had shown where they stood, the situation was self-explanatory.

Noticing that Yu Hong's arm had yet to recover, Huang Tianqi did not plan to wait any further. He began to move after speaking to everyone though voice transmission.

The four imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses moved quickly, going after the four God Figurines' Combat Souls each.

Huang Tianqi went after the Ninetails Lynx that attacked earlier while the Purple Crow's Lei Jie and Saint's Xie Pengshan went after the Destructive Divine Mammoth and the Divine Sun Tree respectively. Meanwhile, Yu Hong, who had yet to recover, charged at the Nightmare Tapir that had the lowest combat strength.

Whether they were hiding or not, the remaining imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses stared at Lin Huang.

They were waiting to attack once the four Combat Souls scattered.

However, the Nightmare Tapir which body was only around two meters long lifted its long snout and trumpeted out of nowhere.

A circle of invisible sound wave rippled like waves. Its speed was hundreds of times faster than the regular speed of sound. It rippled through everyone instantly.

Huang Tianqi and the other three imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses stopped moving while the other nine imperial-level white gold-ranks fell from the sky to the ground directly. Nobody knew if any of them survived the impact.

Disdain flashed through the Ninetails Lynx's eyes. Just when it was ready to seize the opportunity to kill them, Lin Huang spoke through voice transmission, "Don't kill them. The Evil Dominator won't get the substitutes if you kill them. Just drain their Life Power."

The Ninetails Lynx was a little reluctant but obeyed anyway. Its body turned into a white ray of light as it dashed forward. In the next second, Huang Tianqi and the other three of them had their limbs severed. They turned into stick figures with no limbs.

In intense pain, Huang Tianqi and the other three finally came out of the dreamland the Nightmare Tapir had created.

The four of them noticed what happened to their bodies as soon as they woke up, and they looked around frantically.

Although they would not be considered as having lost all of their battle techniques without their limbs, they still lost most of their abilities. All they could do was to use their Life Power to recover as fast as they could.

Soon, they noticed the imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses who had fallen to the ground. They had no idea if they were still alive or not. They then looked at Lin Huang and the little monsters in fear.

The four Combat Souls were amazingly powerful!

In reality, Lancelot and the rest that were on pseudo-mythical-level could fight imperial-level yellow gold-rank powerhouses with their imperial-level black gold-rank combat strength. According to Lin Huang's speculation, a real mythical-level Monster Card would have an ability that surpassed pseudo-mythical-level on which Lancelot and the rest were by heaps. It should not be difficult for imperial-level black gold-ranks to fight imperial-level purple gold-ranks.

Lin Huang's four Combat Souls were at least on par with supreme god-level Monster Cards at the moment. It would be nothing for imperial-level black gold-ranks to defeat imperial-level purple gold-ranks, let alone if their combat strength that was on imperial-level crimson gold-rank and imperial-level yellow gold-rank.

Even though Huang Tianqi and the rest were the best of the best among all the imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses, they were still a distance away from the Ninetails Lynx which ability was close to demigod-level.

Lin Huang thought the one-sided battle was expected.

One must know that Ninetails Lynx and the rest could kill imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses like they were cutting vegetables in dreamland.

Lin Huang was not fond of playing around with his opponents. However, both imperial-level purple gold-rank and imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses surpassed Bloody's Leech Pods' abilities.

Making them the Evil Dominator's substitutes by draining their Life Power would be the optimum choice of seizing the resources.

He had even thought of the way to handle the bodies.

Each and every one of them here was worth an extremely high reward at the Union Government whereby they could be sold at a price ten or even hundreds of times higher than monster carcasses of the same combat strength. Combined, their bodies should be able to redeem a god relic.

It was none of Lin Huang's business what the Union Government would do with those bodies.

A few breaths had passed. Huang Tianqi and the other three had regenerated their severed limbs.

However, before they could do anything, a white ray of light flashed through the sky while blood sprayed everywhere.

Huang Tianqi and the rest felt agony coming from their limbs again. They turned to look and realized that the limbs that they had just regenerated were detached from their bodies again.

The four of them were dumbstruck.

How were they supposed to fight?!

The Ninetails Lynx's speed was incredibly fast. It was so fast that it surpassed their ability to capture its movement. Their limbs would be severed whenever they saw the white afterimage flashed by; there was no time for them to react at all.

"Don't panic. Summon the Combat Souls to block the attack when our limbs regenerate, then activate the Life Palace ability to show our trump cards right away," Huang Tianqi spoke to them through voice transmission, "Time's critical now. We'll really die here if we hide our abilities!"

Although they were unwilling to show their trump cards, Lei Jie and the other two agreed to Huang Tianqi's suggestion. They had no other choice anyway since they really might die if they did not fight with all their might.

A few breaths passed quickly, and their limbs regenerated once again.

Just when Ninetails Lynx was ready to attack, the four of them summoned all of their Combat Souls at the same time.

36 Combat Souls with the combat strength of imperial-level purple gold-rank appeared almost at the same time. The Combat Souls of different forms were just as majestic as the four of them.

At the same time, the four of them summoned their Life Palaces.

Four gigantic Life Palaces hovered above Huang Tianqi and the other three's heads, looking very spectacular.

"Wow, you guys are going all out!" Lin Huang smirked.

At that moment, the Divine Sun Tree extended tens of its branches like spiritual serpents that came alive. Its attack was terrifyingly quick. It was almost on par with the Ninetails Lynx.

Before Huang Tianqi and the other three managed to react, they watched their Combat Souls being pierced through their bodies by branches. They looked like Szechuan skewers.

The pierced Combat Souls were like balloons that were poked, deflating rapidly and becoming nutrient for the Divine Sun Tree.

Adult Divine Sun Trees could even swallow stars and black holes, so a baby Divine Sun Tree was not to be underestimated at all.

The Combat Souls were like a refreshing drink in the summer. It drank them all after a few sips with a straw.

Have you tried putting 36 straws into 36 bottles of chilled Coke and drank them at the same time during a hot summer?

It was amazing!

The 36 Combat Souls were all killed in less than a second after they revealed themselves.

Huang Tianqi and the other three were stunned just looking at them.

All of the Combat Souls had been killed before they could grow their palms and feet!

Could they not hold on for two more seconds?!

Oh no, there was no way they should hold it back any longer! They had to go all out!

Huang Tianqi signaled the rest and he began to activate his Life Palace's ability. He dared not delay the process until his limbs were done regenerating.

However, disdain flashed through the Destructive Divine Mammoth's eyes. It lifted one of its massive front feet and stomped in the air.

Bang!

An unusual explosion that sounded like a muffled thunder erupted. In the next second, a circle of invisible energy wave spread out. It rippled through the Life Palaces above Huang Tianqi and the rest's heads.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

The four explosions came almost at the same time. Huang Tianqi and the other three spat blood out and they looked above their heads in terror.

The four Life Palaces were directly blasted and skyscrapers and collapsed rapidly. They then disintegrated completely and turned into broken pieces. They were left with a bare palm-sized Life Base which turned into a ferocious gleam that withdrew back into their bodies immediately.

The four Life Palaces were pretty much completely destroyed. Although their Life Base was still there, it would take a long time to rebuild the Life Palace. It required a massive amount of energy too.

Their Life Palaces were destroyed before they managed to activate their Life Power abilities. The four of them felt so screwed at that moment.

They initially thought that the little white cat was the most powerful among Lin Huang's four Combat Souls. However, it seemed like the other three had almost the same standard as the cat.

The little white cat alone had fought four of them on its own without any pressure and Lin Xie had three more of such Combat Souls.

What was an immortal-level rank-4 doing with four such powerful Combat Souls?!

He only had immortal-level rank-4 combat strength, but his Combat Soul was on imperial-level yellow gold-rank. That did not make sense!

His Combat Soul only had imperial-level yellow gold-rank combat strength, but it could fight imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses. Moreover, it was one versus four. It simply did not make sense at all!

Where did he buy such a plug-in? I would love to have one too! Huang Tianqi and the other three wanted to cry.

"The attack the four of you attempted wasn't too shabby," Lin Huang commented while chuckling as though he was a kind mentor on a variety show, "Keep it up. I have faith in you guys."

"A gentleman would rather die than be humiliated!" Yu Hong flushed and shrieked, "Lin Xie, if you're a man…"

Shrrrrrr…

A shredding sound came when Yu Hong was halfway speaking. His limbs were severed again.

Huang Tianqi and the other two experienced the same thing too. Their limbs were chopped off from their bodies.

They did not notice that their palms and feet were regenerating at all.

The four of them were speechless as they watched their limbs falling onto the ground, having freshly regenerated from their bodies.

They were puzzled why Lin Huang did not just kill them since he totally had the ability to. Instead, he kept chopping off their limbs again and again.

Could this fella be a masochist?!

If chopping limbs off and making people into sticks was just an appetizer to him, what would he do to the rest of them after Huang Tianqi?

The four of them had goosebumps just thinking about that.

Naturally, Lin Huang had no idea what the four of them were thinking about. He extended four telekinetic threads and took the Emperor's Heart Rings from their severed arms before them. He then put the rings away into his storage space.

The four of them were enraged watching that, but they could do nothing to stop him. All they could do was stare at him fiercely.

Lin Huang peeped at the four of them and glanced away like he did not care. He then extended nine telekinetic threads to the nine imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses who fell onto the ground.

After taking the nine of their Emperor's Heart Rings away, Lin Huang browsed through their bodies and put the items away into his storage space.

Naturally, the nine imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses were still alive. It was not that the Nightmare Tapir could not kill them, but Lin Huang got it to spare their lives. After all, imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses were great substitutes for the Evil Dominator who was only on imperial-level black gold-rank.

The Nightmare Tapir created a massive amount of monster hordes in the dreamland while the nine of them fought the monsters over and over again. They had no idea that they had been dragged into the dreamland.

The Nightmare Tapir's dreamland ability was more powerful than the Nightmare Dragon's. In its dreamland, it was impossible for one to turn the table around just like Lin Huang had done to the Nightmare Dragon.

The draining of their Life Power was reflected perfectly in reality. The nine of them experienced a rapid drop in Life Power in their bodies.

"These nine imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses will drain their Life Power soon." Lin Huang nodded in satisfaction. He then looked at the four imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses' direction. "But looking at these few fellas' progress, it seems like it'll take a while to drain their Life Power…"

Huang Tianqi and the other three imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses used their Life Power mainly on the demigod armor relic's defense and the regeneration of their limbs.

Naturally, the defense of the demigod armor relic was difficult for the Ninetails Lynx to cut through. However, it sliced at the gap between the joints of the armor the first time. The surfaces that were out of the coverage of the armor depended on the defense layer that extended from the armor.

It would be very difficult for a person who had the same combat strength as Huang Tianqi and the rest to break through their defenses. However, such a defense layer was nothing too difficult for the Ninetails Lynx which had the ability to suppress them.

The four of them had their armors detached from their bodies for the first time after their limbs were severed. They were only left with the armor on their upper bodies and helmets. Their overall defenses dropped by more than 70% compared to the time they donned their full armor. Now, the difficulty for the Ninetails Lynx to severe them was much lower.

However, the draining of Life Power from the continuous regeneration of their limbs was still insignificant to Lin Huang.

"The regeneration of their limbs is too slow, causing their attack frequency to be low." Lin Huang had an idea all of a sudden after thinking to himself as he stared at the four of them.

He spoke to his four God Figurines' Combat Souls including the Ninetails Lynx while grinning.

For some reason, the Nightmare Tapir had sympathy in its eyes as it looked at the four of them after hearing Lin Huang's voice transmission.

This time, the Ninetails Lynx moved suddenly without waiting for the four of them to regenerate their limbs.

It turned into a white figure as it raced out while its white cat claw was imprinted brutally on the demigod armor relic that Huang Tianqi wore.

He felt an intense tremor that came from his chest. He had no idea how many bones were crushed while his heart almost burst. He could no longer control his body as he shot out like a cannonball.

Right at that moment, the shadow of a whip came from the air and struck hard on Huang Tianqi's back.

He spat a mouthful of blood out as a result of the attack and his flight route changed without resistance. He had no idea how wounded his back was at the moment.

Just when he was shot less than three seconds away, the Destructive Divine Mammoth whipped its trunk and smacked the side of Huang Tianqi's body hard.

He could clearly sense that his left waist had been crushed.

Before he could whine about his waist, his body was shot out once again.

A moment later, a cat claw came flying in the air again and imprinted on the right side of his body with a terrifying force.

His right waist was crushed at that moment.

Lei Jie and the other two were dumbstruck while watching the three bullies messing with him like he was a volleyball.

Huang Tianqi had no time to heal himself as the three Combat Souls were attacking him one after another. The Life Power in his body was absorbed insanely by the demigod armor relic almost every second to keep up with the defense.

Huang Tianqi knew very well that if not for the demigod armor relic that had absorbed most of the impact, he would have died many times by now.

However, Huang Tianqi only managed to hold on for less than three minutes as he faced the attacks coming from the Ninetails Lynx and the rest that were assaulting him almost without reserve. His Life Power was completely drained.

Since the demigod armor relic had no more Life Power to charge it, it retreated back into his body automatically.

Watching a whip shadow darting in the air at him, Huang Tianqi closed his eyes helplessly. He accepted his fate of death was the price of his defeat.

However, he felt a rope-like thing rolling around his waist and releasing him in the air.

When he opened his eyes, he was lying less than ten meters away from Lin Huang.

He also saw a long-snouted leopard on Lin Huang's right staring at him. It seemed to be waiting to see if he would have any more trump cards with him.

He forced a smile helplessly. There was no Life Power left in his body and he did not even have the energy to heal his organs, let alone regenerate his limbs to fight.

He laid on the ground like a piece of salted fish. He looked at the sky above him. Suddenly, he realized that it had been years since he had felt so relaxed like he was at that moment.

Lin Huang glanced at Huang Tianqi and spoke to the Nightmare Tapir through voice transmission.

The Nightmare Tapir gazed at Huang Tianqi, his pupils turning black all of a sudden. In the next heartbeat, Huang Tianqi fell into a deep slumber.

After handling Huang Tianqi, the Ninetails Lynx, the Destructive Divine Mammoth, and the Divine Sun Tree headed to Lei Jie and the other two.

They were in a frantic and their faces had turned pale. They knew what kind of torture they would be experiencing without even having to think about it.

The three out them shot out like cannonballs as they shrieked devastatingly. Meanwhile, the Ninetails Lynx and the other two monsters turned into three rays as they chased after them.

In less than five minutes, the three wounded, limbless human sticks were sent to Lin Huang. The demigod relics on their bodies were nowhere to be seen.

Lei Jie and Xie Pengshan had lost all of their hopes. Despair showed on their faces.

Yu Hong, on the other hand, was staring deadly at Lin Huang while rage was written all over his face. However, he could not speak due to his broken voice box.

Lin Huang put them into a line using telekinesis, devoid of any expression on his face. He then summoned the Evil Dominator and Killer.

"Apart from sword cultivators that belong to Killer, the rest will be yours, Evil Dominator."

Killer took a step forward without hesitation and chopped Lei Jie's head off.

The Evil Dominator was grinning as he did as Killer did, chopping the heads of Huang Tianqi and the other two off.

The demigod relics in the four's bodies came out automatically as soon as they were dead.

Lin Huang used telekinesis thread to pick up the four heads and demigod relics, then put them away in his storage space.

He turned and walked to the pile of severed limbs of Huang Tianqi and the rest. He used telekinesis thread to put the demigod armor relics' parts away.

After handling the four imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses, the nine imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses who were stuck in the dreamland should have their Life Power drained very soon.

Lin Huang and the monsters only waited for two to three minutes before the nine imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses' demigod relics withdrew back into their bodies.

The Evil Dominator attacked without thinking twice and killed seven of them in a row.

Killer swung his sword immediately and chopped off two sword cultivators' heads. He then walked to Lin Huang and shared the three sword cultivators' inheritance with him.

Lin Huang closed his eyes and then nodded to Killer slightly after digesting the inheritance.

As he recalled the four God Figurines' Combat Souls, Lin Huang used telekinesis thread to put the nine powerhouses' heads and the demigod relics that came out of them away.

After he was done with all that, Lin Huang browsed through the 13 headless bodies. He then summoned Lancelot, Kylie and the rest after making sure that he had not missed out any valuable items.

"We've taken down region No. 7. Let's proceed with the hunting." The 14 Monster Cards scattered as Lin Huang ordered, beginning a new round of hunting under Bloody's guidance.

Tens of thousands of kilometers away, the imperial-level powerhouses who were in charge of region No. 7 were waiting for good news from their organization's seniors anxiously. They were eager to return to region No. 7 to begin hunting again.

However, nobody heard any news after a day had passed.

On the second morning, someone from Dynasty finally could not take it any longer. He took the initiative to contact Huang Tianqi, but the communication device used by Dynasty's internal team could not be connected from morning until afternoon. The person began to realize that something was off.

The Saints began to suspect something was wrong too.

On the third day, the people from Dynasty and the Saints basically confirmed that Huang Tianqi, Xie Pengshan, and the other imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses were dead.

On the fourth morning, a Dynasty imperial-level yellow gold-rank who was an expert in stealth technique went to region No. 7 secretly. He wanted to know exactly what had happened. Soon, he saw the headless bodies scattered all over a battlefield that was turned into ruins. He did not dare to go any nearer, but he could identify who they were from the torn clothes on their bodies.

His scalp turned numb and he had weak knees when he saw the limbless bodies. He summoned a Dimensional Portal immediately and crawled into it.

What he had no idea about was that Lin Huang had brought his summoning beasts team to region No. 8 an hour before he came checking on the powerhouses.

The news of the underground organizations' four imperial-level purple gold-rank and nine imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses being killed spread through the entire Fallen God Land that very noon.

All the organizations that entered the Fallen God Land were shocked to hear the news!

In the central region of the Fallen God Land, the Union Government, the Hunter Association and Adventurer Paradise had gathered their high management around.

The eight of them present were imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses.

There were four of them who were dressed in the Union Government's military uniform and donned military cloaks on their backs while the other four were dressed rather casually.

A hunk with messy hair and an unshaven mustache, carrying a big golden bow who was dressed in a military uniform asked, "Is the news confirmed? Are Huang Tianqi and the rest really dead?"

He was Tu Yu of the Hunter Association and the leader for the mission this time. He was also the top person below demigod level in the association. His ability easily ranked No. 1 among all of the imperial-level powerhouses who had entered the Fallen God Land this round. He was more powerful than the four imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses from the Union Government.

"We had our spies confirm that Huang Tianqi from Dynasty, Lei Jie from the Purple Crow, Xie Pengshan from the Saints and Yu Hong from Charm are all dead. Apart from the four of them, there were nine imperial-level white gold-rank bodies at the scene too," added Wei Xia who was dressed in military uniform in all seriousness.

"Old Wei, it really wasn't you guys who did it?" Leader Chang Ling from Adventurer Paradise could not help but ask.

"If we did it, do you think the four of us could stand here speaking to all of you unwounded?" Wei Xia frowned slightly.

"Huang Tianqi's ability was no lesser than mine. We might not even be able to kill him if the four of us imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses were to fight him together, let alone having Lei Jie and the other three fighting on Huang Tianqi's side.

"Moreover, the three organizations had nine imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses with them. That's only one imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouse lesser than us. It would be a bloodbath even if we could defeat them. At least half of our team would be killed. It's impossible for us to kill them all."

"Huang Tianqi was really powerful. It would've been difficult even for me to kill him." Tu Yu nodded in agreement hearing that. "Judging by the team that they assembled, we might be able to kill them all if we combined three organizations together but it's difficult to defeat them without any injuries."

"There're no other bodies at the scene. Could the assailant put his comrades' bodies away?" Chang Ling asked again.

"That's possible." Wei Xie nodded. "But even if his comrades died, the team must have a terrifying overall ability to kill Huang Tianqi's team. We might all be killed if any of us were to encounter them."

"Did you investigate why did Huang Tianqi's team appear in that area?" Tu Yu asked again.

"According to insider news, throughout the 20 days or so, the regions terrorized by underground organizations had been attacked by an unknown organization. The unknown organization would kill all the underground organization's residents every region they attacked and they annihilated all the immortal-level rank-9 and imperial-level monsters."

"The Purple Crow estimated the unknown organization's route after confirming the news and invited Huang Tianqi and the rest to collaborate with them. Never did they think… that this would happen. Huang Tianqi and the rest were all killed by the bunch of fighters."

"Is the unknown organization attacking the 12 regions terrorized by the underground organization?" Tu Yu asked again.

"Yes," Wei Xia confirmed, "According to the news that we heard this morning, the unknown organization's already attacking region No. 8 yesterday. Looking at their hunting speed, they'll proceed to region No. 9, at the earliest, on the day after tomorrow."

"Judging from their progress, they'll need around 14 days to clear all 12 regions. It's 16 days to the day that the Fallen God Land's closes." Tu Yu frowned as he spoke to this point. "They might attack the region we are in for the remaining two days."

All of them turned pale when they heard that.

The overall ability of the three organizations including the Union Government, the Hunter Association and Adventurer Paradise was much more powerful than Dynasty and the other two underground organizations. However, none of them here dared to say they had the confidence to defeat the unknown organization that had killed Dynasty, the Saints and the rest.

"But there are regions that we occupy around the 12 regions which the underground organization have terrorized. They didn't attack the regions in which our people reside. Maybe they bear no ill intentions toward us?" Chang Ling could not help but voice his speculation.

"Until now, we have yet to identify who this unknown organization is, so we can't be reckless," Wei Xia agreed with Tu Yu's point that they must always have their guard up before identifying who the person was.

"Why not we send someone to try to talk to them?" As an adventurer, Chang Ling was always curious about the unknown.

Everyone rolled their eyes at him.

The death rate of the members in Adventurer Paradise had always been higher than most organizations. The reason being that they were always asking for death.

"Fine, we won't talk to them. Why are you guys staring at me like that?" Chang Ling mumbled softly with his head stooped down.

The people ignored his mumbling and proceeded to discuss the ways to tackle the potential crisis.

"To prevent unnecessary casualties of our members, I suggest that we bring some of our members back respectively, especially in those regions that are close to the underground organization's territory. We might as well just vacate the regions. We will then gather people with high combat strength to the central region to prevent the unknown organization from attacking," Tu Yu voiced his idea.

"I agree with Boss Tu's suggestion. Although we will lose part of our resources, keeping our members safe is our priority. Considering it as a whole, such a strategy could minimize our loss," Wei Xie stated his opinion.

The people looked at Chang Ling subsequently.

"Why are you guys looking at me? I didn't say that I object to the idea." Chang Ling had disdain written all over his face. Noticing that Tu Yu and Wei Xia were still staring at him, he nodded helplessly. "Fine, I agree."

"Old Zhang, please watch him. Don't let him do something stupid." Wei Xia glanced at Chang Ling and shifted his focus onto the old, plump man next to him.

The old man smirked. "I know that. Don't worry about it, Boss Wei."

"Old Zhang, you really are the spy from the Union Government targeting us Adventurer Paradise!" Chang Ling turned and glared at the old man madly.

"Heh!" Old Zhang responded to Chang Ling with his expressionless face.

Tens and thousands of kilometers away, Lin Huang found out about the gathering of high management from the union organizations, but he had no idea what they were talking about at all.

Throughout the next few days, the union organizations got their members who were close to region No. 8 to leave immediately, followed by region No. 9, region No. 10 all the way to region No.12.

From their reaction, Lin Huang guessed what the union organization's meeting was about roughly.

Their vacating the regions should be the result of their fear after Lin Huang defeated the underground organizations. The union organization was afraid that he might fight their members, so they chose to leave without being asked.

Naturally, Lin Huang was elated that his area of hunting was wider now.

Initially, he decided to hunt the 12 regions terrorized by underground organizations before the Fallen God Land closed. Hence, he had been holding his hunting speed back whereby he was in a relaxed mode.

However, now that the union organization had left him with more space, he would take them all for himself naturally.

Lin Huang got Bloody's parasitic army and the Warlord's mechanical army to join the battlefield. They boosted Bai and the rest's hunting rhythm and activated their killing spree mode.

Every summoning beast went all out on the battlefield.

Bloody separated its parasitic army into two groups. The team consisting of thousands of triple mutated immortal-level rank-9 monsters were responsible for killing immortal-level rank-9 monsters while the team with monsters above imperial-level would be responsible for killing imperial-level black gold-rank to yellow gold-rank monsters.

The Evil Dominator used an imperial-level purple gold-rank substitute right away which was Yu Hong's body expert in assassinating. Lin Huang even handed the expert-grade demigod short dagger relic that Yu Hong usually used to the Evil Dominator. With the demigod relic, he could kill one monster in every attack, even when he encountered imperial-level white gold-rank monsters.

Lin Huang did not get the Evil Dominator to fight even though they encountered imperial-level purple gold-rank monsters a few times. Instead, he summoned the God Figurines' Combat Souls to put it to an end as fast as they could.

Meanwhile, Lancelot and Killer had been practicing their skills with imperial-level yellow gold-rank monsters earlier. To boost their killing efficiency, both of them were only attacking imperial-level crimson gold-rank monsters now.

Bai and the rest had been practicing killing monsters which ranks were higher. Instead of fighting imperial-level crimson gold-rank monsters, they were fighting imperial-level black gold-rank monsters now. They had a unique bloodline in their body, so fighting monsters of the same combat strength was child's play to them.

The Warlord's mechanical army, on the other hand, did not challenge themselves by killing monsters of a higher rank. Just like Bai and the rest, they were only killing monsters of the same rank, causing them to have terrifying efficiency.

After all, they had many opportunities to practice, but such an opportunity to kill was rare.

Among all of the teams, Kylie's team was the only one that had the same responsibility. All they did was clear the triple mutated monsters with dark attributes. Her Nephilic Judge army would have Nephilic Judges evolving into triple mutated Nephilic Angels everyday. She was closer to evolving to become quadruple mutated.

The monster army that given their all experienced a few folds' boost in their killing speed.

After clearing region No. 8, Lin Huang and his army took a day and a half to clear the areas the two union organizations had left for them. They then headed straight to region No. 9.

Before arriving at region No. 9, Lin Huang had heard from Bloody that the Union Government was not the only one that had carried out the retreat strategy. The underground organizations had also decided to vacate the remaining few joint regions as well.

After all, the remaining high management had a similar combat strength with the 13 powerhouses that Lin Huang had killed earlier. Furthermore, the high management's ability was even slightly weaker than the 13 of them. Instead of coming after Lin Huang for revenge, they were worried that he would come after them.

Lin Huang thought that it was a waste for the underground organizations retreated at their own will. After all, the effort to kill the underground organization members was minor. Moreover, the killing could boost the number of Bloody's puppet army and he could obtain more Sword Dao inheritance when he encountered sword cultivators occasionally. However, Lin Huang expected such a decision to come from the underground organizations.

It only took Lin Huang and his army three days to clear region No. 9 as well as the three joint areas around it. They then headed to region No. 10…

It was the 31st day since Lin Huang returned to the Fallen God Land which was the 81st day since the opening of the Fallen God Land.

When Lin Huang's summoning beast army was almost done clearing region No. 10, the very last Nephilic Judge in Kylie's Nephilic Judge army finally completed the triple mutation and elevated to Nephilic Angel.

As soon as the 368-strong imperial-level black gold-rank Nephilic Angel army was formed, they vanished from where they were together with Kylie.

Lin Huang could sense that Kylie had returned to her mini world.

He could not go into the mini world without Kylie's invitation, so all he could do was wait for Kylie's evolution to be completed patiently.

The summoning beast army did not stop fighting just because of Kylie's departure. They proceeded to fight and their killing efficiency was barely affected.

After spending three days to clear region No. 10 and the areas around it, Lin Huang headed straight to region No. 11 and region No. 12 with his Monster Cards.

This time, Kylie's evolution went on for seven days. She had just completed the evolution when Lin Huang and the rest began their killing spree in region No. 12.

Just when Lin Huang sensed the change of the card in his body, Kylie walked out of her mini world.

There was a thin golden mask covering her face. It hid her entire face and her white pupils were the only thing showing. Her purplish-gold fauld covered her from her upper body all the way down while the metal fauld on her lower body covered her knees, but the black hemline extended all the way to her ankles. It seemed like even the hemline came with defensive power.

The 36 pairs of black wings on her back were releasing a terrifying aura. They were clearly weapons to attack.

Another thing that had gone through changes would be the spear in her hand. It looked much lighter than before and was only approximately two meters long. It was dark purple in color with sigils all over it. There were faint purplish-gold lightning bolts sparkling around it.

Lin Huang could not figure out Kylie's aura. He could not even determine exactly what her combat strength was.

The 368 Nephilic Angels behind her had a change in terms of looks too.

They were initially Nephilic Angels in silver armor, and now their armor was black. They looked similar to Kylie's previous appearance and their aura was different from before.

Kylie let Lin Huang take a good look at them before speaking. Her voice came through her mask. "Initially, I wanted to get my Nephilic Angel army to stay so that they could fight for you when I went into deep sleep. But they've become part of me now and they can't be separated from me…"

"Don't worry about it. I should elevate to imperial-level soon. By then, the summoning authority for mythical-level monster will be activated automatically," Lin Huang assured, "I'm worried about you. You've been working hard these days. It's advisable to rest."

Kylie nodded and said nothing else.

The 368 Nephilic Angels behind her turned into black rays and penetrated into Kylie's body one after another. Kylie's body disintegrated automatically and turned into an orange card that lay on Lin Huang's palm.

"Monster Card

"Rarity: Mythical

"Monster Name: Darkness Judge Master (Lightning Attribute)

"Type of Monster: God's Blood (Pure Blood)/ Nephilic Judge Tribe)

"Nickname: Judge

"Combat Level: Imperial-level Black Gold-rank / Virtual God (Immature)

"Major: Spear Dao, Lightning Element

"Major Skills: Spearheart, Absolute Judgement, Darkness Purification, Cursed Lightning, Godslayer Army, Holy Power…

"Minor Skills: Seraphic Wings, Seraphic Speed, Elemental Transformation…

"Summon Authority: Denied (to be activated when you reach imperial-level)

"Card Remarks: You finally have a Monster Card that you can show off."

Ignoring Xiao Hei's card remark, Lin Huang stared at Kylie's skill slot for a long time.

Due to the insane amount of monster crystal cores they had obtained in the foggy world, Lin Huang got Bai and the rest to absorb the crystal cores respectively, increasing their skill slots. At the moment, Kylie had more than 300 skills in her skill slots. Lin Huang was dizzy just looking at them. He just scanned through them and gave up the thought of looking at the detailed information of each skill.

He then noticed the change in Kylie's nickname and monster type, so he could not help but asked, "Xiao Hei, didn't Kylie awaken the Dark Angel's bloodline before? Why is she a God's Blood now? And what's with the Nephilic Judge Tribe at the back?"

"It's not I who decided to make her a God's Blood. There are some changes in her bloodline, so I'm not sure what the exact reason is. Usually, there wouldn't be such a change in bloodline for elevation. Perhaps, something unusual happened during the course of elevation.

"About the tribe at the back, it refers to a race that has successfully created a tribe in the universe. Kylie's type shows that such a circumstance explains that her bloodline came from a formidable species. Only a Pure Blood would have their tribe on the card. The reason being that in the universe, only Pure Bloods would be approved by their respective tribes."

After studying it for a while, Lin Huang recalled Kylie's card while feeling elated.

He finally had his very first mythical-level Monster Card!

Lin Huang was elated with Kylie's elevation, but the inadequate summoning authority intensified his pressure.

If he did not elevate to imperial-level soon, the elevation of Bai and the rest would make him be stuck in a pickle whereby he would not be able to summon his imperial beasts. Therefore, he could only pause Bai and the rest's elevation for the time being.

Meanwhile, triple mutated legendary-level monsters would lose their upper hand when they reached imperial-level. If not for their powerful bloodline, Bai and the rest could not fight monsters that were a rank higher at all. Elevating them to quadruple mutated mythical-level monsters was mandatory and urgent.

'I must collect more God Figurines as soon as I can when we get out of here,' Lin Huang decided secretly.

His summoning beast army proceeded with the hunt since Kylie had elevated.

They had only cleared region No. 12 and the two hunting areas around it an hour before the Fallen God Land closed.

After recalling all of his Monster Cards, Lin Huang counted the rewards that he had obtained throughout the three months.

There were two God Figurines, one true god relic, six god relics, close to 400 demigod relics, three true god inheritances, 14 virtual god inheritances, 11 true god methods, over 1,300 sword skills, close to five million monster crystal cores, and close to 200 immortal-level rank-9 and imperial-level Emperor's Heart Rings.

Apart from the material rewards, the cultivation of Lin Huang's Twisted Fate Scripture had reached rotation No. 6. Among the four God Figurines' Combat Souls, three of them were already on imperial-level yellow gold-rank while another was not far from there. His summoning beast army had elevated to imperial-level black gold-rank.

Kylie had successfully elevated to mythical-level.

Lancelot, on the other hand, had elevated to pseudo-mythical-level while all of his 18 sword servants were now on triple mutated imperial-level black gold-rank.

The Evil Dominator had the largest improvement whereby he had three imperial-level purple gold-rank substitutes and seven imperial-level white gold-rank substitutes.

Bloody's imperial-level army experienced a boost on a bigger scale. It had 46 imperial-level yellow gold-rank puppets, over 200 imperial-level crimson gold-rank, and over 500 imperial-level black gold-rank puppets. This army could easily kill imperial-level white gold-ranks and even fight imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses head-on.

It seemed like Lin Huang's combat strength had only gone up by one rank, but in reality, his overall ability had advanced more than that.

Time was ticking.

What Lin Huang had no idea about was that the union organization and underground organizations finally felt relieved the last few minutes before the Fallen God Land was closed. For the past ten days or so, they had been worried that the mystery organization which had killed Huang Tianqi and gang would come after them.

In reality, the union organization used some spying techniques to find out what the mystery organization was after. However, Bloody found out about all their nosing about and put them to an end. Since the efforts were to no avail, the union organization eventually decided to give up with the concern that what they were doing might trigger the mystery organization, causing an unnecessary fight.

On the other hand, the underground organization was behaving like a coward from the beginning until the end. They dared not even investigate the matter because they were afraid that the mystery organization might come after them. After all, the single fight earlier had annihilated half of their high combat strength powerhouses. If another battle broke out, all of their high combat strength powerhouses might be killed.

Initially, they thought it was the union organization that came together to do this and they condemned their sinister act secretly. Later on, they found out that the union organization had vacated many areas at their own will while their members with high combat strength had gathered in the central region. They seemed to be ready for a war to break out with someone else. It was then that they only realized the union organization was not the culprit.

On 1st February at 9 a.m. sharp, a white light sphere appeared above the central region of the Fallen God Land like a sun illuminating the entire ruins.

Just when the people noticed the unusual phenomenon happening in the sky, the white light sphere intensified, and all they could see was an intense white before their eyes.

When Lin Huang got his vision back, he realized he was at the entrance of the Fallen God Land.

The black crack that looked like a Virtual Eye was still there in the sky, and it was exuding a terrifying aura like a giant beast that was ready to devour the world.

Lin Huang was almost sure that anyone who insisted on entering the entrance when the Fallen God Land was shut would be torn apart into pieces by the energy of the crack

He then shifted his focus from the sky to his surroundings. There were people everywhere. Clearly, they were the participants who had survived the ruins.

However, Lin Huang noticed there were only around 3,000 people, which was less than half of the 8,000 people who had entered the Fallen God Land before.

The high management of the Union Government, the Hunter Association, Dynasty, and the rest were waiting not far away.

Most of them had an aghast expression on their faces as they gaped at the members who had survived.

The demigod branch leader of Division 3, who was the Third Prince of Dynasty's face was pale when he saw the remaining members from Dynasty. He shouted at the few imperial-level Dynasty members from far away, "Where is Huang Tianqi?! Where are the Seventh Prince and the immortal-level team?!"

The remaining imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses from Dynasty shrunk as one of them informed Third Prince about what happened through voice transmission.

Not only did the Third Prince lose his calm after hearing that, but he was also even more furious now.

"All of you are useless! You don't even dare to investigate who killed Huang Tianqi and the rest. Furthermore, you only heard the news of the Seventh Prince and the immortal-level team being killed by a local organization from someone else. Why are all of you even here?!"

Another person who was just as enraged as the Third Price was the demigod leader of Division 3 Charm, Yue Ji. However, she did not reveal her rage on the spot as the Third Prince did.

She said nothing after asking about what had happened to Yu Hong and the immortal-level team while looking livid. The intent to kill vibrated from her body.

The happiest ones were the few union organizations including the Union Government and the Hunter Association.

The had lost less than 20% of their members and all of their imperial-level purple gold-rank and imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses had survived. Only less than five of their imperial-level black gold-rank to yellow gold-rank members did not make it this time.

Lin Huang glanced through the crowd quickly and soon saw the short, young man Tong Lin who had spoken to him before they entered the Fallen God Land. His combat strength had elevated from immortal-level rank-6 to immortal-level rank-7.

"What? This fella's still alive?" Lin Huang was rather surprised because Tong Lin had ordinary abilities and was not even considered a genius. He must have immense luck to be able to survive.

As he looked away from Tong Lin, Lin Huang soon saw Huangfu Lin of the Sweep Alliance. Her combat strength was already on immortal-level rank-9, and her aura had been even more powerful than Shen Tao's before entering the Fallen God Land.

This lady's ability was much more powerful than Lin Huang had estimated earlier.

Lin Huang looked away again and soon noticed Tan Lang and the rest.

The nine of them were still alive. Tan Lang and Shen Tao had advanced to imperial-level black gold-rank. Although the rest did not improve in terms of combat strength, the intensity of their aura was now higher.

Recalling what Gong Sun had said before, Lin Huang fixed his eyes on Li Jia. However, he suddenly turned to look at him at that precise moment.

Li Jia smiled at him as their eyes met. He then turned to speak to Tan Lang and the rest, pointing in Lin Huang's direction.

Tan Lang and the rest looked over immediately as elation filled their faces the moment they saw Lin Huang.

Lin Huang smiled at them and nodded. He then walked towards them through the crowd.

"I knew you had to still be alive!" Shen Tao smirked.

"You're always on your own. You didn't even contact us after getting out of the foggy world," Tan Lang grinned while speaking.

"It wasn't that I didn't want to contact you guys, but the communication device's broken, so I can't use it." Lin Huang came up with an excuse. In reality, it was he who had broken the communication device.

Naturally, Tan Lang and the rest noticed that his combat strength had elevated to immortal-level rank-4, but they did not find it odd. After all, he had already achieved immortal-level rank-3 three months ago.

After chatting with each other, Tan Lang began to get down to business.

"Initially, I didn't have high hopes of elevating to imperial-level this time because the Life Base that I want is very rare. Never would I have thought I would find it in the Fallen God Land and could advance to imperial-level with Shen Tao.

"I'm sure every one of you knows the Genius Union's rule. Members will be removed from the list as soon as they elevate to imperial-level and will no longer be eligible to be in the Genius Union. In other words, both of us are no longer Heaven Alliance members.

"However, I want to say that we're always Heaven Alliance members. Whether our combat strength elevated to imperial-level, demigod-level or virtual god-level, the Heaven Alliance will always be the family that we fought for.

"If anyone of you encounters any troubles at all, please contact me, Tan Lang. If you ever need my help. I'll do everything I can to help. Everybody has each other's number, so please keep in touch!"

"Me too. I'll definitely help as long as I can!" Shen Tao said while pounding his chest.

It was the 2nd of February at foothold No. 3A5, Wanbao City.

As the sky was getting dark, a man whose body was shrouded in a black robe and hoodie walked into the Wanbao Auction.

Ignoring the crowded stalls in the auction and the people walking in and out, the man walked straight to the lady in uniform who was in charge of customer service.

"Hi, Sir. May I know if I can help you with anything?"

"I have a business opportunity that I would like to speak about with your boss." The man whipped out a golden card that was half the size of a palm and showed it to the lady.

The female attendant recognized it as a VIP membership card right away. She nodded immediately. "Sure, Sir, our boss is here today. Please give me a moment and I'll get the manager to bring you to the boss's office."

"There's no need for the trouble as long as he's here. I know how to get to his office." The man breezed straight to the office area.

She dared not stop him. She allowed Lin Huang to go in, but she informed the manager immediately.

The man opened the door and went straight into the office when he arrived at the entrance.

The man with a ponytail, who was playing games on the Heart Network, looked up all of a sudden. He was stunned by the appearance of the man in the black robe. The moment the man removed the hood, Tang Xu could not help but exclaim out loud, "Sir?!"

"Seems like you still remember me." The man smirked but his smile gave one goosebumps.

Tang Xu could not help but shiver. Just when he was going to say something, a manager arrived at the entrance, clearly having sprinted over and gazed at the black-robed man as he looked concernedly into the office.

"Boss, this guest…"

"I know. You may leave now," Tang Xu dismissed lightly.

After getting rid of the manager, Tang Xu stood up and studied the man before him in excitement. "Sir, are you selling something or purchasing resources this time?"

"I have a batch of some rather valuable items but I'm not sure if your auction will accept them or not." The man plopped onto the couch comfortably.

Tang Xu poured him a cup of tea immediately. "Please do tell me more, Sir."

"Ten demigod relics…" The man took a sip of the tea and proceeded to continue slowly, "Two god relics."

"Two god relics?" Tang Xu was completely dumbstruck.

There had only been three god relics that appeared in the entire Division 3 throughout the past hundreds of years. However, the man before him had announced that he had two god relics as soon as he arrived. It would be odd if nobody felt indifferent hearing that.

"Would you accept them? If not, I can always look for someone else." The man in the black robe caressed the surface of the teacup softly with his fingers while he set his eyes on Tang Xu like he was looking at a harmless little creature.

"We'll accept them! You have my word, Sir," Tang Xu assured immediately. No god relic had appeared even in Division 1 for more than 30 years. If he accepted those, his Wanbao Auction would definitely shoot to instant fame.

"Sure, tell me about your requirements."

The black-robed man nodded in satisfaction. "Two god relics. I won't sell them for Life Crystals. I'll only trade them for items. Also, the buy-in of each relic must be two God Figurines. The proceeding bids after that do not necessarily have to be God Figurines."

"Must the starting bid be God Figurines? Can't they bid with other items of the same value?" Tang Xu asked immediately. He found out about a God Figurine's real value after Lin Huang's lucky bid last time.

"No, it must be a God Figurine." The black-robed man's tone was determined.

"Alright then…" Tang Xu could only accept the strict condition. It was the seller's request after all and he was just the middle-man. "Can I take a look at the two god relics?"

"Sure." The man agreed and nodded right away. He then took out the two god relics which were a sword and a spear.

Tang Xu fell into a trance immediately. He could not take his eyes off the items, and only snapped back to his senses unwillingly after a long time.

"Shall we talk about the details now?" The black-robed man looked at Tang Xu while smirking.

…

Lin Huang had not slept for three days at the Magical Sky City's Central Library.

He had been 'staying' there ever since the Union Government sent him back to Magical Sky City. The Central Library was open for 24 hours all year long.

Apart from less than half an hour's rest in between, Lin Huang spent almost all the 72 hours throughout the library.

After all, he was only given a three-day pass with level-one reading authorization from the Union Government.

Lin Huang initially planned to bring Bloody there in order to memorize all of the useful information he could access with a level-one reading authorization using its Supreme Intelligence.

However, later, he found out that the Central Library only allowed access to humans while imperial monsters and pet monsters were prohibited. There was even a ban set for demigods whereby they were killed if they sensed a monster's aura right away. It was a sure death even if the monster that came in was on imperial-level purple-gold rank.

After learning about such a rule, Lin Huang had to give up the idea of bringing Bloody in and took the mission up himself.

For the past three days, he had used three Provisional Transformation Cards to borrow Bloody's Super Intelligence for the highest efficiency in the absorption of information.

He got the idea of using Provisional Transformation Cards in such a brilliant way from Xiao Hei.

With the help of Super Intelligence, Lin Huang obtained the memorization and analytical abilities which were on par with Bloody's. After spending some time to filter through the data, he spent the next three days memorizing over 30,000 bits of knowledge accessible with level-one reading authorization.

During the half an hour of 'rest' in between, he used his Cloning Card and Disguise Card to create the demigod-level powerhouse just like before. He used them to head to Wanbao City to auction the two god relics, which were a spear and a sword, off.

The condition of trading the god relics was very simple. They could only be traded with God Figurines. Moreover, the starting bid for a god relic had to be two God Figurines.

Although Lin Huang mentioned the acquisition of information about God Figurines, nobody suspected him.

One of the reasons was that he had the alibi of being at the Central Library when his clone appeared in the Wanbao Auction.

The other reason was that demigods had acquired God Figurines in the past before in order to remodel their Combat Souls. The demigod Lin Huang disguised as was not the first demigod to make such an odd request.

Even if the people from the Wanbao Auction found out that the man in the black robe had a 'master-disciple' relationship with Lin Huang, they would think that it was the black-robed man who wanted the God Figurine while Lin Huang had nothing to do with it. They would not think that the god and demigod relics the black-robed man possessed had anything to do with Lin Huang. After all, relics of such a level were unattainable for an immortal-level powerhouse like Lin Huang.

Naturally, the appearance of two god relics at the same time created a stir in the entire Division 3.

Even many demigods in Division 1 and Division 2 were shocked. Such a level of treasure was extremely rare. Even Division 1 had less than ten god relics that showed up throughout the past 800 years; that number was naturally fewer in Divisions 2 and 3.

Apart from the two god relics that Lin Huang handed over this time, Division 3 only seen three god relics in the past hundreds of years.

Lin Huang gave the Wanbao Auction the full authority to auction the god relics off while he freed his hands from the responsibility.

The Wanbao Auction set the official auction date as soon as they released the news of the god relics being available. It would take place on the 8th of March after the New Year.

On the 4th of February at 10 a.m., Lin Huang's level-1 reading authorization expired. He then walked out of the library and headed to the long-distance dimensional portal to travel to a different division.

Although it was an exclusive passage for transcendence-levels, many of them were heading home to celebrate the New Year. Lin Huang, who had booked his ticket over three months ago, queued until past 2 p.m. and finally walked into the dimensional portal with 29 other people.

His vision recovered after a moment of being in a daze and realized that he was in the White Capital of Division 7 now.

It was snowing heavily in Winter City.

Although it was cold, there were lights and decorations everywhere on the streets since it was close to the New Year. They were people walking in and out of the crowded commercial district.

Two little girls trudged in the snow while holding hands in a villa area close to the commercial district in the east of the foothold. Both of them were dressed in the same jacket but in different colors. One was white while the other was black.

"Little Witch, do you think Brother will like the presents that we picked out?" Lin Xin who wore the white jacket asked in excitement.

The Witch who wore the black jacket had soft hair sweeping her shoulders. She replied softly while flushing, "Master will definitely like the present Young Master picked out."

"Then, let's go home right away. Maybe Brother's already at home waiting for us." Lin Xin nodded while wearing a smile and pulling the Witch along to hasten their footsteps.

The two girls slowed down as they reached a three-story villa. They entered the house after scanning their fingerprints at the door.

The villa remained the same as it was when they had headed out in the morning.

Looking at the furnace devoid of fire, Lin Xin seemed rather disappointed.

She changed her shoes at the entrance, removed her jacket and hung it on the rack. Then, she walked to the furnace and tossed a red crystal in. A crimson spark lit up in the furnace while circles of heatwaves were released at the same time. The chill in the house disappeared immediately.

"The house's much warmer." Having changed into slippers, the Witch sat on the floor in front of the furnace. She extended her hands to the furnace for warmth.

Lin Xin stood by the furnace, her eyes reflecting the red sparks dazzling in the furnace. She stared emptily for a while before asking softly, "Little Witch, it'll be the New Year in four days. Do you think that Brother isn't coming back?"

The Witch went silent for a while and tugged Lin Xin to sit down. "Since Master has promised you that he'll come back, he'll definitely be back as he agreed as long as he doesn't encounter any unusual circumstances."

"He said he would go into the ruins for three months, but it's been a few days since three months have passed." Lin Xin was rather worried. "Could he be in some kind of trouble?"

"Given Master's current abilities, he shouldn't get himself into any trouble as long as he doesn't encounter some extraordinarily powerful imperial-level powerhouse. After all, since my combat strength has elevated to imperial-level, Master's other imperial monsters should be the same too. Moreover, there are a few imperial monsters that are more powerful than me over there. It would be a relief if he doesn't create trouble for himself," the Witch explained with a smile, "Master said three months, but maybe it isn't exactly three months."

Noticing that Lin Xin was still upset, the Witch stood up and changed the subject. "We've bought all the goods for the New Year, so let's decorate the house today. Master will definitely feel the New Year spirit when he comes back."

Lin Xin finally felt her spirits lifted after hearing that. "That's right. We must shower Brother with the New Year spirit."

"Little Witch, let's start working! We'll start with cleaning!" The young lady who was exuberant and full of energy was back.

…

Walking out of the long-distance dimensional portal in the White Capital, Lin Huang knew that Lin Xin was not staying in the Martial Hunter College because the Witch must be with her and he did not sense the Witch's aura in the White Capital.

However, Lin Huang did not summon the dimensional portal to leave the White Capital right away. Instead, he headed straight to the largest shopping district in the White Capital.

He had to bring some presents back for his sister before heading home.

Unsure what combat strength Lin Xin was on now, he ended up buying two sets of equipment — one on silver-level while the other was on gold-level.

The two sets of equipment included the latest battle armor. Apart from that, Lin Huang picked two top-quality battle swords as well as two modified weapon firearms for Lin Xin. He got the staff to wrap them up as gifts and put them away in his storage space.

He then bought the Witch a puppet and got it wrapped too.

The puppet was an ancient relic similar to the doll that Grimace wanted. However, a doll was a battle-type of relic while a puppet was more for controlling the battlefield. Its battle ability was much weaker when it came to fighting enemies head-on.

After buying those gifts, Lin Huang summoned a dimensional portal and stepped into it.

The Witch, who was hanging lanterns with Lin Xin, shivered all of a sudden. She stopped what she was doing the second she sensed Lin Huang's return.

"What's wrong, Little Witch?" Lin Xin noticed the weird reaction from the Witch.

"Master's back! I can sense it."

"Brother?" Lin Xin's eyes flew wide open and she turned to look at the door.

Right at that moment, the door opened while a silhouette walked in. Seeing the person's face, Lin Xin bolted right into the person's embrace instantly.

"Brother!"

Lin Huang hugged Lin Xin while patting her head. She only let go of him after a long while her eyes had become a little red.

"You've grown taller quite a fair bit, silly girl! Let me take a good look at you!" Lin Huang put both his hands on her shoulders and took a long look at her while beaming. "Wow, you're getting prettier! You're a beauty now."

"Nah… Really?" Lin Xin was flushing. Although she denied it softly, she was secretly over the moon.

While he was complimenting her, Lin Huang was secretly shocked as he could clearly sense that Lin Xin's combat strength had elevated to complete-stage gold-level rank-3. It seemed like she would break through to holy fire-level anytime now.

Lin Huang was slightly upset that the present he had picked out for her was useless since she could use relics now.

'Seems like I need to buy her something else,' Lin Huang thought to himself.

At that moment, the Witch walked towards him while feeling bashful and greeted him softly, "Master."

"Little Witch, you don't seem to have changed at all." Lin Huang nodded at the Witch while smiling, but he thought what he said was not right as soon the words came out of his mouth. He added immediately, "You're still as cute as always."

The Witch blushed when she heard that. She dared not look at Lin Huang and gazed down at her toes nervously.

After closing the door, Lin Huang looked up at the decorations around the house. It was almost done now. "Not bad. The New Year spirit's here."

The two ladies were overjoyed to hear that because that was what they had hoped for.

Lin Huang summoned Bloody and Bai to finish up the decorating in the house after changing into his slippers and taking his jacket off.

The reason why he did not summon Tyrant and the rest was mainly that they were not suitable for doing such a fine and meticulous task. He might end up with collapsed walls if he got them to paste some decorations. He did not want the simple job of decorating the house to end up in tearing the house down.

The speed of the task was boosted immensely when Lin Huang and the other two monsters joined them. In less than half an hour, they had hung all of the lanterns and decorations while the ceiling looked like a sky full of stars with the dazzling crystals.

Lin Huang indulged in the New Year atmosphere as he looked at the decorations. However, he could not help but slip into his memory of the New Year back on Earth. Although there were some differences here and there, the overall ambiance was similar.

'It's my third New Year in this world now…' Lin Huang could not help but sigh in his heart.

The first day he returned to Division 7, Lin Huang did not get himself take-out for dinner.

Seeing that the fridge was filled to the brim with ingredients Lin Xin and the Witch had bought, he prepared dinner with whatever was available.

During dinner, Lin Huang summoned Lancelot, Tyrant and the rest, using up all the 15 quotas he had.

Observing what Lin Huang had done, Lin Xie summoned Little 7 as well.

The Seventails' combat strength was already on crimson flame-level. It shivered, sensing the aura of the imperial-levels. However, as soon as it noticed that they were not enemies, combined with the friendliness of Bai and the rest, they soon got along well with each other.

Lin Xie glanced around and noticed that the one she was most familiar with, Kylie, was not there. She immediately asked, "Brother, where's Sister Kylie?"

To be exact, there were no gender differences in angels. Despite the fact that Kylie was no longer an angel, Lin Huang was unsure whether she was a female.

However, the way Kylie previously presented herself was actually in the form of a female. She was also one of the few "female" imperial monsters that had made contact with Lin Xin. This was the reason why Lin Xin had asked about her.

"Kylie leveled up earlier and she has now fallen into a deep sleep. I can't summon her at the moment," Lin Huang explained.

"I'm glad she's fine. I thought…" Lin Xin did not continue what she initially wanted to say.

"Don't worry. My imperial monster won't be killed so easily," Lin Huang answered with a smile, shaking his head. Of course, he knew what Lin Xin wanted to say.

After dinner, the sky turned dark. To avoid getting into unnecessary trouble, Lin Huang allowed the imperial monsters to stay indoors.

Bai was sitting by the window, watching the falling snow while enjoying a glass of orange-colored beverage.

Charcoal's body had shrunk and it was sleeping right in front of the fireplace. Tyrant was sitting next to it, munching on its dried meat. Bloody Robe sat on the other side of the fireplace, curiously sizing up the flames in the fireplace.

Lancelot munched on its dried vegetables while watching the projected television in front of the tea table. Two of its close friends, the Evil Dominator and Killer sat on its right and left.

Bloody and Ghastly were playing chess. Ghastly had lost a few games was evidently unhappy about it.

Lin Xin and the Witch were cleaning the kitchen while the Imp and the Malachian Fiend were trying to help them out.

Thunder's body had reduced in size and it was playing games with Little 7.

The size of the Herculean King and Bing Wang's bodies were compressed to the size of a palm. They were jumping in the room like monkeys. Fortunately, the Witch had set several defensive and robust runes up to avoid the room from being destroyed.

Nobody would have expected there to be so many imperial-level monsters gathering in the small villa.

Lin Huang quietly went back to his room and opened the communication page on his Emperor's Heart Ring. After his finger swiped through the contact list, he dialed a number.

After a short while, the video call was answered. The face of an old man was projected in front of Lin Huang.

"My dear apprentice, are you back in Division 7?"

Mr. Fu was in his boardshorts and a mustard Hawaiian shirt. He was lying on a deck chair while drinking a glass of beverage with a straw. However, the deck chair was placed in a snow-covered land.

"Yes, I just came back today." Lin Huang nodded his head. He asked, "Sir, where are you?"

"I've discovered this Iceland in the Peaceful Ocean a few days ago. I've never seen some of the monsters on this Iceland. That's why I've been staying here over the past few days and I'm about to do some research about them," Mr. Fu said as he shifted the projection lens.

Lin Huang could see that there were some penguin-like monsters on the surface of the ice, but he had no idea what they were doing. Unlike the regular penguins, the limbs of these monsters looked like a gorilla's and they were muscular. Also, they were covered with thick, white fur. Some of them did not only have two arms but four or six limbs.

Lin Huang was speechless to see strange animals like this.

"These monsters are powerful in the water. They are adept at capturing sea creatures," Mr. Fu related with excitement on his face.

Lin Huang roughly knew the reason why he stayed on the island. These monsters were free labor to him, helping him to capture what he needed from the Peaceful Ocean.

After chatting for a while, Mr. Fu then got back to his main point. "Are you on immortal-level now?"

"I'm now an immortal-level rank-4. I'm about to level up to immortal-level rank-5." Lin Huang nodded his head.

"That's pretty fast!" Although he knew that Lin Huang's speed of leveling up was fantastic, Mr. Fu was still surprised by Lin Huang's current combat strength.

Before leaving Division 7, Lin Huang's combat strength was only on crimson gold-rank. His combat strength had leaped seven ranks higher in less than 10 months and he managed to advance a level higher.

"According to your progress, you can level up to imperial-level after half a year. I don't need to worry about it then." Mr. Fu was relieved. He was still concerned about him as he wondered whether if it would be too harsh for Lin Huang to level up to imperial-level in three years. It seemed like Lin Huang could achieve the target in 1.5 years.

"Sir, I have something to tell you." Lin Huang was not thrilled after listening to Mr. Fu's compliment. Instead, he was stressed.

He immediately told Mr. Fu about the crack that had appeared at the Abyss Brink. He knew that he would have heard about this, but he might not know the details.

"I've heard about this, but I never expected it to be so serious." Mr. Fu frowned after listening to what he said. "So, based on your speculation, are you saying that the crack will be completely activated after a year or two?"

"Yes."

"It's much more dangerous than what happened 800 years ago. I've no idea whether if we can survive this." Mr. Fu's cheerfulness was nowhere to be detected now.

"There's something else about the training skills at the old epoch." Lin Huang immediately told Mr. Fu that he had obtained the skills from the Fallen God Land.

"Are you sure that those are the Virtual God or True God skills?" Mr. Fu doubted it.

"I think so. However, there seem to be some restrictions on the Virtual God and True God skills. I'm unable to duplicate them." Lin Huang looked helpless. "I shall visit you after the New Year and show you the jade slip later on."

"It seems like they're skills on the god-level. Only those who've mastered Divine Power are capable of duplicating them." Mr. Fu immediately knew what happened. "You don't need to come over. I'll visit you in two days although I might have to disguise myself then."

"Alright. We can celebrate the New Year together." Lin Huang nodded in agreement.

After hanging up with Mr. Fu, Lin Huang immediately contacted Yang Ling who was also a traveler so that he could unlock hundreds of Emperor's Heart Rings for him.

After dealing with Yang Ling, he then contacted the black market in Division 3 to make an appointment to settle the relics and the rest of the rewards he had obtained after the New Year. Since those items were illegal especially because he obtained them from killing the members from the underworld, he could only sell them at the black market.

Having settled what he needed to, he then opened the Heart Network and began to search for relics that he could buy as a gift for Lin Xin. Unfortunately for him, the presents he had prepared earlier could no longer be used now.

In the next few days, Lin Huang only allowed Bai and the rest to stay at his villa for a day as Mr. Fu might come at any time. He then recalled all the monster cards except for Bloody and the Witch.

Since the seventh rotation of the Twisted Fate Scripture was equivalent to the combat strength of an imperial-level, Lin Huang did not want to mess up the training system in his body. This was why he stopped training this skill and remained at the sixth rotation.

He was trying to digest the sword skills that he had obtained over the past few days.

He then discovered that for all the sword skills, as long as he had seen them once, he did not need to train on his own. The little Sword Spirit in his body would have mastered it.

It seemed like the little Sword Spirit in Lin Huang's body would not feel fatigue at all. It practiced all the sword skills Lin Huang inherited repeatedly.

Lin Huang also noticed that he did not need to practice the skill for hundreds of times in order to obtain skill pieces. What he had to do was learn from the little Sword Spirit and the number of skill pieces he obtained would increase rapidly.

With his current Sword Dao's comprehension ability, it would take him at least two to three days to accumulate a sufficient number of skill pieces to obtain a complete Skill Card for a legendary-level sword skill. However, he managed to obtain a legendary-level sword skill card within an hour.

In just two days, Lin Huang managed to obtain 35 complete legendary-level sword skill cards. It was fantastically efficient.

Lin Huang initially intended to digest these sword skills with the Epiphany Card after the New Year. However, it seemed like he did not need to use the Epiphany Card at all. He just had to please the little Sword Spirit.

After having mastered more than 220 legendary-level sword skills, Lin Huang could clearly feel that his level-5 Sword Dao had already reached its peak. It was approaching complete-stage. Perhaps, in just a short while, there would be a breakthrough in his Sword Dao. He would achieve level-6 real soon, which was Deity.

Lin Huang then focused on his sword skill training and completely forgot that Mr. Fu would come at any time.

On New Year's Eve, which was the seventh of February, the doorbell of the villa rang early in the morning.

Lin Huang was in his training room whereas Lin Xin was playing Gunmaster. The Witch was the only one on the living area of the first floor.

The Witch was startled when she heard the ringing of the doorbell. Still, she opened the door.

"Who are you looking for?" The Witch was alert as it was a stranger that she had never seen before.

Seeing the Witch, the young man, who wore a baseball cap, frowned. He then said, "I'm looking for Lin Huang. I told him a few days ago that I'm coming over before the New Year."

Although she was doubtful, since he knew her master's name and said that he had told him about this, she allowed him to enter.

"Please wait for a while. I'll let my Master know." As the guest entered the living room, she served him some water. After that, she went upstairs and knocked on Lin Huang's door.

Lin Huang immediately exited his state of training. After listening to what the Witch reported, he knew who had come.

However, when he saw a young man holding a teacup and sizing up the surroundings, he was startled.

He looked like he was 20 and he was about 1.85 meters tall. With such towering height, he was completely different from Mr. Fu. However, Lin Huang soon noticed that he looked somewhat similar to Mr. Fu.

"My dear apprentice, are you shocked to see me in this disguise?" The young man's voice sounded exactly the same as Mr. Fu's, so Lin Huang could then confirm his identity.

"Sir… To be honest, I'm shocked." Lin Huang smiled, confirming his surprise.

"This is how I looked like when I was 20 years old. Am I handsome?" Mr. Fu's voice sounded young and he was evidently proud of himself.

"Hey, you are quite handsome." Lin Huang could only agree with him, nodding his head. However, he thought to himself, 'Are you sure that you were 1.85 meters tall when you were 20 years old? That'll be two centimeters taller than me.'

"Are you wondering if that's really my height?" Mr. Fu seemed to know what Lin Huang was thinking.

"No." Lin Huang immediately shook his head in denial.

"Let me tell you, I really was 1.85 meters tall last time," Mr. Fu explained in a very serious manner, "I was cursed in the battle that happened 800 years ago. I suffered from bone structure deterioration and soon, I became the little old man that I look like today."

"Did you become short because of a curse?" Of course, Lin Huang did not believe what Mr. Fu said. It puzzled him. Still, he nodded at Mr. Fu and said, "Yes, I believe you."

Mr. Fu could see that Lin Huang was just trying to put him off. "If you don't believe me, you can ask Liu Ming about it. He knows."

"Don't annoy Senior Liu Ming. I trust you," Lin Huang answered with a serious expression.

Staring at Lin Huang for a short while, Mr. Fu knew that no matter what explanation he came up with, he would not trust him. He shook his head unhappily and gave up explaining to Lin Huang.

"Let's get back to the point. Show me the jade slips that you mentioned earlier."

Lin Huang then took out two Virtual God-level jade slips, passing them to Mr. Fu.

Mr. Fu then took the jade slips and inserted Divine Telekinesis into them. After a short while, he roughly went through the two techniques and there was a strange expression on his face.

"Is there a problem with the two skills?" Lin Huang immediately asked.

"There isn't any problem with the skills and they're indeed Virtual God-level skills which can be used until one reaches Virtual God-level." Mr. Fu shook his head and soon, he continued, "However, the Twisted Fate Scripture is much more difficult compared to the two skills. An ordinary immortal-level will be able to practice those skills. Moreover, as long as one's body is compatible with the skills, the probability of a talented and potential individual to become a Virtual God is pretty high."

"Does it mean that the God-level skills we gained from this place will allow many of us to achieve God-level?!" Lin Hung had been worried about this previously.

"Yes, it is." Mr. Fu frowned.

Both of them remained silent.

One of the reasons was that the world needed those who were on God-level to face the upcoming adversities. However, once these skills got about, Mr. Fu would not be the only one who was on God-level in this world.

"The skills…" Lin Huang had no idea whether the skills should be sealed or be made public.

Mr. Fu seemed gloomy. He then took a deep breath, passing the two jade slips to Lin Huang. "Sell them to the Union Government or the people from the Hunter Association. The price of these skills must be higher than a god relic. You can exchange them for many training resources."

"But you…"

"I can't live a long life. This world needs more people to be on God-level." Mr. Fu eventually came up with a decision. "It can benefit humans if the skills were promoted."

"My era has already ended 800 years ago. It's your time now." Mr. Fu then turned back to Lin Huang as he said this. "I know that there'll be tonnes of them that can surpass me in this era. However, I hope that you'll be the first to do so!"

The sun was hanging high up in the sky, releasing warmth and light. It felt like summer and Lin Huang then looked at the surroundings.

Waves washed over the golden sand.

Impressively, there were Mr. Fu's favorite sunlight, beach, and the sea…

"Is this the place?"

Lin Huang found it odd. He was discussing the training techniques in the dreamland with Mr. Fu who then mentioned, "Show me the results you've obtained over the past half year."

Soon after that, he felt dizzy and appeared at this unfamiliar place as he regained his senses.

"This is my Kingdom," Mr. Fu explained, "This so-called Kingdom is actually a territory that's been transformed to a mini world after leveling up to virtual god-level."

Lin Huang was immediately reminded of Kylie's mini world. It might be a Kingdom as well. However, he had no idea why the Kingdom had no King and how Kylie was able to take advantage of it.

Before Lin Huang managed to ask anything further, Mr. Fu suddenly tossed a puppet doll out.

"Fight it. I can test the functionality of the new toy as well."

Of course, Lin Huang could recognize the puppet doll as he had just bought one for Ghastly previously.

However, Mr. Fu's one was obviously a luxurious version of a puppet doll. It looked about 70% human and took on the appearance of a teenage boy with its ancient white robe.

The one which Lin Huang bought for Ghastly was just a basic one. It did not even have human features, let alone an elaborate outfit. It was just a puppet in a human form.

Its price was exceptionally high despite the fact that Lin Huang had only bought a basic one. It was double the price of an ancient telekinetic weapon.

On the other hand, Mr. Fu had bought the luxurious version. Its price must be more than three times of the basic version. However, its functionality was only equivalent to 1.5 times better. Since only the materials for the ancient relic were used, there would be little difference in functionality. As for the price, it would be equal to the price of changing one's appearance.

Lin Huang used to be a pragmatist and he did not see the need to change his appearance.

Although he knew that the ability of the puppet doll would not be weak under Mr. Fu's control, he was still unhappy as he actually looked forward to fighting him.

"Just a heads up, I'm not going to pay for anything if I happen to damage it."

"Don't worry. I'll take care of it," Mr. Fu answered straightaway.

Instantly, Mr. Fu's Life Power transformed into threads and was inserted into the puppet doll. The inert puppet was alive all of a sudden.

Seeing that the puppet was all ready for the battle, Lin Huang dared not underestimate it. He took out an ancient relic that he had not used for a long while – the Air Slicer.

With the combat sword in hand, Lin Huang's aura immediately expanded.

Mr. Fu did not panic. Instead, he waited for Lin Huang's aura to reach its peak before moving his fingers slightly.

Standing on tip-toe on the sandy beach, it rushed towards Lin Huang, creating traces that were barely visible.

Lin Huang was thrilled. He was never afraid of any of his enemies even if he had to fight them face-to-face.

He initially thought that Mr. Fu would mess with him as he mastered the puppet doll, showcasing his controlling skills. He did not expect it to be a frontal attack.

Although Lin Huang was in mid-air and was more than 10 centimeters away from the ground, when he stomped hard, trails were formed on the beach. He sped towards his opponent as well.

In mid-air, the two figures were approaching each other rapidly.

Exhilarated, Lin Huang lifted his sword with his right hand, slashing down on its left ribs. It was an angle where one could hardly defend themselves against an attack.

Under normal circumstances, his opponent either had to dodge his attack or defend against it.

However, the puppet struck a heavy blow right at the back of Lin Huang's sword. As a result, the direction of Lin Huang's sword deviated.

Before Lin Huang could launch another attack, the puppet's right leg transformed into a whip, tearing toward the left side of Lin Huang's waist.

His kidney could explode if he were hit by the attack.

Lin Huang's face turned grave and he changed the direction of his sword and slashed down toward his opponent.

If his opponent did not retract its feet, the blow was powerful enough to chop its feet off.

Seeing what just happened, the puppet pirouetted on its left foot in the air and retreated tens of feet away, managing to dodge the blow.

Its attacks were fired at lighting speed and Lin Huang was unable to take advantage of it.

Mr. Fu seemed to be satisfied. "Your sword skills are close to complete-stage level-5. I guess you'll be able to get to level-6 really soon. That's just a test for your skill. Things will get real now. I hope you'll do your best and show me your true abilities."

"No problem," Lin Huang agreed.

After the trial attack, he could clearly sense that if he did not take it seriously, the puppet might probably pin him down.

"Let's begin the second round then." Before Mr. Fu could finish his words, the puppet appeared again. Its speed was a few times faster than before.

Lin Huang's pupils dilated and he immediately activated his Seraphic Speed and chased it.

Two white figures flickered in mid-air and collided with each other.

Circles of terrifying waves formed in the air as both of them collided with each other and the impact waves spread out.

On the coastline which had a length of more than 100 kilometers, strong waves were stirred. A variety of tropical trees and the rest of the plants that grew along the beach were all uprooted and fell hundreds of kilometers away.

The two figures backed off from the area of the explosion. Soon after that, they blasted off and crashed into each other again.

In mid-air, a terrifying wave was created in the air again…

The sand was stirred up and covered the sky as if the apocalypse was about to happen.

Over and over again, the two figures smashed into each in mid-air. Lin Huang could clearly sense that Mr. Fu was constantly pressuring him.

Although the puppet doll's combat strength stayed on crimson gold-tank, its skills became more precise. There was a subtle increase in its strength and speed.

The battle lasted for more than three hours. In addition to not summoning any combat souls, asking for help from his summoning monsters, and not using any Combat Strength Upgrade Cards, he had used up almost all his skills.

Mr. Fu had upgraded the puppet doll's combat strength to crimson gold-rank, and Lin Huang was slowly being pinned down. After enduring the battle for almost an hour, the puppet doll struck him and he fell into the sea.

Lin Huang burst out of the sea and wanted to continue the fight. However, he saw that Mr. Fu had recalled the puppet doll.

"That's good enough. Your combat strength is currently on immortal-level rank-4. However, your abilities can be compressed to a crimson gold-level's, so you can kill a black gold-rank with ease. Basically, you're capable of protecting yourself."

Mr. Fu was quite satisfied with the results of the test.

Mr. Fu changed the topic suddenly after commenting on Lin Huang's personal abilities.

"The lady Xiao Wu who opened the door earlier… Is she your imperial monster?"

"Yes."

"I see that her combat strength is already on imperial-level black gold-rank. Is she your most powerful imperial monster?" Mr. Fu asked again.

"No, all of my imperial monsters are on imperial-level black gold-rank now," Lin Huang explained with a grin.

"All of them are on imperial-level black gold-rank already? How many are there?" Mr. Fu was stunned to hear the update.

"Over 20 of them." Lin Huang did not hide the fact.

"Why don't you summon all of them within your limit and let me test their abilities?" Mr. Fu guided his puppet doll again. It was clear that his fun from battling Lin Huang earlier was not over yet.

Lin Huang raised a brow and summoned a total of 13 monsters including Bai, Tyrant, Thunder, Bloody Robe, the Malachian Fiend, the Imp, Charcoal, the Herculean King, Bing Wang, the Death Knight, the Fallen Knight, and the two Dark Crescent Snakes at once.

Bloody was coiled up in his sleeve while the Witch was in the living room on the first floor, hence occupying two summoning quotas. That was why he could only summon 13 imperial monsters to fight.

Mr. Fu was clearly stunned when he saw the 13 monsters appearing at the same time. It was his first time seeing Lin Huang summoning all of his imperial monsters within his limit.

"Can you really control so many imperial-level black gold-rank imperial monsters?" Mr. Fu asked with surprise written all over his face.

He clearly sensed that each monster had an aura that was much powerful than the typical triple mutated monster. They clearly had powerful bloodlines.

Although he was not an Imperial Censor himself, he knew that the more powerful the imperial monster was, the more burden it was to the Imperial Censor's soul. Judging from Lin Huang's immortal-level rank-4 combat strength, theoretically, controlling one imperial-level black gold-rank monster should be his limit. However, now it seemed like not only was he controlling more than ten imperial-level black gold-rank monsters, but he also did not show any signs of suffering burden on his soul at all.

"The most I can control are 15 monsters. I can't control more than that," Lin Huang stated.

Mr. Fu looked deeply into Lin Huang's eyes and faintly guessed that his disciple might have some hidden secret. However, he did not dwell upon it.

"Each and every one of them has a notably powerful aura. I wonder how their abilities are like." Mr. Fu glanced through all the 13 imperial monsters. "Fight me at once. We can save time by doing that."

Bai and the rest looked at Lin Huang, seeming to be miffed that they were being underestimated.

"This is my Master. He'd like to see all of your abilities. Fight him together and don't hold back." Lin Huang nodded toward Bai and the rest.

He knew it was pretty impossible for Bai and the rest to win even if they were to fight together. Under Mr. Fu's control, the puppet doll's combat strength could easily rise to imperial-level purple gold-rank which was on par with a supreme genius's abilities.

Bai and the rest had been killing everywhere they ventured recently. It was not a bad thing for them to suffer a setback occasionally. At least, it would encourage them to become more powerful.

Despite their reluctance, Bai and the rest obeyed Lin Huang's order and soon got into their battle mode. They raced towards the puppet doll Mr. Fu was controlling.

Initially, Bai and the rest thought that a puppet doll would not be that powerful even if it was controlled by a formidable person. However, the imperial monsters soon fell into hardship.

The puppet doll Mr. Fu was controlling maintained its combat strength of imperial-level black gold-rank which was the same with Bai and the rest. Its body was like a specter moving among the monsters at ease, reining Charcoal and the rest under its control.

Bai and the rest did not bond at all when they were fighting as a team. Each of them only exerted 50% to 60% of their abilities.

Even Lin Huang frowned as he observed them. He had never gotten his imperial monsters to fight together; the most were two in a group. He would use his army directly when he encountered compelling enemies, but he could tell that they were lacking in that aspect now. The cooperation between one another was horrible. Their overall ability was at least twice as worse compared to the sword formation of Lancelot's 18 sword servants. One must know that their personal abilities could suppress the sword servants.

"Their personal abilities aren't bad, but I could tell that your imperial monsters have never fought together," Mr. Fu commented.

At that moment, Bloody could no longer take it.

Just when Mr. Fu was ready to stop the fight, Bloody spoke to Bai and the rest through voice transmission. Soon, they formed a simple battle formation following Bloody's order, carrying a different imposing manner now.

"A battle formation?" Mr. Fu raised his brow and peeped at Lin Huang's left sleeve.

With his virtual god-level combat strength, he sensed Bloody that was hiding in Lin Huang's sleeve since the beginning. He had also heard Bloody's voice transmission earlier loud and clear. Although he initially planned to stop, his interest was now piqued. He wanted to see what the little fella hiding in Lin Huang's sleeve could do.

"The two combined knights will be the center of the battle formation. The rest will attack following the duo," Bloody instructed their next moves through voice transmission.

The Death Knight, who was already on imperial-level yellow gold-rank, attacked first as soon as the battle formation was formed. He swung the spear in his hand like a dragon. The air would be sliced wherever the spear passed by. The deathly sharp spear tip was like a cannibalistic poisonous snake that was directed at the skull of the puppet doll.

Mr. Fu had elevated the puppet doll's combat strength to imperial-level yellow gold-rank and it did not hold back. It threw a punch at the spear tip. Immediately, there were explosions coming from the punch, and the air in the affected areas was evacuated.

The two collided in the air.

It sounded like millions of thunderbolts exploding at the same time and circles of turbulent air current spread towards all directions like ripples.

The Death Knight only retreated three steps away from this collision while the puppet doll shot out and fell into the sea with a loud splash.

"Interesting!" The collision made Mr. Fu's eyes light up.

As he moved his fingers slightly, the puppet doll came out of the sea immediately and dashed towards the battle formation formed by the imperial monsters.

Under Bloody's instruction, within the entire battle formation, the two merged knights were the center. One was in charge of attacking and the other was in charge of defending.

Bai and the rest bonded more and more whereby Bloody did not really have to instruct them after that and they would know how to work the formation.

Mr. Fu did almost everything he could by controlling the puppet doll, but he failed to break the formation after trying for almost two hours.

Eventually, he helplessly elevated the puppet doll's combat strength to imperial-level white gold-rank and spent over 20 minutes breaking the formation completely.

Bai and the rest were eager to proceed with the fight, but Lin Huang stopped them.

"Not bad. These imperial monsters of yours have very strong learning abilities that are on par with humans." Mr. Fu recalled the puppet doll completely and nodded in satisfaction. He then looked at Lin Huang's left sleeve. "Of course, the most powerful one would be this little thing up your sleeve."

Bloody crawled out of Lin Huang's sleeve following his signal and clung onto his left arm.

"If I'm not mistaken, this little thing should have Supreme Intelligence, shouldn't it?" Mr. Fu figured easily.

"Yes, Bloody's my adviser," Lin Huang acknowledged.

"Isn't it purple?" Mr. Fu looked at Lin Huang in confusion and thought to himself, 'Could this disciple of mine be color blind?'

Lin Huang figured what Mr. Fu was thinking about looking at his expression and explained immediately, "Bloody's body was initially red and its color has changed since its elevation. I've gotten used to calling it that, so I didn't change its name."

"I can change myself to other colors too," Bloody responded and changed itself to crimson.

"Monsters with Supreme Intelligence aren't easily tamed." Mr. Fu could not help but look at Bloody again. A monster that mediated for its master should have been completely tamed.

He had encountered many types of monsters and some of them possessed Supreme Intelligence. However, most monsters with Supreme Intelligence would have superior intellect and it was rather impossible for them to humble themselves to humans.

'Its body looks flimsy. I don't think it has any combat ability. That's why it was tamed easily," Mr. Fu secretly concluded after observing Bloody for a while.

He had no idea that Bloody was definitely one of Lin Huang's most powerful imperial monsters when it came to overall abilities.

Mr. Fu thought to himself for a moment before speaking again after getting a general understanding of Lin Huang and his imperial monsters' abilities.

"Now, I can see that your imperial monsters are fine and their personal abilities are very powerful. Moreover, with Bloody, the power of the battle formation isn't too shabby, but overall, there's still room for improvement.

"I've thought of two directions for now. Firstly would be for Bloody to possess Supreme Intelligence. Get it to learn more often. It's a superb assistant to you. The more powerful it is, the more powerful your imperial monster team will be. You could prioritize its training.

"Also, you could consider adding some equipment for your imperial monsters."

"Although the big guy Tyrant has a super powerful defense, there's nothing wrong with getting it a set of battle armor. Moreover, since he has so much strength, the impact of using large weapons will definitely be better than fighting with his fists. You could get him a hammer, an ax, a mace or a saber. With his current intelligence, it shouldn't be difficult for him to pick up human combat skills.

"Bai also has great ability and powerful battle consciousness. He's suitable for learning many genres of combat skills including the sword, the saber, and the spear. He can create a weapon of many forms, so he must unleash that advantage of his.

"You could change the bone spears in the two knights' hands into demigod relics and get them to acquire more human spear combat skills."

…

Mr. Fu commented on each and every one of the 13 monsters. He raised a number of questions too, including the changing of equipment and learning combat skills that Lin Huang had thought of before.

Lin Huang nodded continuously as he listened.

After he was done commenting on the imperial monsters, Mr. Fu trained his eyes back on Lin Huang. "Now, you. Your overall ability's already compelling, but the biggest weakest that you currently have would be your low combat strength.

"I only have two suggestions for you. Firstly, elevate yourself to imperial-level as soon as possible under the premise that you won't hurt yourself. Of course, you're actually executing it well. The speed of your combat strength elevation is already terrifying. Just maintain this momentum.

"Secondly, break through to level-6 on Sword Dao as soon as you can. If possible, advance beyond that after you've reached level-6."

"Master, isn't level-6 Sword Dao the final destination? Is there a higher level above that?" Lin Huang could not help but ask.

From the countless documents that he had read, all of them only had recordings of up to level-6 on Martial Dao. Level-6 Deity was the final destination of all Martial Dao.

"Let's talk about Sword Dao. Indeed, the level-6 Deity's final destination." Mr. Fu nodded lightly. "But you can actually break through above level-6."

"Any Martial Dao will experience a transformation once they've broken through level-6. Then, the true meaning of Martial Dao will dawn upon them.

"The true meaning of Martial Dao is a power that contains a rule, one that's comparable with divine skill and elemental rules. Only True Gods can master the rule. Even Virtual Gods can't master it.

"Theoretically, one could say that a person would have the ability to kill gods when one masters the true meaning of Martial Dao.

"If you've mastered the true meaning of Sword Dao, no matter whether you're on immortal- or imperial-level, you'll be able to kill Virtual Gods in theory. You could even harm True Gods!"

Shock was written all over Lin Huang's face, but he understood what Mr. Fu meant. "So, the true meaning of Martial Dao is like a sharp blade that could be used to kill an adult even if it's held by a child."

"Yes, it's like a blade to slay gods," Mr. Fu confirmed and subsequently became upset and apologetic. "But I won't be able to get there even before I die."

"To me, you're the person who is most likely to attain that level on the entire continent at the moment." Mr. Fu was only unsettled for a moment before he lifted his head to look at Lin Huang with anticipation.

"I'll try my best…" Lin Huang had no idea what to say. Although he knew very well that he had great talent, it was not ridiculously excellent. The main reason he could reach this level in Sword Dao was because of his Goldfinger, Xiao Hei.

It was already past two in the afternoon when they came out of Mr. Fu's Kingdom.

Lin Huang thought he would just skip lunch and get back to his room to practice his sword skills.

However, Mr. Fu insisted on cooking. As a Food Hunter, he could not accept someone being hungry.

He looked annoyed as he rifled through Lin Huang's refrigerator. In the end, he did not use any of Lin Huang's ingredients and used all the food he stored in his storage ring.

In less than 20 minutes, a few dishes that seemed to be sparkling were served. Lin Huang was dumbstruck, gawking at the spread.

'The food sparkles? Will I become a god after eating them?'

Soon, the fragrance wafting from the kitchen spread through the rooms. The Witch was drooling as she lingered around the dining table. Even Lin Xin who was playing Gunmaster in the game pod came downstairs following the fragrance.

"What's that? It smells so amazing!"

"Master's cooking. Would you guys want to order anything?" Lin Huang said while smiling.

Lin Xin struggled for a while. It had been less than two hours since she had her lunch. As a lady who was going through puberty, she took her figure very seriously. Apart from main meals, she often watched the snacks that she ate. However, she could not handle the amazing smell that was coming from the kitchen. In the end, she decided to give in to the temptation of delicious food.

Six dishes and a large bowl of soup were served. Every one of them looked exquisite with appealing colors of their own.

Lin Xin snapped pictures of the food immediately.

Even Lin Huang, who usually hated taking pictures before eating, could not help but snap one and shared it with his friends.

It was the best meal Lin Huang and the rest ever had.

On the other hand, Mr. Fu stopped eating after trying a few dishes. He brought a bottle of wine out of his Emperor's Heart Ring while watching Lin Huang and the rest attack the food clumsily.

Lin Xin ate until she was a little bloated before shyly stopping. She secretly got up and returned to her room when Lin Huang was not looking.

In contrast, the Witch did not care about her image as she gorged on the food and moaned with her mouth full, "It's so good…"

After all of the dishes were wiped clean, the Witch initiated taking care of the cleaning task. "I'll do the dishes!"

As she brought the plates to the kitchen, she secretly turned her head to peep at Lin Huang and Mr. Fu. Noticing that they were not looking at her, she stuck her tongue out and was ready to lick the sauce on the plate.

At that moment, Lin Huang's voice came to her ears to warn, "Don't lick the plates!"

The Witch then put the plate down shyly.

In the living room, Mr. Fu, who was sitting on the couch, asked Lin Huang, "It's the New Year tomorrow. Don't you want to summon your imperial monsters out for fresh air?"

"I got them out two days ago, but they were a nuisance and messed up the house," Lin Huang explained while smiling. "I thought since you were coming, I'd better recall them right away."

"It's fine. Let them out. The more, the merrier." Mr. Fu drank a mouthful of wine and announced, "I'll cook a feast tomorrow."

When the Witch, who was doing the dishes in the kitchen, heard the word 'feast', she began to listen attentively.

Seeing that Mr. Fu did not mind, Lin Huang nodded and summoned Bai and the rest.

He could not help but feel excited as he wondered what kind of feast Mr. Fu would prepare tomorrow.

It was the New Year on the 8th of February.

Lin Huang, who had been practicing his sword skill for the past few days, decided to rest that day. He headed out with Lin Xin early in the morning.

All of the stores nearby, regardless of whether big or small, were closed due to the festivities. The siblings headed straight to the largest supermarket close by to buy the ingredients that Mr. Fu needed.

Mr. Fu and the bunch of imperial monsters were the only ones left in the three-story villa. He sat by the coffee table watching Bloody and Grimace playing a chess game.

Naturally, the two monsters that possessed Super Intelligence were not playing an ordinary chess game but were playing Chain Strike that was claimed to be the most difficult game by everyone.

Each of them would have 32 chess pieces with different functions of their own. The most difficult part was the space on the chess board and the time given. The chess board was three-dimensional with a total of 27,000 coordinates. In addition to that, achieving certain conditions would unlock various time and space effects.

For instance, there were turning back tome (reviving a disqualified chess piece), time acceleration (giving oneself more turns in the game), freezing time (denying the opponent their turn for a few rounds), teleportation (trade places with any chess piece on the chess board), space jump (moving chess pieces ahead), space crack (forcing all of the chess pieces in a certain area to be out of the game).

Bloody and Grimace had played that for the entire day yesterday and did not even sleep that night. Grimace surrendered for more than 30 rounds, and he loathed losing over and over again.

On the other hand, Bloody was playing at ease while sipping coffee in a relaxed manner while Grimace frowned looking like he bore a deep grudge.

In reality, the duo was evenly-matched in terms of their computing ability. The main reason Bloody was winning all the way was that it would play this game on the Heart Network with others whenever it was free. It even got dragged into a master club and would often play with experts. Hence, it was much better than Grimace in this game since it knew all of the functions and rules of each chess piece.

Grimace was a rookie when it came to this. Although he knew the rules, he was not as skilled as Bloody when it came to using them, let alone Bloody who was an expert at finding the loopholes of man-made rules.

Mr. Fu had fun watching them. He was an expert in this game as well, but his computing ability lagged behind compared to these two extremely intelligent monsters. He kept nodding while watching them play; he was learning so much from watching them.

The Seventails had been clinging onto Thunder. It was not that Little 7 had never encountered any bird monsters ever since it was born, but none had ever played with it. Those monitor birds would fly away whenever they saw it from a distance. As for those Silvertongue Birds that delivered items, they would be so scared that they would fly away instead of waiting for candies. This bird with such a bloodline was the cause of it not having anybody to play with. Naturally, it would not let go of Thunder since it was a rare opportunity that was hard to come by.

Initially, Thunder wanted to ignore the little fellow, but since Lin Huang ordered it to take good care of Little 7, it could only take up the burden. Thunder was tired whenever it thought of having to take care of Little 7 and being its flying mount instead of fighting alongside with other monsters.

Meanwhile, Charcoal slept lying down in front of the furnace. Little 7 was actually a little curious about his extended wings, but it would ignore Little 7 whenever it got closer to it. Instead, Charcoal would pretend to sleep so that it could escape from being assigned babysitter duties.

The Witch was scolding the Imp and the Malachian Fiend in the kitchen. "Can the both of you not mess the kitchen up? You guys have been walking all over the place while I prepare snacks. Look at that! Your footprints are all over the floor now."

"I'll go get the mop." The Imp stood up and walked to the bathroom.

"I'll go too." The Malachian Fiend followed him.

Lancelot was watching the projected television on the couch in the living room while munching on dried vegetables.

Killer, who was sitting beside him, had the intention to battle all over his face. "I've digested another Sword Dao inheritance. Lancelot, let's spar."

"I want to watch TV," Lancelot declined right away without even lifting his head.

"I'll spar with you," Sitting beside him, the Evil Dominator grinned.

"I'm going to make this clear. You're not allowed to use substitutes that are above imperial-level yellow gold-rank." Killer remembered that the Evil Dominator had used an imperial-level white gold-rank and beaten him up the last time they sparred.

"Sure, I won't," agreed the Evil Dominator.

They were sent into the Kingdom to battle as soon as they went to Mr. Fu.

The Herculean King and Bing Wang shrunk to the size of a palm and hopped from one lantern to another on the ceiling.

Bai, on the other hand, stood by the window and stared blankly at the snow outside.

Tyrant walked to him with ice-cream in his hands and put one of it in front of Bai.

"You go ahead." Bai shook his head.

"Try it. It's really delicious!" Tyrant persuaded and licked his ice-cream. He did not want to chomp into it because it was too yummy. Otherwise, he would be able to inhale a few of the ice-creams in one go.

Bai accepted it after a moment of hesitation.

"Bloody said you're in a bad mood, so I'd like to ask you what's wrong." Tyrant betrayed Bloody right away.

Bai turned and shot daggers at Bloody. It was still playing chess and did not seem to notice him at all.

"I'm alright."

"Just tell me. We're brothers. There's nothing that we can't talk about." Tyrant put his hand on Bai's shoulder.

Bai peeped where Lancelot and the other two 'gay friends' were, then he looked away immediately. He then held his head while looking down at the ice-cream in his hand. "I'm Master's first imperial monster, but Lancelot and the rest have elevated to pseudo-mythical-level while Kylie has elevated to mythical-level. And I'm stuck on legendary-level while my overall ability's even lower than Warlord who's new to the team…"

"Warlord has his own army. You shouldn't compare yourself to him. Believe in Master. Us being stuck on legendary-level is only temporary. We'll elevate to mythical-level sooner or later." Tyrant was an old-timer just like Bai, but he was much more optimistic.

