The giant stair sword began shifting in a way that made it look like the stairs were moving on their own. As this was happening, the endless staircase they were on began rumbling and shaking. Small rocks started to fall from above them, landing on top of their heads and shoulders. Bing tried lifting his shield and placing it above their heads to protect against the falling debris but it seems it was unneeded.
"Don't worry! I have everything under control!" Ying shouted.
"Are you sure!?" Bing's fat couldn't stop shaking along with the shaking of the staircase.
Jie held on to Shang's back with one hand and had her sword ready to protect herself in her other hand. Shang held a talisman in between his fingers, ready to activate them at a moment's notice. Bing and the other had no choice but to believe in Ying's words because they had no reason to think that she would lie about something like this! The stairs below them started to move from their original positions.
Previously when they ventured down the dark staircase, it was shaped into a downward spiral. But whatever Ying was doing was somehow controlling the steps themselves. They struggled to balance themselves as the stairs split itself from the rock pillar it was twisting around. Looking down, they could only see darkness below them. Both Bing and Jie shook in fright once they realized that wherever these steps led to definitely wasn't a normal place.
Shang crouched on his floating stair and grabbed one of the falling rocks from above. Taking a deep breath, he tossed the rock down below and placed his ear over the edge of his platform. One second, two seconds, three seconds... Even after 10 seconds had passed, he still couldn't hear the sound of the rock he threw landing.
"Do not fall!" He quickly warned.
"Wasn't planning on it, but thanks anyway!" Bing did everything he could to lighten his body and stay completely still on his floating platform.
He was a big person and with all the width he had, if he made the slightest movement, his floating stair could tilt one way and send him sliding off down below. While he was confident in the toughness of his body, he wasn't crazy enough to think he could survive a fall from this height. Bing couldn't hear any of the pebbles falling from above landing below. It was pretty obvious to say that they were pretty damn high up!
"Ying! How long is this going to take?!" Jie politely shouted, standing as still as a stone sculpture.
Ying's eyes were currently closed as she was doing her best to concentrate on controlling the staircase to make a pathway down below for them and making sure her friends didn't fall to their deaths. Qi control wasn't something she specialized in and it turns out controlling this spirit tool in the form of an infinite staircase took a lot of damn qi control to properly use! Hao Gang even had to step in to support her in controlling the Infinite Staircase but it still wasn't enough to fully connect all of the stairs together to reach the bottom.
"Damn it!" Ying cursed.
Now that Hao Gang has swallowed a piece of the spirit tool, Ying could no longer use her fire qi as long as she held him in her hand. Normally when her anger flares up, she would erupt in flames but now that she was utilizing a very unique type of qi something else happened instead. A small piece of a staircase grew on top of her stair sword. There were originally four steps going upward on her blade but now there were five.
Feeling this change happen to her sword gave Ying an idea... Instead of trying to stupidly control each individual step of this Infinite Staircase, she could just make her own steps by feeding her qi into Hao Gang. But Ying knew she couldn't just stop controlling the staircase yet. Bing, Jie, and Shang were still floating in the air. So, Ying infused a large amount of qi into Hao Gang.
Several steps grew from the tip of her unusual stair blade. Ying pointed her sword downward so that it created a path to the bottom.
"Jump over!" Ying yelled to them.
"Are you sure about this...?" Bing nervously rubbed the back of his head.
"Be a man and jump already!" Ying shouted in response.
Jie, Shang, and Bing all leaped off of their platforms together. Each of them landed on Ying's sword and it wobbled from their combined weight. The veins on Ying's arms revealed themselves as she put more strength into her arms to hold them all up and continue building steps to reach the bottom with. Now that they were all on her sword, she didn't have to bother controlling her qi so carefully. Ying no longer held herself back as she infused most of her qi into the Infinite Staircase Greatsword. Hundreds of steps grew from the tip of the blade in seconds, extending into the deep darkness below.
"Bing! Qi Recovery Cake! Feed me!" Ying ordered.