"But Kylie elevated to mythical-level with her own efforts…" Bai took that to heart. He was not jealous. He just thought he was not good enough.

"Bai, you're too hard on yourself. Kylie actually put a lot of effort into elevating to mythical-level. She depends mostly on the mini world that she obtained. Meanwhile, Lancelot depended on his sword servants to elevate to pseudo-mythical-level. Killer was born close to mythical-level. The Evil Dominator was born a god whereby his existence came from God Blood Pods." Bloody could not help itself but speak through voice transmission at that moment.

"You, me and most of the imperial monsters under Master elevated step by step from single mutated to double mutated. Our starting point is different from Killer and the rest. If you want to compare with them, you should only do that when you've elevated to pseudo-mythical-level or mythical-level. You can only compare whose ability is more powerful when you're on the same level as them.

"Moreover, us stopping at legendary-level now is vital in helping Master with his current combat strength. As soon as we elevate to mythical-level as Kylie did, we can no longer help him. That's bad for Master.

"If you have time for self-loathing now, why don't you take the time to cultivate the human combat methods instead? Close the gap of your abilities between Lancelot and the rest with diligent cultivation."

Bai's gloom earlier vanished after listening to Bloody's advice. He was in high spirits again.

"Bloody, pick a method that's suitable for me!"

Bai gave the ice-cream that was melting in his hand back to Tyrant and headed straight to the balcony on the top floor.

Seeing that the ice-cream was melting, Tyrant shoved the ice-cream Bai had just passed him into his mouth immediately. He swallowed it after some munching. "Mmm… So good!"

Lin Huang and Lin Xin had returned after buying ingredients when it was almost noon. They had lunch together while the Witch helped in the kitchen.

When it was time for lunch, Mr. Fu brought Killer and the Evil Dominator back from Kingdom.

Killer lost terribly and shouted at the Evil Dominator, "You liar! You said you wouldn't use substitutes above imperial-level yellow gold-rank."

"You can't blame me. A verbal agreement isn't serious enough, to begin with." The Evil Dominator spread his hands, looking like a douchebag.

Since lunch, the imperial monsters behaved themselves because Lin Huang was home.

Bloody told Lin Huang about Bai. Subsequently, he told Bloody his plan after that.

"Besides Advance Card, they'll need materials to elevate from legendary-level to mythical-level. I planned to only start collecting those materials after the New Year because we need many types of materials and some of them are rather rare. It'll take some time to gather all of them, so it's better to get started as soon as possible. Take note of that, Bai. I'll gather all the materials that we need as soon as I can."

The villa became crowded again when Mr. Fu was cooking in the evening.

The dishes Mr. Fu prepared smelled fantastic. The imperial monsters were drooling before the dishes were even served. They did not have the mood to play. Almost all of them gathered at the dining hall, waiting for the food to be served.

Everyone was stunned when they gaped at the mouth-watering dishes Mr. Fu put onto plates.

They were much more enthusiastic about having dinner compared to lunch.

Not having eaten much during lunch, Bai could not resist the tempting food. He ate so much that he became bloated.

Lin Huang recalled the Herculean King and the other imperial monsters that were lying bloated on the floor into cards and summoned the Fallen Knight and the rest. They had not been summoned for the past few days, so the dinner was definitely a treat for them.

"I've never had such delicious meat in my life!" Tyrant commented.

"You mean there's food that's even more delicious than dried carrot?!" Lancelot was completely shocked.

"Master, could you learn to cook this well?" Even Grimace humbled himself to Lin Huang for the sake of good food.

"Your master shouldn't be learning to cook in order to conserve his energy." Mr. Fu shook his head while smiling. "If all of you would like to learn, I could send you a cooking inheritance."

"I'll try to learn!" Bloody was the first to register.

"I want to learn too." Lin Xin was the second to raise her hand.

"Me too." The Witch raised her hand too.

"I'll be in charge of eating then," Tyrant offered while smiling. The rest shared the same thought too.

Night soon fell after dinner. It was beginning to get crowded outside too.

Fireworks of all colors exploded.

Under Grimace's illusion as their cover, all of the imperial monsters gathered on the balcony of the second and the third floor, watching the fireworks dazzling in the sky.

For most of them, it was their first time seeing fireworks.

"It's so beautiful!"

"I bought some in the morning. Would you guys want to play?" Lin Huang asked while smiling.

"Yes!" The imperial monsters answered in unison.

Lin Huang took the fireworks out and put them into a little pile. He got the imperial monsters to choose what they wanted and all of the fireworks were whizzed away immediately.

He demonstrated by setting off one firework. They learned fast and began setting their fireworks off on their own.

Fireworks of various colors shot into the sky and exploded into beautiful glows. The sound of laughter came from below.

Lin Xin secretly lay her head on Lin Huang's shoulder while he grabbed her shoulder and caressed her hair lovingly.

Mr. Fu was smiling faintly as he watched the siblings and the imperial monsters under the sparks.

This third New Year was the most crowded and warm one Lin Huang had ever experienced in this world.

It was a new beginning after the New Year.

Early morning on the 9th, Mr. Fu made everyone breakfast. He bade farewell to Lin Huang after that.

Bai and the rest did not want to Mr. Fu to leave. Tyrant was so close to crying.

"To be honest, I'm not worthy of being called your master. You're on your own path now and you're doing better than I expected you to. There's nothing that I could teach you any longer." Mr. Fu completely gave up the thought of staying a few more days to teach Lin Huang cultivation after witnessing his cultivation speed in sword skills for the past few days.

"Please don't say that, Master. What you've taught me is much more important than Sword Dao and ability." Lin Huang really admired Mr. Fu for sacrificing so much for the humans of the world.

"You little fellas, listen to your master. I won't cook for those who are disobedient," Mr. Fu warned Tyrant and the rest of imperial monsters that nodded immediately.

After giving them some reminders, Mr. Fu summoned a dimensional portal and stepped into it. Soon, the dimensional portal shut and he disappeared completely.

Lin Huang returned to the house with his imperial monsters, appearing gloomy.

"I'll never have such delicious meat again…" Tears rolled from Tyrant's eyes.

Lancelot seemed like he was broken. He kept muttering the same thing over and over again, "I want cucumber salad…"

"Hey, have you looked at the inheritance? How long will you take to learn it?" Grimace asked Bloody directly.

"It's not difficult to learn. The key is that we might not be able to cook as well as he does even if we follow the inheritance that he gave," Bloody spoke the truth.

"If you can't do it, show me the inheritance. I'd like to learn too. We'll compete and see who cooks better!" It was clear that Grimace was unwilling to lose to Bloody.

"Sure," Bloody agreed right away.

Bloody did not care if it could defeat Grimace in cooking because it would be great if someone could share the workload in the kitchen. Moreover, getting Grimace to do something was better than him creating trouble out of boredom.

Lin Huang returned to his room, but he could not quiet his mind to practice his sword skills.

Mr. Fu had duplicated a copy of 11 virtual god-level methods for him while he had made a copy of the three true god inheritances and 14 virtual god inheritances which he had obtained from Gong Sun for Mr. Fu.

Lin Huang discussed how to handle those methods and inheritances with Mr. Fu. They decided to keep the three true god inheritances a complete secret. They would record the 14 virtual god inheritances into jade slips and sell them together with the 11 virtual god methods to the Union Government. Mr. Fu would follow up with the Union Government and trade some exclusive authorization and cultivation resources for Lin Huang.

The 25 different cultivation methods were sufficient to cultivate millions of virtual god-level powerhouses. It was quite impossible that the Union Government would decline this business.

However, Lin Huang was concerned about Mr. Fu. After all, the person who had plotted against him the last time came from the Union Government.

Just when Lin Huang was worrying about Mr. Fu, the temporary communication ring on his finger vibrated all of a sudden. He had only left the contact number for this communication ring at the Wanbao Auction.

The communication page popped up. As expected, it showed that the person who was calling was Tang Xu from the Wanbao Auction.

Lin Huang was suspicious about the reason he would contact him at such a time. "Maybe he's calling for season's greetings?"

Lin Huang accepted the video call request after disguising as a demigod. "Yes?"

"Sir, I'm sorry to call out of the blue, but I must tell you this immediately." From Tang Xu's tone, Lin Huang faintly sensed that it might be bad news.

"Do tell."

"I heard news coming from Division 1 early in the morning. Gigantic ruins appeared in Division 1 last night out of nowhere. Judging by the intensity of its power, it should be grade-7 ruins. Many demigods are interested in this brand new ruins."

"I heard that the Union Government's planning to open this new ruins to all demigods for them to discover on their own. We've set the auction on the 8th of March, but the official opening day for the ruins is set on the 25th of February. In other words, most of the demigods on this continent will be in the new ruins rather than attending our auction when it begins."

"So, I'm wondering if we should shift the auction earlier or postpone it later?" Tang Xu was asking for Lin Huang's opinion.

"It doesn't make sense to bring it forward because the God Figurine is what I want. The God Figurine's Combat Soul is a conquest weapon. It's pretty impossible for them to trade god relics with that. Meanwhile, it's unnecessary to postpone it to the date after they've come out of the ruins. You've already set the date before the New Year and the news has spread far and wide. It'll be embarrassing to change the date." Lin Huang shook his head. "Let's just go with the initial date. If they're not sold, we'll do it again next time."

"Alright then." Tang Xu could only accept Lin Huang's suggestion helplessly. He regretted releasing the news before the New Year especially since it would have definitely been fine to release the news after that. If he were to change the date all of a sudden now, it would make people think that the Wanbao Action was unreliable.

Lin Huang changed his appearance after the call with Tang Xu and forced a smile while shaking his head helplessly. How would he have thought that this obstacle would happen when he was all ready for the auction.

He thought he would get at least four God Figurines after the auction and advance all the way to immortal-level rank-9. However, now it seemed like it would be an issue to even sell one of his god relics.

His targeted customers would be exploring the new ruins in Division 1, so who would come to the auction?

"Never mind. Just go with the flow. I'll sell them off sooner or later." Lin Huang was sure of that. It was just that he would elevate to immortal-level rank-9 much later.

His Emperor's Heart Ring vibrated all of a sudden soon after he ended the call with Tang Xu.

The communication page popped up. It was Yi Yeyu calling this time.

After accepting the video call request, Yi Yeyu's image was projected. She wore a loose, bright yellow coat with a denim mini skirt. The hemline of the coat was almost the same length as her mini skirt. There was a cute Swine Beast printed on her fluffy sandals under her long, fair legs. They were so fair that they were almost reflective.

"It's winter now and you're showing your legs off. Aren't you cold?" Lin Huang could not help but tease her as soon as he picked up her call.

Yi Yeyu was stunned when she heard his statement and explained immediately, "I have heating at home."

"Why are you wearing a coat when there's heating at home?" Lin Huang was speechless. "Also, I think you bought the coat three sizes bigger than you are. I think this is supposed to be worn by girls who are 250 pounds or so."

"You are the one who weighs 250 pounds! I bought a bigger size on purpose. This is called layering. You've no f*cking idea about fashion!" Yi Yeyu could not help but use profanity.

"Sure, you know about fashion." Lin Huang shrugged.

"I don't want to talk to you anymore. I'm hanging up." Yi Yeyu pretended like she was going to put the phone down.

"Don't hang up. You've already called, so let's just spend your Life Crystals on this call," Lin Huang said wearing a smile.

"Then, don't talk about my clothes." Yi Yeyu named her condition.

"The Swine Beast printed on your sandals… has such big nostrils."

"Don't talk about my sandals!" Yi Yeyu thought that Lin Huang would say her sandals were cute, but he teased her about the big nostrils instead.

Lin Huang shifted his focus up and his eyes eventually landed on Yi Yeyu's face.

"Why did you apply such heavy make-up today? Your lips are so red that they're going to drip with blood…"

"I've only put some lipstick on. I don't have any make-up on!" Yi Yeyu insisted furiously.

"Your hair…"

"Don't you dare talk about my hair!" Yi Yeyu interrupted Lin Huang directly this time.

"I just wanted to say that your hair looks nice this time. You seem radiant," Lin Huang mumbled softly.

"Thanks, but I don't need your compliments!" Yi Yeyu did not look any happier although she was complimented.

"You don't look too well. Are you sick? Drink more warm water," Lin Huang asked earnestly.

"I'm feeling fine. I don't need to drink warm water!"

"Alright then. So, tell me, why are you calling?" Lin Huang could not find anything else to talk about since he had commented about her from bottom to top. Moreover, she did not look pleased now.

"Nothing. Bye!"

"Don't. Just tell me what you were going to say."

Yi Yeyu glared at Lin Huang madly and only spoke a moment later, "I've elevated to immortal-level."

"Congratulations!"

"Soon, I want to train in Division 3 too."

"Sure, I'll buy you a meal then," Lin Huang said generously.

"I heard that the Wanbao Auction will be auctioning god relics after the New Year, and I'd like to take a look," Yi Yeyu proceeded to say.

"I'm going to that auction too. Let's go together," Lin Huang suggested.

"My brother might come as well. He said he wanted to see how a god relic looks like."

"Sure, let's go together," Lin Huang responded while nodding with a grin. "I'm pretty familiar with Wanbao City. I'll be your host."

After chatting with Yi Yeyu, Lin Huang put the concern he had for Mr. Fu aside. He took a wooden sword out after hanging up and went into the zone to cultivate his sword skills for the day.

Lin Huang did not waste time the days after the New Year.

In order to get Bai, Tyrant and the rest to learn human combat skills faster, he took an entire day to talk it through with Bloody and Grimace. They eventually came up with an idea.

Lin Huang got Bloody to collect a massive amount of combat skills as its database, analyze the core composition of all combat skills, extract them and merge them into combat skills that were suitable for Bai and the rest.

The reason he wanted to spend so much time doing this was that it took a long time to learn high-grade combat skills.

Even an immortal-level human powerhouse who was talented in Sword Dao would need at least a year to master a legendary-level sword skill perfectly.

Lin Huang's ability to learn one sword skill an hour did not come from his talent but from the cheats that he collected.

Getting Bai and the rest to spend hundreds to thousands of years to learn combat skills would be a waste of time, so he would rather create exclusive combat skills for each of them. Even though the combat skills were more difficult, they would only take two to three years to learn.

Bloody had collected combat skills on the Heart Network before and later, its parasitic army cast parasites on many human powerhouses. Hence, it mastered quite a number of combat skills.

However, to fill up the database, Lin Huang shared a copy of all of the combat skills including Sword Dao that he had in his head. He even retrieved an extensive number of combat skills from Mr. Fu for Bloody to memorize.

To reduce its workload, Bloody delegated a portion of work to Grimace. It shared the database with Grimace.

Grimace was very curious about human combat skills, so he soon immersed himself in the study of it.

Both of them put aside the cooking competition they had agreed on earlier.

Apart from practicing sword skills every day, Lin Huang became Bloody and Grimace's consultant at the same time. They would ask Lin Huang whatever combat skills they did not understand. After all, the data that they obtained was more theory than practical.

Although Lin Huang did not cultivate many combat skills, he had achieved a certain standard in Sword Dao. Just like the saying 'a principle passes a hundred principles to be bright', the epic-level and legendary-level combat skills were not obscure to him now when he looked at them. He could give an elaborate explanation on most of them. Otherwise, he would ask Mr. Fu if there was anything he could not comprehend.

Although the exclusive combat skills were still new to Bloody and the rest, most of the imperial monsters had their own elevation techniques.

For instance, Lin Huang shared all Witchcraft Runes with the Witch. Meanwhile, Lin Huang shared the Seamless skill with the Imp and Grimace who were experts at telekinesis. For Killer, Lin Huang shared all of his Sword Dao inheritance and sword skills with him. Lancelot, on the other hand, had Bloody sharing all of the Saber Dao combat skills with him.

Killer and Lancelot were different from the other imperial monsters. They had rather terrifying talent and comprehensive ability in Sword Dao and Saber Dao. Both of them learned human sword and saber skills insanely fast. Although they could not compare with Lin Huang who had shortcuts, picking up one type of legendary-level combat skill in a day or two was normal to them.

Lin Huang figured the reason they were like that was not that they were on pseudo-mythical-level. Instead, they were born with an extraordinary affinity toward the nature of their combat skills. The Evil Dominator was on pseudo-mythical-level too, but he learned human combat skills. Its efficiency was nothing higher than Bai. In fact, it was even slightly lower.

As Bloody and Grimace got on track with the exclusive combat skills, Lin Huang had more time to cultivate his sword skills. The legendary-level sword skills that he mastered were growing every single day.

On the 13th of February evening, Lin Huang finally obtained 30,000 card pieces for the 300th legendary-level sword skill that he cultivated. Xiao Hei notified him that a complete legendary-level sword skill card had merged with him.

Just when the card became one with Lin Huang's body, he could feel that his Sword Dao was closing its gap rapidly. It was like the very last puzzle piece being fixed into the frame.

He instantly comprehended some of the questions that he could not understand in Sword Dao. It was like a layer of membrane that was pried open, and he could now see a bigger world.

Lin Huang shut his eyes for a long time and realized that his Sword Dao had reached the legendary level-6 when he opened his eyes again. Deity, level-6 of Sword Dao!

If Mr. Fu had not told him this a few days ago, perhaps Lin Huang might think that his Sword Dao had reached its peak now. However, after listening to Mr. Fu explain the true meaning of Sword Dao, Lin Huang knew he was still far from his goal. His determination and will were pumped.

The breakthrough of his Sword Dao gave Lin Huang a deeper understanding which accelerated his speed in the cultivation of his legendary-level sword skills.

Initially, he would have taken more than an hour to accumulate a complete sword skill card by cultivating legendary-level sword skills together with his Sword Spirit. However, he would only need slightly more than ten minutes for one legendary-level sword skill in order to get a complete sword skill card. He could obtain four to five sword skill cards within an hour.

The boost in the learning of his sword skills gave Lin Huang more confidence which made him cultivate his sword skills even more diligently.

However, figuring that it was still the New Year, Lin Huang would still spend time eating and shopping with Lin Xin every day.

He also took the time to contact Leng Yuexin, Li Lang, and the rest of his old friends to find out how they had been.

Leng Yuexin had elevated to immortal-level rank-2. She had already been on blue flame-level 11 months ago after all.

On the other hand, Li Lang had elevated to immortal-level rank-1. His skin was much tanner now. Having looked like a brat before, he now looked mature. It was clear that he had gone through a lot in the past year.

Lin Huang did not contact Yi Zheng, but he was almost sure that he was more powerful than Leng Yuexin. The resources in Division 3 were richer compared to Division 7, and since Lin Huang had introduced Yi Zheng to the Genius Union, his growth must have skyrocketed.

On the night of the 14th of February, Lin Huang's Emperor's Heart Ring vibrated when he was practicing his sword skills.

Seeing that it was Yang Ling on the communication page, he figured that the Emperor's Heart Rings must be unlocked. He picked up the video call after disguising as Lin Xie.

Surprisingly, Yang Ling did not show any body parts this time in the video call. Instead, he was wearing a smart suit.

"Yo, you dressed up today."

"It's a must since it's a special day today," Yang Ling said while smiling.

"What's so special about today?" Lin Huang was stunned to hear that.

"It's obvious that you're a single dog." Tang Ling had disdain on his face. "You don't even know it's Valentine's Day today."

"Aren't you a single dog as well?" Lin Huang pouted.

"Not exactly. I met this goddess the other day, so today might spell the end of my singledom," Yang Ling said with full confidence.

"You might end your singledom today, but you'll become single again tomorrow." Lin Huang seriously had no comment on Yang Ling's messy private life. He was lucky to not have contracted any diseases by now.

"It's different this time." Yang Ling nodded in all seriousness. "I'm really in love."

"Sure, I'll congratulate you in advance then." Lin Huang was a little surprised, but he did not plan to delve into Yang Ling's private life.

"Are you contacting me this time to tell me that you've unlocked all of the Emperor's Heart Rings?"

"I've taken a few days off during the New Year and spent half a day yesterday unlocking all of them." Yang Ling put his private life aside as soon as it came to business. "Your rewards are pretty dope this time!"

Yang Ling could see all of the items in the Emperor's Heart Rings via projection after unlocking them. However, he could only see the projected items and not take them away since the rings were physically with Lin Huang.

"But there's something that I must tell you. There's this one item among all of them that you must get rid of as soon as you can, or else, you might get yourself into major trouble." Yang Ling could not help but frown as he warned.

"What's that?" Lin Huang asked doubtfully.

"It's Dynasty's Royal Trials token," Yang Ling announced while projecting an image.

It was a golden token with the character 'royal' imprinted right in the middle amidst complicated sigils around it.

"What does this thing do?"

"It's the trial token that's only owned by Dynasty's Princes. Every Prince has one," Yang Ling explained, "Dynasty will have a Royal Trial every decade. All of the Princes must participate in it. The person who passes the final elimination will obtain the Royal Title and became the leader of Dynasty. It has been over 600 years since Dynasty was established and there's only been one person who won the title. He was Dynasty's founder.

"If I'm not mistaken, Dynasty should have the Royal Trials this year. Huang Wuji of Five Princes will most probably win the title and become Dynasty's new leader."

"A trial token would mean a place in the Royal Trials. Dynasty won't allow the Royal Trials token to be wandering out there. Having this token with you spells big trouble, so I suggest you get rid of it as soon as you can."

"Can they sense where the token is since it's in the Emperor's Heart Ring?" Lin Huang raised a brow.

"They can't, but they have their way of locating it as soon as you take it out." Yang Ling shook his head and added, "I've changed the positioning of those Emperor's Heart Rings that you obtained this time before I activated them, but we can't get rid of the possibility that they might find out about the rings being activated and retrieve the items from far away. I honestly suggest you get rid of them as soon as possible."

"I understand. Thanks." Lin Huang nodded.

As soon as they were done talking, Lin Huang heard someone knocking on Yang Ling's door when he was going to hang up on the video call.

"I think it's my goddess. Don't hang up. I'll show you how gorgeous my goddess is!" Yang Ling stood up to get the door instantly.

A delicate and shy girl appeared standing at the door.

Lin Huang was completely bewildered when he took a closer look. He almost exclaimed out loud, 'Hong Zhuang?!'

The girl was Hong Zhuang, but her make-up seemed completely different than before. She looked like a naive student now.

"You're here, Hong Hong!" Yang Ling looked shy which was a rare sight. "Oh yeah, I was just talking to my client. Let me hang up now."

Yang Ling turned around and winked at Lin Huang's projection at his work desk as he walked over. It only took him a few steps to reach his desk before he ended the call.

Looking at the empty communication page before him, Lin Huang could not snap back to reality for a long time.

Hong Zhuang's appearance surprised Lin Huang.

He knew how powerful that lady was. When he had still been on bronze-level, that lady had brought him into the Purple Crow from which he took great effort to escape by faking his death.

Her make-up aside, Lin Huang could recognize her right away by looking at her back.

This lady was no ordinary person. She was the person who fooled the two major organizations; she faked her death to escape the Union Government's headquarters and left the Purple Crow without getting caught.

Even though Yang Ling was a traveler just like Lin Huang, and possessed a heaven-defying Goldfinger, he might not gain any benefits from this lady.

After some struggle, Lin Huang decided to keep quiet about Hong Zhuang's identity.

That lady must have her own objectives of being with Yang Ling. Exposing her identity might trigger him and result in Yang Ling being killed to keep the secret safe.

Lin Huang shook his head to get Hong Zhuang out of his mind. He then began to look at the Emperor's Heart Rings Yang Ling had unlocked.

Among the 300 or so Emperor's Heart Rings, over 60 of them belonged to imperial-level powerhouses.

Lin Huang browsed through them one after another.

Apart from an impressive number of Life Crystals, all sort of materials, elixirs and monster carcasses, there were also thousands of ancient relics, over 70 demigod relics, and many miscellaneous items.

He also found the token Yang Ling mentioned among the miscellaneous items.

It was completely golden with the character 'royal' imprinted right in the middle just like Yang Ling projected.

"There really is a Royal Trials token!" Lin Huang did not take it out. Instead, he looked through the ring with his Divine Telekinesis.

After recalling his Divine Telekinesis, Lin Huang thought hard about how to handle this token.

"There's a high possibility that people from Dynasty will find it and take it back if I throw it away like that." He was reluctant to do that. After some thought, he went on the Heart Network and began reading up more on the Royal Trials.

However, he got nothing after browsing through for half an hour. It was clear that Dynasty kept the news confidential. After thinking to himself, he decided to contact Mr. Fu.

"Mr dear disciple, what's wrong? Is there anything about the combat skills that you don't understand?"

"Master, do you know what the Royal Trials entail?" Lin Huang asked directly.

"This I really have no idea about. Dynasty has never made the Royal Trials public. Apart from the Princes who participate in it, nobody from Dynasty knows what's in it, let alone outsiders. Moreover, it's said that the tests are different every time." Mr. Fu thought it was weird for Lin Huang to ask about this. "Why are you asking about this out of nowhere?"

"I have a Royal Trials token with me," Lin Huang revealed honestly.

"You killed a Prince of Dynasty?" Mr. Fu could not help but raise his brow when he heard the revelation.

"Yes, the Seventh Prince."

"Don't worry about it since you've already killed him." Mr. Fu shook his head subsequently. "But it's better that you get rid of this trial token. Especially since the Royal Trials will open this year, people from Dynasty will definitely look for the trial tokens that are wandering out there. They might come after you if you keep it with you."

"So, anyone can participate in the trial as long as they have this token?" Lin Huang asked again.

"Yes, according to the rumors. Dynasty's founder used the token to participate in the Royal Trials before Dynasty was even founded. Ever since he established Dynasty, he got people to gather information about the trial tokens and collect them in all sort of ways.

"So, whether you're a Prince or not, you can take part in it even if you're not from Dynasty. You're eligible to enter the trials as long as you have the token to activate it while your combat strength must be on immortal-level.

"However, the problem is that Dynasty has been treating where the trials are held as their private properly. Dynasty Princes will definitely attack together as soon as an outsider appears."

Mr. Fu looked at Lin Huang suspiciously after he explained at length. "Are you thinking of participating in the Royal Trials?"

"I would like to try." Lin Huang smiled while nodding. "There must be many benefits of these trials since the founder of Dynasty values it so much. Moreover, I'm dying to find out how difficult the trials are. The trials that only one person has passed in more than 500 years."

Mr. Fu went silent for a moment before speaking again, "I won't interfere with your decision. Go ahead if you think it's the right thing to do."

"With your current ability and your imperial monsters, it shouldn't be a problem for you to handle the ordinary Dynasty Princes. However, you must beware of this one person, Huang Wuji. He was already on immortal-level rank-9 three years ago and he's been suppressing his combat strength on immortal-level for the past few years just for the trials this time. He's known as one of the most powerful immortal-level powerhouses in the entire continent."

"If he really only has immortal-level rank-9 combat strength, he shouldn't be a major threat to your knight imperial monster who can merge, but it's very likely that he'll break through his combat strength as soon as he enters the trials. It's possible for him to break through to imperial-level crimson gold-rank or even imperial-level yellow gold-rank right away with three years of work, heavy support of resources from Dynasty and some special techniques. His real ability might be on par with imperial-level purple gold-rank if he elevates to imperial-level yellow gold-rank."

"Huang Wuji of the Five Princes… I've heard of him." Lin Huang nodded lightly upon hearing Mr. Fu's advice. "I'll be careful."

"Don't think too much when you're in the trials. Just give all you have to fight. If you pass the trial, I could ask Dynasty for some resources for you. After all, it's pretty impossible that they'd get an outsider like you to be their leader."

"I'll try my best." Lin Huang faintly sensed that Mr. Fu seemed to have rather high expectations of him. Looking at him grinning in the projection, Lin Huang figured he must be imagining himself giving Dynasty a good lesson.

Mr. Fu snapped back to his senses a moment later. Lin Huang asked then, "Master, do you know when do the trials open?"

He had browsed through the Web but found nothing, so he could only ask Mr. Fu for the answer.

"I'm not sure about the exact time. From what I remember, the opening varies every time." Mr. Fu shook his head.

"But don't you worry. They always make it so ridiculously big like it's the New Year every time the Royal Trials open. With Huang Wuji this time, they'll definitely make everyone hear about it before it opens. Moreover, a new ruin has opened in Division 1. Dynasty will only have time to make the Royal Trials happen after they are done exploring the ruins. I'm guessing the trials will only happen in two months no matter what. I'll keep tabs on it and inform you as soon as I hear about it." Mr. Fu changed the subject as soon as they were done talking about the trials.

"I've talked to the Union Government about the virtual god-level methods. We're in the preliminary stage of the discussion now and I'm still negotiating some details. A decision should be made in these few days, and I'll contact you as soon as the decision's out."

"Sure."

Lin Huang had gotten one problem off his chest after speaking to Mr. Fu, but he had something else bothering him now.

"There's no rush for the Royal Trials yet, but Wanbao City's auction will start on the 8th of March. I'll have to go back to Division 3 in 20 days. What about the silly girl, Lin Xin?"

To Lin Huang, getting Lin Xin to stay in Division 7 would be much safer.

Division 3 was a mix of highs and lows. 80% of the underground organizations' headquarters on the entire continent was there.

Even the Union Government gave up on the overall jurisdiction of the area whereby they took footholds No. A1 to A10 with other union organizations.

Among the 38 Grade-A footholds, 28 of them were occupied by top underground organizations. The Grade-B footholds were all taken up by the remaining underground organizations.

Meanwhile, the leftover Grade-C's and Grade-D's with little value were filled with underground organization members.

Such a safety zone was not the best environment for Lin Xin to grow up in.

Lin Huang could always leave whenever he got into any trouble if he was alone. However, if he brought Lin Xin along, not only would it be a drag, but his rivals might come after both of them.

After laying out the pros and cons, Lin Huang came up with a plan right away. He shared his opinion during dinner.

Lin Xin listened to him from the beginning until the end without saying a word. She did not show any expression on her face, but Lin Huang knew that she must be upset.

"It would be a relief for me if you stayed in Division 7," Lin Huang added, "White Capital's the safest foothold in the entire Division 7."

"But I've applied for graduation." Lin Xin lifted her head to look at Lin Huang. She had been hiding her expression from him.

"When did you apply for that?" Lin Huang was a little surprised.

"Before the winter holidays," Lin Xin said softly, "The stuff Martial Hunter College's teaching is no longer useful for me. I've learned everything about Sword Dao and firearms through whatever's available at the library by myself throughout the year… So, I applied for the graduation exam ahead of time and passed with full marks."

Lin Huang frowned slightly. It was not that he was unsatisfied with Lin Xin's result, but he was worried that she would be not able to stay in Martial Hunter College any longer since she was no longer a student there.

Winter City was a grade more dangerous than the White Capital. To be honest, Lin Huang was worried about leaving her alone in Winter City.

Moreover, Lin Xin would consider leaving her initial circle after leaving Martial Hunter College. Apart from the Witch, she had no friends, which was bad for her growth.

After some deep thought, an idea popped into Lin Huang's mind.

"Xin Er, why don't you stay at Martial Hunter College to be a teacher?"

"Huh?!" Lin Xin was shocked to hear that.

"It's great to be a teacher. I think you could try that."

"Am I good enough to be one?" Lin Xin felt a little emotional now.

After all, her brother had been a teacher at Martial Hunter College before. It sounded like a fantastic idea to experience what her brother had gone through.

"With your current standards, you should be good enough to teach the Sword Dao faculty or firearms at Martial Hunter College," Lin Huang said while smiling and nodding approvingly.

Lin Xin teaching at Martial Hunter College would be another way to push her back to the White Capital for better safety.

"You'll still see your classmates and teachers if you go back to Martial Hunter College. Wouldn't that be great? It's way more fun than staying in Winter City with the Witch alone." Lin Huang proceeded to persuade her.

"Is Division 3 really as dangerous as you described?" Lin Xin gazed at Lin Huang and asked grudgingly. She knew that he was being dramatic in order to get her to follow him.

"I'll send you the statistical reports of the distribution of the organizations and the crime rates in Division 3." Lin Huang selected two documents immediately and sent them to Lin Xin.

Lin Xin took a look at the documents right away. She was just glancing through them and found out that he did not lie about the distribution of the organizations. She then studied the crime report. The longer she looked through it, the deeper her frown became while her little face turned pale.

"Apart from footholds No. A1 to A10, the rest of the footholds in Division 3 aren't safe," Lin Huang confirmed, "But you'll need a permit to enter the safe footholds, let alone reside there.

"As for the rest of the areas, even Grade-A footholds have an average of at least 30,000 crimes, including murder, every year. There are some Grade-A footholds that have recorded more than 50,000 crimes annually. Grade-B and Grace-C areas are even messier. Even the data statistic isn't complete."

"Why isn't the Union Government doing anything about it since it's so messed up?" Lin Xin knew he was telling the truth after looking at the statistics.

"It's not that they don't want to do anything, but there's nothing that they can do. If the Union Government didn't vacate Division 3, there would've been more underground organizations residing in Divisions 1 and 2. If that happened, the three core zones would be in chaos. For overall stability, the Union Government was forced to give and take." Lin Huang provided a simple explanation.

Lin Xin went silent for a moment and finally nodded. "I'll promise to stay in Division 7, but I have a condition!"

"Do tell." Lin Huang raised his brow in curiosity. It was clear that Lin Xin had grown up now that she was laying her conditions down.

"I want to go to Division 3 when I reach immortal-level. By then, you're not allowed to use all sorts of excuses to trick me." Lin Xin firmly named her condition.

"I'll accept your condition, but I'd like to add another one." Lin Huang nodded after agreeing to her condition and laid out his terms. "You must wait until you're totally stable in each rank before elevating to the next rank when you reach holy fire-level. Don't destroy your foundation just because you want to fulfill the agreement you've made with me as soon as you can."

"I'm not that stupid to destroy my own foundation." Lin Xin retaliated immediately.

"So… Deal?" Lin Huang extended his fist.

"Deal!" Lin Xin extended her fist as well and bumped it with Lin Huang's.

Lin Huang had another worry crossed off his mind after coming to an agreement with her.

"Do you need to hunt for Life Fire monsters to elevate from gold-level to holy fire-level? Or will you be able to achieve that just by guzzling Life Crystals like before?"

The reason Lin Huang asked that was that Lin Xin had an extremely unique physique whereby she had depended on eating Life Crystals alone to elevate from iron-level all the way to gold-level. She did not even have to obtain any Life Seeds. He was unsure if Lin Xin would need Life Fire or merely depended on the Life Crystals to elevate from gold-level to white flame-level which was a big leap.

"I think I can achieve that with sufficient Life Crystals." Lin Xin was hesitant when she answered.

Lin Huang transferred a sum of Life Crystals to Lin Xin right away. "Let me know if it's not enough."

Lin Xin heard a chime a moment later and she checked her account immediately.

"One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand…" Lin Xin counted the number of zeroes one after another. "100 million, one billion!"

She counted again to make sure that she did not get it wrong. She then gaped at Lin Huang with her eyes wide open.

"A billion Life Crystals?!"

"Is it not enough?" Lin Huang raised a brow.

"It's enough. It's enough!" Lin Xin nodded immediately.

"Just take whatever you need and break through these few days when I'm around. Your combat strength was close to complete-stage gold-level much earlier, so there's no need for you to stay on this level," Lin Huang urged Lin Xin to break through to holy fire-level as soon as possible. He wanted to guide her in the system before he left. "If you can't break through from eating Life Crystals, I'll bring you to hunt Life Fire monsters."

"Alright, I'll go to the Credit Bureau to withdraw Life Crystals now." Lin Xin did not plan to drag this on anymore. She was eager to become a transcendence since the beginning.

Lin Huang got himself a chair and sat on guard outside of Lin Xin's room. He used his Divine Telekinesis to penetrate the wall and was aware of Lin Xin's condition at all times although he was just a wall away from her.

Lin Xin sat by her bed with Life Crystals piled into a little hill under her bed.

She opened her mouth and the Life Crystals the size of a thumb turned into white rays which seeped into her mouth one after another. The pile of Life Crystals that looked like a little hill was getting smaller and smaller at a speed could be seen with the naked eye.

Whenever the Life Crystals pile on the floor finished, she would fill them up from the stock in her Emperor's Heart Ring immediately.

She repeated that for more than ten hours and eventually stopped when it was almost midnight.

Lin Huang, who had been guarding outside the door, could not help but stand up. He fixed his eyes where Lin Xin was through the wall. He could finally sense that her aura was getting more powerful at a rapid speed.

Using his Divine Telekinesis, he had been following up with her, and he waited for the change to end patiently.

However, Lin Xin's aura elevated from complete-stage gold-level all the way to white flame-level in less than a minute. It finally stopped when it reached the peak of white flame-level.

He was rather surprised to sense Lin Xin's current aura. Her aura had clearly surpassed most triple mutated white flame-level monsters. She was almost on par with the God Blood, Bai, back then.

In less than three minutes, Lin Xin's flesh transformed at a high speed.

It was transforming internally and could not be seen with one's eyes. Lin Huang clearly sensed with his Divine Telekinesis that her soul was transforming at the same time. Moreover, the transformation speed of her soul was no slower than that of her flesh.

Lin Huang thought it was mind-boggling when he sensed the transformation speed of her flesh and soul.

One must know that it had taken him more than three hours to complete the preliminary transformation of his flesh and soul when he elevated to white flame-level back then. He then took almost a month to stabilize the transformation completely.

However, Lin Xin only took less than three minutes to complete the transformation of her flesh and soul completely. Compared to his process that took a month, this was astounding.

Just when Lin Huang was worrying about her, in her bedroom, Lin Xin opened her eyes slowly.

She looked around before holding her head down to look at her hands. "Is this transcendence? I feel like I'm so much more powerful now."

After confirming that Lin Xin had woken up, Lin Huang knocked on her door.

"Come in." Lin Xin knew that her brother was the only one who would knock on her door at that moment.

Lin Huang opened the door and stopped when he noticed the Life Crystals that were strewn all over the floor. "Xin Er, do you feel any discomfort in your body since you've just elevated?"

"No." Lin Xin checked her body and did not notice any unusualness. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, great then." Lin Huang was relieved. "Some people will experience some discomfort from not being able to control their body or soul that's become powerful all of a sudden after they've just elevated."

Lin Huang made up an excuse to cover up his concern. He figured that her transformation speed must have something to do with her body that was one of a kind.

"Tidy up your room and sleep early."

"Sleep early?" Lin Xin turned to look out of the window, only realizing that the sky was now dark. She then turned to ask Lin Huang immediately, "What time is it now?"

"It's past midnight," Lin Huang said with a grin, "You took over ten hours to break through this time."

"That long?"

"Leaping through a level will result in a transformation of flesh and soul, so it's normal for it to take longer," Lin Huang assured. "Sleep early. I'll teach you how to build the Flying Power Sigil tomorrow. You'll be able to fly after you learn that."

"Flying Power!" Lin Xin's eyes lit up upon hearing that.

Lin Huang shook his head while smiling before he returned to his room.

Lin Xin put all of the Life Crystals on the floor into her Emperor's Heart Ring but sleep eluded her due to the excitement.

On the next morning, Lin Xin woke Lin Huang up before it was even 7 a.m. The silly girl did not sleep the entire night because she could not wait to learn how to build the Flying Power Sigil!

Lin Huang rolled off his bed slowly and ignored Lin Xin's prodding. He proceeded to wash up as usual.

Just when he was on his way down to prepare breakfast after washing up, he found out that Lin Xin had already made breakfast and finished her food.

There was no peace during breakfast for him that day.

"Hurry up and finish. Then, we can learn the Flying Power Sigil when you're done!" Lin Xin did not stop urging him.

Lin Huang followed his own rhythm and finished his breakfast at his own pace. He then pointed between Lin Xin's brows to transfer the Flying Power Sigil to her.

"Try building it yourself first. Ask me if there's anything that you don't understand." Lin Huang picked the plate up and walked toward the kitchen sink.

Lin Xin returned to her room in excitement after obtaining the sigil.

Lin Huang had given her the set of Flying Power runes that Mr. Fu had passed him back then. It was made up of a total of 28 different sigils.

The set of runes was great for people elevating before immortal-level. It would not be difficult for Lin Xin to adapt, but it was not enough for Lin Huang now. Especially after encountering so many imperial-level enemies, he decided to use the Witchcraft Rune to make himself a new set of Flying Power runes.

Now that Lin Xin could learn Flying Power, he did not plan to drag it on any longer.

He put his Sword Dao cultivation aside temporarily and spent more than two hours finally building a new set of Flying Power.

He used over 800 Witchcraft Runes for the set, which was close to 30 folds of the set of sigils before. The rune combination was hundreds of times more complicated than the previous sigil.

The massive number of runes formed a brand new anti-gravity sigil, a motion sigil, a kinetic energy regulation sigil, a direction-shifting sigil, a balancing sigil, a shelter sigil, a reduction sigil, an instant acceleration sigil, and so on.

After spending over half an hour building a whole set of sigils, a Skill Card appeared in Lin Huang's body. He was stunned to hear Xiao Hei's notification because it was a pseudo-mythical-card.

"Congratulations, you've obtained a pseudo-mythical-level flying-type Skill Card x1

"Skill Card

"Skill Name: Unnamed

"Rarity: Mythical-level (Pseudo)

"Type of Skill: Flying

"Status: Available

"Skill Description: This is a flying-type skill mainly used for flying in the air.

"Remarks: Comprehensive function. There are no flaws about it, but drains Life Power

"Card Remarks: Not bad

"Would you like to name this card?"

"Let's call it Wandering God." Lin Huang came up with that name after giving it some thought. He wanted to depict a person wandering around like a god.

He then walked out of the house after the card was formed. He activated the newly built Flying Power and hovered in the sky. Picking a direction, he flew after taking some time to familiarize himself with it.

After half an hour, Lin Huang's body turned into a stream of light and he penetrated a door in a small area.

'With this flying skill, my flying speed's on par with Kylie's when she was on immortal-level rank-4. The turbo speed's also almost the same speed when Kylie was flying on turbo mode. If I add Seraphic Speed on, the speed will get another 50% boost!' Lin Huang was pretty satisfied with the Flying Power. However, he was comparing himself with Kylie when she was still triple mutated on the same combat strength instead of the version of her having elevated to mythical-level now.

For the next few days, Lin Huang's life returned to its original discipline whereby he spent most of his time practicing his sword skills.

He could clearly feel that the more sword skills he mastered each day, the closer he was getting to level-6 Sword Dao gradually. However, he was the only who could feel the boost while outsiders had no way of sensing it at all.

Meanwhile, Lin Xin spent three days to finish building the Flying Power.

It was not that she was dumb, but she had never worked with sigils before.

After obtaining the sigil from Lin Huang, she spent three days studying it on her own. She only went to Lin Huang on the third afternoon and asked more than 30 questions that she had accumulated all at once.

Lin Huang gave her a detailed explanation for each question.

After getting the answers, she returned to her room and completed building her power within an hour and a half.

She then flew from the window of the second floor in excitement. However, she fell onto the ground before she could fly ten meters away. Her head plunged into the snow.

She stood up in the snow immediately so that she would not embarrass herself in front of Lin Huang. After looking around and seeing no one, she crawled quietly back to the second floor and into her room through the window.

Naturally, that little embarrassing incident of hers could not escape from Lin Huang's territory. He shook his head while smiling. He decided to pretend that he had no idea about it.

After the past few days, Bloody and Grimace finally finished working on the exclusive combat skills for all the imperial monsters.

Bai obtained a set of combat skills combined with weapons including swords, sabers, spears, and so on. The set of combat skills was pretty straightforward but each and every one of them was a sure-kill.

Tyrant got a set of mixed close-distance combat skills and a set of cultivation methods. Bloody combined up to 1,000 close-distance battle methods to come up with this.

Similar to Tyrant, the Herculean King and the Malachian Fiend received a set of cultivation methods and a set of close-distance combat skills. The difference was that those methods and skills were adjusted following their respective battle styles.

On the other hand, the Death Knight and the Fallen Knight would be cultivating the same spear combat skill.

Meanwhile, Charcoal, Thunder and the rest of the monsters that were not humanoid were unable to cultivate combat skills. Bloody picked the inheritance that suited them most from the various inheritances its parasitic monsters had obtained and shared it with them.

After completing the building of her Flying Power, Lin Xin only spent half a day familiarizing herself with flying.

However, Lin Huang did not let her rest just yet. He passed the Sword Dao inheritance that he had mastered to her.

Lin Xin cultivated mainly in firearms and minored in Sword Dao. She was not sure what would happen to her when she was done digesting the Sword Dao inheritance Lin Huang had given her. However, the inheritance alone could keep her cultivating for a long time.

On the second day, Mr. Fu came with a piece of news when Lin Huang was guiding Lin Xin on Sword Dao.

Seeing that it was Mr. Fu calling on the communication page, Lin Huang returned to his room and picked up the video call.

"Master, has it been decided?"

"Yes. Though I'm not exactly satisfied with the results, it's considered acceptable," Mr. Fu said.

"Which condition did the Union Government agree with?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"First would be all of the permits into all union organizations' ruins. Second would be the level-one reading authorization and a 10-day VIP pass to all union organizations' libraries. The third one would be the level-one authorization for all union organizations' information channels. Fourth would be the permit into No. 0 Safe Zone while the last one would be the ancient-level soul crystals that you want. They're giving 30,000 ancient-level soul crystals."

"I asked for a few demigod-level soul crystals for you, but those fellas were unwilling to give them up no matter what." Mr. Fu had upset written all over his face.

However, Lin Huang was pretty shocked to hear that.

The four authorizations that Mr. Fu had asked for him were basically for demigod-level. Naturally, such a privilege was not even given to demigods from union organizations, but demigods who were unofficial personnel and collaborated with them. All union organization demigod-level powerhouses had VIP passes.

"Permit into all union organizations' ruins…" Lin Huang raised his brow. "Including the ruins that just opened in Division 1?"

"Let's not go to that one," Mr. Fu warned him immediately, "Going into an unknown ruin that has yet to be explored is the most dangerous choice you can make. Even Virtual Gods might die in this virgin exploration, let alone demigods. It's even more dangerous than the Fallen God Land."

"I'm just asking for fun." Lin Huang looked guilty. He did not want to die for no reason.

"Just wait patiently for the Royal Trials from Dynasty to open. Don't go around before that. Try your best to improve your abilities," Mr. Fu advised again, "These authorizations should be activated, at the latest, within 24 hours and the soul crystals will be transferred to your account in your Emperor's Heart Ring."

Lin Huang was rather satisfied with the deal this time around after he hung up Mr. Fu's call.

No matter whether it was the permit into the ruins or the library as well as the level-one authorization for the information channel, none of them could be bought with money. Especially the permit into No. 0 Safe Zone, one could usually earn it only when one had made sufficient contribution to the Union Government. Even a majority of the higher management of the Union Government did not have such a privilege.

What mattered the most to him were the ancient-level soul crystals.

There was an extremely low chance of obtaining ancient soul crystals from hunting imperial-level monsters. The probability was much lower than obtaining ancient relics.

Nobody knew how a soul crystal was formed, but most of the powerhouses knew that such a thing contained an insane amount of spiritual energy which could be used to recover from spiritual damage.

That was the reason why such an item was being sold at a ridiculous price. It was sold at 100 million Life Crystals and was in high demand, so it was priceless. 30,000 of them would be equivalent to three trillion Life Crystals.

Naturally, Lin Huang did not want them for himself but to feed those Combat Souls.

It was extremely difficult to elevate the combat strength of God Figurines' Combat Souls in his body.

The spiritual intensity of the God Figurines' Combat Souls were tens of folds higher than others on the same level. Furthermore, with the filter through the Divine Fire, the spiritual energy was all gone.

They would need to kill thousands of imperial-level white gold-rank monsters for the Divine Sun Tree and the rest to elevate from imperial-level yellow gold-rank to imperial-level white gold-rank. If they were killing high-level immortal-level monsters, they would have to kill millions of them in order to elevate.

However, with the ancient-level soul crystals, he would only need 3,000 to 5,000 of them to elevate one imperial-level yellow gold-rank God Figurine's Combat Soul to imperial-level white gold-rank.

It was great that Mr. Fu managed to get 30,000 soul crystals for him.

"I'll elevate the few God Figurines' Combat Souls to imperial-level white gold-rank when the soul crystals are transferred to my account tomorrow." Lin Huang made up his mind.

The next morning, he received a notification from the Union Government.

All of the authorizations that Mr. Fu had requested for him had been activated officially. He had also received the 30,000 ancient-level soul crystals in his account.

Lin Huang dropped by the Credit Bureau and withdrew half of them at once.

He summoned his four God Figurines' Combat Souls as soon as he arrived home and began feeding them.

Due to the massacre in the Fallen God Land, they had accumulated a certain amount of spiritual energy which caused a mediocre draining of soul crystals for the four God Figurines' Combat Souls.

When Lin Huang was done feeding less than 10,000 soul crystals, all four of his God Figurines' Combat Souls had elevated to imperial-level white gold-rank.

His trump card was boosted once again!

It was on the 23rd of February. Lin Huang and Lin Xin returned to the White Capital with the Witch early in the morning.

It had been half a month since the New Year. Martial Hunter College had yet to open school officially, but many teachers and students had returned.

Lin Xin's application as a Martial Hunter College teacher was smooth-sailing.

She was an outstanding graduate of the college with a combat strength that fitted the school's standard. Moreover, Lin Huang had spoken to his Senior Brother Liu Ming beforehand.

Although Liu Ming was no longer at the college, he was advancing his career in the core zone now. The current dean at Division 7 would still have to give him face. Moreover, even if the dean had no idea about him, the two deputy deans used to be under Liu Ming's wing, so it was easy to send Lin Xin in.

Lin Huang checked into a hotel close to Martial Hunter College instead of going to the school with Lin Xin.

Before leaving Division 7 last year, he used a method to wipe some people's memory. Nobody in the entire Martial Hunter College knew about his relationship with Lin Xin now, and he did not want to cause any trouble.

He stood at the balcony of the hotel room and watched Lin Xin go into the Martial Hunter College's entrance. He then looked away, but he did not recall his Divine Telekinesis.

At the same time, with an ounce of deja vu, Lin Xin was a little nervous to be returning to Martial Hunter College.

After all, her identity here was previously a student, but she was now a teacher.

Furthermore, she was the same age as most Year 2 students and a year younger than most Year 3 students.

She was getting more and more nervous when she recalled that her brother was named the least popular teacher among the Sword Dao faculty students when he had just begun his career there.

Just when Lin Xin's head was in chaos, a voice came from across all of a sudden.

"Lin Xin, you're back in school!" It was a tall and skinny boy who was walking toward her. He was her classmate, Nangong Qing.

Lin Xin was stunned to bump into someone she knew out of the blue. She nodded and spoke subsequently, "Yes, I've just come back today."

She did not tell anyone about her applying to graduate. She did not even tell her close friends who stayed in the same dorm as she did. Initially, she planned to drop by the college when she had the time that year to explain to her close friends. It seemed like there was no need for that now.

Both of them had just begun to chat while another boy walked towards them in long strides.

"Mu Xiao…" Fear flashed through Nangong Qing's face.

From a distance, Lin Huang recognized that the boy was the top student of the same year as Lin Xin. He had created an uproar at the orientation back then, claiming that he wanted to break through to transcendence-level and become the youngest transcendent in Division 7.

However, this boy's combat strength was stuck on white silver-level rank-3. He lagged far behind Lin Xin despite being the same age.

"Lin Xin, I'll definitely earn the No. 1 rank that belongs to me this year!" Mu Xiao roared furiously when he arrived in front of Lin Xin and stormed off.

Lin Xin was stunned but she subsequently smiled while shaking her head.

After saying goodbye to Nangong Qing, she headed straight to the dean's office.

Lin Huang saw what happened loud and clear with his Divine Telekinesis.

"That little fella named Nangong Qing seems to like Xin Er, but it's obvious that Xin Er isn't interested in him," Lin Huang mumbled to himself with his hand on his chin. "While that little fella named Mu Xiao has great talent and potential, he's hot-headed. There's nothing to worry about him. Hmm, I'll observe for a few more days and see if there's anyone who has ill intentions toward Xin Er. If there is, I'll end their plot right away!" Ferocious gleam sparkled in his eyes.

Lin Xin knocked on the dean's office door when she arrived.

"Fellow student, how may I help you?" The dean was a man with neatly combed white hair. He wore an ironed dark-blue Chinese tunic suit with a plain white shirt inside.

He seemed to be in his early fifties, but the way he dressed was different from most clumsy old men. He put in effort into his appearance.

The grave seriousness on his face loosened when he lifted his head and saw Lin Xin, whom he thought was a student, standing at the door.

However, he sensed Lin Xin's combat strength as soon as he spoke. She was on gold-level rank-3.

Lin Huang gave her a disguise demigod relic when she elevated to white flame-level, so the dean was looking at Lin Xin undercover. After all, it was shocking for a 16-year-old to achieve transcendence-level.

The new dean only had a combat strength of an immortal-level rank-9. Naturally, he could not see through Lin Xin's real combat strength.

"Are you the new teacher that Old Liu recommended?" The dean asked immediately and waved at Lin Xin at the same time, inviting her to come in.

"Yes, my name's Ling Xue. I applied to graduate before the New Year." Lin Xin sat down nervously at the dean's desk.

"Hmm, I've looked at your documents. Very impressive." The dean looked rather serious now.

A gold-level rank-3 16-year-old. He thought that this girl must have some powerful background or came from some honorable family to have Liu Ming's recommendation!

"Looking at your document, you're good at Sword Dao and firearms. Which one would you like to teach?"

"I would like to teach firearms," Lin Xin answered without thinking twice.

It was Lin Huang who had taught her Sword Dao. There was a possibility that people might find out about her relationship with Lin Huang if she were to teach Sword Dao. She did not want to take the risk.

"Sure, we happen to lack teachers for firearms." The dean thought for some time before speaking, "Miss Ling, you'll teach Year 1 Class 2 for the second half of the semester."

Lin Xin was stunned to hear that. She did not expect to be asked to teach Class 2 given that she was new.

However, she knew very well that Martial Hunter College distributed the students according to their exam results. Although Class 2 was less powerful than Class 1, they were still geniuses.

This new dean was efficient. After working on his Emperor's Heart Ring for a moment, he lifted his head to look at Lin Xin. "I've sent you the teaching certificate."

"The 26th of February will be the official school opening day. Go to the academic affairs office when you have the time these few days. They'll give you the teaching materials and arrange your accommodation. Ask them if there's anything that you don't understand."

"Sure." Lin Xin nodded immediately.

She headed straight to the academic affairs office as soon as she left the dean's office. She wanted to get the teaching materials as soon as she could to prepare ahead.

There was only a middle-aged lady on duty at the academic affairs office. She immediately asked upon seeing Lin Xin knocking on the door, "Fellow student, how may I help you?"

"Hi, I'm a new teacher. Dean Chen told me that I could get the teaching materials and arrange my accommodation here."

"A new teacher?!" The lady was stunned for a second before snapping back to her senses shortly after that. "Please show me your teaching certificate."

Lin Xin projected her certificate immediately. The lady scanned it with her Emperor's Heart Ring and saw Lin Xin's document right away.

'Ling Xue, 16 years old, gold-level rank-3 combat strength…' The more the lady read, the more surprised she was. 'Arranged to teach firearms in Year 1 Class 2…'

"Alright, the details have been confirmed and recorded. I'll send you the teaching materials now." The lady was sure that Lin Xin came from an honorable family with a powerful background after reading her details.

Lin Xin received the packed documents a moment later.

The lady gushed passionately, "Let's go. I'll bring you to pick an apartment!"

After she was done settling in, Lin Xin did not stay in Martial Hunter College. Instead, she returned to the hotel room where Lin Huang was.

She planned to ask for some teaching advice, seizing the opportunity since Lin Huang was still around.

Although Lin Huang was the least popular teacher in Year 1 in the beginning, he later became the most popular teacher. It was enough to prove that his teaching method was great.

After spending a day to go through all of the teaching materials, Lin Xin spent the next two days looking at video lessons by rather popular firearms teachers. She came up with questions every day and would ask Lin Huang about it.

"Brother, what if the students refuse to listen to me?"

"That's why you must stand your ground as a teacher. It'll be difficult for you to manage them if you don't have your stance in the beginning," Lin Huang advised, "There are ways you could use appropriately to manage them if you're in a rut."

"Would the students hate me if I'm too strict with them?" Lin Xin raised another concern.

"You're here to be their teacher, not to their friends. The more they learn in your class, the higher the probability of them surviving being a hunter or being in the military after they graduate."

"Also, I saw in the videos that some teachers talk about topics that have nothing to do with firearms, but they're very practical. However, I don't know much about things other than being a firearms master. What should I do?"

"That's why it's important to have a range of knowledge. Make it a habit to read more at the library to get more knowledge. Then, you'll have a wide array of topics to talk about in class." Lin Huang added after he was done, "Since you don't have much now, you could branch the topic out from firearms for now. Go deeper into the topic. You could reveal some related topics that will be taught in Year 2 and Year 3 suitably. Of course, do it at an appropriate amount so that you won't confuse your students. As for your own benefit in the long-term, you should still read more to learn more."

Lin Xin recorded all of those teaching experiences in the little notebook projected from her Emperor's Heart Ring.

On the 26th of February, Martial Hunter College officially opened.

All of the students in Year 2 Class 1 Sword Dao faculty noticed that their No. 1 student in the class, Ling Xue, was absent.

The class was in chaos at the moment.

"Ling Xue isn't coming?"

"It's the first day of school. Could she be involved in something that's dragging her down?" Some of them asked the few girls who stayed in the same dorm as Lin Xin did. They, too, had no idea where Lin Xin had gone.

"That's odd. I saw her a few days ago in school," Nangong Qing said while looking puzzled.

While a few boys were bombarding Nangong Qing with questions, a muscular man walked in. His name was Cao Long and he was the new Sword Dao teacher the college had hired last year. His combat strength was on holy fire-level. He replaced Qin Tianxing and was in charge of teaching Year 2 Class 1 of the Sword Dao faculty.

"Teacher, our classmate Ling Xue isn't here," a boy shouted at Cao Long.

Cao Long was stunned to hear that and recalled the students had no idea that Ling Xue applied for the graduation exam earlier. Now that the students were asking, he had to explain, "Your classmate Ling Xue took the graduation exam before the winter holidays and graduated with full marks in all the subjects."

The students in the class were dumbstruck to hear that piece of news.

Huh? Did she graduate?

We're only halfway through Year 2 and she's graduated?

Moreover, she graduated with full marks in all the subjects!

"But I have good news." Cao Long cleared his throat and said slowly, "Ling Xue has taken up a position in school and she's now the teacher of Year 1 Class 2 of the Firearms faculty." Cao Long had heard there was a pretty teacher in the Firearms faculty who had just come on board early in the morning. The name Ling Xue rang a bell. He thought she merely shared the same name as his student. However, he found out from the sneaky photo his colleague had snapped that she really was his student.

Everyone in class appeared lost upon hearing what Cao Long said.

Huh? Did she come back to be a teacher?

It had to be a lie!

Almost all the students were in disbelief.

"Teacher, I think you're mistaken. They probably happen to have the same name!" A girl could not help but shout.

"I thought so too in the beginning, but I saw the photo my colleague took secr— I saw her photo. It really was Ling Xue." Cao Long almost revealed that her photo had been taken secretly.

"Alright, the class will begin now. We'll speak after class if you guys have any other questions."

Just when chaos stirred in Year 2 Class 1 of the Sword Dao faculty, Year 1 Class 2 of the Firearms faculty welcomed a new teacher.

The students in the class were discussing among themselves when they realized that the girl on the podium was almost the same age as they were.

"Did this student walk into the wrong class?"

"Class should be beginning now. Why isn't the teacher here yet? Is this girl the teacher's family member?"

"Why is she standing on the podium?"

The bell went off, but the teacher was not there yet, so everyone stared in confusion at the girl standing on the podium.

Lin Xin took a deep breath in before speaking, "Hi, everyone. My name's Ling Xue. From today onwards, I'll be the teacher of Year 1 Class 2 of the Firearms faculty…"

The students in Year 1 Class 2 of the Firearms faculty looked lost.

After some simple self-introduction, a boy raised his hand all of a sudden.

Lin Xin nodded at him. "Do you have any questions?"

"Teacher, may I ask how old are you?"

"17." Lin Xin thought to herself that that would not be considered lying since she would be turning 17 next month.

A girl sitting on the front row raised her hand next.

"Go ahead." Lin Xin nodded.

"From what I know, the lowest combat strength for teachers in Martial Hunter College is on gold-level. May I ask what's your combat strength, Miss Ling?" The girl stood up and asked, feeling unconvinced.

"Gold-level rank-3. Next!" Lin Xin pointed at a short and plump girl.

"Teacher, may I ask which school did you graduate from?"

"Martial Hunter College. I graduated last year," Lin Xin said that to sound more convincing since graduating before the New Year would also be considered as last year too.

This time, a girl with braids asked directly without raising her hand, "But our Firearms faculty have never heard of any senior called Ling Xue."

"First of all, please raise your hand before you speak in my class." Lin Xin frowned a little. "Secondly, I wasn't a student in the Firearms faculty. I was in the Sword Dao faculty and firearms was my minor."

At the moment, the girl in braids, who did not raise her hand before speaking, lifted her hand.

"Do speak." Lin Xin looked at her expressionlessly.

"So, you're saying not only are you not from the Firearms faculty, but you're also a Sword Dao student who just graduated last year and has zero teaching experience. Do you think you're qualified to teach us?" The girl in braids was not convinced.

Lin Huang, who was observing that scene using his Divine Telekinesis from two kilometers away, smirked. "Seems like you've encountered a bump. How will you handle that?"

Lin Xin frowned and only spoke after staring at the girl in braids for a moment. "Follow me to the shooting range and you'll find out if I'm qualified or not!" She turned and walked off right after she spoke.

The girl in braids pouted and followed her while everyone else in the class followed them immediately. They soon arrived at the shooting range in high spirits.

Lin Xin got the controller to get a default iron-level gun. She held the gun up and began to shoot as soon as she positioned herself at the specified spot.

Bang, bang, bang!

She opened fire ten times with almost no pause in between. She had full accuracy.

"Take them 100 meters away!" Lin Xin turned her head and shouted at the controller.

The ten targets that were initially 50 meters away were soon moved 100 meters away.

Bang, bang, bang!

She opened ten shots continuously without stopping again. Again, she demonstrated full accuracy.

"200 meters!" Lin Xin shouted.

The controller moved the targets further away again.

Bang, bang, bang!

Still, she performed with full accuracy.

"300 meters!"

Bang, bang, bang!

Full accuracy again.

"Anyone could get fixed targets right. The only difference is just that the distance is further away. I can do that too if I practiced for a year." The girl in braids was still dissatisfied.

Lin Xin glared at the girl in braids for a second and shouted at the controller, "Move them horizontally!"

"Should I shift the distance closer?" The controller asked.

"No need. Keep them at 300 meters."

All of the students in the Firearms faculty had a slight change of expression as soon as they heard what Lin Xin said.

It was difficult to aim a moving target at 100 meters. Looking at the current distance of 300 meters, no one could tell if Lin Xin could shoot any one of them at all, let alone with full accuracy.

Soon, the ten targets beginning to move horizontally 300 meters away.

Lin Xin did not stop. She lifted her hand and fired ten consecutive times with full accuracy!

The Firearms faculty students were dumbfounded now.

This senior really was something!

"Add irregular movement and speed!" Lin Xin shouted again.

All of the students were shocked.

"Coming right up!" The controller took action immediately.

A moment later, the targets were moving in an unpredictable manner.

Finally, Lin Xin did not move immediately this time. Instead, she took a deep breath in before pulling the trigger.

She fired ten consecutive times.

Bang, bang, bang!

The result was out a moment later — full accuracy!

At 300 meters with irregular movement and speed, having fired ten consecutive times, she achieved full accuracy!

All of the students were blown away to see the results. It took them a while to snap back to their senses.

"Senior, you're amazing!"

"Senior, you're a god!"

"Senior, please punish me!" Everyone glared at the boy who said that with disdain as soon as he said that. He corrected himself immediately, "I made a mistake. I meant to say teach me."

"Senior, I give up." The girl in braids was finally convinced and apologized, holding her head down.

"Call me Miss Ling!" Lin Xin put her hands on her hips sternly.

"Yes, Senior."

The first class that Lin Xin taught was undoubtedly a success. Despite his worry that she might be overwhelmed by the class, Lin Huang was finally relieved. He then recalled his Divine Telekinesis.

Just when he was ready to practice his sword skills after taking the wooden sword out from his Emperor's Heart Ring, the ring vibrated all of a sudden.

He looked at the communication page. It showed that it was Tang Xu of the Wanbao Auction from Division 3 who was calling.

Lin Huang only picked up the video call after he quickly put a disguise on.

"Sir, didn't you go into the ruins?" Tang Xu seemed to be surprised by the call being picked up.

"No, just say whatever you want to say." Lin Huang's expression was cold.

"I suppose you know that the ruins in Division 1 opened yesterday?" Tang Xu asked.

"I do." Lin Huang nodded and thought to himself, 'Did Tang Xu forget that it was Tang Xu who had informed him about this?'

"I heard this morning that there were many demigods who entered the ruins yesterday," Tang Xu proceeded to say, "I heard that more than 80% of demigods from Division 1 went in while more than half of the demigods in Division 2 and our Division 3 went in."

"Are you trying to say that the auction will be greatly affected?" Lin Huang asked.

"Yes. Judging from the current situation, I think the two god relics would have a higher chance of being bought-in¹ if we carry out the auction as planned."

"It's fine if there's such a case. We'll just sell them again next them. If that doesn't work, I'll put another god relic in next time."

Lin Huang did not want to postpone the auction mainly because he was participating in Dynasty's Royal Trials soon. He wanted to get as many God Figurines as he could before that and try to elevate his combat strength. It would take another month to prepare the auction if it were postponed. He might not be able to go for the Royal Trials if they started the auction after the demigods returned.

Tang Xu raised his brow when he heard that. He was surprised to find that Lin Huang owned another god relic.

The reason he wanted to postpone the auction of the god relics, ignoring his previous announcement was that he wanted to gain fame for the Wanbao Auction using the god relics. However, most demigods were in Division 1's ruins now, so the auction would definitely not turn out as crowded as he expected. As soon as the god relics were bought-in, it would be less attractive if they were put them up for auction them again. Now that Lin Huang said he had more god relics with him, Tang Xu could still advertise a brand new auction with fresh god relics after all of the demigods came out of the ruins. It would not matter if the two god relics in the first auction were bought-in.

"Do you really have another god relic with you?" Tang Xu confirmed carefully.

"I have a few of them," Lin Huang confirmed, "Is there a problem?"

"No, there's no problem." Tang Xu shook his head immediately. "Then, we'll do as you say. We'll run the auction as planned."

After hanging up Tang Xu's call, Lin Huang removed the disguise and proceeded to practice his sword skills.

For the next few days, Lin Huang spent most of his time practicing. Occasionally, he would check on Lin Xin.

On the second day of school, the students from Year 2 Class 1 Sword faculty came to the Firearms faculty when Lin Xin was preparing for her class in the office. The few boys pretended to pass by and checked her out in the office.

Lin Xin noticed the eyes watching her and saw a few familiar people as she lifted her head. She put the documents away and walked out while smiling.

"My old classmates, I guess you guys found out about it, huh?"

"Sir Cao told us yesterday, but we didn't really believe him." Nangong Qing forced a smile. As the second in class, he had always thought that he was almost on par with Lin Xin. Now, it seemed like their difference was like heaven and earth.

"Ling Xue, you're really staying to be a teacher!" A girl was still in disbelief.

"Yes, initially I wanted to contact you guys during the weekend to get together and tell you guys about this."

"I heard from Sir Cao that your combat strength is already on gold-level rank-3." He Lili, who used to stay in the same dorm as Lin Xin, asked with her eyes opened wide.

"Yes, I'm on gold-level rank-3 now."

"I'm sure that Mu Xiao's so mad now. He's just broken through to silver-level rank-3," said a boy while smirking.

Lin Xin only responded with a smile upon hearing that. The fellow who had declared that he would become a transcendent before turning 18 and become No. 1 in Division 7 was destined to have his dreams crushed.

Lin Xin realized it was time for class after chatting with her old classmates for a while. They then ended their conversation.

"I've just accustomed to my job these few days, and it's been rather hectic. Let's get together this weekend. We'll talk more by then."

Apart from this mini-episode, Lin Xin's life was peaceful throughout the past few days.

She would prepare her class well beforehand. Although there was still a lot to improve in her teaching, she was developing each time she taught. Moreover, her students loved her and called her "Senior". Sometimes her old classmates from Year 2 Class 1 of the Sword Dao faculty would do a sit-in.

The teachers who were in the same office took care of this fresh young lady.

Apart from teaching, Lin Xin spent most of her time in the library. She took Lin Huang's suggestion to widen her knowledge every day, hoping that she could do better in teaching.

The staff apartment that she picked was the same block Lin Huang used to live in. The unit that Lin Huang had been staying in before collapsing from the battle and nobody stayed in there ever since it was rebuilt. Although there was nothing that belonged to Lin Huang in there, Lin Xin picked the unit that her brother used to live in without hesitation.

With the Witch and Little 7's company, she did not feel lonely in the apartment. She had her students and old classmates in the college. Furthermore, her life was getting more and more enriching.

Seeing that Lin Xin's life was getting on track gradually, Lin Huang knew it was time for him to leave.

On the 2nd of March, he accompanied Lin Xin around the White Capital for the whole day. They headed out before 8 a.m. and only returned to the hotel past midnight, having bought a bunch of practical and impractical stuff.

Lin Xin knew that her brother was leaving.

On the morning of the 3rd of March, Lin Huang finally told her that he was leaving. "I'm leaving now, silly girl. Take good care of yourself."

"Mmm." Lin Xin nodded lightly. There was not much emotion on her face.

After summoning a dimensional portal, Lin Huang stepped into it and waved at Lin Xin. The dimensional portal closed slowly.

After Lin Huang disappeared completely, Lin Xin tightened her fists. "I'll definitely elevate to the immortal-level as soon as I can!"

Hundreds of kilometers away, Lin Huang got out of the dimensional portal and arrived at the White Capital's long-distance dimensional portal.

Looking at the gravely long queue at the long-distance dimensional portal, he sighed slightly, "I'm too late."

He went into the toilet and disguised as Lin Xie, and spent a few minutes to change into a new set of clothes. When he returned to the queue, he realized it was a couple of meters longer than before now.

He shook his head helplessly, entering the queue as the last person.

Around one and a half hours later, Lin Huang finally stepped into the dimensional portal with another 29 people. They disappeared from a moment later.

Translator's note

¹ Bought-in – If there are no bids on a lot, or if bidding does not reach the reserve price, the lot is "bought in," meaning it is left unsold and remains the property of the owner.

The long-distance dimensional portal traveling from Division 7 to Division 3 was located in Sweep City.

After walking out of the dimensional portal, Lin Huang did not head straight to Wanbao City. Instead, he disguised himself in a hidden corner without surveillance.

He changed his physique, features, and clothes. He then put on a demigod relic mask with a disguise function, changing his aura to imperial-level black gold-rank.

After making sure there were no flaws in his disguise, he headed straight to the black market of Sweep City.

Lin Huang walked into a store and spoke directly when a lady attendant welcomed him, "I'm looking for Hu Lu."

"Sure, please follow me." The attendant could tell he was a regular customer from his tone, so she brought him to Hu Lu's room on the second floor immediately.

Lin Huang entered and took a careful look at Hu Lu. "Are you Hu Lu? A friend recommended me, saying that you're reliable."

"Thanks for your friend's compliment," Hu Lu said without humbling herself, "Please take a seat, Sir. Do tell me what you need."

"I have a bunch of stuff to sell." Lin Huang sat across Hu Lu, teasing flashing through his eyes under the mask. "I wonder if you guys would dare to take them or not."

"Could you tell me about the source roughly?" Hu Lu asked, "You don't have to tell me which organization exactly they're from just yet. Just roughly tell me about them and what are the items that you're getting rid of."

"Most of the items come from top underground organizations." Lin Huang smirked, but Hu Lu could not see that since there was a mask on his face. "The most troublesome one among these items would probably be a Holy Son's stuff."

Hu Lu's pupils shrunk upon hearing the first sentence. Then, her face turned pale all of a sudden upon hearing the last sentence. She could tell that Lin Huang was not joking with her.

"Sir, we daren't accept them if the items really are from the organization that you mentioned." Hu Lu forced a smile while shaking her head.

Disappointment flashed through Lin Huang's eyes and he stood up right away. "It's fine if you don't accept them. I won't force you."

"Sir, please don't leave just yet." Seeing that Lin Huang was leaving, Hu Lu stopped him immediately. "We can't accept them, but I know a place that will."

Lin Huang stopped walking and turned around. "Do tell."

"The Exotic Treasure Pavilion in Wanbao City."

"What's the background of this place?" Lin Huang proceeded to ask.

"It's opened by the heretics. They take anything as long as the items don't belong to their Virgen."

"Do you charge for this piece of information?" Lin Huang asked wearing a smirk.

"No, many people know about the Exotic Treasure Pavilion. It's not a piece of valuable information."

"Don't tell me that the organization behind you guys is by the heretics too?" Lin Huang took a stab at Hu Lu's background.

"We're only considered as their underling's branch." Hu Lu nodded, admitting in all honesty.

"Thanks." Lin Huang turned around and left right away.

Hu Lu's soft voice came from behind. "Please visit us in the future if you can, Sir."

"Sure!" Lin Huang did not even turn his head as he left after saying that monosyllabic answer.

After leaving the black market of Sweep City, Lin Huang summoned a dimensional portal after making sure that nobody was watching or following him. He then stepped into it.

When he stepped out of the dimensional portal, he arrived at Wanbao City.

Since he arrived, he headed straight to the black market and very soon, he found the Exotic Treasure Pavilion.

He was then guided to a room after informing the customer service personnel at the front counter that he had something to sell.

"Sir, could you show us the items that you're selling?" The receptionist was an old man with white hair.

"Do you guys really take anything at all?" Lin Huang did not bring out the items right away. He wanted to make sure they were really keen.

"Oh, we take anything." The old man nodded in determination.

"Do you accept items from top underground organization's Holy Son and elders?" Lin Huang proceeded to question.

The old man looked at Lin Huang and nodded. "We accept those too."

"That's great then." Lin Huang then passed a storage ring containing a barrage of loot to the old man.

Apart from some useful elixirs, a few types of expensive rare minerals, and a few ancient-level telekinesis weapon relics that he had put aside for himself, he got Bloody to categorize all the relics, miscellaneous items, elixirs, and minerals from grade-1 to ancient-level in the ring.

The old man soon saw the two ancient-level combat sword relics belonging to Dynasty's Seventh Prince when he was going through the items. There were pieces of equipment that clearly came from Dynasty, Charm, the Purple Crow, Saint, and other organizations. There were even a few items from the heretics.

The old man could not help but have a slight change of expression when he saw those items. Looking at that plunder alone, he knew that the man in the mask before him had killed at least hundreds of underground organization members. Not only that, most of them were on the immortal-level while some were on the imperial-level.

The old man came up with such speculation mainly because Lin Huang did not bring out those demigod-level items. Otherwise, the old man would have known that the sheer number of imperial-level powerhouses Lin Huang killed was beyond his imagination.

After spending over 20 minutes to count the items three times, the old man finally came up with the final figure.

He had calculated the price of the items.

"Sir, among the items that you've brought today, there are a total of 1,128 ancient relics, 161 supreme relics; a total of 37 types of elixirs including 36,521 bottles of ancient-level healing elixirs, 587,951 supreme-grade healing elixirs; 26 types of minerals including 24,579 ton of iron ore. The final price for the items would be 78.7 billion Life Crystals."

"Why don't you round it up to 80 billion for me?" Lin Huang suggested shamelessly.

"I can't do that…" The old man looked troubled. "The most we could offer is to round it up to 79 billion."

"Alright, 79 billion then." Lin Huang did not bother to bargain further. In reality, he knew that they earned twice what they offered for this deal, but the items were shady after all. The items could not be sold at auctions or markets, so the price could not go any higher.

If they could be sold at markets, the price would at least double. If they went all the way to auctions, the price would at least triple.

After the deal was done, Lin Huang stood up right after receiving the Life Crystals in his account. He did not bother to say anything more to the old man.

The old man, on the other hand, said in a friendly manner while smiling, "Please come again."

Lin Huang removed his disguise in an area without surveillance. He turned his face back to Lin Xie's and headed straight to somewhere around the Wanbao Auction. He checked into a hotel called Wanguo Hotel.

Initially, he planned to stay at the Wanbao Auction's S-class VIP room, but Yi Yeyu said that she had arrived on the 1st of March and had booked her stay at Wanguo Hotel, so Lin Huang decided to stay in the same hotel as she did.

After checking in, Lin Huang removed his disguise upon going into the room. He then called Yi Yeyu to ask which room she was staying in.

However, the call was cut off directly before the first tone even rang.

He received a message a moment later. 'I'm busy shopping now. I'll contact you when I'm back at the hotel.' It was Yi Yeyu's style indeed.

Lin Huang shook his head, wearing a smile while feeling helpless. He replied to her message, 'I'm already at Wanguo Hotel. My room number is 3303.'

When Lin Huang was practicing his sword skills in the room at past five in the afternoon, someone knocked on his door all of a sudden. He saw Yi Yeyu and Yi Zheng standing at the door when he opened it.

Yi Yeyu was stunned when she saw him in his disguise. "Did we get the wrong room?" She peered up at the room number and looked suspiciously at Lin Huang.

"It's the correct one. Let's go in." Yi Zheng did not bother explaining.

"It's me. I'm just disguising as another identity of mine," Lin Huang had just recalled that he was under disguise. He changed back into his original look immediately.

"I thought I got the wrong room." Yi Yeyu only walked in then.

Yi Zheng followed her but trained his eyes on Lin Huang. He only spoke hesitantly a moment later, "Has your combat strength elevated to immortal-level rank-4?"

Yi Yeyu only realized that about him. Then, she looked at Lin Huang too.

Lin Huang nodded while smiling. "Yes, I've elevated to immortal-level rank-4 now."

"The speed of your combat strength elevation insane." Yi Zheng had no idea what else to say now. "It was the end of August when we last met. It's only been half a year and you've already elevated from immortal-level rank-1 to immortal-level rank-4. That's a three-rank leap. You elevated a rank every two months on average."

"Have you elevated to immortal-level rank-2 now?" Lin Huang could tell that Yi Zheng was on immortal-level rank-2.

"I spent half a year and finally got the opportunity to go into the ruins. I've just elevated a few days ago." Yi Zheng thought that his elevation speed could not compare with Lin Huang's at all.

"No wonder I couldn't contact you before the New Year. Was it because you were in the ruins?" Lin Huang raised his brow.

"Yes, I've just come out a few days ago," Yi Zheng confirmed, "I heard that Xiao Yu was coming to Wanbao City, so I came for her."

"Which ruins did you go to?" Lin Huang asked rather curiously.

"It's a grade-3 ruin shared with the Combat God Alliance and a few other genius organizations. The highest combat strength for monsters was just immortal-level rank-9. Those who participated in the exploration were all low-level and mid-level immortal-levels," Yi Zheng explained.

"The Combat God Alliance?" Lin Huang thought hard and realized that he had never heard of such a genius organization.

"It's normal not to have heard of it. The Combat God Alliance is Division 3's local organization," Yi Zheng revealed while smiling.

He only realized what a formidable organization the Heaven Alliance which Lin Huang was talking about after joining the Genius Union. He had also asked around about the entry requirements to get into the Heaven Alliance. In the end, he was too embarrassed to join the Heaven Alliance using Lin Huang's name. If his abilities were not so mediocre, perhaps he might choose to pull some strings and catch up to other members slowly. However, the issue was that the entry requirements for the Heaven Alliance were too high. He figured he would not pass any of the tests after looking at the contents of the tests, so he gave up immediately. He selected a few local Division 3 organizations instead and eventually got accepted into the Combat God Alliance after participating in the exam.

It was Chan Dou who had invited Lin Huang to join the Heaven Alliance. He had no idea what the exam entailed. Naturally, he had no idea what the exact reason why Yi Zheng gave up on joining the Heaven Alliance was. However, since he chose to join that organization, Lin Huang did not ask any further.

"It's great to join Division 3's local organization. There are only a few Heaven Alliance members in Division 3, so there aren't many resources." Although Lin Huang said the truth, he was comparing resources with the top organizations including the Divine Alliance, the Hong Alliance, and the Tang Alliance.

However, to Yi Zheng, the Heaven Alliance's resources were worthy of being envied. Although there were not many Heaven Alliance members in Division 3, the Heaven Alliance would definitely be given the permission to enter the ruins whenever one opened in Division 3.

"Oh yeah, it's been a long time since you've logged into Genius Union." Yi Zheng did not want to dwell on the upsetting topic, so he changed the subject instead.

"I think it's been four to five months since I last logged in." Lin Huang counted to himself and nodded subsequently. "I was very busy the few months before the New Year and I've been practicing my sword skills after that."

"No wonder I don't see your name on the Stairway Tree this year," Yi Zheng said while grinning.

"The scoreboard refreshes every 1st of January, am I right?" Lin Huang just remembered that the Stairway Tree scoreboard would be refreshed annually.

"The Stairway Tree scoreboard is calculated annually. It'll be refreshed every year at midnight on the 1st of January. Then, everyone will have zero points on the scoreboard," Yi Zheng confirmed.

The zero points Yi Zheng was referring to was just on the scoreboard. All of the accumulated points would be stored in everyone's accounts. As long as it was unused, the points would be kept year after year. It would only be cleared completely when the member elevated to imperial-level and was removed from the Genius Union.

"Everyone in the Genius Union has been talking that you haven't been slaying monsters on the Stairway Tree these few months," Yi Zheng proceeded to speak, "Many of them say that checkpoint 56 is your limit. You could've only stayed on that checkpoint if you planned to continue winning points. Some even started a bet, speculating on which checkpoint you could reach. Most people are betting on checkpoint 56. It's the one with most bets for now while the second would be checkpoint 58. Nobody's betting on a checkpoint that's higher than that."

"They're doing that?" Lin Huang raised his brow curiously. "What are the odds like?"

"1:1.05 for checkpoint 56, 1:1.25 for checkpoint 58, 1:10 for checkpoint 61, and 1:100 for checkpoint 63."

'I think I've found a way to make a large sum of money again.' Lin Huang smirked.

"When do you plan to hunt on the Stairway Tree?" Yi Zheng was excited too.

"After the auction ends, I guess," Lin Huang was thrilled to kill monsters on the Stairway Tree after getting new God Figurines in order to elevate his new God Figurines' Combat Souls quickly.

Although the Genius Union was a virtual world, the things obtained from the Stairway Tree were real. Apart from monsters turning into broken pieces after being killed and the person not being able to obtain the monster carcasses, the rest was the same with reality. Lin Huang could obtain card pieces as well as complete Monster Cards by killing monsters on the Stairway Tree. He could replenish Life Power for Bai and the rest and also replenish spiritual energy for his God Figurines' Combat Souls.

Yi Yeyu had been listening to their conversation and she was getting more and more interested when both of them were talking about the Genius Union. As an offspring of an honorable family, it was natural to have heard of the Genius Union. However, she had no idea that Lin Huang and her brother had become a member of Genius Union.

"Can I join that Genius Union?" Yi Yeyu asked with anticipation.

Yi Zheng glanced at his sister. No matter whether it was qualification or talent, Yi Yeyu was definitely qualified. However, she was still lacking combat abilities to be a genius. Even if she joined the Genius Union, the chances of any organization wanting her were slim.

"Sure, your qualifications and talents are definitely up to standard." However, Lin Huang, who was standing aside, nodded and said directly, "If you're willing to join the Heaven Alliance, I'll ask Chan Dou to get someone in Division 3 to guide you in your cultivation."

"Chan Dou of the Five Princes? You know him?" Yi Zheng asked with his eyes wide open.

"Of course I know him! He's the chief of our Heaven Alliance." Lin Huang thought there was nothing extraordinary about it.

"But I heard that Chan Dou's very secretive and hardly shows up at the Genius Union. Apart from the Heaven Alliance's high management, most of the people wouldn't even see him once in a few years."

"Where did you hear that from? I'm not in the Heaven Alliance's high management, but I've seen him a few times in a year. Of course, I've never seen him in real life. I've only seen him in the Genius Union's video projections." Lin Huang thought what Yi Zheng heard was just a rumor.

"What're the Five Princes?" Yi Yeyu could not help but interrupt.

"The most powerful five people below imperial-level in the entire continent. They're also the most powerful powerhouses among the young generation," Yi Zheng explained immediately.

"Is Chan Dou handsome?" Yi Yeyu's gossip mode was turned on immediately.

Yi Zheng stopped talking all of a sudden. He had never seen how Chan Dou looked like after all.

Lin Huang thought for a moment and answered, "I think he's slightly more handsome than your brother." He thought that his comment was very objective.

Yi Zheng was speechless. 'Why am I being compared?'

Yi Yeyu turned to look at Yi Zheng disgustedly. She then turned to look at Lin Huang and said in excitement, "Do you have his picture?"

"Yes, that's him in his profile picture," Lin Huang said and opened his address book. He found Chan Dou's contact details.

Yi Yeyu's eyes lit up when he projected Chan Dou's photo. "He's so handsome! He's so much more handsome than my brother!"

Yi Zheng thought he was being given the cold shoulder. 'Why am I being compared to again? Also, how is Chan Dou much more handsome than me!? He's just a teeny-tiny more handsome than me!'

After meeting Yi Yeyu and Yi Zheng, Lin Huang had been practicing his sword skills in the room alone apart from the time they spent having dinner together.

On the night before the auction began, he finally learned all of the over 1,300 legendary-level sword skills that he obtained. He had mastered close to 1,600 legendary-level sword skills in total. However, he could clearly feel that his Sword Dao was still very far away from breaking through level-6.

On the 8th of March, the Wanbao Auction finally officially began.

Lin Huang used Lin Xie's identity when he brought Yi Zheng and Yi Yeyu to enjoy the VIP treatment. They went into an S-class VIP room.

However, Lin Huang was put into Room S7 this time. It was clear that there were six VIP members who had come before he did.

'If all six people in the S-class VIP rooms are demigods, there's a high possibility that the two god relics can be sold this time.' Lin Huang began to anticipate secretly.

Yi Yeyu was walking around after getting into the VIP room. She returned to the deck and said to Lin Huang after she was done with her stroll, "My brother told me that you're doing well in Division 3 and I doubted that. It seems like you really are doing superbly. Staying a night in this VIP room is at least three times more than the room we stayed in at Wanguo Hotel. The price isn't the most important part. I'm afraid not any Tom, Dick and Harry are eligible to stay here."

"I've sold something at the auction before, so the owner gave me a VIP card," Lin Huang explained simply.

However, Yi Zheng thought to himself secretly, 'He was selling a few demigod relics, which was why the owner gave him a VIP card, but he said it like it was no big deal…'

"Yi Zheng, you're living in Division 3 too. Look at how great his life is! What about you?" Yi Yeyu turned her head and said to Yi Zheng who was sitting on the other side.

Being dragged into this for no reason, Yi Zheng went speechless as he thought to himself, 'I didn't say anything. Why is this about me now?'

"I came to Division 3 half a year before your brother did after all." Lin Huang tried to get Yi Zheng out of the situation while beaming.

"How was that half a year early? You came in April and he came at the end of August. That's just over four months." Yi Yeyu exposed the true time difference mercilessly.

Yi Zheng felt weary inside. His sister had changed. She used to always cling onto him and call him "Brother". He had always been her role model.

Now, she called him by his name directly and often compared him with others. He missed his sister who was once so naive…

Lin Huang was secretly glad. 'Luckily, my sister isn't like this.'

"The auction has begun!" Yi Zheng finally found the opportunity to change the subject when he saw the auctioneer walked onto the stage. People occupied the hall beneath when it was almost nine o'clock.

Fortunately, Yi Yeyu's focus shifted to the auctioneer and she did not dwell on the previous topic.

The auctioneer of the Wanbao Auction this time was a lady with a sensual figure.

In terms of appearance, she was not considered a top beauty. She had red, wavy hair that reached her breasts. A grayish-black slim-fit shirt hugged her top while the buttons above her breasts were opened. It was pretty revealing as her breasts were half exposed.

For her bottom, she wore a pair of white, slim-fit capri pants. Although her long legs were a little less alluring than Yi Yeyu's, they were almost on the same standard.

There was a pair of red heels on her feet, while a diamond size of an adult thumb and a few small diamonds were mounted on the back of each of her heels.

Yi Yeyu took a good look at the auctioneer up and down and eventually stopped at her breasts. She looked like she had ill intentions.

Her own bust size was admirable, but compared to the lady, she was slightly less impressive.

'Big wavy hair and flashing her boobs on purpose… She's not even wearing a bra. I can tell she's a bimbo!' Naturally, Yi Yeyu did not say that out loud. She was just thinking to herself.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang and Yi Zheng who were sitting next to Yi Yeyu fixed their eyes on the auctioneer. They had not looked away since she went up onto the stage.

Naturally, Yi Yeyu noticed that and she was getting pissed.

The lady auctioneer gave a simple self-introduction on the stage.

"Welcome, all honorable guests to our Wanbao Auction today! My name's Yun Mei'er and I'm the auctioneer of this round. I'll be hosting and showing all of you all kinds of treasures for the next five days. I hope every one of you can bring home the treasures that you desire…"

"This lady seems to be a born sycophant," Lin Huang muttered softly all of a sudden.

It was clear that Tang Xu had put some effort into this auction earlier since he hired an auctioneer who was born an obedient person. He figured Tang Xu must have hired her much earlier before finding out about the opening of the grade-7 ruins in Division 1.

"What does 'born sycophant' mean?" Yi Yeyu, who was sitting beside him, heard Lin Huang's muttering and could not help but to ask.

"It's a unique physique that someone is born with," Lin Huang explained, "People who possess such a physique will attract the attention of opposite sex without trying."

Lin Huang left out a part of the explanation. People who were born sycophants would give an irresistible vibe to the opposite sex as long as there was body contact. They could even cause love at first sight, giving the illusion that one must own them to be fulfilled in life.

People with such a physique would be best at cultivating charm-type methods and skills.

"She really is a bimbo!" Yi Yeyu spat out the comment that she had secretly harboring earlier out loud after hearing half of Lin Huang's explanation.

However, Lin Huang could tell that this auctioneer called Yun Mei'er did not use any charm-type techniques at all at the moment. Her extraordinary physique alone attracted the attention of all males present.

The only people who would not be affected at all would probably be powerhouses above imperial-level.

Yi Zheng only realized that something was off after hearing the conversation between Lin Huang and Yi Yeyu. He just found out that he was attracted by the lady auctioneer without even realizing it. Although it was just affecting him indistinctly, he had his guard up immediately.

"Weren't you indulging in gazing at that lady? Why aren't you staring anymore?" Yi Yeyu teased, noticing that Yi Zheng had snapped back to his senses.

"I'm not interested in this item." Yi Zheng made himself an excuse and implied that he had not been looking at the auctioneer earlier, but the item next to the auctioneer.

Yi Yeyu scoffed and turned to look at the auction beneath instead of dwelling on that.

The first mystery collector's item was finally revealed on the auction stage. It was a notebook that was twice the size of a palm.

"This is the first collector's item we have for today, demigod Song Tiandao's notebook." The auction had officially begun. Yun Mei'er appeared to be tremendously professional as she began to describe the item. "Perhaps many people aren't familiar with demigod Song Tiandao, so I'll give a brief introduction of his life.

"Song Tiandao's real name is Song Wuque. He was a powerful sword cultivator during ancient times. Before failing to elevate to a god, he could only be considered an outstanding sword cultivator. Since he failed in his elevation, he spent a lot of time studying Sword Dao after becoming a demigod and achieved Sword Dao divinity eventually. It was said that he could kill gods with his body as a demigod…"

Lin Huang could not help but sat up straight when he listened to this narration. He was very interested in the notebook.

Besides Lin Huang, many people clearly had their interest piqued.

"But I must inform you about this before I begin the bid. There's nothing special about this notebook itself. The reason it managed to be kept until now is mainly that it was put away in a wooden box in the storage ring. Secondly, the notebook contents don't include any complete sword skills and neither is there any inheritance. It looks more like a notebook with random scribbles." Yun Mei'er's additional explanation made most of the buyers lose interest immediately.

However, Lin Huang's burning desire in his eyes remained. He wanted to get his hand on the notebook.

"This demigod notebook starts at 100 million Life Crystals and the raise must be at least five million Life Crystals each time!"

After some intense bidding, Lin Huang successfully bid for the first item at the Wanbao Auction this time at 360 million Life Crystals.

It was proven that this demigod notebook had a high value to sword cultivators. Its bid skyrocketed to a price that was comparable with an ancient telekinetic weapon, but eventually, the other buyers gave up.

"You spent 360 million for a notebook? Man, you're loaded!" Yi Yeyu thought that Lin Huang was definitely wasting his money.

"I think the auctioneer exaggerated about this item. What Sword Dao divinity? I think she's just saying whatever comes to her mind. A demigod killing a Virtual God sounds like nonsense to me." Yi Zheng who was sitting aside was on the same side with his sister this time. "Demigod's just an imperial-level powerhouse with a little Divine Power in their body while a Virtual God's a real god, a whole life on the next level. It's just like how it's impossible for an ant to kill an elephant no matter what."

"Brother Zheng, you're wrong this time." Lin Huang shook his head while smiling. "As long as one can master the right amount of power, not only demigods, but even an ordinary imperial-level powerhouse would be able to kill a god."

"My master once told me that one would reach the true meaning of Martial Dao as soon as one breaks through level-6 Martial Dao. Even most Virtual Gods have never mastered the power with such a condition. It's said that the power not only made killing Virtual Gods possible, but it could also even wound a True God," Lin Huang repeated what Mr. Fu said. "What the auctioneer said about Song Tiandao being a Sword Dao divinity who could kill Virtual Gods with the body of a demigod is possibly true."

"If this Sir Song really did master the true meaning of Sword Dao when he was alive, this notebook of his is worth looking at. I won't be considered to be at a loss if I could learn something from it."

"Did Mr. Fu really tell you that?" Yi Zheng still refused to believe that.

"Do you think there's a need for me to make such a thing up?" Lin Huang retorted.

"One will reach the true meaning of Martial Dao as soon as one breaks through level-6 Martial Dao…" Yi Zheng held his head low and recorded the sentence in the notebook in his Emperor's Heart Ring.

"Lin Huang, which level of Sword Dao are you on now?" Yi Yeyu, who was standing aside, could not help but ask all of a sudden. "I remember you were already on level-4 last year. Did you break through again this year?"

Even Yi Zheng lifted his head to look at Lin Huang hearing that question.

"Do you guys want to hear a lie or the truth?" Lin Huang asked while smirking.

"What would be the lie? Level-4?" Yi Zheng figured faintly that Lin Huang should have broken through again.

"Level-5," Lin Huang answered, wearing a smile.

Hearing that, Yi Zheng figured that Lin Huang must not have broken through and just remained on level-4. It would be best that he did not ask further.

However, Yi Yeyu did not notice that and insisted on probing further, "What about the truth?"

"The truth would be level-6." Lin Huang thought that he had nothing to hide with the siblings.

Yi Zheng and Yi Yeyu were dumbstruck when they heard the answer. Yi Zheng only asked after a moment later, "Are you really on level-6 now?"

"Yes, I've just broken through a few days ago," Lin Huang confirmed.

"No wonder Mr. Fu told you about the true meaning of Martial Dao…" Now Yi Zheng finally believed that Lin Huang did not make up the true meaning of Martial Dao.

"Which means that you'll be able to kill Virtual Gods as soon as your Sword Dao breaks through further?!" Yi Yeyu asked with her eyes wide opened.

"That would only mean I'll have techniques to kill Virtual Gods, but not necessarily have the ability to kill," Lin Huang explained, "After all, powerhouses on demigod-level are so much more powerful than I am in all aspects. My vision might not be able to catch their movements.

"Furthermore, it's extremely difficult to break through from level-6 Sword Dao to grasp the true meaning of Sword Dao. I've no idea how to achieve that at the moment."

"Then, this notebook's the perfect purchase for you. It might really help you to break through if you learn something from it." Yi Zheng took a supportive stance compared to his initial opposition.

"It seems like you must have this notebook no matter if it's useful or not. You'll strike gold if it's useful!" Yi Yeyu changed her mind too.

The auction beneath them proceeded with enthusiasm.

Lin Huang had no interest in that. He paid even before the auction ended and got the staff to send the notebook over.

He began to flip through it and read it as soon as it got into his hands. Yi Zheng and Yi Yeyu joined him to read as well but they soon gave up.

"It really is just a notebook recording the author's daily life." Yi Yeyu was a little disappointed.

"It wouldn't be obvious even if that demigod really hid some secret in this notebook. Otherwise, the auction wouldn't have exaggerated this and sold it like a god relic." Yi Zheng, on the other hand, was patient. "You should look at it again and again when you have the time. You might be able to uncover the secret in this notebook."

Lin Huang stared at the notebook in his hand and flipped it from the first page to the last. He had an unusual feeling. This feeling had nothing to do with Sword Dao but had something to do with the person, Song Tiandao, himself.

'This Song Tiandao seemed to be a traveler…'

The main reason why Lin Huang had such a feeling was that the scribbles in the notebook were like deja vu coming from an online friend.

"The sky's so blue, the air's so fresh. This world's amazing!"

"I saw a person selling pancakes by the road. The pancakes didn't look appetizing at all. I wouldn't have bought any if not for the lady boss's long legs. The pancakes were surprisingly good! I ended up buying all of the pancakes she had. Mmm, so good! What long legs! I don't know what's that. Don't disturb me when I'm eating my pancakes!"

"Met a troll today who insists that demigods can't kill Virtual Gods, I… didn't find any virtual god-level monsters after looking around. I'll show him that it's possible next time!"

"It's the New Year today. I'm so bored. Oh, I saw a dragonkin a few days ago. It's completely red in color and so fat that it looks like a huge koi that weighs millions of tonnes. Now that I think about it, I really shouldn't have eaten it. I might have my luck turn around this year if I had kept it."

"Killed a sea king monster today! I think I had food poisoning from that. I was so high! It felt like my life has reached its climax, kind of like my life has peaked! It's majestic! It's dazzling! It's beautiful!"

However, apart from figuring that the person might be a traveler, Lin Huang did not find anything related to cultivation in this notebook. Besides Sword Dao, Song Wuque mentioned nothing about cultivation in this notebook.

It was all his daily scribbles of his life in this notebook, including some grumbles, complaints and occasionally some artistic, pretentious sentences. It looked more like quotes from QQ or stuff that was written in WeChat's "moments" section.

'It seems like this Sir was really a foodie when he was still alive. Most of the stuff recorded in this notebook has something to do with food,' Lin Huang complained helplessly. Looking at the notes, Sir Song was pretty much a happy-go-lucky person who had zero superiority.

'Seems like my 360 million really has gone to waste this time…'

The auction went on for the next few days.

However, Lin Huang did not see any collectors' items that he was interested in, so he did not bid at all. On the other hand, Yi Zheng got an ancient sword relic for Yi Yeyu.

Lin Huang had been flipping through Song Wuque's notebook for the past few days and was sure that Sir Song was definitely a traveler.

Moreover, looking at the various details hidden in this notebook, Sir Song seemed to have taken over demigod Song Wuque's body as a soul after Song Wuque failed to elevate to Virtual God.

'This explains why Sir Song only had extraordinary Sword Dao before but became a Sword Dao divinity all of a sudden.' Lin Huang came up with a conclusion.

After all, according to what Xiao Hei said earlier, a real traveler would be given a Goldfinger.

Indeed, a demigod who had a Goldfinger and achieved the true meaning of Sword Dao was nothing remarkable.

Apart from confirming Sir Song's identity, Lin Huang did not find any relevant information on cultivation after flipping through the notebook a couple of times.

The only clue was the few location names in the notes, but those were places in ancient times. He failed to find out anything about the exact location of those places on the Heart Network. He planned to ask someone to find out for him when he had the time. He would find the opportunity to travel to those places if he really found out the coordinates.

Time flew by, four days had passed since the auction began.

Many collector's items broke the record whereby they were sold at a high price throughout the four days. All of the bidders were terribly enthusiastic.

Many people knew that the main reason that caused this phenomenon was because of the sale of the two god relics which attracted many rich bidders. Many of them among the people had no God Figurines, so they lost the eligibility to bid. However, they wanted to see how the legendary god relics looked like and witness the god relics being auctioned off. One must know that it had been over 30 years since Division 1 last auctioned off god relics.

These people were not eligible to bid for god relics, but they were loaded. They wanted to see if there was anything that they were interested in at the auction, so they offered prices as they wished to fulfill their desire to spend.

The situation caught the auctioneer Yun Mei'er a little off guard. She had hosted many auctions and sold over 70% of the items here before. Naturally, she knew the average price of each item. Upon calculating secretly, she discovered that most of the collector's items that were auctioned off throughout the four days were sold at a minimum of 20% more than their average price.

Naturally, she knew her charm was not the selling factor. After thinking to herself, she soon found out that it must be the effect of the two god relics. She could not help but secretly exclaim how tempting god relics were compared to women.

On the fourth day after the auction ended, Lin Huang followed Yi Zheng and Yi Yeyu to dinner. Lin Huang finally put the notebook belonged to that Sir Song away.

"Why did you put it away? Did you find out about something?" Yi Zheng asked rather curiously.

"I didn't find anything at all. It's just a notebook filled with random scribbles no matter how I look at it," Lin Huang said while shaking his head.

"360 million. Man, that's enough to buy a few ancient relics!" Yi Yeyu added fuel to the flame.

"Hey, you supported me on this purchase two days ago!" Lin Huang turned his head to glare at the fickle-minded lady.

"I supported you under the premise that it's useful, but isn't it useless now?" Yi Yeyu was not embarrassed by her firm comment at all.

"It's okay. Study it again and again. Sir Song might have hidden some secrets in there," Yi Zheng comforted.

"I'm afraid that the chances of that are low. I've used my Life Power and telekinesis power on it. The only thing I've not done is disassemble the sentences and decode them like passwords." Lin Huang held no high hopes on that. He had other ways to elevate his Sword Dao anyway. Moreover, he was still far away from breaking through level-6 Sword Dao, so there was no rush about that.

The Wanbao Auction had finally come to an end on the fifth day.

Early in the morning, Lin Huang and the rest had a relaxed breakfast. When they sat down at the deck, there was already a crowd amassed at the auction. It was a full house half an hour before the auction even began.

"Everyone's so enthusiastic today." Yi Yeyu clearly felt that the atmosphere was different from the previous days.

"It's the last day of the auction today. The final items are two god relics, so of course, people are excited." Yi Zheng nodded while smiling.

"It's just like the last few days at work before the New Year whereby people will enjoy ten days of holidays after that." Lin Huang's explanation was more relatable.

After half an hour of waiting, the auctioneer Yun Mei'er finally walked onto the stage. "It's the fifth day of the auction and the last day of the auction. The two god relics will mark today's finale. They'll only be unveiled at the very last moment of the auction today. Are you guys excited?"

"Yes, we are!" Many of the bidders clamored together. Most of them had come for the god relics.

The siblings beside Lin Huang could not help but show excitement on their faces.

"Of course, apart from the two god relics for our finale today, we have one more surprise." Yun Mei'er paused dramatically on purpose as she spoke. She only continued to speak after seeing the surprised and eager faces of the guests below the stage. "We will also be auctioning eight demigod-level items today!"

Apart from the excited crowd, even Lin Huang could not help but raise his brow upon hearing that.

Among the ten demigod relics that Lin Huang had auctioned with the two god relics, three more demigod relics were auctioned as the final items on the first three days of the auction. They were sold at impressive prices. On the fourth day, the final item was a demigod relic that Lin Huang had never seen before. It must be someone else who had put that up for auction.

However, now that Yun Mei'er said there were eight demigod-level items, it would mean that the Wanbao Auction had another demigod-level item apart from the seven demigod relics that he was selling.

'She said eight demigod-level items, not demigod relics which means that the item isn't a demigod relic!' Lin Huang became excited at that moment.

He had not much interest in demigod relics since he had obtained over 400 of them in the Fallen God Land whereby he got a few sets of demigod-level battle swords, armors, and telekinetic weapons. However, a demigod-level item might be useful to him.

"Alright, I shan't ramble unnecessarily. Now, let's get our staff to present the first collector's item of the day!" After piquing everyone's interest, Yun Mei'er looked at the time and realized it was exactly nine o'clock. She did not waste even a minute and introduced the first item immediately.

As the cloth was unveiled, a white, semi-transparent crystal the size of a fist was revealed.

There was a little monster the size of a small thumb floating faintly in the crystal.

It was like a little fish swimming in rather murky water in a small fish tank.

Although he was not paying attention at first, Lin Huang's eyes lit up suddenly when he saw the item. His mood was stirred that second.

"The first collector's item that we're auctioning today is one of the eight demigod-level items that I mentioned earlier." The auctioneer Yun Mei'er smirked as she knew that some of the people already recognized the item.

However, most of the people at the auction had no idea what it was. All they heard was that the first opening collector's item was a demigod-level item which attracted their attention even without them trying.

The auction that was initially noisy became completely silent now. Everyone had their eyes trained on the timer next to Yun Mei'er. She then began to introduce it while smiling.

"I'm sure some of our honorable guests already recognize this. Yes, it's a soul crystal. To be exact, it's a demigod-level soul crystal."

Most cultivators knew what a soul crystal was. There were very few items that could replenish spiritual power in this world and soul crystal was the most well-known one.

However, while most cultivators had only heard of such a thing called soul crystal, they had never seen the real thing before. The reason being, the probability of soul crystals dropping from monsters was extremely low. It was much lower than the probability of imperial-level monsters dropping ancient relics from their bodies after they died.

Ever since Lin Huang began cultivating, he had killed at least tens of millions of monsters throughout the three years but he had never experienced any monsters having soul crystals dropping from their bodies. That proved how low the probability was.

Due to the scarcity and the benefit of soul crystals, most people were unwilling to sell it even if they obtained them from killing monsters. Even if they were to sell them, they would do so within their own organizations. It could hardly be found on the market.

That applied only to ordinary soul crystals. It would be even more scarce to find high high-quality ancient-level and demigod-level soul crystals.

Lin Huang figured that it was pretty impossible for the demigod-level soul crystal on the stage to come from an outsider. It might be Tang Xu who got it from the Tang Clan for the auction this time.

Tang Clan was an ancient family, so it was normal for them to possess such a demigod-level soul crystal.

After she was done with the introductions, Yun Mei'er finally named the condition of the auction. "This demigod-level soul crystal won't be sold using Life Crystals. The seller has named this bidding condition: a mid-level demigod archery relic."

Almost everyone who was eager to bid for this item had their hopes crushed as soon as Yun Mei'er named the condition. There were extremely few archery weapons around mainly because there were only a handful of cultivators who focused mainly on archery.

Since demand was low, production was also naturally low. There were limited archery weapons itself, let alone demigod archery relics.

The seller of the demigod-level soul crystal had imposed an extremely strict bidding condition.

However, Lin Huang smirked upon hearing the condition. He happened to have an archery relic in his storage space. that fitted the condition.

'If we're talking about this demigod-level soul crystal's actual value, it's equivalent to the price of a low-level demigod relic. However, since this item's so rare, it will be sold at least 100 billion Life Crystals at auctions. It's reasonable for a mid-level demigod relic to be auctioned at seven to eight billion Life Crystals. I won't be losing anything by trading a mid-level demigod relic with this archery.

'But does Tang Xu not want to sell this soul crystal, which was why he came up with such a strict condition? Maybe he just included the demigod-level soul crystal just to get an auspicious number.' That thought popped into his mind but soon flashed by and was forgotten. 'Who cares? I have an item that fits the condition with me. I'll pretend that I've no idea about his trick and I'll just bid directly. Let's see if he really sells it or not.

'This soul crystal's sufficient for me to elevate one God Figurine to imperial-level purple gold-rank. It's an opportunity that's hard to come by.'

After Yun Mei'er named the condition, nobody made a peep in the entire auction for a while. Just when Yun Mei'er thought the collector's item would be a bought-in, the screen in the 7th VIP room on the third floor lit up.

A voice came from Room S7. "Since nobody's bidding, I'll take it then. I happen to have a mid-level demigod archery relic with me."

Many people looked towards the VIP room where Lin Huang was. Although they could not see anything through the window, they were discussing among themselves.

"Everyone in S-class VIP rooms is really loaded. They even have such rare demigod archery relics."

"Someone who can whip out a demigod relic so easily must be a demigod himself."

An old man with white hair and a beard in Room S1 on the third floor frowned. "I wonder who is in VIP Room S7. I hope we have different goals."

In VIP Room S2, a muscular, short-haired lady narrowed her eyes slightly. "VIP Room S7… Hmm, might be a strong opponent."

The owner of the Wanbao Auction, Tang Xu, who was backstage, had a complicated expression on his face.

Just as Lin Huang expected, Tang Xu had indeed borrowed the demigod-level soul crystal from his family. He wanted to gather eight demigod-level items to make up an auspicious number.

He set the bidding condition to be a mid-level demigod archery relic on purpose, thinking that there should be nobody who could fulfill such strict criteria. If that was the case, the soul crystal would naturally be a bought-in and come back to him again.

How would he have thought that somebody would really have a demigod archery relic that fitted the condition?

What troubled him even more was that the bidder was the disciple of the man who auctioned the two god relics. He could discuss it with the bidder after the auction ended if someone else were to offer a certain amount of compensation and call the deal off. However, he was really reluctant to offend the man's disciple.

If the young man called Lin Xie complained to his master when he returned, Tang Xu would lose his god relic resources completely. He might even lose his demigod relic resources altogether.

He wanted to bring fame to his Wanbao Auction with the man's resources, so he definitely could not afford to offend the disciple.

After some deep thought and struggling, Tang Xu finally made up his mind. He was giving up on the demigod-level soul crystal.

On the stage, Yun Mei'er responded immediately when she noticed the screen of Room S7 light up on the third floor.

"The guest from VIP Room S7 has placed a bid with a mid-level demigod archery relic."

"Is there anyone who wants to raise?" Yun Mei'er looked across everyone and proceeded to speak upon seeing no bidder, "From what I know, this is the first time in the history of Division 3 that a demigod-level soul crystal is being auctioned. The person who gets this soul crystal will have his name etched in the history of Division 3's auction."

Many of them felt moved to hear her declaration, but they were helpless. The benchmark of the bidding condition was too high. They had no way of competing with Lin Huang.

Yun Mei'er waited for a while after she spoke. Seeing that nobody else named their price, she knew there would not be a second bidder. After all, demigod archery relics were limited.

She did not bother wasting any more time. "Since nobody has come up with a higher bid, this demigod-level soul crystal now belongs to the guest in VIP Room S7."

Yi Yeyu, who was in VIP Room S7, looked at Lin Huang with her eyes wide opened.

She could not believe that this little guy, who was not even on iron-level three years ago, could trade with demigod relics now.

Yi Zheng, on the other hand, looked like there was nothing to be surprised about since he had witnessed Lin Huang auctioning demigod relics off half a year ago.

He thought about it and figured why his sister would think someone else's brother was more outstanding than he was, resulting in the dissatisfaction Yi Yeyu had for him.

Lin Huang delayed no further after he successfully bid for the item and he got the staff to complete the transaction with the mid-level demigod archery relic.

It was a huge golden bow with 12 black arrows.

Yi Yeyu could not help but ask when she saw the archery set, "Why don't you keep this demigod relic to trade for a demigod relic that you can use, like a sword or some armor?"

Yi Zheng glanced sympathetically at his sister sitting beside him. He already had the answer to her question.

As expected, Lin Hung answered immediately, "I already have all the demigod relics that I need."

Yi Yeyu became speechless at that moment. She turned to look at Yi Zheng while he turned away and pretended he saw nothing. She glared deadly at her brother. It was clear that Yi Zheng knew about this since the beginning.

Until now, she faintly sensed that she seemed to have misunderstood Lin Huang's comment on 'doing well in Division 3' earlier.

Although it had only been a few days since she came to Division 3, Yi Yeyu had already gained a basic understanding of the combat strength and spending power of Division 3's cultivators. It was remarkable even for the top imperial-level powerhouse to have two demigod relics. A powerhouse who had one demigod relic for his own use and could trade with his additional demigod relics was basically a demigod himself.

Judging from that alone, Lin Huang's fortune should be comparable with a demigod-level powerhouse's.

'It's only been a year and he has grown to this from being almost the same level as we were. Could the Heaven Alliance be the reason behind this?'

During the spare time throughout the past few days, Yi Yeyu asked Yi Zheng about the Genius Organization and found out that the Heaven Alliance was the No. 1 organization in the Genius Organization. Thinking that Lin Huang's growth was related to the Heaven Alliance, she could not help but anticipate joining the Heaven Alliance soon.

Naturally, Lin Huang had no idea what Yi Yeyu was thinking about.

Soon, the staff, who was in charge of the transaction, came knocking on the door.

Lin Huang opened the door and realized it was the owner of the Wanbao Auction, Tang Xu.

He had always been communicating with Tang Xu with his demigod disguise and had never met Tang Xu as Lin Xie before.

"Why did you come alone and not with an appraiser?" Lin Huang pretended not to know Tang Xu.

"I'm the appraiser, and I'm also the owner of the Wanbao Auction," Tang Xu revealed his identity directly.

Lin Huang's heart sank. Tang Xu might want to persuade him to call off the soul crystal deal since he came here himself. He pretended like he knew nothing. "Oh, it's the owner himself. I apologize for being rude."

"Kid, you don't know me, but I know you," Tang Xu said while smiling, "Your master's our big client. You should know that the two god relics included in our auction this time belongs to your master." The reason why Tang Xu said so was that Lin Huang did not really participate in bidding for the past few days. His presence there could possibly be part of an inspection on his master's collector's items to monitor the result of the auction.

"I know that," Lin Huang admitted.

"Apart from the two god relics, there are 12 demigod-level items in this auction while 10 of them belong to your master. We put the other two in." Tang Xu finally got to the topic.

"Please don't laugh at me for telling you this. Actually, I borrowed the demigod-level soul crystal that you bid for from my family just to make up the number. I've never planned to auction it off. That's why I set such a strict opening bid condition. Never had I thought that you'd have such a demigod archery relic with you," Tang Xu said sheepishly and looked at the archery on the table behind Lin Huang.

"Boss, are you here to cancel the deal yourself?" Lin Huang raised his brow. Tang Xu's words were exactly what he guessed earlier.

"Kid, what kind of person do you think I am?" Tang Xu waved his hand while grinning and took out the demigod-level soul crystal that was at the auction earlier from his Emperor's Heart Ring. "Although our Wanbao Auction isn't big and we don't have the best reputation, it's impossible that we'd break the promise for items that we've auctioned off."

"Kid, I see that you're pretty fated with this demigod-level soul crystal. I'll give it to you as a gift, eh? Let's be friends." Although it was painful for Tang Xu, he made a bold decision.

The reason why Tang Xu made that decision was that under normal circumstances, people below demigod-level would not be able to use this demigod-level soul crystal at all. Even people on imperial-level purple gold-rank could not take the impact of the spiritual energy of such a level. Only demigods could use it.

He figured Lin Huang must have bought the demigod-level soul crystal for his master. The kindness that Tang Xu showed was actually directed at the demigod who supplied him with resources.

As long as he had a stable supply of demigod relics and god relics, the Wanbao Auction's fame would rise as time passed by. The long-term profit would be much more than the total amount of profits from one or two auctions, let alone a demigod-level soul crystal.

However, what he had no idea about was that Lin Huang's God Figurine's Combat Soul was the body of a god. This little demigod-level soul crystal aside, it could even swallow a true god-level spiritual energy.

"Are you sure you want to give it to me for free?" Lin Huang narrowed his eyes while asking. He knew very well that Tang Xu did that just to get closer to his 'demigod master' for more demigod relics and god relics in the future. "You could sell this demigod-level soul crystal for at least 100 billion Life Crystals if you were to auction it. That's enough for you to trade two mid-level demigod relics."

"You can never make enough money. Friendship's more important compared to money." Tang Xu shoved the soul crystal into Lin Huang's hand.

'He's so good at talking,' Lin Huang thought to himself, 'Businessmen have such terrifying talking abilities.

"I won't beat around the bush if you say so. I'll take it then." Lin Huang took the soul crystal and nodded with a smile. "Thank you, Boss Tang, for this great gift. I'll remember that."

"Then, I won't be disturbing you any longer, kid. You guys proceed with the auction." Tang Xu nodded while smiling since he had achieved his goal. He left after shaking hands with Lin Huang and waved at Yi Zheng and Yi Yeyu not far away.

"Boss Tang's so generous! He gave out an item worth hundreds of billions of Life Crystals just like that!" Yi Yeyu exclaimed with envy written all over her face.

"Lin Huang, are the two god relics in this auction from Mr. Fu?" Something caught Yi Zheng's attention.

"He meant someone else when he said 'master'," Lin Huang gave Yi Zheng a simple reply and put the soul crystal in his hand away.

Yi Zheng knew Lin Huang was unwilling to talk about it, so he did not ask further. He thought Lin Huang had another master of his own.

It was clear that Yi Yeyu wanted to ask the same thing. Noticing that she was going to ask further, Lin Huang walked straight to the deck and sat down. "Let's just enjoy the auction."

The auction came to an end when it was past five in the afternoon.

The auctioneer, Yun Mei'er, could not help but smirk again when an ancient relic was auctioned off.

"Next up will be the last couple of items that we have for this auction." The crowd became excited as soon as she said that.

The reason being, everybody knew that the collector's items that were coming up next would be the remaining seven demigod relics and two god relics.

Almost all of the guests in the VIP rooms on the second and third floors put down whatever they were doing and focused their attention on the stage in anticipation for the climax of the auction.

"Staff, please bring out the first demigod relic of the day!" As soon as Yun Mei'er commanded, two men in black suits brought a case with a red cloth covering it onto the stage.

"This is the first demigod relic we have for today, which is also the second demigod-level item for the day. I wonder what would it be." Yun Mei'er grinned while holding onto the edge of the red cloth. She paused and scanned across the crowd. Realizing that everyone had their eyes on her, she shook her wrist slightly and unveiled the red cloth.

There was a quaint, long sword with its tip pointing downward in the transparent case. It hovered mid-air and was rotating slowly with the sword ridge as the center point.

The visual effect was caused by the carving of an anti-gravity sigil and a balancing sigil in the case.

"This is a demigod longsword relic. Its name is Hong Ying which sounds like a lady's name. In reality, it first belonged to a demigod sword cultivator named Gu Yu in ancient times. He was a real hunk. He named the sword after his wife who passed away.

"Although Hong Ying's just a mid-level demigod relic, from the historical data that we've read, Sir Gu Yu has killed at least 13 demigod-level monsters with this sword when he was still alive.

"I personally think that this is an excellent weapon that a sword cultivator must own." Yun Mei'er only named the starting price after giving all of the guests a simple introduction, which allowed them to gain an understanding of the longsword.

"The starting price for Hong Ying is 40 billion Life Crystals with at least two billion Life Crystals increment each time!" Screens lit up consecutively on the second floor as soon as she was done speaking.

"VIP Room A2 offers 42 billion!

"VIP Room A11 offers 44 billion!

"VIP Room A23 offers 48 billion!

"VIP Room A41 offers 50 billion!"

The crowd clamored in surprise after Yun Mei'er announced the four bids consecutively. In less than ten seconds, the demigod relic had skyrocketed to tens of billions of Life Crystals.

"I just realized there are so many loaded people after participating in an auction like this."

"Those were just the bids from the A-class VIP rooms. The big bosses in the S-class VIP rooms on the third floor have yet to bid."

"I suppose people who are eligible to compete for demigod relics must be at least imperial-level powerhouses. It's normal for them to be loaded."

"VIP Room A53 offers 52 billion!

"VIP Room S1 offers 60 billion!

"VIP Room S2 offers 70 billion!"

…

The people exclaimed again as soon as the two bosses in the S-class VIP rooms placed their bids.

"The big bosses on the third floor have finally released their bullets!"

"Their markup in price is insane!"

"They're worthy of being called big bosses. They raised by eight to ten billion each time."

"Tycoons on the second floor, don't give in. Show them what you've got!"

…

The people on the second floor who were initially participating in the bid became silent as soon as the two big bosses on the third floor named their price. Only one of them offered 75 billion but he was shut down by the big boss from VIP Room S2 immediately at 85 billion. He dared not bid any longer.

"The guest from VIP Room S1 offers again. 90 billion!"

The screen in VIP Room S2 lit up again as soon as Yun Mei'er called the bid out.

"100 billion! The guest in VIP Room S2 has raised by another ten billion. It's clear that he must get his hands on Hong Ying!"

Lin Huang who was in VIP Room S7 teased while smiling, "Seems like the guest in VIP Room S2's a hot-head."

"I think it's a demigod," Yi Zheng, who was sitting aside, voiced his speculation.

Everyone thought the result was decided after VIP Room S2 offered 100 billion Life Crystals. Even Yun Mei'er was ready to announce the final result.

However, VIP Room S1 placed a bid again all of a sudden.

Yun Mei'er was stunned for a moment. She thought she was mistaken, but she soon snapped back to her senses.

"The guest from VIP Room S1 has bid again. 105 billion! It seems like he's not giving up!"

Breaking through 100 billion actually surpassed the maximum price of a normal demigod relic. Never had they expected there to be people who would offer more than that.

'It must be settled by now!' Almost everyone thought the same.

However, the screen in VIP Room S2 lit up again at that moment.

Yun Mei'er's eyes flew wide open. She was surprised that the guest in VIP Room S2 was so determined to get the sword.

"The guest in VIP Room S2 has bid again. He's raised by ten billion again and now the bid stands at 115 billion!"

"Is there anyone who is willing to go higher? If not, this Hong Ying will belong to the guest from VIP Room S2."

…

A muscular, short-haired girl in VIP Room S2 on the third floor snarled rather fiercely, "I must have this sword!"

115 billion clearly surpassed the maximum price of a mid-level demigod relic. Eventually, the guest in VIP Room S1 did not choose to bid again.

In the end, the first demigod relic on the last day of the auction was successfully auctioned off to the female demigod in VIP Room S2 at an insane price of 115 billion.

The auctioning of the first demigod relic ignited the atmosphere completely.

The people were getting more and more excited about the next item.

Meanwhile, Yi Yeyu, who was in VIP Room S7, was shocked. "People in Division 3 are so loaded! A mid-level demigod relic being auctioned off at 115 billion?"

"Not only Division 3, but many tycoons from Divisions 1 and 2 also came to this auction," Yi Zheng corrected her.

Lin Huang explained while smiling, "There are actually many reasons for people to bid for an item at such high price. However, the main reason is that the guests in VIP Rooms S1 and S2 are eager to get Hong Ying. There was actually heat emanating between both of them at the end of the bid."

"Especially the guest in VIP Room S2, he's clearly a hot-head. He raised by ten billion no matter how much the other guest offered. If not for his way of bidding, the final price wouldn't be as high as it is."

"Actually, I think 105 billion should be the highest price the guest VIP Room S1 is willing to pay. If the guest in VIP Room S2 can calm himself down, the guest in VIP Room S1 shouldn't bid again if he raised by another two billion. He could've bid for the sword at 107 billion, but he wasted eight billion Life Crystals just like that."

The first demigod relic was auctioned off at a high price which was out of anyone's expectations.

Although Yun Mei'er was elated that she had broken the record of a mid-level demigod relic's price in Division 3, that did not delay her job at all. Soon, she got the staff to bring the second demigod relic up.

The second demigod relic was a battle sword.

The reason why Lin Huang was auctioning the battle sword off was that it was just a low-level demigod relic.

He had a total of 13 demigod battle sword relics with him, five of which were mid-level demigod battle sword relics and one was a high-level demigod battle sword relic.

The higher level the demigod relic, the more Life Power it would drain during usage. However, that was none of Lin Huang's concern. The Life Power in his body was endless due to his Divine Fire.

To him, he could use the high-level demigod battle sword relic directly after he elevated to imperial-level. At the most, he would put one or two mid-level demigod battle sword relics away as backups and sell the rest.

Yun Mei'er unveiled the red cloth on the stage.

A cool black battle sword was presented before the people. It was as clear as a piece of black jade.

Everyone exclaimed the moment they saw the battle sword. They had an even bigger reaction than the time they saw the mid-level demigod sword relic earlier.

"It's so beautiful! This sword's like a piece of art!"

"I think it'll look great in the living room as decoration."

"The material doesn't seem like metal. Wouldn't it break if it's used in battles?"

Even Yi Yeyu in VIP Room S7 on the third floor could not help but exclaim, "I'm not a sword cultivator, but I'm so eager to buy this sword when I look at it. Just like the saying 'appearances are everything', this saying applies to anything."

"I'm sure this sword will cause a wild fight between sword cultivators." Yi Zheng nodded too. He peeped at Lin Huang but noticed there was no change of emotion on his face. He could not tell what Lin Huang was feeling.

In reality, Lin Huang liked the sword very much but eventually decided to sell it off after some struggling.

He was not like Liu Ming; he never had the habit of collecting swords.

To him, the practicality of a weapon should be prioritized while everything else did not matter. No matter how amazing it looked, there was no need to keep if it was less practical than those mid-level and high-level demigod relics.

On stage, Yun Mei'er did not speak immediately. Instead, she looked across the crowd and only spoke slowly after everyone had their eyes glued to the battle sword. "The name of this battle sword is Black Jade."

"I'm sure many have guessed that the material of this sword isn't metal. It's mainly made of the spine of a demigod-level dragonkin and embellished with crystal tuff essence."

"Everyone might think that this sword's beautiful, but in reality, it's even more beautiful when the light penetrates through it at night." Yun Mei'er clapped her hands twice after saying that.

The auction turned completely dark all of a sudden. Almost at the same time, a white ray infiltrated the transparent case with the battle sword from behind.

The people saw the dazzling golden shimmer being reflected from the body of the sword like sand when the white ray penetrated the battle sword. It was like a sky full of twinkling stars.

Everyone was in an uproar. Many of them launched the camera from their Emperor's Heart Rings and took a photo of the item.

Lin Huang who was in VIP Room S7 on the third floor was dumbstruck.

'People actually do that?!'

A moment later, the ray vanished while the lights were turned on again.

Yun Mei'er only continued to speak in satisfaction after seeing the expression on the people's faces.

"Looking at the historical data, this Black Jade was the early work of an ancient weapon master, Ou Yunming. Sir Ou's early works were known to be extremely exquisite. Although the Black Jade's just a low-level demigod relic, its craftsmanship moved the notorious collection master Luqiu Yu to purchase it at a high price.

"I'm sure everyone's familiar with the name Luqiu Yu. He's the No. 1 collector during ancient times recorded in history books, but many might not know that he was also a virtual god-level powerhouse.

"It was said that Master Luqiu placed the Black Jade in his home as decoration after purchasing it. His nephew, Luqiu Hao, visited and saw it a few years later.

"Luqiu Hao fell in love with the Black Jade as soon as he saw it and told his uncle, 'This is a weapon. Weapons should see blood while fighting their enemies. That's its destiny. You're wasting God's gift by putting it in your room like a toy, which would upset it. If you really want to collect it, you should let it fulfill its destiny by winning battles and experiencing massacres. It'll come back to you when it's done drinking blood.' Master Luqiu then gave his nephew the Black Jade while Luqiu Hao gave life to it.

"There were at least 20 demigod-level monsters that were killed with this sword and countless monsters below demigod-level that died as well. Luqiu Hao died in a war later on. Instead of retrieving the sword, Master Luqiu buried his nephew with the sword as a gift.

"Although the Black Jade's just a low-level demigod relic, its value's much higher than high-level demigod relics. It's comparable with a supreme-grade demigod relic.

"There's only one of this in the entire world. I hope that everyone can seize the opportunity at this auction. There's no second chance ever again if you miss it this time.

"The Black Jade will start at 30 billion Life Crystals and each increment must be at least 1.5 billion Life Crystals!" The screens of the VIP rooms on the second and third floors lit up consecutively as soon as Yun Mei'er named the starting bid.

"VIP Room A32 offers 40 billion!"

"VIP Room A1 offers 50 billion!"

"VIP Room S3 offers 60 billion!"

"VIP Room S8 offers 80 billion!"

…

The crowd became excited to see the frenzied bid that was increasing.

"Holy cow! A low-level demigod relic's going at a price that's higher than a mid-level demigod relic!"

"The Wanbao Auction has never treated this battle sword as a low-level demigod relic since the beginning. After all, the starting price is already 30 billion Life Crystals!"

"There are so many rich people here! They're competing for a low-level demigod relic like madmen!"

…

Lin Huang, who was in VIP Room S7, could not understand that.

It was just a low-level demigod relic. Theoretically, it should only be sold at 30 billion Life Crystals at the most, but now it was already at 80 million. Meanwhile, there were people who were still bidding for it.

"Is this what people call 'the rich become stupid when they have too much money'?" Yi Yeyu said while pouting.

"It's more like the happiness of the rich is beyond your imagination," Yi Zheng corrected her while grinning.

After some intense bidding, the battle sword, the Black Jade, was sold to the guest from VIP Room S8 at a whopping price of 160 billion Life Crystals.

The price was on par with a high-level demigod relic.

Yun Mei'er was getting wrinkles around her eyes from grinning so much. She had just broken a second record that day by selling a low-level demigod relic at double the highest price of a low-level demigod relic ever to be auctioned in history. Perhaps nobody would be able to break that record within centuries. For the next century, anyone who would learn about auction would remember this auctioneer named Yun Mei'er who auctioned off a low-level demigod relic at 160 billion Life Crystals.

After the Black Jade battle sword was auctioned off, the demigod relics were sent onto the stage one after another.

There were low-level and mid-level demigod relics. The next five demigod relics were sold at 98 billion Life Crystals, 37 billion Life Crystals, 95 billion Life Crystals, 35 billion Life Crystals, and 110 billion Life Crystals respectively.

Including the three mid-level demigod relics, none of them were sold at a price higher than the Black Jade.

After the seven demigod relics were sold consecutively, the excitement level at the auction peaked because the two god relics would be auctioned next.

Yun Mei'er became more excited on stage.

It was the very first time in her life that she was auctioning god relics off. In addition to that, there were two god relics this time.

It was an exclusive honor for Division 3's auctioneers in close to 200 years.

She could clearly sense that the guests' anticipation for the last two collector's items.

"I believe all of you should feel the same as I do. We're all practically jumping for the arrival of the last two items.

"To be honest, I'm a little nervous right now. Throughout my 16 years of being an auctioneer, this is my second time feeling nervous. The last time I felt nervous was the very first time being an auctioneer 16 years ago.

"In reality, I couldn't really believe it when Boss Tang contacted me last month, telling me that I'd be hosting this auction. I didn't expect myself to be selected when I signed up for it.

"The reason being, everyone in the industry knew that there will be two extraordinary finale items in this auction. Many seniors with rich experience signed up for this Wanbao Auction. Even some of the notorious seniors from Divisions 1 and 2 signed up too, hoping to host this auction.

"I've no idea why did Boss Tang picked me eventually. I still don't understand it until today, but since he did, I hope I won't disappoint his faith in me. I'll try to do my very best."

Yun Mei'er poured her heart out sincerely while waiting for the staff to prepare the next item. The crowd cheered for her.

"Now, that we are ready, please allow the team to bring our first final item of the day!"

As soon as she spoke, four staff carried a huge case onto the stage.

The people were already discussing among themselves before the cloth was removed.

"Why is the case so big?"

"It seems to be strenuous for the staff to carry. Man, that looks heavy."

"I guess it should be the spear."

"Not necessarily. It could be the sword."

Although Tang Xu had announced the god relics before the New Year, he only said that the two god relics that were being auctioned this time would be a spear and a sword. Apart from that, he revealed no more.

Hence, nobody knew what the two god relics looked like. The staff put the case with the red cloth down slowly. Everyone held their breaths while waiting.

Including the people in the VIP rooms on the second and third floors, they had their eyes fixated on the case.

Yi Yeyu, who was in VIP Room S7, could not help but ask, "Lin Huang, you should know what the two god relics look like, don't you?"

Lin Huang turned his head and raised his brow. "Take a guess."

"Go away!" Yi Zheng peeped at the both of them quietly and stopped the duo's 'flirting' with one sentence.

"You'll know when the cloth is removed."

On stage, the auctioneer, Yun Mei'er, pulled the edge of the red cloth and smiled at the crowd. "Well, it seems like everyone's excited. Oh, then I shan't keep everyone guessing."

She pulled the red cloth that was covering the case as soon as she was done speaking.

There was a huge spear placed slanted in the transparent case. The total length of the spear was at least five meters from its handle to the tip and it was dark blue in color.

The spear was in the form of a tower. However, instead of being smooth and conically-shaped, it had a spiral structure like a screw. The bottom of the handle was thick while it got thinner as it went up. The tip of the spear was so thin that it was almost as narrow as an embroidery needle.

Clearly, apart from turning enemies into skewers, this heavy weapon could be used to smash enemies into a pile of mush.

"According to the seller, this name of this spear is Ba Huang. It's been around for a long time, passed down even before the middle era. We've read many historical documents, but we couldn't find any direct information about the spear.

"However, there's a document recorded in the middle era with a similar description. It says 'a spear that's six feet long, dark blue, and in the shape of a tower'. We figured roughly that it should be referring to this spear.

"According to the description in the document, the spear appeared in the early era whereby its first appearance was in the hand of a dragon knight.

"Although there are no records of the dragon knight's exact name, looking at the document, he had the combat strength of virtual god-level. Also, he had three high-level virtual god-level dragonkins with him. He was almost the No. 1 person under True Gods at that time.

"A war broke out later on. After he died with his three dragonkins in the war, the spear went missing.

"This is the only information we have, so we can't verify the authenticity of the information," Yun Mei'er added, "You can take it as a story."

"Now, let's talk about this spear. In reality, this giant form is just its original form. It has a second sharp form whereby it can shrink to two meters long. The tip of the spear will turn into a sharp blade while its weight would lighten tremendously.

"The original form's suitable for fighting wars while the sharp form's suitable for hunting or fighting another person.

"Since it can only be activated using Divine Power, there's no way that we can demonstrate it for everyone." Yun Mei'er spread her arms helplessly.

Initially, Tang Xu wanted to ask his clan's patriarch to demonstrate the two god relics here before the New Year. However, since the opening of the ruins in Division 1, the patriarch of the Tang Clan could not help but join the fun as well. Therefore, the thought of demonstrating on the spot was put aside.

A lady's voice came from VIP Room S2 when Yun Mei'er was still speaking. "I could demonstrate it to all of you for free."

Yun Mei'er was stunned to hear that offer. She looked at Tang Xu who was below the stage, wanting to ask his opinion.

Tang Xu hesitated for a second before nodding.

He was rather worried that the person would leave with the spear directly since she was a demigod. However, he thought about it and figured that she would not do such a thing in public. There were so many eyes watching after all, and she would lose her dignity completely once the news spread.

"Sure. Please demonstrate it for us, Ma'am." After getting Tang Xu's approval, Yun Mei'er nodded to the person upstairs while smiling.

A silhouette appeared on stage as soon as she was done speaking.

It was a short-haired lady with a brawny body. She was dressed in quite a masculine way. She wore a black tank top and a blue denim miniskirt with muscles bulging from her arms.

Lin Huang thought her arms were almost the size of his thighs.

The lady demigod did not even bother to introduce herself and put her hand into the case directly. She held the handle and pulled out the huge spear.

"Watch closely. I'll only demonstrate once." The lady demigod inserted her Divine Power into the spear. A deep blue gleam appeared on the spear's surface like mist.

A moment later, the lady demigod shrank the spear rapidly with a speed that could be seen with the naked eye.

Merely three to four seconds later, the spear that was more than five meters long shrank to a deep blue spear that was two meters long.

The diameter of the spear was less than five centimeters. The blade on top was flat, appearing more like a sharp dagger.

The lady demigod swung it casually for a while and nodded with a grin. "It's indeed much lighter."

After some demonstration, she put the spear into the case and returned to the VIP room.

"Alright. Since the lady from VIP Room S2 has shown us the change of form that the spear can do, now let's begin the auction officially! The starting bid is two God Figurines! Each increment will have to be an item nothing lower than demigod-level."

"The starting bid is two God Figurines! Each bid would have to be an item nothing lower than demigod-level."

Almost everyone there was dumbstruck when Yun Mei'er announced the starting bid.

'What's this God Figurine?' Almost everyone had the same question flashing in their heads.

Even Yun Mei'er, who was a professional auctioneer, had only heard about what a God Figurine was a few days ago.

In reality, hardly anyone knew about God Figurines apart from demigods.

Tang Xu did not announce the bidding condition when he spread the news out earlier. However, those demigods who were interested in purchasing the god relics contacted the Tang Clan and found out that the starting bid was two God Figurines.

At that moment, most of the crowd, including most of the people in the VIP rooms on the second floor, had confusion written all over their faces. Many of them knew that nobody would trade Life Crystals with god relics. There must be a strict bidding condition, but never had they thought that the item to be traded in exchange for the god relics was something they had never even heard of.

Yi Zheng and Yi Yeyu were both dumbstruck in VIP Room S7.

"What's a God Figurine?" Yi Yeyu asked her brother.

"I've no idea." Yi Zheng then turned his head to look at Lin Huang. "Lin Huang, you should know about it, shouldn't you?"

Lin Huang nodded while beaming. "A God Figurine is actually the remnant of a god."

"A Gods remnant? What is the use of it? To be made into a puppet?" Yi Yeyu was even more confused now.

"It can be used as a Combat Soul carrier for demigods or Virtual Gods. Driving a God Figurine with a Combat Soul could result in a person achieving invincibility in flesh." Lin Huang did not bother hiding the fact.

"So, it has to be activated with Divine Power?" Yi Zheng had a better understanding now.

"To be exact, it can be activated with any god-level energy," Lin Huang confirmed.

"If it can only boost the Combat Soul's flesh, it should be pretty limited to a boost in the Combat Soul's overall abilities. It seems like this thing is pretty useless. I think it's a great loss for one to only trade two God Figurines for one god relic." Yi Yeyu lost interest in God Figurine right away.

"No matter what, a God Figurine is a god-level item and the amount is limited. It's pretty challenging to trade a god relic with two God Figurines." Lin Huang smiled while shaking his head.

Yun Mei'er waited for a moment on the stage. She became a little concern upon seeing no screens lighting up on the second and the third floors. However, since she was an experienced auctioneer, she began to buy time immediately.

"Perhaps many of you have no idea what a God Figurine is. Well, I'll give you a simple explanation. A God Figurine is a Gods item. To be exact, it's the remnant of a god after his death."

Yun Mei'er spent one to two minutes explaining, but nobody was bidding. It hit her that this god relic might be bought-in.

"This is a god relic spear, Ba Huang. The starting bid is two God Figurines! Each increment must be an item nothing lower than demigod-level."

"If nobody's bidding, then this collection item will be bought-in."

"Wait!" At that very moment, a voice came from VIP Room S4 on the third floor. "Since nobody's bidding, could I ask if the person-in-charge to contact the seller to change the bidding condition? I really don't have any God Figurine with me."

"Please give me a moment, Sir. Let me talk to the boss." Yun Mei'er was finally relieved that the situation had turned around.

Tang Xu, who had been sitting on the first row at the auction, walked onto the stage and discussed with Yun Mei'er with their backs facing the audience.

Observing that, Lin Huang, who was in VIP Room S7, removed the anonymous Emperor's Heart Ring he had on his finger quietly and put it away into his storage space.

A while later, Tang Xu got off the stage and attempted to contact Lin Huang's 'demigod master'. However, he realized that he could not reach him.

Feeling helpless, he called Lin Huang instead. His call was not rejected.

"Kid, is it possible for you to contact your master?" Tang Xu asked rather anxiously.

The reason for his anxiety was the guest in VIP Room S4, who coincidentally was the demigod, Chu Yang. He was rather close to the patriarch of the Tang Clan.

"My master told me that he might be busy these few days. If you guys have failed to contact him, I'd probably face the same challenge too," replied Lin Huang.

"Could you take the liberty to change the bidding condition?" Tang Xu asked again.

"This belongs to my master. Since he said that a God Figurine is the only thing he wants, he won't accept other items in exchange." Lin Huang shook his head and declined right away. "I'm sorry. I really can't help you."

Tang Xu could only accept the truth helplessly. After hanging up the call, he walked onto the stage, looking terrible.

"I'm sorry to the Sir in VIP Room S4. We've contacted the seller, but he doesn't accept any other trading conditions."

"Alright then." Demigod Chu Yang accepted the outcome anyway. After all, he could not force things to happen.

The auction went on after the tiny episode.

Although Yun Mei'er maintained a grin on her face, she felt morose inside. It seemed like the very first god relic that she was auctioning was destined to be bought in.

"The god relic spear, Ba Huang, for two God Figurines… Going once!"

"God relic spear, Ba Huang, for two God Figurines… Going twice!"

"If nobody's bidding, then it'll be bought in!"

"God relic spear, Ba Huang, for two God Figurines… Last call!"

"It's a bought-in for the god relic spear, Ba Huang!"

The resounding knock of the hammer echoed in the room and an uproar broke in the crowd.

"What? A bought-in?!"

"I can't believe that a god relic that was so hard to come by has become a bought-in just like that!"

"I thought we have many big bosses in our Division 3 these few days, but now I realize they're just pretending to be big bosses."

"The bidding condition's too strict, I guess. We've never heard of such a thing called a God Figurine before this. I suppose nobody knew what it was apart from the demigods."

"If the bidding condition remains the same, wouldn't the second god relic end up in the same situation too since the first one was bought in?"

In VIP Room S7, Lin Huang scowled.

Although Tang Xu had told him before that there might be a bought-in at the beginning, Lin Huang was quite upset seeing it happen on the spot. Moreover, he was a little worried that the second god relic would also be bought in since the bidding condition would remain the same.

"I can't believe it's bought in!" Yi Yeyu had shock written all over her face.

"Perhaps there aren't many demigods in Division 3. It should've been sold easily if the auction were to be in Division 1," said Yi Zheng who was sitting aside.

However, Lin Huang shook his head. "It would be almost the same outcome if the auction happened in Division 1. This has nothing much to do with the division. Under normal circumstances, basically, demigods who use similar weapons wouldn't miss it for the world as long as there are god relics in the auction. However, there's a new grade-7 ruin that opened in Division 1 earlier, so more than 70% of the demigods of the entire continent are exploring the ruins now, causing a drastic drop of demigods participating in the auction this time."

"I see." Yi Yeyu and Yi Zheng finally understood the real reason for the relic being a bought-in.

After putting the case on the stage away, Yun Mei'er regained her normal expression, but she was secretly panicking now.

'Please don't let the second god relic be bought in. If that happens, I'll really be the laughing stock of the auction history.'

After calming herself down by gulping a deep breath, Yun Mei'er then nodded at the staff below.

"Let's bring in the final item of the day!"

Soon, two staff brought the last case onto the stage.

Yun Mei'er was fretting. However, with more than ten years of auction experience under her belt, one could not tell how she felt since she managed to contain her feelings and concealed them well.

"This is the last collector's item we have for the day. It's also the very last item at our auction this time. I believe the few demigods who are here today came just for this. I won't waste any more time. I present to you the second god relic of the day!" Yun Mei'er pulled the red cloth away as soon as she was done speaking.

An exquisite sword in the case was presented before the people.

It was a sword without a scabbard, and it was around one meter long.

The hilt was wooden with two little intertwining dragons carved on it. The crossguard on the other side was completely golden and was the size of less than half a palm. Its shape looked like a hollowed jade piece with dragon patterns on it.

The sword seemed to be very shiny and was around 75 centimeters long. Its material did not seem like steel. Instead, it resembled silver.

There were dragon patterns carved on one side of the sword while a poem was carved in messy ancient text on the back.

'Three thousand guests indulge themselves in the blooming flowers; one frosty sword is enough to conquer the world.'

Judging from its appearance, although the sword was not on par with the battle sword, the Black Jade, it was very beautiful. Undeniably, it carried a quaint charm.

Many of the onlookers were stunned just looking at it.

"This sword's called Frost Flower. It's a famous sword from the early era. Although it's named Frost Flower, it has nothing to do with the frost attribute," Yun Mei'er began to tell the story.

"Legend has it that the swordsmith who crafted this sword was a powerful sword cultivator, and so was his wife. She was wounded badly in a monster horde war and passed away not long later. The day his wife passed away, white frost flowers bloomed on the frozen lake next to his house.

"He was always drinking by the lake since his wife passed away and never made any weapons for years since then. One winter 11 years later, the lake was frozen again. Frost flowers formed on the lake again on his wife's death anniversary.

"Unable to take it any longer, the emotions that he had been keeping inside for 11 years exploded completely. He wailed devastatingly while kneeling by the lake, screaming his wife's name over and over again.

"After spending the day releasing all of his emotions, he suddenly thought of something that his wife had said before. 'All of the swords that you've made are for men. They're so ugly. When will you customize one for me? A sword that would be love at first sight for me?'

"Recalling that he still owed his wife a sword, the swordsmith began working that day itself. He spent an entire year before he finally completed the sword. The day the sword was completed was his wife's death anniversary. There were frost flowers all over the lake again, so he named the sword Frost Flower.

"Later on, he fought with the sword and died in the monster horde war. Frost Flower then fell into the possession of a few other people and ended up with a lady sword cultivator, Nangong Xin, eventually. She gave life to the sword.

"It was said that Nangong Xin was a Sword Dao divinity and defeated all the male sword cultivators. She was the most powerful sword cultivator powerhouse in the era. There were at least 20 virtual god-level monsters that died by Frost Flower's power. Besides that, there was a true god-level monster that died by the sword too.

"Nangong Xin's stunning record made Frost Flower a famous sword and it was then documented in history. Although this sword was made for women, it actually combines a bit of the swordsmith's style which seems tough and rugged. It's a sword for both men and women."

After she was done with the story of Frost Flower, Yun Mei'er then began to go into the details of the sword.

"The total length of the sword is 1.8 meters whereby the body's 75 centimeters long and five centimeters wide. There are dragon patterns carved everywhere.

"The starting bid is two God Figurines. Each increment must be an item nothing lower than demigod-level."

The auction became stirred once again when the bidding condition was stated.

"The bidding condition remains the same! Will it be bought in again?"

"It's hard to say. There are so many more sword cultivators than spear cultivators after all."

"This auction will be a laughing stock if it's bought in again. If it really happens, they would've auctioned two god relics and none of them were sold!"

Lin Huang felt anxious too.

Although it would not matter if a bought-in happened again since he could auction them again after the demigods came out of the ruins, he wanted to get God Figurines as soon as possible to elevate the God Figurines' Combat Souls.

On stage, Yun Mei'er was nervous too. She was really worried that the second god relic would be bought in as well.

Fortunately, she was relieved when the screen of VIP Room S1 on the third floor lit up.

"I'm offering two God Figurines. If nobody here has items that fit the bidding condition, then this Frost Flower will belong to me." The screen of VIP Room S2 lit up suddenly as soon as the old man from VIP Room S1 was done speaking.

"I'm bidding God Figurines and a mid-grade demigod battle sword relic! To the old man from VIP Room S1, do you really think nobody has brought God Figurines this time? Do you think you can take the item home with just the starting bid?" The short-haired muscular lady in VIP Room S2 condemned right away.

"Hehe, I was just breaking the ice. Its been a while, Lady Lu. You're still as straightforward as ever." It was clear that the old man in VIP Room S1 knew the person.

"Old man, I don't really know you. Don't try to kiss my ass!" The screen on VIP Room S8 lit up when the duo was talking.

"Two God Figurines and three mid-grade demigod relics. You can choose any armor among the three mid-grade demigod relics. I should have everything as long as it's not too rare." The guest in VIP Room S8 stopped speaking right away. It was clear that he did not plan to communicate with anyone else.

"Two God Figurines and five mid-grade demigod relics!" The old man from VIP Room S1 offered a higher bid again. "I'll give the same treatment as VIP Room S8. Pick any five demigod relics."

"Old man, it's rare seeing you being so generous," teased the lady from VIP Room S2 and she offered again, "I'll just go all out then. Two God Figurines and ten mid-grade demigod relics!"

"Lady Lu, you're just messing with us now." The old man from VIP Room S1 said helplessly, but he offered again while biting the bullet, "Two God Figurines and 20 mid-grade demigod relics!"

The screen on VIP Room S8 lit up again. "Two God Figurines, two expert-grade demigod relics, and 10 mid-grade demigod relics. You can pick any demigod relics."

The bid shut the demigods in VIP Rooms S1 and S2 up right away. It was rather difficult for one to obtain an expert-grade demigod relic.

The people who were watching the auction were discussing intently among themselves.

"That dude is so rich! He's using expert-grade demigod relics like currency."

"He must be a big boss since he brought out expert-grade demigod relics just like that!"

"I'm afraid the big boss in VIP Room S8 isn't from Division 3."

Lin Huang, who was sitting in VIP Room S7, could not help but felt a little pleased. Although he had close to 400 demigod relics, there were only ten expert-grade demigod relics among them and there was only one battle sword that suited him.

"The guest from VIP Room S8 has offered two God Figurines, two expert-grade demigod relics, and 10 mid-grade demigod relics. Does anyone have a higher bid?" Yun Mei'er added upon noticing VIP Rooms S1 and S2 being silent.

The screen on VIP Room S2 lit up again as soon as she was done speaking.

"Two God Figurines, three expert-grade demigod relics, and 20 mid-grade demigod relics," growled the muscular lady fiercely. One would guess that she was offering almost everything she had.

However, the screen in VIP Room S8 lit up once again.

"Two God Figurines, one supreme-grade demigod relic, three expert-grade demigod relics, and 20 mid-grade demigod relics." His bid this time basically included a supreme-grade demigod relic on top of the bid called by VIP Room S2.

The muscular lady in VIP Room S2 knew that she definitely could not beat the person. She had no supreme-grade demigod relic with her, so she could not compete with the other person at all. It would be futile even if she were to add another expert- or mid-grade demigod relic because the person could do the same.

The guest from VIP Room S1 was completely silent now. It was clear that the bid was out of his expectations, so he decided to give up entirely.

In VIP Room S7, Lin Huang was pretty satisfied with the bid.

Combining the God Figurine that he had, the two God Figurines were enough to boost his combat strength to immortal-level rank-7. He could advance to high-level immortal-level officially, which meant that Bai and the rest would benefit by elevating their combat strength to imperial-level crimson gold-rank.

"If everything goes as expected, this should be the final bid. I think the guest from VIP Room S8 isn't from Division 3 since he can even bid with a supreme-grade demigod relic." Yi Zheng had been staying in Division 3 for half a year, so he knew about the demigods in Division 3.

"Why? Is there no demigod in Division 3 who has supreme-grade demigod relic?" Yi Yeyu could not help but ask.

"There are very few demigods in Division 3 after all. From what I know, only three of them own a supreme-grade demigod relic. They only have one supreme-grade demigod relic, so it's pretty impossible for them to bid with it this time," Lin Huang explained, "The guest from VIP Room S8's most probably from Division 1."

Many people figured the guest in VIP Room S8 was not a local resident.

"I wonder if he's a big boss from Division 1 or 2."

"Compared to Divisions 1 and 2, our big bosses are fake bosses."

"I pity the demigods from our division. They're being oppressed directly without the ability to fight back at all."

On stage, Yun Mei'erm who had a rich experience in auctions, naturally knew that the result was established up to this point.

"The guest in VIP Room S8 has offered two God Figurines, one supreme-grade demigod relic, three expert-grade demigod relics, and 20 mid-grade demigod relics.

"Going once!

"Going twice!"

"If there are no objections, this final item of the day goes to the guest in VIP Room S8.

"Alright, going thrice!

"Sold!"

The last item of the auction was finally sold officially as the resounding thud of the gavel echoed.

The burden in Lin Huang's heart finally lifted when the five-day long auction came to an end.

Although he only sold one out of the two god relics, it was good enough.

Combining the two God Figurines and the one that he already possessed, they were enough to boost his combat strength all the way to immortal-level rank-7.

As soon as Lin Huang's combat strength elevated to high-level immortal-level, the combat strength of Bai and the rest would advance to imperial-level crimson gold-rank.

It would mean that Lin Huang's overall ability would rise to the next level.

Apart from that, he had a surprise reward: the demigod-level soul crystal.

Such a demigod-level soul crystal was sufficient to upgrade any of his imperial-level white gold-rank Combat Souls to imperial-level purple gold-rank.

At night, Lin Huang put the anonymous Emperor's Heart Ring on and saw the unread message from Tang Xu on the communication page.

"Only the sword Frost Flower was sold among the two god relics. The final bid was two God Figurines, one supreme-grade demigod relic, three expert-grade demigod relics, and 20 mid-grade demigod relics. You can choose any demigod relic, but please try to decide within 48 hours."

Lin Huang replied after he was done reading the message. "My first pick for the supreme-grade demigod relic is a battle sword. If not, I'll take armor. I'll get any sword, saber or armor for the three expert-grade demigod relics. As for the 20 mid-grade demigod relics, just pick any that are in higher demand."

Tang Xu replied immediately. It took him less than three seconds after Lin Huang replied. "Understood. May I know when will you pick them up, Sir? Or should we send them to your disciple directly?"

"I'll try to make a trip within three days."

The reason why Lin Huang wanted to go through the trouble was that it would be a problem if someone found out that he had the items with him. However, not many people would plot against a demigod who came for the items himself.

The next morning after the auction ended, Lin Huang left the VIP room with the siblings.

"There'll be an underground auction tomorrow night. You guys could go if you're interested." Lin Huang forwarded the invitation that the Wanbao Auction had sent him to Yi Zheng and Yi Yeyu.

"Judging from your tone, I'm guessing that you're not joining?" Yi Zheng asked while raising his brow.

"I've seen the list. I won't waste my time since there's nothing that I want." Lin Huang shook his head while smiling.

"But such an underground auction usually only reveals half of the real items up for auction on the list. What if there's something that you want that's not included in the list?" Yi Yeyu asked.

"I only need a few specific items now. The first would be God Figurines, the second would be ancient-level or demigod-level soul crystals, thirdly would be God's Crashers and lastly, demigod-level or god-level telekinetic weapons," Lin Huang named the items that he needed. "Apart from this underground auction, please take note of these items for me if you guys are joining other auctions in the future. If necessary, you can bid for me directly and I'll transfer the amount to you."

"Sure, we'll keep an eye out for you." Yi Yeyu nodded.

"So, what's your plan now? Are you going to obtain points on the Genius Union?" Yi Zheng could not help but ask.

"I'll elevate my combat strength further in the coming month. Then, I'll log onto the Genius Union to get some points." Lin Huang gave them a brief version of his plan.

Yi Zheng was speechless upon hearing that. He could not believe that Lin Huang was going to break through his combat strength so soon.

"What plans do the both of you have? Do you guys intend to train together?" Lin Huang asked Yi Zheng.

"I'm planning to bring her around Division 3 after the underground auction ends to familiarize herself. However, I can only be her company for over a month at the most. I'll have to work on my own stuff after that."

"He has a girlfriend now," Yi Yeyu spoke all of a sudden, "He no longer needs his sister."

"What utter nonsense! There's a mission from the Combat God Alliance," Yi Zheng explained immediately.

"Your brother isn't young after all, so it's normal for him to be with his girlfriend. You should learn to understand that," Lin Huang ignored Yi Zheng's explanation directly and comforted Yi Yeyu.

"What do you mean I'm not young anymore? I'm only 23!" Yi Zheng was flabbergasted.

"A man turns into an uncle once he passes 20," Lin Huang said at ease because he was only 18 in this world.

"He's not just an uncle. He's an old uncle now," Yi Yeyu added.

Yi Zheng could not argue back because he really was an uncle at home. His cousins already had children of their own. He was eager to say to his sister "you're an aunty too" but he lacked the guts in the end.

All he could do was murmur secretly, "Why are other people's sisters so cute, obedient and gentle?"

"I'll get Chan Dou to arrange your application for the Genius Union." Lin Huang recalled that when Yi Zheng mentioned the Combat God Alliance. "However, I would like to be clear about this. Although the Heaven Alliance's a powerful organization in the Genius Union, your development in Division 3 will be ordinary and there aren't many resources as well. You'll have to fight for whatever you want. You're only on immortal-level rank-1 now, so I think you should focus mainly on combat strength elevation and train your battle ability. When your ability advances, you'll be able to enter ruins and secret zones for more resources."

Yi Yeyu nodded quietly. Reflecting on Lin Huang's transformation, she was excited to join the Heaven Alliance.

After breakfast, the siblings returned to Wanguo Hotel.

Lin Huang, on the other hand, found a professional cultivation room.

Such a cultivation room was a branch of hotels because the hotel's usual building was for light use only and could be easily damaged by cultivators.

However, cultivation rooms were made of special materials and fortified with various sigils. On one hand, it was highly durable and on the other, it gave one a certain boost in cultivation.

Although the environment was simple, business was usually good.

The reason Lin Huang wanted to book such a room was mainly that he needed a very long time to visualize his True Spirit Guide and could not be interrupted during the period of time.

Naturally, he did not visualize the True Spirit Guide on the first day of checking in. Instead, he practiced his sword. Skills. He still had two God Figurines pending and planned to only visualize the three God Figurines together when he gathered all of them.

At past ten at night, Lin Huang sent Tang Xu a message using his anonymous Emperor's Heart Ring. "I'm on the way. I'll be there in five minutes."

He used a Transformation Card to turn into a specter and got out of the cultivation room. In a secluded area, he used a Disguise Card to change into a demigod and put on a black robe. He then summoned the dimensional portal and appeared at the entrance of Wanbao Auction directly.

Tang Xu was already waiting for him at the hall as soon as he stepped in.

"Sir!" Tang Xu welcomed him immediately upon noticing his arrival. "I've prepared everything. Please check it through."

The only item that was not sold, the god relic spear Ba Huang, was placed at the most obvious spot.

The rest were the items traded for Frost Flower: a supreme-grade demigod battle sword, three expert-grade demigod relics including a sword, a saber and armor, and 20 mid-grade demigod relics which were basically common swords, sabers, spears, and armors.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang soon had his eyes on the two God Figurines. Among the two, one had the form of a roaring devil while the other was clearly a plant. However, Lin Huang could not tell what kind of plant it was.

Lin Huang put all of the items away without saying a word. Tang Xu then handed over a thumb-sized chip. "These are all of the Life Crystals obtained from the auction. We've deducted the handling fee. The rest is in there."

Lin Huang took the chip and transferred the amount to the anonymous account. The figure came up soon, and Lin Huang raised his brow looking at it. "722 billion? You didn't charge a handling fee for the auction of the god relic?"

"Sir, you showed your trust by letting us, the Wanbao Auction, sell your god relics. To us, auctioning god relics is a boost to our fame. Hence, you've done us a huge favor. This will never, ever change. We won't charge any fee as long as you bring us god relics," Tang Xu said while smiling. For the future of the Wanbao Auction, he had sacrificed a whole lot of benefits that were presented before his eyes.

"You're too kind." Lin Huang did not say much after that. He knew that it was difficult for him to return the favor when Tang Xu had given him the demigod-level soul crystal a few days ago. There was no major difference in where to auction the god relics, but at least, now it seemed that Tang Xu was a trustworthy person to deal with. He was one to collaborate with for the long term.

Tang Xu said nothing about the next auction from the beginning until Lin Huang left with the items

It was midnight when Lin Huang returned to the cultivation room.

After bringing out the three God Figurines, he covered all of them with Divine Telekinesis and drew them into his body.

The three palm-sized sculptures penetrated Lin Huang's chest and vanished just like that.

Meanwhile, in Lin Huang's body, the three God Figurines entered a Life Wheel each and were soon engulfed by the Divine Fire that was like a gigantic mountain.

A moment later, sensing the Divine Power being sent out from the Divine Fire, the three God Figurines began to absorb Life Power thirstily.

Lin Huang was observing the transformation in the Divine Fire quietly.

Not long later, a monstrous vortex was formed. The God Figurines stood within the colossal flaming mountain which fire started tens of thousands meters high. The size of Divine Fire began to shrink rapidly.

At the same time, the overflowing Life Power in Lin Huang's Life Wheel was sucked into the vortex completely. It did not only happen to one Life Wheel. The Life Power in the other seven Life Wheels was being drained as if a dragon were chugging water.

The four God Figurines that were already formed were releasing Life Power insanely as well, feeding their three new siblings.

Lin Huang replenished his Life Power immediately with three Life Power Refill Cards to feed the vortex.

He was not worried that the Life Power in his body would be insufficient. Instead, he replenished more so that the evolution process would speed up even faster.

Over three hours passed by quickly as all of the Life Power in Lin Huang's body was absorbed completely. The God Figurines that were in the three Life Wheels vanished completely together with the Divine Fire. Three God Figurines the size of a palm were the only things left.

Lin Huang waited patiently with excitement written all over his face. He was not worried about his current condition of not having any Life Power left at all.

After ten minutes, the three God Figurines were activated almost at the same time.

In Lin Huang's fifth Life Wheel, the Mysterious Frostwoman, whose top half of her body was human, opened her eyes. Icy-blue flame lit up her eyes. Her body that was sealed with ice began to break out of its constraints. As the frost on her body faded away, a white mist began to linger around her body while she hovered above the ground.

In his sixth Life Wheel, a bloody spark lit up in a roaring devil's eyes. Its body began to turn a little illusory gradually. Soon, it appeared elusive. Its palm-sized body expanded all the way to more than two meters tall. Its crimson pupils could make panic blossom in one's heart. There were a few skulls that were the size of a fist hovering around its body, wailing devastatingly.

Meanwhile, a plant was growing rapidly in his seventh Life Wheel. Surprisingly, it turned into a bush. Although it looked inconspicuous, its lush 'leaves' were very lively. Lin Huang could sense the tremendous amount of life hidden in each leaf clearly.

The three God Figurines began to repay Lin Huang's body the second they were activated. Circles of energy waves spread out in his body.

The drained Life Wheels in Lin Huang's body were rapidly replenished with Life Power.

It began from the three Life Wheels where the three God Figurines occupied, then the fourth, the fifth… Until all ten Life Wheels were filled, Life Power began to throb through his meridians, muscles, bones, and soul.

Lin Huang could feel Life Power in his body transforming clearly. The cells in his body and soul were experiencing a transformation at the same time.

He also felt his combat strength begin to rise without stopping. In less than a minute, he elevated from immortal-level rank-4 to immortal-level rank-7.

No one, not even the people in the ancient times, could ever surpass such a terrifying speed of combat strength elevation.

"I'm finally on high-level immortal-level!" Lin Huang could not help but smirk gleefully.

He looked into his body and checked through the information in Bai and the rest's cards. As expected, they had elevated to imperial-level crimson gold-rank!

"I'll elevate to immortal-level rank-9 as long as I sell the other god relic in the next auction. Then, I'll just be one step away from getting to imperial-level." Lin Huang was sure that it would be pretty impossible for the god relic to be bought in during the next auction. That would not happen as long as the demigods got out of the ruins in Division 1. Him elevating to immortal-level rank-9 was a sealed deal; it was just a matter of time. "I'm just wondering when exactly will the Royal Trials begin."

After a slight distraction, Lin Huang recalled what he should be doing.

Although the three God Figurines were activated, he still had to visualize his True Spirit Guide to consolidate the Combat Souls. That was his top priority at the moment.

Looking at the time, it was already past three in the middle of the night. Lin Huang did not begin the visualization right away. Instead, he went to bed and slept.

Visualization was a strenuous thing to do. Even with the Epiphany Card, it was exhausting. Hence, although he was not sleepy, he decided to have a good rest.

Lin Huang slept all the way past noon and was completely recharged when he woke up.

In reality, one to two hours of sleep a day was definitely sufficient for an immortal-level powerhouse.

After washing up and having some snacks, Lin Huang then sat on the cushion and began communicating with the stone tablet.

"Rocky, which True Spirits that suit my three new God Figurines should I visualize?" After communicating many times, Lin Huang was pretty familiar with the stone tablet and finally christened him with an obvious name: Rocky. Yes, he ignored the stone tablet's objections completely.

"The Mysterious Frostwoman belongs to the frost attribute as well as the yin attribute. There are actually a few True Spirits that are compatible with her, but personally, I'd pick the Enchanted Fairy. The Enchanted Fairy's also called the Moon Fairy. It's a spirit-type and happens to go well with your Divine Sun Tree which has the yang 1 attribute.

"The Yasha Ghost's an undying species which has a special skill in Reincarnation Dao that makes it suitable to cultivate in. However, I'd suggest the Undead Styx. The Undead Styx is a formidable True Spirit. Finding a compatible god with it is difficult and coincidentally, the Yasha Ghost happens to be compatible. This is an opportunity that's hard to come by, so it's best that you don't miss it.

"Meanwhile, the Tender Vanilla's a healing monster that doesn't have much battle strength. The most compatible True Spirit for it would be the Withered Flower. The Withered Flower is a True Spirit that can control life energy. It can release life energy for healing as well as absorbing various living beings' life energy. A powerful Withered Flower can even meddle with the rules of life and death whereby it can revive a dead person."

"Sure, I'll take your advice." After hearing the stone tablet's explanation, Lin Huang found an Enchanted Fairy in the True Spirit Guide immediately.

The Enchanted Fairy in the True Spirit Guide was a human lady who looked like a fairy. She was wearing a white dress and her beauty was exceptional.

Lin Huang summoned Bloody to be on watch before he crushed an Epiphany Card. He then began to visualize.

Time passed by soon. The epiphany this time lasted for 12 days before it was completed.

The Mysterious Frostwoman in his Life Wheel was finally reproduced in the appearance of the beautiful fairy.

After resting for a day, Lin Huang crushed another Epiphany Card and began to visualize the Undead Styx.

It took a consecutive 15 days for this visualization to be completed.

Lin Huang took another day of rest after visualizing the Undead Styx. He then crushed the third Epiphany Card and began to visualize the Withered Flower. He took 11 days to complete it this round.

He spent a total of 39 days to finally complete the visualization of the three God Figurines's Combat Souls.

After Lin Huang was done visualizing the three God Figurines, he lay in the cultivation room and slept for the entire day.

When he woke up the next morning, Bloody spoke to him directly just when he sat up on the bed before he could even speak, "The opening of the grade-7 ruins isn't over yet. The demigods are still in there. There's been no news on the Royal Trials from Dynasty. Also, Yi Yeyu has successfully joined the Heaven Alliance. Yi Zheng went for his mission a few days ago and sent you a message. He asked you to look after his sister when he's not around."

"Hmm, alright." Lin Huang stared blankly at the floor with his head down. "It seems like that grade-7 ruins in Division 1 is opened for at least two months, maybe even be three months. I suppose Dynasty's Royal Trials will only open when the demigods have returned."

After the soft murmuring, Lin Huang put on his slippers and walked to the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror above the sink, trying to comb his hair that was as disheveled as a bird's nest. He began chatting with Bloody.

"What did Chan Dou say about Yi Yeyu's application?"

"He didn't say much. He just sent you a message saying, 'I've handled it'."

"Is there anything else?"

"No."

"Has there been any news?"

"It's been quiet lately. Apart from the god relic being bought in at the Wanbao Auction that was a hot topic for a while, there's been nothing else."

After chatting for a while, Lin Huang stopped combing his hair that could not be tamed no matter what. He began to brush his teeth and shower.

Then, he changed and paid the bill at the front desk with Bloody. He then made his way to another hotel.

The reason why he stopped staying in the cultivation room was that all cultivation rooms were enclosed. There was not even a window in there, so it was definitely not an ideal place for one to stay. It could only be used for cultivation.

Moreover, a cultivation room was usually only over ten square meters. Apart from cleanliness and full amenities, it was worse than the cheapest room in ordinary chain hotels. However, the price was a few times more expensive than an executive suite in a luxury hotel. Apart from cultivation needs, nobody would be willing to spend the money to stay in such a place.

After breakfast, Lin Huang checked into the hotel and sat on the couch to browse through the news for a while.

He looked through the topics slowly. Indeed, just like what Bloody said, the recent news on Heart Network was insignificant. There was no topic that captured his attention at all.

"Hasn't it been a little too quiet recently?" Lin Huang frowned as he thought it was very peculiar.

Division 3 was a messy place, and a few incidents would happen almost every month, but it had been over a month since the Wanbao Auction had passed, yet nothing interesting happened after that.

"Maybe the powerhouses with top combat strength are in Division 1's ruins," Bloody explained.

Lin Huang thought about it and opened the Hunter Association forum with his personal Emperor's Heart Ring. Mr. Fu had gotten him the privilege from the last trade since his account in the union organization was a permit for demigods which was exclusive for him.

After opening the forum, he saw a hot thread immediately.

The title was 'A List of Powerhouses Who Could Reach Virtual God Within Three Years'.

The thread's title caught Lin Huang's attention, and he looked at it right away. He squinted after spending a few minutes reading the thread all the way to the end.

According to the thread, the Union Government provided ancient cultivation methods to a minority of imperial-level powerhouses from the internal department of the union organization.

The methods did not contradict the cultivation system existing in their bodies; it was just like learning another method all over again.

Throughout the two months or so, some of the imperial-level powerhouses who received the methods had cultivated to mortal transformation-level. They were on holy fire-level for the time being.

The list posted on the thread was a list of imperial-level powerhouses who had made an impressive improvement in the ancient cultivation methods throughout the two months.

"No wonder it's been so quiet!"

A minority of the imperial-level powerhouses were cultivating the ancient methods while the rest were trying to get their hands on the methods. They did not have time to mess around out there.

Moreover, the demigods had reached the Division 1 ruins. The remaining ones were on the immortal-level, so there was nothing much that they could do.

"It seems like one must have high compatibility with the methods as well as great talent and potential to be able to cultivate the ancient methods to achieve mortal shedding-level in two months. However, this bunch of people is underestimating the ancient methods…" Lin Huang was not only cultivating the Twisted Fate Scripture, but he had also done cultivation simulations of hundreds of the ancient methods. He knew very well that the further one cultivated into those methods, the more difficult they were.

Powerhouses who managed to elevate their combat strength to imperial-level with their current cultivation system possessed talent and abilities of a genius-level. That was how they managed to cultivate the ancient methods with half the effort.

Perhaps it was easy to cultivate during the early stages, but it would only get more and more complicated later on. Just like it was easy to learn primary school-level mathematics, it would get more and more difficult when one got to junior high, senior high and university levels.

Moreover, the ancient cultivation system was completely different from the current cultivation system. There were no references the imperial-level powerhouses could depend on at all when they were cultivating the ancient methods. Just like one who had mastered playing the piano and was beginning to learn art, the journey was unrelated.

One could only say that the union organization had a great idea, but they were over-optimistic.

Lin Huang scanned through the list. There were only 11 people on the list. Those people had the potential of breaking through to virtual god-level within three years. However, to him, only two among the 11 could make it.

One was Fu Minghan while the other was Qi Hao.

Both of them had broken through to mortal shedding-stage within a month. One spent 23 days while the other spent 27 days. In the cultivation of the ancient methods, the duo's talents were ridiculous.

Meanwhile, the other nine fared much worse. The fastest one among the nine spent 38 days.

"Fu Minghan and Qi Hao might be able to break through to Virtual God in two to three years," Lin Huang analyzed based on various situations. "However, these cultivation methods are only spread across on a small-scale. If they're spread to more people, there might be more people who have talents that are on par with the duo or are even more powerful. We can't rule out the possibility of people breaking through to virtual god-level within two years.

"However, if everything goes as expected, I'll definitely elevate to imperial-level within this year. Nevertheless, I can't be completely sure about the elevation after imperial-level." Lin Huang did not dare to say that he could definitely elevate to virtual god-level within two years, but he had his goal set.

"Apart from the people's transformation, the changes happening to the Abyss Brink poses a bigger risk." Lin Huang felt the burden on his shoulders becoming extremely heavy all of a sudden. No matter whether it was the changes to the people or to the Abyss Brink, both changes were bad news to him and Mr. Fu. It could even bring catastrophe.

The only thing that he could do was to strengthen himself continuously. He had to improve to the point where he had the right to speak to the prominent Union Government.

Lin Huang was in a long silence after closing the window of the Hunter Association forum.

The appearance of the duo, Fu Minghan, and Qi Hao gave him extra pressure.

Both of them were not considered outstanding among imperial-level powerhouses, but they had extraordinary talent in the cultivation of the ancient methods.

He knew that there would be more Fu Minghans and Qi Haos in the future. Inevitably, there would be people who were even more powerful than the duo.

Lin Huang's emotions calmed down after a moment of silence.

He clicked into the Genius Union and logged in. He had been on checkpoint 55 the last time he logged out, and he remained on the same checkpoint when he logged in now.

Looking at the gigantic plants around him, Lin Huang knew he was still in the Secret Forest.

After confirming his direction, the internal communication line in the Genius Union rang all of a sudden when he was ready to kill.

He opened the communication page and realized it was Chan Dou who was calling.

Lin Huang pressed the button to pick up. "Yes?"

"You've finally logged in! I haven't seen you here since over half a year ago." Chan Dou was wearing a white shirt like he always did and a pair of black slacks. He gave people the impression that he came from a wealthy family.

"I've been busy."

"I heard that your combat strength has had a major elevation. So, which checkpoint do you plan to get to this time?" Chan Dou asked excitedly.

"My goal's checkpoint 63, but I'm not sure which checkpoint will I be able to get to," Lin Huang said while smiling.

"It's great that you have a goal. Just work towards it," Chan Dou gave him words of encouragement.

"I don't suppose you called just for this?" Lin Huang faintly sensed that Chan Dou had something else to say.

"You saw through me." Chan Dou chuckled. "Nothing much. I just want to tell you that I'm going to elevate to imperial-level."

Naturally, Lin Huang knew what that meant. Elevating to imperial-level would mean quitting the Genius Union automatically. It would mean that Chan Dou would lose his chief position in the Heaven Alliance.

"That's sudden. Did something happen?" Chan Dou's unexpected decision surprised Lin Huang indeed.

"Actually, I'm almost done with the early preparations," Chan Dou said with a grin, "Indeed, something that made me choose to elevate now has happened."

Lin Huang blinked his eyes and roughly guessed the reason.

"You'd find out about this sooner or later, so it wouldn't hurt for me to tell you now." Chan Dou did not plan to hide anything. "The Union Government got a bunch of ancient cultivation methods from somewhere earlier. It was said that cultivating those methods could elevate a person to virtual god-level. Many organizations and clans are in discussion with the Union Government about this.

"However, the Union Government's still unwilling to open the methods to more people at the moment. They're planning to get imperial-level powerhouses to test the methods out for two years and the quota for each organization is limited. Our clan was given a few slots and one of them is reserved for me. I can only cultivate them officially when I've elevated to imperial-level.

"Initially, I didn't want to rush into it since there's already a quota reserved for me. After all, I could wait for a year or more before elevating to imperial-level. However, there was a piece of news that broke from the Hunter Association that gave the elderly members in our clan a sense of danger. It was said that there are two people who have cultivated to holy fire-level in less than a month. They think that these two might elevate to Virtual Gods a year later. Hence, they're urging me to elevate to imperial-level so that I can cultivate the ancient methods."

Lin Huang was speechless upon hearing that. He could not believe that even Chan Dou, one of the Five Princes, could not escape being controlled by his family.

He could tell that Chan Dou was not ready to elevate to imperial-level yet. Perhaps he had yet to find a Life Base monster that was perfectly compatible, or maybe he had found it but had no confidence to defeat it.

Although such a situation in which his family rushed him into things seemed minor, in the long run, it was unfavorable for Chan Dou.

Although he was the Fourth Prince who was above all immortal-level powerhouses, if he did not choose the right Life Base monster, he would lose his title when he achieved imperial-level and might not even be in the top ten with people of the same level.

"I think it's better that you drag it out as long as you can. Don't mess up your own rhythm." Lin Huang could only give him that piece of advice. Although he thought that Chan Dou's clan behavior of 'killing the goose that lays golden egg' was not encouraged, he was just an outsider after all. It was not his place to comment on other people's business within the family.

"I've been dragging it out for almost two months now. There's nothing else that I can do." Chan Dou forced a smile helplessly. Naturally, he knew what the consequences entailed. "Never mind. Let's not talk about me."

"Try to get to checkpoint 63 this time. If you succeed, my recommendation to make you the Heaven Alliance's deputy chief will have an 80% success rate."

"What?!" Lin Huang was stunned to hear that.

"Since Tang Lang left before the New Year, the position for deputy chief has been vacant. You were already on my waiting list. Tan Lang came looking for me later on and told me that your combat strength has elevated to immortal-level rank-3. That's how you're the first on my list now. If not for your rather low combat strength, I'd even want to relinquish my position as chief to you." Chan Dou could not see Lin Huang's current combat strength because Lin Huang had covered it from being displayed on the Genius Union.

"Oh right, actually, what's your combat strength now? Immortal-level rank-4?" Chan Dou could not help but ask.

"Something like that." Lin Huang was afraid that he might scare Chan Dou if he told the truth, so he decided to hide it. Worried that Chan Dou would ask further, he changed the topic immediately. "Forget about the position. I'm very lazy. It's pretty awesome being an ordinary member."

"Man, don't reject me. I've decided on this." Chan Dou had made up his mind to drag Lin Huang into this no matter what. "It's just a featherbed. You'll only have to put in effort when it's necessary. The chief and the other deputies will handle the usual stuff."

"Alright then…" Lin Huang agreed unwillingly anyway. He knew if he disagreed, Chan Dou would definitely dwell on it. "When do you plan to elevate?"

"Within this month, I guess. I can no longer drag it out." Chan Dou forced a weak smile.

"Great. All the best."

"Thanks, brother! The Heaven Alliance will depend on all of you in the future!"

Lin Huang felt sorry for Chan Dou after hanging up the call.

If Chan Dou elevated his combat strength following his own rhythm, he should be the best of the best among Virtual Gods when he elevated to that level in the future. However, the cultivation now would mess up his rhythm. It might be difficult for him to achieve his peak performance.

"There's a Golden-armored Swine King approaching!" Bloody warned through voice transmission all of a sudden.

Lin Huang turned to look at the direction the monster was coming from. The radius of his Territory skill had expanded to 7,000 meters, so he sensed the swine's movement since the beginning.

"Then, let's begin hunting!" Lin Huang snapped his fingers and summoned Bai and the bunch of imperial monsters.

Lin Huang was in the Secret Forest at checkpoint 55 on the Stairway Tree.

Bai, Lancelot and the other imperial monsters were killing all kinds of monsters along the way towards checkpoint 56.

In reality, the Secret Forest was not a monster level. It was just an area with special rules. Under normal circumstance, the difficulty of this stage would be just the horrible living environment.

However, due to the special rules, many monsters from the monster hordes decided to stay. Since their size was shrunk by 1,000 times, the surface of this level was equivalent to being enlarged a million times, which was huge. The local plants and monsters that were regular-sized seemed gigantic to them whereby the various resources available were unusually rich.

One could say that the total number of monsters on this level was much more than the real number of monsters on the initial checkpoint 56. However, due to the vast surface, the monsters were scattered.

Lin Huang did not waste his time killing monsters here because he had already passed this stage. No matter how many monsters he killed, he would not obtain any points. Even the God Figurines' Combat Souls in his body would not obtain any spiritual energy.

As long as it was a level that the player had already passed, being on the same level again would not reap him any benefit. It would be the same if the player died on the Stairway Tree and began from the first level again.

Using Lin Huang as an example, his highest record on the Stairway Tree was checkpoint 56. If he died for some reason on the Stairway Tree, he would fall back to checkpoint 1. He would not gain any benefit during the arduous process of climbing from checkpoint 1 to checkpoint 55. However, the difficulty of each checkpoint would still remain. The horrible living conditions would be the same as well as the laborious monster hordes. There was no benefit going through the checkpoints again.

Hence, many people would not make it to the same checkpoint they died after putting in so much effort to be at a certain checkpoint. Not surpassing the checkpoint where one failed before would mean no benefit for them. That was the reason why many feared to die on the Stairway Tree.

Only a handful of powerhouses who possessed absolute ability were not scared of death because they had the ability to get to the checkpoint they died at.

After spending over an hour passing through the Secret Forest, Lin Huang brought his imperial monsters to checkpoint 56.

This checkpoint was a monster level and there were monsters called the Combat Hornetdemons all over the place.

Lin Huang only dared to attack a hornets' nest the last time. Then, he had not wanted to create a big commotion in fear that the hornets' nests around would surround him. He was frightened that the hornet queen and hornet guardians would sense him, which would spell trouble for him.

However, he was fearless this time with his bunch of imperial-level crimson gold-rank imperial monsters.

Those Combat Hornetdemons were just high-level immortal-levels and could not even break through the defenses of Bai and the rest since they were on imperial-level crimson gold-rank. They were no threat to them.

Lin Huang smirked slightly when he saw the first hornet nest not far away as soon as he stepped out of the Secret Forest.

"Apart from Bloody, everyone, scatter. Each of you will handle one hornets' nest. Clear them as soon as you can," Lin Huang ordered, "The first three who clear the nest first will get rewards when we get out of here."

The eyes of Lancelot, Tyrant and the rest lit up as soon as they heard about the potential rewards.

Under Bloody's guidance, Bai and the other 12 monsters soon scattered and began the one-sided massacre after finding a hornets' nest each.

All of the imperial monsters that had demigod relics with them were much faster at killing compared to the time they were in the Fallen God Land.

At the moment, Bai was mainly cultivating towards the direction of a sword cultivator. Lin Huang shared almost all of his Sword Dao inheritance with Bai. For this mission, Bai intentionally fell back on the better swords while he picked a mid-grade demigod battle sword relic. Among the 13, he had the slowest killing speed because he was using those Combat Hornetdemons to practice his sword skills.

Tyrant, who initially fought with his fists, picked up a pair of demigod-level battle axes this time. The two battle axes were mid-grade demigod relics and soon, he was killing the Combat Hornetdemons with the swing of the axes like he was slicing fruits.

The Malachian Fiend looked through the pile of hammer axes and eventually chose an enormous mace. The mace had a solid grip whereby the Combat Hornetdemons would turn into a pile of mush whenever he swung it. Fortunately, the monsters that were killed on the Stairway Tree would disappear directly and would not affect anything since there were no carcasses to be collected.

The battle sword that Killer held was the supreme-grade demigod relic that Lin Huang had just obtained. Many Combat Hornetdemons were killed immediately as soon as the sword was brandished. It was no different from cutting chives. Lin Huang had yet to be on imperial-level for now, so he was unable to use that supreme-grade battle sword. Killer, who was also a sword cultivator, was lucky to be using the sword instead.

Meanwhile, for Lancelot, it took Lin Huang a while to gather 19 demigod sword relics for him and his 18 sword servants. Luckily, their performance was up to expectations whereby their killing speed was the fastest among the 13 teams.

The Evil Dominator could not turn into an imperial-level human due to the restriction on the Stairway Tree. He turned his appearance into Killer again. However, he was only using an expert-grade demigod battle sword relic while his killing speed was slightly slower than Killer.

The two knights picked a mid-grade demigod spear each. Their combat strength elevated to imperial-level yellow gold-rank even when they remained in their original knight form without merging. No monster could survive the first swing of their spears.

Initially, Lin Huang planned to get Grimace and the Imp, who possessed telekinesis, demigod-level telekinetic weapons. However, he had none with him, so he could only lend them two sets of ancient-level telekinetic flying daggers. Nevertheless, with their imperial-level crimson gold-rank telekinetic power, their killing speed was pretty remarkable while they mastered their own set of ancient-level telekinetic flying daggers.

Among the 13 groups of imperial monsters, the one who was fastest at killing would be the Warlord. Although Lin Huang did not get him any demigod relics, apart from reserving the scarce materials, he basically gave all the materials that he had obtained to Warlord to come up with his mechanical army. Not only was the mechanical army boosted to 300,000-strong now, but their quality also experienced a major improvement compared to before. The Warlord was winning in quantity and he could clear a hornets' nest within a few minutes.

Under Bloody's guidance on the map, all the hornets' nests on checkpoint 56 were exterminated.

As the massacre went on, the combat strength of the three new God Figurines' Combat Souls was skyrocketing.

Iron-level, bronze-level, silver-level, gold-level, holy fire-level…

Instead of using the ancient-level soul crystal directly, he replenished the spiritual energy for the three God Figurines by killing monsters because it was rather easy to elevate the combat strength of the God Figurines before they reached imperial-level. To be exact, elevating the combat strength of the God Figurines would not be very difficult before they reached imperial-level yellow gold-rank. The soul crystal could definitely be reserved until it was difficult for them to elevate just by killing monsters.

Lin Huang had yet to use the demigod-level soul crystal for now. He could not make up his mind about which Combat Soul he should elevate to imperial-level purple gold-rank first.

The other thing that was skyrocketing together with his God Figurines' combat strength was his points on the Stairway Tree.

One must know that there were usually 20,000 to 30,000 Combat Hornetdemons in one hornets' nest. Some of the population could even go up to 50,000.

Moreover, all the Combat Hornetdemons were high-level immortal-level. Even if they were just on immortal-level rank-7, killing one would earn him 640 points while killing an immoral-level rank-9 Combat Hornetdemon would earn him 2,560 points.

Apart from the Warlord and Lancelot who were using an army of their own, the rest of them had a similar killing speed whereby they cleared one hornets' nest within approximately half an hour. Even Bai, who was practicing his sword skills by killing the monsters, only spent over 40 minutes to clear one hornets' nest.

Lancelot, on the other hand, spent less than ten minutes. He could clear one nest within seven to eight minutes. The Warlord was even faster whereby he could clear one within two to three minutes.

This also caused Lin Huang's points to skyrocket to over hundreds of millions despite only staying on checkpoint 56 for less than 20 minutes. He became No. 1 on the Stairway Tree leaderboard once again.

The sudden appearance of Lin Xie made everyone's jaws drop again.

People had forgotten the name since it had been half a year since it last appeared.

Not only did it appear out of nowhere, but it also landed in the No. 1 spot on the leaderboard without anyone seeing it coming. Every Genius Union member who was online recalled how terrifying this name Lin Xie was on the leaderboard last year.

The big boss had returned half a year later!

"He obtained hundreds of millions of points and got No. 1 directly. It's so insane!"

"His speed's scary! The points are rising by tens of millions almost every minute!"

"Damn, he's killing monsters like it's a game to him."

"He's clearly cheating!"

Some people were not surprised that Lin Xie was slaying on the leaderboard again, but there were still some sour grapes who reported him for cheating.

Soon, the Genius Union members who were online spread the word about Lin Xie achieving No. 1 on the Stairway Tree leaderboard out of nowhere. Many members who were offline logged in to see it for themselves after hearing the news.

After logging in, many members from various organizations lifted their head to look at the number on the first place of the leaderboard that was skyrocketing continuously.

"It's increasing by tens of millions in a minute. Could it be a system glitch?"

The happiest people had to be the Heaven Alliance members. They could not help but cheer looking at Lin Huang returning with a bang half a year later.

The fame of the Heaven Alliance was boosted once again.

At a corner on the Stairway Tree, Yi Zheng, who found some time to log in after hearing the news, looked at the first name on the leaderboard. He was silent for a long time as he looked at the number that was continuously increasing before muttering softly, "So, this is your real ability, eh?"

On the other corner on the Stairway Tree, Yi Yeyu had just logged in too. She was in slight disbelief when she saw the name Lin Xie on the leaderboard. "Did this fella cheat at all?"

The Heaven Alliance members watched on the Stairway Tree's checkpoint 63.

Ever since Lin Huang had logged in, Chan Dou had been following the changes in Lin Huang's points. He was the only person to witness Lin Huang's entire progress of achieving No. 1 on the Stairway Tree leaderboard all of a sudden.

"He's worthy of being the man I, Chan Dou, look up to the most!"

The high management of the major organizations who were online including the Hong Alliance and the Tang Alliance began to discuss this absurd turn of event.

"Initially, I thought that the Heaven Alliance would fall since Chan Dou's leaving, but now Lin Xie's rising."

"Lin Xie was only on golden flame-level at the end of August last year. It has only been less than eight months. The most he could've achieved would be immortal-level rank-2. Even if he's on immortal-level rank-3, he's still very far away from getting to immortal-level rank-9. No matter how talented he is, it would take at least a year and a half to two years to really grow."

"We shouldn't look at his personal combat strength. No matter what he's relying on, which one of you could kill tens of thousands of Combat Hornetdemons within a minute? Those Combat Hornetdemons are all on high-level immortal-level, but he's killing them like he's chopping vegetables."

"Indeed, it's beyond terrifying if we're talking about combined abilities. I'm afraid that even Chan Dou can't do that."

"No matter what his personal combat strength is now. His combined abilities have far surpassed ordinary immortal-level rank-9 powerhouses. It's just a matter of time for him to possibly become the second Chan Dou and even surpass the man himself!"

"It's unfortunate that Chan Dou has taken such an extraordinary bud."

A chief and three deputy chiefs gathered in one of the Divine Alliance meeting rooms. It was an emergency meeting.

The Divine Alliance chief, Zhong Liyan, sat in the main seat as he glanced at the other three.

"I'll begin since everyone's here. The reason for gathering all of you here is because of that fella named Lin Xie from the Heaven Alliance. All of you should've already seen the Stairway Tree leaderboard. I think that fella could be our next target."

"He's on checkpoint 56 now. Looking at his speed, indeed he's a great sacrifice. He's nothing less than that Chan Dou." The bald man on Zhong Liyan's left was the first to voice his opinion.

"Killing tens of thousands of high-level immortal-level monsters within a minute… That's pretty amazing." The only lady among the four chuckled softly.

"He's only on immortal-level no matter how powerful he is. Even Chan Dou has to run away from imperial-level yellow gold-rank powerhouses. He's no match for powerhouses of such combat strength." The last who spoke was a fair, sinister-looking man.

"So, should we make him our next target?" Zhong Liyan glanced at the three again.

"I agree." The bald man was the first to vote.

"I've no comment on that as long as we don't miss." The lady twirled her hair while looking at her crimson nails with her head held low like it did not concern her.

"I've no comment too.' The fair man nodded and proceeded to speak, "But I suggest that we only talk about the details after we've captured the current sacrifice target before capturing Lin Xie. Our main focus should be on the current sacrifice now. After all, the current target isn't even an easy one."

"Sure, so we're set on the next sacrifice. We'll talk about the details again. That's all for today." Zhong Liyan stood up as soon as he was finished. He held his fist and placed it on his heart confidently. "Glory to the Lord!"

The rest stood up immediately and posed the same way. "Glory to the Lord!"

…

Lin Huang had no idea about what happened at all. Even if he did, he would not take it to heart.

He had been practicing his demigod-level sword skills while Bai and the rest were hunting since he had nothing else to do.

There were at least tens of thousands of hornets' nests on the Stairway Tree's checkpoint 56. At their speed, they could clear 40 to 50 nests within an hour if they tried hard enough. Even if they hunted for 24 hours without stopping, they could clear just over 1,000 nests a day at the most. Moreover, the Stairway Tree would refresh the monsters every day. After clearing 1,000 hornets' nests today, another 1,000 nests would appear out of nowhere tomorrow. They could never clear all of the hornets' nests.

Lin Huang was only planning on killing the monsters as he made his way up as he just wanted the points.

After spending over an hour killing Combat Hornetdemons, Bai and the rest had killed more than millions of monsters in total.

The three new God Figurines' Combat Souls in Lin Huang's body had finally elevated to imperial-level black gold-rank. His points had surpassed 800 million and were close to one billion.

However, Bloody spoke through voice transmission while smiling all of a sudden, "The hornet queen has noticed the unusualness and is coming our way." Bloody projected a surveillance image as it spoke.

In the projected image, there was a conglomerate of hundreds of hornets' nests with up to tens of millions of Combat Hornetdemons sweeping like locusts.

There were over 300 Combat Hornetdemons in the middle of the swamp of hornets that were clearly different from the rest.

Their size was much smaller whereby the length of their bodies was only five to six meters. Meanwhile, most parts of their body were golden and they looked much more elegant.

However, one should not underestimate those Combat Hornetdemons that seemed a little different. They were the hornet queen's guardians. Each of them had combat strength of peak immortal-level rank-9 and all of them were triple mutated. They were not afraid of death when they battled and they had distinguished abilities.

There was a huge hornet queen in the middle of the hornet guardians. She was much bigger than an ordinary Combat Hornetdemon. Her body was more than 100 meters long. While the top part of her abdomen looked normal, ger bottom looked extremely swollen. She looked eight to nine months pregnant.

In addition to that, it could not fly, so it depended on the 200 hornet guardians carrying it. The remaining 100 or so hornet guardians were responsible for the safety around it.

"It has to be carried when it's out. How high and mighty!" Lin Huang teased while grinning.

Fight!

Seven to eight months ago, Lin Huang did not have the absolute confidence to break through checkpoint 56 since Bai and the rest of his imperial monsters were only on immortal-level rank-9. They would have to bypass the hornet queen and her guardians if they encountered them and try to avoid them as much as they could.

However, Lin Huang's personal combat strength was on immortal-level rank-7 now while all of his imperial monsters had elevated to imperial-level crimson gold-rank which was two ranks above the hornet queen and her guardians. There were seven God Figurines' Combat Souls Lin Huang's body, four of which had a combat strength of imperial-level white gold-rank. They were practically invincible.

Even though the hornet queen and the hornet guardians were advancing with an army of tens of millions of Combat Hornetdemons, they were just free meat to Lin Huang now. He even wanted the hornet queen to bring her entire army. If that happened, the God Figurines' Combat Souls in his body might elevate to imperial-level purple gold-rank without him even using a demigod soul crystal.

"I love those monsters who have self-awareness and lay themselves across my doorstep." Lin Huang grinned as he watched the majestic Combat Hornetdemon army that Bloody projected. "This is going to save so much of my time!"

"In reality, Chan Dou could only run away if he was to encounter such a large-scale bug horde." Even Bloody could not help but pity the hornet queen. "Too bad the hornet queen has made an enemy out of us."

Although there was a massive amount of Combat Hornetdemons coming, Lin Huang's imperial monsters had the upper hand.

One of the reasons for the one-sidedness was the suppression of combat strength. The Combat Hornetdemons could not even break the defenses of Bai and the rest. The other reason was that Lin Huang had an endless supply of Life Power, giving his imperial monsters infinite strength to show their trump cards without having to worry about straining themselves.

If Bai and the rest had their hands tied, Lin Huang would get his God Figurines' Combat Souls to fight. This bug horde were dead fishes on his chopping board. There was no way for them to turn the tables around.

The hornet queen was coming close to where Lin Huang was at with her Combat Hornetdemon army. There were Combat Hornetdemons streaming out of the hornets' nests along the way, joining the army.

Around half an hour later, the hornet queen finally arrived. The Combat Hornetdemon army had grown from 10 million to 50 million along the way.

Watching the arrival of the bug horde, Lin Huang recalled all of the Monster Cards that were fighting out there in a relaxed manner. He then summoned the monsters who were more suitable for mass battling.

"This horde should earn me tens of billions of points."

The Combat Hornetdemons did not attack right away without the hornet queen's order. Instead, they opened a path, letting the hornet guardians escort their queen out.

Lin Huang did not rush into things since the hornet queen did not attack immediately. He wanted to know what she was up to.

After being escorted out by the hornet guardians like it was sitting atop a mini hill, the hornet queen first glanced through the summoning beasts before Lin Huang with its compound eyes before finally resting them on Lin Huang.

"Human, if I'm not mistaken, these imperial-level monsters should be your summoning beasts, am I right?" A voice came into Lin Huang's ears out of nowhere. She sounded like a matured lady.

"Yes. Is there a problem?" Lin Huang raised his brow, surprised that the hornet queen had spoken. It was the first local monster that had ever vocalized anything among all the 56 checkpoints Lin Huang had been on.

"Your summoning beasts killed many of my children just now. How do you want to settle this?" The hornet queen asked.

"How do you want to settle this?" Lin Huang asked her back.

"There's a human phrase that goes 'a murderer must pay with his life'. Give your summoning beasts to us, then we'll forget about what you did. To remedy the loss of your summoning beasts, I'll give you a pass through checkpoint 56." The hornet queen named her request.

"What if I don't agree to that?" Lin Huang asked.

"I admit your summoning beasts are very powerful but do you really think your dozen summoning beasts are a match for my million-strong army? You must be dreaming then!" The hornet queen cackled and reminded Lin Huang, "You must know that there's an end to one's Life Power even if you're an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse."

"The reason why you didn't attack immediately is that you sensed my imperial-level aura and you daren't be hasty. You're negotiating terms with me calmly because you know you'll lose badly if you fight me since you found out that all of my summoning beasts are imperial-level crimson gold-rank powerhouses. You just want to take my trump cards that can fight you away, so you're advising me to surrender my summoning beasts as well as offering me a pass through the checkpoint. As soon as I agree to that and give you my summoning beasts, you'll definitely break your promise right away and kill me.

"In reality, the terms that you gave aren't convincing to me at all. I don't need your permission to pass through checkpoint 56 of this Stairway Tree. Also, I've been waiting for your great Combat Hornetdemon army for a long time. I won't have to waste my imperial monsters' time to go for the nests one by one since you've brought them over. You've saved much of my time and I really want to thank you for that."

"Outrageous!" The hornet queen was completely enraged even before Lin Huang was done speaking.

He did not take the hornet queen or her Combat Hornetdemon army seriously.

"Since you're rejecting my kind advice, then we'll fight! When all of your Life Power has been drained, I'll inject a toxin into you myself and watch you die slowly!" The hornet guardians retreated while carrying the hornet queen as soon as she was done speaking. The sea of Combat Hornetdemons was charging at Lin Huang like a wave.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang shouted at the hornet queen that was already drowned out by the hornets, "I forgot to tell you one thing. Indeed, an imperial-level purple gold-rank would have his Life Power drained, but not me!"

As soon as Lin Huang declared that, Bai and the rest began fighting with the Combat Hornetdemons.

The Warlord could finally release all of his mechanical army without holding back. His 300,000-strong mechanical army fired violently and the Combat Hornetdemons fell onto the ground without having the strength to fight back at all.

It was an imperial-level crimson gold-rank mechanical army after all. Even an imperial-level yellow gold-rank powerhouse would have to avoid them, let alone the Combat Hornetdemons that were only on immortal-level. The tremendous mechanical army was like a gigantic meat grinder on the battlefield. Everything was killed wherever it passed by.

Apart from the Warlord, Bloody finally controlled its parasitic armies to battle. One of the parasitic armies was made of tens of thousands of triple mutated immortal-level rank-9 monsters while another consisted of thousands of imperial-level monsters. Bloody named them his immortal army and his imperial army.

Under the battle formations, the two armies turned into two enormous beasts that rampaged among the bugs. They were invincible.

Meanwhile, Charcoal's killing speed was nothing slower than Bloody's armies. Even the imperial-level yellow gold-rank monsters dared not touch its Dragon Flames. The immortal-level Combat Hornetdemons died as soon as they came in contact with the flames. Unfortunately for the Combat Hornetdemons, they were like moths drawn to flames and turned into dust one after another.

Bing Wang fought with all he had as well. The land turned into ice wherever he passed while countless Combat Hornetdemons turned into crystal-clear ice sculptures.

As Bloody Robe's red robes fluttered, volcanoes appeared out of thin air one after another. Fiery lava was spreading everywhere like water and all of the Combat Hornetdemons were drowned everywhere the lava flowed.

Thunder, on the other hand, flapped its wings while a ferocious gleam sparkled in its eyes. Gray thunder clouds were forming in the sky rapidly and they soon covered half of the sky. Countless purple lightning bolts struck like punishment raining from God, taking out countless Combat Hornetdemons.

Lancelot and the Sword Dominator unleashed their Sword Manipulation to the peak, making countless swords fly among the bugs. The Combat Hornetdemons were pierced one after another continuously.

Grimace was doing a similar thing whereby he was controlling the telekinetic flying daggers to destroy the enemies at lightning speed. His speed was nothing less than Lancelot's.

Meanwhile, the Imp summoned meteorites that fell one after another rapidly like nuclear explosions.

The thumb-sized Eclipse Boa opened its mouth which was like a bottomless black hole. Many Combat Hornetdemons lost control of their bodies and were sucked into its mouth. The Combat Hornetdemons were shrinking at an alarming speed and eventually, they turned into black spots that were the size of sesame seeds before they were eaten.

The Malachian Fiend used Megamorth to boost his body to hundreds of meters tall. It walked around among the bugs like a massive tank.

The Herculean King regained his original size of over 2,000 meters tall. He was a few times bigger than the Malachian Fiend and could kill a bunch of Combat Hornetdemons with one single slap.

Tyrant, who had regained its original size, was more than 20,000 meters tall. Even the great, lush mountain became a tiny slope before him. It was Lin Huang's first time seeing Tyrant's original size since it became triple mutated. Many Combat Hornetdemons were smashed into powder as soon as he stomped his feet.

Bai also held nothing back at all. He had fallen into a frenzy. There was a layer of bloody mist surrounding his entire body. The bloody mist had vine-like tentacles extending out of it and they pierced through the Combat Hornetdemons one by one. The attacked hornets' bodies soon shriveled up as if any liquid in them had been sucked dry. Meanwhile, the bloody mist around Bai's body was getting thicker and its coverage was getting wider. More and more tentacles extended out of the bloody mist.

Lin Huang's points saw a hike by tens of folds on the Stairway Tree leaderboard ever since the hornet queen arrived with her army.

Bloody and the rest fought with all their might as soon as the imperial monsters were replaced with those that were great in mass killing. They had no concern about draining their Life Power. Naturally, their killing speed was faster than before.

Lin Huang's points were rising by 300 to 400 million per minute on the Stairway Tree leaderboard.

The countless Genius Union members who were online were dumbstruck as they watched the numbers fly by.

"What's happening? His points have risen by close to 400 million within a minute!"

"It must be a system malfunction! Maybe Lin Xie's points increased too quickly, causing the Stairway Tree leaderboard to become faulty."

"The tens million points per minute earlier was scary enough and now it's a few hundred million per minute, so was he warming up just now?"

"He has to be cheating! Even if all the monsters that he's killing on checkpoint 56 are on immortal-level rank-9, 400 million points would be somewhere around 156,000 monsters if we're talking about 2,560 points for each monster. How could anyone possibly kill 150,000 monsters within a minute?!"

However, the truth was that there were more immortal-level rank-7 monsters in the Combat Hornetdemon army while there were only some on immortal-level rank-9. Lin Huang's imperial monster army was killing more than 500,000 monsters a minute.

Lin Huang had no idea that the surge of his points had become a hot topic among everyone in the Genius Union once again.

Compared to before, most of the people thought his speed this time was fake because it was just extremely unusual.

Hence, many people reported Lin Huang this time.

In the Heaven Alliance residence on checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree, Chan Dou had been following Lin Huang's progress in points. He figured what happened roughly.

"His points are skyrocketing once again. I suppose he encountered the bug army led by the hornet queen!"

"This Lin Xie dares to fight on just like that. One must know that it's a bug horde consisting of tens of millions of Combat Hornetdemons." Chan Dou was sure that he himself would not have such guts. It might be difficult for him to escape as soon as he was drowned by the bug horde. Even if he had an ancient armor relic, each attack would drain his Life Power and he would be dead if his Life Power was completely exhausted.

"The Combat Hornetdemons on checkpoint 56 are just on high-level immortal-level. Obtaining 300 to 400 million points each minute would mean that he'd have to kill 400,000 to 500,000 Combat Hornetdemons per minute. His speed of killing is just terrifying! How the hell is he doing it?!" Chan Dou did not think that Lin Huang was cheating, but he could not figure out how he was achieving that.

The high management of the Hong Alliance and the other organizations were having the same doubts.

They also roughly figured that Lin Huang was fighting with the hornet queen on checkpoint 56 of the Stairway Tree. However, they could not figure out how Lin Huang had managed to achieve such a killing speed no matter how hard they cracked their heads.

Meanwhile, the battle was on-going at checkpoint 56 of the Stairway Tree.

The Combat Hornetdemons were dying by batches just like moths drawn to a flame. It was tragic and devastating.

The hornet queen that was sure that it would win in the beginning was completely dumbstruck as it watched the performance of Lin Huang's summoning beasts. They seemed to have cheat codes in them whereby they threw their trump cards continuously as if their Life Power cost them nothing.

"Is he giving it his all since he knows he can't run?" The hornet queen could not understand that but she pitied its children.

Even she had to admit that the speed of Lin Huang's summoning beasts was terrifying. Over 500,000 of its children were dying every minute.

Looking at the rate things were going, the 50 million-strong army would be decimated within an hour and a half.

However, the hornet queen had no plan of retreating at all. "I want to see how long you guys can take it!"

As time went by, she began to regret a little.

The battle had been one-sided since the beginning. Initially, she thoughts she had the upper hand in numbers whereby she could drain Lin Huang and his summoning beasts' Life Power. As soon as their Life Power was drained, that would spell death for Lin Huang and the rest. How could she have known that those summoning beasts were still fighting with all their might after 20 minutes had passed as if their Life Power was endless?

"Can their Life Power really be infinite?" Suddenly, the hornet queen thought of what Lin Huang said earlier. "Indeed, an imperial-level purple gold-rank would have their Life Power drained but not me!"

The thought only stayed in the hornet queen's head for a flash before it was forgotten. "How is it possible for one to have endless Life Power? There must be a limit no matter how much Life Power one has!"

With that thought, the hornet queen chose to fight Lin Huang head-on. "I don't believe I can't drain all of your Life Power!"

Soon, another 20 minutes passed by. Lin Huang's summoning beasts were having fun throwing their trumps cards like before. None of them looked tired.

The hornet queen was finally shaken.

Among the 50 million Combat Hornetdemons that she had brought, more than 20 millions of them had been killed, which was almost half of them.

"Could their Life Power really be endless?"

Lin Huang had been hovering mid-air, not involving himself in the battle from the beginning. Bloody did not let any of the Combat Hornetdemons go, so there was no chance for Lin Huang to fight at all.

The 40 minutes that had passed not only boosted his points on the Stairway Tree leaderboard, but the combat strength of the three new God Figurines' Combat Souls in his body elevated to imperial-level yellow gold-rank.

Initially, he thought the three new God Figurines' Combat Souls would only get to imperial-level yellow gold-rank after receiving sufficient spiritual energy when he reached checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree. How could he have thought that he would achieve it earlier than expected?

Noticing that the hornet queen had given him a massive gift, Lin Huang could not help but begin to like her even now.

"Now, it doesn't seem as ugly as it was before. Maybe this hornet queen's the type whereby the more you look at it, the prettier she becomes!"

However, the hornet queen felt the complete opposite about Lin Huang.

In the beginning, she thought Lin Huang and his summoning beasts were just sitting ducks. She thought that by just sacrificing some Combat Hornetdemons, she would drain this human and his summoning beasts to their deaths sooner or later.

Unfortunately, now, she was tempted to retreat with its remaining army.

If Lin Huang's summoning beasts were to proceed to kill like this, the 50 million Combat Hornetdemons that she brought would be destroyed completely within an hour.

"No, I can't let them kill like this!" The hornet queen was panicking and her eyes soon stared at Lin Huang who had yet to fight since the start. The intent to kill was rising in her eyes.

As long as he died, his summoning beasts would be gone too! 1

As she thought about this, the hornet queen communicated with the hornet guardians secretly, issuing an order to assassin Lin Huang.

The 100 or so hornet guardians formed a team and scattered away. They rejoined the battle from all directions as individual hornet guardians.

They looked like they were new additions to the battlefield on the surface, but in reality, they were targeting Lin Huang. The hornet guardians hid among the bugs and approached him stealthily.

Of course, Lin Huang could clearly see what the hornet guardians had done.

The radius of his territory had expanded to seven kilometers, so he could sense everything that happened within the region covered by his territory.

The odd movements of the hundreds of hornet guardians were visible like lights in dark.

Bloody, who was in charge of the overall situation, noticed that as well. Just as it was about to instruct the army of puppets to launch an attack, Lin Huang stopped it.

"Let them come. It's time for me to practice with my sword." Lin Huang chuckled. "If you aren't going to give them any chances, the hornet queen might bail out and escape with the team."

As soon as Bloody heard what he said, he reluctantly allowed a few of the hornet guardians to enter.

Although it knew that Lin Huang had terrifying abilities, only three of them were allowed to enter.

Right after they managed to break through their defense, they rushed towards Lin Huang who was ever ready to fight.

Both parties were locked in the battle and it was an interesting fight.

All the hornet guardians were on immortal-level rank-9 and had completed their third mutations. In fact, they were not weak at all. They were just slightly weaker compared to the Herculean King when it was on immortal-level rank-9.

When Lin Huang had been on immortal-level rank-1, he was capable of fighting an immortal-level rank-9. Since he was currently on immortal-level rank-7, in addition to his Sword Dao achieving Level-6, he could even fight a yellow gold-rank. He was capable of killing a crimson gold-rank with ease.

It seemed like they were locked in a fight. However, he was just practicing his sword skills with them.

He was afraid that if all the hornet guardians were killed within seconds, the hornet queen would bail out of the battle.

Watching Lin Huang being engaged in an intense fight from afar, the hornet queen was worried but felt exhilarated.

She was worried because the hornet guardians failed to attack Lin Huang and they were unable to kill the human Imperial Censor. However, she was smug that the Imperial Censor was not that strong and they might probably win the fight.

However, the fight was miserable for the few hornet guardians. They could tell how powerful he was. His sword controlled them and they became his puppets. The only thing they could do was follow the movements of his sword skills. Otherwise, they would die in the next second.

Their opponent seemed to have isolated them from the outside world whereby they were unable to contact the hornet queen to report their actual situation.

Bloody then allowed more hornet guardians to enter. Lin Huang only let himself be surrounded by about three hornet guardians. If there were more than that, he would begin to take them out.

The hornet queen then panicked while the number of Combat Hornetdemons reduced drastically every minute as they were slaughtered by Bai and the rest of the imperial monsters.

The people seemed to have gotten used to the rapidly increasing points on the leaderboard of the Stairway Tree.

Lin Xie's points increased by about 300 million every minute and the growth in his points lasted for an hour. The total points which he had accumulated exceeded 20 billion.

What could 20 billion points buy?

The price of a god relic or a god item would start from 10 billion points in the Stairway Mall. Lin Xie's current points were sufficient to exchange for two basic god items or god relics!

The slaughter continued on the 56th checkpoint of the Stairway Tree.

Hundreds of hornet guardians that attacked Lin Huang were killed. The hornet queen then realized that she was being fooled by the human.

Among the 300 hornet guardians, a third of them had died. Initially, there were 50 million Combat Hornetdemons, but about 30 million of them were killed.

The hornet queen then knew that it would lose the fight.

The Life Power of her opponent's imperial monsters was inexhaustible. They could unleash their powerful skills with ease. Moreover, the difference in the combat strength between them was too huge. They were unable to break through the defense as their opponent was extremely strong. If it persisted, 50 million Combat Hornetdemons would eventually be killed.

Although she was annoyed, the hornet queen soon managed to calm down.

A peculiar buzz from the hornet queen could be heard. Soon after, there was a sudden change in the formation of the Combat Hornetdemons.

Millions of Combat Hornetdemons got into a defensive position and many of the Combat Hornetdemons began to move backward, heading towards the hornet queen.

"They're about to retreat!" Bloody, who was monitoring the situation of the battle all the while, immediately noticed that something was off. It knew what the hornet queen's intention was.

"Do you want to retreat? It's not that easy!" Lin Huang glowered. "Bloody, parasitize them!"

After receiving Lin Huang's instruction, millions of Leech Pods were cast on the Combat Hornetdemons' bodies.

The Combat Hornetdemons that were parasitized began to attack their companions all of a sudden. In an instant, the army of Combat Hornetdemons was in chaos.

Just as the hornet queen wondered what was happening, one of the Leech Pods had secretly parasitized her body. She could immediately sense it and the Leech Pod was quickly destroyed.

"Eh?!"

Bloody was shocked when it failed to parasitize the hornet queen. Soon, it noticed that the hornet queen could probably be a pseudo-mythical-level monster.

It transformed into a purple glow and secretly appeared on top of the hornet queen. Before she could respond, a tentacle was extended towards her head.

The hornet queen struggled for a while. Soon, a purple glow flashed through her eyes. She saw Bloody but did not launch an attack.

Opening her mouth wide, a buzz could be heard again.

A massive amount of bugs soon flipped out and began to bite their companions.

20 million Combat Hornetdemons were all exterminated in less than 10 minutes.

The efficiency of Bloody's parasitizing could be compared to the fight by the rest of the imperial monsters that took half an hour.

Again, Lin Huang witnessed how terrifying the Leech Pods were.

After the battle, only the hornet queen that was being parasitized by Bloody remained alive. All the hornet guardians had died and none of them managed to survive the battle. None of the living beings could leave the Stairway Tree.

"Do you want to let the hornet queen gather more Combat Hornetdemons?" Bloody did not kill the hornet queen because it wanted to ask Lin Huang whether if he still wanted to collect points.

Just as Lin Huang nodded his head in agreement to earn more, the Emperor's Heart Ring that he was wearing suddenly vibrated and he received a pop-up notification.

"Congratulations, Lin Xie, you've passed checkpoint 56!"

Lin Huang frowned. The Stairway Tree could not take it any longer and allowed him to complete that checkpoint. That being said, he could no longer get any rewards if he were to stay at checkpoint 56.

Of course, Bloody saw the notification. It then laughed. "It seems like that's just too much."

"We've just collected about 30 billion points." Lin Huang pouted.

"It's okay. There are checkpoints with monsters later on," Bloody assured. Not far away from them, the hornet queen's head exploded. The headless corpse soon collapsed into bits and disappeared.

Since nobody could take a living puppet away from this place, there was no need to keep it alive.

Lin Huang was upset because he did not receive any notification that he had obtained a complete set of monster cards. "It's too bad that I can't get a complete set of monster cards from the hornet queen."

If he happened to obtain a complete set of monster cards, Lin Huang might have trained it. Since the hornet queen was a pseudo-mythical-level monster, she could form an army of Combat Hornetdemons.

It took them more than an hour to butcher 50 million Combat Hornetdemons. The three new God Figurine's Combat Souls in Lin Huang's body were nurtured by a large amount of spiritual energy and all of them upgraded to white gold-rank. Lin Huang decided to insert the remaining spiritual energy into the Ninetails Lynx's body. However, it was not sufficient for the Ninetails Lynx to advance to purple gold-rank.

Lin Huang's points on the Stairway tree leaderboard finally stopped increasing.

Lin Huang did not expect to be expelled from checkpoint 56 by the Stairway Tree.

However, as he thought about it carefully, there was nothing strange about it. The Stairway Tree became out of balance due to his existence.

Other than the demigods, none of them could fight 50 million immortal-level rank-9 monsters, not even a purple gold-rank would be able to do so.

The combat strength of the members of the Genius Union was restricted to immortal-level rank-9. As for immortal-level rank-9s, even a supreme genius like Chan Dou could only fight a yellow gold-rank at his best.

Having Lin Huang in the Genius Union was like the existence of a programming error.

If it were not because of his combat strength only being on immortal-level rank-7, he would have long been expelled from the Genius Union.

Since he could no longer earn any rewards on checkpoint 56, Lin Huang did not stay there any longer. Recalling Bai and the rest, he then summoned the Herculean King and continued to climb.

What he did not know was that he stirred issues up again as soon as his Stairway Tree points stopped increasing.

On the leaderboard, Lin Xie who ranked first had accumulated more than 35 billion points.

"Take a look at Lin Xie's points. They've stopped increasing!"

"The points have stopped increasing. Did the system just lock it because he cheated?"

Just as the majority of them thought that Lin Huang's points had been locked, the points that he had accumulated changed. However, only the last four digits changed.

That then put a stop to these rumors.

The change in points was because the Herculean King had encountered a lonely Combat Hornetdemon as it climbed up and gave it a hard smack.

After a short while, people noticed that the checkpoint where Lin Huang was at had changed.

"Lin Xie has gotten to checkpoint 57!"

After less than five minutes, again, there was a change in the checkpoint where he was.

"He's on checkpoint 58 now!" Many of them were amazed.

"He managed to break through checkpoint 57 in less than five minutes!"

He now encountered the Devil Swamp on checkpoint 57 of the Stairway Tree. Most people had to be extra careful when they reached this checkpoint. Since creatures from the outside were not allowed to fly when they were on the Stairway Tree, they would sink if they happened to step into the swamp. The swamp had a very strong magnetic force and could engulf humans. Moreover, most of the plants in the swamp had offensive abilities and would attempt to attack the humans who tried to get through that checkpoint.

Normally, in order to get through this checkpoint, one would have to carefully look for a landing point and be cautious of each step they took.

However, Lin Huang aggressively summoned the Herculean King straight away. An ice road was built in the middle of the swamp.

Under normal circumstances, if humans attempted to pave the road this way, it would be destroyed by the plants around. However, the Herculean King was on crimson gold-rank. The ice it made caused the plants surrounding it to freeze-up. Right until the Herculean King and Lin Huang had left checkpoint 57, the plants on both sides had not thawed. In fact, even if these plants did not freeze up, it would be difficult for them to destroy the ice road that had been paved by Herculean King.

Checkpoint 58 was also a checkpoint with monsters. The Mutated Serpent occupied this checkpoint.

More than half a year ago, when Lin Huang was in the Secret Forest, he had encountered this monster.

The Mutated Serpent was a very special type of serpentine monster which would undergo a genetic mutation once in its early phase of life. This mutation caused each of them to be very different from the rest of the Mutated Serpents. Some of them were huge, some could secrete toxin, some were extremely fast, and there were even those that had control over elemental forces. Even twins would be completely different after the mutation.

As for ordinary humans, they would have a headache if they encountered monsters like these because before the Mutated Serpent launched any attack, they would have no idea what abilities it would possess at all.

However, Lin Huang did not mind whether he knew what their abilities were or not since he was capable of defeating them.

When he got to the 58th checkpoint, Lin Huang summoned Bai and the rest of the imperial monsters again. Then, he instructed them to hunt separately.

The reason why he entered the Stairway Tree this round was not to obtain points. His main purpose was to obtain spiritual energy because one could rarely find a place with a dense monster distribution in the real world. Due to limited resources, most of the monsters on holy fire-level and above would not live in groups. Apart from the monster horde from which Lin Huang could obtain spiritual energy, he could hardly find anywhere else he could gather spiritual energy in such a convenient way.

Therefore, even though he was kicked out of checkpoint 56, he still decided to hunt for monsters as soon as he reached checkpoint 58. He did not mind being kicked out again after this wave of the monster horde as the Stairway Tree had no way of overriding the spiritual energy which he had obtained.

Bai and the 13 other imperial monsters left, guided by Bloody. They then began to look for the lair of the Mutated Serpent.

The living habits of the Mutated Serpent on the 58th checkpoint were somewhat similar to that of the Combat Hornetdemons on checkpoint 56. Tens of thousands of Mutated Serpents formed a group, digging a huge serpents' den underground. They lived and multiplied together.

There might be about 20,000 Mutated Serpents in the smaller den while there could be about 200,000 of them living together in the larger den. The capacity of the underground serpents' den was much larger than that of the Combat Hornetdemons'.

Following Bloody's instructions, Bai and the rest sneaked into the serpents' den and wiped them out.

On the leaderboard, Lin Xie's points began to rise again.

Seeing Lin Xie's points increasing again, the members of the Genius Union who were online had gotten used to it by now.

"Do whatever makes you happy since we're just the audience." That was what ran across most of their minds.

While Lin Huang continued obtaining points on checkpoint 58, the Genius Union finally responded to the reports that were made.

A message was instantly sent to everybody's communication devices.

"Since many of you have raised your objections to the rise in Lin Xie's points and have reported him for cheating, the union has repeatedly looked into this matter. From the final results of the investigation, it turns out that Lin Xie did not cheat. Lin Xie managed to obtain a massive amount of points because he killed all the monsters in a proper way. The data of the points are valid and they aren't false data.

"Other than that, many members have suspected that there could've been a system glitch. The system has been both self and externally inspected. The final inspection results show that there's nothing wrong with the system of the Stairway Tree. Please take note of the above."

As soon as the message was received, the Genius Union members began to kick a fuss about it.

"F*ck! He isn't cheating even though he has collected hundreds of millions of points in a minute?! How strong can Lin Xie be?!"

"Lin Xie isn't cheating and there aren't any system glitches. The conclusion is that Lin Xie is cool!"

"Is Lin Xie the son of the Genius Union?"

"He might be an investor of the Genius Union."

If there were human emotions in the Genius Union system, their inner voice might have been saying, "Lin Xie's playing by the rules. What can I do? I'm in despair! He has almost ruined the system! Damn it, I feel like kicking him out!"

The Mutated Serpents were densely distributed in the underground serpents' den. It made it much easier for Bai and the rest to perform the slaughter. Their efficiency was much higher than when they were trying to clear the hornets' nest.

Despite the fact that it could not be compared to their efficiency during the arrival of the army of Combat Hornetdemons, Lin Huang managed to earn about 50 million Stairway Tree points every minute.

If they were to go further up to checkpoint 58, the next checkpoint with monsters would be checkpoint 61.

However, considering that there were not that many Luna Beasts on checkpoint 61, Lin Huang did not choose to pass checkpoint 58 and go further up. Instead, he decided to stay on this checkpoint and continue hunting for monsters.

It lasted for more than seven hours until the sky turned dark. The system did not force Lin Huang to leave either.

Bai and the rest had killed more than 40 million Mutated Serpents in the last seven hours. The total Stairway Tree points Lin Huang had gained had increased by more than 25 billion. However, despite a large amount of spiritual energy being inserted into the Ninetails Lynx's God Figurine, still, it did not manage to level-up to purple gold-rank.

"According to its progress, it seems like if I were to upgrade a God Figurine from white gold-rank to purple gold-rank by absorbing spiritual energy alone, it's going to take up to hundreds of millions of points." Lin Huang knew that the spiritual energy required by God Figurine would increase later on. However, he was surprised by the consumption of a purple gold-rank. "That being said, there are nine Combat Souls and I'll need to kill at least 900 million high-level immortal-level monsters. However, that's only an upgrade from a white gold-rank to a purple gold-rank. The consumption by one rank up…"

Right while Lin Huang was secretly calculating this, Bloody's voice was suddenly heard. "The sky is turning dark soon. Shall we go offline? Or shall we deal with the next wave of monsters?"

"Let's stay for the next wave of monsters." Lin Huang raised his head, gazing at the sky. In fact, dusk was falling and it would probably turn completely dark in less than half an hour. "Let's make it through the night. We go further up tomorrow and there's no need to stay on the 61st checkpoint. The Luna Beasts aren't densely distributed there and it's going to waste a lot of our effort. Let's go straight up to checkpoint 63. We can then go offline and rest."

"Alright!"

Bloody did not mind at all since its combat strength was already on imperial-level. There would not be much effect on it even if they were not going to sleep for months. It had asked so because Lin Huang would sleep every day and rarely stayed up all night.

The main reason why Lin Huang did not like to stay up all night was that he had gotten used to pulling all-nighters when he was on Earth.

However, it would be fine for Lin Huang to stay awake for one night. If an ordinary person did not sleep for the whole night, one would only feel tired the next day. An immortal-level might probably feel tired after not sleeping for a month, but they would definitely feel nothing after staying awake for the entire night for a day.

After 6 p.m., the sky gradually turned dark.

The members of the Genius Union had either gone offline or returned to their stopping point on the Stairway Tree.

However, Lin Huang stayed on checkpoint 58. Seeing the images Bloody projected, the monster horde was about to begin. He had recalled all the monster cards and quickly returned to the starting point of checkpoint 58. He then summoned all the imperial monsters that were adept at killing in a group, patiently waiting for the arrival of the monster horde.

At about 6.30 p.m., it was pitch black. That was when the monster horde appeared!

On the 58th checkpoint of the Stairway Tree, all the Mutated Serpents that were hiding underground during the daytime swarmed out, heading towards checkpoint 55.

After several moments, the first wave of Mutated Serpents bumped into Lin Huang.

Because Lin Huang the rest were blocking their way, they triggered the Mutated Serpents' rage. They could clearly sense human aura which they really despised.

Sensing the existence of Lin Huang, the Mutated Serpents went berserk and pounced towards him. However, before they could approach him, they fell into a variety of traps set by Ghastly.

Although the imperial monsters had yet to launch an attack, all the Mutated Serpents were trapped and died on the spot.

The Mutated Serpents had no fear at all. Instead, they became more aggressive and dove for them.

The effect of Ghastly's trap was quite impressive. Since there were a limited number of traps, they were all used up very soon.

Bai and the rest finally launched an attack and began their slaughter.

The abilities of the Mutated Serpents on checkpoint 58 were not as strong as that of the Combat Hornetdemons that occupied checkpoint 56. The only difference was that they possessed a wide variety of skills. When they encountered Bai and the rest that were on crimson gold-rank, it was a one-sided fight.

The arrival of the monster horde led to a sudden rise in Lin Huang's points. His performance had reached its peak as if he was on checkpoint 56 again. His points increased by about 300 million every minute.

"I wonder how long the system of the Stairway Tree will allow me to earn points. According to the speed of Bai and the rest, if I'm allowed to hunt until the next morning, I'll obtain about 200 billion Stairway Tree points. Moreover, at least three or four of my God Figurines will elevate to purple gold-rank."

Just as Lin Huang did his calculations, he could vaguely feel that things would not go so smoothly. He knew that he had already disrupted the balance of the system.

If the Genius Union allowed him to collect 200 billion points a day, perhaps he would be able to earn sufficient points to buy all the gold relics and god items at the Stairway Mall very soon.

Lin Huang could confirm that the Stairway Tree system would do something to restrict him. However, before a restriction rule was triggered, he would surely earn as many points as he could!

With this thought in mind, Lin Huang continued to hunt for monsters gleefully.

He did not know that other than the Heaven Alliance, the Divine Alliance, and hundreds of other organizations had requested to restrict the points Lin Xie could earn.

According to them, even though Lin Xie did not cheat, the number of points which he had earned had caused the Stairway Tree system to tip out of balance. If Lin Xie was allowed to collect hundreds of billions of points a day, it simply meant that he could own everything available at the Stairway Mall. It was unfair to the rest of the members!

A few of Lin Xie's "criminal evidence" had been provided in the joint request, stating that it would lead to serious consequences.

Chan Dou who was from the Heaven Alliance would, of course, receive the message as well. He made another request on behalf of the Heaven Alliance. However, he knew that it would not help much because Lin Xie did really cause the Stairway Tree system to go out of balance. Even if the people from the Divine Alliance did not bring this issue up, the Stairway Tree system would still put a limit on Lin Xie. It was just a matter of time.

Lin Huang was allowed to accumulate points freely for about five hours and by then, his Stairway Tree points had increased by more than 110 billion. The number of Mutated Serpents and Luna Beasts Bai and the rest had killed during the monster horde had exceeded 200 million monsters. Lin Huang managed to collect a large amount of spiritual energy and he could finally upgrade the Ninetails Lynx and the Destructive Divine Mammoth from white gold-rank to purple gold-rank.

However, at midnight sharp, an announcement suddenly popped up on Lin Huang's communication device.

"Announcement: two new rules have been added to the Stairway Tree system.

"One, the maximum number of points allowed to be collected on each checkpoint is limited to 100 billion. Once the number of points accumulated on each checkpoint has reached its limit, the member will be able to get through the checkpoint. The member won't receive any further rewards on that checkpoint.

"Two, each member is only allowed to collect a maximum of 10 billion points a day. Regardless of which checkpoint on the Stairway Tree and what methods have been used to collect the Stairway Tree points, each member is only allowed to collect 10 billion points at the most. Once the member has collected more than 10 billion points, the member will not be rewarded any longer on that particular checkpoint on the Stairway Tree."

Lin Huang immediately checked the points he had collected as soon as he saw the two new rules being implemented. He was afraid that out of all the points he earned that day, he would only be rewarded 10 billion. Soon, he was relieved when he saw that there were no changes in the points he had accumulated. Apparently, the points which he had obtained before the new rules were introduced would not be impacted.

Although it was within his expectations, Lin Huang was still depressed. "Why are they being so mean? Only 10 billion points are allowed in a day? I can only play for half an hour!"

As soon as the new Stairway Tree's rules were imposed, everybody at the Genius Union was excited. They all knew that this rule was made because of Lin Xie.

Other than Lin Xie, nobody could possibly collect 10 billion points in a day in the Genius Union. Perhaps only Lin Xie could earn 100 billion points on one checkpoint.

Although there seemed to be only two new rules, he was actually highly restricted.

Not each of the checkpoints would have monsters. Going up 10 checkpoints further from checkpoint 58, only checkpoints 61, 63, and 67 had monsters there.

That being said, including checkpoint 58, if Lin Huang were to earn points by killing monsters, he could only gather 400 billion points at the most. In addition to only earning 10 billion points a day, that indicated that it would take him 40 days to gather 400 billion points.

If he were not being restricted, he would only need two nights to gather 400 billion points.

When the new rules were announced, the Divine Alliance and the rest of the organizations that had submitted the request were exhilarated.

Regardless of how cool you were, we can still restrict you with the rules! Don't expect to get the benefits that we can't!

Other than the Divine Alliance and the rest of the organizations, the majority of the members from the Genius Union were enjoying the show.

Lin Xie was never close to me, so why should I help him?

He had gained so many points. If that continued, it would seem like the Genius Union actually belonged to him.

Since the two rules were restricting something that no one could ever achieve, they all thought that they should just watch the show.

Only the Heaven Alliance members and a small number of people felt sorry for Lin Huang.

"Lin Xie must be upset since he's suddenly being restricted." Chan Dou smiled, shaking his head helplessly. If the Genius Union came up with two rules just to restrict him, he would definitely feel annoyed about it.

After a moment of hesitation, Chan Dou sent a message to Lin Huang. "Are you okay?"

Soon, Lin Huang replied, "I'm okay. I'll go offline later and go to bed."

On checkpoint 56, Lin Huang frowned after going through the two new rules. He did not deem them as a restriction. Instead, he said with a smile, "They changed the rules just because of me which means that I'm pretty cool."

Lin Huang could still vaguely remember when he was on Earth, China's table tennis players were extremely formidable. They would emerge as champions every time they participated in an international competition. As a result, the international competition revised their rules again and again because of them.

"Should we log out of the system?" Bloody asked when it saw the announcement.

"Let's stay on for another half an hour. We can collect 10 billion points today," Lin Huang declared with a smile.

It took them another half an hour to earn 10 billion points. As soon as he confirmed that Bai and the rest would not be rewarded even if they continued to hunt for monsters, Lin Huang then exited the Genius Union.

At the hotel, Lin Huang was sitting on the sofa, checking his rewards.

Five out of seven God Figurines were on white gold-rank while the other two had advanced to purple gold-rank.

The Stairway Tree points he owned had exceeded 190 billion. He had reaped huge rewards.

"I wasn't allowed to stay up all night," Lin Huang sighed, shaking his head.

"With the new rules that have just been implemented, it's not worth going straight up to checkpoint 63," Bloody reminded, "We have a chance to obtain 100 billion points on checkpoints 58 and 61. Once we manage to pass through that checkpoint, we're giving up our chance to collect points on the two checkpoints.

"However, if we don't, we have to stay at the two checkpoints for 20 days. There's no need to waste our time there." Lin Huang shook his head. "I won't remain on immortal-level for too long. The points that we're going to miss out on the two checkpoints can be earned back later on. We must first arrive on checkpoint 63 before the Royal Trials begins. We have to hunt for the Queen Mother's monster card!"

Lin Huang was rushing to checkpoint 63 because on that checkpoint itself, there was a monster that looked somewhat like a mythical-level Queen Mother which was from the Bug Tribe. The Queen Mother had a dozen bug guardians that were proven to be on pseudo-mythical-level.

All of the 13 monsters were monster cards that Lin Huang wanted to own. Especially the Queen Mother that was much stronger than the Hornet Queen on checkpoint 56, Lin Huang was determined to hunt for her.

"With the new rules, we can only collect 100 billion points on each checkpoint. We must kill as few monsters as possible on checkpoint 63 and go right after the Queen Mother and the bug guardians. The lesser points we obtain, the higher the chances we can hunt for the Queen Mother," Bloody reminded.

"Let Ghastly use its illusion skill to control part of it and the rest shall be controlled by your parasites. Try to reduce the number of monster deaths." Lin Huang put a plan together. "Leave immediately after killing the Queen Mother and her bug guardians."

Most people would want to collect as many points as possible. It was ironic that Lin Huang was afraid of overkilling and exceeding the maximum number of points allowed.

After chatting with Bloody for a while, Lin Huang then went to the bathroom and washed up. When he returned to his bedroom, he lay on the bed and read the news for a while before falling asleep.

The next morning, Lin Huang returned to his room again after breakfast and tapped open the Genius Union webpage.

After midnight, he had collected 10 billion Stairway Tree points. If he were to log in now, regardless of how many monsters were killed, he would not be rewarded. Still, Lin Huang logged into the system.

When he logged into the Genius Union again, Lin Huang was on checkpoint 58 of the Stairway Tree. He was still where he had been when he exited the Genius Union yesterday.

The monster horde had cleared out after last night's killing spree. The Mutated Serpents on checkpoint 58 had returned to their underground serpents' den as well, so all was peaceful.

Lin Huang then summoned the Herculean King and headed toward checkpoint 59.

Half an hour later, the Herculean King made it through from checkpoints 58 to 61 along with Lin Huang.

"Aren't we going to stay here for a day?" Bloody asked.

"No. There are only 10 billion points here. We'll be able to earn them later." Lin Huang shook his head. He then patted the Herculean King's neck, instructing him to go further up.

After spending another 20 minutes, the Herculean King finally arrived at checkpoint 63 with Lin Huang.

Checkpoint 63 was the highest checkpoint that all the Genius Union members could ever achieve. Even Chan Dou was stuck on this checkpoint and was unable to go further up. It was also a checkpoint with monsters.

However, compared to the abilities of the monsters on checkpoints 58 and 61, they were a few levels higher.

All the monsters were no long on high-level immortal-level. Instead, they were all on immortal-level rank-9. In addition to that, about a tenth of them were triple mutated immortal-level rank-9 monsters.

The most troublesome part was that there was a Queen Mother that seemed to be on mythical-level and 12 incredibly strong pseudo-mythical-level bug guardians.

The 12 bug guardians could be compared to Lancelot and the Regal Sword Killer that were on the same rank. Despite the fact that one bug guardian alone would not threaten Chan Dou, if he were besieged by three to four of them, he would barely escape from them.

As for Lin Huang, the reason why he stayed on checkpoint 63 was to obtain the monster cards of the Queen Mother and her bug guardians.

Since there were not many changes on the Stairway Tree leaderboard and few people were online in the Genius Union, nobody noticed Lin Huang breaking through to checkpoint 63.

He noticed that Chan Dou was online when he arrived on checkpoint 63. Lin Huang recalled the Herculean King and headed straight to the Heaven Alliance foothold.

Just when he got into the range of the Heaven Alliance foothold, Chan Dou welcomed him, dressed in a white suit.

After taking a good look at Lin Huang, Chan Dou said in surprise, "Your combat strength…"

"I'm already on immortal-level rank-7 now." Lin Huang nodded. There was nothing to hide since those Heaven Alliance members would find out sooner or later.

"The elevation rate of your combat strength is terrifying!" Chan Dou had found out from Tan Lang that Lin Huang was only on immortal-level rank-3 when they came out of the Fallen God Land before the New Year. It had only been less than three months since they got out of the Fallen God Land and he had already elevated four ranks so quickly!

Though surprised, Chan Dou knew it was Lin Huang's private matter, so he did not ask further. The duo chatted while walking towards the office.

"How do you know I'm here?" Lin Huang asked.

"My communication device notified me when you logged in. I realized you were breaking through the checkpoints rapidly. You spent less than an hour getting to checkpoint 63." Chan Dou flashed a thumbs up.

Lin Huang had just recalled that he added Chan Dou as a friend on his communication device whereby there would be notification whenever a friend came online. He only had Chan Dou as his friend in Genius Union, he had countable friends overall including Yi Yeyu. Since he was often offline, he seemed to have never heard the notification tone and almost forgotten about it.

"Since you're already on checkpoint 63, it means you're eligible to run as the deputy chief of the Heaven Alliance. I'll find time to gather everyone within these few days to officially recommend you as our deputy chief of the Heaven Alliance. I'll let you know once I've fixed the time, but you must be present by then." Chan Dou brought up the notion of nominating Lin Huang as deputy chief again.

Lin Huang had already promised him earlier, so he did not bother rejecting him this time. All he did was remind Chan Dou, "I won't stay too long on immortal-level. I'll definitely elevate to imperial-level within this year."

Chan Dou nodded a little helplessly wearing a smile. "I could see that. It's my mistake. I thought you were still far away from elevating to imperial-level, but it's alright. Just help us whenever you're still the deputy chief."

"Are you really ready for your elevation?" Lin Huang could not help but ask when both of them arrived at the entrance of the office.

"So what if I'm not ready? The situation's more powerful than I as a person." Chan Dou forced a smile and shook his head. He pushed the office door open. "The Union Government's rules are set. Those below imperial-level aren't eligible to obtain the methods."

Lin Huang walked into the office too. After taking the cup of tea Chan Dou handed him, he sat on the couch and fell into silence for a while with his head held down. He put the tea down and lifted his head to look at Chan Dou. "What if I have my ways to get you the methods?"

Initially, Lin Huang was unwilling to involve Chan Dou in this because his identity might be exposed as soon as the ancient methods spread out. Although Chan Dou would not sell him out, the Union Government would find out about him if they put enough effort in.

However, he thought about it and realized that Chan Dou had been taking care of him all this while. He had a kind personality too. It would be unfortunate if he ruined his future just for the ancient methods.

Moreover, Mr. Fu did not say that the Union Government prohibited him from spreading the methods around. Even if the Union Government were to find out about Lin Huang and his identity, they would not look for him about that matter.

Most importantly, two of Lin Huang's God Figurines' Combat Souls had elevated to imperial-level purple gold-rank and had the ability to fight demigods. He had sufficient power to take on any powerhouse's challenge now.

Chan Dou, who sat across the couch, was first stunned by what Lin Huang said, but subsequently shook his head immediately. "Stop fooling around. Even if you manage to get it, the risks are just too high. The Union Government isn't any other organization, you'll be doomed on the entire continent as soon as you offended them."

"I'm not stealing intelligence from them. I don't think they would come for me just for that," Lin Huang said with a smile, "I'll ask you again. Do you want it?"

Chan Dou had a complicated expression on his face and he finally nodded after some struggle. "Yes! I owe you one."

"These methods can't be transferred through data, so I can only give you the method via jade slip in person. Are you getting someone to pick it up from me in Division 3 or do you want me to send it to you?" Lin Huang asked.

"I've been tied up here recently. Otherwise, I would've taken it from you myself." Chan Dou thought about it. "I think Tan Lang's in Division 3 these few days. Give it to him. I'll get him to bring it back."

Although Tan Lang had 'graduated' from the Genius Union, they had been good friends for years and knew each there even before joining the Genius Union. Chan Dou had no concern getting him to help.

"Sure, I'll arrange the time to meet him." Lin Huang nodded. He had Tan Lang's contact number.

"If your family asks about the methods…"

"Don't worry about it. I'll insist that I obtained them from the black market without deliberately looking for them. I won't involve you in it." Chan Dou already had an explanation prepared.

In reality, even if the Chan Clan did not believe that explanation, they would not investigate further into it. The possibility of them helping Chan Dou to keep the secret was even higher.

"Don't rush into elevating to imperial-level. Break through after you've done all the preparations." Lin Huang did not want to see Chan Dou ruin himself, which was the reason why he wanted to give him the methods.

"I know." Chan Dou grinned while nodding. He then took a long look at Lin Huang. "To be honest, I can no longer tell how powerful your ability is."

"It's just immortal-level rank-7. That's two ranks lower than you," Lin Huang said humbly.

"Hey, I can't obtain 100 billion points on the Stairway Tree." Chan Dou waved and grinned immediately.

"Unfortunately, I can't do that now." Lin Huang was rather annoyed as he thought about that.

"What plans do you have now? Are you going up further?" Chan Dou asked.

"No, I'll stay on checkpoint 63 for now." Lin Huang shook his head and looked at Chan Dou while raising his brow. "Are you so sure that I can break through checkpoint 63?"

"I think you can." Chan Dou picked up the tea and sipped it slowly.

"I heard the bug guardians and the Queen Mother are very powerful. Have you fought them before?"

"I've no idea about the Queen Mother. I've never seen her fight, but the bug guardians are indeed formidable. Their abilities alone are much more powerful than triple mutated monsters. They might be quadruple mutated. Their abilities are on par with mine if three of them fought together. I'd have to run away if four of them attacked me at once," Chan Dou shared his battle experience.

"Is that so?" Lin Huang was a little disappointed not to have learned anything about the Queen Mother's ability.

"I think you could take three of them down at once. Try it." Chan Dou attempted to persuade Lin Huang while smirking.

"Not today. I've reached my limit before dawn." Lin Huang shook his head while returning the smile.

"I've almost forgotten that you didn't obtain any points all the way from checkpoint 58 to checkpoint 63." Chan Dou just recalled that Lin Huang's points remained the same since he had logged in earlier.

Just when Lin Huang and Chan Dou were chatting happily in the Heaven Alliance office, someone finally noticed that Lin Xie had made it to checkpoint 63 on the Stairway Tree leaderboard.

"Lin Xie has arrived on checkpoint 63!"

Soon, the news spread in the Genius Union.

Many powerhouses who stayed on checkpoint 63 stopped treating Lin Huang as a junior ever since they heard the news. They began treating Lin Xie as being on the same level as they were.

After speaking with Chan Dou for a while, Lin Huang did not stay in the Genius Union and logged out right away.

He spent a day practicing his sword skills in the hotel and only logged in again the next morning after breakfast.

The levels between checkpoints 63 to 72 on the Stairway Tree were filled with monsters with immortal-level rank-9 combat strength. The level of difficulty was different from the monster levels before checkpoint 63.

The strategy that people left behind was very simple: rush through without holding back.

However, bug guardians would appear as soon as one passed through half of checkpoint 63. According to the strategy, as soon as one passed through the 12 bug guardians defense individually, they would not encounter any bug guardians later on. The probability of the Queen Mother appearing was then extremely low.

Someone asked if they could form a team. The rest of the teammates could pass through as long as a few people stopped the bug guardians.

In reality, that would not work. The level of difficulty on the Stairway Tree would progress according to the number of players that entered.

If one person entered, he would encounter 12 bug guardians at the most. If two people formed a team, they would encounter 24 bug guardians at the most. A three-man team would encounter 36 bug guardians, and so on and so forth.

Moreover, these bug guardians would not attack based on personal reasons. Everyone would be assigned the same number of bug guardians to fight with. If someone in the team died, the number of bug guardians would not change. Instead, they would be allocated to the remaining team members.

Some even speculated that the number of Queen Mothers on this level would be affected by the number of players who entered. Naturally, nobody verified that because everyone stopped trying since they realized the level of difficulty would increase when they entered in teams.

Bloody began releasing Leech Pods as soon as Lin Huang stepped into checkpoint 63 to look for the bug guardians and the Queen Mother's coordinates.

Lin Huang sat at the starting point, waiting for Bloody's search results patiently. A monster appeared in his field of vision not long after he sat down.

It was a monster with many legs similar to a centipede with a body of at least ten meters long. Its upper body was raised two to three meters high while eight of its front legs looked like they were equipped with black spiked bayonets that were half a meter long. A layer of black shell extended from its head all the way to its tail and there was a black scythe on the end of its tail.

From the looks of it, it was a monster that lived to fight.

Before the monster attacked, Bloody was done casting parasites with his Leech Pods and commanded the monster to leave.

"There's a Bug Tribe here?!" The stone tablet's voice came into Lin Huang's ears all of a sudden.

"What's so odd about that? Weren't those Combat Hornetdemons on checkpoint 56 earlier a Bug Tribe too?" Lin Huang did not find that peculiar.

"No, the Bug Tribe that you know is different from the one I'm talking about," explained the stone tablet, "The Bug Tribe that I'm talking about is a galactic race. In this world, the Bug Tribe's overall abilities are no less than a Protoss.

"The Combat Hornetdemons that you encountered on checkpoint 56 earlier were just a tiny branch of the Bug Tribe even hundreds of thousands of years ago. Furthermore, from the long course of evolution, the Combat Hornetdemons could basically be removed from the Bug Tribe branch.

"The real Bug Tribe's a race that's gravely predatory and destructive. In this world, anywhere the Bug Tribe passes by will turn into barren land. They swallow other beings and planets' resources to strengthen their race continuously. They would do anything for the sake of expanding and for the longevity of their race.

"Just like most living things such as humans having a stable gene sequence, a tribe's overall evolution depends mainly on reproduction to produce a variety in generations. They also use knowledge for the inheritance of civilization which is a long cycle.

"However, the Bug Tribe's different from most beings when it comes to this. They have an extremely unstable gene sequence which causes mutation easily. Not only that, it's a controllable mutation. Perhaps the genetic mutation of a Bug Tribe will create an evolution that's on par with human evolution throughout hundreds of years after a battle has ended. Such a mutation makes them grow stronger continuously as well as gives them a formidable adaptive ability to the environment. They can survive in extreme environments that most beings can't.

"The Bug Tribe has gone through billions of years of evolution. They're just as powerful as the formidable Protoss in this world now. They've evolved to perfection individually. Almost every tissue and every part of the Bug Tribe fighters' bodies were made to fight. They never need any external tools. To them, their body is the best weapon.

"Each Bug Tribe fighter has a powerful combat ability, defense and battle will. They have no pain receptors, so they can maintain extremely high battle power even if their bodies are severely injured. They're fearless to fight anyone and they won't stop until they're dead."

Lin Huang found the stone tablet's explanation unbelievable. He thought that the Protoss was already powerful enough, so he did not expect the Bug Tribe to be just as mighty.

Lin Huang was even more interested in the Queen Mother now after listening to it. "Since the Bug Tribe's so powerful like you said, wouldn't it mean that the Queen Mother's even more powerful?"

"There are many varieties in the Bug Tribe. This one on the Stairway Tree is only one of them. It's called the Queen Mother species," clarified the stone tablet further.

"If the Queen Mother evolves to its ultimate form, naturally, it'll be extraordinarily powerful. It can even mass produce true god-level Bug Tribe fighters. However, this one on the Stairway Tree's clearly a baby. It's even been weakened a few times.

"Under normal circumstance, even a baby Queen Mother will be on true god-level. The Bug Servants that it produces would have a combat strength of at least virtual god-level and there would be at least hundreds of them. However, this one on the Stairway Tree isn't even on imperial-level. The combat strength of the bug guardians didn't only drop to immortal-level rank-9, but their grade also dropped and there are only 12 of them." The stone tablet was clearly looking down on the weakened Queen Mother on the Stairway Tree.

"That's already not bad. I could train it slowly if I really get the Monster Card." Lin Huang was getting excited about the prospect of his battle loot. "If it's not weakened, I'll have to avoid it if I encounter it."

"I'm in no place to comment about how powerful Xiao Hei actually is, but there's something that I must remind you." The stone tablet seemed to feel negative about this plan. "The Bug Tribe isn't easily controlled."

"The Bug Tribe master isn't an individual but is the will of the bug horde. It's an extremely compelling conglomeration of will. It essentially connected to each Bug Tribe member's brain and consciousness.

"The Queen Mother is the node creature of the will of the bug horde, just like branches that are derived from a tree trunk. Under normal circumstances, it should be able to sense if the Queen Mother were to be controlled by another being.

"Of course, the Queen Mother has a powerful control ability as a node creature. The children that she gave birth to would take her orders no matter what, no questions asked. Hence, if you manage to control a Queen Mother, it would mean that you have yourself a Bug Tribe army. In a nutshell, risk and opportunity coexist in this situation."

"How powerful is that will of the bug horde that you mentioned?" Lin Huang could not help but ask.

"It's the top existence in the world whereby the level of life is far above the True Gods. It's much more powerful than my master who, by the way, is dead." It was Lin Huang's first time hearing the stone tablet acknowledge someone as being more powerful than his ex-master.

"I'm not sure if the will of the bug horde will sense you changing the Monster Card. However, I'll be able to sense it immediately if there's anything unusual that happens during the change of Monster Cards. Just destroy the card if necessary," Xiao Hei voiced its opinion.

"Sure, let's do that then!" Although there were risks, Lin Huang was unwilling to give up on making the Queen Mother his target

"Found it!" After close to an hour of searching, Bloody finally found where the Queen Mother was. It then marked the coordinates on the map.

Lin Huang enlarged the map but all he could see was a flatland.

"The Queen Mother and the 12 bug guardians' coordinates are underground. It's a complicated maze hive down there. There are a total of eight entrances and exits. Apart from the Queen Mother and her bug guardians, there are at least over three million Bug Tribe monsters in the hive," Bloody explained immediately.

"Is the exit far from where the Queen Mother is?" Lin Huang asked.

"It's some distance away. The nearest one is over 20 kilometers away and the farthest is over 100 kilometers away."

"Eight entrances and exits…" Lin Huang frowned a little. He was worried that the Queen Mother would escape in the chaos when it found out that something was off.

"Actually, no matter how many entrances there are, they won't be able to run because we're fast enough. We can get to them before they can even respond." Bloody knew Lin Huang was considering guarding the entrances, so it gave him the solution right away.

"You're right." Lin Huang nodded.

After summoning the Herculean King, Lin Huang headed straight to the entrance that Bloody pointed at.

They encountered many Bug Tribes along the way. Bloody cast parasites on the monsters while Bloody controlled them to leave Lin Huang alone.

Around ten minutes later, the Herculean King finally brought Lin Huang to the entrance of the hive.

The entrance was the closest one to the Queen Mother and her bug guardians among the eight entrances.

It looked like a naturally formed cave with an irregular shape. However, the narrowest entrance was over three meters and the widest was more than five meters wide.

Lin Huang recalled the Herculean King and summoned Grimace. He talked Grimace through the mission via voice transmission.

Seeing Grimace's ignorant behavior, Lin Huang thought he would use material wealth to motivate him instead. "If you perform well this time, I'll get you a demigod-level telekinetic weapon relic."

"Deal!" Grimace had a change of expression immediately. Grinning, he was extremely friendly as he offered, "Boss, may I know what kind of service you need?"

'Damn, the change of expression could win Grimace an Oscar!' Lin Huang could not get used to Grimace's sudden change of attitude. 'Indeed, if you have money, you can make the devil push the millstone for you. People in the past were right about this.'

"Do you remember what I said?" Lin Huang asked while raising his brow.

"I do. Bring the Bug Tribe monsters out using illusion and minimize casualties as much as I can." Although the minimization of casualties sounded odd to him, Grimace did not ask about it any further. He was not interested in the mission to begin with; he only agreed to it for the demigod-level telekinetic weapon relic. He would just follow Lin Huang's orders.

After he was done speaking to Grimace, Lin Huang spoke to Bloody, "Bloody, assist Grimace in his mission. Try not to create conflict with the monsters in the hive."

"Understood." Bloody nodded in agreement. It had actually discussed this plan with Lin Huang yesterday. Since the delegation was done, the human and the two monsters began moving immediately.

Grimace opened a path before Lin Huang. An illusion forcefield was formed automatically around Grimace's body, cloaking both Lin Huang and himself.

The inside of the cave was dark and damp, and there was a stench lingering in the air.

Lin Huang went further into the cave, following Grimace. The long cave entrance was winding and it gave him a feeling that they were walking down a slope towards the underground.

The deeper they went, the worse the stench became. The stench smelled like rotten eggs during the summer, disgusting Lin Huang.

After passing through a long path, they arrived thousands of meters below the ground. Grimace finally brought Lin Huang into a vast underground space which looked like an underground cave that was formed naturally. It was massive.

In his field of vision, Lin Huang saw tens of Bug Tribe fighters in deep sleep.

Grimace walked towards them nonchalantly while Lin Huang followed him immediately. The Bug Tribe fighters did not seem to notice the duo as they continued sleeping.

When they walked closer to one of the bug's heads, it twitched its nose and looked at Lin Huang. Just when Lin Huang was ready to pull his sword to kill, it turned around and returned to its slumber.

"My illusion shields the outsiders' sense of us. These bugs can't see us, hear us, or smell us. That single bug just now must have a sensitive sense. It could felt the unusualness faintly but didn't find out about us. There's nothing to worry about.

"My illusion might be limited if we encounter monsters with a combat strength above imperial-level crimson gold rank, but it's impossible for these low intelligence immortal-level bugs to see through my illusion. It's impossible for them to sense us as long as we don't activate any energy," Grimace explained through voice transmission upon noticing Lin Huang looking at the bug with his guard up.

Nodding lightly, Lin Huang did not doubt Grimace's ability at all. After all, Grimace could walk around immortal-level rank-9 monsters with the help of illusion when he was on immortal-level rank-9. Then, he managed to play a fool on the monsters on the same level, what more now that he was already on imperial-level crimson gold-rank.

The bug's response earlier just made him panicked a little.

He was relieved after confirming Grimace's illusory effect while following him deeper into the cave.

The wet ground began to turn sticky. Mugginess stuck on the sole of his shoes with every step he took.

They would see piles of yellow or green semi-transparent goo on the ground occasionally. You guessed it right. Those were a discharge of the Bug Tribe.

"It's hard to imagine a tribe that has their shit all around is a tribe that's as powerful as a Protoss," Lin Huang could not help but comment.

"To be exact, these aren't actually shit, or rather, they're not complete shit." The stone tablet could not help but reveal, "The secretion produces a massive amount of microorganisms that make the environment around more liveable for the Bug Tribe. In addition to that, the microorganisms will dissolve rapidly so there's no need to get rid of them. The few piles that you saw earlier should have been discharged today.

"Also, the stench you smelled doesn't come from the Bug Tribe's secretion. It is the stench produced during the fermentation of the microorganisms."

Lin Huang was speechless by the stone tablet's pretty useless information. He still thought that gooey stuff was disgusting. To avoid vomiting, he put up a shield to block out his ability to smell directly.

"Go to the one on the second left when you come to the six forks in front." At that moment, Bloody's voice piped up all of a sudden. "You'll reach your destination after going approximately five kilometers on the path. The Queen Mother and her bug guardians have yet to notice anything unusual, so we should be able to get them without them realizing!"

Grimace headed all the way, following the route Bloody had given him while Lin Huang followed a few meters behind him.

One must say that Grimace's illusory forcefield was useful. Lin Huang was not attacked even once all the way to their destination.

Some bugs sensed the unusualness a couple of times, but they proceeded to sleep since they saw nothing after looking around.

Lin Huang had finally seen how the Queen Mother looked like from a distance when they arrived in the area of their destination. He revealed a shock expression.

The Queen Mother looked like a human child of five or six years old. She wore no clothes as her naked body curled up and hovered in the air. Her eyes were shut tightly and she seemed to be in a deep sleep.

The only difference from a human was her tailbone. There was a long, white tail that extended out with a white webbing that was connected to the end of her tail.

The webbing looked like it was made of countless gigantic spider webs. It was a solid structure made of various angles and it took up half of the cave.

There were white cocoons of all sizes around the web. Lin Huang glanced over to notice tens of thousands of them.

Just when he was observing the Queen Mother quietly, in her little girl-form, she opened her eyes out of the blue. Her black pupils rolled slightly until they landed two kilometers away from Lin Huang.

'Are we busted?!' Lin Huang was horrified.

At the moment, Grimace stopped walking. Seriously, he spoke to Lin Huang and Bloody through voice transmission, "That fella's something else! She could see through my illusion. Plus, there's a powerful spiritual energy that's meddling with my illusory forcefield. She must be the one behind it."

"The closer, the better. If the illusory forcefield is broken, Bloody will take care of the rest," Lin Huang ordered Grimace. Then, he spoke to Bloody through voice transmission, "Start casting the parasites."

Grimace nodded and brought Lin Huang forward.

Seeing that Lin Huang and Grimace were not retreating, black rays lit up in the Queen Mother's eyes all of a sudden.

Grimace scoffed and grabbed Lin Huang's arm to dash forward.

When they were almost 100 meters away from the Queen Mother, Grimace spat a mouthful of blood out suddenly and fell. "I can't go on with the illusory forcefield…"

Before he even had the time to check on Grimace, Lin Huang noticed the 12 bug guardians around the Queen Mother lift their heads out of nowhere and glare at his direction.

Lin Huang responded immediately without even thinking. He recalled Grimace while crushing seven Monster Cards that he had been hiding in his sleeve with the other hand. He also crushed a Lucky Card and a Double Reward Card.

Lancelot, Killer, the Evil Dominator, the two knights, and the two Dark Crescent Snakes appeared before Lin Huang out of thin air.

"Kill the 12 bug guardians and that Queen Mother. Let Bloody take care of the rest." The seven imperial monsters attacked without hesitation as soon as Lin Huang ordered them.

Lancelot summoned the 18 sword servants directly while he went after two bug guardians on his own. His servants formed a sword formation and went after another two bug guardians.

The Evil Dominator changed his appearance into Killer and went after two bug guardians with his sword.

The two knights merged with the Dark Crescent Snakes. Their combat strength skyrocketed to imperial-level white gold-rank right away as they went after three bug guardians.

Killer was left with the Queen Mother.

He sensed the Queen Mother's threat. Although she looked like a child and her combat strength was only on immortal-level rank-9, he dared not be careless at all.

He showed his trump card as he dashed, not holding back at all.

Seeing Killer coming at her, a layer of black fluid began spinning on the Queen Mother's body, forming a black armor. She held a black whip in her hand.

Surprisingly, the Queen Mother attacked before Killer even got to her. She swung the whip in her hand, and the lash created shadows in the air. Countless spiritual serpents came out from the end of the whip, blocking Killer's way completely.

Killer lifted his sword and swung it over and over again. It collided with the whip shadows in the air.

The result of the collision was out of Lin Huang's expectations. A tie?!

The two-level difference in combat strength did not give Killer any upper hand at all.

Clearly, although pseudo-mythical-level was only a step away from mythical-level, the difference in ability was huge.

After multiple collisions, Killer, who was on imperial-level crimson gold-rank, did not get anything out of the immortal-level rank-9 Queen Mother.

On the other side, Lancelot and the rest were close to the end of the battle.

Since Lancelot and the Evil Dominator were on pseudo-mythical-level, the two-level difference made it easy for them to kill the bug guardians.

Although the two knights were not on pseudo-mythical-level, their combat strength was on imperial-level white gold-rank after merging. Their ability was just as impressive as Lancelot and the Evil Dominator's.

Meanwhile, the sword formation of the 18 sword servants had an overall ability that was on par with Lancelot. Killing two bug guardians was a piece of cake for them.

The first to finish the battle with the bug guardians was Lancelot. He took less than a minute to kill both of them. He glanced through everyone on the battlefield and joined Killer in the mission to destroy the Queen Mother without any hesitation.

The Queen Mother's stress levels doubled when Lancelot joined the battle.

Initially, she was fighting Killer who had a similar overall ability with her and now another powerful opponent of the same level had advanced.

The Queen Mother looked around. Apart from her remaining six bug guardians that were still fighting, she was surprised to find that the other bug fighters were just watching aside and ignored the battle she was involved in completely!

Under Bloody's parasitization, apart from the Queen Mother and the 12 bug guardians, the other bugs were actually under Bloody's control.

The Queen Mother soon noticed the weird situation. She glanced at Lancelot and Killer that she was fighting with and eventually her eyes stopped on Lin Huang. After some observation, she ended up staring at Lin Huang's left hand.

Bloody, who was in a cloud form, attached itself on Lin Huang's left arm at the moment while controlling the battle.

Nobody knew how the Queen Mother figured out that it was Bloody who was the culprit. She flicked the whip hard to make Killer and Lancelot retreat. As she staggered hundreds of meters back, she lifted her head suddenly and released an ear-piercing chirp.

It sounded like a high-frequency buzz which was so high that it was almost beyond one's audible limit.

Bloody spat a mouthful of blood out all of a sudden as soon as the sound blared. The bugs that it was controlling with its Leech Pods began to go out of control.

"She took out all of my Leech Pods!" Bloody gasped to Lin Huang through voice transmission immediately.

Lin Huang frowned upon noticing that the bugs around were regaining their consciousness. He knew they would be drowned in the bug horde if he dragged it on further, so he then summoned the Ninetails Lynx instantly.

The white little cat sat on Lin Huang's shoulder, locking on its target as it glanced through the scene. It vanished in the next second.

"You've obtained Bug Tribe Queen Mother's Card Pieces (Mythical-level) x2!

"Congratulations, you've obtained a complete Bug Servant Card (Pseudo-Mythical-level) x14"

In the next second, Xiao Hei's notification rang in Lin Huang's ears.

When the Ninetails Lynx returned to Lin Huang's shoulder, the Queen Mother was not the only one that turned into card pieces but so did the few remaining bug guardians.

After killing the Bug Tribe's Queen Mother, Lin Huang almost drowned in the bug horde that went chaotic. He depended on the Ninetails Lynx's dimensional portal to escape the underground hive.

He logged out of the Genius Union as soon as he left the hive. As he sat on the couch in the living room of the hotel room, he began to summarize the battle.

'I underestimated the Queen Mother's ability. I didn't expect it to not only break through Grimace's illusion, but it even removed Bloody's parasites. I was caught off guard. If I didn't manage to summon the God Figurine's Combat Soul in time, I'm afraid I wouldn't have been able to kill it today.'

'The Queen Mother's combat power was out of my expectations as well. It didn't die when both Lancelot and Killer attacked it. I shouldn't be careless no matter what kind of enemy I encounter.'

After coming up with the conclusion, Lin Huang looked at the reward he had obtained this time.

There was no complete Queen Mother card even though the Lucky Card was activated. However, he had more of the bug guardians' complete cards.

Among the dozen bug guardians that were killed, seven of them had turned into complete cards. With the Double Reward Card, Lin Huang obtained 14 pseudo-mythical-level bug guardian cards.

One must know that a pseudo-mythical-level monster's individual ability was just as powerful as Lancelot and Killer who were on the same level.

Moreover, now that they had turned into Monster Cards, their combat strength was affected by Lin Huang whereby they were now on imperial-level crimson gold-rank. They were so much more powerful than they were on checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree now.

Lin Huang tapped on the bug guardian's cards accordingly to look at the details.

"Monster Card: Unnamed

"Rarity: Pseudo-Mythical-level

"Monster Name: Queen Mother's Bug Servant (Saber Warrior)

"Type of Monster: Saber Bug / Bug Tribe

"Combat Level: Imperial-level Crimson Gold-rank

"Major: Saber

"Major Skills: Bug Saber, Saber Dao's Gene Extraction…

"Minor Skills: Bug Steps…

"Summon Authority: Activated

"Card Remarks: Passable."

…

"Monster Card: Unnamed

"Rarity: Pseudo-Mythical-level

"Monster Name: Queen Mother's Bug Servant (Firearms Warrior)

"Type of Monster: Firearms Bug / Bug Tribe

"Combat Level: Imperial-level Crimson Gold-rank

"Major: Firearms

"Major Skills: Biogun, Ultimate Fire…

"Minor Skills: Bug Steps…

"Summon Authority: Activated

"Card Remarks: Passable."

…

'Although I didn't get any complete Queen Mother cards, 14 pseudo-mythical-level bug guardians aren't bad either.' Lin Huang put away all the 14 Monster Cards after looking through the card details. The reason he did not summon them was that he recalled the stench in the hive earlier. If the bug guardians that he summoned emitted the same stench, the other hotel guests on the entire floor would surely complain about him.

He proceeded to practice sword as soon as he put away the cards.

The monsters on the Stairway Tree would refresh daily, so he would have to wait until tomorrow to begin the second round of killing.

The sword skill that Lin Huang was practicing now was called the Buddha Killer. It was a pseudo-mythical-level sword skill that he had obtained from the Fallen God Land.

He had been practicing it for a couple of days on and off. All in all, he had put in more than 20 hours.

Even with the guidance of the Sword Spirit in his body, learning a pseudo-mythical-level sword skill was much slower than learning a legendary-level sword skill.

This was because not only were the sword skill card pieces lesser every time he practiced, but he also required many more card pieces for a pseudo-mythical-level sword skill.

Usually, a legendary-level skill would need at least 10,000 skill card pieces while the better ones would need more than 30,000 card pieces. Meanwhile, pseudo-mythical-level skills basically required more than 300,000 card pieces.

That was the reason why he had only learned two new pseudo-mythical-level sword skills at the moment after learning thousands of legendary-level sword skills. This was the third one that he was acquiring.

However, he had already accumulated over 200,000 Buddha Killer skill card pieces. He was confident that he could complete the cultivation of the third pseudo-mythical-level sword skill that day and turned it into a complete Skill Card.

Lin Huang practiced from nine something in the morning until past four in the afternoon. He was so immersed in practicing his sword skills, totally forgetting to check the accumulation of the card pieces.

When it was almost 4.20 p.m., a notification came from Xiao Hei out of the blue.

"Congratulations, you've obtained pseudo-mythical-level sword skill Buddha Killer card pieces x 300,000. Would you like to merge them into a complete Skill Card?"

"Yes!" Lin Huang answered without delay.

After a moment of silence, Xiao Hei's second notification soon came.

"Congratulations, you've obtained a complete Sword Skill Card Buddha Killer (pseudo-mythical-level) x1"

Lin Huang looked at the time after he was done cultivating the third pseudo-mythical-level sword skill. Noticing that it was not the time for dinner yet, he began looking at the fourth pseudo-mythical-level sword skill in his memory.

…

Early the next morning, Lin Huang logged into the Genius Union right after he had breakfast.

As soon as he got to the Stairway Tree, Bloody began looking for the Queen Mother and bug guardians' coordinates that had been refreshed.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang looked at the Genius Union internal news.

A headline soon grabbed his attention. The title of the article was 'Why Did The Monster Horde Break During the Day on The Stairway Tree?'

Lin Huang clicked on the article which said that bugs rushed out of their hives all of a sudden yesterday morning and attacked the human foothold on checkpoint 63.

Many of the members were killed by the bug horde that came out of nowhere and fell back to checkpoint 1 on the Stairway Tree. After their deaths, some of them lost half of their points that they had been accumulating for years.

"The bug horde broke out at 9 a.m. yesterday. It was almost the same time I killed the Queen Mother and logged out." Lin Huang roughly figured out the reason for the bug horde during the day. It should have been caused by him killing the Queen Mother.

The death of the Queen Mother caused the bug fighters to lose their minds and falling into chaos. Without the Queen Mother's control, their destructive nature was revealed. Hence, they attacked the human foothold, causing a series of devastating events.

However, the author of the article had no idea about that. Instead, he came up with an analysis from his personal view and listed some possibilities. Unfortunately, he did not hit the point; it was far from the truth.

The author would not expect the culprit of the incident to be the death of the Queen Mother because even Chan Dou, the top powerhouse, did not possess the ability to kill the Queen Mother. The non-disputed opinion became the author's blind spot, causing him to fail to get an accurate answer.

"Seems like it's really my fault," Lin Huang teased himself while grinning. He had no plan to own up to his mistake although it was him who caused it. "Since nobody knows about it, let's make it a secret."

With the previous killing experience, Lin Huang's second kill was very successful.

Bloody found the newly refreshed coordinates for the Queen Mother and bug guardians on the Stairway Tree.

Lin Huang used the old way of getting Grimace to open a path with his illusory forcefield.

However, the difference this time was that he crushed a Lucky Card and a Double Reward Card when they arrived two to three kilometers away from the Queen Mother without her even noticing Grimace. He then summoned the Ninetails Lynx directly.

The imperial-level purple gold-rank Ninetails Lynx had an ability that was nothing less than a demigod's. It suppressed everyone as soon as it appeared.

With its suppression, Bloody did not even need to control with its Leech Pods. All of the bugs within a radius of 100 kilometers, including the Queen Mother, could not move at all.

Upon witnessing that, Grimace, who was standing before Lin Huang, could not help but have envy flash through his eyes.

The Ninetails Lynx stepped forward silently and disappeared all of a sudden. Almost at the same time, Lin Huang saw the Bug Tribe Queen Mother and the 12 bug guardians being sliced into pieces.

Before he managed to blink, he noticed that the Ninetails Lynx had returned to his shoulder without him even realizing. It licked its paws with its little pink tongue.

Until then, the Bug Tribe Queen Mother and the 12 bug guardians' sliced bodies began to turn into pieces and faded a few kilometers away. Xiao Hei's notification came into Lin Huang's ears.

"You've obtained Bug Tribe Queen Mother (Mythical-level) Card Pieces x2!

"Congratulations, you've obtained Bug Servant (Pseudo-mythical-level) complete card x12

"Congratulations, you've obtained Bug Tribe Incubator(Mythical-level) x2"

Noticing the bugs becoming chaotic since they lost the Queen Mother, Lin Huang pressed down his urge to look at the Bug Tribe incubator card. He recalled Grimace and Bloody, then said to the Ninetails Lynx, "Bring me back!"

The Ninetails Lynx tapped on Lin Huang's shoulder, and the human and the cat vanished from the hive in the next second.

Without the suppression of the Ninetails Lynx's aura, the bugs that lost their Queen Mother fell into a complete frenzy and rushed out of the hive's exits in madness.

Lin Huang, who had logged out of the Genius Union, sat in the living room of the hotel room and took out the two Bug Tribe incubator cards.

"What the hell are these two cards?" Doubtfully, Lin Huang began studying the cards.

There was a three-dimensional spider web with white cocoons hanging on it on the front of the both of the cards.

He recalled the similar web that connected the two Queen Mother's tails when he saw that.

"So, this isn't a part of the Queen Mother's body…" Initially, Lin Huang thought that the web was part of the Queen Mother's body. Now, it seemed like this item called an incubator existed in the name of the Queen Mother.

Lin Huang turned the card around and began to read the details.

"Special Item Card

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Item Name: Bug Tribe Incubator

"Incubation Direction: Cold weapon

"Starting Level: Imperial-level Crimson Gold-rank (affected by the owner's combat strength)

"Insertable Data: Various cold weapon battle data

"Starting Skill: Cold Weapon's Gene Extraction, Bug Steps…

"Application Authorization: Passive.

"Card Remarks: Pretty good special item.

"Remarks: Only for the use of the Bug Tribe Queen Mother"

…

"Special Item Card

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Item Name: Bug Tribe Incubator

"Incubation Direction: Hot weapon

"Starting Level: Imperial-level Crimson Gold-rank (affected by the owner's combat strength)

"Insertable Data: Various weapon battle data

"Starting Skill: Hold Weapon's Gene Extraction, Bug Steps…

"Application Authorization: Passive

"Card Remarks: Pretty good special item.

"Remarks: Only for the use of the Bug Tribe Queen Mother"

"Only the Bug Tribe Queen Mother can use these? So, I can't activate these two cards before I get the complete Queen Mother card…" Lin Huang was speechless after he finished looking at the card details.

However, he roughly knew what the function of the two cards was. Those were indispensable special items to make a Bug Tribe army. He was determined to hatch Bug Tribe Queen Mothers with this.

Lin Huang only glanced through the 12 Bug Servant cards quickly and put them aside. Together with the 14 that he had obtained earlier, he had 26 pseudo-mythical-level Bug Servant cards now.

Looking at the current progress, he would be able to build a pseudo-mythical-level bug guardian army soon. However, the Bug Tribe Queen Mother's complete card seemed far-fetched at the moment.

Lin Huang put the cards away and pushed his messy thoughts aside. He took out the wooden sword and began practicing his sword skills again.

On the checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree, a bug horde broke out again since Lin Huang had killed the Bug Tribe Queen Mother and her bug guardians.

Without the Queen Mother's control, the hundreds of millions of Bug Tribe fighters streamed out of the underground hive like water. They headed down the branches below on checkpoint 63.

In less than an hour, Bug Tribe fighters of various forms took over half of the human foothold.

The people did not panic as they did before since they had experienced the same thing yesterday. They soon formed a defense, blocking the bug horde.

One must say that those who made it to checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree were the best of the best in the Genius Union. They had compelling personal ability whereby they basically had the ability to fight fairly with imperial-level black gold-rank powerhouses.

Compared to other checkpoints, the powerhouses on this checkpoint had high self-esteem.

Most people on any checkpoint below this would choose to avoid involving themselves if they encountered a monster horde. Only a minority of them who were desperate for points would stay at night to fight the monster horde.

However, the people on checkpoint 63 were cultivated by major organizations as candidates with the potential to get to the core circle. They did not lack any resources, hence, they were not desperate for points on the Stairway Tree and did things based on personal interest.

To most people on checkpoint 63, a monster horde during the day was something interesting.

One must know that they had never encountered a monster horde during the day since the climb from checkpoints 1 to 63. It was only natural for them to join the fun since this happened out of nowhere.

Many of them who were offline logged in immediately to fight the monster horde after hearing the news of the monster horde breaking out during the day.

Meanwhile, those powerhouses who were caught off guard on the first day of monster horde were in agony. Some of them were killed by the monster horde right away since they were unprepared. They could not even last for a minute and ended up being the laughing stock of their organization. They were eager to return and show their real ability off in the monster horde.

Lin Huang heard the news from the Heaven Alliance group chat. They were discussing the monster horde on checkpoint 63 enthusiastically. Some of the Heaven Alliance members were pumped up after hearing the news and logged in just to join the monster horde. They even sent live videos to the group chat.

The expression on Lin Huang's face was weird after he read the messages in the group chat. "I didn't know that everyone loved fighting monster hordes during the day. Very well then, I'll kill the Queen Mother every day for all of your sadistic killing pleasure."

Checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree was crowded today.

There were usually very few people on this checkpoint. There were usually less than 80 people online during the day. However, due to the monster horde, there were more than 400 people online during the day this time.

The quiet checkpoint 63 where one normally would not bump into anyone else had become extremely crowded now.

Many major organizations formed teams to fight the bug horde eagerly. Some of the minor organizations on checkpoint 63 with few members formed teams too.

As they fought the bug horde, the power of hundreds of powerhouses skyrocketed together on the Stairway Tree leaderboard.

The absurd change on Stairway Tree leaderboard grabbed the attention of all members on different checkpoints.

Knowing that a breakout of a monster horde on checkpoint 63 was rare, most of them were dumbstruck to see the skyrocketing points of the hundreds of people.

"What are these people doing? Why are their points skyrocketing during the day?"

"Were they triggered by Lin Xie?"

"Wait, their points are skyrocketing during the day. Did these people discover Lin Xie's secret to obtaining points?!"

"I want Lin Xie's secret to obtaining points too!"

After some hot discussion in the forum, somebody finally revealed the truth. "There's a bug horde on checkpoint 63 during the day. All of the big bosses on checkpoint 63, fighting the bug horde together."

Another hot discussion broke out after the truth was revealed.

"They're worthy of being called big bosses! They're even fighting a monster horde during the day."

"Why do I have the odd feeling of being envious of such reckless behavior?"

"I, too, am envious of them. I don't usually feel like participating in fighting monster hordes at night. Could it be that the timing of the monster hordes breaking out has gone off?"

"Is this the Stairway Tree's new activity? I want to join too!"

"I want to join this new activity too. Please promote this!"

The bug horde on checkpoint 63 lasted until the sky was almost dark. It was finally gone. The last defense on checkpoint 63 remained standing in the end.

However, a new round of monster horde came after less than ten minutes. This time, besides the bug horde, the monsters from checkpoints 67 and 71 joined too. The overall scale of the monster horde was twice as large as the one during the day.

"Again!? Is there something wrong with the Stairway Tree?"

"There are 24 hours a day and there've been 22 hours of monster hordes now. How are we supposed to go on?"

"Could it be the Stairway Tree system urging us to break through checkpoint 63 as soon as possible?"

Many of the members on checkpoint 63 were exhausted after fighting the bug horde during the day.

However, figuring that it might be the trick the Stairway Tree system was playing, most of them chose to stay fighting the monster horde. Even some of them who went offline logged in again.

The majestic monster army charged once again. Many powerhouses on checkpoint 63 bit the bullet and fought the monster horde head-on.

Naturally, Lin Huang had no idea that he had caused such a thing. He went to sleep directly after washing up as he was done practicing his sword skills until past 11 at night. He did not follow what was happening in the Genius Union.

If the Genius Union system had human emotions, it would definitely be complaining right now.

The fight on checkpoint 63 went on until 6 in the morning the next day. It was disastrous.

Among the 388 participants, only 31 people made it to the end. The rest were sent back to checkpoint 1 of the Stairway Tree.

Some of them climbed up again after they died and fell back to checkpoint 1. Some did not only make it back but even joined the monster horde fight again.

Among the 31 survivors, less than ten of them survived along the way while the rest clambered their way back from checkpoint 1.

The monster horde was finally gone as they watched the sun rising in the distance.

The bunch of powerhouses were either sitting or lying on the ground, no longer caring about their image.

"It's finally over!"

"I know. I'm exhausted!"

"Damn it! I died in the monster horde. This is my first time dying on the Stairway Tree ever since joining the Genius Union."

"Well, I've died twice and I'm not complaining."

"I've never experienced such a tiring battle in my life. I have a sudden realization that it's good to be alive."

"Should we find out the reason why there's a bug horde during the day in checkpoint 63 since there's no monster horde now?" Someone suggested all of a sudden.

Everyone went silent upon hearing the suggestion.

A moment later, the chief of the Hong Alliance, Zhu Hong, broke the silence. "I think it's a great suggestion. There's definitely a reason why the bug horde broke out. We'll have to log out in our current condition if another bug horde happens again two hours later. I think we should take a look since there's no bug horde now."

"I agree with Sister Hong's suggestion. Instead of waiting for things to happen, we should take the initiative to tackle it." The chief of the Tang Alliance, Zhang Xiaoshan, nodded to show his agreement. "We have approximately two hours to look around since there's no bug horde now."

"Of course, I'm not forcing everyone to participate in the investigation. After all, we've been fighting for over 20 hours, so everyone must be exhausted now." Zhu Hong knew some of them were unwilling to participate. "Those who are joining, please raise your hand."

Zhu Hong was the first to raise her hand while Zhang Xiaoshan was the second without thinking much. Some raised their hands later on. They were all members of the Hong Alliance and the Tang Alliance.

The chief of the Heaven Alliance, Chan Dou, had been offline. The deputy chief Jian Fei hesitated for a moment and raised his hand in the end. "I'm in, too!"

The other three from the Heaven Alliance raised their hands immediately upon seeing that.

Divine Alliance's chief Zhong Liyan smiled and said while shaking his head, "I'm lazy to join, I'm too tired. I'll head home to sleep."

Since the four from Heaven Alliance raised their hands, the chiefs from two minor organization raised their hands too.

Just like that, Zhu Hong and the rest gathered 15 people into a group forcefully and headed towards the Stairway Tree's main branch on checkpoint 63.

Around an hour and a half later, Lin Huang logged onto Genius Union after he had breakfast. He summoned Bloody to get the new Queen Mother's coordinates again while he looked at the internal news on Genius Union's website.

A headline title got his attention again.

'The Big Bosses on Checkpoint 63 Are Crying!'

Lin Huang was not sure to laugh or cry when he clicked in and read the article.

What happened was that the bug horde broke out together with a monster horde, causing the monster horde yesterday lasted for 22 hours. Most of the people on checkpoint 63 who thought it was an activity created by the system were fighting forcefully for the entire day. The situation was horrible whereby only 31 people left among the over 400 who participated.

"Do they have to do that?" Bloody suddenly spoke as Lin Huang was done reading the news.

"I found a human team of 15 people. Because of them, the number of Queen Mother had a boost. I did a rough search earlier and already found a few. Including you, I'm speculating there should be 16 Queen Mothers on the Stairway Tree this time…"

"What?" Lin Huang could not help but stunned for a bit hearing the news, "Is that possible?!"

"16 people would mean 16 Queen Mothers, so 100 people would mean 100 Queen Mothers…" Lin Huang's eyes lit up when he heard Bloody's investigation results, but soon he fell into deep thought. "I wonder why did they come into the monster stage. If they come in as a team every day, I'll be able to kill many Queen Mothers and bug guardians, but how do I make them come in everyday?"

"It's easy. Find something that's irresistible to them and lure them in by putting it somewhere unreachable." Bloody could not help but gave Lin Huang a suggestion in response to his soft mutter. "In that case, they'll try to get that item every day."

"Something that's irresistible… A god relic should be a great choice." Lin Huang soon had a plan in his head after hearing Bloody's suggestion. "An unreachable place… The most unreachable place on checkpoint 63 should be where the Queen Mother is, deep in the hive."

After coming up with the two most important points, Lin Huang figured how to implement this plan to bait right away.

Not long later, Bloody had located the coordinates of all the Bug Tribe Queen Mothers. As expected, there were a total of 16 Queen Mothers.

Lin Huang headed toward the first target immediately as soon as they located the closest hive.

When they arrived at the entrance of the hive, he used his old way again. He got Grimace to open a path with his illusory forcefield to get deep in the hive's central zone. They stopped when they were two to three kilometers away from the Queen Mother and her bug guardians.

This time, Lin Huang did not summon the Ninetails Lynx right away. He summoned the Nightmare Tapir instead, telling it what he wanted through voice transmission.

The Nightmare Tapir nodded and hovered mid-air, emitting a squeal with its head up like the sonar roar of a whale. A circle of invisible sound wave spread out like water and soon covered the entire hive.

With the Nightmare Tapir's imperial-level white gold-rank combat strength, he could even make imperial-level purple gold-rank monsters fell into a deep sleep with one roar, let alone these immortal-level rank-9 Bug Tribe monsters.

The Bug Tribe that was already sleepy fell into a deep sleep without any ability to fight back after hearing the Nightmare Tapir's hypnotizing sound wave.

Lin Huang smirked and took out a god relic sword from the storage space in his Emperor's Heart Ring.

It was a sword that was completely black. There was a faint, black mist lingering around it, giving people a terrifying feeling even from a distance.

In reality, the sword was not cursed or anything. The swordsmith must have made that intentionally to give it a cool appearance.

Lin Huang thought the sword was perfect as bait since many people on the Stairway Tree were talking about the monster horde incident during the day on checkpoint 63. With this item, it could coincidentally mislead the people, letting them connect the unusual turn of events on checkpoint 63 to the sword.

Lin Huang appeared next to the Queen Mother that was in deep slumber as he moved. He pierced the god relic sword into the ground before the Queen Mother so that only half of the sword was showing.

After setting it up, Lin Huang retreated almost three kilometers away and activated the video recording function in his Emperor's Heart Ring. He did not speak during the course of the video recording. All you could hear was his soft breathing.

The video began with a glance through the situation inside the hive and panned where the Queen Mother and her bug guardians were. After the image was focused on the Queen Mother and the bug guardians, he zoomed in and focused on the black sword before the Queen Mother.

The image of the black sword lasted for less than a second. Then, Lin Huang got the Nightmare Tapic to wake one of the bug guardians up from its sleep. It opened its eyes slowly and soon stared at Lin Huang's direction.

Lin Huang shook the video a little, then it became a black screen after that.

The bug guardian that noticed Lin Huang just got a look of him before it felt an intense hit of drowsiness. It fell asleep again without even being able to fight back.

After shooting the video, Lin Huang looked at the recording while standing where he was. He then walked to the Queen Mother and pulled out the black sword and put it away into his storage space after making sure the video was good to go.

He retreated two to three kilometers away before he crushed a Lucky Card and a Double Reward Card. He then summoned the Ninetails Lynx. In the next second, the Bug Tribe Queen Mother and the 12 bug guardians turned into pieces and disappeared.

Lin Huang heard Xiao Hei's notification almost at the same time.

After recalling the Nightmare Tapir, Lin Huang projected the map of checkpoint 63. He pointed at the coordinates Bloody had marked; it was the area where the second Queen Mother was.

"Ninetails, bring us to the area directly. You don't have to be accurate with the exact coordinates. Just bring us to the area."

The Ninetails Lynx placed its claws on Lin Huang and Grimace's shoulders. In the next second, including Bloody that was in Lin Huang's sleeve, the human and the three monsters vanished from the hive.

What he had no idea about was that the bugs that were in deep sleep in the hive slowly awoke after the Nightmare Tapir disappeared for close to half an hour.

As the Ninetails Lynx brought them to the area near the second hive, Lin Huang found the entrance in less than two minutes. He went into the hive in the same way he always did.

When they arrived in the area where the second Queen Mother was, he did not summon the Nightmare Tapir this time. Instead, he got the Ninetails Lynx to attack directly. Immediately, it completed the harvest.

Lin Huang then told the Ninetails Lynx to send them to the area close to the hive where the third Queen Mother was.

After spending almost two and a half hours, Lin Huang finally killed 16 Queen Mothers and 192 bug guardians.

Apart from spending some time shooting the video in the first hive, he spent most of the time traveling from the entrance of the hive to the Queen Mother. Lin Huang completed the journey on foot due to the complicated hive structure and the Ninetails Lynx's inability to teleport them to the exact coordinates since it had never been there.

He was not terribly pleased after completing the 16 consecutive kills and signing out of the Genius Union because the 16 Queen Mother kills did not get him any complete Queen Mother Monster Card.

"You've obtained Bug Tribe Queen Mother Card Pieces (Mythical-level) x32!

"Congratulations, you've obtained Bug Servant Complete Card (Pseudo-mythical-level) x384

"Congratulations, you've obtained Bug Tribe Incubator (Mythical-level) x4

"Congratulations, you've obtained Bug Tribe Genetic Optimizer (Mythical-level) x6

"Congratulations, you've obtained Gene Extractor (Mythical-level) x2!"

After glancing through the notification from Xiao Hei, Lin Huang took out the eight new cards and studied the details.

"Special Item Card

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Item Name: Bug Tribe Genetic Optimizer

"Function: Performing genetic optimization on Bug Tribe fighters using the most compatible genes in the gene database following the direction of the chosen genetic evolution.

"Application Authorization: Passive

"Card Remarks: Pretty good special item.

"Remarks: Only for the use of the Bug Tribe Queen Mother"

…

"Special Item Card

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Item Name: Gene Extractor

"Function: As long as there's sufficient flesh, it can be used to extract the respective genes as well as detaching the gene the user desires and put it into the genetic database.

"Application Authorization: Passive

"Card Remarks: Pretty good special item.

"Remarks: Must be used in compliance with the genetic database."

When Lin Huang killed the 16 Queen Mothers at once, he caused a mob of bugs from the 16 hives to break out on checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree. A supermassive bug horde made up of more than five billion of bugs burst out.

The bug horde was like a flood pouring down the branches of the Stairway Tree.

The Zhu Hong team that was investigating the reason for the bug horde on the main branch of the Stairway Tree came in contact with the bug horde less than five minutes after it broke out.

Under the chaotic attack of the bug horde, the 15 team members braced the onslaught painfully for more than three hours. In the end, all of their Life Power was worn out and they were soon dead.

Less than five hours later, the other members on checkpoint 63 who were online were dead too. Apart from a minority of them who managed to hide in defense barriers, the rest of them were sent back to checkpoint 1.

The entire checkpoint 63 had fallen. Even the defenses of all the organizations on the branches were attacked by the bug horde in a frenzy.

The news of checkpoint 63 falling soon spread through the entire Genius Union.

People called it Doomsday.

On the front page of the Genius Union news was all about Doomsday. Everyone was talking about the same topic even in the forums.

"Did you hear? Checkpoint 63 has completely fallen! They can't even log in now."

"Yeah, I heard the scale of the bug horde was super scary this time. There were billions of monsters, and it surpassed the normal monster horde at night by folds!"

"I heard the team led by the chiefs of the Hong Alliance and the Tang Alliance has fallen too. Someone saw them on checkpoint 21."

"That's nothing. I heard that all the big bosses on checkpoint 63 are dead apart from those who didn't log in and a minority of them who managed to hide behind the defense barrier in time. All of them fell back to checkpoint 1!"

…

Lin Huang was speechless when he read the popular thread in the forum.

He knew the monster horde would come after him for killing their Queen Mothers, but never had he thought that the number of Bug Tribe fighters would have multiplied as well. However, now that he thought about it, it made sense since there was an increase of hives.

People who experienced the bug horde complained in the forum, saying that everyone had died on checkpoint 63. One even posted a video of the bug horde breaking through their defenses.

In front of the defense barriers, Bug Tribe fighters crawled all over. Each and every one of them was attacking the defense under their feet insanely like they had lost their minds.

Everyone was worried as they watched the video. To their relief, the defense remained intact at the end of the video.

Lin Huang felt a little guilty after watching the video. "Will this bug horde traumatize the people?"

However, his guilt only lasted less than a minute. He then revealed a smirk. "So many of them are talking about the reason for the bug horde breaking out. I shall seize this opportunity to tell them the 'truth'!"

Lin Huang set his account to anonymous status and created a thread entitled 'The Truth of the Bug Horde Breaking Out on Checkpoint 63'. He then uploaded the video that he had recorded earlier.

After submitting it, he waited for almost ten minutes until the thread went through a review.

The thread grabbed the attention of many Genius Union members as soon as it appeared.

Many of them clicked on it suspiciously because there was no description in the thread. There was only a video. Everyone then watched the video directly and were shocked after finishing it.

The thread created a stir right away.

"This has to be fake! The Bug Tribe Queen Mother is a little girl? Who'd buy that?!"

"The Bug Tribe Queen Mother really does look like that. Although I've never seen the real thing, I saw the strategy for checkpoint 63 and there were photos. It's almost the same as the one in the video."

"The Queen Mother, her bug guardians, and the bug beasts are real. The details of the hive's real too. This video's legit. What I'm curious about is who took this video? The person went really deep into the hive." It was the chief of the Hong Alliance, Zhu Hong, who posted that.

Zhu Hong used her personal account instead of going incognito. The forum went into a frenzy all of a sudden.

"Pleased to meet the goddess!"

"Sister Hong, please reply to me!"

"Please let me ride on your fame, Almighty!"

Another big boss replied to Zhu Hong's comment, "Sister Hong, what do you think about this video?" The person who commented was the chief of the Tang Alliance, Zhang Xiaoshan, who had used his personal account to comment too.

People were agitated again as soon as Zhang Xiaoshan appeared. No matter if it was Zhu Hong or Zhang Xiaoshan, both of them were the top bosses in the Genius Union. They were in the top five among the people at the same level.

Zhu Hong replied when she saw that it was Zhang Xiaoshan who had asked the question, "It looks more like a prank, but we can't rule out the possibility of it being authentic. What I want to know most is how did he go so deep into the hive?"

"It's actually easy for someone who has powerful spiritual energy. They can use an illusion to isolate themselves to do this," Zhang Xiaoshan replied.

"Brilliant! I know roughly who posted this thread now that you say that."

Many people asked who the person was as soon as Zhu Hong commented, but she did not reply.

Zhang Xiaoshan also disappeared as soon as Zhu Hong was gone.

However, people on checkpoint 63 soon began to analyze Zhu Hong's comment.

"Sister Hong should be talking about the Divine Alliance's Zhong Liyan. Chief Zhong's a psychic and he has extraordinary spiritual power. It's possible that he's mastered illusion skills too. Looking at it now, on the entire Stairway Tree, he's the only person who could possibly shoot the video so close to the Queen Mother."

The people in the thread soon began to talk about the Queen Mother after the analysis.

"So, that's what the Queen Mother looks like! It's so cute."

"I want to keep one!"

"Here's a question. If you brought the Queen Mother home and had sex with it, would the children the Queen Mother gave birth to be a human or a bug?"

"There won't be any children because you can always use precaution. Thank me later!"

"I've reported inappropriate content."

As Lin Huang read the comments, the thread was straying off topic. Only a minority of people talked about the god relic sword, and he felt helpless.

"These people are just here for the fun. They don't care about the reason for the bug horde breaking out at all."

"It's natural that they don't care since it doesn't concern them. They'll definitely be desperate for answers if the bug horde spreads below checkpoint 63," Bloody grinned while explaining, "Most people on checkpoint 63 who saw this video should have opinions about the god relic sword. It's just that they didn't comment on what they think. Be patient. We should be able to see how many people exactly show interest in the god relic."

Lin Huang had no idea that although the thread he posted was straying off topic, the video he posted had stolen the attention of many organizations on checkpoint 63.

Although Zhu Hong had said in the comment that it was surely a prank, she forwarded the video to the Hong Alliance group chat on checkpoint 63 to instruct them to form teams to investigate this as soon as she got off the thread.

Zhang Xiaoshan also began to gather people as soon as he closed the forum page.

Most of the other organizations began working too.

A majority of the people on checkpoint 63 could tell that the video was real because many of the details could not be staged. Although they had no idea how the person who shot the video managed to go so deep into the hive, they had little doubt about the authenticity of the video.

There were some organizations that hired professionals to conduct verification exercises. Naturally, the final consensus was that the video was authentic. No special effects were used in the video.

To verify the video source, Zhu Hong even went out of her way to contact Zhong Liyan, asking if it was him who had recorded the video. Naturally, Zhong Liyan denied it.

Some suggested that it might be Lin Xie because he was the only person on the Stairway Tree who could afford to get god relics with his points. However, after some investigation, they realized that all of the god relics were still there in the Stairway Mall. They then ruled out the suspicion on Lin Huang.

Although nobody could find the video source, the authenticity was verified. This caused the people on checkpoint 63 to think that the bug horde was related to the god relic that had appeared out of nowhere. This also proved the existence of god relics in the hive.

Many organizations began forming teams with the mission to obtain the god relic.

Since nobody could log into checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree because it was invaded by the bug horde, Zhu Hong of the Hong Alliance held a video conference call right away.

"Soldiers are valued by courage, not in numbers. This is the motto of our mission this time. Since it's a stealth mission, we need people who have mastered stealth techniques, illusion skills, stealing techniques or those who are simply fast. Each team will have one person responsible for hiding, one for stealing the god relic and one more with detective techniques. Each team will have two to three people. Three is the maximum because the more people there are, the higher the risk of exposing ourselves."

The Tang Alliance and the Divine Alliance carried out similar implementation whereby they formed a few teams that were skilled at carrying out stealth missions. Those who were great at battling and not suitable for stealth were excluded.

Naturally, Lin Huang received the messages that the deputy chief of the Heaven Alliance, Jian Fei, had sent in the group chat. It was definitive that he would not participate in such a mission. Eventually, the Heaven Alliance only managed to gather 11 people who formed four teams.

"The Heaven Alliance is almost done with their preparation. The other organizations are also almost ready." Lin Huang was secretly elated. The Heaven Alliance alone had gathered 11 people, so there would be more than 16 people participating in the search tomorrow.

At past six in the morning the next day, the monster horde on checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree was nowhere to be seen.

Lin Huang was still in bed while the organization members who were participating in the search had logged into the Genius Union and began the congregation.

Apart from the major organizations including the Heaven Alliance and the Hong Alliance that managed to form four to five teams, a few other organizations gathered a couple of teams. Some of the minor organizations that had insufficient members came together and form a few teams themselves.

Before it was even 6.30 a.m., one after another, the 36 teams climbed onto the main branch of the Stairway Tree from different starting points.

Lin Huang only got out of bed when it was almost 7 a.m.

After washing up, and washing his breakfast down with a cup of coffee, he logged onto the Genius Union leisurely when it was almost 7.30 a.m.

Soon, Bloody was summoned and it found the teams sent from the various organizations.

"There are a total of 36 teams participating in the search this time. There are 91 people."

"Only 91? That's lesser than I expected." Lin Huang raised his brow. "I thought there would be more than 100 people no matter what."

"There are only two to three people in each team. It seems like they're using our way of sneaking in, so they must've selected those who are great at stealth. It's actually not bad for them to have gathered 91 people among less than 500 people." Bloody figured out what was Zhu Hong and the rest's plans by looking at the allocation of the team members.

"Moreover, the sky will turn dark in 11 hours. If we take our efficiency of ten minutes per hive yesterday as a baseline, the most we can clear today would be 66 hives. We must speed up to seven minutes and 15 seconds if we want to clear all 91 hives."

"Understand. Then, let's not chat unnecessarily as soon as we enter the hive. Just tell me which fork Grimace and I should head to directly." Lin Huang nodded.

"Let's begin with the first hive now. We don't have to wait for the whole search to be done. My search won't be affected in the hives." Bloody stopped speaking and projected the map for Lin Huang. It then pointed out the coordinates of the first hive.

Lin Huang summoned the Ninetails Lynx and got it to send them to the coordinates immediately.

When they arrived at the entrance of the hive, he crushed a Lucky Card and a Double Reward Card.

He then summoned Grimace and told him the accelerated mission plan through voice transmission.

Grimace nodded and grabbed Lin Huang's wrist.

"Turn second left at the first fork." Grimace had disappeared from where he was while grabbing Lin Huang as soon as Bloody was done speaking.

They entered the first fork in less than two seconds.

"Turn first right at the second fork."

"Turn third left at the third fork."

"Then, at the fourth fork…"

In less than two minutes, Grimace brought Lin Huang to where the first Queen Mother was. The Ninetails Lynx killed her right away and brought Lin Huang and Grimace to the second hive later on.

Subsequently, Grimace grabbed Lin Huang along and dashed into the hive at full speed. The hunting efficiency experienced a few folds of improvement.

Initially, Bloody suggested speeding up the hunt to achieve one hive within seven minutes and 15 seconds, but now they had improved to doing so within three minutes.

Lin Huang only spent less than five hours clearing all 91 hives.

Only five teams among the 36 retreated to the starting point after noticing the unusualness in the area while the remaining 31 teams perished in the hives. None of their members survived.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang logged out of the Genius Union after he was done with the hunt. He did not care about the breaking out of the bug hordes on the Stairway Tree at all because he finally heard the notification that he had been waiting for when he was clearing the 53rd hive. He tamped his urge down and finished clearing all the 91 hives.

As he sat on the couch in the living room of the hotel room, Lin Huang tapped Xiao Hei's notification box open with a shudder of excitement.

"Congratulations, you've obtained complete Bug Tribe Queen Mother Monster Card (Mythical-level) x2

"Congratulations, you've obtained complete Bug Servant Monster Card (Pseudo-mythical-level) x2,184

"Congratulations, you've obtained Bug Tribe Incubator (Mythical-level) x4

"Congratulations, you've obtained Genetic Database (Mythical-level) x2

"Congratulations, you've obtained Genetic Modification Editor (Mythical-level) x2

"Congratulations, you've obtained Biomaterial Decomposer (Mythical-level) x2"

…

"Yes! I've finally gotten the complete Bug Tribe Queen Mother card after working on it for so many days!"

"Monster Card: Unnamed

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Monster Name: Bug Tribe Queen Mother

"Type of Monster: Mother Bug / Bug Tribe

"Nickname: None

"Combat Level: Imperial-level Crimson Gold-rank / Virtual God (Immature)

"Major: Spear Dao, Lightning Element

"Major Skills: Bug Center, Breeding Mother, Genetic Evolution…

"Minor Skills: Bug Tribe Army, Total Control…

"Summon Authority: Denied (To be activated when you reach imperial-level)

"Card Remarks: Great personal ability but encouraged to be cultivated as an army."

Lin Huang looked through the skills one after another and eventually had his eyes on the Bug Center.

"Bug Center: Special ability exclusively for high-tier Bug Tribe. A Bug Tribe that possesses such an ability will be able to hear the voice of the bug horde's will. Only Bug Tribe members that possess such an ability can build their own quantum consciousness network to control the Bug Tribe army.

"Remark 1: The bug guardians will only possess an intelligence close to a human's as well as having learning abilities under that premise when they're connected to the Bug Center. The intelligence of bug guardians that aren't connected to the Bug Center will be oppressed to its minimum whereby they will have almost zero self-consciousness. They will just be puppets that listen to orders blindly.

"Remark 2: The more bug guardians are connected to the Bug Center, the more powerful the Bug Center will grow and the more Bug Tribe fighters it can contain.

"Remark 3: The Bug Center can be taken away by other high-tier Bug Tribes that possess a Bug Center. It can be shared with other high-tier Bug Tribes that possess a Bug Center too.

"Remark 4: The Queen Mother can retrieve information from all the members in the Bug Center network. It can also control the information access of the other members as well as setting their intelligence level."

…

The first thought Lin Huang had after glancing at the skill description was that the Queen Mother would renegade.

However, he realized that the skill was extremely crucial for the entire Bug Tribe army after reading the many remarks below. Without the skill, the bug guardians and the Bug Tribe fighters would just be a plate of sand. They would not be worthy of being called an army at all.

Moreover, after reading the skill remarks, Lin Huang noticed that the thousands of pseudo-mythical-level bug guardians that he got earlier were just a bunch of stiff battle puppets if they were not connected to the Bug Center.

The reason he did not summon the bug guardians was that he was worried about the stench on the bug guardians which would affect the other hotel guests. He could not help but crush a bug guardian card after reading the description of the Bug Center.

A ferocious bug guardian with six arms made of sabers consolidated before him.

He was relieved that there was no odor coming from the bug guardian.

When it was summoned, the bug guardian that was over three meters tall stood motionlessly where it was.

Lin Huang waved before its eyes and it showed no response as if it could not see.

"Speak. Just say something," Lin Huang ordered.

The bug guardian looked at Lin Huang with its head held low and said nothing.

"Has its intelligence been oppressed so much that it can't even master a language?" Lin Huang frowned deeply.

"This should've been installed in its settings to prevent bug guardians from other tribes from acquiring it and using it as a weapon or to obtain important information. Disconnecting them from the Bug Center would result in their intelligence dropping rapidly whereby they can't even perform basic communication," Bloody speculated.

After carrying out some tests, Lin Huang realized that the bug guardian could only take simple orders. Furthermore, it would attack a specific target with all its might when it was given a slightly complicated order such as 'attack'. It would not be able to avoid the opponent's attacks and carry out an effective defense at all.

"This is so backward. The upper hand of a pseudo-mythical-level is being compromised by its intelligence." Lin Huang shook his head in dissatisfaction. "If they're put in a battle, Bai could fight five to six of them alone at once."

"Luckily, I've got the Queen Mother Card. Otherwise, those bug guardians would just be your puppets," Lin Huang smiled while saying to Bloody.

"I might not be able to cast parasites on them since they're on the same level as I am, which is pseudo-mythical-level." Bloody was taken aback.

Lin Huang shook his head without saying much.

After all, he could not summon the Queen Mother yet and those bug guardians could not be connected to the Bug Center. They were pretty useless to Lin Huang now since they had such low intelligence. He could only put them aside at the time being.

After recalling the bug guardian card, Lin Huang looked at the few new cards that he had just obtained.

…

"Special Item Card

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Item Name: Genetic Database

"Function: Database storing various genetic data

"Application Authorization: Passive

"Card Remarks: Good stuff

"Remarks: Must be used in compliance with biomaterial decomposer and gene extractor."

…

"Special Item Card

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Item Name: Biomaterial Decomposer

"Function: Decomposes flesh of living beings into various materials as well as separating gene fragments for genetic modification

"Application Authorization: Passive

"Card Remarks: Not bad

"Remarks: Can't be used to decompose living beings."

…

"Special Item Card

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Item Name: Genetic Modification Editor

"Function: Modify living beings' genes

"Application Authorization: Passive

"Card Remarks: Good stuff.

"Remarks: Must be used in compliance with biomaterial decomposer and gene extractor."

Lin Huang put all of the cards away after reading the card details and realized that he could not activate them due to the authority restriction. He then began practicing his sword skills.

Meanwhile, it was chaotic in the Genius Union once again.

A bug horde had broken out on checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree like never before since Lin Huang had killed 91 Bug Tribe Queen Mothers.

This time, the big bosses on checkpoint 63 hid behind the defense barrier right away after learning their lesson earlier when they saw the bug horde sweeping toward them. With the experience from the day before, very few of them chose to stay to fight head-on this time.

Everyone clearly felt that the bug horde this time was even more terrifying than the day before whereby there were folds of increase in the number of bugs.

Can you imagine tens of billions of bugs in various forms occupying all the buildings with no gaps in between?

One must know that even those bugs which were smaller in size were over two meters long while the bigger ones were hundreds of meters long. Imagine the space that almost 30 billion of those monsters could occupy!

Almost every inch of the ground on the entire checkpoint 63 was covered with bugs. Even the defenses on all of the human residence buildings had bugs crawling all over them. Some even had layers of bugs writhing on them. It was chilling to watch.

Some people took videos and photos of the situation and posted them on the forum. People from other checkpoints began talking about it.

Lin Huang only found out about it when he looked at the Genius Union forum before he went to bed.

As he was reading a few minutes into the thread, a notice came from the Genius Union all of a sudden.

"Notice: A new rule has been added to the Stairway Tree system!

"A player will pass the checkpoint as soon as he kills the boss!

"Every Genius Union member will pass the checkpoint right away as soon as they kill the final boss in the monster stage of the respective checkpoint. The player will not obtain any benefits on the respective checkpoints after the final boss is killed.

"We hope everyone acknowledges this notice."

Almost every Genius Union member who received the notice at midnight were dumbstruck.

"What happened? Why did such a notice appear like that?"

Lin Huang was the only one who realized that the system was directed at him again.

"Luckily, I've already gotten the Bug Tribe Queen Mother!"

The new rule from the Genius Union that came out of nowhere broke the midnight peace. It was chaos on the forum all of a sudden.

"What happened? Why is there a new rule out of nowhere?"

"The two new rules earlier were caused by Lin Xie's killing spree on the Stairway Tree. Could it be him who's caused this again?"

"If someone's really doing something, looking at the new rule, there should be someone killing the boss on some level. Killing the boss is much more difficult than passing through the level. Who is insane enough to kill the boss over and over again?"

"If someone's killing the boss over and over again, I think the killing machine Lin Xie has the highest possibility of doing that."

"Don't look at Lin Xie so highly. Indeed, he's pretty skilled at killing small monsters, but he's on checkpoint 63 now. Do you guys know how scary the boss on checkpoint 63 is? That Bug Tribe Queen Mother could be a quadruple mutated monster while her 12 bug guardians have the ability that surpasses triple mutated monsters. It's not that I look down on Lin Xie's ability, but in reality, even Chan Dou the Fourth Prince would have to avoid those bug guardians if he ever encountered more than three of them."

"Maybe a rookie on a lower checkpoint is killing the boss repetitively but we didn't notice."

…

Lin Huang realized that a minority of people suspected it was him who had caused this while most people ruled out the possibility of him doing it. A few big bosses on checkpoint 63 were analyzing how terrifying the Queen Mother and her bug guardians' abilities were.

He received a message from Chan Dou on his communication device just when he was ready to sleep after closing the forum. "Is this new rule about you again?"

Lin Huang thought about it and gave a short reply while smirking. "Take a guess."

"No wonder there are bug hordes on checkpoint 63 every day. You're killing Queen Mothers like it's a game for you. That's insane!" Chan Dou sent a thumbs-up emoticon at the end of his message.

"You haven't been logging in these few days. What have you been up to?" Lin Huang changed the subject.

"I've been shopping around black markets these few days. I have to live up to the act since I'm doing it," Chan Dou replied, "I even asked Tan Lang to go to you a few days later."

"No wonder he isn't here. I've been waiting for him."

"I'll log in tomorrow at eight in the morning. Come log in too. Let's settle the deputy chief thing." Chan Dou sent another message.

"Eight in the morning? That's a little early."

"It's all your fault! There are monsters all over the entire checkpoint 63 for more than 21 hours before it's even 9 a.m. every day. We can only log in between 6 a.m. to 7 a.m."

"Sure, eight it is."

The next morning, Lin Huang woke up early. After breakfast, he logged onto the Genius Union leisurely.

"It seems to be way too early." After logging in, Lin Huang raised his brow upon realizing it was only 7.23 a.m. "I can seize the opportunity to kill the last Queen Mother then."

Lin Huang moved immediately as soon as he made up his mind. Bloody used less than two minutes to locate the Queen Mother.

Zhu Hong and the rest had yet to give up on looking for the god relic, so they came in teams earlier in the morning. Although there were fewer people compared to the day before, there were still over 70 of them.

However, with the new rule, Lin Huang would pass the checkpoint as soon as he killed one Queen Mother despite there being more than 70 Queen Mothers. He would not gain any benefits after killing one Queen Mother.

Lin Huang did not use the old way of getting into the hive this time. Instead, he made a grand entrance by summoning the Destructive Divine Mammoth. The Destructive Divine Mammoth suppressed everyone with its aura, and they ambled in without any obstacles.

Since he would pass the checkpoint after killing the Queen Mother, Lin Huang thought he of obtaining the 10 billion point limit for the day right away.

As the Destructive Divine Mammoth stomped its feet, the Bug Tribe monsters turned into dust. None of them even managed to get closer.

They only used approximately five minutes to get to the core zone of the hive.

The Queen Mother and her 12 bug guardians knew they were no match for the Destructive Divine Mammoth as soon as they saw it.

The 12 bug guardians and an insane amount of bugs dashed towards the Destructive Divine Mammoth. Meanwhile, the Bug Tribe Queen Mother disconnected its tail that was connected to the incubator and fled immediately.

Unfortunately, it underestimated the Destructive Divine Mammoth's abilities.

The Destructive Divine Mammoth lifted both of its feet high and stomped onto the ground hard. A circle of black energy wave spread out rapidly. The bug horde, the bug guardians and the Queen Mother… Everything turned into dust instantly wherever the wave passed.

Xiao Hei's notification came into Lin Huang's ears at that moment.

"Congratulations, you've obtained complete Bug Tribe Queen Mother Monster Card (Mythical-level) x2!

"Congratulations, you've obtained complete Bug Servant Monster Card (Pseudo-mythical-level) x10!"

…

Lin Huang was stunned for a second when he heard the notification about him obtaining complete Bug Tribe Queen Mother Monster Cards. He had never thought he would be so lucky in that single kill to obtain complete Bug Tribe Queen Mother Monster Cards. He did not expect such a thing to happen when he came in this time. After all, he only got the complete Queen Mother Monster Card after killing up to a hundred Queen Mothers.

Lin Huang left the hive happily after getting two Bug Tribe Queen Mother Monster Cards and 10 billion points.

Not long after he left, the remaining bugs in the hive swarmed out as a bug horde.

As he returned to the Heaven Alliance residence on checkpoint 63, Lin Huang finally met their deputy chief, Jian Fei, for the very first time.

Although he had seen his photo before, he did not expect the real person to be fatter in real life.

'I think he's at least 300 pounds! He should be slaughtered and eaten during the New Year,' Lin Huang thought to himself.

Naturally, Jian Fei recognized Lin Huang as the notorious No. 1 on the Stairway Tree leaderboard. He welcomed him immediately, knowing the reason why Chan Dou had gathered them today.

"Brother Lin Xie, I've heard so much about you. We finally meet."

"Chief Jian, I've heard so much about you from the chief. It's nice to finally meet you too." Lin Huang was being polite as well.

"The chief isn't here yet. Let's go into the meeting room." Jian Fei brought Lin Huang into the meeting room.

There were already eight people sitting in the meeting room. They lifted their heads to look at Lin Huang when he walked in.

The eight of them were the high management of the Heaven Alliance. Although their abilities were not the top in the Heaven Alliance, they were talented.

It was their first time seeing Lin Huang, so they were very curious about this young man who ranked No. 1 on the Stairway Tree leaderboard.

"Hi, everyone, my name's Lin Xie," Lin Huang introduced himself. Although everyone knew who he was, he had to show basic courtesy.

"Your combat strength…" A short-haired lady among the eight could not help but exclaim all of a sudden.

Jian Fei and the rest just realized that as well and they had shock written on their faces.

"Yes, I'm on immortal-level rank-7 now," Lin Huang confirmed. He could not lie about such a thing since they were meeting face-to-face. Although he could use his disguise demigod relic to conceal that, he thought it was unnecessary.

'What terrifying combat strength elevation speed!' Although none of them said that out loud, they glanced at each other and knew everyone had the same thought in their heads.

Jian Fei introduced the eight of them to Lin Huang one by one before sitting down.

Since Lin Huang the rookie was there, the rest held back on their topics as it might be inappropriate. They began talking about the god relic that had appeared in the hive recently.

Lin Huang pretended not to know much about it and listened to them talking patiently. Finally, Chan Dou showed up when it was 8 a.m. sharp.

"Yo, everyone's here. Does everyone know who Lin Xie is already?" Chan Dou strolled into the meeting room and walked straight to the main seat.

He did not chat much after taking his seat and went right to business. "I suppose everyone knows why I've gathered all of you here today."

All of them nodded.

"I shall recommend Lin Xie officially to be deputy chief of our Heaven Alliance." Chan Dou glanced through everyone. "Those who agree, please raise your hand. Those who don't, please name the reason for your dissent."

Chan Dou raised his hand as soon as he was done speaking and the deputy chief Jian Fei was the second to follow suit while chuckling. The remaining eight of them raised their hands as well. Nobody disagreed.

Lin Huang could not help but raise his brow. He could tell that Chan Dou was great at ruling.

"Alright, since its unanimous, let's sign our names," Chan Dou spoke and projected an appointment agreement. He projected it to Jian Fei after he signed his name.

Jian Fei did not hesitate and signed it right away followed by the remaining eight.

After everyone had signed it, Chan Dou walked to Lin Huang and projected the appointment agreement. "Please sign your name on the agreement."

Lin Huang nodded and signed it.

After confirming that everyone had signed it, Chan Dou saved the document. He then put it away in the attachment and sent an appointment notice as the chief of the Heaven Alliance.

"Heaven Alliance member Lin Xie is officially appointed as the deputy chief of the Heaven Alliance effective today!"

The notice was sent to every Heaven Alliance member's communication device. Besides those who were on checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree, all the Heaven Alliance members in the Genius Union received the notice almost at the same time.

"Huh? Lin Xie's now a deputy chief? Didn't he just break through to immortal-level not long ago?"

"No matter whether he's on holy fire-level or immortal-level, getting to checkpoint 63 is proof of his ability."

"I must admit that the killing machine has the ability to be where he is now."

As the Heaven Alliance members were in a hot discussion, someone posted the notice on the Genius Union forum. The other organizations buzzed with the news as well.

"I think Lin Xie's just on beginner-stage immortal-level now at the most. Is Chan Dou training the next Heaven Alliance chief?"

"It seems like the next Heaven Alliance chief has been decided."

"I think Lin Xie won't be anything less powerful than Chan Dou. As he grows, the Heaven Alliance will rise even higher!"

"With Lin Xie, Heaven Alliance's No. 1 position is even more unshakable now."

Although the meeting in the meeting room of the Heaven Alliance residence had ended, Jian Fei stopped both Chan Dou and Lin Huang who were going to log out of the Genius Union.

"Chief, it's rare that you're here today. Since the new deputy chief is here too, let's discuss obtaining the god relic."

Chan Dou turned to look at Lin Huang with a rather helpless expression on his face. After confirming that the breaking out of the bug horde was related to Lin Huang, naturally, he knew that the god relic was not real.

However, he did not expose Lin Huang instantly because he was not sure if Lin Huang was willing to reveal his abilities.

"Alright, let me explain." Lin Huang took over the subject.

Jian Fei and the remaining people looked at him with an odd expression.

"The god relic's fake. I took the video. It was just a prank," Lin Huang told the truth without flinching at all.

"Huh?" Jian Fei and the rest were dumbstruck by what he said.

"If the god relic doesn't exist, what's up with the bug horde?" Jian Fei could not help but ask.

"That's the side effect of the prank." Lin Huang felt his lips becoming dry.

"Chief Lin, could you explain further about that?" One of them asked.

"Ugh, sure." Lin Huang nodded rather helplessly. "In reality, I've been killing Bug Tribe Queen Mothers these few days. In turn, I caused the bug hordes."

"Huh?!" Everyone was stunned hearing that.

Even Chan Dou was shocked when Lin Huang admitted that himself.

When it became awkward in the meeting room, a harried knock came at the door followed by someone opening the door subsequently. "Chief Jian, there's a bug horde again!"

Later on, everyone saw the crowded bug horde attacking the defense barrier through the meeting room windows.

Chan Dou and the rest turned to look at Lin Huang.

"Um… I had time before coming to the residence, so I killed another Queen Mother since I was bored."

Deadly Ruins

After logging out of the Genius Union, Lin Huang, who was sitting on the hotel couch, felt relieved.

He thought he would be beaten up by Jian Fei and the rest if he told the truth. How could he have thought that everyone would say politely that it was great to know the truth?

However, he heard that Jian Fei died six times on the Stairway Tree on the first day the bug horde broke out while the other eight of them died at least three to four times.

Meanwhile, the other Heaven Alliance members who participated in the bug hordes died at least twice.

How could he have thought that his ability to kill the Queen Mothers like they were insignificant monsters to be so powerful? Even if Jian Fei and the rest were to attack him at once, they would be beaten and dragged on the ground.

Jian Fei and the rest would only dare to curse him secretly. They would not really do anything to him.

However, Lin Huang's abilities truly shocked everyone.

Jian Fei and the rest thought that Lin Huang would only reach the level that the Five Princes, including Chan Dou, was on when he reached immortal-level rank-9. They never thought that although he was only on immortal-level rank-7, he would have surpassed the Five Princes. He even beat Chan Dou and became the well-deserved No. 1 powerhouse in the Genius Union.

Naturally, under Chan Dou's order, the nine of them present chose to keep it a secret. They did not mention that to anyone, even keeping it from the other Heaven Alliance members.

After all, the more people knew, the more they would talk about it. It was hard to guarantee that nobody would slip it out.

As he looked through the Genius Union forum, the No. 1 hot topic was 'Guess Who is The New the Heaven Alliance Deputy Chief?'.

The threads that were discussing the bug hordes these few days were pushed down to second place.

After reading the comments on the thread, Lin Huang was surprised that not many people raised questions about him being the Heaven Alliance deputy chief. On the contrary, most of them supported him.

"Look at the fame I've obtained from killing monsters!" Lin Huang forced a smile helplessly after reading those supportive comments.

Despite there being people questioning him, there were not many of them. The sceptics basically raised the same question: was Lin Xie's combat strength not too low?

However, most people were alright with his low combat strength as long as he had sufficient abilities.

After quitting the forum, Lin Huang proceeded to practice his sword skills. He did not log into the Genius Union until the next day since he agreed to meet Tan Lang.

Naturally, no bug horde broke out on checkpoint 63 since he did not kill any Bug Tribe Queen Mothers.

Many people found it odd that the bud horde came to a halt all of a sudden after happening for a few days consecutively.

As a result, the halt of the bug horde became a hot topic on the forum. It replaced the topic of Lin Xie becoming the Heaven Alliance deputy chief the day before and got bumped up to become the No. 1 topic.

However, Lin Huang did not follow up on that.

After practicing his sword skills in the morning, he met Tan Lang at a seafood restaurant nearby for lunch.

Tan Lang seemed to be the same as usual, dressed in a black, slim-fit trench coat with the collar standing up. He was skinny as always. Apart from his aura that was slightly more powerful compared a few months ago, there seemed to be no changes in him.

However, Tan Lang was shocked when he saw Lin Huang. He could tell that Lin Huang's combat strength was on immortal-level rank-7 as soon as he saw him.

"Isn't the elevation rate of your combat strength terrifying?! I think it's only been less than three months since we came out of the Fallen God Land, but you've already elevated by four ranks!"

"That's just my luck!" Lin Huang laughed.

"I guess you'll surpass me very soon," Tan Lang teased while smiling.

"It won't be that easy." Lin Huang smiled while shaking his head.

"Oh yeah, I heard from Boss Chan that you're now a deputy chief, eh?" Tan Lang asked rather curiously.

Although his combat strength had elevated to imperial-level, Tan Lang still respected Chan Dou and addressed him the same way.

"Yep, I was appointed yesterday. It's just a title."

"Congrats, congrats!" Tan Lang exclaimed while cupping his hands with a wide grin.

Although he knew that Lin Huang had become the deputy chief of the Heaven Alliance, Tan Lang did not mention anything about the bug hordes and the god relic in the Genius Union. Lin Huang had no idea if he was avoiding the topic intentionally or if Chan Dou had not told him.

They only began ordering after chatting for a while.

Tan Lang only began getting down to business when they were almost done with lunch.

"Boss Chan asked me to pick up something from you. He was so mysterious about it and didn't even tell me what I'm picking up from you. He told me not to ask. He even asked me to drag our meeting on for a few days…"

Lin Huang took out the jade slip while nodding with a smile.

Mr. Fu figured that Lin Huang might have friends who needed those methods, so he made a few copies that were password-protected for him.

Lin Huang said while smiling showing the two-fingers wide jade slip to Tan Lang, "This is it."

"A piece of jade?" Taking it, Tan Lang studied it for a while. He did not find anything after inserting his Life Power and spiritual power in.

"Are you sure this is what he wants?" Tan Lang could not help but begin suspecting that Lin Huang had made a mistake after his failed attempt to find out more about the jade slip.

"Don't worry, this is it. There's no mistake."

"Why didn't you just courier this?" Tan Lang complained while pouting. Subsequently, he recalled something all of a sudden. He turned and looked at Lin Huang to ask, lowering his voice, "Does Chan Dou have a lover here in Division 3? Is this a love token?"

"That's what you said. I didn't say that," Lin Huang raised his brow and replied while smiling.

"I didn't expect that that bushy brow would do something secretive like this. He even hid it from his brother, me!" Tan Lang smirked. "I'll look for him for some hush-up money when I get back!"

'Just wait for Chan Dou to beat you up if you do that!' Lin Huang thought to himself.

After sending Tan Lang away, it was almost 2 p.m. when Lin Huang returned to the hotel.

He took out the wooden sword and proceeded to practice. He only looked at the Hunter Association forum for news when he was in bed at night.

A top headline grabbed his attention immediately.

'More Than Half of the Demigods Died in the Deadly Ruins!'

The news was published at 10 a.m.. Lin Huang had not looked at the forum the entire day and only saw that more than ten hours later. He could not help but frown after clicking on the topic and reading the article.

According to the news, the ruins that opened in Division 1 was extremely dangerous. There were even living virtual god-level monsters in it. Only 58 among the 117 demigods who went in to explore made it out alive.

"Living virtual god-level monsters exist?!" Lin Huang was pretty surprised about that.

Theoretically, a ruins was usually a place with order that had completely collapsed. Nothing could survive in it, let alone breed new lives. Therefore, only spirits and undead monsters could survive in most ruins. However, due to the lack of order, it was almost impossible for those spirits and undead monsters to elevate their combat strength. It was even more impossible for them to grow to virtual god-level.

The Virtual Gods in this ruins must not have elevated at the latter stage. Instead, they existed before the ruins collapsed. There was a high chance that they were severely injured in wars and hid away, going through hibernation until now.

Those demigods had unintentionally interrupted them and woke them up during their exploration since the ruins opened.

Lin Huang winced slightly after closing the forum page. He was not interested in the ruins which was somewhere more than 50 demigods had died. It was not a place he could explore now.

However, the return of the demigods from the exploration of the ruins meant something else to him.

'The Dynasty's Royal Trials should begin soon!'

After killing the Queen Mother and passing through checkpoint 63 on the Stairway Tree, Lin Huang had not logged into the Genius Union since then.

While he could block his combat strength on the Stairway Tree leaderboard, everyone could see it on the Stairway Tree checkpoints.

Everyone in the Genius Union would know that his ability surpassed Chan Dou's if he was to go further up.

He was not interested to log into the Genius Union after all. Apart from practicing his sword skills every day, he was watching the news and waiting for Dynasty's Royal Trials to begin.

He had accumulated pseudo-mythical-level sword skill card pieces throughout these few days and merged them into two complete cards. Therefore, he now possessed a total of seven pseudo-mythical-level sword skills including the Almighty Surgical Knife, the Killer, the Void Sword, the Instantaneous Slash, the Buddha Killer and the two assassination sword skills that he had recently mastered – Moonlit Night and Silent Snow.

In the Genius Union, checkpoint 63 on the Stairway Tree regained its usual order without Lin Huang killing the Bug Tribe Queen Mother. There was no bug horde during the day.

Since the halt of bug horde happened the next day the Genius Union announced the new rule, many people made the connection between the break out of the bug horde with the new rule.

Many people were discussing the topic on the forum.

The most popular one was a thread posted anonymously. The author gave a series of speculations that were very close to the truth.

The title of the thread was 'Was It A Coincidence or Did Someone Do It?". These were the main points:

"The Genius Union announced the new rule the day before the bug horde on checkpoint 63 came to a halt. Was that a coincidence?

"Think about it guys. When did the Genius Union ever announce a new rule not because of the order was severely broken? This is the only time the Genius Union did that. You guys mustn't have noticed that. The Genius Union announced a new rule out of nowhere, whereby one would pass through the checkpoint as soon as the player kills the final boss. The player no longer gains any benefits on the same checkpoint on the day itself.

"Some said they didn't notice that at all. Some said maybe it was caused by new people coming in and stayed on the lower checkpoints of the Stairway Tree, killing the final boss over and over again while getting the attention of the Genius Union system. I'd like to ask if killing the final boss on the lower checkpoints continuously will affect the balance of the Stairway Tree system?

"Everyone knows that the two new rules that were announced were directed at Lin Xie. We were limited to a number of points daily and on each checkpoint because Lin Xie's behavior in obtaining points had severely affected the balance of the Stairway Tree point system.

"Killing the final boss on the lower checkpoints were inefficient to affect the balance of the Stairway Tree system, so how was it supposed to get the Genius Union's attention? The answer is that the Genius Union system doesn't care about such a thing at all!

"The reason the Genius Union system announced the new rule was because of a new behavior that affected the balance of the Stairway Tree system. The behavior was someone killing the Bug Tribe Queen Mother on checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree!

"Many people had been asking before this. Why would bug hordes break out during the day on checkpoint 63? Many people concluded that it was caused by the god relic that came out of nowhere. However, I personally suspect that the so-called god relic was just a lie. Of course, I've no proof of that. I just want to voice my speculations here.

"I think the real reason for the bug horde was because someone killed the Bug Tribe Queen Mother. Once the Queen Mother died, the bugs would lose control and go wild. That was how the bug hordes came about.

"The bug hordes that broke out one after another during the day caused checkpoint 63 to lose its balance of order completely. That was the reason why the Genius Union announced the new rule that one would pass through the checkpoint as soon as the final boss was killed.

"Finally, I'd like everyone to think about it following my speculation. Did you realize that the bug horde stopped breaking out the next day when the rule was announced? Everything makes sense now. The fella who had been killing the Queen Mothers had killed the last Bug Tribe Queen Mother that could reap him benefits. He then stopped hunting for Queen Mothers, hence putting an end to the bug hordes."

…

The comments in the thread were filled with a 50-50 mix of supporters and routers.

Some supported the thread because the speculations were totally logically while those who doubted them asked a realistic question, "Who could kill the Bug Tribe Queen Mother alone on the Stairway Tree?"

Everyone knew that even Chan Dou, one of the Five Princes, could not do that.

Someone asked the anonymous author directly in the thread who he thought could possibly do such a thing.

This was the author's reply: "Looking at the ability of all the members on the Stairway Tree that we know, nobody could've possibly done it. But if you insist that I give a name, I'd say that it's most possibly Lin Xie."

The author's response caused a stir once again.

"Author, just admit that you're Lin Xie himself. You posted this thread just to brag!"

"Verification checked: The author's Lin Xie's fangirl!"

"You're parading Lin Xie's name so highly. How about Chan Dou, our Master Chan?"

"I support Master Chan. He's handsome, plus he has long legs and powerful ability!"

"May I ask the commenter above me if Lin Xin is handsome? Are his legs long? Is his ability powerful?"

Lin Huang saw the thread too and replied with Lin Xie's account, "I support Master Chan. He's the most handsome, has the longest legs and the most powerful ability!"

Chan Dou saw Lin Huang's response too and replied, "Thanks for your support, my Master Deputy Chief."

Zhu Hong from the Hong Alliance must have been bored, so she posted below, "I think I smell some serious PDA going on here…"

The interaction of the trio caused a stir in the forum again.

…

Time flew by and three days passed since then.

As Lin Huang was having breakfast, he finally saw the news that he desired when he clicked into the Hunter Association forum.

The headline of the Hunter Association forum was 'The Once-in-A-Decade Royal Trials is Beginning Soon!'

Lin Huang smirked after reading the news. "It's officially beginning on the 5th of May. It's the 28th of April today, so that's one week away. I'll do some preparations beforehand these few days."

After breakfast, Lin Huang logged into the Stairway Mall again.

He picked two demigod-level telekinetic weapons he had his eyes on initially and put them into his shopping cart.

The two telekinetic weapons were ultimate demigod relics. One cost five billion points, so they added up to 10 billion points. As the deputy chief of the Heaven Alliance, he could enjoy a 40% discount, so he only needed to pay six billion points.

Lin Huang had always wanted demigod-level telekinetic weapons. However, he could not use them at the moment. He bought them beforehand mainly for Grimace and the Imp who had mastered telekinesis.

Apart from the two telekinetic weapons, Lin Huang picked a demigod puppet that cost 18 billion points.

The puppet was for Grimace as well. Only Bloody and Grimace, who possessed Supreme Intelligence, could master such a complicated tool completely within a short period of time by. Grimace's telekinetic power was the perfect fit with a puppet-type battle weapon. With such a puppet, Grimace could fight face-on even if he were to encounter an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse.

Enticed by the 40% discount, he spent a total of 16.8 billion points on the three items.

After summoning Grimace and the Imp, Lin Huang distributed the three new pieces of equipment.

"The both of you will have a telekinetic weapon each," Lin Huang said and delivered the demigod puppet into Grimace's hands. "This is your reward for helping me in the hives throughout the past few days."

The Imp was envious as he watched while Grimace's eyes light up.

After recalling the two imperial monsters, Lin Huang purchased all 11 pseudo-mythical-level sword skills and three mythical-level sword skills. They cost a total of 128 billion points but he only paid 76.8 billion points with the 40% discount.

Hence, he spent almost half of his 200 billion points which in turn, tampered with his plan to purchase demigod-level soul crystals to elevate his remaining five Combat Souls to imperial-level purple gold-rank.

He planned to put his remaining Stairway Tree points aside for a rainy day so that he would not be able to trade god battle sword and god armor relics that he desired with the god relics that he possessed.

Time sure flew. A week soon passed.

Lin Huang thought the token he had would attract covetous members from Dynasty whereby they would send people to take it away from him. He was prepared to fight anytime, but it had been peaceful for the past week. Nothing happened at all.

He wondered if something had happened to Dynasty that caused them to not put the extra effort in to get the token back.

He did not log into the Genius Union for the past week. He was basically doing three things every day: eat, sleep and practice sword skills.

He managed to merge the card pieces into two complete pseudo-mythical-level sword skills.

Early morning on the 5th of May, Lin Huang returned to the hotel room after breakfast. He then took out the Dynasty trial token from his Emperor's Heart Ring.

The token was completely golden and was almost half the size of a palm. The word 'Dynasty' was imprinted in the middle of it with complicated sigils around it.

According to the notice Dynasty posted, the trials would officially begin at 9 a.m.

However, the sigils on the token glowed with a golden stream that lit up when it was 8.30 a.m. It was like lava flowing slowly. Approximately 20 minutes later, the beam lit up all of the sigils on the token and spread towards the 'Dynasty' word.

When it was 9 a.m. sharp, the golden stream flowed all over the 'Dynasty' word, lending a bright golden ray to surround the entire token. It was like a mini sun hovering before Lin Huang.

Even he could not help but narrow his eyes.

He witnessed the golden ray expand rapidly and transform the small token into golden double doors that were approximately three meters tall.

The golden ray only faded away quickly as soon as the doors were completely formed.

Lin Huang was puzzled when he noticed that the golden doors were still shut after the golden ray faded. However, he soon found out that there were two palm dents in the middle of the two doors.

"Do I press my palms on those dents?" Lin Huang stepped forward in puzzlement and pressed both of his palms on the dents.

Soon, two golden rays shot out of the dents and covered both of his palms.

At that moment, Lin Huang heard a lady's voice in his ears.

"The verification of candidate has begun…

"The candidate's current location is No. D000857142.

"Rank-D

"Recording candidate's identity…

"Name: Lin Huang

"Gender: Male

"Age: 18

"Combat Strength: Immortal-level Rank-7 (Candidate's cultivation system is eligible for the trial).

"Qualification Assessment: Grade-A

"Assessment Result: Passed preliminary selection, official qualification – Rank-D

"Binding of trial token has begun… Binding successful!

"Candidate, are you to going into the trial space now?"

"Yes." Lin Huang nodded without any hesitation.

In the next second, the golden rays that were initially covering both of his palms spread all over his body and covered his entire being in it.

Lin Huang, who turned into a sphere of golden ray, penetrated the closed golden doors right away and vanished. A moment later, the golden doors disintegrated and disappeared.

As his body was covered in the golden ray, Lin Huang felt like he was riding on a high-speed rail and moving swiftly with it.

It only took a moment before it stopped. The golden ray before his eyes faded slowly and was then replaced by a dense jungle.

Lin Huang turned his head to look around. Trees and bushes covered his field of vision. Even the sunlight above his head was covered by the dense trees. The jungle seemed a little dim because of that.

There were different smells around, including the earthy scent of the soil and the fragrance of flowers.

Lin Huang felt lost at that moment. He had zero ideas about the trial conditions here and it was an open-style environment as he glanced around.

"Do I kill monsters in this trial since I'm put in such an environment?" He speculated that that would most likely happen.

At that moment, he just realized that the golden token had returned to his hand without him even realizing it.

A page was projected from the golden token all of a sudden as soon as he spoke. There were rows of information displayed.

"The trial setting: unlimited hunting.

"The trial condition – kill every living thing that you see!

"There are two identities in the trial setting. One will be the convict while another will be the candidate.

"You'll obtain points according to the convict's combat strength that you kill.

"Single kill point system: 1 point for imperial-level black gold-rank, 3 points for imperial-level crimson gold-rank, 10 points for imperial-level yellow gold-rank, 30 points for imperial-level white gold-rank, 100 points for imperial-level purple gold-rank.

"You'll obtain all of the points the candidate possessed if you kill one.

"Candidate can crush the trial token as a sign of surrender. He or she would then be sent out of the trial space. The points will be awarded to the candidate who witnesses the surrender and is the closest to the person who surrenders."

…

"Trial candidates: 10,000 people. Convicts: 100,000 people."

"Trial Period: 1 month.

"The candidate who survives the trial and obtains the highest points will win a Dynasty citizenship.

"Last warning: this trial isn't a virtual game. Dying in the trial means death in reality. Please use the trial token when necessary."

"There are 10,000 people participating in this?!" Until then only did Lin Huang realize that there were so many people in this trial space apart from himself and the people from Dynasty.

"Convict… Looking at the description, the convict stated shouldn't be monsters but humans." Lin Huang calmed himself down and began focusing on the information provided. "So, candidates kill continuously in this trial to obtain points. Not only are the convicts preys, but so are the other candidates too.

"Looking at the description of the condition, all of the convicts seem to be on imperial-level. The lowest one would be on imperial-level black gold-rank while the highest would be on imperial-level purple gold-rank. Furthermore, the ratio of convicts to candidates is 10:1. Also, a candidate who survives at the end of the one-month trial meets the prerequisite to winning the final eligibility. It shows that the candidates in this trial aren't the predators, but the prey."

Lin Huang narrowed his eyes slightly. "The condition didn't mention that collaborating is prohibited. Those organization members who participate in this trial would most likely choose to collaborate in the hunt with people from the same organization. Although I've no idea what's up with the convicts, I think they should be collaborating in groups. If people don't come from the same organization, there might be teams with many people in it."

Lin Huang did a detailed analysis of the conditions. Clearly, this trial was much more difficult than it appeared to be. If one were to read the description of condition on the surface, he would most probably die if he went after the convicts without thinking much about it.

Lin Huang summoned Bloody calmly after reading the conditions. "Bloody, as usual, show me the map."

After Bloody had released the Leech Pods for less than ten minutes, it then said to Lin Huang all of a sudden, "I'm afraid it's hard for the Leech Pods to get wide coverage of the place."

"What's wrong?" Lin Huang asked.

"Many of the Leech Pods are killed when they're spread less than 1,000 kilometers away. There are many living things in this space that have formidable sense and alertness," Bloody explained while feeling helpless.

It was the first time that Lin Huang could not get a complete map from Bloody. Seeing its gloomy expression, he did not panic at all. Instead, he rubbed Bloody's head affectionately. "Then, let's not try getting the map. It's unfair to other people for us to always use a map. Let's participate in the trial like everyone else and see if we can get first place."

The radius of Lin Huang's territory expanded to seven kilometers wide since he elevated to immortal-level rank-7. Using his senses, he detected no living thing within the territory coverage.

He stood where he was and thought for a moment. Instead of asking Bloody which way to go like he usually would, he summoned Lancelot instead.

Lancelot, who had elevated to imperial-level crimson gold-level, had expanded the radius of his territory to 40 kilometers. That was more than five folds of what Lin Huang possessed.

Lancelot habitually took out some dried vegetables as he was summoned. Just when he was ready to munch on it, Lin Huang snatched it away.

He turned to look at Lin Huang pitifully.

"If you do a great job, I'll give you a month's worth of extra snacks," Lin Huang offered and tossed the snack pack to Lancelot.

Hearing there was a snack reward, Lancelot nodded immediately. "What's the mission?"

"Determine which direction in your coverage has living things and how far they are."

Lancelot put away his dried vegetables unwillingly. He opened his eyes again after shutting them for merely a moment. "I see four human-form beings. They're most probably humans."

"How far away is the closest to us?" Lin Huang asked.

"Approximately 19 kilometers. He's at our 2 o'clock," Lancelot spoke and turned his body toward the direction where the human was.

"Lead the way. Let's check it out."

Lancelot nodded and dashed while Lin Huang followed close behind him.

However, as they were halfway there, Lancelot said to Lin Huang through voice transmission out of the blue, "He noticed us and is running away!"

"Is he that alert?!" Lin Huang raised his brow, feeling surprised. "Go after him!"

Lancelot charged at his top speed upon hearing that order and dashed toward their target.

Lin Huang used the pseudo-mythical-level Wander God flying method, following close behind Lancelot. He did not lose sight of him at all.

…

A silhouette was racing the tree branches at high speed.

It was a skinny man who seemed sick. The skin on his face was so shriveled that he looked like a corpse with sunken cheeks. His slender arms were all bones and were half the size of a normal adult's.

One would wonder how long since he had last washed the torn clothes he was wearing which were a mottled color. His obvious ribs and sunken abdomen could be seen through his shredded clothes clearly.

One could barely tell what he was wearing on his bottom. It was a pair of jeans which was completely covered in soil and dirt. The lower part of his jeans was heavily damaged. It had been chopped off so much that it looked more like a pair of capri pants now.

Further down was a pair of bare feet. There were no socks or shoes on those bony feet.

Although he looked like a refugee who had been suffering in a famine for a long time, he had a smirk at the edge of his lips at the moment.

"I didn't expect to have such great luck to be luring two pieces of meat this day! I should be able to enjoy a feast." As soon as he was done speaking, he pulled a piece of talisman out of nowhere. The sigils and seal script began lighting up as soon as he inserted his power.

"Big guy, I've brought two pieces of meat to your territory. Get ready," said the skinny man to the talisman that lit up.

"Great! Seems like I'll be able to feast today!" A thick voice came from the talisman.

As he put the talisman that was becoming dim away, the skinny man sped forward at an accelerated speed.

…

Two silhouettes followed the skinny man five to six kilometers behind. They were Lin Huang and Lancelot.

"He accelerated all of a sudden!" Lin Huang could sense the person with his Territory skill now.

"He seems to have found his partner. He's guiding us to that person," Lancelot replied through voice transmission.

"Go after him. See what kind of trick he's playing." Lin Huang smirked slightly. He used his Divine Telekinesis to sense for a bit as soon as the person entered the range of his territory.

Although the person looked like a corpse, the skinny man was clearly very alive. Lin Huang sensed the vitality in the man's body. However, his combat strength was nothing to shout about since he was only on imperial-level black gold-rank.

Such a level of combat strength was nothing to Lancelot. Even the Herculean King could kill with a single slap.

As for the man's assistant, Lin Huang would treat him as a buy-one-free-one promotion.

Perhaps to other candidates, this trial area was extremely dangerous. The candidates' combat strength was only allowed to be on immortal-level after all. Even if one had an ability that was as powerful as Huang Wuji of the Five Princes, people on immortal-level rank-9 would lose more than they would win whenever they encountered an imperial-level yellow gold-rank powerhouse. They would have to flee far away if they were to encounter imperial-level white gold-rank or imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses, let alone others.

However, to Lin Huang, this area was a place for rookies.

The highest combat strength of a convict in this trial space was only imperial-level purple gold-rank. No matter how powerful the convict's ability was, it was impossible for the convict to defeat his God Figurine's Combat Soul. Hence, he was not stressed at all.

The skinny man stopped after less than ten minutes of pursuit.

Lin Huang and Lancelot caught up to him in less than three seconds. They stood still less than 20 meters away from the skinny man who stood with a big guy, rooted to the ground. Instead of running, they began observing Lin Huang and Lancelot.

The big guy was over three meters tall. However, like the skinny man, he was also thin although not as gaunt as the skinny man. One could clearly tell that the big guy had been suffering from starvation for a long time just like the skinny man. They were both malnourished. His combat strength was higher than the skinny man's which was on imperial-level crimson gold-rank.

Their eyes were almost sparkling when they saw Lin Huang. Unable to help themselves, they began drooling in extreme desperation for food.

However, both of them calmed down when they saw Lancelot. They looked at each other knowingly. It was clear that they could tell Lancelot was an imperial monster.

Just when Lin Huang was ready to ask a question, the two silhouettes before them began moving all of a sudden.

The big guy dashed toward Lancelot while the skinny man raced toward Lin Huang at an even higher speed.

Clearly, it was not their first time doing such a thing, so they moved after exchanging looks having distributed the specific tasks.

Realizing that Lin Huang was an Imperial Censor, both of them had a simple strategy.

The big guy would take down the imperial monster Lancelot who had the same combat strength as he did, which was imperial-level crimson gold-rank, while the skinny man would attack the Imperial Censor Lin Huang whose combat strength was only immortal-level rank-7.

To them, the battle would officially end as soon as the imperial monster was held back for a moment while the Imperial Censor was destroyed within a short period of time.

Alas, dreams were always beautiful but the reality was cruel.

As they fought, the big guy and the skinny man's dreams were crushed completely.

Just when Lin Huang was going to pull his sword out, Lancelot flashed his trump card right away. Ten of thousands of black swords appeared in the air in an instant and transformed into a two-headed boa thousands of meters long. It swallowed both of them, opening its huge jaws.

"Keep one of them alive!" Lin Huang shouted immediately.

The main reason he chased the skinny man was to ask for information, not to obtain points.

Under Lancelot's Sword Manipulation attack, Lin Huang heard a brief devastating shriek in the air and soon, the entire world fell into complete silence.

As the black swords faded one after another, two bodies appeared. The skinny man had lost his life and turned into a corpse.

Although the big guy was still alive, he was unconscious. His body seemed to be torn apart.

"Bloody, go for it," Lin Huang said while looking in the big guy's direction.

Bloody hovered over to the big guy and extended two tentacles. One went for the big guy's head while another went for the skinny man who was already dead.

A moment later, the big guy opened his eyes after Bloody recalled its tentacles.

Seeing Lin Huang and Lancelot standing before him perfectly fine while the skinny man's corpse lay limply on his left, the big guy wanted to run, but he realized he could not move at all.

"Don't even try. Running is futile," Lin Huang said to the big guy while grinning.

Bloody cast its parasite on the big guy but his consciousness was not wiped. His body was in Bloody's complete control. Unable to get up to run, he would need Bloody's permission to even move a finger.

"Now, let's play a game. This game is called 'I'll ask and you'll answer'. First question, who are you?"

"I…" The big guy wanted to curse, but he realized what he said would become the answer to the person's question. "I'm the convict of this prison."

"Prison?" Lin Huang was rather puzzled.

"Yes, this enclosed space's a prison. There are convicts like me in this prison," explained the big guy against his own wishes.

On the other hand, Lin Huang raised his brow. "So, this Royal Trials made a prison its trial venue. What a great way to save money! Who put you guys in there?" Lin Huang was curious about that.

This time, the big guy answered the question willingly, "Who else? Of course, it's those people from Dynasty."

"What's the reason for you being captured here?" Lin Huang asked again.

"Because I love eating human bone marrow." The big guy smiled while observing Lin Huang. "Do you know what kind of bone marrow is the most delicious? It's the kind where you chop off the person's limbs when he's still alive and smash a hole in the bone after slicing the flesh away slowly. Poke a straw in and suck it directly while the human warmth is still swimming in the bones. It's like drinking tea. You've got to enjoy it slowly. After you're done with the first limb, go for the second one. Don't cut them open at once, or else, the bone marrow will turn cold…"

"Seems like you deserve to be put in prison." The big guy stopped talking as soon as Lin Huang spoke.

Bloody knew that Lin Huang did not want to hear that kind of story, so it made the big guy shut his mouth right away.

"Next question, what's with this trial?"

"Such a trial happens every decade or so. There's no fixed period for the trials to begin. It happens every 20 to 30 years if it's short, and up to 100 years if it's long," the big guy told the truth without being able to control himself. "Each trial's a joyous festival to us because we can hunt for candidates as we like for the entire month. They become our limited food source."

"Cannibalism?" Lin Huang just grasped the meaning of the way the two men had looked at him earlier.

"It's very normal to do that here. There's no food or water in this space. The people from Dynasty only send food and water once a year while we'll have to fight for other resources on our own. To us, the candidates are undoubtedly the best food."

Hearing what the big guy said, cannibalism was a norm, not his personal habit.

Initially, Lin Huang was hesitant to kill people who had nothing to do with him. However, now it seemed like those people in this space had completely lost their conscience.

"So, why don't you guys kill and each other? From what I know, there are a total of 10,000 people in this prison," Lin Huang pointed out.

"Because Dynasty has a condition whereby there have to be at least 10,000 people in this prison. Apart from this special period when they carry out such a trial, if the population dips below 10,000 people on a normal day, they'll clear everyone in this prison without any exceptions. We must guarantee the population so that we can live."

"So, everyone follows the rule just like that? What if someone loses their mind and carries out a massacre to drag everyone down?" Lin Huang raised a brow inquisitively.

"There are three chiefs in this prison who are the top among the imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses. There are more than ten regional chiefs under the three chiefs. All of them have imperial-level purple gold-rank combat strength. Together with the deputy regional chiefs, there are at least three to five imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses managing each region. A person who has lost his mind will be reported right away whichever region he's from, and he will then become food. Everyone's more than happy to report such a person because the person who's reported will be given food."

"There are chiefs and regional chiefs who take care of different regions, and there's a reporting system as well." Lin Huang was a little speechless that the convicts here had come up with such a simple social structure.

"Do you guys have the map of this prison and the distribution of population?" Lin Huang asked again.

"I don't, but the regional chiefs and chiefs should have."

"I suppose you should know the map in this region and the distribution of population."

"Yes, basically the area within 300 to 400 kilometers," confirmed the big guy.

"I've retrieved the information." Bloody took over the conversation.

"Alright, my questioning ends here." Lin Huang nodded at Bloody. He turned around. As he moved two to three steps away, the big guy's head exploded right away. He slumped on the ground as a headless body.

Bloody extended its tentacles into the two corpses and soon found two communication talismans.

"They have some Emperor's Heart Rings and ancient relics where they live. Should we go for it?"

"Of course, those are the loots!" Lin Huang exclaimed like he deserved it.

"According to their memory, there are 42 convicts within 400 to 500 kilometers. There are 11 of them on imperial-level black gold-rank, 23 imperial-level crimson gold-ranks, and 8 imperial-level yellow gold-ranks. There are no imperial-level white gold or purple gold-ranks," Bloody came up with the data and spoke subsequently, "Figuring that killing them one by one would waste too much time, I thought of a way to attract them to us instead."

"I was thinking of the same issue earlier. Killing them one by one's too slow. Moreover, those fellas have high alertness. They wanted to run away as soon as they noticed something off." Lin Huang nodded. "Tell me what you have in mind."

"Aren't they lacking food? I have hundreds of immortal-level rank-9 people in my parasitical army. We could use them as bait." Lin Huang had a rough idea of what Bloody was planning as soon as he heard that.

After some detailed discussion, both of them began carrying out the baiting plot.

Bloody handed the communication talisman it had found from the skinny man over to Lin Huang. "The first target — Ge Nan."

Lin Huang took the talisman and inserted Life Power into it. Then, the script and sigils on the talisman lit up rapidly.

Bloody spoke as soon as Ge Nan picked up. Its voice sounded exactly like the skinny man's. "Boss Ge, I have a piece of excellent news."

"Be specific." A voice came soon from the other side.

"Sure, I'll tell you right away." Bloody looked at Lin Huang and smiled before proceeded to speak, "I found a team of over 20 candidates."

"Skinny Monkey, you do know the consequences if you deceive me, don't you?" said the talisman after a moment of silence.

"Boss Ge, how would I dare to deceive you? I wouldn't dare even if I have 18 guts!" Bloody was on-point with the skinny man's tone. Even Lin Huang flashed it a thumbs-up, looking rather surprised.

"It's only been less than an hour since the trial has begun and you're telling me that there are more than 20 candidates forming a team. How is that not a lie?" The voice sounded rather mad. "The candidates are sent in randomly each trial. It's been less than an hour since the trial started. Don't talk about gathering a team of 20. The chances of two candidates who know each other meeting are so low."

"Was it Tao Peng who asked you to lie to me so that he could attack me?"

"It's really not what you think. I really saw a team of candidates. There are more than 20 of them. I'm also curious about how they managed to gather so fast," Bloody proceeded to explain with the skinny man's voice, "If you don't believe me, just pretend that I never contacted you. I'll look for somebody else. I provided this piece of information because I know I can't finish all of the flesh, so I thought of sharing with someone else. It doesn't really matter who I share it with."

The person fell into a moment of silence before speaking again, "How much do you want?"

"Three of them," Bloody requested.

"No, you'll only get one."

"We'll both take a step back to meet in the middle. Give me two!"

"One and a half!"

"One and a half then." Bloody sounded a little unwilling.

"Give me the address."

"I'll send it to you right away."

"Also, this will only be a secret between you and me. I don't want a third person to know about it. If you tell someone else about it, I guarantee that you won't get anything!"

"Understood." After hanging up with Boss Ge, Bloody turned to say to Lin Huang, "Second target — Zhao Kui."

Bloody spoke using the skinny man's voice again as soon as the talisman was connected.

"Boss Zhao, I'm Skinny Monkey. I've got great news for you. I called you as soon as I got the news."

"Oh, it's Skinny Monkey. What's up?" A casual voice came from the other side of the talisman.

"I found a team of candidates with more than 20 people." Bloody lowered its voice.

"The trial has just begun. Are you sure you got it right?"

"Definitely. How could I be wrong about candidates? All of them have soft flesh like a little girl. I'm drooling just looking at them." Bloody copied the skinny man's style completely while Lin Huang, who was listening aside, was speechless.

The person fell into silence for a moment before replying, "How much do you want?"

"I want three."

"Three is too much., I'll give you two at the most," Zhao Kui bargained right away, "I'm bringing my people there. I'll need to share with them."

"Sure. You're such a straightforward man, Boss Zhao. I won't bargain with you further," Bloody said casually, "I'll send you the address later."

After ending the call with Zhao Kui, Bloody lifted its head and said to Lin Huang, "Next one — Shen Hong."

The talisman in Lin Huang's hand soon lit up once again.

Just like that, Bloody contacted six imperial-level yellow gold-rank people and spread the news about the bait. Apart from one who insisted on not believing it about the team and called Bloody a liar, the rest agreed to bring people there. After all, a team of candidates was extremely tempting. It was food that was hard to come by.

However, the five of them realized that the rest were also recruiting while they were doing so.

Ge Nan was the first to contact Bloody with the talisman to question it after finding out. Bloody gave a bunch of excuses while Ge Nan ended the call, enraged.

After Ge Nan, there were another two who questioned it. Naturally, Bloody gave the same excuses.

Although they were angry, the few of them who found out that the skinny man had spread the same news to others did not cancel their plans to come up with their hunting teams. Instead, they moved faster in the attempt to complete the hunt before everyone else.

The person, who was initially skeptical, contacted Bloody immediately to ask for the address after hearing the others arranging the hunt. He decided to believe the news eventually.

Bloody asked for two bodies, and the person agreed on one and a half after some bargaining. It then sent the address over.

"Six imperial-level yellow gold-ranks… Each of them will bring at least 10 people or even more. We'll have at least 60 convicts this round." Lin Huang's eyes lit up radiantly.

"This is the first reward. The subsequent ones will be even higher. Those imperial-level yellow gold-rank people will definitely have their ways of contacting imperial-level white gold-rank people or even ways to contact the regional chiefs. After killing the regional chiefs, our reward will be boosted even more." Bloody had already formed a complete plan of their move after this.

After spreading the news out with the communication talisman, Bloody picked 25 immortal-level rank-9 human parasitical puppets from the pet space.

Lin Huang blended in as well and did not even recall Lancelot. He wanted the convicts to think there was an Imperial Censor in the team, enhancing the authenticity of the team.

As it was done with the arrangements, Bloody hid in Lin Huang's sleeve while he moved forward, leading the team. Patiently, they waited for the fishes to be hooked.

Since hanging up the call with the skinny man, Ge Nan frowned as he lay in his bed. He had a blanket covering the part below his waist while his upper body was completely naked.

"That brat Skinny Monkey's mischievous. He daren't go against my word in the past and now he's spread the news of the candidates right after promising not to tell anyone about it."

"Perhaps he's out of his mind from the hunger. After all, it has been 50 years since Dynasty opened this Royal Trials. I guess it's been 50 years since he had any food. It's normal for him to contact a few others so that he can get more food," A lady lay naked next to Ge Nan. She glided her fingers with nails that were painted red along Ge Nan's tummy and headed southward tenderly.

Ge Nan held onto that soft hand without saying anything for a while. "Are you trying to suck me dry, you little devil?"

"Don't you want that, you handsome thing?" whispered the lady softly into Ge Nan ear as she leaned closer to him.

Ge Nan felt ticklish and his body responded to the lady's irresistible words.

Noticing the changes in Ge Nan's body, the lady snickered and sat on top of him. Her busty breasts bounced and she leaned forward toward him while seducing him. "Are you sure you don't want it?"

Ge Nan gulped and took a deep breath in to calm himself down. "Oh no, I really can't do it now. Let's finish our business first and talk about this later."

"This is business too," said the lady while pouting.

"Come on. Stop teasing me," Ge Nan patted the lady's butt cheekily. "Skinny Monkey spread the news across. The person who moves faster will have the highest opportunity to get the entire team of candidates. We must gather people now. We can't afford to lose any more time."

"Hmph!" The lady shifted away from Ge Nan discontentedly. Slyness flashed through her eyes. "I want one more body then!"

"Sure, you can have anything you want." Ge Nan shook his head helplessly.

Getting up from the bed, Ge Nan slapped the lady's butt again. "Get dressed now and follow me. I can't get you anything if you don't go with me. Or you could just stand there. That's better than nothing."

The lady got up to put her clothes on reluctantly.

When the duo was dressed, they headed to the appointed place immediately. There were already 12 people waiting for them when they arrived.

"Boss Ge, Sister Li…" The bunch of people greeted them.

Ge Nan took a glance at the people. "Since everyone's here, let's go!"

He waved and led the team of people towards the coordinates Skinny Monkey had provided.

As they were approximately 40 kilometers away from the coordinates, Ge Nan sensed their target in the range of his territory.

"Found them!" Initially, he was worried that the information Skinny Monkey had given might be wrong. Now that he sensed the target, the doubt he had all vanished. "A total of 26 people and an imperial-level crimson gold-rank summoning beast. Looking at the current situation, we should be the first team to get here. We've got pretty great luck."

Ge Nan could not help but peep at Li Li who was next to him as he spoke. He was secretly relieved that they did not delay much.

"I'll handle the summoning beast. The rest of you will fight two people each. Li Li, you'll handle the rest." Ge Nan completed the assignment as soon as he identified the exact location of the target. "Remember to do it quickly and don't drag it out. Zhao Kui and the other few teams might come anytime. We must finish the fight before they arrive!"

"What if we don't manage to end the fight in time? Do we fight with Zhao Kui and the rest?" A fierce gleam flashed through Li Li's eyes. Zhao Kui had raped her before. The reason she had gotten together with Ge Nan who loved her dearly was in the hopes that he could kill Zhao Kui one day.

"Don't fight with anyone no matter which team they come from." Ge Nan glanced at Li Li. Naturally, he knew what she was thinking about. "Our main mission this time is to hunt the candidates in order to obtain more food. If another team comes later, there might be a second and a third team coming after that. By then, it'll be much more difficult for us to get food."

"What if they attack us just for the sake of food? Do we not fight as well?" Li Li asked while feeling hesitant.

"If something like that really happens, I'll inform the regional chief." Ge Nan remained rational.

Li Li glared at him sourly but she chose to keep quiet eventually.

She was a wise lady. She never liked quarreling with men. She knew men's weaknesses very well too. She knew when to fight for what she deserved, to get the men to compromise with her willingly. She knew that although Ge Nan loved her, he was not an idiot who would follow whatever a lady said. That was what she liked the most about him.

"I know what you have in mind. I, too, want to kill Zhao Kui, but this is not the right time," Ge Nan spoke through voice transmission secretly, "As soon as I find the right timing, I promise you that I'll kill Zhao Kui to avenge you!"

Li Li calmed down a little after hearing Ge Nan's voice transmission.

Indeed, now was not the best time to punish Zhao Kui.

Ge Nan was relieved that he calmed Li Li down. In reality, he was worried that Li Li would embarrass him earlier. Although their relationship was not a secret, it was a shame to be embarrassed in front of his bunch of juniors. Fortunately, Li Li stopped the nonsense in time instead of embarrassing him.

"Since we're here, attack at once as soon as we get there instead of beating around the bush!" Ge Nan led the team and dashed towards the team of candidates that was less than 40 kilometers away from them as soon as he was done speaking.

It only took a moment for Ge Nan and the gang to get to the team of candidates.

"Attack!" Ge Nan shouted as soon as they met without uttering anything else. The bunch led by Ge Nan sped toward Lin Huang and the rest.

However, a little white cat appeared on Lin Huang's shoulder at that moment. In the next second, it disappeared from Lin Huang's shoulder and in less than 0.1 seconds, it appeared on the other side of Lin Huang's shoulder. It squatted there while licking one of its front paws.

Meanwhile, Ge Nan and the 13 of them turned into headless bodies. Their bodies were dismembered into a few parts too.

As the parasitical puppets were collecting the loots, Bloody was done retrieving information from the 14 heads.

Bloody shook its head helplessly, looking at Li Li's eyes that seemed like she did not die in peace. "What a poor thing, but you can die in peace now because I've avenged you. The fella who took your virginity and raped you many times died 15 minutes ago."

After shutting Li Li's eyes, Bloody passed the head to one of the parasitical puppets. "Retrieve all the loots before burying it."

In less than half an hour since Bloody spread the news to bait, disguised as the skinny man, six different teams of convicts came one after another. All of them were killed before they managed to attack efficiently.

"A total of six rounds with 87 people. There are 7 people on imperial-level yellow gold-rank, 51 imperial-level crimson gold-ranks, 29 imperial-level black gold-ranks." Bloody shared the data. "Looking at these people's memories, none of them could contact the regional chief directly and none of them have the regional chief's coordinates. However, there are a few imperial-level yellow gold-rank people who knew imperial-level white gold-rank and imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses. We've confirmed that those people have the contact information of the regional chief and his deputy."

"Also, there isn't much stuff on these 87 people. They only have some armors and weapons, but they don't have any storage equipment. I've gotten my imperial-level parasitical puppets to search the place they stayed in. The search should be done within half an hour."

"We'll just wait then and carry out the next plan after we're done with the search." Lin Huang nodded.

The armors and weapons that the convicts had were just ancient relics, so they were worthless to Lin Huang. What he desired the most was storage equipment such as Emperor's Heart Rings that were put away where they lived. Although those local convicts could not open them, he could unlock them when he got out of there.

One must know that many candidates died in every trial. Although those geniuses who participated in the trial including the Princes from Dynasty had a low combat strength of mere immortal-level, they would definitely have many resources in their storage equipment. They might even have some unique treasures.

After waiting for over half an hour where they were, Bloody's parasitical puppets brought back the loots one after another. They handed over the temporary storage rings that did not require any password to Bloody one by one.

Bloody was satisfied with the loots they acquired this round after calculating. "We've obtained 137 storage rings, 26 other storage equipment, and some other miscellaneous stuff."

"So, what do we do next?" Lin Huang nodded and asked.

Bloody took out Ge Nan's communication talisman and handed it over to Lin Huang. "There's a person named Shi Qiang in the contact book whose combat strength's on imperial-level white gold-rank. He was put in this prison the same day as Ge Nan was. They're very close. He's a great breaking point. Most importantly, he knows where the regional chief lives."

"Got it." Lin Huang took the communication talisman.

As the talisman lit up, Bloody disguised as Ge Nan's voice. "Brother Qiang, something happened. Li Li's dead!"

"What happened?" The person on the other side of the talisman sounded rather shocked.

"A bunch of candidates attacked us earlier and I managed to escape, but Li Li and the rest were killed. I want to take revenge!"

"Please calm down and tell me the details. The bunch of immortal-level rank-9s attacked you and Li Li? Were there many of them?" Shi Qiang proceeded to ask.

"There were at least 100 of them. I've no idea how they managed to gather. Theoretically, it's only been more than an hour since the trial officially began. The probability of two candidates who know each other and meeting is low, let alone 100 of them. This bunch of people might have cheated in their own way," Bloody proceeded to speak, "Furthermore, the key isn't the number of people. They have an Imperial Censor among them with a couple of imperial-level yellow gold-rank imperial monsters. Each of them has an ability on par with mine."

"They should be members from some major organization since they managed to gather 100 people in the beginning. They must've used some special item for this trial." Shi Qiang's voice soon came. "The Imperial Censor that can control imperial-level yellow gold-rank imperial monsters whom you mentioned is most probably the seed player that's fighting for the Protoss quota from a major organization. These people are putting in so much effort to obtain the Protoss quota."

"Brother Qiang, I'm suspecting that they've killed the imperial-level yellow gold-rank people around. I tried contacting Tao Yu and Ji Dong, but I couldn't find them."

"It can't be…" Shi Qiang was in disbelief when he heard that. "Give me a minute. I'll get someone to contact them."

Not long later, Shi Qiang's voice came again. "We've basically confirmed that there are five imperial-level yellow gold-ranks around your area with whom we've lost contact. There are some imperial-level crimson and black gold-ranks with whom we've lost contact at the same time. We haven't confirmed the number at the moment.

"It seems like this team of candidates have formidable ability and high speed! You're fortunate that you managed to escape alive."

"I might've been dead if they didn't attack Li Li first." Bloody sounded bummed. Its acting skill was off the charts.

"Stop blaming yourself. Find a safe place and hide. I'll assemble my people here and attack those candidates." It was clear that Shi Qiang had completely fallen for the lie Bloody came up with.

"Brother Qiang, I'd like to join too. I want to avenge Li Li!" Bloody proceeded to showcase its best act.

Shi Qing fell into silence for a moment before nodding. "Alright then. but you must promise me not to act on impulse and follow my orders!"

"I promise!"

"I'll send you the assembly point later." The communication talisman dimmed as soon as Shi Qiang was done speaking.

"Your acting skill's getting better." Lin Huang gave Bloody a thumbs-up.

"It's actually easy to act. I have Ge Nan's memory, so I know his speaking habit and tone. In addition to the experience of playing other six characters before, I got into character easily this time." Bloody smiled as it spoke. "But the main reason Shi Qiang believes in me is because of the close relationship he has with Ge Nan. Instead of saying he believes in me, it's more like he believes in Ge Nan. I merely used his trust."

"I was thinking that you put too high a number when you mentioned over 100 people and I wondered if he would suspect that." Lin Huang nodded with a smirk. "Never had I thought that he'd find a reasonable explanation for how the 100 people gathered around based on the trust he has for Ge Nan."

"Indeed, I didn't have any explanation for that, so I mentioned that I had no idea how so many people gathered at the beginning of the conversation." Bloody nodded too.

"So, now we'll wait for Shi Qiang's news. We'll attack once we have the assembly time and coordinates instead of waiting for them to come."

Everything Shi Qiang said was included in Bloody's plan. Even the revenge it mentioned at the end was to obtain the assembly coordinates so that they could initiate the attack.

Approximately half an hour later, Shi Qiang sent the assembly time and coordinates over. It was clear that he already gathered his men.

"Assembly time — 11.30 a.m. Assembly point — Shadow Canyon entrance…"

The Shadow Canyon was approximately 150 kilometers away from where Ge Nan lived.

The reason this place was called Shadow Canyon was because of its unusual magnetic field that caused dark clouds to form above the canyon all year long. There was hardly any sunlight; the place seemed to be eternally hiding in the shadows.

Due to the special magnetic field, the area within the canyon would weaken detective abilities such as the Territory skill. Even imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses would find that their territory was heavily interfered with or even blocked if they were to investigate this area from tens of kilometers away.

Shi Qiang picked this place as the assembly point on purpose to prevent exposing their trail of the hunt this time, preventing any candidates from escaping.

At approximately 11.20 a.m., Shi Qiang arrived at the entrance of the Shadow Canyon. He was ten minutes early.

More than 40 people gathered at the entrance. Their combat strength ranged from imperial-level black gold-rank to imperial-level yellow gold-rank, and most of them were talking to familiar faces. Upon seeing that Shi Qiang was there, they greeted him with a smile. Some of them began voicing their doubts after greeting him.

"Brother Qiang, could you tell us exactly what's going on?"

"Brother Qiang, does this have something to do with the candidates since you've gathered so many people this time?"

Shi Qiang glanced through the people there. He had greeted at least 50 people. The bulk of them were present although there were still 11 of them who had yet to arrive. Looking at the time, he did not rush things since there were still ten more minutes to the agreed time.

"Don't worry. I'll tell you what's happening when everyone is here."

The other ten arrived one after another not long later.

Two imperial-level white gold-ranks were the last to arrive. They did not seem to want to be there earlier than the agreed time.

However, Shi Qiang frowned slightly after the two arrived because his good buddy Ge Nan did not make it.

"Old Shi, I guess everyone's here, hmm?" asked a bald man, glancing at the time and raising his brow. He was one of the two imperial-level white gold-rank people who arrived last.

"One more person isn't here yet…" Shi Qiang shook his head. "But he's the one who provided the information anyway, so we can talk about the mission first.

"It's Ge Nan who provided the information this time. Perhaps some of you know him. He contacted me this morning all of a sudden, saying that a team of candidates attacked him. He told me that he might not be the only one who was attacked. From my investigation, indeed, there are five other imperial-level yellow gold-rank powerhouses in his area who have lost contact. They might've been killed by the candidates.

"According to the information he provided, there are more than 100 people among this bunch of candidates. There's an Imperial Censor who is leading them, and he has a couple of imperial-level yellow gold-rank summoning beats."

"More than 100 candidates?! How is it possible that they gathered so fast? I thought it's only been half a day since the Royal Trials began." The bald man raised a question, "How could you believe this kind of ridiculous news?"

"That's not entirely impossible. After all, the Royal Trials are connected to hundreds of worlds if not 1,000 at the moment. Maybe they're connected to some huge organization from some massive world that's willing to spend on training Dynasty members."

"To some major organizations, it's easy for them to get a god-level or even true god-level group dimensional portal to transport them to the targeted coordinates. Moreover, an immortal-level Imperial Censor who can cross ranks and control imperial-level yellow gold-rank imperial monsters must be the best of the best among Imperial Censors. If I'm in the high management of that organization, I'd be willing to spend to train such a person." The other man with almond-shaped eyes who was standing beside him offered a different opinion. He had a combat strength of imperial-level white gold-rank, which was the same as the bald man.

After expressing his opinion, the man with the almond-shaped eyes looked at Shi Qiang. "But, Old Shi, are you sure you can trust that information provider called Ge Nan?"

"Don't worry. He won't lie to me," Shi Qiang said very firmly. He was even willing to share the reason why he trusted Ge Nan.

"Alright then. Since you said that, there's nothing more I'd like to ask," concluded the man while spreading his hands.

"From what you said, I suppose this team of candidates should be moving around. So, how do we locate them?" The bald man did not dwell on the question earlier and asked another question.

"That's the hunting plan that I'm going to share." Shi Qiang nodded. "I've already informed some of the imperial-level yellow gold-rank powerhouses who are around the area where the attackers were. They'll inform us as soon as they're attacked. Apart from that, the three of us will lead a team each to search in this area. As soon as any team finds the target, they must inform the other two teams immediately. Our top priority is to kill the entire candidate team instead of wanting the reward to ourselves because we've no idea what other techniques that Imperial Censor has."

It was almost 11.50 a.m. after they were done with the discussion.

Shi Qiang frowned slightly. It had been almost 20 minutes since the agreed time passed, but Ge Nan had yet to arrive.

"Ge Nan isn't here yet. Maybe something's really wrong." The bald man looked at the time and could not help but mutter to himself.

"Maybe he's stuck. Let me call him." Shi Qiang took out the communication talisman. The call was picked up immediately as soon as he dialed Ge Nan's number.

"Ge Nan, are you coming or not?! It's almost 20 minutes past the agreed time!"

"I'm sorry. Ge Nan isn't coming." A young man's voice was heard on the other side of the talisman. It was clear that it was not Ge Nan.

"Who are you?!" Shi Qiang was stunned to hear that unfamiliar voice and demanded immediately. However, he already knew the answer as soon as he asked the question.

"I suppose you've already guessed who I am," said the young voice with a smile.

"Where's Ge Nan? What did you do to him?" Although he guessed the answer to the question, Shi Qiang wanted to confirm if what happened was really as bad as he thought.

"I activated his communication talisman, so what do you think?" asked the voice on the other side.

Shi Qiang looked extremely aghast to hear that.

There were only two possibilities when the communication talisman was activated. One was that the owner of the talisman had wiped his own seal away while the other was that the owner was dead and the seal had faded on its own.

Clearly, it was impossible that Ge Nan would wipe the seal away from his talisman. Only the second possibility remained.

"Where are you? Do you dare to reveal your coordinates?" Shi Qiang held his fists tightly and asked while clenching his teeth.

"I'm at the canyon behind you guys. Now, the question is, do you guys dare to come in?" retorted the young voice, "If you guys don't dare to do that, I'll come to you guys instead."

Shi Qiang was stunned for a moment, but he did not fall for it. "Then, you can come to us. Don't worry. I won't kill you so easily. I'll break every bone in your body and leave you to die slowly in sheer agony."

"Save your nursery-level threat." The young voice sounded fearless. "But since you asked me to come to you, I'll fulfill your wish then."

A silhouette walked out of the canyon entrance before the voice was even done speaking.

The people present were stunned to see the person's face.

There was only one person who looked younger than 20 years old. A monster that looked like a scimitar-toothed cat with an elephant trunk ambled beside him.

"Keep the three imperial-level white gold-ranks for interrogation and kill the rest." The young man extended his hand and patted the head of the monster with the elephant trunk.

The monster lifted its trunk up high and let out a screech as waves that were tenfolds faster than the speed of sound rippled out.

All of the convicts collapsed wherever the waves spread out. Shi Qiang and the other two imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses were the only one standing where they were. They had completely lost focus in both their eyes.

Shi Qiang and the other two men were on imperial-level white gold-rank. Their combat strength exceeded Bloody's ability to cast its parasites on them.

However, it was no trouble for Lin Huang.

His God Figurine's Combat Soul Nightmare Tapir had a hypnotizing ability. Although the Nightmare Tapir's combat strength was only imperial-level white gold-rank, its ability was sufficient to control imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses.

As Bloody was attempting to retrieve the memories of the imperial-level powerhouses lying on the ground, Lin Huang began the hypnotizing interrogation on Shi Qiang and the other two.

"What's your name?"

"Shi Qiang."

"Why did you come to the Shadow Canyon?"

"To kill the candidates."

"Who told you about the candidates?"

"Ge Nan did."

"Who is Ge Nan? Why did you trust him?"

"Dynasty sent us into this prison on the same day. Maybe because we went through the same thing, we clicked as soon as we talked. We then became good friends. He's one of the very few people who I could talk to in this prison, and he's also one of the people with whom I could let my guard down."

After confirming that the hypnotization was working by asking what he already knew the answers to, Lin Huang then began cutting to the chase.

"I heard that you're close to Pang Bing, the regional chief here. Is that true?"

"We're not close. I've only seen him three times."

"Does Pang Bing value you?"

"Yes, he thinks that I can break through and he hopes to train me as his underling. He wants me to be the regional deputy chief after I break through imperial-level purple gold-rank and work for him."

"You should know where Pang Bing lives then."

"I do, I've been there once."

Lin Huang was pleased to hear that.

"Where exactly does Pang Bing live?"

"On top of Hat Mountain," Shi Qiang proceeded, "He doesn't live alone. He lives with his six wives. Two of them are on imperial-level white gold-rank while the remaining four are imperial-level yellow gold-ranks."

"What? Does he live such a happy life in prison?! Six wives?!" Lin Huang widened his eyes after hearing that.

"The regional chief is only a position surpassing the chief. The resources they obtain can't compare with ordinary imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses. These women must've gone to him for the resources. After all, resources are scarce in the Dynasty prison. They might not have food if they don't depend on a powerhouse." Bloody heard this and explained, "I'm sure that apart from the six of them in his harem, there are more women who desire to climb into his bed in this prison."

"What else do you know about Pang Bing?" Lin Huang returned to the topic after a moment of being astounded and proceeded with the interrogation.

"In reality, Pang Bing's ability is considered mediocre among the imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses. However, he has two demigod-level types of equipment with him. One is a defense armor while another is a battle saber. The reason he managed to be the regional chief is mainly because of these two items. Apart from that, I heard he's a relative of Chief Liang's and they were put into this prison together. Nobody knew how true that is."

After some interrogation, Lin Huang and Bloody gained a rough understanding of regional chief Pang Bing. Lin Huang then proceeded to question the other two.

The duo knew nothing much about Pang Bing. However, they knew another regional deputy chiefs each. As a result, Lin Huang gained information that he was not expecting about the two regional deputy chiefs.

Bloody was already done the integration after retrieving the memories way before Lin Huang was done with the interrogation.

"We're currently in Zone 17, which is Liang Jin's territory. The regional chief is Pang Bing, and there are three regional deputy chiefs who all have imperial-level purple gold-rank combat strength. Apart from these four, there are two idle imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses who didn't accept Liang Jin's recruitment. There are a total of over 3,000 convicts in the entire zone. Among them are six imperial-level purple gold-ranks, 43 imperial-level white gold-ranks, and 367 imperial-level yellow gold-ranks."

"So, what's the plan next? We already have Pang Bing's coordinates. Do we go to him directly?" asked Lin Huang, "Or do we use our old trick to bait them?"

"We can no longer use the old plan." Bloody shook its head. "In reality, there was a high probability that we might've failed when we were tricking Shi Qiang earlier. Fortunately, Shi Qiang trusted Ge Nan so much and didn't suspect a thing. Otherwise, they definitely wouldn't fall into our trap. The chances of failing are too high if we continue to use the same plan on Pang Bing."

"So, do you mean that we should kill Pang Bing immediately this time?"

"We kill Pang Bing after gathering information from him. We'll kill the three regional deputy chiefs one after another later," Bloody advised.

"Do we give up on all of the convicts?" Lin Huang raised his brow when he heard that.

"Of course not." Bloody shook its head, wearing a smile. "Killing the regional chief and the regional deputy chiefs is the first step. We can only carry out our next plan after killing them."

Bloody then shared the plan eventually and Lin Huang kept nodding while listening.

"That's such a great idea! If everything goes well, we can sweep everything in Zone 17 today." Lin Huang patted the Nightmare Tapir's head while watching Shi Qiang and the other two standing there looking lost. "You can kill them now."

The Nightmare Tapir's eyes turned black like they were dyed with ink.

A moment later, Shi Qiang and the other two fell to the ground. Life oozed out of them quickly.

The 50-odd people who fell unconscious earlier were killed as well.

However, their bodies had no wounds on their bodies at all. They did not look like they were dead. Instead, they looked more like they had fallen into a deep sleep.

"Bury them. They're human just like me after all. It's brutal to just abandon their bodies in the wild." Lin Huang had no sympathy for the convicts, but he thought he should respect the dead by burying them. It would not take too much time anyway.

Bloody summoned its hundreds of parasitical puppets and spent less than ten minutes digging holes. They then buried all of the corpses underground.

"Let's go to Hat Mountain now." Lin Huang summoned Thunder when he noticed that Bloody was done on its side and had recalled all of its parasitical puppets.

Riding on Thunder's back, they headed towards Hat Mountain.

Hat Mountain was approximately 2,000 kilometers away from Shadow Mountain. With Thunder's current speed, they arrived at the destination in less than 15 minutes.

They encountered two rounds of convicts who attacked them along the way. Thunder accelerated to dodge them and they lost the convicts like a piece of cake.

When they saw Hat Mountain in the sky, Lin Huang realized why the mountain had such a common name. The entire mountain looked like a conical hat. It resembled exactly the same as those pointed hats that witches always wore in fairytales. The only difference was that it was green. The entire mountain was covered in trees, and the sloppy tip stood tall in the sky. Compared to the mountains around it, this mountain stood out, which was how Lin Huang recognized it at first glance.

"Hat Mountain lives up to its name!" Looking at the lush green mountain, Lin Huang thought that Pang Bang had an impeccable taste for choosing to live on such a mountain.

He's A Manstress

There was a palace perched on top of Hat Mountain that reached the clouds. It looked like the tip of a giant hat.

Lin Huang patted Thunder's neck. "Get down there."

Thunder withdrew its wings and fell rapidly. It spread its wings again when they were about to land and hovered in the air. They landed at the entrance of the palace safe and sound.

Lin Huang got off its back and recalled Thunder. He then summoned the Nightmare Tapir and pushed open the palace doors.

He saw a steamy scene as soon as the door was pushed opened for a second.

Six naked women surrounded a man who was also bare, licking the man everywhere.

In a glance, Lin Huang saw the thing between the strong man's thighs who lay reclining on the chair. He could not help but comment while smiling, "No wonder he could marry six wives. This fella can afford to do that."

Bloody's voice came into Lin Huang's ears at that moment. "He's not Pang Bing. He's the regional deputy chief, Wang Xing."

"Ugh…" Lin Huang suddenly thought that the greenery in this Hat Mountain was perfect for the situation. 1

Wang Xing stood up immediately upon seeing the door open all of a sudden. He widened his eyes and looked at the newcomers.

The six women screamed as they hurriedly picked up their bras that were scattered all over the floor and covered their lady bits.

Wang Xing had sensed Thunder's existence earlier, but he did not care. Since Thunder's imperial-level crimson gold-rank aura masked Lin Huang's immortal-level aura completely, he did not notice that there was a human on Thunder's back.

In this prison, there were initially many local monsters. Since a supply of never-ending convicts was added in, most of the local monsters almost went extinct as a result of the convicts eating them.

The chief back then noticed the severe food shortage and prohibited the hunting of local monsters. For the sake of maintaining the food source in the long run, they allowed those monsters to move around and breed. They would only hunt once a year. Although they would hunt annually, the hunting of baby monsters was prohibited.

Therefore, Wang Xing did not care when he sensed Thunder's existence. He thought it was just an ordinary monster passing by. How could he have guessed that Thunder would dash down directly when it arrived above Hat Mountain? It only took less than one second when Lin Huang opened the palace door.

It was too late when he reacted as he was distracted, enjoying the six women's attention.

Compared to the women's panic, Wang Xin soon calmed down upon sensing Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir's aura. He did not even bother to look for clothes to cover his body as he stood up and shouted at Lin Huang, "Are you seeking death, candidate?!"

"I'm sorry to interrupt your interesting activity." Lin Huang spread his arms wide. "I'd be happy to wait until you guys were done if I weren't in such a hurry."

"Don't be sorry. Just suffer the death penalty." A sword aura shot out from Wang Xing's hand that was lifted as soon as he was done speaking. It arrived in front of Lin Huang's face directly.

However, his eyes turned blank right away while the sword aura that shot out faded in the air. The attack stopped and his body could not move at all as if he was a puppet that was being controlled.

At the same time, the six women, who were putting on their clothes in a panic, fell onto the ground. They seemed to be have fallen into a deep sleep.

"Put on your clothes." Lin Huang lay on the chair and waited for Wang Xing to put his undergarments on before he began the interrogation.

"Who are you?"

"My name's Wang Xing. I'm the regional deputy chief of Zone 17."

"Why are you in Pang Bing's home?"

"The Royal Trials commenced today. The regional chiefs are holding a meeting. He's not home, so his six wives invited me here."

"Don't you have to join such a meeting since you're a regional deputy chief?" Lin Huang asked rather confusedly.

"We only need to get our clone to go to most meetings. My clone went to the meeting this time as well."

"Now that he's being hypnotized, will his clone be affected?" Lin Huang asked the Nightmare Tapir.

The Nightmare Tapir shook its head and sent a thought into Lin Huang's head. He understood the Nightmare Tapir's explanation right away.

When a person was hypnotized, he would be in a kind of slumber while the clone was moving independently. Even if the person himself was in sleeping mode, it would not affect the clone. Furthermore, the clone would not sense whatever that was happening to the person. On the contrary, the person would be aware of whatever that was happening to the clone.

Lin Huang was finally relieved after confirming that and proceeded with the interrogation.

"Does Pang Bing know about your relationship with his six wives?"

"He doesn't. The six wives and I know his whereabouts very well, so we're not afraid of being busted."

"How long have you guys maintained this… relationship?"

"It's been 23 years."

"It's fine if you're with one or two of his wives, but why do you do this with all six wives?" Lin Huang could not understand that.

"Wife No. 6 is actually the spy that I asked to be with Pang Bing. Realizing that Pang Bing's terrible in bed, she connected all of us together and it slowly developed into the relationship that we have now."

"This female spy's powerful. Not only did she give him five women for free, but she also threw herself into his embrace as well," Lin Huang mumbled softly.

"Maybe this female spy has liked him since the beginning." Bloody's voice came out of his sleeve.

After some gossip, Lin Huang finally came to the serious stuff.

"Where's Pang Bing now?"

"He's at Sky Pillar Mountain, hosting the trial meeting."

"Apart from you, who else is at the meeting?"

"Another two regional deputy chiefs."

"Are they using clones too?"

"No, they went as themselves this time."

"When does the meeting end?"

"Looking at the current progress, I'm afraid it'll only end at 1 p.m. or after 1.30 p.m. if it takes longer."

"So, that means I can kill all of them this time without having to look for them one by one!" Lin Huang was elated to hear that.

After asking a couple of questions, Lin Huang got the Nightmare Tapir to retrieve the memories of all seven of them directly and share the information with Bloody.

Soon, Bloody came up with the detailed plan that they should carry out next.

"There's no need to keep these six women around, but we can't kill Wang Xing just yet. His clone will disappear as soon as he's dead. Pang Bing and the rest will know something's off right away."

"Moreover, there are many defensive measures at Sky Pillar Mountain. We'll alert the enemy if we get in with Thunder by force. It'll be much easier to get Wang Xing to go with us."

"However, I'm afraid it's hard to bring someone in since this is a meeting that's strictly for regional chiefs." Lin Huang thought he might be suspected even if he followed Wang Xing.

After all, Bloody's initial plan was to invade the abodes of the regional chief and the deputies to kill them one by one. That would not be happening now.

Bloody grinned to hear Lin Huang's doubts.

"Don't worry. I have my way. Not only will Pang Bing and the rest not suspect your identity, but they'll also get Wang Xing to invite you to the meeting!"

In the meeting room at Sky Pillar Mountain, an old man with silver hair sat on the main seat. The strong Wang Xing and a fat man with small, beady eyes sat on his left while a poker-faced man who looked mediocre sat on his right.

The four of them were the regional chief and regional deputy chiefs of Zone 17.

Wang Xing, who sat on the old man's left, suddenly spoke as he waited for the old man to finish speaking, "Regional chief, my body says that he would like to discuss a deal with all of you."

"A deal?" Pang Bing raised his brow upon hearing that. "What deal is that?"

"A candidate came to my body approximately half an hour ago. He said he brought many food resources and he would like to make a deal with us," Wang Xing explained, "My body has checked the food that he's providing. Apart from meat, there are also vegetables and fruits, and even drinks like alcohol. This candidate clearly came prepared."

Food was the scarcest resource they lacked in this space. Ever since they entered this world, they were basically eating only meat. Neither was there any vegetables nor fruits around. Due to the barren land, they could not plant those at all, let alone brew drinks such as alcohol.

The other three could not help but gulp when they heard that.

"This prison's barren. What does this candidate want?" Although Pang Bing was moved, he remained rational.

"He said all he wants are that storage equipment that we can't unlock," Wang Xing announced the condition of the deal.

"He's out of his mind to be asking for storage equipment in exchange for food. Any of that storage equipment could trade food that could pile into hundreds of Sky Pillar Mountains if he unlocks them." The poker-faced man scoffed. It was clear that he was extremely discontented with the condition.

"You can't say that, Old Ning. Although the storage equipment is valuable out there, they're just a pile of trash since we can't unlock them in this prison. They're just trash even if there are god relics, god items or god-level methods since we can't retrieve them! Food is the scarcest resource this prison lacks. Exchanging a bunch of trash with scarce resources, why can't we do that?" The fatty sitting next to Wang Xing gave a different opinion.

The poker-faced man scoffed and said nothing back.

"What do you think, Old Wang?" Pang Bing turned his head to look at Wang Xing's clone.

"I agree with what Huyan said. We can't unlock that storage equipment anyway, so it's useless to keep them. Some of them have been here for thousands of years and we still can't unlock them. Even if there's something amazing in them, it's futile since we can't retrieve them. Why not just exchange them with food?" Wang Xing shared the same opinion as the fatty.

"Why didn't your body catch that fella directly and force him to hand over all of the food?" The poker-faced man asked Wang Xing.

"I thought the same too, but that fella said he has a team who wants to work with us for the long term when we met. He's the only one who brought food at this time since it's the first time. He wants to see if we can collaborate. As soon as the first collaboration goes smoothly, they'll bring in tens of members with food every time the trial opens and the amount of food will be more than tenfolds compared to this deal. Moreover, we can give them a list of the food that we need in the future," Wang Xing's clone reiterated his body's explanation.

"Collaboration, my as*! Nobody knows how long until the next Royal Trials will take place in this space. You believe him just because he said he would have a long-term collaboration with us?! Don't you know that everybody can make empty promises?!" The poker-faced man, on the other hand, had disdain written all over his face.

"Wouldn't we know if he's making empty promises after he takes Huyan's test?" Wang Xing turned his head to look at the fatty next to him.

"Sure. It's just testing an immortal-level which doesn't require much effort," said the fatty while spreading his arms.

"Then, that's set. Old Wang, ask your body to send the candidate here directly. We'll get Huyan to test him. We'll discuss further if he passes the test. If he fails, we'll kill him directly." Pang Bing eventually decided after the trio's discussion.

The poker-faced man crossed his arms and looked away with a dour expression, but he did not object any further.

Thousands of kilometers away, Wang Xing's body still seemed to have blank eyes while reiterating the clone's discussion.

"They've agreed to the deal, but before discussing it officially, they'll do a test on you to make sure that the long-term collaboration you said is true. If not, they'll kill you directly."

"Test? Something like a hypnotizing interrogation?" Lin Huang raised his brow when he heard this, roughly guessing what the test was.

"Something like that. There's a regional deputy chief called Huyan Zhuo who is an expert in illusion whereby he can easily get the answer to what he wants to know," Wang Xing added, "Apart from the collaboration, they'll seize the opportunity to ask information about the world that you're from."

"I understand now. Lead the way then." Lin Huang nodded, wearing a smile.

Pang Bing and the rest were plotting against him, so was he not too?

Approximately 15 minutes later, Lin Huang arrived at the core zone of Zone 17, Sky Pillar Mountain, with the guidance of Wang Xing.

The mountain was the highest among all of the peaks in Zone 17. It was also where Wu Bin, the first chief of this Dynasty prison lived. Tens of millions of years ago, this prison had four chiefs and Wu Bin was one of them. It was those four who had implemented the orders in this prison which resulted in the stable development now.

To show respect to Wu Bin, nobody ever lived in Sky Pillar Mountain. The palace that used to belong to Wu Bin slowly became the Zone 17 office.

In midair faraway, Lin Huang saw many guards around Sky Pillar Mountain. There were at least 30 to 40 of them. Most of them had imperial-level yellow gold-rank combat strength and a few were on imperial-level white gold-rank.

He was not surprised to see that since he had heard about it from Wang Xing earlier.

As they landed on Sky Pillar Mountain, Lin Huang followed behind Wang Xing and entered the palace right away. Nobody stopped him. The guards did not even bother to look at him and ignored his existence completely.

Lin Huang figured it must be Pang Bing who notified them before their arrival. Otherwise, it was impossible for him for step foot in this palace even though Wang Xing was there.

After entering the palace, Lin Huang realized the palace was a demigod relic.

The demigod relic palace looked brand new even though tens of millions of years had passed. Of course, apart from the accumulation of energy for generations, the credit must go to the people who managed it often.

As Lin Huang stepped into the palace, the door closed automatically.

In the hall, the gray-haired Pang Bing sat on the main seat while Wang Xing and the other two sat on both sides.

However, Wang Xing's clone faded immediately when Wang Xin himself arrived. He took big strides and sat where his clone had been before.

Lin Huang stepped forward slowly.

When Pang Bing was ready to ask his questions, the Nightmare Tapir had released the Ninetails Lynx from its alternate dimension.

The Nightmare Tapir's eyes turned completely black when a little white cat landed on Lin Huang's shoulder sturdily.

Pang Bing and the rest stared blankly. They could not move as they sat on the chairs.

As soon as the Nightmare Tapir activated its ability, Pang Bing and the rest were hypnotized without being able to fight back at all.

After reading their minds for less than a minute, the Nightmare Tapir sent the information that it had read to Bloody.

Bloody spend three to four minutes selecting and categorizing the information before snapping back to its senses.

"So, is there any useful information?" Lin Huang, who was standing aside, asked.

"There are quite some information about this prison and something about Dynasty. I think you should take a look," said Bloody and extended one of its tentacles, pressing it to his forehead.

A moment later, the sea of information Bloody selected and categorized rushed into Lin Huang's head.

Lin Huang took close to half a minute to digest the information as he shut his eyes after Bloody was done with the transfer and had retrieved its tentacle. "Dynasty is that powerful?!" That was the first thing Lin Huang said after he opened his eyes again.

In reality, Lin Huang already got some of the killed convicts' memory from Bloody this morning. He found out quite some information about the other worlds.

He gained a rough understanding of Dynasty after he got Pang Bing and the rest's memory. He also had a preliminary understanding of the gravel world, the mini world, and the great world.

The gravel world was a mini world with an incomplete order. It could be a mini-world that was growing or one that had fallen.

The world that Lin Huang was currently in was a gravel world. Furthermore, judging from the current situation, it should belong to the latter category.

In a gravel world with incomplete order, it was impossible to have True Gods in it. Even elevating to Virtual God was extremely difficult.

A mini world was a complete gravel world. Such a world had complete order where True Gods could be born. There might be heavenly god-level powerhouses that surpassed True Gods who were born in a minority of powerful mini worlds due to some special reason or opportunity. Some people would call this kind of world a medium world, but in reality, the nature of such a world was still a mini world.

A great world was the ultimate version of evolution in a world. In such a world, even lord-level powerhouses could be born. They could end a mini world with the flip of a hand.

There were countable Lords even in the great world with many tribes and talented geniuses.

According to Pang Bing's memory about great worlds, Dynasty was not a tribe, but a special organization outside a great world. There was a division founded in the big world.

However, such a division had a Lord guarding them. In the great world, their combined ability ranked No. 3 in all the organizations.

Dynasty had an extremely high acceptance rate to be a member. Apart from the minority Bug Tribe and Abyssal Tribe, they treated almost all tribes equally without discrimination. They would recruit members from all the worlds every now and then. No matter whether the person came from a gravel world, a mini world, or a great world, they could be a Dynasty member as long as they passed the trial.

The biggest advantage of being a Dynasty member was that they could trade resources they desired in the Dynasty market no matter which world they were in.

Due to the massive number of Dynasty members in every world with the existence of many gods, one could purchase almost anything that one thought of. God relics and god items aside, one could even get methods to cultivate to become a Lord.

"It seems like Dynasty's a little bit like an upgraded Genius Union, but they have a higher demand for personal ability. Only one person passes in the end among the 10,000 supreme geniuses compared to Dynasty's Prince," Lin Huang could not help but exclaim. "According to Pang Bing and the rest's memory, even without me, powerhouses such as Huang Wuji of the Five Princes have less than a 10% chance of passing the trial looking at the candidates who've passed in history.

"But the fact that I can trade different resources in various worlds is worth the effort to fight to be a Dynasty member." Lin Huang was sure that he wanted to be a Dynasty member after learning a little bit more about Dynasty.

"Only the person who obtains the highest points in this trial will be accepted as a Dynasty member. Although it's easy to achieve No. 1 on the leaderboard under normal circumstances, we can't be sure about what special techniques the others have. We can't see their points after all. To be safe, I suggest that we eliminate all of the participants first." Bloody offered a bold suggestion.

Lin Huang was stunned to hear that. He had never thought Bloody would make such a suggestion.

Bloody added after noticing that Lin Huang did not speak for a while, "Judging from the memory of Pang Bing and the rest, most of them who are participating in the trial came from a mini world while some of them came from a great world. The similarity is that those people came from major organizations. Some have True Gods in their organization while some even have Heavenly Gods. The seed players those organization sent should have formidable trump cards with them. We can't rule out the possibility that they can harm you. The easiest way to eliminate those threats is to eliminate them right away."

Lin Huang could not argue with what Bloody said at all.

"So, you're saying that we won't be following our initial plan of going for the three chiefs? Instead, we're going for the participants?"

"We're still implementing our initial plan as a whole, but we're not clearing Zone 17." Bloody shook its head. "Because we need those convicts to hunt those participants."

"You're saying that we're using the local convicts' strength to eliminate all of the participants?!" Lin Huang understood what Bloody meant now.

"That's right," Bloody confirmed, wearing a smile, "The efficiency is too low if we do it ourselves. The trial is only opened for a month. It might not be sufficient for us to kill all of the participants hiding everywhere within a month. Using the convicts will be much faster. They're more familiar with the terrain and the number of them is tenfolds more than the participants. It shouldn't take too long for them to eliminate all of the participants if all of them hunt together. We can prevent the risk of the participants from attacking using their trump cards if we get the convicts to kill them for us."

"So, what do we do next?" Lin Huang asked, "Do we find the three chiefs, hypnotize them and order them to hunt for the participants?"

"Something like that, but we can't order them to hunt just like that. Those convicts aren't as obedient after all. Most of them won't be enthusiastic about carrying out the order if we ask them to hunt right away." Bloody shook its head while smiling. "They'll be more enthusiastic plotting a plan that makes them think them they'll benefit," Bloody voiced its concern after telling its plan.

"There's another thing. The three chiefs are the top among imperial-level purple gold-ranks. Looking at Pang Bing's memory, they might be supreme geniuses. The Nightmare Tapir's combat strength's only imperial-level white gold-rank, so I'm a little concerned that the hypnotizing might fail."

Lin Huang took out a demigod-level soul crystal from his storage space, smiling after hearing that. "I've been putting this aside. Now, I can finally use it."

He fed the demigod-level soul crystal to the Nightmare Tapir. After some ten minutes, it digested the soul crystal successfully and elevated from imperial-level white gold-rank to imperial-level purple gold-rank. It was Lin Huang's third imperial-level purple gold-rank God Figurine's Combat Soul!

Within the ten minutes, Lin Huang got the regional chief Pang Bing to bring out all the treasures around Sky Pillar Mountain in Zone 17.

"Shall we depart now?" Lin Huang could not wait to go ahead with the next plan after noticing that the Nightmare Tapir's elevation was completed while he had the loots in his hands.

Lin Huang got the Nightmare Tapir to go easy on the hypnotizing so that although Pang Bing and the rest were now semi-hypnotized, it seemed nothing out of the ordinary to outsiders. After that, Lin Huang left Sky Pillar Mountain and headed toward where Chief Liang Hao lived.

Liang Hao was one of the three chiefs in the current Dynasty prison who actually had a secret identity. He was Pang Bing's nephew.

Liang Hao had a formidable ability and was worthy of being called a supreme genius before elevating to imperial-level. In the great world, he was considered a person with extraordinary talent. Unfortunately, he did not come from a powerful family and had rather bad luck. He grew up in a minor organization that Pang Bing had founded. However, someone attacked the organization when Liang Hao was still on immortal-level and the organization was completely destroyed.

Since then, he had been following Pang Bing, living a life full of swindle.

Ever since Liang Hao elevated to imperial-level, both of them founded a minor organization in the great world to con the rookies in the main city. They even killed the rookies after conning them to prevent from being exposed.

Relying on those immoral resources, Liang Hao and Pang Bing cultivated their skills all the way to imperial-level purple gold-rank.

However, the good old days did not last long. They eventually offended a Dynasty member one day. While the organization was destroyed, Liang Hao and Pang Bing were thrown into this prison.

Ever since they arrived in the prison, Liang Hao soon realized that his ability made him a dominator in this space. He challenged the previous chief and killed him. Naturally, he became the new chief since then.

Lin Huang learned about that information from Pang Bing's memory.

Lin Huang did not doubt Liang Hao's ability. Liang Hao used to be a supreme genius after all. Perhaps his ability was nothing less than a pseudo-mythical-level monster since he elevated to imperial-level. His ability should be even more powerful now ever since he became the new chief. Besides having a full set of demigod relic equipment, he even got himself a god sword relic.

However, Lin Huang did not think Liang Hao had the upper hand if he were to fight his God Figurine's Combat Souls of the same combat strength.

After spending more than half an hour, Lin Huang arrived where Liang Hao lived — Dragon Pond Mountain.

He sensed the aura of more than 100 imperial-level powerhouses in the Dragon Pond Mountain area when he was far away midair. Most of them were on imperial-level yellow gold-rank while a minority of them were on imperial-level white gold-rank. The latter should be the guards.

He also saw a gigantic building on top of Dragon Pond Mountain. It was clearly another demigod relic palace.

The aura inside the palace was blocked entirely, so he could not sense anything inside at all. However, he knew that everyone in the palace sensed his presence since the beginning.

Apart from the people in the palace, even all the guards on Dragon Pond Mountain lifted their heads and pointed at the sky cautiously.

Liang Hao, who was sitting on a brass throne, raised his head slightly. "A participant?"

"Boss, do we catch him alive?"

There were four other people in the palace hall, three men and one woman whose aura was clearly on imperial-level purple gold-rank. The four of them were Liang Hao's personal bodyguards.

"He's only on immortal-level rank-7… Has Dynasty lowered its standards in the trial?" mumbled Liang Hao softly and shook his head, smiling. "Ignore him. The guards out there will take care of him."

Before he was even done speaking, he faltered and soon looked aghast.

The reason being was the young man, who appeared below 20 years old, summoned a monster which attacked all the guards on Dragon Pond Mountain until they slumped to the ground. They seemed to have been attacked by an invisible curse.

In the next second, the young man grabbed the token hanging on the waist of an entrance guard and opened the palace door.

Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir walked into the palace hall as soon as the door opened. He had a faint smile on his face while he glanced past the five of them present and his eyes eventually stopped on Liang Hao.

"Who are you?" Although Liang Hao was asking Lin Huang, he had his eyes trained on the Nightmare Tapir. His instinct told him that this little beast that appeared rather small was life-threatening to him.

"Hi, Chief Liang," Lin Huang introduced himself while grinning, "It's your humble servant, Lin Huang, the participant. The reason I'm here is to let you have a good sleep."

"Go!" Liang Hao shouted all of a sudden before Lin Huang could finish.

The five of them left their seats almost at the same time, racing toward Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir like an arrow leaving its bow.

At the moment, the Nightmare Tapir lifted its snout up high while releasing a loud roar from its muzzle. The sound wave spread almost 100 times faster than the speed of sound, and the five of them stopped moving.

The four of them had their eyes looking blank while Liang Hao managed to struggle for less than 0.1 seconds before he became a hypnotized puppet too.

After it was done reading their minds, the Nightmare Tapir sent the information to Bloody again.

The Nightmare Tapir put all five of them into a semi-hypnotized mode once the searching of the loot was done. Lin Huang then headed toward where the second chief lived.

It was close to four in the afternoon after spending close to an hour and a half hypnotizing the second and third chiefs as well as completing the search for the loot.

Lin Huang stopped moving around. Instead, he stayed in the house of the third chief, Liu Hong.

"We can commence our plan now that all three chiefs have been hypnotized."

"Yes, we can get the Nightmare Tapir to make the three chiefs announce the hunting of the participants at the same time now," Bloody confirmed.

"The notice must make the hunting rule clear. Those who manage to find the participants and provide accurate information will be given 10% of the prey. Those who manage to kill the participants will be given 50% of the prey.

"Among the 35 regions, all of the members in the top three regions will be given 30%, 20% and 10% of the prey they hunt respectively as a reward. Regions that rank from No. 4 to No. 10 will have a 5% reward on the prey that they hunt. The regions that rank No. 33, No. 34 and No. 35 will have 10%, 20% and 30% of the prey that they hunt taken away respectively.

"In the top three major zones, everyone in the major zone that ranks No. 1 will have 10% reward of the prey that they hunt while the No. 3 region will have 10% of the prey that they hunt taken away. The region that ranks No. 2 won't have any reward or punishment."

The notice was sent to the talismans of all the convicts in the prison around four in the afternoon simultaneously.

They were excited and could not wait to commence the hunt as soon as they saw the notice.

Under normal circumstances, the convicts would have to submit 50% of the preys that they hunted. 20% would go to the chiefs while 30% would go to the regional chief and regional deputy chief. The convict could only keep half of their prey.

However, they would be given 10% as soon as they found the participants. Together with the 50% that they obtained from killing the participants, they would be given 60% of the harvest. If their region and major zone ranked No. 1, they would be given another 40%. That would be mean that they would get 100% of the harvest.

Naturally, the regional chiefs were displeased to see the notice because their benefits would be taken away because of the new rule.

Just when the regional chiefs were complaining, another notice was sent to all of the regional chiefs and deputy chiefs.

"For the remaining bodies in this hunt, the three chiefs will only be given 5% while the remaining 95% will be given to the top 10 regional chiefs and deputy chiefs. The region that ranks No. 1 will be given 30%, No. 2 20%, and No. 3 10% while No. 4 to No. 10 will be given 5%."

Everyone shut up as soon as the notice went out.

The regional chiefs and deputy chiefs from the 35 regions gathered people to hunt for the participants immediately.

Huang Chenyu hid carefully in the branch of a big tree. He leaned closer to the branch and stopped breathing entirely. His heartbeat was so weak that it almost came to a halt.

It was a disguise ability that he had mastered, giving him the ability to blend in with the environment rapidly so that nobody could sense his presence. With his current imperial-level crimson gold-rank combat strength, he could even hide being detected from imperial-level yellow gold-rank powerhouses' Territory skill.

He assassinated three local convicts throughout the day with the same ability. One of them was an imperial-level black gold-rank and two were imperial-level crimson gold-ranks.

However, as the Second Prince of Dynasty, he was not hunting. Instead, he was avoiding himself from being killed.

He hid on top of the tree for over ten minutes without moving. Midair, the search teams went by one after another. He was relieved to sense the aura of the two teams getting further and further away.

"What exactly happened? It was fine during the day. Why did these convicts become so hardworking with their large-scale search for participants before the sky turned dark?" mumbled Huang Chenyu softly.

"That's because the three chiefs ordered them to hunt." A voice came from above Huang Chenyu.

Stunned, Huang Chenyu did not look at the person at all as he hurried on tip-toe rapidly into the dense jungle.

A skeletal gray silhouette followed closely behind him. He was getting closer and closer. Soon, his voice went into Huang Chenyu's ears clearly.

"This stealthy disguise ability of yours isn't too shabby. You might be able to hide from me if your combat strength is a rank higher, but now you're like a firefly in the dark. You can't hide no matter where you go. Instead of wasting your strength running away, why don't you just fight me? At least, you could die with dignity."

Huang Chenyu said nothing as if he had not heard what the person said. He traveled through the dense jungle, twisting and turning in an attempt to get rid of the person.

Both of them tore through the dense jungle for a couple of minutes. One was running away while the other was in pursuit. The gray silhouette seemed to be afraid of attracting attention and did not attack.

However, a black gleam flashed diagonally at his front all of a sudden. Huang Chenyu was shocked, but it was too late when he tried to avoid it. The black gleam pierced through his chest and his heart burst into pieces.

Huang Chenyu's aura disappeared on the spot while he fell onto the ground.

They gray silhouette behind halted immediately and revealed a tall, skinny man. He condemned in rage, "Who dares to take my prey? Come out now!"

At the moment, a skinny silhouette walked out of the dense jungle slowly. He wore a white robe with disheveled long hair. He lifted his head and looked at the tall, skinny man as a challenge. "Do you have any comment on this?"

"N-No comment." The tall, skinny man waved his hand immediately as cold, dense sweat dripped down his forehead.

"I found this meat first. Get out," said the white-robed man casually as if he was telling the truth.

"Yes, yes, yes… I didn't see anything!" The tall, skinny man turned around and immediately fled. He only stopped running when he was tens of kilometers away. He wiped the sweat on his forehead away. "Scared the sh*t out of me! Even the white-robed lunatic is participating in the hunt this time. Isn't this fella a lone wolf whereby even the regional chief means nothing to him?"

At the same time that Huang Chenyu was killed, a large-scale hunt for the participants took off everywhere.

Many participants could not understand it until the final seconds when death loomed in front of them. Why did all of the convicts in the trial space go nuts and began seeking and killing participants when they had just skimmed the surface by killing two to three convicts?

What they had no idea about was that someone had the entire space figured out while the rest were combing the trial space carefully. This person was the culprit who drove all the convicts nuts.

As the hunt for the participants got heated out there, as a participant himself, Lin Huang was sitting on the couch in Chief Liu Hong's home, studying the memory Bloody had selectively sent him.

"Ahh, the so-called Virtual God and True God are just how the Protoss addresses them…"

According to the great world, virtual god-level was called destiny-level and was the level to consolidate Life Columns. There would be nine transformations in the Life Columns. Each transformation would be called a rotation, so there would be a total of nine rotations on destiny-level.

In this level, a territory that was initially invisible would form a mini world because of the Life Columns. It was called a God Territory, which the Protoss called "Kingdom".

After the nine rotations in the Life Columns were completed while the Divine Fire was lit, one would reach god order-level when they learned the orders and sequences, which was what they called true god-level. There were nine sequences in the god order-level. One would master a level of the order of the world every time they broke through a sequence.

A complete sequence chain would be formed once the person mastered the order up to the ninth sequence. A powerhouse who achieved Supreme Godly Right covering the entire God Territory would be said to have achieved god sequence-level. Since the Godly Right could not be rebelled against and was formidable, the Protoss called the level heavenly god-level. The ranks were divided into five titles according to the intensity of the Godly Right and the God Territory which were duke-rank, marquess-rank, earl-rank, viscount-rank, and baron-rank.

Moving up, Absolute Godly Right would be formed when one consolidated nine or more god sequence chains. A powerhouse who elevated his God Territory to Supreme Kingdom would be on what they called supreme god-level, which the Protoss called lord-level. Strictly speaking, only the God Territory of a supreme god-level could be called a real Kingdom. Even though a powerhouse had just entered supreme god-level, the Kingdom would already be fully opened and contain up to 1,000 mini-worlds. On this level, he could build an enormous Kingdom of his own easily.

However, that was all the chiefs understood about the combat strength.

Liang Hao and the rest had no idea how supreme god-level or lord-level were divided exactly, let alone the existence of other levels above supreme god-level.

Nevertheless, the current information was sufficient for Lin Huang. He had yet to reach imperial-level now, so virtual god-level was far away from him, let alone the higher levels.

Apart from learning about combat strength, Lin Huang had a rough idea about the tribes and the distribution of the organizations now.

In the great world, the most powerful tribe would be the Protoss. The second would be the Bug Tribe and the third would be the Immortal Tribe. The fourth would be the foreign Abyssal Tribe and the fifth was the Dragon Tribe. Humans ranked No. 6, which was the lowest among all.

The Dragon Tribe which ranked No. 5 was the only tribe in the top six that was not a prominent tribe. In reality, the ability of their top powerhouse was no less than a Protoss'.

Just like the Dragon Tribe, the other tribes were less in quantity compared to the great tribes. Overall, they were not as powerful as the Dragon Tribe so they ranked after human. However, that did not mean they had no powerhouses.

"Looking at the situation of the gravel world that we're in, our world's most probably within the range of power under the Protoss's organization. Those that have been invading our world has always been the Protoss and the God Servants!" Out of the blue, Lin Huang noticed that after having a rough idea of the distribution of the tribes.

"I think it's more possible for us to be at the intersection of the Protoss and the Abyssal Tribe's territories," Bloody added, "Many abyssal living things in the Abyss Brink should come from the Abyssal Tribe's territory."

"What you said makes it sound like the situation's actually worse now." Lin Huang shook his head while forcing a smile.

"It's pretty bad. It's usually just a copy for the Protoss to gain experience whereby they'd leave after they're done with it. As soon as the Protoss and the Abyssal Tribe go to war, it won't be just a one-off incident. The entire gravel world might even be destroyed."

"Waiting for the Protoss to come and defend them then won't be a solution. Even if the defense works in the end, it doesn't solve the root problem." Lin Huang scowled to hear what Bloody said. "We must find ways outside of gravel world to solve it completely!"

"I'm planning to break through to imperial level as soon as I can after I leave this trial space. I'll leave the gravel world after settling some stuff!"

It was midnight. A silhouette dashed at high speed in the dense jungle. Up to a hundred skinny silhouettes followed closely behind him

Huang Wuji was running for his life like a mad man. Before entering this trial space more than ten hours ago, he had never imagined that such a thing would happen to him.

As the Fifth Prince, he was well-prepared before coming to the trial. He even hired an Imperial Censor to sign a contract with three imperial-level monsters for him to bring them into this trial space. He obtained a Life Base as soon as he entered the trial space and elevated all the way to imperial-level yellow gold-rank.

Initially, he thought elevating to imperial-level yellow gold-rank would give him the ability to fight most imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses head-on, making him the overlord in this trial space. Never had he thought that he would break the beehive after killing a few convicts and end up being chased by a bunch of local convicts who had lost their minds like he was a dog.

'Seriously? All I did was killing a few of you and up to a hundred people are chasing me for more than 5,000 kilometers. Plus, there are more and more people! Could one of the people I killed come from a powerful background? Am I that ill-fated?'

Huang Wuji sensed a few powerful aurae advancing toward him swiftly as he was thinking to himself. There were four of them and their combat strength was clearly on imperial-level purple gold-rank. Their aura was much more powerful than the usual imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse.

"Sh*t! These four must be the regional chiefs and the deputy chiefs of this region. Are people of such a level out hunting too?" Huang Wuji was hesitating as to whether to leave the trial now.

He tried deviating his direction a little, but the people that were approaching him changed their flight trajectory immediately and headed toward him.

"I've been targeted!" There were obstructions before him and people chasing behind him while he was surrounded on both sides too.

Knowing that it was impossible for him to escape, Huang Wuji did not choose to give in. He went forward to the few imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses before him, clenching his teeth.

Soon, both parties met.

Huang Wuji glanced at the four of them. Instead of targeting the one who had the weakest aura, he had his eyes fixed on the one who had the most powerful aura. His intention to battle was skyrocketing.

"If I'm not mistaken, you should be the regional chief. Do you dare to take my challenge?"

"Boss, this kid's interesting," said a shorty standing next to him while grinning.

"You have excellent eyes." The man with facial paralysis, who was challenged, smirked. "Let's play then."

Huang Wuji tossed the golden combat spear in his hand as soon as the man was done speaking. The spear spun rapidly like an arrow in the air and a golden line reflecting the moonlight arrived before the man's face. At the same time, he raced towards the man.

The man with facial paralysis had no expression. He pointed his right hand in the air as he lifted an eyelid, pointing at the tip of the golden spear.

The golden gleam at the tip of the spear disappeared. It expanded rapidly and exploded. Countless golden rays shot out everywhere as if a sun had just exploded. The blast sounded like tens of millions of thunders rumbling at the same time and the area within a radius of tens of kilometers turned into ruins.

In the next second, the man with facial paralysis pointed in the air again as his eyelid twitched.

A silhouette went from being invisible to turning visible. His body shot out like a cannonball as he spat a mouthful of blood out.

"You're worthy of being called the regional chief! You sure are compelling!" Huang Wuji realized how far apart his ability was from the person in that instant. The regional chief should have been a supreme genius even before he elevated to imperial-level.

"Eh, he's still alive?" The man with facial paralysis raised his brow faintly. Just when he lifted his hand in an attempt to attack again, he did not expect to hear the participant across him.

"I'll surrender since I'm not a match for you. You guys don't have to send me off." Huang Wuji crushed the trial token without hesitation as soon as he finished speaking. His body was covered in a golden glow in an instant and it turned into a golden sphere. He then shot into the sky at the speed of light and disappeared in the clouds in the blink of an eye.

Some seed players from other organizations who were sent in experienced a similar encounter with Huang Wuji.

All of them came in with full confidence with the expectation of showcasing their abilities to win themselves a place in Dynasty. However, they were treated like dogs not even a day into the trial. Those who were slightly lucky like Huang Wuji managed to escape by crushing the trial token in time. Those who were unlucky could not even escape and were killed by a bunch of convicts who collaborated.

Early the next morning, since the trial began, 90% of the 10,000 participants were disqualified, so only less than 1,000 remained.

Looking at the calculated data the trial system conveyed, Lin Huang could not help but admire the convicts' terrifying hunting efficiency.

"It's only been a day and 9,081 people have been disqualified. Including me, there are only 919 participants left now. Looking at the progress, they'll clear all of the participants within one or two days."

"I don't think it'll be that quick." However, Bloody gave a different opinion. "The reason the first hunt had a high efficiency is that the participants were caught off-guard since they didn't expect the convicts to be hunting them. They had no upper hand since they're unfamiliar with the terrain.

"Those who managed to survive the first hunt should have top-notch abilities among those participants. Furthermore, after a night of escaping, they should've gained a certain understanding of the terrain. Although the number of convicts has the absolute upper hand, it'd take at least a week to kill all of the participants."

"What you said makes sense." Lin Huang figured that he was thinking too shallowly after hearing Bloody's explanation. "Seems like we can only wait patiently."

Lin Huang spent the next few days practicing his swordsmanship.

Time flashed by and a week had passed. Among the 10,000 participants, three people survived.

Apart from Lin Huang, the other two had been playing hide-and-seek of all sorts with the convict army.

According to the messages the convict army sent back, the two participants were imperial-level white gold-rank powerhouses. The ordinary imperial-level purple gold-rank could do nothing for them since they would only be afraid of masters such as the regional chief.

Just when Lin Huang was cracking his head, pondering how to kill the two people, the number of remaining participants dropped to 2 all of a sudden. It was clear that someone had either been killed or disqualified.

"There's this one last man left. The Dynasty member quota will be mine as soon as he's dead," Lin Huang muttered softly at the number 2.

Soon, two days had passed and the number of remaining participants stayed unchanged at 2.

Even Lin Huang was considering if he should hunt the person himself.

After lunch, a maidservant walked toward Lin Huang with a plate of fruits. She turned her head after placing the plate on the coffee table and realized that Lin Huang was looking at her smiling.

"Don't go since you're here." Lin Huang grabbed the lady's wrist.

"Are you sure about that, Master?" The lady leaned in while smiling sweetly.

"Of course I am." Lin Huang released her arm and pulled her into his embrace.

At the moment, the lady grinned and grabbed a short blade from her sleeve. She shoved it rapidly and pierced it through Lin Huang's head.

However, the lady had a slight change of expression at the same time. She stepped back quickly because she saw Lin Huang's penetrated head being crushed into pieces and fading away.

"There are two things that I didn't expect. One is that you'd be a lady and secondly, I didn't expect you to come to my doorstep." Lin Huang stood at the entrance of the palace and looked at the lady in a maid's uniform as he leered. "Perhaps I couldn't do anything to you if you were to hide properly for a short period of time, but now…"

"I didn't expect it to be an immortal-level who managed to create such a stir in Dynasty's trial space and get everyone disqualified." The lady's body gradually transformed into her original body. She was a beauty, much prettier than the maidservant that she had disguised as earlier.

"Can I ask you a question? How did you find out about me? I thought I disguised myself perfectly as this maidservant. There shouldn't be any flaws at all."

"I hypnotized everyone in this palace, but you're the only one who isn't under the spell." Lin Huang knew this lady was the last participant that he was looking for as soon as he laid his eyes on her.

"Since you're done asking, do you want to leave by yourself or should I send you out?" Lin Huang asked while smirking.

"Aren't I the one who has the upper hand in such a situation?" It was clear that the lady did not want to give up on the member quota of Dynasty that was just right there.

"Some things can't be seen by the naked eye." Lin Huang smiled while raising his brow.

Just when the lady was attempting to launch an attack, she felt a searing pain that spread from her neck out of nowhere. In the next second, her head tumbled from her neck as fresh blood spurted out of her neck like a fountain.

Lin Huang's silhouette was reflected in the eyes of the head on the ground. Without any realizing it, a tiny little cat had appeared on his shoulder.

A notification from the trial system popped up before Lin Huang all of a sudden.

"Number of remaining participants: 1"

On the tenth day since the Royal Trials began, apart from Lin Huang, all 10,000 participants were disqualified.

By then, Lin Huang had completed a significant part of the goal of his journey in the Royal Trials.

Glancing away from the notification coming from the trial system, Lin Huang observed the headless lady's body.

A ball of black liquid appeared on the left side of him. It then turned into a black stream and headed towards the lady's headless body and her decapitated head.

Approximately ten seconds later, the black liquid vanished completely. The lady's severed head was reconnected with black threads. As if she had merely faked her death, the lady stood up from the ground. Her aura was still the initial imperial-level white gold-rank aura. Apart from her eyes that were now all black without any white irises, nobody could tell there was anything off about her.

"Master." The lady bowed respectfully to Lin Huang slightly as she fixed her eyes on him.

Lin Huang raised his brow. The ball of black liquid was his God Figurine's Combat Soul, the Undead Styx. He roughly knew that it could resurrect the dead. Furthermore, the person who was resurrected would be immortal.

Because the lady before him had a terrifying ability when she was alive, he suddenly had an idea of trying the Undead Styx's resurrection ability.

"Does this resurrection preserve her ability and memory from when she was alive?"

"Yes. As long as the soul's intact, complete preservation is possible," replied the lady with a nod.

"Even if the brain's been destroyed?" Lin Huang asked rather surprisedly.

"That doesn't matter. It won't affect anything whether it's destroyed or rotting because I retrieve information from their soul."

"How many people can you control at once?" Lin Huang asked again.

"According to my inherited memory, there shouldn't be a limit on the quantity." The Undead Styx's answer was rather out of Lin Huang's expectations. "Wouldn't it burden you if the number is too high?"

"No. The soul and body I devour will become part of my body, so it'll only strengthen me."

"What about the limit to the resurrection combat strength?"

"The highest I can resurrect will be imperial-level purple gold-rank. I can't resurrect people on demigod-level and above due to the Divine Power in their bodies. However, since my combat strength's only on imperial-level white gold-rank now, it'll take a longer time for me to resurrect an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse. The more powerful the soul is, the longer it'll take."

"How long does it take for you to resurrect an imperial-level purple gold-rank then?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"Usually around three minutes. I'll need at least ten minutes for those who've elevated from supreme genius. If the person's comparable to a quadruple mutated monster, it'll take at least two hours. Due to the combat strength restriction, I can't resurrect many imperial-level purple gold-ranks at once currently. I can only resurrect one at a time. I won't have this problem if my combat strength is elevated to imperial-level purple gold-rank. Then, the speed of my resurrection will experience a boost by tenfolds too."

Lin Huang asked a couple more questions and achieved a better understanding of the Undead Styx's abilities.

After recalling the Undead Styx, he realized that the resurrected lady had disappeared as well.

"With the Undead Styx's ability, it won't take long for us to build an undead army," Bloody declared while smiling in envy.

"You don't have to be envious of its ability. All it does is resurrect dead beings while you can cast parasites and control all living things," Lin Huang comforted.

Bloody did not dwell on the topic. It then focused on the important thing at hand.

"Now that all of the participants have been cleared, we'll have to clear the convicts next."

"Do you have any idea how to gather these convicts together?" Lin Huang had been thinking about it for these past few days, but he could not come up with a solid plan.

"It's simple. We'll organize a Hongmen feast!" Bloody told him how to carry out the next plan in detail.

Both of them discussed until late at night until they had nailed down all the details of the Hongmen Feast.

When it was almost 10 p.m., Lin Huang got the Nightmare Tapir to issue the order to the three chiefs. They announced a new notice together when it was 10 p.m. sharp.

"The participant-clearing collaboration has officially ended!"

"Congratulations, everyone! It's the first time we've cleared all the Dynasty participants in our territory."

"The three chiefs are officially inviting all regional chiefs, regional deputy chiefs and all members in this prison to have a feast tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the foot of Tongtian Peak."

"By then, please submit all the meat that everyone has hunted this time. We will calculate and rank the three zones and regions based on the number of prey. After the ranking is done, we will distribute the meat according to the rule that was set earlier."

"The three chiefs will come to your doorstep if anyone doesn't attend the feast at the said time and if you hide the meat. All the meat will be confiscated and you won't be given any food and water for a hundred years. Those who refuse to surrender the meat when the three chiefs visit will be killed on the spot!"

…

Those who were planning on playing tricks eliminated their plan as soon as the notice went out. Nobody wanted the three chiefs to come to them and they were far from willing to give up on a hundred years of food and water.

Although the notice was filled with harsh words and it was rather odd to demand everyone to be there, not many people suspected the authenticity of the notice.

A similar incident had happened before; it was not the first time the three chiefs were doing such a challenge. Besides that, the trio had announced the notice together, proving that they had discussed this before, so the probability of it being fake was almost zero. Nobody would be able to figure that the three chiefs were being controlled without them even realizing it.

Since the notice went out, many of them departed directly to Tongtian Peak.

A minority of powerhouses who were not in the organization under the three chiefs frowned slightly when they saw the notice. They communicated with each other immediately.

"I'm sure you guys saw the notice Liang Hao and the rest sent, didn't you?"

"Yes, it's obvious that they're pointing at us."

"Didn't we just got a few bodies when we followed the crowd? It's so petty for them to want us to submit all the bodies."

"It has nothing to do with the meat. The trio is just seizing the opportunity to flaunt their power."

"Do we go? I'm guessing they might really come to us if we don't. Since they've already announced that, they wouldn't want to look bad."

"Of course we're going. They'll have something to hold against us if we don't. We'll just play by their rules. If they ask for trouble even if we obey, we'll kill them together. Let's see who'll die then!"

"Let's see what kind of trick they're pulling off."

…

Clearly, this notice had extremely high oppressive power. Even those who were usually rebellious did not dare to say anything this time.

Even a minority of them, whose abilities were comparable with Liang Hao and the rest, chose to compromise. After all, they would not be able to take Liang Hao and the rest on since they had more people on their side no matter how powerful their personal ability was. If they really were to fight, the upper hand was not theirs.

Lin Huang and Bloody waited patiently for the next day to come after sending the notice out.

Tongtian Peak was the interception of the three zones. It had also been the fixed venue for all of the collaborative activities of the three zones for tens of thousands of years.

It was past nine in the morning, but the foot of Tongtian Peak was already congested with people. Most of them made it there last night and they had been waiting at the foot for a night.

Apart from the minority of them who had been killed by the two days ago, basically 99% of the 100,000 convicts in the entire prison were here.

Lin Huang, on the other hand, arrived at the place leisurely after having some light breakfast early in the morning. However, he was hiding in the Ninetails Lynx's alternate dimension where nobody could see him.

Everyone was relaxing while chatting with people they knew since the chiefs were not there yet.

Even some of the regional chiefs were talking about the feast this time.

"Why do you guys think the three chiefs are doing this? If they're going to divide the meat according to the rules that they've set, they won't be getting much meat."

"I guess they just want to torture us since they're bored."

"What else? They just want to show off! Remember the Octodecathlon last time?"

"Don't talk about the Octodecathlon anymore. Ugh, I get so pissed whenever someone mentions this!"

"Oh yeah, your region came in last for the Octodecathlon last time. What? Are you fighting for the last place again this time?"

"F*ck! Can't you say something more auspicious? Boss Zheng will kill me if we get last again."

"Do you guys think the people in Dynasty will go insane since we've cleared all the participants in the Royal Trials this time?"

"I don't think so since we're only one of the tens of thousands of trial venues. Moreover, it's normal for participants to fail. It's not like there's always an implicit condition whereby the participant who gets the most points must obtain at least 1,000 points."

"I don't think so either. This is only a Rank-D trial space after all. The participants will only get a Rank-D authorization even if they pass this trial. There are at least millions of Dynasty members with Rank-D authorization. They wouldn't care whether they have one more or one less Rank-D member."

…

Liang Hao and the other two arrived at the scene when it was approximately 9.55 a.m.

Everyone who gathered at the foot of the mountain fell into a hushed silence as soon as the three showed up. They then shuffled back to their own teams.

"I won't beat around the bush. Regional chiefs, do a headcount and see who isn't here yet. Hand me the list of absentees. Cross the names of those who made it before 10 a.m. off the list. We'll handle those who arrive after 10. Their meat will be confiscated and they won't be given food and water for 100 hundred years!"

Many regional chiefs looked solemnly at the other two chiefs, Zheng Tu and Liu Hong.

Both of them nodded to the regional chiefs under their wings. "Follow what Chief Liang said."

The regional chiefs and regional deputy chiefs began working as soon as the two spoke.

Many of them who made it just on time looked guilty, they were secretly relieved that they were not late.

When it was almost 10 a.m. sharp, four imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse whose aura was nothing less than Liang Hao and the rest arrived just in time. They way they looked at Liang Hao and the rest two was a little provocative.

However, Liang Hao and the two did not do anything about that since they were under the Nightmare Tapir's control.

Liang Hao spoke again as soon as time passed ten.

"Those who haven't arrived will be given the punishment that was set last night."

Around some ten minutes, only three among the 35 regional chiefs handed the list. Everyone in the remaining regions made it there.

There were only four names on the three lists.

Among the four names, one of them made it to Tongtian Peak but he was approximately three minutes later.

The people who knew him turned to look at him when the three chiefs read out his name. Most of them had teasing expression on their faces, only a minority of them had sympathy flashed through their eyes.

"Chief Zheng, please give me one more chance. I could've made it on time but I was chased by a monster when I was on the way. I took a big round and that's why I'm late…"

Zheng Tu, who was short and muscular, spoke without an expression on his face, "You're an adult. Adults should pay for their mistakes. There's nothing to complain about. No matter what the reason is, it's a fact that you've broken the rule that we've set. If I let you go this time, we'll set precedence. In the future, everyone will think that they can break the rule that we've set. Just accept the punishment obediently and stop complaining. I'll kill you if you continue to complain!"

The man, who still wanted to argue, shut up immediately. He dared not utter another word.

"We'll visit the remaining three who haven't made it here until now after the feast has ended." Zhang Tu glanced at everyone when he said that. Many people had goosebumps from that warning of his.

"Alright, we'll begin with the submission of the meat. All the members of each region will hand all of the meat to your regional deputy chiefs. The regional chiefs will be responsible for registering and calculating the data. Pass the data to your chief when you're done with the calculation. The three of us will confirm the number. Don't cheat. All the meat from the entire region will be confiscated if we find out that anyone has cheated on the data!"

All of the regional chiefs who were planning to cheat began the registration obediently when they heard the last sentence.

Lin Huang stayed in the alternate dimension until past noon. Seeing that everyone surrendered the thousands of participants' bodies they had hunted and put them into 35 piles, he got the Ninetails Lynx to release him.

Everyone looked puzzled when he appeared next to the three chiefs.

Many of them reacted immediately upon realizing that he was a foreign participant. However, what puzzled them was that the three chiefs seemed to be ignoring him.

"Get good sleep, all of you." Next to him, the Nightmare Tapir released a loud roar as Lin Huang snapped his fingers. The sound wave spread at a speed that was close to 100 folds faster than the speed of sound.

Many of the convicts fell onto the ground wherever the sound wave passed by.

The few imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses who had similar abilities with Liang Hao and the rest had the fastest reaction. They sped toward Lin Huang in an attempt to attack him. However, they lagged far behind the Nightmare Tapir's sound wave attack no matter how fast they were. All of them fell midair as the sound wave spread.

In less than a second, at least 100,000 convicts fell into the Nightmare Tapir's dreamland.

After spending more than an hour reading everyone's minds, the Nightmare Tapir made everyone fall asleep in the dreamland forever.

Lin Huang then summoned the Undead Styx to take over the loose ends.

The Undead Styx that was initially the size of four basketballs turned into a flowing black river. It devoured all of the convicts apart from the imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses.

In less than an hour, more than 4,000 participants and 100,000 convicts, who were deep in the dreamland, woke up again. However, their eyes were now pure black as if they were dyed with ink.

The Undead Styx spent almost a day and night to devour all the remaining over 180 imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses before resurrecting them.

The three chiefs took the longest whereby it spent more than half an hour resurrecting them.

Lin Huang was beaming with pride as he looked at his imperial-level army that was close to 110,000 people. "Such an army should be enough to clear any organizations in a gravel world."

However, Bloody soon ruined his imagination. "I'm afraid it's not sufficient yet. Even though the imperial-level powerhouses' numbers surpass any organization's, we're still lacking the peak combat strength — demigod!"

"In an organization such as the Union Government, they would have at least 15 demigods. The Hunter Association would have more than ten. I'm afraid that even Dynasty would definitely have more than five. And that's conservative speculation."

Lin Huang's pride was torn as Bloody practically splashed a bowl of cold water onto him.

"Hmm, I think we should be humble instead of being high on pride then."

The Undead Styx that had a 110,000-strong army under its wing controlled the undead army to go their old lair respectively as Lin Huang ordered. They then searched for loots in the lair.

Although most of them had no space for equipment, the Undead Styx could turn into liquid and devour all the items to store them inside its body temporarily.

Whilst the undead army was searching for loots, the Undead Styx shared the memory of its army members with Bloody. After some selecting and arranging, Bloody shared the useful bits with Lin Huang.

More than an hour later, the undead army came back when Lin Huang was still digesting the sea of memories in his head. They handed all of their stored items to Lin Huang without holding back.

Apart from their items, the treasuries of the 35 regions were emptied too. Also, the over 4,000 participants' storage equipment became Lin Huang's loots too.

Lin Huang only left each of them a set of weapon and armor equipment.

After the search of loots, Lin Huang thought about it and decided not to let go off the three convicts who did not come to the feast. He made the Undead Styx control the three chiefs to lead and form three teams consisting of the regional chiefs and deputy chiefs to kill the remaining three.

When the three convicts, who were thousands of kilometers away, died eventually, a notification from the system popped out in front of Lin Huang immediately.

"Number of Remaining Participants: 1

"Number of Remaining Convicts: 0

"All of the convicts are killed, the trial has officially ended!

"Calculating trial result…

"Participant: Lin Huang

"Gender: Male

"Age: 18

"Combat Strength: Immortal-level Rank-7 (Candidate's cultivation system is eligible for the trial)

"Qualification Assessment: Grade-A

"Basic Points: 552,831

"Reward Points (Killing Regional Chiefs): 780,000

"Reward Points (Killing Chiefs): 300,000

"Total Points: 1,632,831

"Qualification Result: Total points exceed one million points, trial result — Perfect.

"Congratulations, participant, you've obtained a Perfect qualification in the trial and won yourself a Rank-A Dynasty member authorization!

"The trial has officially ended!

"Do you want to be sent out of the trial space right now?"

Lin Huang selected "no" immediately.

"Reminder: Please handle the loose ends as soon as you can. The trial space will shut down automatically 24 hours later. You can leave anytime within the 24 hours. At the last minute before the trial space shuts down, you will be sent back to your world by force whether you're willing to leave or not."

No more notifications popped out from the system after the reminder.

Lin Huang stood there looking a little lost. He had yet to digest the sea of information Bloody had sent earlier and the system issued such a reminder all of a sudden. It caught him by surprise.

Theoretically, he would not obtain a million points after killing all of the convicts. However, after studying the two reward points closely, he realized that he was given 10,000 reward points for killing each regional chief and 5,000 reward points for killing each regional deputy chief. As for each chief, he was awarded 100,000 reward points. As a consequence, he accumulated a total of over 1.6 million points.

What he was even more confused about was that he was given a Rank-A Dynasty member authorization albeit having participated in a Rank-D trial.

"What's happening? Could the Dynasty member authorization have something to do with the trial points?"

"Indeed, it's related to the trial points." Although Bloody could not see the system notification Lin Huang read, it took over the subject anyway. "Liang Hao and the rest have a related memory on this. The participants will only pass if they obtain more than 1,000 points. Otherwise, it's futile even if they get first place in the trial after staying for a month in the trial space. However, the participants who pass the trial will only be given Rank-D Dynasty member authorization.

"As the points go up, the trial qualification will be classified 'Good' as long as the points exceed 10,000 and a Rank-C Dynasty member authorization will be granted. Those who obtain even higher points will qualify for 'Outstanding' as long as the points exceed 100,000 and the person will be given a Rank-B Dynasty member authorization.

"However, nobody knows if one would attain higher authorization if they obtain more points than that. The highest Liang Hao and the rest have in their memories is Rank-B authorization."

The related information appeared in Lin Huang's head after Bloody reminded him.

Although the three chiefs had no information about the Rank-A authorization, it was easy for him to figure the reason he had obtained the Rank-A authorization from the available information. It should be the reason he accumulated more than 1 million points and was graded Perfect.

After solving his doubt, Lin Huang put aside the Dynasty member authorization temporarily while proceeding to digest the information Bloody had sent.

The three chiefs returned with glory a few minutes after he was done digesting the information.

They brought back the dead bodies and loot of the three men who refused to join the feast.

"The three of them are on imperial-level purple gold-rank. Two of them have similar abilities with the regional chiefs while one has an ability that's comparable to the chiefs," reported the Undead Styx through Liang Hao.

"It's a good thing that the undead army has three more outstanding fighters now!" Lin Huang nodded while smiling and putting the loots away in his Emperor's Heart Ring.

The Undead Styx spent some time to resurrect the three imperial-level purple gold-ranks one after another.

By then, all of the convicts were dead and had become members of the undead army.

"We should've already done everything we need to in this trial space. There's nothing that we left out. Am I right?" Lin Huang held his head down and asked Bloody that was in his sleeve. He could not think of anything that had not been done.

"You're the only participant left and all the convicts have become part of the undead army." Bloody thought about it and said, "As for the plunder, we've searched through all the accommodation of the 4,000 participants and 100,000 people. We didn't leave anything behind in the treasuries of the regions and zones. Even a few mini treasuries that a few regional chiefs squirreled away didn't escape from the Undead Styx's mind-reading. We've got everything."

"If we have to look for things that we haven't searched, we're left with the hundreds of local monsters. Most of them are baby beasts with limited combat strength. Moreover, they're all carnivorous monsters with little potential to elevate." Bloody had learned about the local monsters from Liang Hao and the rest's memory. It knew every single detail of each monster.

"Which means there are no more benefits that I can gain from this place." Lin Huang pouted when he heard that. He had little interest in those monsters that had low combat strength and little potential to elevate.

"Then, there's no longer any reason for us to stay," Lin Huang declared and he recalled the Undead Styx before recalling Bloody back to card form after that.

As the crowd at Tongtian Peak foot vanished all of a sudden, Lin Huang was the only person left at the empty place.

"Send me out then."

Lin Huang's body was wrapped in a ring of golden light as soon as he said that. The golden sphere then shot into the clouds at the speed of light and vanished completely.

Not long after Lin Huang disappeared, a tremor shook the trial space out of the blue. Two silhouettes, one skinny and one plump, walked out of a crack.

The duo had a rather perplexed expression on their faces as they scanned through the entire trial space with their Divine Telekinesis.

"What's happening? Where are the convicts?"

"There's not even a single participant either."

"Is there surveillance?"

"There used to be, but it was removed later on. It was said that a female leader came to check on the trial space many years ago, and the higher management was afraid that she would see obscene things, so they removed many surveillance cameras in the prison. They didn't put it back after that."

"So, how are we supposed to find out what that participant Lin Huang did in this trial space?"

"Looking at the current situation, we can report that he killed all of the participants and convicts, then took all of the corpses with him."

"It doesn't sound credible at all…"

"Why don't you make something up then?"

"Err, let's just report what you said then."

Lin Huang realized he was still in the hotel in Wanbao City when he opened his eyes after getting out of the trial space.

The trial that should have gone on for a month ended early. It only lasted for 12 days.

Although he did not experience any elevation in his combat strength at all, Lin Huang was satisfied with the trial results.

The biggest reward was none other than the 100,000-strong undead army and the information about the tens of thousands of mini worlds and great worlds retrieved from the undead army's souls.

The various cultivation methods were the second best. The information in the memories broadened Lin Huang's view greatly. It made him realize that the gravel world he was currently in was just the equivalent of a rookie village in a game.

"I wonder if Yang Ling can unlock the space equipment from other great worlds and mini-worlds. If he can't, I'll have to get someone from the great world to unlock them." Lin Huang thought that the journey into the trial space was worth it as he thought about the hundreds of thousands of space equipment that were waiting to be unlocked in his Emperor's Heart Ring.

He put the Dynasty member matter aside at the moment.

Within less than ten seconds after he returned from the trial space, the Emperor's Heart Ring in his hand began vibrating as soon as he reconnected to the network and signal.

He clicked on the communication page and immediately took a look.

"Why did Jian Fei call me?" Lin Huang saw a couple of call requests and messages the Heaven Alliance deputy chief Jian Fei had sent a week ago as soon as he opened the communication page.

He began reading the messages one after another.

The first two messages were about Jian Fei asking Lin Huang to contact Chan Dou since his attempt was to no avail and he was busy working on something. The two messages sent following that were links and screenshots from some news. He even asked Lin Huang to contact him as soon as he saw his messages.

Lin Huang's pupils shrunk when he saw the few screenshots of the news.

"Chan Dou has been attacked? Someone abducted him! Nobody knows if he's still alive…"

"Who did this? Why did they attack Chan Dou?"

Lin Huang's expression was rather grim after reading the news via the links.

Chan Dou had been taking care of him all this time, so Lin Huang treated him as a friend. Otherwise, he would not have shared the ancient cultivation methods with him.

"Could the cultivation methods have leaked and the Union Government sent people to do this?" Lin Huang shook the idea off a moment after it flashed through his mind.

Knowing Chan Dou's character, there should not be anyone who would find out that he had obtained the cultivation methods apart from Lin Huang. It was quite impossible for the Union Government to find out about it within such a short period of time. Furthermore, the Chan Clan was a powerful family in Division 1. Even if the Union Government found out, the possibility of them attacking Chan Dou directly was low. The most they would do was just to prod the Chan Clan for that.

Lin Huang thought about it and called Jian Fei back eventually since he could not figure anything out.

Jian Fei picked up the phone as soon as the video call request only went on for two rings.

"I've finally reached you!" Looking at his face that was initially plump, Jian Fei had lost weight.

"I've been doing closed-door cultivation and just got out today." Lin Huang nodded. "I've read about the chief. Is there any updates about his attack from your side?"

"I've been getting everyone to search for related information, but we haven't found many useful ones. We only know it was two white-robed men who attacked him."

"White robes? Could it be the Saints?" Lin Huang thought of the Saints right away when he heard about the white robes.

"Shouldn't be them. They had no cross on their faces." Jian Fei shook his head. "Moreover, the Saints' headquarters isn't in Division 1. They wouldn't have the guts to offend Chan Clan in Division 1. The Chan Clan has demigods guarding their home and many members who are working for the Union Government. Underground organizations that aren't stupid won't offend them easily."

"You said they have no cross on their faces, so did anyone see the attackers' faces?" Lin Huang asked again.

"The chief was attacked at Sun City's black market. Although the attack was shielded with a demigod relic, two people from the Genius Union happened to be at the black market before it happened. They know the chief and just when they were going to greet him, they saw the two white-robed men walking towards him before the three of them disappeared. A few minutes later, the chief was nowhere to be seen when the two white-robed men reappeared."

"The Union Government's intelligence system retrieved the two white-robed men's facial recognition outline and matched their databank, but they couldn't find anyone that matches the face."

"It's obviously a plot. They must've disguised themselves before they attacked." Lin Huang nodded after he listened. The possibility of finding the attackers based on the two faces was low.

"Oh yeah, why did you look for the chief earlier? Is it solved yet?" Lin Huang asked again.

"Jiang Rui has elevated to imperial-level. His deputy chief position is vacant now. I wanted to discuss picking another deputy chief with the chief," Jian Fei told Lin Huang what he had been dragging out for a week.

Jiang Rui was one of the Heaven Alliance deputy chiefs but Lin Huang had never seen him before. The latter happened to be in a ruins in Division 1, attempting to break through to imperial-level when Lin Huang was promoted to deputy chief. Chan Dou and the rest could not find him, so he did not join the meeting during which Lin Huang was promoted to deputy chief.

Lin Huang nodded as he listened. Chan Dou had mentioned Jiang Rui to him before.

"The chief suggested that Gu Fei replace Jiang Rui as deputy chief earlier. Although Gu Fei's a supreme genius, she's only on immortal-level rank-8 now. I'm a little concerned that she can't convince the people."

Chan Dou had told him about Gu Fei before. The reason she was stuck on immortal-level rank-8 was that she was a psychic, so it was even more difficult for her to look for Life Lamp monsters to elevate herself. However, when it came to abilities, she was just as powerful as other immortal-level rank-9 Heaven Alliance supreme geniuses.

"I think we should follow what the chief said. Gu Fei has a powerful ability. Her elevating to immortal-level rank-9 is just a matter of time." Lin Huang gave his opinion. "Moreover, her appointment as deputy chief could unite the current female Heaven Alliance members. It could attract more female members to join too. It's a good thing for the Heaven Alliance's development in the long run."

"The other organizations such as the Divine Alliance are watching us. We can't drag this new deputy chief appointment any longer. Gu Fei isn't a rookie. Getting a headstart as a deputy chief should fast track her faster than me. They can come to me if they think she's not convincing."

"Also, since the chief isn't around now, I think based on Brother Jian's experience, he is the best to take the chief position temporarily. We should spend some time closing the decision of the appointment of the acting chief and new deputy chief these few days. I'll support you in your work with all my might."

"Great, I'll contact the rest and organize a meeting as soon as I can. I'll let you know once I've gotten the confirmed date." Jian Fei nodded immediately. He did not expect Lin Huang to be so easy that he handed the acting chief position to him directly.

Lin Huang smiled while shaking his head after ending the call with Jian Fei.

To Lin Huang, who was in touch with all sorts of information about Dynasty, the Genius Union was just a place for kids playing the most. Apart from its resources that were not too shabby, the benefit of it was its people relation. The position as the chief of the Heaven Alliance position was similar to a kindergarten class monitor to him.

He knew Jian Fei wanted to be the acting chief. He was not interested in being deputy chief, so he might as well just release the position and get Gu Fei to take the place as deputy chief.

He knew nothing about Gu Fei, but he believed Chan Dou's taste. Moreover, without the newly appointed deputy chief, he figured Jian Fei would disturb him every few days.

For the development of the Heaven Alliance and him being more relaxed with their responsibilities, it was necessary for him to get Gu Fei who Chan Dou had made positive comments on to take the position.

After settling Jian Fei's matter, Lin Huang noticed that Tang Xu from the Wanbao Auction had called him twice on the communication page. He also sent Lin Huang two messages.

From the messages he skimmed through, Tang Xu wanted him to contact his "demigod master" for him.

He took out the Emperor's Heart Ring that he always used to contact Tang Xu while disguising himself as a demigod.

A couple of notifications chimed as soon as he took out the Emperor's Heart Ring.

He opened the communication page to see four missed calls and three messages from Tang Xu. He could not help smirking after reading them.

Two demigods went to the Wanbao Auction separately ten and eight days ago, stating their interest in the god relic Ba Huang that had been auctioned earlier. They were willing to trade that with God Figurines.

However, Tang Xu had returned the god relic to Lin Huang, so he could not sell it even if he wanted to. Feeling helpless, he called Lin Huang to get the inventory. However, he failed to contact him since he happened to be in the Royal Trials.

"I'll finally have the last two God Figurines!" Lin Huang disguised as the demigod as usual immediately and called Tang Xu after making sure that everything was fine.

"Sir, I've finally managed to contact you!" Tang Xu exclaimed in excitement as soon as the call was connected.

"I brought my disciple into the ruins, so I'm calling you back a few days late." Lin Huang nodded expressionlessly.

"No wonder I couldn't contact the both of you."

"Noted on Ba Huang. I'll get my disciple to bring it to you within two days. You can contact him directly after the deal is done."

After hanging up the call with Tang Xu, Lin Huang used Lin Xie's identity to send Tang Xu a message. "I'll bring the god relic to the Wanbao Auction tomorrow morning."

Tang Xu replied seconds after the message was sent. "Thanks, Brother Lin. I'll arrange the sale of the god relic as soon as possible and I'll contact you as soon the deal's closed."

Lin Huang was elated after talking to Tang Xu. He could not wait to get the God Figurines.

As soon as he obtained the two God Figurines, he would be able to elevate to immortal-level rank-9 and would be just one step away from achieving imperial-level.

After calming himself down a little, Lin Huang recalled that there was still one more thing he had yet to do. He opened his contact book and found a name after some browsing. It was Yang Ling. Without hesitating, he pressed the "call" button.

The video call was connected in less than a single ring.

Lin Huang was stunned to see Yang Ling who was dressed in a neat suit and looked clean-shaven. He even combed his hair which was shining.

"Yang Ling?" He asked rather unsurely.

One must know that Yang Ling always looked messy according to Lin Huang's memory whereby he did not care how he looked at all. He had seen Yang Ling butt naked in video calls more than once. He even saw him having sex with women before. He could not get used to seeing him dressed so smart and dapper.

"Don't I just look handsome?" Yang Ling asked rather proudly.

"Did you get plastic surgery?" Lin Huang teased while smiling.

"Why the f*ck would I need plastic surgery? Take a good look! These are real." Yang Ling inched closer to the screen and squeezed his chin, then his nose. "I'm an authentic, handsome man."

"Alright, alright. Which part of your body have I not seen? Don't come so close. I can see your nose hair. It hurts my eyes."

Yang Ling retreated a distance away and projected his own screen to check his nostrils out.

"Alright, stop messing around. Are you still with Ms. Hong?" Lin Huang could not help but ask. He still remembered seeing Hong Zhuang by Yang Ling's side the last time.

"Ms. Hong? You won't be calling her that for long. Ahem, you should call her Madam Yang soon." Yang Ling grinned joyfully. "I'm thinking of proposing to her next month on an auspicious day."

"You've only known her for a few months, am I right? Are you sure you want to marry her?" Lin Huang was almost speechless. He knew Hong Zhuang's past very well. Although Yang Ling was a traveler like him, he was afraid that he was no match for this woman when it came to manipulation.

"I'm sure and I guarantee it!" Yang Ling nodded vigorously. "I've never had such a certain feeling with any woman in my life. This is my first time wanting to spend the rest of my life with a woman. If I miss this opportunity, I might not have such a feeling for any other women in the future."

"But do you know enough about her? What if she has a past that nobody knows about?" Lin Huang began hinting vaguely.

However, Yang Ling did not notice that at all. "Who doesn't have a past? My past isn't clean either. We'll let whatever happened in the past pass. Why should we dwell on it? I like her now, and that's enough."

Lin Huang did not want to say more since Yang Ling was so determined to be with Hong Zhuang.

"Alright then, let's get down to business."

"Tell me how many rings do you have this time?" Yang Ling asked directly.

"The situation now's a little different…" Lin Huang lowered his voice. "I want to ask if you can unlock storage equipment from other mini worlds?"

"What?" Yang Ling was stunned and demanded immediately, "How did you get those stuff?"

"Don't ask that. I'm asking you if you can unlock them. It's okay if you can't."

"I've never done this before. I can only tell you when I see the item," replied Yang Ling after some thought. He proceeded to ask right away, "How many are there? Are there many?"

"Quite a number," Lin Huang confirmed.

"Sure, bring them to me and I'll try if I can do it when I come back the month after next."

"The month after next? Where are you now?" Lin Huang asked confusedly.

"I'm traveling with the future Madam Yang in Division 3 now. The earliest I can get back to Division 7 will be the month after next," Yang Ling said while looking proud.

"I'm in Division 3 too. Send me your address. I'll go to you in two days." Lin Huang did not expect Yang Ling to be in Division 3 too.

"That works too." Soon, Yang Ling sent his address after they hung up.

"No. A17 foothold Crow City? That's the Purple Crow's territory!" Reading the address Yang Ling sent, Lin Huang could not help but frown. "What's Hong Zhuang trying to do?"

Lin Huang thought of reminding Yang Ling to be careful. After all, both of them were travelers from Earth and they had known each other for more than two years now. He could not watch him just fall into trouble like that. However, he eliminated the plan after thinking about it. Now that Yang Ling was high on pheromones and had completely lost his mind, he would not listen to him no matter what he said. On the contrary, he would suspect that Lin Huang was sowing discord between him and Hong Zhuang.

Love did not only make a woman stupid; the same applied to men. They would be even more foolish than women.

In Yang Ling's eyes now, Hong Zhuang was beautiful and in the right no matter what she did. He could not see what she was hiding, or rather, he chose to ignore the existing problems she might have.

"Forget it. I'll see what to do when I meet him in two days. I'll only tell him about Hong Zhuang if it's necessary. Whether he believes or not, that's not out of my control."

After breakfast the next morning, Lin Huang departed for the Wanbao Auction leisurely.

Just when he entered the entrance, a female attendant, who had outstanding features, welcomed him with a wide smile.

"Mr. Lin, my boss asked me to bring you to the guest lounge. Please follow me."

Lin Huang nodded and followed her. They passed the crowd toward the guest lounge.

At the entrance of the lounge, she swiped her work pass which was projected onto the wall and opened the door. "Mr. Lin, my boss will be here right away. Would you like tea, coffee, or something else?"

Lin Huang noticed a coffee machine in the guest lounge. He said carelessly, "Black coffee, please. Thanks."

"Sure, please give me a minute," she said to Lin Huang while her hands moved to make the cup of coffee. "The fruits just came in this morning and we've just washed them."

"Oh." Lin Huang just noticed a basket of fruits on the coffee table with seven to eight different varieties.

He sat on the couch and picked up a sour cherry, then popped it into his mouth without paying much attention. Sour cherry was a fruit that looked a little like a cherry, but its color was purple like an eggplant. It was seedless and tasted like a combination of cherry and blueberry. There was a faint sourness in the juicy sweetness.

Such a fruit was very expensive to ordinary people as one would cost hundreds of credit points. However, it was affordable to cultivators.

When Lin Huang had just popped two sour cherries into his mouth, Tang Xu opened the door and walked to Lin Huang with a grin.

"Brother Lin, sorry to keep you waiting."

"Not really, I've just arrived." Lin Huang stood up and shook his hand while smiling.

As they sat down, Tang Xu peeped in the direction where the attendant was without talking about the god relic right away. Instead, he began talking about Lin Huang's daily life.

"Brother Lin, it's only been two months and you've already achieved a boost in your combat strength!"

"My Master should own the credit." Lin Huang brought up his fake identity again.

"That's right. I'm envious you have a demigod-level Master!" Tang Xu's longing on his face was authentic. Although he came from a wealthy family, he only had one demigod who was a few generations away from him at home. He did not receive any lessons from the demigod.

"I heard from your Master that you guys went into the ruins earlier?"

"That's right, my Master encountered this private ruins by accident. We went in for a month and just came out yesterday." Lin Huang confirmed what the demigod he disguised as had said to Tang Xu in detail.

"Having a demigod to train you himself is a treatment that we don't even dare to dream about."

The attendant served the coffee that she made to Lin Huang after they chatted for a while.

Smelling the wonderful aroma, Tang Xu ordered one for himself.

The attendant only left the guest lounge after serving Tang Xu's coffee and shutting the door.

Seeing that the attendant had left, Tang Xu could not help but ask while lowering his voice, "Brother Lin, did you bring the god relic?"

Lin Huang smiled and put the coffee mug in his hand down, then took out the god relic spear, Ba Huang, from his storage space.

Tang Xu could not help himself but become excited when he took the god relic. He caressed it softly.

Although it was not his first time seeing Ba Huang, Tang Xu's eyes would still light up whenever he saw a god relic.

"How do you plan to sell it this time?" Lin Huang asked because he wanted to get the God Figurines as soon as possible.

If Tang Xu was planning to organize another auction, the fastest he would be able to obtain the God Figurines would be a month later.

"I can't do an auction this time since the two buyers are in a hurry to get this. Furthermore, we don't have much good stuff in our inventory. I'll just invite the two buyers to talk about it. The buyer who offers the highest price will get it," Tang Xu said, feeling a little helpless. He was more eager to organize an auction to boost his fame, but the situation did not allow him to.

Under normal circumstances, to organize a massive auction like the Wanbao Auction, they would need two to three months or even half a year to collect the items. Even a small-scale auction would require more than a month to prepare the preliminary work.

"I've scheduled to meet them tomorrow morning. We should be able to close the deal before noon if everything goes as planned. I'll contact you right away by then."

Tang Xu's arrangement was exactly what Lin Huang wanted.

"Oh right, did your Master mention if there's anything specific that he wants for the trading items apart from God Figurines?" Tang Xu asked out of the blue.

"He mentioned it once casually. He said the best would be demigod-level soul crystals. If there are none, demigod relics will suffice," Lin Huang thought about it and answered.

"No problem. I'll tell the buyers later." Tang Xu nodded. "Wait for my good news tomorrow."

Lin Huang returned to the hotel after the successful discussion with Tang Xu.

As he calmed himself down, the Emperor's Heart Ring on his hand vibrated all of a sudden just when he was going to practice his sword skills.

He opened the communication page and realized that it was a message from Jian Fei.

"The meeting date has been set at 9.30 a.m. the day after tomorrow. The venue will be the meeting room at checkpoint 63 of the Stairway Tree. Please be there on time!"

Lin Huang replied, "Got it", and began to practice his sword skill.

His mind was occupied with selling the spear, Ba Huang, after breakfast the next morning. He could not even focus on practicing. He put the practice aside directly and looked at the news on the Heart Network and the Hunter Association forum.

An inconspicuous thread on the Hunter Association forum grabbed his attention all of a sudden.

The title of the thread was 'What's The Purple Crow Doing?'. Due to the mention of the Purple Crow on the title, Lin Huang could not help but click on it.

The thread was written by a Hunter Association member. He happened to be on a mission in Division 3's No. A17 foothold. He noticed many Purple Crow members who possessed powerful combat strength showing up in the foothold as a group. Furthermore, more than one group who were on the go, so almost all the members with powerful combat strength were out.

There were less than ten replies on the thread. Basically, nobody took the matter seriously.

However, Lin Huang thought of Yang Ling and Hong Zhuang right away when he saw the thread since both of them were in No. A17 foothold right now. It was clear that Hong Zhuang must have known something about this, there must be an objective that she chose to be in No. A17 foothold now.

"What's that lady thinking?" Lin Huang frowned slightly. He was almost sure that Hong Zhuang's appearance in No. A17 foothold definitely had something to do with the Purple Crow.

Just when Lin Huang was thinking about that, a message popped out suddenly from the communication page on his Emperor's Heart Ring.

Seeing that it was Tang Xu who sent it, he opened the message immediately. "I've closed the deal. The final price was three God Figurines and two demigod-level soul crystals."

Lin Huang was stunned to see the message. 'I have one more God Figurine now?!'

Nonetheless, he accepted the result happily.

No matter whether it was God Figurines or demigod-level soul crystals, those were the items that he urgently needed now.

"Got it. I'll drop by later."

After replying Tang Xu's message, Lin Huang closed the webpage and forum that he was surfing.

To show that he was not eager, Lin Huang did not go to the Wanbao Auction right away. Instead, he went to a cafe near the hotel. He ordered two cups of coffee and snacks that were prepared on the spot. He spent approximately half an hour to finish them and headed to the Wanbao Auction slowly.

Although he took his time, Tang Xu said to him with a smile when he arrived at the auction, "You're quick. I thought tomorrow after lunch would be the earliest you'd come."

"Oh well, my Master's urging me." Lin Huang used the demigod who did not exist to defend himself.

Tang Xu took out the three God' Figurines and two demigod-level soul crystals, then handed them to Lin Huang. He did not forget to remind him, "I hope that Brother Lin and your Master will support us in the September auction."

"Don't worry, my Master loves working with people he's familiar with." Lin Huang smiled while putting the God Figurines and demigod-level soul crystals away.

"Our Wanbao Auction welcomes regular customers like Brother Lin and your Master too."

Leaving the Wanbao Auction, Lin Huang could not wait to take the three God Figurines out to observe as soon as he returned to the hotel room.

The first of the three God Figurines was a monster carrying a coffin.

The monster was completely red with muscles bulging all over its body. Its form looked like a fully skinned bullfrog that had just been served from a spicy hotpot. It had faint black sigils on its body and seemed rather human-like since it walked on both feet. However, it had fangs and two horns on its head like a buffalo's. Unlike a human, however, it had hoofs on both feet and sharp claws on its hands like a devil.

There were two thick, black chains on the back of its shoulders that were tied to a black coffin. The coffin was clearly heavy, making its back seem a little crooked from the pressing weight of the coffin.

"This monster is called the Coffin Carrier. It's an Abyssal Protoss that fell from its kind. It's a ninth-rank True God that has mastered the Death Rule," introduced the stone tablet. "I never expected an Abyssal Protoss to turn into a God Figurine when it dies."

"What kind of True Spirit should I visualize?" Lin Huang could not help but inquire.

"There are actually many True Spirits that have mastered Death such as the Death Knight, the Black-robed Death God, the Golden Skeleton, the Immortal Tombstone, the Tabooed Black Coffin, the Crimson-eyed Crow, and the Grimacing Baby Puppet. Although they're all extremely powerful, I personally think the one that has the most spirit and is also the most unique goes to the Death Butterfly."

"The Death Butterfly guards the Yin Yang Gate, and it's the only True Spirit that can travel between the material realm and the spiritual realm freely when it's on true god-level. As long as your soul's still intact, the Death Butterfly can guide you from the spiritual realm back to the material realm."

"Of course, it has flaws too. Its beginner combat strength is no match for True Spirits such as Black-robed Death God and Golden Skeleton. However, its growth potential is outstanding among all True Spirits because it'll be more powerful each time it comes out of its cocoon."

"The Death Butterfly then." Hearing the stone tablet's introduction, Lin Huang decided to pick the Death Butterfly. He had too many God Figurines' Combat Souls that were experts in combat. It would not affect him at all if he had one less.

After confirming the first True Spirit, Lin Huang then looked at the second God Figurine which took on the form of a lady.

The lady wore a thin, purple dress that was almost transparent. She hovered in the air barefoot and she had a beautiful body. However, she had no face or features, only black hair on her head.

Her hair was swaying in the air like countless little snakes that were alive and looked like they were going to attack.

"This monster's called the Hair Demon. It's an evil spirit type of Protoss which was an eighth-rank True God when it was alive. She mastered the Sealing Rule, and her ability's similar to the sealing chains your red-robed skeleton imperial monster has, but she's much more powerful.

"Among the True Spirits that have mastered the Sealing Rule, the one that has the highest compatibility with this Hair Demon would be the Shackle Serpent. The Shackle Serpent's a formidable True Spirit. Among the Protoss, the Medusa Tribe which possesses the most powerful sealing ability obtained their sealing ability from the Shackle Serpent.

"Legend has it that the most powerful Shackle Serpent could imprison the world forever with just one look, freezing the time and space, making it a specimen."

"That's so powerful!" Lin Huang could never imagine any sealing ability to be so powerful that it could do that. He always thought that a sealing ability was just an aiding combat ability.

After settling the second True Spirit, Lin Huang looked at the third God Figurine.

This God Figurine looked like a toy doll with short and small limbs. It also had the face of a clown. The most unique thing about it was its tummy. It was not made of blood and flesh, but a mechanical clock. Besides the hour hand, the minute hand, the second hand, and the timescale could be seen clearly. Even the big and small gear wheels within were clear.

"What an odd creature!" Although Lin Huang had seen all kinds of monsters, the peculiarity of this monster could make the top three because it did not look like a living thing at all. It appeared more like a puppet.

"This is a Time Spirit. It's a unique species among the Protoss with a limited number. It was an eight-rank True God when it was alive and it mastered the Time Rule. It could control the flow of time in a specific area and even stop time."

"Doesn't that mean that True Spirits which master the Time Rule are even mightier?" Lin Huang was very interested in this God Figurine.

"Yes, the Creation Clock is a True Spirit of the same kind. Legend has it that such a True Spirit is the Creation Clock's stopwatch. It could control the life and death of all creations by changing the hour hand on the clock. It could even target the entire world and destroy it.

"Apart from controlling life and time as well as the flow of time, the most powerful Creation Clock in the legend had terrifying abilities including stopping time, turning back time, freezing time and time traveling."

"That sounds compelling!" Hearing the stone tablet's description, Lin Huang suddenly thought that all the three God Figurines were desirable and he could not get rid of any of them.

"What should I do? I want all of them, but I'm only two God Figurines away from elevating to immortal-level rank-9." The extra God Figurine now became a burden for Lin Huang and he was having difficulty choosing now. "Which one should I give up?"

"Why do you have to give up?" At the moment, the stone tablet's voice came to Lin Huang's ears.

"I only need two God Figurines to get to immortal-level rank-9. What else can I do with the extra one if I don't give it up?" Lin Huang retorted back rather confusedly.

"Everyone else can only have nine Combat Souls in one Life Wheel. You have ten Life Wheels. Even if one Life Wheel can only keep one Combat Soul, you could have ten of them, am I right?" asked the stone tablet.

"Err…" Lin Huang could not rebel against the stone tablet's logic at the time being. He thought about it seriously and found that it kind of made sense.

"But my combat strength will elevate a rank up whenever I absorb one God Figurine. Looking at the current situation, my combat strength will reach the limit of immortal-level after absorbing two God Figurines. I'm not sure what will happen if I absorb one more." Lin Huang thought about it and decided to raise his doubt.

"Maybe I should put it this way. The cultivation system in the world you're currently in has its flaws. The limit that you are thinking about isn't the limit if you're looking at it from higher ground," said the stone tablet while smiling.

"Do you mean that immortal-level rank-9 isn't the limit for immortal-level and that there's space to elevate even more?" Lin Huang was stunned and asked immediately.

"I mean there might not be space for elevation in the past, but it's possible under various conditions." The stone tablet fell into silence after that. It did not talk no matter what Lin Huang asked later on.

"There's still immortal-level rank-10 after immortal-level rank-9." What the stone tablet said completely overthrew Lin Huang's knowledge of the current cultivation system. He fell into deep thought.

'My body's different from others. My God Figurines are all True Spirits that I have visualized. True Spirits are a formidable existence. It's impossible for them to share territory with another True Spirit. Therefore, my Life Wheels can't contain many Combat Souls like the rest whereby each Life Wheel can only contain one True Spirit at the most. Even if I were to calculate it based on this, I'd be able to take ten True Spirits in given that I have ten Life Wheels.

'Judging by this logic, it's definitely possible for me to elevate to immortal-level rank-10!'

Although he was not 100% sure that he could elevate to immortal-level rank-10, Lin Huang thought it was 80% possible after comparing the cultivation system from other worlds in his memory.

After confirming that, he regretted not using a few more Life Wheel Storage Cards when he had reached life wheel-level back then. If he had done that back then, he could have obtained a few more Life Wheels with Flawless Cards and he might have been able to elevate to immortal-level rank-20 now.

Recalling that he would be joining the Heaven Alliance meeting tomorrow, Lin Huang put aside his urge to place God Figurines into his Life Wheel at the moment, he put away all three God Figurines.

He quieted his mind down and began practicing his sword skills.

The next morning, Lin Huang only logged onto the Genius Union when it was almost 9.20 a.m. after breakfast and short sword practice.

He was at the Heaven Alliance foothold the last time he logged out, and he now arrived the same place this time. It only took a couple of steps to get him to the meeting room.

Jian Fei was already there when he went into the meeting room. There were six Heaven Alliance higher management members and a lady whose combat strength was only immortal-level rank-8.

Lin Huang nodded to Jian Fei and the rest, but he had his eyes on the lady. It was clear that the lady was the deputy chief candidate that Chan Dou had recommended, Gu Fei.

To be honest, Gu Fei did not look as pretty as Lin Huang imagined. He thought that Chan Dou would recommend a beauty but Gu Fei could not consider a beauty.

Her body looked like a man. She was at least 1.85 meters tall and her frame was slightly bigger than Lin Huang's. She was practically the most muscular one among all nine of them in the meeting room at that moment. Her face was not considered ugly, but it was squarish. If that face had been on a man, it looked pretty charming, but when it was on a lady, it was a little too manly. Most importantly, she shaved her hair so short that one could see her scalp.

If not for her stunning breasts, Lin Huang might not have recognized her as a lady at once.

Noticing that Lin Huang was observing her, Gu Fei stood up to greet him immediately, "Chief Lin, my name's Gu Fei."

"Hi." Lin Huang extended his hand to shake hers. "You can sit down. There's no need for such courtesy."

Jian Fei did not take the main seat. Instead, he sat on the left of the main seat while Lin Huang sat across him directly.

As he took his seat, the remaining two higher management came in.

Since everyone had taken their seats in the meeting room, Jian Fei did not beat around the bush and went right into the subject.

"We hold this meeting today mainly is to solve two issues."

"The first issue would be that some matters that require decision in Heaven Alliance are put aside since the chief went missing. They come to a halt at the moment, the entire Heaven Alliance might be affected if this goes on."

"The second issue would be deputy chief Jiang Rui's elevation to imperial-level. His position's vacant now, we must find someone to take the position as soon as possible. It's something that could affect the organization's operation as well."

"Voice out your opinions right away if you have any."

A young man in the white shirt was the first to speak as soon as Jian Fei was done speaking.

"The chief's just missing, his death isn't confirmed yet. I personally think his position should be vacant. If there are matters that require a decision, the three deputy chiefs would take responsibility by then."

"Xiao Fan, your suggestion's just a short-term solution. It wouldn't work if there's no news of the chief for a long time while his position is vacant. Many organization are watching us Heaven Alliance. My suggestion would be picking an acting chief. If we do that, at least we would have someone in charge," A tanned skin middle-age man voiced a different opinion.

"I agree on Old Xia's opinion. Pick an acting chief doesn't mean that the person would replace the chief. If the chief is back, the acting chief would just resign from his position."

"I understand your point Xiao Fan but you have to consider how realistic the issues are. If the chief's just missing for a short time, indeed, Heaven Alliance could maintain its usual operation with your suggestion but that's not a solution to the issue. What if the chief's away for a long time? Wouldn't this issue be dragged and not solved?"

The fatty sitting next to Lin Huang raised comments on the two people's suggestions.

The man in the white shirt frowned slightly but he did not object further.

"I agree with Old Zhang's suggestion. Looking at Heaven Alliance's current condition, it's necessary that we pick an acting chief to take over," It was the short-haired lady next to the fatty who spoke. She was the only lady among the eight higher management.

The rest remained silent and said nothing.

"Is there anyone else who has a third solution?" Jian Fei asked seeing nobody spoke.

It was silence that responded him.

"Then let's vote on the two proposals. The first proposal would be three deputy chiefs taking the acting chief's responsibility. The second proposal would be picking an acting chief."

"Now those who support the first proposal please raise your hand."

The man in the white shirt was the first to raise his hand as soon as Jian Fei was done speaking. Although he could not convince others, he was firm on his choice.

However, nobody raised their hand apart from him.

"Alright then, those who support the second proposal please raise your hand."

Jian Fei was the first to raise his hand. Later on, six out of the eight higher management raised their hands. Lin Huang was the last to raise his hand.

Jian Fei looked at the man in glasses who did not raise his hand both times.

"I pass." The man in glasses shrugged.

"Gu Fei, are you giving it a pass too?" Jian Fei turned his head and looked at Gu Fei who sat at the far end of the long table.

"Do I have the right to vote?" Gu Fei asked rather surprisedly.

"Of course you do since you're sitting here." Jian Fei nodded.

"Then, I'll choose the first one."

"Alright, it's 2 versus 10. The second proposal wins!" Jian Fei announced the final result.

Among the 11 people present, the two deputy chiefs had two votes while the rest only had one. Gu Fei only had one vote since she had yet to become a deputy chief yet.

"Deputy chief Lin, we'll put the acting chief matter aside at the moment. Let's decide on the third deputy chief so that's it's fairer for the newly appointed deputy chief." Jian Fei skipped to the second issue of the meeting directly and looked at Lin Huang.

Lin Huang nodded to show his agreement.

Jian Fei turned his head to look at everyone and spoke leisurely, "Our previous deputy chief Jiang Rui has elevated to imperial-level, so his position's vacant now. Following the usual procedure, we should submit the list of eligible deputy chief candidates on checkpoint 63, wait for a review and eventually vote.

"However, Chief Chan Dou recommended Gu Fei as Jiang Rui's replacement since the very beginning and Jiang Rui has agreed to it. Therefore, after discussing with deputy chief Lin, we've decided to skip the usual procedure and carry out the chief's order.

"Since Gu Fei's the only deputy chief candidate now, let's vote whether she should take this position. She will pass if the votes surpass half. If the votes are less than half, the third deputy chief's position will only be vacant temporarily. We will recruit other candidates publicly later on for them to go up against Gu Fei for this position.

"Let me make this clear. You have no right to vote this time, Gu Fei," Jiang Fei emphasized intentionally.

Gu Fei nodded without any expression on her face, so Lin Huang could not tell whether she desired the position or not.

"Now, let's vote. Those who agree, please raise your hand!"

As soon as Jian Fei was done speaking, Lin Huang was the first to raise his hand while Jian Fei followed suit.

After the two deputy chiefs raised their hands, the eight higher management hesitated and looked at each other.

The short-haired lady looked at Gu Fei who sat at the far end of the long table and raised her hand.

Since then, the tanned, middle-aged man and the fatty next to Lin Huang raised their hands too.

The remaining five people did not move.

"Since we're done with the voting, I'll announce the result then. Jian Fei glanced at everyone.

"7 voted yes while 5 objected. More than half have agreed!" After announcing the result, Jian Fei looked at Gu Fei with a grin.

"Congratulations to Gu Fei for becoming the Heaven Alliance's third deputy chief!"

Gu Fei stood up to show her gratitude while smiling.

"Since we've selected our third deputy chief, now it's time to go back to our first topic: picking the acting chief!

"We have three deputy chiefs now, which means there are three candidates. Now, everyone will vote among the three candidates to select the acting chief.

"There are 11 people here. Everyone gets one vote, and the same goes to the deputy chiefs. Three candidates can vote for themselves and vote for others."

"Let's write the candidate's name that we're picking down on the paper. Those who don't want to be part of this can submit an empty paper to show that you're giving your vote up," said Jian Fei and gave everyone a piece of white paper the size of a palm.

"Don't peep at the name others are writing down and no discussion is allowed. Write the name of the candidate that you hope to be the acting chief. Those who are done, fold the paper and don't let anybody see what you have written. We will announce the result after everyone has submitted the slip. The name that appears the most will eventually be selected as the acting chief."

Everyone, including Lin Huang, picked up the piece of white paper in their hands and scanned it with their Divine Telekinesis. They found out that this paper blocked detection out to a certain level. Apart from that, there was nothing wrong with the paper.

After confirming that the paper was fine, Lin Huang inserted Life Power into the paper and scrawled Jian Fei's name on it. He then folded it and put it on the table before him.

Jian Fei, who was sitting across Lin Huang, wrote a name without much hesitation and folded it.

In less than half a minute, all 11 of them had written their chosen name down and folded the paper one after another.

"Deputy Chief Gu, please collect everyone's vote for us," Jian Fei instructed Gu Fei since everyone was done.

Gu Fei nodded and picked up her paper before collecting the remaining slips quickly. She then passed them to Jian Fei.

Jian Fei passed the slips to Lin Huang who was sitting across him. "Deputy Chief Lin, you'll announce it."

Lin Huang was a little surprised, but he nodded anyway.

He picked up the bunch of slips and stood up.

It was his name when he opened the first folded slip: Lin Xie.

"Lin Xie, 1 vote."

Lin Huang presented the opened slip to the people then placed it on the table.

He saw his name again when he opened the second folded slip.

"Lin Xie, 2 votes."

He then presented the opened slip to the people again then placed it on the table.

Upon opening the third slip, he could not help but frown when he saw the name. It was his name again.

"Lin Xie, 3 votes."

After putting the stack of opened slips on the table, he picked the fourth one up while scowling slightly.

Finally, it was not his name this time. There was finally a slight relief in his expression.

"Jian Fei, 1 vote."

Since then, Jian Fei's name came up more often.

"Lin Xie, 4 votes."

"Jian Fei, 5 votes."

Jian Fei's votes finally surpassed Lin Huang's when it came down to the last three slips. Lin Huang was much more relieved. He really did not want to take the responsibility as the acting chief, and he did not have the time to look after the Heaven Alliance.

However, his name appeared again when he opened the last second slip.

"Lin Xie, 5 votes."

Lin Huang was a little surprised that it was 5-5 which was a tie.

He had only been a deputy chief for less than a month and hardly did anything usually. He did not even log onto the Genius Union. He had no idea why would so many people vote for him.

Jian Fei looked a little nervous too. It seemed like he did not expect so many people to vote for Lin Huang as well.

Everyone was taken aback by the result too.

Naturally, they knew that Lin Huang had not cheated because they could recognize their own handwriting.

They were left with the last vote that had yet to be revealed. Apart from the person whose slip that was, the rest were anticipating the last reveal with bated breath.

Lin Huang exhaled in relief when he picked up the last slip and saw the name on it. "Jian Fei, 6 votes!"

He showed everyone the last slip after he spoke, "It's 6-5!"

"Congratulations, Chief Jian, for being the acting chief of the Heaven Alliance!"

"Thank you, thank you!" Jian Fei exhaled in relief after seeing the result. He stood up with all smiles and shook Lin Huang's hand. He then thanked everyone.

Although close to half of them had voted for Lin Huang, he accepted the final result anyway.

Nobody was surprised that the newly appointed deputy chief Gu Fei had zero votes.

After a brief conclusion, Jian Fei ended the meeting.

In the meeting room, Jian Fei and the eight higher management logged out one after another.

Just when Lin Huang was going to log out, Gu Fei stopped him. "Deputy chief Lin, can I get your contact details, please?"

"Sure." Lin Huang nodded to agree immediately.

He had recommended Gu Fei so that she could share the burden of the Heaven Alliance. They would be communicating with each other on many matters in the future.

After getting his contact details, Gu Fei asked while smiling, "Why didn't you want to be the acting chief, Deputy Chief Lin?"

"Did I say that?" Lin Huang raised his brow.

"I saw that you were in great relief when you opened the last slip," said Gu Fei with a chuckle.

"Haha, you saw that!" Lin Huang did not bother to deny it. "Maybe I'm a little lazy."

"But I think the Heaven Alliance might advance further if you were to become the acting chief," Gu Fei expressed while smiling.

"You're thinking too highly of me. The reason the Heaven Alliance has achieved what it has today depended on the generations of chiefs managing it as well as the shared effort from the past Heaven Alliance members throughout the hundreds of years. It can't be changed just by relying on one person's ability. If Chief Chan Dou can't do it, neither can I." Lin Huang shook his head. "Moreover, I've never planned to stay on immortal-level since the beginning."

"Shallow water can't keep a real dragon submerged. I understand now." Gu Fei smiled and did not dwell on the subject. "Let's keep in touch. I'll log out now."

As he watched Gu Fei logging out, Lin Huang shook his head and said with a grin, "She really is a powerful lady. Chan Dou's taste really is something!"

It was almost noon when Lin Huang returned to the hotel room after logging out of the Genius Union.

"Since we've solved the matter of the acting chief while Gu Fei should know the reason why I supported her very well, I shouldn't be meeting anyone from the Heaven Alliance within a short period of time." Lin Huang took three God Figurines out from his storage space as he thought about this. "It's about time I elevate my combat strength now."

Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis turned into three tentacles and latched onto the three God Figurines. After covering the three of them completely, they were pulled into his inner body.

As soon as they were drawn in, the three God Figurines turned into three streams of light without the guidance of his Divine Telekinesis. They then entered the last three Life Wheels and went into the Divine Fire.

The giant Divine Fire mountain in the Life Wheels experienced tremors as soon as the God Figurines entered. They turned into three giant vortexes almost in the blink of an eye while the Divine Fire shrunk rapidly.

At the same time, Lin Huang's Life Power that was initially full in his Life Wheels was absorbed into the vortex. This did not only happen to the three brand new Life Wheels where the God Figurines were, but the other seven Life Wheels also had their Life Power sucked in like a dragon was drinking water greedily.

Approximately an hour passed, and all of the Life Power in Lin Huang's body was sucked dry while the three spheres of Divine Fire penetrated the three God Figurines completely.

A moment later, the three God Figurines seemed to be awoken whereby they had black Divine Fire spurting out of their opened eyes. Their bodies began growing rapidly and they grew from the size of palm to regular size. By then, the God Figurines' eyes were shut again as if they had fallen into a deep sleep.

Circles of Life Power seemed to be spreading out following the three God Figurines' breathing momentum. They began compensating the Life Wheels. After filling all ten Life Wheels up, Life Power began flowing into Lin Huang's meridians, muscles, bones, and soul…

Lin Huang could clearly feel his combat strength growing quickly.

It skyrocketed from the initial immortal-level rank-7 to immortal-level rank-8, and he elevated to immortal-level rank-9 in less than one second. When he reached the peak stage of immortal-level rank-9, he elevated again almost without any obstacle.

"Immortal-level rank-10! I can't believe I can really elevate to immortal-level rank-10!" While he was shocked to see his combat strength stepping into a level that nobody had ever reached, Lin Huang was more than a little excited.

Initially, he thought something that was theoretically possible was not necessarily practical. He was still doubting whether he could elevate to immortal-level rank-10 the very second before he achieved it.

However, it seemed like the cultivation system in this world indeed was like what the stone tablet said —flawed.

"I told you." Naturally, the stone tablet sensed Lin Huang's change in combat strength. "How are you feeling now?"

"I'm feeling great! I feel powerful like never before!" Lin Huang growled shamelessly while swinging his fists. "I knew what you told me is true."

The stone tablet was stunned for a moment before replying, "You're so shameless!"

In reality, elevating to immortal-level rank-10 was not a full elevation to Lin Huang.

He would only consider himself having completed his elevation after visualizing the last three True Spirits and consolidating them into God Figurines' Combat Souls.

However, he did not go for closed-door cultivation to visualize the True Spirits right away.

"There's no rush to visualize the True Spirits just yet. I need more than a month to visualize all three True Spirits. There are some matters that I'd like to settle before this."

After taking a shower and having lunch, Lin Huang returned to the hotel room and opened the communication page leisurely. He looked for the name Hu Lu and tapped the video call button.

Soon, the video call was connected.

A lady in her early 30's whose body was slightly voluptuous appeared in the video. She was Hu Lu from Sweep City's black market.

"How's the progress of the items that I asked for?" Lin Huang did not make any small talk with the lady while diving into the topic right away.

"Mr. Lin, the materials that you asked for are rare. Although you've made your order a few months ago, we've only collected almost half of them. There are a few items that we've no idea what they are up until now. I'm not sure if we can collect everything on your list by this year," Hu Lu admitted helplessly.

"Then, give me the list of the materials that you've already gathered. I'll drop by your place these two days to pick up the stuff." Lin Huang added, "Also, give me a list of materials that you guys think are most difficult to find. I'll find my own way."

"Sure, I'll send it to you later after sorting it out." Hu Lu nodded. She knew there were things that she could not force to happen.

After hanging up the call with Hu Lu, two message notifications came consecutively some ten minutes later.

Lin Huang opened the communication page. The two messages only had titles and attachments. There was nothing else in the messages that were both sent by Hu Lu.

Lin Huang summoned Bloody that had already elevated to imperial-level yellow gold-rank and opened the message titled 'List of Materials Collected'.

The human and monster examined at least 100 materials on the entire list thoroughly. Lin Huang could not help but ask Bloody, "Are the materials enough to make a complete set?"

"Our luck isn't that bad. There are enough materials to make two complete sets," Bloody responded while smiling. "They're for Charcoal and the Herculean King."

"Our luck isn't bad indeed." A smile was revealed at the corner of his eyes that he could not hide. "I thought we might not even be able to make one."

Apart from using five Advance Cards, some rare materials were needed for a legendary-level Monster Card to elevate to mythical-level.

Lin Huang had begun collecting those materials before the New Year, but the progress was slower than he expected since more than three months had passed.

"Is there any set that isn't lacking too many materials?" asked Lin Huang again.

"Tyrant lacks two items while Bai lacks four. The rest lack more. I'm figuring it's difficult to collect all of them within such a short period of time." Bloody knew that Lin Huang had asked so so that that he could find other ways to collect the materials.

"What do Tyrant and Bai lack?"

"Tyrant lacks a star core and a god relic ax. Bai lacks a ton of demigod's blood and ten demigod souls."

"I remember the two items that Tyrant lacks are available on the Stairway Mall of the Genius Union. Meanwhile, among the four items Bai needs, there should be three items available on the Stairway Mall too, including the demigod's blood. For the demigod's soul, I'm afraid we can only obtain that from killing demigod-level monsters." Lin Huang raised his brow as he rattled on.

After closing the first list, Lin Huang tapped open the second.

There were not many items on this list — only over 30 of them. The demigod souls Bai needed was included too.

Lin Huang thought about it and sent the list to Tang Xu from the Wanbao Auction after removing a minority of items that could be found on the Stairway Mall.

"Help me get as many of these items on this list as you can."

Tang Xu replied the message almost immediately, "Some of them are difficult to get while the rest are doable, but I need time."

"Sure, just collect as many as you can," Lin Huang replied.

Tang Xu replied with a 'no problem' emoji immediately.

The reason why Lin Huang did not send the full list to the Wanbao Auction was that the level of confidentiality at the auction was not as high as the black market. Moreover, the list Lin Huang had given the black market was not the full list to begin with. Bloody had taken a portion of the material that could be found at the market out while only listing those that were difficult to find. They only formed half of the total items needed.

The reason it did that was that Lin Huang was not sure if those materials could elevate his monsters without using the Advance Cards.

The list was sufficient to make all the organizations on the entire continent to go wild even if it could elevate legendary-level monsters to pseudo-mythical-level. That was something Lin Huang wanted to avoid the most.

Soon, Lin Huang found the few items that Tyrant and Bai needed for their elevation as he browsed the Stairway Mall. He put them into the shopping cart one after another.

The god relic ax that Tyrant needed was the most expensive one. Its original price was 80 billion Stairway points, but luckily for Lin Huang, he had a 40% discount because he was the deputy chief of the Heaven Alliance, so he purchased it at 48 billion points.

The second most expensive item was the ton of demigod's blood Bai needed which was originally priced at 50 billion Stairway points.

The third most expensive was the star core which originally cost 30 billion Stairway points.

He purchased everything at a 40% discount, spending a total of 105 billion Stairway points. By then, he was only left with slightly more than 20 billion Stairway points.

"It's almost time I drop by Sweep City."

Since Lin Huang had gathered the two items Tyrant lacked, it meant he would have three complete sets for elevating after he collected the materials at the black market.

As he arrived at Sweep City after passing through the dimensional portal, Lin Huang flew into the sky and headed toward the black market.

It took him a couple of minutes to get to the black market and he headed to the store where Hu Lu was.

He spoke before the attendant could ask, "I'm looking for Hu Lu."

"Please follow me." The attendant soon brought Lin Huang to the entrance of the room Hu Lu was in. "This is Sister Hu Lu's office."

"Thanks." Lin Huang went in directly.

Hu Lu was stunned to see Lin Huang come in. She clearly sensed that he had had a significant boost in his combat strength. A gleam of surprise flashed through her eyes, but soon she looked normal again and greeted while smiling, "Mr. Lin, you're here so soon. I thought you'd only be here tomorrow at the earliest."

"I happen to be free in the afternoon, so I came," Lin Huang explained. He did not plan to continue the small talk and went right into the topic. "Are the stuff ready?"

"It's ready. Please check." Hu Lu nodded while smiling. She took a temporary storage ring out from her Emperor's Heart Ring and handed it to Lin Huang.

Lin Huang took the ring and scanned it with his Divine Telekinesis. Soon, he checked and confirmed that the list was correct.

"The materials are correct. How much are they?"

"The total is one trillion, two hundred thirty-seven billion and one hundred million. We're giving you a 20% discount which makes it 989.68 billion. We've also rounded it up for you, so the final price is 980 billion," Hu Lu mentioned the price leisurely, "I'm sending you the detailed price list right now."

Lin Huang received the message just when she was done speaking.

He just looked at it roughly after opening the message instead of going through it thoroughly. He knew that Hu Lu would not fake something like this since he was a valuable client here. Moreover, they had been serving him for some time now and would not do something so petty to him.

After transferring the amount by scanning the code, Lin Huang put the temporary storage ring with the materials away into his Emperor's Heart Ring.

"Please continue to gather the remaining materials. I'll drop by again to pick them up when I have the time in the future."

"Sure, we'll inform you as soon as we've gathered all materials."

Lin Huang nodded and stood up in an attempt to leave, but Hu Lu stopped him.

"Mr. Lin, there's one more thing."

Lin Huang turned around in surprise. "What's the matter?"

"About the attack on the Heaven Alliance chief Chan Dou that you asked us to check a few days ago, we have news that' might not really be considered news." Hu Lu lowered her voice.

"What do you guys have?" Lin Huang turned around and placed both his hands on the back of the chair he was sitting on earlier.

"According to our intel, the one who attacked Chan Dou isn't any major organization that we already know. It should be a new, unknown organization. It might've been founded these few years. It could also be a minor organization that disguised themselves well in the past. We've no idea who exactly did it, so this news is complimentary for you.

"However, it's not the first time. A similar case has happened almost three years ago. Chan Dou's case is already the eighth case. All victims have the same characteristic as Chan Dou whereby all of them are high-level immortal-level supreme geniuses with stunning combat ability."

"You guys have no clue about this organization at all?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"Not at all. If it has been done by any of the organizations that we're familiar with, we could tell with the tiniest trace. All major underground organization members have different behaviors, so it's easy for us to identify them. Especially imperial-level powerhouses, we know all of them from the different organizations as well as their techniques, so it would be futile no matter how they disguise themselves. To outsiders like you, it might be hard for you to tell someone apart as soon as they change their face and body shape, but to us who are in underground organizations, we can tell who that is in one glance.

"However, the organization that attacked Chan Dou isn't from any of the organizations that we know. They're hiding very well. Moreover, looking at the ability they've revealed so far, they possess at least a first or second-rate ability."

"Thanks for the information you've provided." Lin Huang nodded to show gratitude.

Clearly, Hu Lu did not know much, so she only provided him a rough direction.

Hu Li spoke to him through voice transmission as Lin Huang turned around and walked to the stairs.

"Please be extra careful too, Mr. Lin. Following the conclusion that we currently have, you fit the predator's target condition entirely. You might be on their hunting list."

Lin Huang stopped walking and thanked Hu Lu. Then, he walked out of the premise with a faint smirk on his lips.

He only mumbled to himself while smiling as he walked out of the store, "I can't wait for those people to come to me."

Lin Huang summoned dimensional portal after walking out of the black market alley and stepped into it.

The other side of the dimensional portal was not Wanbao City but the entrance to the second layer of the Abyss Brink.

He went right into the entrance, allowing his body to fall freely.

Approximately ten minutes later, he finally arrived at the second layer of the Abyss Brink.

He went there because of the major commotion elevating triple mutated monsters to quadruple mutated would bring. The elevation of Charcoal and the rest would not gain any attention from humans if it was done in forbidden lands such as the Abyss Brink and the Peaceful Ocean.

The condition of the Peaceful Ocean was too complicated whereby there might be demigod-level monsters hiding in the ocean at all times. It was not a viable place for the monsters to elevate. Even though Lin Huang was not afraid of demigods now, he might not be able to protect them from being attacked if the elevation aura of Charcoal and the rest attracted a couple of demigod-level monsters.

Meanwhile, it was a different story for the second layer of the Abyss Brink since the most powerful monsters here were only imperial-level yellow gold-rank which was the same as Charcoal and the rest. It was nothing to Lin Huang; he could handle them no matter how many came his way. Moreover, like the Peaceful Ocean, this was a dangerous place where nobody would come. Even if somebody sensed their aura, they might avoid them as far as they could.

"Bloody, pick a place that's far away from areas populated by humans." Lin Huang summoned Bloody as soon as his feet touched the ground of the second layer of the Abyss Brink.

Over an hour later, Bloody sent its Leech Pods to cover the entire second layer of the Abyss Brink.

"Looking at the whole second layer of the Abyss Brink at the moment, I could only find 35 people while most of them are in the southern region. I don't see anyone within thousands of kilometer radius around the northwestern side close to the third layer of the entrance. There are a few imperial-level monsters over there, but they're no threat to us. I think that's the best place for Charcoal and the rest to elevate."

"We can't do it in the northwestern side." However, Lin Huang rejected the suggestion right away. "It's too close to the third layer of the entrance and there might be human imperial-level powerhouses entering and exiting any time. They might come to check it out if they sense the commotion."

"Then, we're only left with the northeastern side, but there's a team of five hunting over there now. They're all high-level immortal-levels," Bloody explained the reason why it had not picked the northeastern region earlier.

"It's alright. We can get Grimace to cover up the commotion of the elevation with his illusion if they're only on immortal level." Lin Huang already thought of a plan. "Let's go for the northeastern region then."

"There's a valley that's not bad in the northeastern region." Bloody marked the coordinates down as it spoke.

Although he could not set the coordinates with his Emperor's Heart Ring at the Abyss Brink, the third layer of the Abyss Brink had been explored countless times and he could purchase a detailed map with money.

Studying the coordinates Bloody had marked, Lin Huang summoned Thunder right away and sat on its back with Bloody.

He patted Thunder's neck. "To the northeastern region."

Thunder flapped its wings and rose into the sky rapidly. It brought Lin Huang tens of thousands of meters above the sky in the blink of an eye. It then flapped its wings again in the sky and sped toward the northeastern region at high speed like an arrow.

Though Thunder was quick, it took half an hour for it to bring Lin Huang to the valley Bloody had marked.

Under Bloody's guidance, Thunder landed deep in the valley.

Hopping off Thunder, Lin Huang patted Thunder's beak affectionately. "Do whatever you want now, even hunting, but don't create trouble with the humans. Also, don't go too far. I need you later."

Thunder nodded right away. It was so sick of being in card form. Naturally, it was elated to have the opportunity to move freely. It flapped its wings, rose into the sky and disappeared in the next second as if it was afraid that Lin Huang would back out on his words.

Seeing Thunder disappear, Lin Huang shook his head and smiled before summoning three Monster Cards including Charcoal, Tyrant, and the Herculean King. The three imperial monsters showed themselves as soon as the cards were crushed.

Charcoal glanced around after being summoned and asked rather curiously, "Where are the enemies?"

Tyrant and the Herculean King were puzzled too.

"Are you giving us any snacks?" Charcoal leaned its big head toward Lin Huang.

Lin Huang caressed Charcoal's head and said casually while smiling, "I didn't let you guys out to fight or give snacks out this time, but I'm going to do something that you guys have been waiting for."

"Ice cream?!" Tyrant was the first to answer. He was practically drooling as soon as he said that.

"Grilled fish?!" Charcoal was stunned for a moment and asked while widening its eyes.

The Herculean King hesitated and asked with a little uncertainty, "Is it durian?"

"I've told you guys it's not snacks," Lin Huang said helplessly while covering his face.

The three monsters clearly had disappointment written on their faces when they heard Lin Huang emphasizing that he was not giving snacks out.

"You guys are elevating to quadruple mutation." Bloody that was standing aside finally could not help but blurt it out.

The three imperial monsters were astonished to hear that.

"Are we really elevating?" Charcoal became excited all of a sudden.

"I've only gathered enough materials for elevation for the three of you, so I'm elevating you first instead of gathering all materials."

"But, Master, you're still on immortal-level. Wouldn't you be unable to summon us after we've elevated?" Tyrant asked immediately. They knew Kylie had been sealed since her elevation.

"It's alright. I'm already on peak-stage immortal-level now, so it shouldn't take long for me to break through to imperial-level," Lin Huang explained, "Xiao Hei's authorization will be activated as soon as I elevate to imperial-level. I think I will take two to three months at the most."

"Don't worry about it. I'll be the last to elevate, so I'll take good care of Master," Bloody knew what Tyrant was worried about, so it comforted it.

"You guys elevating to quadruple mutation and mythical-level will be a great help for me. I personally hope that I can elevate all of you to mythical-level while I'm still on immortal-level. If that happens, all of you would have your combat strength boosted as soon as I elevate to imperial-level. I won't have to spend more time collecting materials. So, let's not drag it out further. Go ahead with the elevation when we have the materials instead of waiting for me to get to imperial-level. Understand?"

"Understand!" Tyrant and the rest chanted in unison. The three of them objected no further after hearing what Lin Huang said.

"Alright then, Tyrant, you will go first." Lin Huang waved at Tyrant. Tyrant saw his signal and walked over.

Following the condition at the back of the card, Lin Huang took the materials for elevating and five Advance Cards out.

"Hold the god relic ax. Put this star core into your heart and drink this bottle of Spirit Lava."

Although the order sounded suicidal, Tyrant followed Lin Huang's order to a T without hesitation.

After waiting for Tyrant put all the materials into his body more than half an hour later, Lin Huang crushed the five Advance Cards in his hand and pointed at Tyrant that was kneeling on the ground, shaking.

The five Advance Cards turned into five golden beams and entered Tyrant's body which calmed quickly while the god relic ax in his hand was absorbed into his body as well. He sat leaning against a huge mountain peacefully as his body began to grow rapidly.

In the blink of an eye, he regained his normal size whereby his height reached over 30,000 meters. Even though he was sitting down, he was more than 10,000 meters tall, two folds taller than the mountain behind him.

Later on, he seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep while he shut his eyes slowly. A golden cocoon layer soon consolidated on the surface of his body.

As the cocoon was completely consolidated, Tyrant turned into a colossal golden egg.

The entire process went on for over an hour. Lin Huang was relieved when the golden egg was formed.

"Seems like the condition for elevating that Xiao Hei gave is pretty reliable."

"Looking at Tyrant's reaction, this elevation process might be uncomfortable. Please bear with it as much as you can." Lin Huang turned around to look at Charcoal and the Herculean King.

Charcoal retracted his head as Lin Huang smiled upon seeing his fear and waved at the Herculean King. "Herculean King, you're up next."

The Herculean King nodded and walked up to him. Lin Huang took out the materials for the Herculean King.

"First, put the Titan Heart into your heart. Secondly, drink the entire bottle of demigod-level Dragon Whale's blood."

After spending over half an hour putting all the materials into the Herculean King's body, Lin Huang crushed another five Advance Cards. They turned into five golden beams and penetrated the Herculean King's body.

Soon, the Herculean King's body began to grow insanely. It regained its usual height of 3,000 meters and turned into a golden egg too.

Charcoal was a little worried watching Tyrant and the Herculean King going through the process of putting the materials into their body. However, figuring that he would elevate after a moment of torture, he went up anyway.

"The first step, integrate this Star Fire into your body. Secondly, eat these 36 fire-element crystals." Lin Huang took the materials out for Charcoal one after another. What surprised it was that he did not feel like the process was torturous, just that some of them made him want to throw up.

Before it could experience any other feeling, Lin Huang had crushed five Advance Cards and they went into his body.

Soon, Charcoal regained its usual size, growing to more than 30,000 meters long. It fell asleep leaning next to Tyrant on the mountain.

It was almost four hours later when Charcoal turned into a golden egg.

Night had fallen in the Abyss Brink.

Noticing that the sky had turned dark, instead of resting, Lin Huang summoned two God Figurines' Combat Souls, the Divine Sun Tree, and the Enchanted Fairy as well as Grimace.

"Grimace, shield the area around here with your illusion skill. Divine Sun Tree and Enchanted Fairy, both of you will guard the trio's elevation. I'll be away for one to two days to hunt for Bai's demigod's soul."

After coming up with the arrangement, Lin Huang summoned Thunder and hopped onto its back. "Go to the northwestern region, the third layer of the entrance to the Abyss Brink!"

It was midnight in the underground of some luxurious mansion in Division 1.

A big, muscular man watched a naked man whose limbs and neck was bound with thick shackles in a room through a transparent window.

If anyone from the Heaven Alliance was there, they should be able to recognize this person who was tied up in one glance. He was the chief of the Heaven Alliance who was attacked and had gone missing earlier, Chan Dou.

He was fully naked and almost every inch of his skin was wounded. It was clear that he had been tortured in an unimaginable way recently.

There was a black gooey monster clinging to his head at the moment. It looked like a pile of swamp mud that had come alive. Nobody knew what it was doing to Chan Dou. No matter what, it was stuck to Chan Dou's head and could not be get rid of.

Chan Dou was struggling with all his might in the room. The veins on his neck and forehead were bulging and he was shrieking in devastation as if he was suffering extreme pain that was unbearable for humans.

The big man had no change of expression on his face as he watched Chan Dou struggling in pain. He turned his head to look at the old gray-haired man that was working on a device aside.

"I've given you guys half a month. How much more time do you need to fully purify him?"

"We've used up all the techniques that we have, but this fella has an extremely strong will. Moreover, there's a god that's clinging onto his will in his body. There are only two ways to destroy his will completely. One is to wear his will out slowly while the other is to destroy that god."

"I asked how much more time do you need?" A ferocious gleam flashed through the big man's eyes.

"Three months. Looking at the current progress, we'll need at least three months." The gray-haired old man gave a time limit immediately.

"Three months, that's what you said." The big man glared at the old man. "If you haven't done it in three months, all of you will be sacrificed." He then turned around and left right after he was done speaking.

Just when he walked out of the room, the Emperor's Heart Ring on his left middle finger vibrated. He saw a message when he opened the communication page.

"Someone saw Lin Xie in the second layer of the Abyss Brink. Should we do it?"

The big man grinned slightly and replied with six words: "Find him and bring him back!"

…

Lin Huang had no idea that his whereabouts had been exposed and that he was being targeted.

However, he had stepped into the third layer of the Abyss Brink at the moment.

"There are too many monsters with a combat strength above imperial-level yellow gold-rank in this layer. My Leech Pods will be discovered easily. There's no way that I could use the map here," Bloody voiced its helplessness once they stepped into the third layer of the Abyss Brink. "But we could hunt for imperial-level monsters first. The local imperial-level monsters should know which area has demigods."

Lin Huang nodded and sensed what kind of monsters were available with his Territory.

Ever since he elevated to immortal-level rank-10, the range of his Territory had expanded to 10 kilometers. However, he found nothing after a while of sensing.

Feeling helpless, Lin Huang summoned Lancelot.

Ever since Lancelot had elevated to imperial-level yellow gold-rank, the range of his Territory had expanded further to 80kilometers now. Since he was on pseudo-mythical-level, the range of his Territory was on par with other imperial-level white gold-rank monsters.

Lancelot soon found a few targets as he heard the commotion after sensing around for a while.

"There are three monsters in the range of my Territory. Two imperial-level crimson gold-ranks and one imperial-level yellow gold-rank."

"Where's the imperial-level yellow gold-rank?" Lin Huang asked, ignoring the presence of the two imperial-level crimson gold-ranks.

"In our 11 o'clock. It's approximately 60 kilometers away from us."

"Let's go!"

Lin Huang moved toward the target as soon as Lancelot reported the location.

Lancelot caught up to him right away.

In less than half a minute, Lin Huang arrived before the imperial-level yellow gold-rank monster Lancelot mentioned.

It was a Crimson Scorpiodemon. Its body was at least 100 meters long and was completely maroon in color. The monster exhibited a mysterious beauty under the radiance of the moonlight.

"Looks like food sent themselves here." The Crimson Scorpiodemon was drooling upon sensing humans invading its territory.

However, its mind went blank while its eyes turned black in the next second.

In less than three seconds, Bloody cast its parasite on this gigantic Crimson Scorpiodemon and turned it into a puppet.

Bloody spoke leisurely after spending a few minutes reading everything in the Crimson Scorpiodemon's head, "There's a demigod monster in the swamp approximately 2,000 kilometers from here in the southeastern direction. It's a Python-belly Poisonous Frog."

Lin Huang had seen the Python-belly Poisonous Frog in the monster guide before.

Such a monster was usually only imperial-level whilst its most powerful two abilities were poison and devouring.

Their poison could easily kill all monsters on the same level. Moreover, they ate almost everything and could digest anything. Almost anything that went into this monster's belly would be washed with poison and turned into liquid in a short period of time.

Apart from that, the attack speed of their tongue was pretty terrifying. It could pierce through most bodies of monsters on the same level.

Naturally, such monsters would have even a more powerful ability if it elevated to imperial-level.

However, Lin Huang smirked when he heard about the Python-belly Poisonous Frog. "It seems like we're in luck."

If it were anyone else encountering such a monster, even though the person was a demigod-level powerhouse, they would run as far as they could. It was very possible for the demigod-level powerhouse to be attacked and eaten by the Python-belly Poisonous Frog as soon as he was poisoned as his ability would be weakened.

In reality, the Python-belly Poisonous Frog was considered the overlord in the third layer of the Abyss Brink. Although it was not as powerful if it were to be compared with other demigod monsters' abilities alone, the outcome of the battle was outstanding given that its ability was combined with poison.

Three human demigods had been killed by it throughout the hundreds of years while two had run away. Two demigod-level monsters that attempted to fight for its territory eventually became its food. Another one ran away alive but died halfway due to the poisonous attack while only one that managed to escape and survived.

That was the reason why almost no human demigod was willing to offend it while the other demigod monsters allowed it to occupy the third layer of the Abyss Brink's southeastern region.

However, Lin Huang had no idea about all that. He did not even look at the information about the third layer of the Abyss Brink. It was also his first time entering the third layer of the Abyss Brink. Otherwise, he would just look at the map for demigods as soon as he entered. The territory of each demigod-level monster was marked clearly on the map of the third layer of the Abyss Brink.

The reason why Lin Huang said that he was fortunate to encounter the Python-belly Poisonous Frog was that the God Figurine's Combat Soul's body was on par with a Protoss. Neither could they be poisoned, nor would the poison enter their bodies. It was perfect to challenge the Python-belly Poisonous Frog's two most powerful abilities.

After recalling Lancelot back into card form, Lin Huang took Bloody along towards the Python-belly Poisonous Frog's territory.

Lin Huang only spent just over ten minutes to cross more than 2,000 kilometers.

Apart from being attacked by an imperial-level white gold-rank monster not long into their journey, no other monsters attacked them since then.

The reason being that he summoned the Destructive Divine Mammoth right away. Its terrifying imperial-level purple gold-rank combat strength and True Spirit aura echoed across the land. All the monsters trembled wherever the Destructive Divine Mammoth passed, including monsters on the same level. None of them dared to come looking for trouble.

The Python-belly Poisonous Frog sensed the Destructive Divine Mammoth coming into its territory from a distance. The aura that alarmed it also faintly sent a thrill down its spine.

"This terrifying aura must be that of a mythical-level quadruple mutated monster! It trembles deep in my soul even when it's hundreds of kilometers away!" Fear did not provide the Python-belly Poisonous Frog reason to retreat at all. Instead, it boosted its battle will. "There's a high possibility that I could break through to quadruple mutation as soon as I eat it and elevate to mythical-level! My combat strength might even break through and I might become a Virtual God!"

Sensing the Destructive Divine Mammoth advancing at a high speed, the Python-belly Poisonous Frog glared viciously at the silhouette that was moving rapidly in the range of its territory while drooling. Meanwhile, Lin Huang, who was next to the Destructive Divine Mammoth, was completely ignored.

Approximately two to three minutes later, Lin Huang and the Destructive Divine Mammoth finally arrived above the swamp where the Python-belly Poisonous Frog was.

Before Lin Huang could figure where the amphibian monster was, a bloody glow shot into the sky at a high speed, aiming at the Destructive Divine Mammoth's heart.

Even Lin Huang's eyes could not detect such an abrupt attack. All he saw was a red shadow that flashed through the sky and heard a rumble that sounded like thunder coming from where the Destructive Divine Mammoth was. The Destructive Divine Mammoth shot out like a cannon and went right through a few large mountains tens of kilometers away.

The attack that hit the spot made the Python-belly Poisonous Frog realize that its opponent's defense was more powerful than it imagined even before it could get excited. It was surprised that its attack did not break through the opponent's defenses. It just realized that its current opponent was much more impressive than it thought.

"It's worthy of being called a mythical-level monster!" Not only did the Python-belly Poisonous Frog not have any sense of failure, but it also became more enthusiastic now. The more powerful its opponent was, the more benefits it would obtain from devouring it.

It had never imagined what the consequences were if it were no match for its opponent since it had never lost any battle throughout centuries.

The Destructive Divine Mammoth had always been a defensive alpha among the True Spirits. It was hard for one to break through its defenses even if other True Spirits of the same level were to attack it, let alone a mere demigod-level Python-belly Poisonous Frog.

Any other imperial-level purple gold-rank or even mythical-level monsters would be killed or severely injured by the Python-belly Poisonous Frog's attack. However, to the Destructive Divine Mammoth, it was no different from an itch. It could not feel any pain, let alone be harmed by it.

Still, such a great impact pissed him off a little.

The Destructive Divine Mammoth stared at the Python-belly Poisonous Frog's direction as he stood up from the fallen gravel and shook the soil on his body off. His eyes were a little red with fury.

He was furious now!

The Destructive Divine Mammoth released a long shriek tens of kilometers away. He slammed its long trunk, and charcoal gray Life Power echoed like a whip, shooting across the sky towards the Python-belly Poisonous Frog.

Although the Destructive Divine Mammoth was not a monster built for speed, that did not mean that it had no speed-related technique.

The trunk whip was the fastest attack that would go furthest in his inherited memory.

Its attack speed was no slower than the Python-belly Poisonous Frog's attack earlier.

The Python-belly Poisonous Frog did not seem to expect its opponent to have such a quick reaction from so far away. It only snapped back to its senses when the charcoal gray trunk whip was coming near it. It hopped on both its rear legs and dodged the attack.

Unfortunately, it was too late. The trunk whip brushed through its body.

Under the terrifying attack, half of its body was hit by the compelling power.

The impact made its body shoot out, and it smashed into a mountain that was even further away like a cannonball.

Lin Huang did not see the Destructive Divine Mammoth's movements clearly. All he could see was a gray shadow flashing in the sky and a silhouette shooting out. He then saw mountains collapsing far away.

He had just heard the thud coming from the trunk whip attack when the mountains collapsed. Meanwhile, the sound of the mountains collapsing only came echoing a while later.

The Python-belly Poisonous Frog that was buried deep in the gravel had shock written all over its face. It had never thought that the opponent would not only have such stunning defense techniques but also be able to launch a terrifying attack too. The one attack alone almost smashed its body to smithereens.

"A mythical-level monster really is terrifying. It seems like it's hard to kill it without some effort."

By then, the Python-belly Poisonous Frog finally took its opponent seriously, treating him a powerhouse on the same level as it was although the Destructive Divine Mammoth was only on imperial-level purple gold-rank.

The Destructive Divine Mammoth knew that the Python-belly Poisonous Frog did not die although the attack sent it flying away. He appeared above the cliff the Python-belly Poisonous Frog was on in a flash. It stomped its foot in the air without even looking.

The entire mountain seemed to be suppressed by an invisible yet invincible power and turned into dust, disappearing into the ground. In the blink of an eye, it turned into a deep underground pit which was a couple of kilometers wide as if a meteorite had struck.

At that moment, a red glow shot out from under the deep pit.

The speed was a few times faster than the Python-belly Poisonous Frog's first attack. Moreover, the red glow coming from the attack this time was as glaring as the sun.

This time, the Destructive Divine Mammoth held both its legs high and stomped in the air once again.

An elephant's leg that looked like a giant pillar appeared in the air and blasted the ground.

Unsurprisingly, the red glow and the elephant leg collided hard.

A glaring golden glow lit up the epicenter of the collision as if hundreds of nuclear bombs had gone off at the same time. In an instant, the area within thousands of kilometers looked like it had changed from night to day.

All the monsters looked at the center of the battle in fear.

Even Lin Huang who was watching the battle was dragged into Ninetails Lynx's alternate dimension that it had been hiding in.

Meanwhile, an insane heat that was billions of degree Celsius high as a result of the impact spread hundreds of kilometers away from the core of the battle between the two monsters. Everything within that radius was destroyed.

The energy wave that came from the explosions was like gallons of water washing everything within 3,000 kilometers away together with petrifying wind pressure.

Countless plants were destroyed as if they had experienced a category-18 typhoon.

All monsters below imperial-level yellow gold-rank were killed by the impact within 3,000 kilometers. The imperial-level yellow gold-rank and imperial-level white gold-rank monsters also suffered different levels of injuries, except for the imperial-level purple gold-rank monsters which were barely affected.

The Destructive Divine Mammoth that was in the center of the battle stood sturdily midair while glaring dangerously somewhere beneath.

The Python-belly Poisonous Frog was still alive, but it was dying.

It had activated the Divine Power in its body for the attack earlier in an attempt to kill. However, it did not expect its opponent to fight it with Life Power as well as suppressing its most powerful attack. It had no choice but to insert more Divine Power, but the opponent's Life Power seemed to be endless. Eventually, the Divine Power in its body was worn out and it was completely defeated.

Because the Divine Power in its body was drained, it could only use its Life Power to defend itself forcefully during the explosions. However, it could not handle the impact that came from the explosion of Divine Power even though it had drained its Life Power.

Sensing his opponent's remaining aura, the Destructive Divine Mammoth stomped again without thinking twice.

The ground that had already turned into a deep pit collapsed tens of meters further.

Within the gravel that had been crushed into dust, the Python-belly Poisonous Frog which had completely lost its defensive ability turned into a pile of mush instantly.

"Congratulations, you've killed the Python-belly Poisonous Frog (Demigod-level). You've obtained Mythical-level Python-belly Poisonous Frog Monster Card Pieces x2"

Lin Huang only found out that the Python-belly Poisonous Frog was dead after hearing the notification from Xiao Hei.

"It's settled so soon?" Lin Huang came out of the alternate dimension and hovered above the deep collapsed pit. He retrieved the Python-belly Poisonous Frog's carcass that was smashed into a mush deep in the underground with his telekinetic threads.

Xiao Hei's notification came again just when he saw the tragic carcass.

"The system has detected a demigod's soul and a Godhead (broken). Would you like to retrieve them?"

"Retrieve them," Lin Huang confirmed.

Obtaining the demigod's soul was the main purpose of his hunting demigods this time. As for the broken demigod's Godhead, he had no idea what he could do with it after retrieving it.

Looking at the memories he read from all the mini-worlds and the great worlds, it was possible to merge a Godhead, but Gods who elevated from the merging of the Godhead might not be able to elevate his combat strength forever. Therefore, not many people would want to merge others' Godheads, let alone a demigod's broken Godhead.

In less than half a minute, Lin Huang held two cards in his hand: a demigod's soul and a broken Godhead.

Putting the demigod's soul card away into his body, Lin Huang crushed the broken Godhead's card.

An irregular, thumb-sized, charcoal gray crystal appeared in his palm. He looked at the crystal with his face pinched. "What does such a broken Godhead do?"

"Perhaps this thing is useless to others, but it's useful stuff for you," said the stone tablet, smiling all of a sudden.

"Useful stuff? I don't want to merge someone else's Godhead, let alone merge this broken Godhead." Lin Huang was very confident about elevating to Virtual God, but merging someone else's Godhead was out of the picture.

"I'm not asking you to merge it but to refine it," explained the stone tablet while smiling.

"Refine it? What does this thing do after refinement?" Lin Huang was even more puzzled now.

"Do you think you can elevate to imperial-level successfully with your cultivation system?" The stone tablet did not answer Lin Huang's question. It asked him another question instead.

Lin Huang was stunned to hear the stone tablet's question.

He had never thought about that before. The reason being he would need over a month to visualize the three remaining God Figurines' Combat Souls before elevating to imperial-level. He needed time to cultivate the God Figurines too, so it would be at least two months later when he really elevated to imperial-level.

However, now that the stone tablet raised such a question, it made Lin Huang began to think hard about how he should elevate to imperial-level. He was frowning more and more as he thought about it.

"I can't inherit the Divine Fire if I take the imperial-level monster's Life Base… Which means I can't elevate to imperial-level with the current cultivation system."

Lin Huang began sweating upon realizing the issue and he asked the stone tablet immediately, "Do you have a solution to this?"

"In reality, the biggest crux of the problem with elevating to virtual god-level in your world's cultivation system is the imperial-level. It's actually a good thing that you can't elevate with the current system."

"I thought the incomplete world order that we have is the reason for lesser people elevating to Virtual Gods?"Lin Huang asked rather confusedly.

"An incomplete world order will only cause the failure to elevate to True Gods. The number of Virtual Gods is restricted to a certain level, but it's possible to elevate to Virtual Gods. Moreover, it's not that there are few people elevating to Virtual Gods in the current world that you're in. There are none at all," corrected the stone tablet.

"What's wrong with imperial-level? From what I know, most cultivation systems in other mini worlds and great worlds go through the forging of Life Palaces. They just have different names. But they can elevate to virtual god-level and true god-level, so they don't have any problem at all."

"Think about it properly. When do other cultivation systems forge Life Palaces?" asked the stone tablet while smiling.

Lin Huang thought about it carefully and frowned even deeper a moment later. "It's rather odd. Basically, all cultivation systems forge Life Palaces in the beginning stage of cultivation. Do you mean our cultivation system has gotten the sequence of forging Life Palaces wrong?"

"Indeed, the wrong sequence is the main reason." Noticing that Lin Huang figured out the problem, the stone tablet proceeded to explain, "The so-called Life Palace of yours is called a Life Base in the great world. The reason it's called a Life Base is that it's the foundation of the entire cultivation. Only with a sturdy foundation will your house be stable when it's built.

"In the great worlds, there was once an era called the Cultivation Era. During that era, humans were the most powerful race in the entire great world. Furthermore, the first step of almost all human cultivation in that era was to forge a Life Base. The first cultivation level was called the base building-level.

"The reason why humans in that era were powerful was that they forged a sturdy foundation as their first step. Since then, the cultivation system that was built later on grew more and more powerful. In the end, it cultivated countless powerhouses and conquered the entire great world."

"So, why did that cultivation system not become the main system in that era later on?" Lin Huang asked rather confusedly.

"Because there's a fatal flaw in that cultivation system, it took too long. A person would need at least millions or even tens of millions of years to grow to the top combat strength in the great world." The stone tablet's tone became a little awkward all of a sudden.

"What I'm trying to say is that most cultivation system nowadays place forging of the Life Base in the early stage because they were influenced by the Cultivation Era. Basically, all cultivation systems hardly rely on foreign items when it comes to forging the Life Base. Instead, they cultivate it slowly with their own ability. The Life Base that's forged that way is many times more powerful no matter the compatibility or growth compared to the Life Base that you take from others. Moreover, their Life Base will elevate following their level whereby it'll grow and evolve continuously. Eventually, it can be cultivated through divine force and transform from there.

"Your cultivation system has an ordinary quality since it's taken from other monsters. It's not even achieved a tenth of the growth and compatibility compared to other cultivation systems. Furthermore, it's too late to forge the Life Base. The lack of cultivation makes the consolidation of the Life Base into the Godhead impossible. Most importantly, the transformation of the Life Base is simply not there.

"It's possible to elevate successfully if the imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses in your world are willing to spend thousands or tens of thousands of years to absorb the divine force slowly and cultivate the Life Base, then break through when it's on the verge of transformation.

"However, you guys have gotten used to the cultivation method of taking whereby you kill demigod monsters and break through forcefully, relying on the Divine Power in the demigod monsters' bodies. This won't work at all! The Divine Power in the demigod's body is insufficient to consolidate into a complete Godhead. Plus, a Life Base that hasn't gone through sufficient cultivation can't take the impact of the Divine Power."

"So, are you suggesting that I consolidate the Life Base myself instead of taking the available Life Base in imperial-level monsters' bodies?" Lin Huang finally grasped what the stone tablet meant. "But what does that have to do with this broken Godhead that I have?"

"Let me ask you… Where did you get this broken Godhead?" The stone tablet asked while grinning.

"It's formed from those demigod monsters that failed to elevate to Virtual God."

"What is a broken Godhead converted from?"

"A Life Palace…" Lin Huang understood what the stone tablet meant right after he said that. "Are you saying that I can consolidate a Life Base with this broken Godhead as the material?"

"Not one, but a massive amount of broken Godheads. Use as many as your inner world can handle!" The stone tablet chortled out loud. "You could consolidate an invincible Life Base that's even more powerful than a Godhead!"

Lin Huang peeped at the Destructive Divine Mammoth, not sure whether to laugh or cry after putting the Python-belly Poisonous Frog's tragic carcass away. He then put the Destructive Divine Mammoth back into his body.

To him, the poisonous frog's carcass that was now mush had no use to him other than getting Mr. Fu to turn it into food.

Lin Huang looked around the area that had completely turned into ruins. He hovered into the sky and flew north.

Xiao Hei retrieved the Python-belly Poisonous Frog's demigod soul and made it into a card. Naturally, Lin Huang could not read the memory in its head. All he could do was to find another imperial-level monster to acquire the other demigods' coordinates.

Lin Huang flew more than 2,000 kilometers north from the southeastern corner on the third layer of the Abyss Brink. It was still a burnt ruin in his field of vision. He did not even sense a single living thing's aura along the way.

It was his first time learning how powerful a demigod really was then.

"The impact of the battle collision alone destroyed everything within 3,000 kilometers. I don't see any imperial-level monsters that survived. A demigod's power is really terrifying!

"The collision of the Divine Power is the main reason for such great destruction. If that poisonous frog didn't use its Divine Power, the destruction as a result of the collision would only cover an area within 1,000 kilometers at the most. Also, not all monsters were killed by the battle impact. Many of the injured had fled. After all, they had no idea if another collision that was similar would occur again. Those that survived fled the impacted area as soon as they could," explained the stone tablet.

Until he flew 3,000 kilometers out, Lin Huang finally saw the border of the destroyed battleground. A scorched line extended towards the east and the west so far that Lin Huang could not see it with his eyes. The entire land looked like a painting that was half-burned and half-green.

Finally, Lin Huang sensed a living being's aura when he proceeded 1,000 kilometers up north.

At the same time he sensed the aura, the monster attacked.

A green gleam flashed through the sky like a whip coming at him.

Before Lin Huang could do anything, a white light shot through the sky. A little white cat appeared on Lin Huang's shoulder in the next second.

Lin Huang looked down and saw the imperial-level white gold-rank Jasper Boa that was attacking him with its tail sliced into pieces. It was now dead.

He shook his head and landed on the ground slowly.

Bloody came out of his sleeve and connected a tentacle to the Jasper Boa's head that was severed. After a while, all the information in the Jasper Boa's head that was still active was retrieved.

"A thousand kilometers to the north is the demigod-level monster, the Titan Boa's territory. The Ghastly Spider Lady's territory is approximately 3,000 kilometers west."

Lin Huang was familiar with the two monsters since they were in the monster guide.

The Titan Boa was a supreme giant monster. It had a colossal body and possessed imperial-level combat strength. When it turned into an adult, it would be at least tens of thousands meter long. This one in the Abyss Brink with demigod-level combat strength might be at least 50,000 meters long. Its body was even bigger than Tyrant's complete form.

The Titan Boa's gigantic form did not only mean that it had a terrifying ability, but it also had a scary defensive ability. Its combat technique was similar to the Destructive Divine Mammoth whereby they both suppressed their opponents with force.

However, this monster had a petrifying ability, the Star Engulf.

As soon as the ability was charged, there would be a scary engulfing force that surged from its mouth, sucking its opponents into an isolated space inside its body.

Meanwhile, the Ghastly Spider Lady had nothing to do with an arachnid monster at all. She was an undead monster that looked a bit like a female human. She had long hair with a beautiful face but appeared rather pale. The biggest difference compared to a female human was that neither did the Ghastly Spider Lady have human breasts, nor did she have genitals or hair that humans usually had. From far away, she looked like a drained dead body that had been soaked in water for a long time.

The reason the monster was called a spider lady was that her hair was her attack weapon. The attack mode was similar to how spiders hunted.

The Ghastly Spider Lady appeared countable times throughout history, but there was tons of information about her recorded in the monster guide.

Her hair had broad functions including cutting, piercing, tying, weaving webs, and setting traps. It could also be consolidated into a shield and a weapon for defense.

She also had powerful telekinetic power. Not only could she strengthen her hair with various techniques, but she could also give it an attribution ability.

Combining telekinesis and ghastly hair that she was born with, she gave them a comprehensive ability. Apart from slightly weak close-distance combat strength, she almost had no flaws.

Moreover, as she was born undead, the only way to kill her was to cut all of her hair. She would not die even if they still had a single strand of hair attached.

To Lin Huang, this monster was much more difficult to handle compared to the Python-belly Poisonous Frog due to its immensely powerful hair. Even if a strand of demigod-level Ghastly Spider Lady's hair was not as powerful as a demigod relic, it should be on par with a demigod relic when tens of them came together. One could imagine how difficult it would be to cut hundreds of thousands of such locks.

"Let's go for the Titan Boa first then." Lin Huang decided almost without hesitation after a while of comparing.

The Titan Boa was much easier to kill compared to the Ghastly Spider Lady.

After acquiring the Titan Boa's coordinates, Lin Huang continued his journey to the north.

A couple of minutes later, he saw a scary giant boa that looked like a massive mountain from far away. From guesswork, Lin Huang figured that this Titan Boa's body was at least 70,000 meters long.

"What a monster!" The monster's form was the top three biggest monsters Lin Huang had ever seen.

The Titan Boa sat there with its eyes shut, pretending to sleep. Although it did not seem to sense Lin Huang's existence, in reality, it sensed him coming when he was hundreds of kilometers away.

However, it did not take Lin Huang seriously no matter what his combat strength or form was. It did not think that this immortal-level human was coming for it. Instead, it thought Lin Huang was just passing by.

Finally, it could not take it when Lin Huang arrived 20 kilometers away and was still approaching it when he could clearly see the monster's existence. It opened its eyes and looked straight at Lin Huang.

The glance alone from the Titan Boa gave Lin Huang a suppressive demigod aura.

'Seems like it looks down on me completely!' Lin Huang forced a smile while shaking his head.

If he were some other immortal-level powerhouse, the overwhelming intensity coming from the glance alone was sufficient to kill.

However, to Lin Huang who possessed Divine Fire and God Figurines in his body, the Divine Fire would extinguish such a demigod-level spiritual suppression as soon as it came within a certain distance of his consciousness. It could not threaten Lin Huang at all.

"I can't believe it's using its spirit to suppress me when it's an expert in body combat. Let me show you the master who's really skilled in this!" Lin Huang smirked cunningly. "Come on out, Nightmare Tapir!"

The Titan Boa was slightly stunned when its spiritual suppression did nothing to the immortal-level human before it. Although it was not a monster expert in spiritual skills, even an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse among demigods could not ignore its spiritual suppression. It had killed imperial-level white gold-rank humans in the past in the same way.

However, it could clearly sense that the human before it ignored its spiritual suppression completely. He hovered into the sky like a tough coral in the wave of its spiritual suppression. He could not be affected at all.

In the next second, it saw Lin Huang summon a monster with an elephant trunk and the body of a leopard. The Titan Boa was shocked to sense the monster's aura.

It could sense that the monster's combat strength was only on imperial-level purple gold-rank, but there was an odd aura that caused it to be instinctively fearsome.

"The chill that strikes my spirit…" Soon, the Titan Boa noticed that the chill was a form of suppression that came from its opponent's level. "This fella is on mythical-level!"

Its eyes were filled with fear when it looked at the Nightmare Tapir.

Compared to the Python-belly Poisonous Frog, it dared not underestimate its mythical-level opponent.

The Nightmare Tapir with an elephant trunk and the body of a leopard was only less than three meters long. It was like a mere ant before it.

However, at that very moment, it treated the Nightmare Tapir as its deadly rival that it had never encountered before.

Thousands of meters away, the Nightmare Tapir's eyes turned completely black all of a sudden.

The Titan Boa jolted before it attacked without thinking twice.

Its body that was lying down shot out of nowhere. Its tail that was like a gigantic mountain range whipped through the air and appeared where the human and beast were in the blink of an eye, drowning the both of them.

The strong wind and energy wave coming from the end of its tail plowed a fan-shaped area which radius exceeded 800 kilometers on the ground. The trees and flowers within the entire area turned into dust.

The attack was practically the most powerful attack the Titan Boa could launch without using its Divine Power.

However, it was not elated at all despite having released all it had. Instead, it had a slight change of expression because it clearly sensed that its attack had landed on nothing.

"Where is he?" The Titan Boa sensed all the surrounding areas within its range of its territory with all its might in an attempt to detect Lin Huang's whereabouts.

Just when it sensed something, it jolted again and shot forward all of a sudden.

However, a sharp claw mauled its neck at the moment, leaving a few massive wounds that were at least 20 meters long on its neck.

Its scales with powerful defensive abilities seemed to have zero defenses against the opponent's sharp claws.

Bearing the pain, the Titan Boa turned its head to look at the Nightmare Tapir. Its initial shock calmed down a little.

If it were to dodge the attack earlier a millisecond later, its head might have been torn off and smashed into mush.

"You won't be that lucky next time," said the Nightmare Tapir through voice transmission while grinning coldly.

"I admit that you're powerful, but there's something that I have that you can't compare to." The Titan Boa released a deafening sound. "You have no Divine Power in you!"

"I can still kill you without Divine Power!" The Nightmare Tapir raised its head and whipped its elephant trunk as soon as it was done speaking.

The elephant trunk swept through the air like a whip. As if it were a giant scimitar that sliced through the air, everything it passed by was sliced into half.

The long whip arrived before the Titan Boa in a flash, going straight to its vital point.

The Titan Boa lashed its tail madly again without thinking twice. This time, it inserted almost half of its Divine Power into it.

The massive mountain-like snake tail collided with the long elephant trunk which diameter was less than 15 centimeters long.

At the moment, a golden flare that was as glaring as the sun lit up the collision point.

The golden flare was growing brighter just as its size was growing rapidly too. It grew into a sphere that was thousands of meters in diameter within a few breaths.

Eventually, the golden sphere did not seem to be able to withstand the rapidly expanding speed and exploded entirely. White light shot out all over the place.

In that second, the entire night sky was lit up. The area within thousands of kilometers turned into day.

Endless energy waves and wind pressure swept towards all directions with the collision point as the epicenter.

The area within 2,000 kilometers turned into ruins. All the plants turned into dust while most imperial-level monsters were either injured or killed. Only a minority of them managed to escape with their injured bodies away from the energy waves like rabid animals.

…

From a distance, Lin Huang, who hovered mid-air, saw that the Titan Boa's eyes had turned completely black long ago. The Divine Power in its body experienced a tremor, and its aura fell away a while later.

He could not help but swivel his head to look at the Nightmare Tapir next to him. "What exactly did he dream about?"

"Fighting me," replied the Nightmare Tapir, turning its head and smiling.

"Close-distance combat?'

"Yes."

"Aren't you lousy at close-distance combat?" Lin Huang asked in confusion.

"It thought I'm good at it, so I made it think so on purpose. I made my close-distance combat ability super powerful." The Nightmare Tapir could not help but chuckle out loud. "Not only do I have the Ninetails Lynx's speed and claws, but I also have a defensive ability on par with the Destructive Divine Mammoth. It was beaten up real good."

"Oh wow, that's so powerful!" Even Lin Huang could not help himself and gave the Nightmare Tapir a thumbs-up.

He could only wonder if he would be invincible if the Nightmare Tapir integrated all nine True Spirits' most powerful abilities into his body in his dream.

The remaining Divine Power in the Titan Boa's body went through another tremor when the duo was chatting. A moment later, its aura dropped rapidly and it was soon dying.

The Titan Boa looked devastating in the dream world.

It laid in the ruins while its body had hundreds of thousands of wounds like it had been cut with a sharp blade. There was no flesh in pristine condition from its head to its tail as if it went through slow slicing execution.

Its scales and tough flesh did not seem to be able to defend it at all. Each wound on its body was at least tens of meters long. Its red flesh could almost be seen from its scales that were torn open. Some wounds were so deep that they went into its organs.

The cuts were bleeding continuously with no sign of healing. Blood spilled from the Titan Boa's mouth like a stream.

"I lost…" There was no yielding in its voice.

"This is the toughest battle I've ever had in my life. It's also the battle in which I was suppressed entirely. The power and defensive ability that I'm proud of were like babies to you. Even my most powerful ability, the Star Engulf, can't do anything to you.

"Although I never underestimated you since the beginning, never had I thought that a mythical-level would be so much more terrifying than I imagined!"

"I think there's something that I must tell you." The Nightmare Tapir that was hovering mid-air looked at the Titan Boa in a condescending way. It finally spoke, "I'm not on mythical-level. I'm on a level that's even higher than mythical-level!"

However, the Nightmare Tapir kept something a secret. It was still a child now.

"Is that so? I didn't lose in vain then…" The very last wisp of breath in the Titan Boa finally faded when it learned the 'truth'.

"Congratulations, you've obtained a complete Titan Boa Card (Legendary-level) x2!"

"The system has detected a demigod soul and Godhead (broken). Would you like to retrieve them?"

Lin Huang was rather surprised to see Xiao Hei's notification about acquiring a complete Titan Boa Monster Card.

Under normal circumstances, the chances of obtaining a complete Monster Card from killing a monster was extremely low.

According to Lin Huang's past experience, the chances of it occurring was definitely much lower than 1%. Sometimes, he might only obtain a few hundred complete Monster Cards after killing millions of monsters.

However, he obtained a complete card after killing the second monster.

"Seems like my luck's great today!" Lin Huang put away the gigantic monster carcass into his storage space after retrieving the demigod soul and Godhead.

On the other hand, the Nightmare Tapir shared the memory it had retrieved with Bloody.

"How is it going? Do we have the other demigod monsters' coordinates?" Lin Huang only asked Bloody when he saw the Nightmare Tapir detach its elephant trunk from Bloody's head.

Bloody nodded in confirmation. "Almost there. Apart from the two that we've killed, there should be another 14 demigod-level monsters on this layer. The one that's closest to us is the Ghastly Spider Lady that I told you about earlier. It's approximately 3,500 kilometers from us in the southwest. Apart from that, there's a Ghoul Lynx at least 5,000 kilometers north."

The Ghoul Lynx was a spirit monster. There were not many recordings of it in the monster guide because most people who saw such a monster were dead.

This monster was immune to most physical attacks. One could only harm it on a spiritual level. However, it was an expert in soul-type of attack techniques, illusions, and hypnotization.

"They're hard to handle no matter if it's the Ghastly Spider Lady or the Ghoul Lynx." Lin Huang fell into silence for a moment. "Let's go for the one that's closest to us. Plan the route, Bloody."

"Alright." Bloody soon plotted the route. "We're heading west now. After killing the Ghastly Spider Lady, we'll head northwest, then go north. If we follow this route, the Ghoul Lynx will be our last prey."

"Sure!" Lin Huang had no objection. To him, there was no difference whoever they killed first.

After all, he did not plan to spare any of the remaining 14 demigod-level monsters.

After putting the demigod soul and the Godhead away as well as recalling the Nightmare Tapir into his head, Lin Huang made his way to the Ghastly Spider Lady's territory with Bloody.

Approximately 20 minutes later, they arrived at the Ghastly Spider Lady's territory. Lin Huang crushed a Lucky Card and summoned his chosen fighter to go against the Ghastly Spider Lady — the Ninetails Lynx.

He only had three imperial-level purple gold-rank monsters with him at the moment. They were the Destructive Divine Mammoth, the Ninetails Lynx, and the Nightmare Tapir. The rest of them were on imperial-level white gold-rank and while they might be able to fight demigods, they could not suppress them easily. As for the three God Figurines that he had just obtained, he had yet to visualize them until now since their Combat Souls had yet to be consolidated.

The Destructive Divine Mammoth, the Ninetails Lynx, and the Nightmare Tapir were the only ones that he could use at the moment.

Theoretically, among the three God Figurines' Combat Souls, the Nightmare Tapir should be the most suitable to fight a monster like the Ghastly Spider Lady.

The Nightmare Tapir was the best expert in dragging his opponent into dreamland without them realizing and draining him to death there.

No matter how intricate the Ghastly Spider Lady's ability was, she would be controlled by the Nightmare Tapir in the dreamland. There was no way that she could turn the tables.

One reason Lin Huang chose the Ninetails Lynx was that the latter was eager to fight after watching the Destructive Divine Mammoth and the Nightmare Tapir's battles earlier. On the other hand, he wanted to watch the fight against the demigod-level powerhouse himself. He had not witnessed the fight between the Nightmare Tapir and the Titan Boa earlier.

What he had no idea about was that the Nightmare Tapir could actually pull him into dreamland to watch the fight. Since he did not mention it, the Nightmare Tapir did not know that he intended to watch it.

The Ghastly Spider Lady locked her sights on Lin Huang who was coming at her at a rapid speed. In reality, she noticed this human who intruded her territory when he was hundreds of kilometers away.

Her hunting instinct taught her patience, so she waited for her opponent to reveal his flaws in order for her to kill it in one blow.

However, what puzzled her was that this human, whose combat strength was obviously only immortal-level, did not show any flaws at all. Even though he was moving at a high speed, he still maintained his high alertness, ready to take any attack from all directions at any time.

"This human's an expert. It's too bad his combat strength is too weak. If he has the same combat strength as I do, I'm afraid he'll be a difficult opponent." That was the first impression the Ghastly Spider Lady had of Lin Huang.

She smirked when she noticed Lin Huang advancing to her soon.

A couple of strands of hair were waving like they were living things. Gradually, they faded and turned invisible. They were like poisonous snakes hiding in the dark, slithering their way to Lin Huang.

There was no sound or trace left behind everywhere they passed.

That was her assassination secret skill, the Stealthy Snake.

Such a secret skill attack was not only invisible, but it also blocked out the ability to sense one's territory.

The Ghastly Spider Lady had killed countless preys with this secret skill. Up until the moment they were dead, many preys had no idea what attacked them.

Lin Huang frowned suddenly when he was still more than 20 kilometers away from the Ghastly Spider Lady.

Using his Divine Telekinesis, he found out that there were over 30 strands of hair that could not be seen with the naked eye coming toward his direction rapidly. What surprised him was that even his Territory skill did not sense the hair. It did not sense anything out of the ordinary.

"It seems like this is a powerful one. Without my Divine Telekinesis, I'm afraid I'd have been dead right now." Lin Huang summoned the Ninetails Lynx right away. He knew he could not go up against such a demigod-level attack without having his trump card to boost his combat strength.

"Do you sense the invisible hair?" Lin Huang asked through voice transmission.

The Ninetails Lynx nodded. "This stealthy technique isn't too shabby. There's a unique shield layer on the surface of the hair that blocks out a large chunk of the sensing ability of the Territory skill. Unfortunately, the hair occupies space no matter how small it is. In the range of my territory, anything in the material world that occupies space can't escape from me."

It saw through the structure of the shield on the hair in one glance.

Lin Huang was completely relieved when he heard what the Ninetails Lynx said. He was thinking of getting the Nightmare Tapir to fight again if the Ninetails Lynx could not sense the hair. The Nightmare Tapir could pull the opponent into dreamland so that there was no way it could fight at all.

At least 30 strands of hair slithered less than 100 meters from Lin Huang using the Stealthy Snake when the human and cat were just done talking.

The little cat returned to Lin Huang's shoulder, seeming like a white shadow that flashed in the air.

At that moment, Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis just sensed that the 36 strands of hair that were attempting to attack him were now sliced into pieces.

The Ghastly Spider Lady that was 20 kilometers away let out a deep groan. The pair of eyes on her pale face shifted slowly. She was now staring at the little white cat on Lin Huang's shoulder 20 kilometers away.

She flashed her white teeth with a devilish smile. "So, he has an assistant."

The missed hit made the Ghastly Spider Lady shift her attention to the Ninetails Lynx on Lin Huang which was even more threatening.

The Ninetails Lynx looked at her from far away too.

As they locked eyes, the Ghastly Spider Lady clearly noticed that her soul was shaking. At that moment, she realized that it was on a higher level of suppression.

"It's on mythical-level?!" The moment the Ghastly Spider Lady was stunned, the Ninetails Lynx on Lin Huang's shoulder disappeared again.

Almost at the same time, a white streak appeared before the Ghastly Spider Lady without warning.

It was too late when she noticed that. Before she managed to do anything, the white streak had pierced through her body.

In the next second, the white streak appeared hundreds of meters behind the Ghastly Spider Lady, revealing itself gradually. It was the Ninetails Lynx that had been on Lin Huang's shoulder earlier!

Lin Huang only noticed that the little white cat on his shoulder was no longer there when he saw it appear behind the spider lady.

By then, he had arrived less than five kilometers from the Ghastly Spider Lady. He was stunned when he saw her naked body sliced into tens of pieces. He recalled something all of a sudden and spoke to the Ninetails Lynx through voice transmission immediately, "She's an undead monster. You must cut all of her hair off to kill her!"

The Ghastly Spider Lady's body was healing rapidly at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye as soon as the voice transmission was heard.

Her head turned 180 degrees directly, and her black eyes on her pale face glared deadly at the Ninetails Lynx. Her long hair began dancing like snakes.

"Die!" A devastating shriek came from the Ghastly Spider Lady's throat.

Clearly, she was extremely furious that she was attacked. She had gone into a frenzy, not caring whether the opponent was on mythical-level at all.

At the same time that she shrieked, her long hair swept towards the Ninetails Lynx like an ocean wave.

Her black, long hair turned into bunches of black threads and swept through heaven and earth. It was like flood flushing out of a broken dam.

Nonetheless, the Ninetails Lynx was fearless, its eyes turned a little red as it charged like a white streak again.

Not only did the white streak not run away, but it also entered the flood formed by the black strands of hair.

The white streak was sparkling mid-air. At the same time, sharp air blades formed from the white streak attacked the hair again and again.

The bunches of black hair was like hair being cut whereby they broke off easily wherever the scimitar-like sharp blade passed by.

None of the hairs managed to touch the white streak at all.

"Didn't they say that the Ghastly Spider Lady's hair is as powerful as a demigod relic?" Lin Huang began to suspect whether the information recorded in the monster guide was true. According to his observation, the Ghastly Spider Lady's hair seemed to be no different from an ordinary human's hair whereby it was easily snipped off.

"The information in the monster guide should be verified," Bloody voiced its speculation, "There should be two reasons why the hair can be cut so easily."

"One is that the Ninetails Lynx is extremely powerful, and its attack contains the slicing of space. The second reason is that the Ghastly Spider Lady's hair's attribute isn't the highest defense mode at the moment, but is her most powerful attack mode."

In the short couple seconds of battling, the Ghastly Spider Lady who had a third of her hair gone realized that her opponent was much more powerful than she imagined. She calmed down gradually.

"No, I'll definitely lose if this goes on!"

She noticed that her opponent would cut a great amount of her hair easily whenever it mauled her with its claws. Although she had no idea how it did it, she knew that she would be defeated sooner or later, so she changed her strategy immediately.

Her black hair scattered all of a sudden and turned into thin threads. They swept towards the Ninetails Lynx from all directions.

In the blink of an eye, the Ninetails Lynx seemed to have fallen into a trap whereby it was covered completely by countless strands of hair. Furthermore, its space was shrinking.

"Let's see how you're going to run!"

A sense of disdain flashed through the Ninetails Lynx's eyes when it noticed that.

In the next second, it flashed away while the prison made of the long hair suddenly became empty.

The Ghastly Spider Lady jolted upon realizing that the Ninetails Lynx was gone.

Almost at the same time, the Ghastly Spider Lady's head was left with a round and naked scalp. She looked similar to a middle-aged man who suffered from baldness.

Yes, she was bald.

However, no, she did not become more powerful. Instead, her aura was dropping rapidly.

The Ninetails Lynx's attack almost made her lose two-thirds of her hair.

Lin Huang was not sure to laugh or cry when he witnessed that mid-air. The Ninetails Lynx had made its opponent bald! It was clear that the cat had done that on purpose.

Perhaps because she thought the top of her head was a little chilly, so the Ghastly Spider Lady could not help but touch her head. Her expression turned terrible when she found out that she was bald.

Her pallid face was even paler now. The expression on her face was gravely ferocious. Clearly, she was extremely mad.

"I'll kill you! Kill you! Kill you!"

Anyone could not help but have goosebumps when the devastating shriek that reflected despair spread hundreds of kilometers away into the night.

The Ghastly Spider Lady fell into a complete frenzy later on. She lost her calm and ditched her strategy entirely. She consolidated her remaining hair into a long whip, even inserting Divine Power into it while lashing everything around her madly.

The Ninetails Lynx did not bother to fight her and dodged with sparkles continuously. It even had the time to grab Lin Huang and send him into the alternate dimension to prevent him from feeling the impact.

The Ghastly Spider Lady was even more enraged now that the Ninetails Lynx could still take care of others under its attack. She increased the frequency of her lashes.

However, apart from destroying everything within hundreds of kilometers, her attack did not even touch a hair on the Ninetails Lynx.

By going into a rage, the spider lady revealed all of her flaws to the Ninetails Lynx.

The flaws that kept spilling made the Ninetails Lynx assault her scalp over and over again.

When it attacked for the sixth time, it removed the very last strand of hair behind the Ghastly Spider Lady's head.

By then, the Ghastly Spider Lady became completely bald. Her shiny scalp reflected the bright moonlight.

The Ghastly Spider Lady, whose hair was completely removed, looked like she had turned into a rock. She stood frozen where she was while her eyes lost spirit slowly and all signs of life were fading rapidly.

Xiao Hei's notifications came one after another on Lin Huang's side.

"Congratulations, you've obtained complete Ghastly Spider Lady Card (Legendary-level) x2!

"Congratulations, you've obtained demigod soul crystals (Pseudo-mythical-level) x2

"The system has detected a demigod soul and a Godhead (broken). Would you like to retrieve them?"

Before hunting the Ghastly Spider Lady, Lin Huang used a Lucky Card intentionally but never had he expected that complete Ghastly Spider Lady Monster Cards would come out. Besides that, there were even demigod soul crystals.

After retrieving the Ghastly Spider Lady's demigod soul and Godhead in her body, Lin Huang put the carcass away and said to Bloody in his sleeve with his head down, "Where to next?"

"There's a Golden Venom Silkworm 6,800 kilometers in the southwest."

"Let's go!" Lin Huang hovered into the sky directly after putting the Ninetails Lynx away and headed straight southwest.

Past 10 a.m. the next morning, Lin Huang finally returned to the second layer from the third layer of the Abyss Brink.

He had spent the entire night killing all 16 demigod-level monsters in the Abyss Brink.

With the effect of the Lucky Cards and Double Reward Cards, his night full of reward was pretty handsome. He obtained a total of six compete Monster Cards, four demigod soul crystals, four demigod relics, 32 demigod souls, and 32 broken Godheads.

The six complete Monster Cards were two Titan Boas, two Ghastly Spider Ladies, and two Ghoul Lynxs.

Although they were all demigod-level monsters, due to the restriction of Lin Huang's combat strength, they were just like Bai and the rest whereby their combat strength was only on imperial-level yellow gold-rank.

Lin Huang also obtained 16 cross-ranking rewards. Since he had killed demigods, he would receive 80 card draws each time he killed one. With the Double Reward Cards, he obtained a total of 2,560 draws.

Lin Huang summoned Bai when he returned to the land where Tyrant and the rest were elevating.

Bai was rather puzzled when he saw the three golden eggs. However, he soon sensed the aura that he was familiar with inside the eggs. Tyrant and the rest were in there!

Lin Huang only explained upon seeing Bai glaring at the golden eggs, "I elevated Tyrant and the other two to mythical-level since I've gathered sufficient materials for them."

A sense of envy flashed through Bai's eyes when he heard that, but soon he hid his emotions.

"You don't have to be envious because I've gathered the materials for you too. You can elevate now." Lin Huang took out the materials one after another while speaking.

"You can't summon me after I elevate, can you?" Bai asked.

"It's alright. That'll just be temporary," Lin Huang explained while smiling, "I've found a way to elevate to imperial-level, so I should complete the elevation soon."

Bai fell into silence for a moment before asking again, "Your Combat Souls… Are they much more powerful than us?"

It was Lin Huang's turn to fall into silence when he heard the question. He nodded a while later. "There are three of them who can kill demigods now while the remaining four should be able to fight demigods face-on."

"I get it now. Let's elevate then." Bai nodded firmly after hearing the answer.

"Let's begin then." Lin Huang handed the materials to Bai one after another for the integration following the instructions on the cards.

The integration process was extremely torturous, especially integrating the demigod blood and demigod soul. The expression on Bai's face was so distorted that he looked like something else now.

Usually, it only required the integration of a ton demigod blood and ten demigod souls. However, the instruction at the back of the card said the more, the better.

Bai integrated a total of three tons of demigod blood and 32 demigod souls. He said nothing throughout the entire process whereby he stood where he was while blood gushed out of the pores all over his body.

Even Lin Huang, who stood aside, was frowning hard when he saw this grisly scene. He did not stop Bai. Instead, he crushed five Advance Cards.

Bai's pain finally faded when the five Advance Cards turned into five golden glows which penetrated his body. Just like Tyrant and the rest, his body began turning into a golden egg too.

Lin Huang released a long exhale of relief upon seeing Bai enter the elevation mode. "This round of elevation is finally done."

Since he had completed the core goal of elevating the four imperial monsters, Lin Huang turned his head and looked at the two God Figurines' Combat Souls beside.

He then summoned all four of his imperial-level white gold-rank God Figurines' Combat Souls.

The Divine Sun Tree mastered the Fire Rule. Everything would be inflammable when it elevated to its peak in order to strengthen itself.

The Enchanted Fairy mastered the Ice Rule. It could freeze the entire world from revolving when it was elevated to its peak.

The Undead Styx mastered the Spirit Rule. When it elevated to its peak, it could turn any living thing into its loyal worshippers as it wished, building countless undead armies. It could also retrieve countless inheritances from the numerous souls and own them.

The Withered Flower mastered the Life Rule. It could revive the dead on a large scale when it elevated to its peak. It could also engulf all living things in the world and turn it into a dead, barren land.

All four Combat Souls had abilities no less than the Ninetails Lynx and the rest. It was just that they were one rank lower in terms of combat strength.

Initially, Lin Huang could not decide which Combat Soul he should use the two demigod soul crystals that he had obtained from auctioning the god relic Ba Huang on. However, he had obtained another four during the hunt this time, so it was sufficient now.

After summoning the four God Figurines' Combat Souls, he took out four demigod soul crystals and threw them towards the four Combat Souls that grabbed the demigod soul crystals without thinking twice and swallowed them.

The God Figurines' Combat Souls completed their breakthrough merely over ten minutes later. All of them had elevated to imperial-level purple gold-rank, and their aura was just as strong as the Destructive Divine Mammoth.

Lin Huang made the Undead Styx stay to guard the premises as he put the three God Figurines' Combat Souls away.

He began practicing on his own.

The Undead Styx had hundred thousands of imperial-level armies in its body whereby it had close to 200 imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses alone. Even if it did not fight by itself, the hundred thousand-strong armies were sufficient to fight two to three demigods. Furthermore, it was under the premise of no battle formation.

In reality, Lin Huang got Bloody to share all of its battle formation knowledge to the Undead Styx ever since it formed its undead army. What he had no idea about was how well the Undead Styx mastered the battle formation now.

…

Two white-robed people rushed through the second layer of the Abyss Brink, ignoring any monsters' aura around completely.

In reality, there was nothing that they should worry about since both of them were imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses. They did not hide their aura at all. All of the monsters along the way would hide when they sensed the duo's aura. They were afraid that they would be discovered.

The most powerful monster in the second layer of the Abyss Brink was only on imperial-level yellow gold-rank after all. Picking a fight with anyone whose combat strength was two ranks higher was definitely asking for death.

"We've searched through the few usual hunting zones on the second layer, but we didn't find Lin Xie's trace at all. Could he not be in the hunting zone?"

"There are only two possibilities. He's either in the hunting zone or he's gone to the third layer."

"Why did he even come to the Abyss Brink if he's not going for the hunting zones?"

"Who knows? We can only search following the map. We can't let go of even a single zone!"

Two white silhouettes, one tall and one short, were flying north at high speed in a dense jungle in the northeast of the second layer of the Abyss Brink.

"This is the last zone. If we can't find Lin Xie here, it means that he has either gone to the third layer or he's left the Abyss Brink," said the tall one without any expression on his face.

"I think there's one more possibility." The short one had disdain written all over his face. "That brat named Lin Xie might not even come to the Abyss Brink at all. The news that we got might be fake since the beginning."

"This possibility is low." The tall one shook his head expressionlessly.

"So, what do we do if we don't find him in the last zone?" asked the short one, "It's been two days and one night since we last rested."

"We can only search the third layer if we can't find him in this layer." The tall one could not help but frown as he spoke.

"I think this is a complete waste of time," the short one objected immediately. "He's on immortal-level. He's not stupid. How is it possible that he'd go to the third layer? Wouldn't he be looking for death if he does that? We'll forget it when we're done searching through the second layer. Why should we torture ourselves?"

"Master asked me to team up with you on purpose because he knew you'd give up fast. Don't you ever think of slacking…"

"Stop!" The short one spoke through voice transmission and interrupted the tall one from speaking further.

"What?" The tall one looked confused.

"Shh!" The short one made a shushing gesture and pointed to his right.

"Do you see something?" The tall one spoke through voice transmission this time.

"Someone set up an illusion in the canyon on the northeast side. I'm suspecting it might be Lin Xie." The short one became a little excited now.

"Let's go take a look." Both of them hid their aura immediately as soon as the tall one was done speaking. They lowered their flight and rushed toward the zone the short one detected.

Lin Huang, who was practicing his sword skills in a canyon more than 100 kilometers away, smirked all of a sudden. "They're finally here."

Yesterday, when Lin Huang returned from the third layer of the Abyss Brink, Bloody found out about these two imperial-level purple gold-rank men in white robes since its Leech Pods filled the entire the second layer of the Abyss Brink.

When Bloody informed Lin Huang about the duo's whereabouts, he connected the dots to the two people who had captured Chan Dou and were wearing white robes too. He suspected that they were the same people. How could he have known that that they would be coming for him now?

Lin Huang summoned the Nightmare Tapir. "Don't kill them yet. Remember to read their minds. Find out which organization they're from and where they brought Chan Dou to. Is he still alive? Also, find out how many demigods are there in their organization and where their headquarters is."

The Nightmare Tapir nodded. Sensing the duo approaching at high velocity, it raised its head and flipped its trunk instantly while releasing an ear-splitting shriek.

The screech spread a hundred times faster than the speed of sound. It reached the two white-robed men in the blink of an eye.

The two white-robed men slowed down all of a sudden.

"Did you hear that?" asked the short one.

"I did. I wonder what kind of monster's shriek was that?" The tall one nodded.

"It seems to be coming from that canyon." The short one seemed timid now.

"No matter what it is, the highest its combat strength will only be is imperial-level yellow gold-rank. Monsters of a higher combat strength can't enter the second layer at all." The tall one remained calm.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that." The short one was relieved now.

The duo soon passed through more than 100 kilometers and arrived deep in the canyon.

An ungulate monster with black scales all over and a horn on its head lay on the ground of a cave. It was breastfeeding two of its babies.

"It's a… Midnight Unicorn?!" The tall one raised a brow when he saw that creature.

"It seems like that fella set this illusion up. We've wasted our efforts again." Disappointment remained all over the short man's face.

"Our luck's awesome! The Midnight Unicorn is a rare spirit-type monster that's expert in illusions. It happens to have two babies, so we'll have one each." The tall one killed the mother monster quickly as he was speaking. He grabbed the two baby monsters and passed one of them to the short one.

"None for me. I'm not a fan of keeping pets," the short one rejected right away. "What do we do now? We're already done searching the last zone, but we didn't find any traces of Lin Xie."

"What else can we do? We can only go to the third layer. We can't go back without even taking a look at the third layer. Am I right? Or do you think that you can get away from Master's questioning?"

The short one fell into silence for a moment and eventually nodded unwillingly. "Let's go to the third layer then, but you'll search on your own if want to do it at night. I'm going to sleep."

"Sure, let's take a rest tonight. Let's take a look at the third layer together tomorrow," the tall one agreed directly.

…

Lin Huang began observing the two white-robed men when they appeared before him.

The tall one was skinny. He was at least 1.9 meters tall like a bamboo stick. His skin was rather fair. He seemed to have taken on an unhealthy pallor as if he had been staying indoors for a long time without getting any sunlight.

The short one was obviously less than 1.7 meters. Perhaps, he was only 1.6 meters at the most. He was plump and tanned while the pores on his nose were huge with many blackheads.

The white robes they were wearing were pure white without any labels. Lin Huang only found two Emperor's Heart Rings on them; they had nothing else.

After he was done observing them, the Nightmare Tapir transferred all of the information it had retrieved to Bloody.

"How is it? Are they the ones who took Chan Dou?" Lin Huang asked immediately upon seeing Bloody looking at him.

"Yes," Bloody confirmed.

"Is Chan Dou still alive?"

"He's still alive, but this is so much more complicated than we imagined!" Bloody had no idea how to put it into words. "They're from an organization called God Bless. It's not a new underground organization, but it's been hiding under the radar for over 800 years. They've even joined the organizations founded by the Union Government and the Hunter Association. Their people have penetrated the higher management of organizations including the Union Government and the Hunter Association… Apart from the Union Government organization, they've occupied almost all the major underground organizations' higher management."

"I'll transfer the memory after I've arranged them. Take a look for yourself." Bloody extended a tentacle that slithered to Lin Huang's forehead after speaking. A sea of information rushed into his head rapidly.

Lin Huang only opened his eyes a long time after Bloody recalled its tentacle. He was frowning hard.

"No wonder these people dare to capture the direct descendants of the Chan Clan who have demigods guarding their clan. They basically control all the major organizations in this world."

"It should be them who attacked Master that time! Only they could do it. They used the Union Government name to set the trap for Master and destroyed the evidence perfectly."

"Now, the most troublesome thing is that there's no way we can identify who is from God Bless and who isn't," Bloody voiced the biggest existing conundrum.

Lin Huang, who had just digested the new information in his head, looked serious now.

Making enemies with God Bless was no different from making enemies with all the organizations in the world.

Lin Huang found out from the two white-robed men's minds that Chan Dou was still alive, but the duo had no idea where he had been sent to.

The God Bless organization was massive whereby there were a couple of branches in each safety zone and each branch in the same zone served different purposes. The white-robed men only knew what was happening at their branch, but they knew nothing much about the other branches and the headquarters. They did not even know where were the exact locations of those branches and headquarters.

Although Lin Huang found out about the location of their branch as well as there being a demigod there from the duo's memory, he did not plan to alert the enemy just yet.

Bloody shared the same opinion.

"Looking at the current situation, it's easy for us to destroy this branch that we know of. However, the people from God Bless will be even more cautious as soon as the branch is destroyed. It will only bring our further investigation a bigger obstacle, so we can't do anything to this branch just yet."

"I think so too, but the current issue is that we can't obtain more information to deepen the investigation if we don't drop by this branch."

"We don't have to do the investigation ourselves," Bloody said and looked at the two white-robed men who were still wandering in dreamland. "We can send two spies in."

Lin Huang's attention shifted to the two white-robed men. He stared at them for a while and turned his head to ask the Nightmare Tapir, "Can you do it?"

"It shouldn't be a problem. I can imprint a part of me in their bodies. As soon as they fall asleep, I can retrieve the information from their heads no matter the distance. Furthermore, nobody will find out about that including themselves," said the Nightmare Tapir, nodding, but he raised a question, "But there's one problem. Many things they experienced in the dreamland can't be explained properly. If we let them go just like that, there'd be many loopholes when someone were to question them. They'd find out about it sooner or later. I'm afraid they'd know we did something to them by then."

"Tell me about what they went through. I'll make you a new script." Bloody took up the responsibility.

Bloody saw everything in their heads a moment later. "I get it now. I might need your help to delete the beginning portion of their memory. Start from the Midnight Unicorn illusion they saw when they came to the canyon. Change it to them seeing a male Midnight Unicorn which ran away when it saw them from far away."

…

Soon, two days had passed. The two white-robed men returned to the second layer of the Abyss Brink from the third layer.

"I've already told you that he's definitely not on the third layer. We wasted two days for nothing," the short one complained, feeling irritated.

"It seems like Lin Xie has left the Abyss Brink," the tall one ignored the short one's complaint while speaking to himself, "Since he's not on the second and third layers, I think we should take a look at the first layer."

"Go by yourself. I don't have the time to play along with you. I'm going back to report myself now." The short one did not bother the tall one and rushed to the exit of the second layer right away.

The tall one frowned slightly. Seeing the short one disappearing from his field of vision, he followed, feeling helpless.

Over half an hour later, the duo got out of the second layer exit of the Abyss Brink one after another. They returned to the land.

Just when they returned, the duo summoned a Dimensional Portal and stepped into it.

…

In Division 3, Magical Sky City.

In a tall office building, there was a well-lit office with three transparent membrane walls.

An old, gray-haired man in a ponytail who was sitting at a meeting table was looking at the two white-robed men standing before the office table through the frameless glasses on his nose bridge.

One of the two white-robed men was short and the other, tall.

The tall one was at least 1.9 meters tall. His skin was unhealthily pale.

The short one was less than 1.7 meters tall. His skin was tanned, and one could see the pores on his nose from a couple of meters away.

The old man placed his elbows on the table while crossing both of his hands as he listened to the two men talking.

"Do you mean the both of you have browsed through the second and third layers of the Abyss Brink but you didn't find any trace of Lin Xie?"

"Yes, boss. We didn't only browse through the hunting zones this time. We also went through every inch of the land from the south to the north, from the east to the west, but we didn't find Lin Xie,' added the short one.

The old man did not look at the short guy. Instead, he turned his head to look at the tall one and asked, "You didn't miss out any place?"

The tall one nodded. "Yes, we didn't miss out an inch on the second and third layers."

"So, you didn't browse the first layer?" The old man frowned slightly.

The short one nudged the tall one next to him with his elbow. "See, I told you that we should browse the first layer, but you insisted that it's impossible for Lin Xie to go to the first layer and you said we must come back to report ourselves right away."

"You…" The tall one was enraged to hear that. Just like that, the short one turned the tables around!

"Never mind. It doesn't matter if you didn't browse through them. Indeed, it's pretty impossible that Lin Xie would go to the first layer." The old man waved to stop the duo's fight.

"Alright, both of you may leave now. Be on standby and don't go too far. There will be a mission soon."

"What mission, boss?" the short one asked rather curiously.

"Something from the Purple Crow. Don't ask about the detail. I'll tell you guys by then." The old man waved to get them to leave directly.

…

Lin Huang had been staying in the second layer of the Abyss Brink. He had been guarding the four golden eggs while practicing his sword skills every day.

At midnight on the ninth day, one of the golden eggs finally hatched.

Lin Huang put the wooden sword in his hand away immediately hearing the cracking of the shell. He looked at the few golden eggs and soon realized that it was the Herculean King's golden egg that was cracking.

The crack seemed to have formed automatically. It was just a hairline crack in the beginning at only over ten centimeters. Soon, it turned into the size of a thumb while its length expanded to hundreds of meters. The crack spread out, and there were more and more cracks.

Approximately half an hour later, cracks of all sizes filled the entire egg. All of a sudden, countless golden rays shot out of the cracks. Subsequently, the entire shell broke and turned into pieces. The tens of thousands of eggshell pieces turned into golden dots sparkling in the air. It looked like stars in the night sky.

Lin Huang saw the giant golden ape covered in the sparkles. The giant ape opened its eyes slowly as if it was waking up from a deep slumber. At the moment, the golden dots went through a tremor out of the blue. They turned into a golden stream and penetrated the giant ape's chest.

After a long time later, the golden gleam faded completely. The giant ape stepped forward, shrinking with every step it took.

Its height shrunk to three meters when it appeared before Lin Huang.

With the help of a bonfire, Lin Huang saw the Herculean King's transformed appearance.

His long hair was short now. He looked more like a human when he was standing up. The biggest difference was that many parts of his body were covered with a layer of golden armor. He even had an exquisite golden headband on his head and golden flames burned in his eyes.

'The Monkey King bar is the only thing you're missing to be the Monkey King!' Lin Huang thought to himself upon seeing the Herculean King's transformation.

Lin Huang sensed clearly that the Herculean King's aura was much more powerful than before. It was at least 100 times more powerful now.

The golden flames in the Herculean King's eyes faded slowly when he saw Lin Huang.

He walked to Lin Huang before speaking, "Master, you must take care of yourself when we're not around."

"I will. Don't worry. You guys just wait for me to elevate to imperial-level." Lin Huang patted the Herculean King's arm. "Your new style isn't too shabby. You're quite handsome!"

The Herculean King smirked when he heard the compliment. His body turned into orange pieces before he could say anything more as he converted into an orange card before Lin Huang quickly.

Lin Huang extended his hand and the card was drawn to his palm.

The card was completely orange with the Herculean King's image on it. He was waving at Lin Huang in there.

Lin Huang smiled and flipped the card over to look at the details.

"Monster Card: Herculean King

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Monster Name: Super Strength Battleape (Fire attribute)

"Type of Monster: Demon God-type (Pure Blood) / Ancient era Mighty Ape Tribe)

"Nickname: None

"Combat Level: Imperial-level Yellow Gold-rank

"Major: Martial Dao

"Major Skills: Superhuman Strength, Undefeatable Warrior, Unbending Will, Unrestrained Divinity…

"Minor Skills: Demon God Armor, Demon God Shield…

"Summon Authority: Denied (To be activated when you reach imperial level)

"Card Remarks: The second Monster Card that you can show off.

"Demon god-type…"

Seeing that description on the card, Lin Huang recalled the introduction of such a tribe in his memory of the great world. During the ancient era, the demon god and god's blood were the two major tribes of almost of the same rank. They were glorious.

The reason they were fallen later on was mainly because the demon gods needed to maintain pure bloodline in each subgroup while most subgroups had low reproduction. Eventually, that caused the tribe members to drop and soon they were fallen.

Putting away the Herculean King's card into his body, Lin Huang gave his undivided attention to practicing his sword skills. He waited for the remaining three golden eggs to hatch patiently.

In the next afternoon, the second golden egg hatched when the sun was glaring the hottest in the middle of the sky.

It was Charcoal that hatched from the golden egg this time.

Charcoal's body shrunk to approximately 30 meters, but its appearance was at least a grade higher now.

The current Charcoal had shiny scales all over its body like a coat of piano shellac that reflected Lin Huang's image clearly. The scales were like shiny black mirrors.

Not only had it shrunk, but its body was also slenderer now. It lost the clumsiness it had before and seemed rather elegant now.

Although it did not look as suppressive as before, Lin Huang clearly sensed that the aura the current version of Charcoal had was so powerful that it was terrifying.

Charcoal disappeared just when Lin Huang saw it hatch out of the shell. It then appeared before Lin Huang, rubbing its head against him. Lin Huang staggered from the slight scare.

He did not see the dragon's trajectory of movement at all which shocked him a little. "His speed's a few folds faster than Kylie before she elevated!"

He patted Charcoal's head. "Your strength's different from before now. Please behave."

"Hehe, I'm more powerful now! Soon, I'll be able to fight." Charcoal grinned.

"It's still far away from that. Stay in your sealed form patiently." Charcoal's body began to turn into a card as soon as Lin Huang was done speaking.

Lin Huang flipped the card in his hand directly to look at the detailed information on the back.

"Monster Card: Charcoal

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Monster Name: Demon Flame Dragon (Fire attribute)

"Type of Monster: Dragonkin (Pure Blood) / Ancient Era Demon Dragon Tribe)

"Nickname: Flame Lord

"Combat Level: Imperial-level Yellow Gold-rank

"Major: True Dragon Dao

"Major Skills: Evil Flame, Dragon Power, Dragon Breath, Draconic secret skill, Dragon Realm, Dragon Flame…

"Minor Skills: Elemental Immunity, Divine Regeneration, Physical Reflection…

"Summon Authority: Denied (To be activated when you reach imperial level)

"Card Remarks: Trainable!"

Lin Huang proceeded with his sword practice after putting Charcoal's card away.

On the morning of the 11th day, Lin Huang heard the cracking of an eggshell when he had just washed up and was having a snack.

He looked up and saw a crack that was so subtle that it was almost invisible to the naked eye on the giant golden egg which was so colossal that it was touching the sky. Since he had experienced the same thing twice, Lin Huang proceeded to munch on the dried meat in his hand while waiting for Tyrant to break out of the egg patiently.

Almost 20 minutes had passed when he finished his breakfast in leisure. By then, Tyrant finally hatched from the egg.

Tyrant's height that was over 30,000 meters tall was shrinking rapidly. He only stepped out and appeared before Lin Huang when he shriveled to approximately two meters tall.

"Master."

Lin Huang began taking a closer look at Tyrant that looked almost similar to a human now.

He was over two meters tall with huge muscles bulging all over his body while his skin was its usual bronze color. He had blonde hair now while his pupils were black. The beard on his face was cleanly shaven. He looked like a handsome hunk who was 25 years old at the most.

The once-dark gold armor that was attached to his body was pitch-black and it flaunted his body even more now.

Lin Huang sensed the explosive power coming inside of Tyrant's body unquestionably. Although he was only two meters tall, his real flesh was tens of thousands of meters tall. His power was condensed in each cell of his body.

"Not bad! You're much more powerful now."

Tyrant smirked while scratching the back of his head, feeling bashful.

"I'm sorry that I'll have to seal you guys for a while. I'll release all of you as soon as I've elevated to imperial level." Lin Huang patted Tyrant's shoulder.

Tyrant's body soon began to fade and turned into a card.

Lin Huang looked at the back of the card in his hand right away.

"Monster Card: Tyrant

"Rarity: Mythical-level

"Monster Name: Genie Combat God

"Type of Monster: Archaic-type (Pure Blood) / Celestial Giant Tribe

"Nickname: Combat God

"Combat Level: Imperial-level Yellow Gold-rank

"Major: Combat God Dao, Martial Dao

"Major Skills: Combat God Technique, Combat God Power, Combat God Rage, Combat God Ax…

"Minor Skills: Divine Regeneration, Physical Immunity…

"Summon Authority: Denied (To be activated when you reach imperial level)

"Card Remarks: Trainable!"

Lin Huang put the card back into his body after reading Tyrant's card description. He turned his head and looked at the last golden egg far away for a while before glancing away.

"Bai won't complete his elevation so soon. The materials he digested were a few times more than the standard amount so it will delay the digesting time," Bloody explained while smiling upon noticing Lin Huang's behavior.

"I know." Lin Huang nodded.

He said nothing more. In reality, he was rather worried that Bai would elevate abnormally. The reason being was that he had asked Xiao Hei a couple of days ago if there would be any side effects if Bai used too many integrated materials. Xiao Hei said that the material amount recommended by the system was the best suggestion. Too much or too few might cause the elevation to fail.

Time passed by and another week passed. It was the 18th day since Lin Huang entered the Abyss Brink.

Early in the morning, he finally heard a soft crack.

Before Lin Huang managed to wash up, he got out of the tent immediately and looked at the very last golden egg hearing the cracking noise.

He confirmed what he heard was not an illusion upon noticing a tiny hair-line crack on the golden egg.

After washing up, he took his time to finish his breakfast and put the tent that he had been sleeping in for more than half a month away. He then sat on the rocks while waiting for Bai to complete his elevation patiently.

Nobody knew if it was the eggshell that was extra hard or some other reason, but the cracking of Bai's golden egg was significantly slower than Tyrant's and the rest. The golden eggshell finally broke completely and turned into beams of light that penetrated into Bai's body a full three hours later.

Bai took a step forward and arrived before Lin Huang after he completed his elevation.

He did not undergo a major change in terms of appearances. His hair remained white but his eyes were completely bloody red now. There was a red crystal in between his brows that was the size of a thumb while a thin layer of bloody mist lingered around his body.

The black robe he was wearing changed from pure black to crimson patterns that looked like divine patterns. The crimson patterns looked like living things as they were flowing slowly.

Bai's bloody eyes turned back to black when he trained his eyes on Lin Huang. The blood crystal in between his brows sunk back into his skin automatically, disappearing. The bloody mist lingering around his body also faded quickly. Even the crimson patterns on his black robe stopped flowing as if they were just ordinary patterns now.

What puzzled Lin Huang was that he did not sense a powerful aura from him like Tyrant and the rest had. To be exact, he did not sense any cultivator's aura from Bai. It was as if he was just an ordinary person without any cultivation.

"What happened to your aura?" Lin Huang asked while thinking how odd it was.

"I'm hiding it," Bai explained while smiling, "The effect of elevation this time is so amazing that it's out of my expectations."

What he said puzzled Lin Huang even more in the end.

Just when he wanted to probe further, Bai's body began collapsing. Soon, he turned into a golden card hovering mid-air.

Lin Huang was stunned to see the color of the card.

A mythical-level Monster Card was orange in color but Bai's card was golden. From what Lin Huang knew, only a supreme god-level Monster Card would be gold in color.

He stretched out to pick up the card and turned it over to read right away.

"Monster Card: Bai

"Rarity: Supreme God-level (Pseudo)

"Monster Name: Vampire King

"Type of Monster: Fallen God's Blood (Pure Blood) / Blood Demon Tribe

"Nickname: Vampire

"Combat Level: Imperial-level Yellow Gold-rank

"Major: Blood Bond

"Major Skills: Almighty Vampire Particles, Blood Moon, Blood Demon secret skill, Blood Demon Realm…

"Minor Skills: Flesh Regeneration…

"Summon Authority: Denied (to be activated when you reach imperial level)

"Card Remarks: Recommended to train with maximum effort!"

Lin Huang was a little dizzy just looking at the hundreds of skills in Bai's skill slots. There were quite a number of skills that made him envious when he took a glance at them.

"Almighty Vampire Particles

"Function 1: Evolved from Vampire Particles. It can imitate any form as well as constructing any form from one's imagination as long as it doesn't defy the law of physics.

"Function 2: The owner of the skill can read all information about another living thing on the gene level from their blood. It gives the owner of the skill the ability to imitate the subject perfectly (unable to imitate living things possessed by high-level owners)

"Function 3: The owner of the skill with the living thing's blood can influence and assimilate the subject, and turn it into his Blood Servant. The maximum efficiency would be assimilating a living thing of the same combat strength as the owner of the skill.

"Blood Moon: A Blood Moon can be consolidated from Blood Power and Divine Power coming from the owner's body. Every living thing that the moon shines on within the territory will turn into Blood Servants (only applicable to living things with combat strength and level lower than the owner of the skill)"

"Flesh Regeneration: As long as the owner of the skill has 1% of flesh left on his body, he can be resurrected using the remaining portion of flesh."

Apart from these skills, there were a couple more in the Blood Demon secret skill that made Lin Huang envious.

"Blood Demon Embodiment: An Embodiment made of Blood Power and Divine Power. The embodiment will possess 80% of the owner of the skill's abilities and most of the owner's skills. As long as the owner's Blood Power and Divine Power are available, the embodiment can be consolidated over and over again no matter how it is killed.

"Blood Power Extraction: The owner of the skill with any injuries at all can use this skill to extract all living things' blood within his territory and turn it into Blood Power for healing (only applicable to living things with a combat strength and level lower than the owner of the skill)

"Bloody Sacrifice: The owner of the skill can use this skill to sacrifice a massive amount of living things within his territory to acquire temporary level elevation (the sacrificial lives must have a combat strength and level lower than the owner of the skill. The maximum elevation with this skill is one level higher)

"Stealthy Blood: Hide all life aura and transform oneself into a drop of blood to go completely stealthy".

"What's wrong? Any there issues on Bai's elevation?" Bloody could not help but ask when it saw Lin Huang staring at the card silently for a long time.

As his summoning beast, it could not see the card. However, it knew Lin Huang was looking at Bai's card details.

"Nothing." Lin Huang just snapped back to his senses. He put Bai's card away and shook his head while smiling. "Bai elevated to pseudo-supreme god-level directly. Some of his skills are very impressive."

"He elevated to pseudo-supreme god-level directly?!" Bloody gasped. It was clearly surprised. "Man, I'm envious!"

"There's no need to be envious of him. All of you will elevate to supreme god-level as long as you follow me. It's just a matter of time," Lin Huang assured with full confidence.

"A mythical-level quadruple mutated monster is already a legendary figure. It's a little hard for me to imagine how powerful would a quintuple mutated supreme god-level monster be." Bloody was in awe.

Lin Huang thought it was funny as he watched it. Bloody was usually extremely rational, so it was rare for it to take that much interest in something.

Since the mission of elevating his summoning beasts was completed, Lin Huang's goal of coming to the Abyss Brink this time had come to a perfect end. He could even say that it was more than what he bargained for.

Apart from learning about God Bless which was considered to be bad news, overall, the trip was rewarding.

Not only did he obtain a massive amount of cross-ranking kill rewards and six complete legendary-level Monster Cards, but he even acquired sufficient demigod soul crystals to elevate seven of his God Figurines' Combat Souls to imperial-level purple gold-rank. Lastly, he learned how to elevate himself to imperial-level and even obtained 32 broken Godheads that could be used as elevation material.

Lin Huang called out to Bloody after recalling Grimace who was in charge of setting up the illusion and the God Figurine's Combat Soul Undead Styx that was in charge of guarding, "Let's go!"

Bloody snapped back to its senses and returned to Lin Huang's sleeve immediately.

Lin Huang then summoned a Dimensional Portal and stepped into it.

Lin Huang returned to Wanbao City as soon as he came out of the Abyss Brink. However, he did not stay in a hotel this time. Instead, he headed straight to the Wanbao City dimensional portal.

He had lunch and waited for almost two hours before entering the dimensional portal heading to Bronze Crow City.

No. A17 foothold, Bronze Crow City, was one of the two grade-A footholds which the underground organization Purple Crow terrorized in Division 3.

The reason he went there was that he had a massive amount of storage equipment that he needed Yang Ling to unlock for him.

Since he had storage equipment from the great world and other mini worlds, Yang Ling could not unlock them for him from a distance because he would need the storage equipment with him. As a result, Lin Huang could only make the trip to get it done.

He informed Yang Ling that he would visit when he had just gotten out of the Abyss Brink more than two hours ago.

A middle-aged man walked toward him not too far away just when Lin Huang opened the map after coming out of the dimensional portal.

"Brother, do you need accommodation?" asked the man who smirked while speaking through voice transmission, "We offer our special services."

Speechless, Lin Huang did not expect this world to have such a soliciting technique too.

"It's alright. I've already booked a hotel."

"We have everything here. Young ladies or mature women, pick anyone you like. You definitely won't have such service at those usual hotels," continued the man through voice transmission.

"Thanks, I don't need that." Lin Huang waved to reject him outright.

However, just when he was going to key in the name of the hotel on the map, the man spoke through voice transmission again, "If you don't like girls, we have men too. Young boys and old men, you can pick anyone you like. 16 to 60 years old, we have everything."

Lin Huang blocked the voice transmission speechlessly while keying the hotel name in. After setting the coordinates, he hovered into the sky directly, leaving an explosion as he took off.

The middle-aged man turned around after watching Lin Huang leave. He shook off the wretched expression on his face and walked into an alley. He dialed a number after clicking the communication page on his Emperor's Heart Ring.

"I saw Lin Xie. He's going to the Phoenix Hotel now."

A voice came behind him as soon as he was done speaking. "Are you talking about me?"

The middle-aged man turned around stiffly and realized that it was Lin Huang behind him. "You…"

"I already knew that you're not some motel owner as soon as I saw you, let alone some pimp," Lin Huang said while smiling.

The reason he said that was because the Nightmare Tapir who mastered spiritual force could clearly sense bad intention from anyone. The moment the man locked eyes with Lin Huang, the Nightmare Tapir in his body sensed his evil intentions and informed him immediately.

Subsequently, Lin Huang released the God Figurine's Combat Soul, the Nightmare Tapir, to pull the man into dreamland. Everything was just an illusion, from him speaking to Lin Huang to seeing him leave and informing his senior about Lin Huang's arrival.

In reality, the man had just taken a step toward Lin Huang's direction whereby he had yet to even speak to the latter.

Naturally, him speaking to Lin Huang at the moment was an illusion too. It was the Nightmare Tapir who projected the dreamland for Lin Huang, giving him the opportunity to participate in the dreamland.

In the dreamland, the plot went on.

"If I'm not mistaken, you must be someone from God Bless." The middle-aged man's heart jolted when he heard what Lin Huang said. He did not expect his organization to be exposed.

'No, I must send out the news about Lin Xie knowing about the organization. I'll get the higher management to kill him immediately!' He covered his sleeve with his hand while composing a message using telekinesis secretly in his sleeve.

He was relieved when he noticed that Lin Huang did not seem to realize he was sending the message out. However, he had no idea that whatever he was doing in the dreamland was futile.

"You must be a professional intel to be playing tricks before me!" Even Lin Huang admired the man's professionalism when he noticed the man's secret trick.

"So what if you've found out? I've already sent the message out. You can't change the truth even if you killed me." The middle-aged man seemed to be fearless of death at all. His eyes were filled with disdain when he stared at Lin Huang.

"Thanks for making me understand something. I can't underestimate anyone in God Bless." Lin Huang assigned the man the death penalty as soon as he was done speaking. "You may rest in peace."

A flying dagger shot out of his sleeve as soon as he concluded with that sentence. It pierced through the man's head, penetrating the air tens of times faster than the speed of sound.

The head of the middle-aged man, whose combat strength was only mid-level immortal-level, exploded like a watermelon. He did not have time to respond at all.

When he was pulled out of the dreamland back to reality, the middle-aged man collapsed onto the ground all of a sudden and he was pronounced dead.

Lin Huang walked past the body without stopping at all, as if the person's death had nothing to do with him.

However, he secretly used his Divine Telekinesis to steal the Emperor's Heart Ring on the person's finger silently.

Many people surrounded the body after he took a few steps away. He left the crowd without any reaction and walked to an alley hundreds of meters away.

The Nightmare Tapir transferred the information it had retrieved to Bloody in the alley. Bloody then shared the information to Lin Huang after it was done organizing the data.

Lin Huang could not help but frown after looking at the middle-aged man's memory.

"Why did the people from God Bless come to Bronze Crow City?"

From the middle-aged man's memory, all he could see was that most of the higher management from both God Bless branches in Division 3 came to Bronze Crow City two days ago. However, since the middle-aged man was just a normal spy with extremely low authorization, he had no idea what the two branches were doing in the city at the same time. His responsibility was just to monitor the situation around the dimensional portal.

"If I'm not mistaken, it must be something to do with the Purple Crow. You can take a look at the underground organization forum whether the Purple Crow has been up to something recently," Bloody speculated.

Lin Huang looked at the forum immediately and saw a piece of news that the Purple Crow posted a few days ago. He came to a realization after reading it.

'So, the Purple Crow is electing its Crow Spirit!'

Lin Huang was familiar with the Crow Spirit. He had learned from Hong Zhuang earlier that the Crow Spirit was the Purple Crow's Holy Son or Virgen on the surface, but in reality, they were the Crow God's vessel in the world.

Among the candidates, the Crow Spirit who was eventually selected would have his or her consciousness wiped away by the Crow God. The Crow God would take the body and make it its puppet completely.

'So, Hong Zhuang is here to elect the Purple Crow's Crow Spirit?' Lin Huang could not help but think of that possibility. He could not figure out why she would come to Bronze Crow City that was not considered a tourism city instead of any other foothold in Division 3.

'Forget it, I don't care. What that lady does has nothing to do with me. I'm just here to get Yang Ling to help me unlock those stuff. I'll leave right after that instead of causing trouble.' Lin Huang shook his head and pushed the thought out of his head. He turned off the webpage on his Emperor's Heart Ring and hovered into the air. Then, he flew toward the Phoenix Hotel.

Getting to the 81st floor using the elevator, Lin Huang walked along the corridor on his right. He stopped when he arrived at Room 023. Then, he knocked on the door.

A moment later, the door opened. It was a familiar person at the door — Hong Zhuang.

Hong Zhuang had a short, chin-length bob while her fringe grazed above her brows. There was not much makeup on her face and she looked 20 years old at the most. She was at least five years younger compared to the time when Lin Huang saw her for the first time.

She dressed very casually in a white t-shirt and a pair of blue and white jeans. The bottom of her jeans was rolled up, showing her fair ankles. She wore a pair of blue and white sneakers.

Even Lin Huang was doubting whether this lady was Hong Zhuang at a first glance. However, she clearly did not recognize him.

"You're the client Yang Ling mentioned, aren't you? I'm Yang Ling's friend. Please come in," Hong Zhuang greeted him in a friendly manner.

Lin Huang had just snapped back to his senses and quickly spoke to cover his looking lost earlier, "I can't believe that guy managed to find such a beautiful girlfriend."

All Hong Zhuang did was smile, and she did not respond to what he said. "Yang Ling's working on something in the reading room. Please take a seat. Can I get you a drink?"

"Tea will do. Thanks." Lin Huang sat on the couch on his own.

Soon, Hong Zhuang came back with a cup of tea. Lin Huang put it on the coffee table after accepting it from her.

He dared not drink the tea Hong Zhuang made. Who knew what that lady would do to him?

"Do you mind if I look around?"

"That's fine. Please go ahead." Hong Zhuang nodded and flashed a kind smile.

'This lady has acting skills that can win her an Oscar,' Lin Huang thought to himself. He stood up and walked towards the balcony outside the living room.

The al-fresco balcony was vast. It was at least 15 meters long and three meters wide. There were two sun beds and a small coffee table on the left. There were also a huge sun umbrella and a swing on the right.

Lin Huang stood on the balcony and peered around. The sceneries within tens of kilometers filled his eyes; there were all tall buildings farther away.

He recalled that the hotel was not in the center of the foothold but was more than 100 kilometers to the west of the center.

As he was staring far away while standing on the balcony, Yang Ling was finished with his thing and returned to the living room. He walked out and noticed Lin Huang on the balcony. "What are you looking at?"

"The sceneries aren't too shabby. It's just that the hotel's a little far away," Lin Huang turned around and commented to Yang Ling with a smile.

Yang Ling was dressed neatly like the last time Lin Huang saw him in the video call. He wore a white t-shirt with dark blue slacks. On his feet, he wore a pair of shiny, black leather shoes. His hair was much shorter now. It reached his earlobes and he even donned a cool hairstyle.

If Lin Huang had not seen how he used to look like, it was hard for him to imagine how messy and lazy this guy's old life was.

"Hong Zhuang doesn't like crowded places." Yang Ling walked next to Lin Huang and looked into the distance.

"How's the progress now?" Lin Huang asked while smiling.

"She rejected my proposal." Yang Ling shook his head while forcing a wry smile. "Now, we're just friends. That's the farthest we can go."

"How did she reject you?" Although Lin Huang expected that, he wanted to know how Hong Zhuang rejected Yang Ling.

"She said she's someone horrible and that she's no match for me. She told me that she only approached me so that I could help her to look for someone."

"Who is she looking for? Can you tell me?" Lin Huang proceeded to ask.

Yang Ling glanced at Lin Huang and took out a packet of cigarettes. He shoved one into his mouth. "She's looking for her brother."

Lin Huang perked a brow. He recalled Hong Zhuang mentioning her brother, but he thought it was just something that she made up. However, now it seemed like it might really be the truth.

"So… Did you find him?"

"No. If I had, we wouldn't have come to Bronze Crow City." Yang Ling shook his head.

"Is there a clue that her brother is here?"

"No clue, but there's something here that could possibly help us look for her brother," Yang Ling said before adding "I can't tell you what it is exactly."

"Alright then." Lin Huang did not proceed to ask.

"Did you bring the stuff?" Yang Ling changed the subject directly.

"Yep." Lin Huang took the temporary storage ring that he had prepared earlier out. He had been putting the storage equipment that required unlocking which he had collected over the course of time in the temporary storage ring. There were various coded storage equipment from the great world and the mini-worlds as well as Emperor's Heart Rings from the gravel world.

"They're all inside?" Yang Ling took the temporary storage ring.

"They're all in there," Lin Huang confirmed.

Yang Ling could not help but raise his brow after taking a quick look. "That looks like more than plenty."

"There are a total of 413,628 storage rings and a total of 827 different types of storage equipment," Lin Huang reported the data. Naturally, it was not him who calculated that, but it was Bloody that did.

"You're so detailed in calculating." Yang Ling grinned but become serious later on. "There's something that I must clarify with you. At least half of these storage equipment you brought are old. There are even some antiques that have existed for millions of years. Even if I manage to unlock them, I think there is nothing useful in them. However, I'll definitely charge the unlocking fee according to the number and types of items. The most I can do is to waive the commission if the unlocked items are useless. Of course, I can give you a 20% discount for all the items. You're my old client, after all."

"No problem." Lin Huang nodded to show that he understood, but subsequently voiced his doubt, "However, I have a question. How do you tell that these storage equipment coming from the great world and other mini-worlds are old? How do you manage to distinguish that some models are over millions of years?"

"Well…" Yang Ling rolled his eyes around in a cheeky way and said while smirking, "Of course, I have my ways."

Yang Ling beating around the bush made Lin Huang think that he might have been to other mini worlds and even to the great world. However, since he was unwilling to share more, it was meaningless for him to proceed with the question.

"Roughly when can you get it done?"

"I'll try my best to finish them within a few days."

"Alright then. I'll only leave when you're done."

Initially, Lin Huang thought of returning to Wanbao City first if Yang Ling needed a long time to unlock the storage equipment. He thought of finding a cultivation room to visualize the True Spirits. He would go back to Yang Ling when he was done visualizing the last three God Figurines' Combat Souls. However, since Yang Ling said he could get it done in a few days, Lin Huang thought he would just stay for a few days and leave when Yang Ling was done with the unlocking.

"Just treat this as a vacation and travel around for a few days," Yang Ling said with a grin, "I'll inform you as soon as I'm done with them."

"Sure." Lin Huang nodded in a straightforward manner. "I shan't disturb you guys then."

He patted Yang Ling's shoulder and turned around to head to the living room. Suddenly, Yang Ling's voice came from behind when he was arriving at the door. "Bronze Crow City might be a little chaotic lately. Please be careful."

Lin Huang stopped walking when he heard that warning. He thought of Hong Zhuang and the Purple Crow.

Hong Zhuang happened to walk out of the bedroom at that very moment. Seeing that Lin Huang was leaving, she said with a smile, "You're leaving already? Be careful on your journey."

Her tone was so gentle that she sounded like someone else.

Lin Huang turned around to take a glance at her. Since he could not see any flaws on her face, he nodded while smiling. "I will."

He then opened the door and left.

The Phoenix Hotel was located in a rather remote area whereby there were no decent shopping malls around. Lin Huang thought about it. He figured that he would be staying there for a few days since it would be more convenient for him to stay somewhere more crowded. Eventually, he did not stay at the same hotel as Yang Ling did. Instead, he found a hotel in the central zone of the foothold a hundred meters away.

The hotel that he picked was called the Homing Hotel. It was located in the most bustling zone of the Bronze Crow City. The biggest business district of the city was just downstairs. There was everything from food to entertainment, and it was crowded.

Lin Huang did not enjoy the crowd; he just wanted convenience.

Although he would most probably stay in the hotel to practice his sword skills these few days, he did not want to rule out the sudden urge to take a look outside. Moreover, even if he was going to order delivery in, the choice of food around the Homing Hotel was much wider compared to the hotel Yang Ling was staying at.

Just when he had checked in at the front desk, he could not help but raise his brow when he saw the people who were walking out of the elevator. He turned around naturally and began talking to one of the guests in an attempt to be friendly.

"Uncle, your jacket is pretty cool. Where did you get it?"

The man was an uncle who looked over 60 years old and was dressed rather fashionable. He was excited to hear Lin Huang ask about his attire.

"You've sharp eyes, kid. I designed and made it myself…"

Lin Huang nodded and smiled as he listened to the uncle ramble on about the story and process of making clothes.

He only interrupted the man's story when the people who walked out of the elevator left the hotel and were nowhere in sight. "I'm sorry, uncle, I thought of something that I need to do all of a sudden. I'll talk to you some other time."

"Our old man can't stop talking whenever he talks about making clothes. Ignore him, kid. Go do your stuff." The woman who looked like she was in her 50's next to the uncle patted her companion's shoulder, signaling him to stop talking.

"It's great that you have something you're passionate about," Lin Huang said while smiling. He walked to the elevator after saying goodbye to the couple.

When he walked into the elevator, he squinted slightly.

"Never would I have thought that I'd be staying at the same hotel with the people from God Bless. Hmm, this is interesting."

The few people who walked out of the elevator earlier were God Bless members. The reason Lin Huang recognized them at first glance was that there had been tons of information about them in the memory of the middle-aged man who was monitoring the dimensional portal, including their appearances.

Lin Huang picked the room on the 188th floor, which was the top floor of the Homing Hotel.

The elevator finally arrived at the 188th floor after traveling upward for almost half a minute.

Soon, he found his room and entered after swiping the key card.

He called out to Bloody right after he shut the door, "I saw people from God Bless."

"Me too," Bloody said after coming out of Lin Huang's sleeve, "A demigod and two imperial-level purple gold-rank members."

"The demigod is called Shen Yu. He's the person-in-charge of God Bless's second branch in Division 3. The other two imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses are members from the second branch too. According to the man's memory, there were one demigod and four imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses from the second branch this time. There should be another two imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses guarding at the hotel."

"I think we can eavesdrop on what exactly they're up to in Bronze Crow City." Lin Huang grinned.

"I thought you didn't want to create trouble." Bloody could not help but ask, "Didn't you say that you'd leave right after Yang Ling was done with the unlocking and that you wanted nothing to do with this?"

"Since we're staying in the same hotel, it doesn't matter if I eavesdrop conveniently." Lin Huang replied righteously, "Since I'm bored these few days, I'll just treat it as story time."

"Do it your way then. They'll find out about my Leech Pods," Bloody said feeling a little helpless.

"They wouldn't find out about us as soon as we cast parasites on them." Lin Huang smirked.

"What do you mean? Did you find out which rooms they're staying in?"

"I scanned the two imperial-level purple gold-rank members who are guarding in the hotel with Divine Telekinesis." Since Lin Huang knew how the duo looked like, he found out about their coordinates simply with his Divine Telekinesis. "They're staying in the king suite on the 100th floor. There's a huge viewing aquarium in the living room with quite a number of fish monsters in it."

"Indeed, they won't find out about the parasites if we cast them on the fish monsters. The energy wave in the monsters will mask the Leech Pods' energy wave," Bloody explained, "But the problem is, they'll find out about my Leech Pods in the process of casting the parasites. You must know that the radius of an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse's territory is over 100 kilometers. They can clearly sense it whenever there's an energy wave that's out of the ordinary within the range of their territory."

The Territory skill was slow in detecting idle objects, they would simply appear as clouds of black silhouettes. Including human and monsters, their faces could not be seen; only their shapes could be projected. However, a moving object's trajectory course could be easily captured. Including energy waves, it was as glaring as a beam of light in the dark when the Territory skill was unleashed.

The reason Bloody could not use its Leech Pods was that they contained a tiny amount of energy. Though tiny, they drew attention just like fireflies within a powerhouse's territory. Bloody could block the detection if the person's combat strength was lower than itself. However, they were going up against imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses. The powerhouses would definitely find out as soon as Bloody released its Leech Pods.

"If we can't do direct parasitization using Leech Pods, we might be able to do it another way." Lin Huang squinted slightly. "For instance, through the hotel staff… I remember you have an infectious parasite ability, don't you?"

"I think I know what we should do now." Lin Huang's suggestion made Bloody's eyes light up as it came up with a plan immediately.

After discussing through voice transmission, Lin Huang activated his Emperor's Heart Ring and called the front office of the hotel.

"Hi, Mr. Lin. May I know if there's anything that we can assist you with?" sang a sweet front desk attendant's voice.

"The toilet in my bathroom is clogged. Please get someone to fix it now," Lin Huang answered while sitting on the couch.

"Is your room number No. 188021?"

"Yes."

"Sure, I'll make the arrangements right away."

"Thanks."

In less than three minutes after the conversation with the front desk attendant, someone rang his door.

A young man asked with a smile after Lin Huang opened the door, "Hi, are you Mr. Lin? Did you call about the clogged toilet?"

"Oh, yes. Please come in." Lin Huang nodded and extended his hand.

The young plumber was stunned, but he shook Lin Huang's hand anyway.

While they shook hands, Bloody's tentacle stretched from his sleeve and tapped on the plumber's palm lightly. The plumber turned into a parasitical puppet right away.

Then, Bloody controlled the plumber to stroll into the living room while Lin Huang closed the door.

It only took a moment for Bloody to read all of the plumber's memory.

"The virus parasite that I'm using is a microbial-level parasite. There's no energy reaction, but it can only be contracted through skin contact," Bloody explained to Lin Huang through voice transmission, "I can control this young man to infect the other hotel staff he knows. The parasite's pathogen will spread continuously from him, so it should take less than an hour to infect all of the staff in the hotel."

"Yes, the first step has been very successful. Let's proceed with the rest of the plan that we discussed." Lin Huang nodded. He could not help but secretly be in awe with how terrifying the parasite species of monster could be.

In the staff toilet at the Homing Hotel, a middle-aged man lit up a cigarette for himself at the urinal. He unzipped his pants slowly and began peeing.

At the moment, a young man walked in. It was the plumber who had just left Lin Huang's room not long ago.

"Brother Wang, you're smoking in the toilet again." The plumber greeted him with a wry smile and stood at the urinal on the right of the middle-aged man.

"Well, I can't smoke anywhere else," the middle-aged man responded unclearly while dragging on the cigarette.

"Give me a puff," said the plumber who turned his head while smiling.

"Didn't you quit?" Although the middle-aged man asked that, he passed the cigarette from his mouth anyway.

"I told Xiao Wen that I quit, but how could I ever quit?" The plumber took the cigarette and accidentally touched the person's finger…

…

The security officer walked out of the toilet and walked toward the security room.

A bunch of young men in the security room projected the pages of their Emperor's Heart Rings. Some were playing games, some were watching videos while some were binging on dramas.

They shut their Emperor's Heart Ring pages in panic when Old Wang entered.

"You bunch of bastards sure are lazy. It's working hours, yet all you guys care about is having fun!" Old Wang slapped their heads lightly one after another.

…

A young security guard walked toward the front desk in the hotel lobby while a female attendant was flushed upon seeing him walking over.

The rest of the female attendants were waiting for a good show to begin.

"Why did you come? It's working hours now," said the female attendant softly when she saw the security guard arrive before her.

"They've just started to sell red plums on the market. I got you some and I've already washed them." The security guard took a box of red plums out from under his shirt and handed it to the female attendant. "I wanted to pass it to you after work, but I remembered you didn't really eat at lunch. I brought it to you, figuring you might be hungry later."

"I have snacks here. I can eat them to fill my stomach if I'm really hungry. Don't come here during working hours again. It's inappropriate if the manager sees us." Flustered, the female attendant accepted the fruit box.

The security guard pinched her hand mischievously and only let go a moment later.

…

At the front desk, the female attendant Xiao Li watched her security guard boyfriend leave while blushing.

"Xiao Li, I bought you red plums and they're washed," a female attendant ridiculed her by imitating the security guard boyfriend's tone earlier.

"You're showing off much earlier than usual today," the other female attendant teased while smiling.

"I want a boyfriend too. I want one who'd send me food every day," whined a female attendant with a puffy face while looking envious.

"Let's try how these fresh red plums taste." Xiao Li opened the box and grabbed a few for everyone. She passed them around by wrapping the red plums in serviettes.

…

In the hotel room No. 188021, Bloody nodded to Lin Huang half an hour after sending the plumber out. "Over 90% of the staff are infected now. We've completed the preliminary work, so we can go on with the next step now."

"Let's do it." Lin Huang nodded.

A moment later, Xiao Li the female attendant called a number using the hotel line at the front desk.

The Emperor's Heart Ring of a God Bless man with a buzz-cut began vibrating all of a sudden. He tapped the communication page open and picked the call up, seeming a little puzzled after realizing that it was the hotel front desk calling.

"Hi, this is the front desk. May I know if you're the guest from Room No. 100003?"

"What's up?" asked the man while frowning a little.

"Oh, it's just a small matter. Today is the day we do our monthly aquarium cleaning for the king suites. Our staff will go to your room later to change the water in the aquarium. The process might take approximately 20 minutes. I hope that it won't disturb you. If you're not okay with this, we can transfer you to another room with a clean aquarium."

"What's wrong?" asked the short, buff man next to him.

"The front desk said they're coming to change the aquarium water. It's the official aquarium-cleaning day today," replied the man with the buzz-cut.

"Oh, no wonder I sensed staff going into a couple of rooms on this floor earlier."

The man with the buzz-cut recalled sensing something like that within the range of his territory earlier. He said to the front desk, "We don't need to change rooms, but please be quick with the cleaning."

"Sure, we'll make the arrangements right away. It's our pleasure to be at your service."

Approximately two minutes later, the doorbell of Room 100003 rang.

The man with the buzz-cut only let his guard down when he opened the door and sensed no cultivator's energy wave from the two young hotel staff in uniform.

"Please clean the aquarium quickly. My boss has a bad temper. He doesn't like being disturbed. It's best that you get it done by seizing the opportunity since he's not here."

"Sure, we'll get it done as soon as we can."

The man with the buzz-cut closed the door and walked to the balcony for a puff. However, he was facing the living room to watch the two young men work.

The staff used a net and another used his hand to scoop the fishes out one after another before putting them into a temporary tank.

These fish monsters seemed to have gotten used to such a routine, so they did not struggle at all.

After scooping all the fishes out, the duo removed the plug at the bottom to release the water. Later on, they began cleaning the inside of the tank with tools such as the water gun.

The man with the buzz-cut lost his interest when he watched them to this point. He turned around and looked outside the hotel.

Approximately 15 or 16 minutes later, the aquarium was filled with water again as the fishes were slipped back in one after another.

The duo put the tools away and wiped the floor completely dry. They then informed the man with the buzz-cut that they were done and left.

"There's nothing to be nervous about. The two of them are just ordinary people. They were just doing their job all the way and they did not do anything else," reported the short, buff man as he walked into the living room with a grin. "Look, the water in the aquarium is so much cleaner now."

"I wasn't nervous. I was just being cautious." The man with the buzz-cut snubbed the cigarette out with his fingers and walked straight into the living room. He shuffled into the kitchen, took out a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and popped it open with his thumb. Then, he took a big gulp with his head up.

"Old Lei, we've known each other for say, over 20 years. Don't you think I can't tell whether you're cautious or nervous?" teased the short, buff man while smiling.

The man with the buzz-cut was quiet.

"You escaped from the Purple Crow. The Boss brought you here on purpose. This is a mission against the Purple Crow. He's giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, so don't do anything foolish," the buff man proceeded.

"I've told you countless times. I didn't escape. I went in as God Bless's spy since the beginning," explained the man with the buzz-cut while frowning. "The reason why I was unwilling to come isn't that I still have feelings for them, but I know how scary the Crow God is…"

In Room No. 188021 on the top floor of the hotel, Lin Huang was smirking as he sat on the couch while Bloody projected what was happening in Room No. 100003. In the projection, the conversation between the man with the buzz-cut and the short, buff man was crystal clear.

Shen Yu brought the people back to the hotel when the sky was turning dark.

The man with the buzz-cut and the short, buff man wanted to ask him something, but they decided to keep quiet upon noticing his extremely grim expression.

Shen Yu walked past the living room directly to the balcony. After taking a few deep breaths in, he turned around and headed back to the living room. He asked the few of them, "Tell me, which part of me, Shen Yu, is less than that person surnamed Feng? I've been with God Bless longer than he has and I've gone for more missions than he has. If he didn't obtain a massive amount of God Bloods by kissing as*, I would've beaten him up to the point his mother can't even recognize him!"

The four imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses dared not speak. All they did was listen while standing. Even the man with the buzz-cut hid the beer bottle in his hand behind his back secretly.

"F*ck! He made my team bait while his team went for the loot. Who the hell does this Feng Li think he is?! He's just good at kissing as*! They even asked him to lead the mission this time!"

The four of them listened to Shen Yu vent for over ten minutes without saying anything. Until he had released everything and returned to his room, the long-haired man who came back with Shen Yu asked the man with the buzz-cut and the short, buff man, "Old Lei, Old Cui, have you guys had dinner?"

"Not yet, we were waiting for you guys to come back," The man with the buzz-cut who was addressed as Old Lei took another sip of beer.

"Let's order take-out. I'm sure Boss doesn't want to eat out." The long-haired man glanced at the remaining three of them. "What do you guys feel like eating?"

The few of them named what they craved. He walked to Shen Yu's room after jotting them down.

Old Lei then waved at the bald man who came back with Shen Yu. He asked while lowering his voice, "What exactly happened, Old Wei?"

Old Cui came closer after hearing Lei An's question.

Old Wei peeped at Shen Yu's room. Noticing that Shen Yu did not stop them with the question, he spoke quietly, "Boss Feng is the captain of the mission this time."

A cough came from Shen Yu's room as soon as he spoke. It clearly came from the long-haired man.

Old Wei changed what he was going to say immediately. "As the captain of the mission this time, Feng has three demigods and 20 imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses in his team. He asked our team and Master Li's team to be the bait to get the Purple Crow's attention. As the third team, they'll be hiding in the dark all this time and will only show themselves to get the target in the very last moment. Moreover, he asked both of our teams to be their backups."

"In other words, we're just the bait and they'll take the credit." Old Cui raised his brow.

"There's nothing that we can do. Feng has a good relationship with higher management. They made him the captain of this mission." Old Wei spread his arms while feeling helpless. "Furthermore, we're not the only bait. I'm guessing except himself, everyone else, including the team that he's leading, are the bait too."

"Don't worry about it. Him wanting to go for the target himself is a good thing for us. Believe me. That thing is a curse as soon as you touch it." Old Lei took another sip of his beer.

At the moment, Shen Yu flung the door open all of a sudden. "Lei An, what exactly do you know about the Crow God's Eye?"

"I've already reported whatever I know to the headquarters, but the higher management only sees the benefit and ignored the risk of the item. I emphasized the risk on purpose, but they said I'm just being an alarmist and they ignored me completely!" Lei An had helplessness written all over his face.

"Tell me everything you know." Shen Yu took a step out and appeared before Lei An.

"Sure," Lei An nodded, "I'll give you guys a rough explanation."

"The Crow God of the Purple Crow is a true Protoss. He's on a completely different level from the fake Protoss that attacked us 800 years ago. His combat strength is at least True God-level or even higher."

"Legend has it that the Crow God has a total of 108 eyes with different abilities in each of them. The one that the Purple Crow has is called the Detective Eye. It can see through lies and reveal the truth. It's an extremely rare god item.

"To the Purple Crow, the main function of the Detective Eye is to pick out the Crow Spirit. At other times, it's hardly used apart from in special situations. Only the No. 1 Crow Leader in the Purple Crow's headquarters has the authorization to use it. The rest have very limited knowledge about this god item.

"The reason I said it'll be a curse to the person who takes this item is that the Detective Eye isn't a stand-alone god item. It's connected to the Crow God's will. Although this item isn't necessary the Crow God's eye, it's tightly connected to the Crow God. Cutting off such a connection might trigger the Crow God himself. That's what has been bothering me recently.

"Although it's impossible for the Crow God to come himself, the fury of a True God or higher existence isn't something that we can handle. Nobody knows if the Crow God has an attack tactic that could cross to another realm among the over 100 abilities he possesses.

"Apart from the Crow God's Eye, the Crow Spirit is a gravely dangerous existence too.

"Each Crow Spirit that's been selected from the candidates using the Crow God's Eye will be transformed by the Crow God in an extremely short time. The Crow Spirit will possess a body and spirit that's as powerful as complete-stage demigod-level as well as the Crow God's inheritance. The transformation only takes a few mere minutes.

"The transformed Crow Spirit will possess complete-stage demigod-level abilities. They can even unleash virtual god-level ability when necessary."

"Therefore, if we're still going for the second target which is the Crow Spirit, the only time to do it is the few minutes when the Crow Spirit is being transformed. If we're too early, the Crow Spirit might not be elected yet. If we get there late, the Crow Spirit will become a great obstacle in our mission.

"If we really can't do it, we can only give up the second target. The first target which is the Detective Eye is our first priority," Shen Yu said without thinking twice.

"If we only focus on the first target, indeed, the difficulty of the mission will drop by heaps." Lei An looked at Shen Yu while frowning. "But would Feng agree to this? Judging by his character, I guess it's pretty impossible for him to give up the second target."

"That dumbas*, he might be killed by the Crow God's hand in this mission," Shen Yu condemned, "I really don't understand which part of him does the God's Messenger like."

…

In Room No. 188021 on the 188th floor, Lin Huang watched the entire discussion the few God Bless members had while sitting on the couch. He heard everything the five members said without missing anything.

"So, the Purple Crow's electing the Crow Spirit…" Lin Huang only found out about the reason why God Bless came to Bronze Crow City. He also found out that God Bless had more than two teams. There were three teams in total while one team was in hiding.

"If I'm not mistaken, Yang Ling and Hong Zhuang must be coming for the Detective Eye too!" Soon, Lin Huang recalled Yang Ling telling him that there was something that could help Hong Zhuang find her brother. Looking at the current information he had, the Detective Eye was most probably it.

Lin Huang heard quite a number of secrets through the fish monsters in the hotel room.

He thought he just happened to bump into people from God Bless and was curious about what they were up to. Never had he thought that it would have something to do with the Purple Crow and even involved Yang Ling and Hong Zhuang.

"So, do we stick our noses in this?" Bloody turned its head to ask Lin Huang after they were done eavesdropping on the God Bless members.

"I'm not interested in the Purple Crow's Crow Spirit and that Detective Eye. It doesn't hurt for me to stay to watch the show if time permits." Lin Huang's purpose of going to Bronze Crow City was just to look for Yang Ling to unlock the storage equipment. He planned to return to Wanbao City as soon as he collected the unlocked items so that he could perform closed-door cultivation to visualize the last three True Spirits.

However, he never thought that he would encounter such a matter during his trip to Bronze Crow City.

Lin Huang did not mind staying just to watch if the election of the Purple Crow's Crow Spirit was just a few days away from Yang Ling completing the unlocking. Witnessing a demigod battle was rare. Furthermore, he wanted to know what exactly Yang Ling and Hong Zhuang possessed in order to be fighting for the same target with an organization that was guarded by demigods. Apart from that, he wanted to confirm whether the Crow God, the existence which combat strength was at least as powerful as true god-level, could really attack by crossing realms.

However, if the Purple Crow delayed their election of the Crow Spirit, he did not plan to waste his time there. He was eager to elevate his combat strength and ability since he found out about the condition of the gravel world in the great world as well as the existence of God Bless. No matter how excellent the show was going to be, it would serve no purpose to the elevation of his ability.

"On the other hand, I'm pretty interested in the Detective Eye," Bloody said while smiling, "I've been thinking how it'll work theoretically when the man with the buzz-cut was describing the Detective Eye earlier. The more I listened to him, the more I thought that the thing is more like a medium instead of a god item that comes with detecting functions."

"What do you mean?" Lin Huang's interest was piqued after hearing what Bloody said.

"God items usually form naturally and usually come with only one ability. Even if it contains various abilities, the nature of the abilities are in-line."

"According to that man with the buzz-cut who fit Lei An's initial description, the function of the Detective Eye should be exposing lies and revealing the truth. It makes sense to use this to elect the Crow Spirit.

"However, he mentioned later on that the Crow Spirit that's been elected through the Detective Eye will be transformed by the Crow God. The Crow Spirit will even obtain the Crow God's inheritance. That's strange because the Detective Eye will now become the medium connecting the Crow God and the Crow Spirit.

"This medium function has nothing to do with the detection ability at all. It's two different abilities on the other side of the spectrum."

"It's impossible for a natural god item to possess two completely different abilities. Therefore, I'm suspecting that the so-called Detective Eye doesn't possess detective ability but rather a medium item."

'So, you're saying it's the Crow God who is electing the Crow Spirit instead of the Detective Eye? The Detective Eye's real ability is just a disguised medium?' Lin Huang thought to himself carefully and figured it might be possible. 'So, the Crow God's transformation of the Crow Spirit and the passing on of the inheritance by crossing realms is made possible with this medium too?!'

"The so-called Crow God's Eye should be a gimmick the Purple Crow came up with to disguise the Detective Eye's real function." Bloody nodded. "If I got it right, God Bless's motive of taking this Detective Eye is valid."

"They want to use this medium to connect the great world organization behind them!" Lin Huang declared the motive out loud.

The entire thing went through a painstaking analysis. The more Lin Huang thought about it, the more he thought that Bloody's speculation might really be the truth.

"So, Yang Ling and Hong Zhuang…"

Now that he basically confirmed the Detective Eye had no detection function, Hong Zhuang would not be able to find her brother even if Yang Ling and she were to obtain the god item.

Lin Huang could not help but frown a little when he thought about this.

Bloody's voice came through voice transmission at the moment. "I'm not sure about Yang Ling, but I think Hong Zhuang most probably knew about the truth about the Detective Eye. That lady Hong Zhuang was a core member of the Purple Crow. She escaped from the Purple Crow because she found out about the truth of the Crow Spirit. It's highly possible that she knows the real function of the Detective Eye."

"So, are you saying she's just messing with Yang Ling when she told him that she's looking for her brother so that she could earn his sympathy?" Lin Huang was stunned when he heard that. He thought he was becoming more and more clueless about Hong Zhuang now.

"It's possible, but maybe she's a team with Yang Ling. I can't figure that out at the moment," said Bloody, "But I suggest that it's best you don't trust Yang Ling entirely. He has most probably been to the great world and other mini-worlds."

Lin Huang frowned even deeper now.

When Yang Ling recognized the age of the storage equipment from the other worlds, Lin Huang figured he must have been to the great world and the other mini-worlds. Although Yang Ling had zero cultivator's aura from him and seemed like a completely ordinary person, Lin Huang knew very well that Yang Ling was a traveler who possessed a Goldfinger like he did.

Since Yang Ling came from Earth just like he did, he always felt close to Yang Ling since they came from the same hometown. Though he had his guard up, he never thought that they would be enemies.

Lin Huang was even more puzzled now. He was not even sure if Yang Ling was with Hong Zhuang out of love or if both of them had intentions of their own and were just acting.

"Also, whether Yang Ling knew about the real function of the Detective Eye or not, he's in the same boat with Hong Zhuang now. Knowing the truth or not doesn't change this fact."

Lin Huang thought the entire thing was getting more and more complicated as he delved deeper into it.

In Room 081023 of the Phoenix Hotel more than 100 kilometers away, a couple was having a chat.

"That client of yours with the surname Lin who came earlier looks familiar. I wonder if I've seen him before." Hong Zhuang stood at the reading room and chatted with Yang Ling, pretending to be casual.

"It's not odd that you find him familiar. His name is Lin Xie and he's the No. 1 supreme genius on the Genius Union leaderboard for two years consecutively." Yang Ling gave a short response while working.

"That name… It's a fake identity you made for him, isn't it?"

"Yes," Yang Ling confirmed. He seemed like he was unwilling to reveal his client's confidential information.

"Have you seen his real face before?"

"I haven't. He looked like that since we first met." Yang Ling lifted his head to look at Hong Zhuang while speaking in a rather jealous tone, "Are you interested in him?"

"Stop overthinking. I just find him a little familiar. I'm worried that he's from the Purple Crow," Hong Zhuang explained while smiling.

"Don't worry about it. The Purple Crow won't be able to train such an outstanding guy like him." Yang Ling felt relieved and shook his head with a smile.

"He's just on immortal-level no matter how powerful he is." Hong Zhuang pouted. Clearly, Yang Ling included her in his earlier reference.

Yang Ling raised his brow and thought to himself secretly, 'I bet you've never seen an immortal-level who has managed to kill demigods.'

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about this. The Crow God Ceremony of the Purple Crow will officially take place at 12 a.m. in three days. Are you ready?"

"I'm all set."

It was the second day since Lin Huang arrived in the Bronze Crow City.

"I've unlocked all of the storage equipment. Are you coming to get them now or are you coming over tomorrow?"

It was past 11 at night and Lin Huang had just finished practicing his sword skills and was planning to go to bed. A message popped up on his Emperor's Heart Ring all of a sudden. Naturally, it was Yang Ling who had helped him to unlock the storage equipment and sent him the message.

"I'll be there right away." Lin Huang summoned a dimensional portal as soon as he replied to the message. He then stepped into it.

As he walked out of the dimensional portal a moment later, he arrived at the entrance of Yang Ling's hotel room.

He rang the doorbell and Yang Ling, who was dressed in pajamas, opened the door a while later.

He was surprised to see Lin Huang standing at his doorstep. "How did you come so quickly?"

"I set the coordinates of your hotel room the last time I came."

"Come in then." Yang Ling gestured him to enter.

Lin Huang did not see Hong Zhuang when he entered. However, he sensed someone lying in the bedroom within the range of his territory. He thought to himself, 'She has such a healthy lifestyle!'

"Hong Zhuang is already sleeping. Let's talk in the reading room," Yang Ling lowered his voice and led Lin Huang straight to the reading room.

The reading room was a little messy, but it was clearly much better than where Yang Ling used to work.

Lin Huang glanced through the room without missing anything. He thought Yang Ling had undergone a significant change compared to the past. No matter whether it was his state of mind or personal lifestyle, it was undoubtedly much healthier now.

Looking at those details, it did not seem like he was putting on an act.

Relating to Yang Ling's messy life in the past and the changes he had made since meeting Hong Zhuang, Lin Huang was more convinced that Yang Ling had no idea about Hong Zhuang's real intentions.

Naturally, Lin Huang's guard remained up since Yang Ling hid the fact that he had been to the great world.

After closing the door to the reading room, Yang Ling passed Lin Huang the temporary storage ring he had given him earlier.

"There are a total of 413,628 storage equipment, 133,186 of which can't be unlocked although I've unlocked the rest for you.

"Why can't you unlock them?" Lin Huang asked rather confusedly.

"A minority of them are too old. A part of the storage equipment has decomposed, causing its insides to collapse. As for the rest that failed to be unlocked, it's basically because the deceased's immediate family logged out of the account and transferred the items out. The respective organizations collected the empty storage equipment back."

What Yang Ling said confirmed Lin Huang's suspicions that he had been to the great world even more. Otherwise, it was impossible for him to know about such a log-out process so clearly. However, Lin Huang did not question him any further.

"Thanks. I'll take a look at them when I get back and I'll pay your commission later."

"Lin Xie, I have a favor to ask," Yang Ling hesitated before saying all of the sudden.

"What is it?"

"There are over 300 storage rings among the pieces of storage equipment that come from the great world. I would like one, any one of them. I only want the ring. I don't want anything in it," Yang Ling finally voiced his request, "I can give you a 20% discount on the commission."

"Can you tell me the reason why you want the storage ring?" Lin Huang thought about it and asked directly.

"I can't tell you that. All I can tell you is that it's related to my privacy. It won't harm anyone." Yang Ling stared at Lin Huang as he gave him an explanation that could not really be considered a reason.

Lin Huang fell into silence for a moment and eventually nodded. "Alright then."

To him, it did not hurt to lose one of those storage rings. Furthermore, Yang Ling did not specify which one he wanted whereby Lin Huang could just pick any for them. Even if Yang Ling wanted a specific one among all of them, the probability of him having it was less than 1/300.

Lin Huang used his Divine Telekinesis to detect his temporary storage ring and casually picked a male storage ring. He handed it to Yang Ling after retrieving its contents.

Yang Ling had no objection, so he put the ring on his finger as soon as he took it. He smiled and nodded at Lin Huang. "Thanks."

"I'll make a move now if this is all." Lin Huang put the temporary storage ring away and looked at Yang Ling.

"When do you plan to leave Bronze Crow City?"

"Within these two days. What's up?"

"Nothing. It's just that it'll be chaotic in Bronze Crow City lately, so it's best if you can leave as soon as possible to prevent from yourself from getting into trouble." There was a hidden message in Yang Ling's words as he looked at Lin Huang hintingly.

"I don't usually create trouble, but I'm not afraid of trouble." Lin Huang locked eyes with Yang Ling while speaking cryptically. "If some bastard insists on coming at me, it's his bad day then."

The two of them looked into each other's eyes for a moment and smiled.

"I'm leaving!" Lin Huang waved and summoned a dimensional portal before stepping into it right away.

A moment later, the dimensional portal closed and Lin Huang disappeared. However, Yang Ling mumbled to himself with a sigh as he watched Lin Huang vanish, "I hope this guy won't stick his nose into this…"

Lin Huang sat on the couch and remained silent for a long time when he returned to the hotel room. He knew that his ability was now exposed.

What Yang Ling said earlier clearly meant to urge Lin Huang not to interfere with what was going to happen in Bronze Crow City. It also meant that Yang Ling knew Lin Huang had the ability to interfere.

"How did I expose myself?" Lin Huang took out the temporary storage ring and looked into it with his Divine Telekinesis. He looked through the storage equipment in it one after another.

He soon found out what the problem was. There was Divine Power left behind in some of the storage equipment.

Bringing out the storage equipment, he soon found out the reason of Divine Power remnant was because of the blood on them.

In reality, many storage equipment would have blood on them and Lin Huang basically would not clean them. Nobody knew how long it would take to clean hundreds of thousands of storage equipment one after another. He would usually retrieve the loots and sell the storage equipment on the black market. The black market would clean the storage equipment themselves when they received the storage equipment.

However, the blood on the storage equipment was clearly not regular monster blood. Instead, it was demigod blood, hence the remnant of the Divine Power.

"That's strange. How would these storage equipment have demigod blood? I used the temporary storage ring to keep the storage equipment temporarily. I put those demigod-level monsters carcasses that I killed in Abyss Brink away straight into my Emperor's Heart Ring." Lin Huang thought it was a little odd.

Bloody knew what happened as soon as it heard Lin Huang's soft mumble.

"You must've gotten the blood from the Emperor's Heart Rings you obtained from killing the demigod-level monsters on the third layer of the Abyss Brink. You put the hundreds of Emperor's Heart Rings away in there too. I figured there might be rings used by demigods before and Yang Ling would see through your ability, so I took the time to pick them out before sending them for unlocking. Never did I think I would've overlooked the blood." It was normal for storage equipment to have blood on them. Even Bloody overlooked it when it handled them, thus it did not think of the remnant of the Divine Power.

Such remnant from demigod blood would not last long and would vanish a month later the most. It was easy for Yang Ling to figure that the blood was left behind after killing demigod-level monsters.

"Forget it. Let it be if he finds out." Lin Huang did not want to dwell on it since it had come to this point.

"The Crow God Ceremony is beginning in two days. He must be putting all of his focus on it instead of watching me."

Time flew by and soon two days had passed.

Lin Huang spent the past two days in the hotel room practicing his sword skills. He even handed the task of eavesdropping on the God Bless members to Bloody which relayed the important messages to him.

Apart from learning about the time and venue of the Crow God Ceremony, he did not only learned about the mission this time, but he even heard many God Bless secrets.

The founder of God Bless was called the Master God and his combat strength and ability were unknown. He had been in hiding for hundreds of years and had just come back to take over God Bless again.

That was also the reason why God Bless was active lately all of a sudden.

Below the Master God were four God's Messengers whose combat strength was unknown as well.

However, judging from Shen Yu's respect towards the God's Messengers, the four of them might most probably be virtual god-level powerhouses. Shen Yu was a demigod himself, after all, and only Virtual Gods could make a demigod fear for them.

Then, there were Commanders below the four God's Messengers.

The Commanders were in charge of all of the branches in the entire safety zone. Some safety zones had one Commander while some had a main Commander and a Deputy Commander.

The guy with the surname Feng whom Shen Yu mentioned earlier was Commander Feng Li. He was currently leading God Bless in Division 3, and he managed all three branches in Division 3.

The reason Shen Yu despised him was that the latter who had more experience was supposed to be appointed as the new Commander since the past Division 3 Commander was re-assigned. Never had he thought that Feng Li would appear out of nowhere. Not only Feng Li was given a massive amount of god's blood and elevated to perfect-stage demigod-level despite only going on very few missions, but he was also assigned to be the Commander of Division 3.

Since Shen Yu secretly had the most complaints towards Feng Li, Bloody knew a lot about him.

Almost half of the Commanders from God Bless had the same combat strength as Feng Li whereby they were on perfect-stage demigod-level.

Perfect-stage demigod-level would mean that 100% of the Life Power in the demigod-levels' bodies could transform into Divine Power. On a certain level, such a person was close to Virtual God. Powerhouses on perfect-stage demigod-level would have their flesh and soul washed completely with a sea of Divine Power, practically reaching Virtual God standard. Their ability was comparable with a virtual god-level rank-1 who had just elevated. People would easily mistake their combat strength as a virtual god-level powerhouse by sense.

However, the broken Godhead in their bodies made the construction of God Territory impossible. They could not produce Divine Power naturally, and could only replenish it from external sources.

Below Commanders were the Captains of each branch, which was Shen Yu's current position at God Bless.

All of the Captains of God Bless had demigod-level combat strength; that was the mandatory condition of being a Captain.

God Bless had a couple of branches in the three core safety zones. For instance, Division 3 had three branches while Division 1 and Division 2 had more.

After the Captains came the normal members.

God Bless did not have many members. They were basically on high immortal-level and imperial-level. Each branch had few members with only 20 to 30 members or over 100 members at the most.

Comparatively, God Bless might have more spies allocated in each organization than their members.

Naturally, the spies followed another system that was entirely different from the system Shen Yu and the rest followed. Even the intel branches of each division were unrelated.

Shen Yu only chatted about that with his few underlings once and it was just a short conversation, so Bloody obtained very limited information from that.

Lin Huang frowned when Bloody was telling him that information.

"Are you sure those four God's Messengers are Virtual Gods?" That was the first question Lin Huang asked after hearing what Bloody said.

"It's confirmed. Shen Yu has no respect for this perfect-stage demigod-level Feng Li. Him taking Shen Yu's position aside, Feng Li is just a demigod to him even though he's on perfect-stage demigod-level. He's not as powerful as Shen Yu who could easily get to perfect-stage demigod-level as long as he obtains sufficient god's blood. Therefore, he has no respect for Commanders.

"However, he's always calling God's Messengers 'Master God's Messenger' and dares not cross the line. He clearly respects them. It's impossible for Shen Yu to fear perfect-stage demigod-levels.

"However, according to the cultivation system in our gravel world, it's impossible for someone to elevate to Virtual God." Lin Huang was very much aware of the current cultivation system's flaw. Indeed, just like what the stone tablet said, it was impossible for someone to elevate to Virtual God.

"The current cultivation system can't do that, but what if they're cultivating using the old cultivation system?" Bloody voiced its opinion, "Or maybe they're like Mr. Fu whereby they're Virtual Gods who survived the ancient era?"

"According to historical records, many powerhouses' bodies weren't found during the battle 800 years ago. Perhaps most of them were eaten by monsters but we can't rule out the possibility that there were some Virtual Gods who hid and healed from the battle."

Lin Huang could not argue about what Bloody said because it was indeed possible.

"I personally think that these Virtual Gods elevated by integrating Godheads," the stone tablet voiced its opinion out of the blue.

"Why would you say that?" Lin Huang asked immediately.

"Otherwise, where did the Godheads of Gods who died during the ancient era go when their bodies were found?" The stone tablet was calm as it posed the question.

What the stone tablet said terrified Lin Huang. There might be millions of Gods that died during the ancient era. Even if most of them remained unfound, as long as a minority of the Godheads were found by major organizations, they could manufacture many Gods from there.

"Judging from what you said, it's very possible that the Master God of God Bless is a True God." Lin Huang thought his view of the world was now completely shaken.

He had always thought Mr. Fu was the only God in this gravel world. However, now it seemed like this gravel world was much more dangerous than he imagined.

"If that's the case, fighting God Bless is much more difficult than I expected." Lin Huang looked helpless.

"I was thinking why would God Bless have to be secretive in their missions if they really had such power, especially when Bloody mentioned they might have four Virtual Gods? They could totally wipe out all the organizations in the entire world under the sun, making them the overlord of the gravel world.

"However, now it seems like organizations such as the Union Government and the Hunter Association might have more hidden god-level powerhouses. God Bless doesn't announce their power not because they can't, but because they know very well that there are even more powerful organizations that exist in this world."

Lin Huang soon connected the dots after the stone tablet reminded him about it.

"These god-level powerhouses haven't shown up for hundreds of years. They might've come to an agreement with all the organizations not to reveal themselves. Just like the game theory of deterrent forces that all the countries applied on Earth…"

Late at night, two round red and purple moons hung in the sky like a pair of gigantic beast's pupils in different colors.

The maroon moonlight shone on the blue ocean. Combined with the rumbling of the waves, the layers of mysterious colors rippled.

It was the Tranquil Ocean, a sea that branched out from the east of Peaceful Ocean 5,000 kilometers to the northeast of Bronze Crow City.

At the moment, there were four massive pitch-black airships above the Tranquil Ocean. They were flying towards the central zone of the Tranquil Ocean.

If one were familiar with airships, he would be able to recognize these four airships that looked exactly the same. They were demigod-level supreme motherships — the Midnight God.

The fuselage of the airship was flat while its rear looked like a flatland. Its length exceeded 12,000 meters, making it seem like a supermassive aircraft carrier hovering in the sky.

As a demigod-level supreme mothership, the Midnight God could be sold at a price similar to a god item in the market.

The four airships flew in sequence and soon arrived at the central zone of the Tranquil Ocean. They landed less than 100 meters above the ocean.

Subsequently, the four airships began transforming. Their rears turned into a 90-degree fan-shaped form and connected together perfectly. As the four massive motherships became one, they formed a round platform that was more than 24 kilometers in diameter.

There were over 4,000 dense cannons below the platform that stretched out of the platform, pointing in 360 degrees.

After the transformation was done, more than ten silhouettes in black trench coats appeared on the round platform at the back of the mothership in a flash. There was a white circle in the middle of the black trench coat where a purple crow perched on a dry branch.

Soon, the 13 of them began working.

One of them waved and opened a midnight-black dimensional portal.

A moment later, a gigantic black sharp claw reached out of the portal. The claw alone plugged the entire portal.

"Stop clogging the portal. Come out now," shouted the man who summoned the portal at the monster that stretched its claw out.

The black sharp claw shrunk at a rapid speed as a pitch-black dragon-like creature came out of the portal. It glared at the person who shouted at it, feeling crossed, then looked around. "There's no fight here, Lu Dong. Why did you summon us?"

The second monster crawled out of the portal as soon as he was done speaking. It was a green giant with countless lumps all over its body. Its height was approximately seven to eight meters tall, and it had bulky muscles all over.

"How many times do you want me to tell you not to call me by my name, Big Black? You're my imperial monster. You should have some basic respect toward your master," Lu Dong said with arrogance on his face. He would usually let it go, but many of his colleagues were around to witness the scene.

"Respect, my as*. Since there's no fight here, I'm going back to sleep." The dragon creature named Big Black snorted, turning the air into ice in the next second while the temperature on the platform plunged. He glared at his master and turned around in an attempt to leave.

"Dracaena!" Lu Dong shouted immediately upon seeing him leaving.

Big Black stopped right away while a hint of slyness flashed in his eyes. He swung his head. "300!"

"200! Go back to sleep if you don't want any."

"Deal!" Big Black then turned around.

"Barbecue!" The green giant looked at Lu Dong with a grin. Clearly, he was going to lock a deal down.

"Two tonnes, nothing more!" Lu Dong announced grimly.

The giant nodded immediately.

Another four monsters came out of the portal at the same time and they were grinning at Lu Dong.

Lu Dong glanced at them and looked even gloomier now. However, he said while gritting his teeth, "Give me everything you have today. Those who slack will have their reward taken away!"

Although they put on an amusing show whereby the master was bullied by his imperial monsters, Lu Dong's colleagues did not make fun of him.

All six imperial monsters clearly had demigod-level aura, and it only proved Lu Dong's power as an Imperial Censor.

Moreover, there was a demigod who had teased Lu Dong after seeing a similar situation and he was beaten up by Lu Dong and his six imperial monsters to the point that he was bedridden for half a month.

Given such a severe warning, nobody dared to make fun of Lu Dong.

The six demigod-level imperial monsters began working immediately. Apart from the two that stayed by Lu Dong's side, the remaining four scattered. Two of them flew into the air while another two jumped into Tranquil Ocean to hide.

After the preparations, Lu Dong sat with his legs crossed while watching his 12 colleagues building the altar nearby patiently.

Approximately half an hour had passed. An altar that spanned a kilometer in diameter was erected on the platform at the rear of the airships.

It was 11.50 p.m. by then.

"The power of the Divine Stone is enough to hold up the airship's defenses, isn't it?" The leading middle-aged man glanced at the time and said to the lady next to him, "We'll bring in the Crow Spirit candidates when the defenses are activated."

The lady nodded and disappeared right away.

Soon, a semitransparent defensive layer formed quickly the air above the airship platform, engulfing the entire area.

Looking from far away, the platform at the back of the airships was not the only covered area. There was also a semitransparent membrane overlaying the bottom of the airships without the cannons.

Approximately two to three minutes after the shield was formed, the lady who disappeared and the other man brought ten young people in white robes in through the elevator.

The muscular man who had just arrived was clearly a demigod judging by his aura.

Meanwhile, the young people in white robes were of mixed genders and had different combat strength auras. Six of them were on imperial-level, and the one with the highest combat strength was on imperial-level purple gold-rank. The other three were on high immortal-level. The last one was on holy fire-level, having just stepped into white flame-level.

The leading middle-aged man glimpsed through the bunch of young people in white robes and began speaking, "Being selected as a Crow Spirit candidate is an honor. However, only one among you will be elected as the Crow Spirit, the Crow God's representative in this world. We won't know who'll be elected until the very last moment. The election has nothing to do with your combat strength or ability. The will of the Crow God will determine the final decision.

"For those who aren't selected, don't give up. You're an irreplaceable Purple Crow member. Be diligent in cultivating. You'll still have the opportunity to go for my position as Crow Leader."

The middle-aged man held his head down and looked at the time after he was done speaking. "It's almost time now. Let's begin."