Bing wasted no time in doing as she asked. He took out a piece of the cake from his storage ring, used his finger to open up Ying's mouth, and placed it on her tongue.
"Sorry about this!" Bing apologized as he was feeding her.
Ying couldn't repress her inner desires despite this life-or-death situation they were going through right now. When Bing's finger touched her lip and he was about to place the cake into her mouth, her tongue gently licked at his fingers before he removed his fingers and left the cake in her mouth.
Heat rushed to her face as she thought how shameful her actions were. Ying was really glad that it was dark in here or everyone would be able to see how badly she was blushing. She quickly chewed the cake as she tried taking her mind off of licking Bing's fingers like a pervert. He wasn't saying anything, so he must have just thought it was an accident, right?
'This must be pretty serious if she needed me to feed her...' Was Bing's only thoughts before he mindlessly licked his finger of the cake icing left on his finger.
'You fat idiot! What are you doing!?' If Ying's face was red before, now it was a deep burning flame.
A floating step bashed itself into Bing's head.
"Ow! Be careful!" Bing rubbed his head, assuming it was only a mistake on Ying's part.
"Don't rush me!" Ying barked back at the perverted fat idiot. There's no way he licked his fingers because she licked his, right? It couldn't be...
"Hey Zhai, do you have a spell that could help her recover her qi faster?" Bing asked.
"I do but it seems like it would be unnecessary." Shang replied.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Bing was a body cultivator. He couldn't sense qi signatures as well as qi cultivators.
"The amount of qi that she is using isn't increasing or decreasing. If she was running low on energy, her qi would be slowly or quickly falling. So, I assume that cake you fed her is doing its job properly." Shang explained.
"So, I guess we wait now, huh?" Jie took a seat on the stairs and took a deep breath.
"I'll get us down eventually. Just wait a bit." Ying told them.
And wait they did. It took around three hours before Ying's staircase extended far down enough to reach the bottom. Every ten minutes, Ying had to feed another piece of the stairs to Hao. The transformation only lasted for ten minutes. Luckily for Ying, there was no resting period before Hao could transform again. Otherwise, they might have been trapped here forever.
Once their path to the bottom was finally completed, they rushed down the steps as fast as possible. They wasted so much time making a way to the bottom, who knows how long they had to loot before the second portion of the test was over. Upon making it to the bottom, they were greeted by blinding gold, weapons, and all sorts of shiny objects, an altar with a bluish-white flame floating over it, and a skeleton draped in luxurious robes sitting on a throne with a brown book in his lap.
"I call the Mystic Flame!" Ying didn't give anyone the chance to react as she shot forward with great speed and grabbed at the floating fireball.
"Well, it's not like anyone else has an affinity for fire here..." Bing rolled his eyes as he headed toward the left gold pile. Specifically keeping his distance from the flame
Jiajia forcefully kept him away from the flame. Her touch was cold like ice but even so, he could feel her claws trembling in fear as she held him. She put on a tough face but he could tell whatever that flame was, terrified her to her core. It even made him a bit uneasy for some reason. His arm broke out in goosebumps and sweat dripped from his skin just by making eye contact with the flame.
"I'll try my luck with the skeleton..." Shang walked towards the throne.
"I'll see what's in this pile then." Jie took the right gold pile.
"Huhuhuhu... So, you wish to take my treasure, is that it?" A disembodied voice playfully laughed from above them.
Ying was the only one out of the three unable to react to the disembodied voice coming from above them. Bing froze like a statue when he felt the pressure descending on his round body. His thick hands that were grabbing at the piles of gold and spiritual objects halted mid-air. Jiajia glared at the voice above him with her claws growing in length. Jie reacted in a similar manner to Bing but with her sword at the ready to be used to defend herself. Shang placed a talisman on himself that ignited and created a qi bubble around himself.
"To think that I, the Demon God Thief, would find my end in such a cursed placed..." The voice sighed. "So, you want my treasure is that it? You want the treasure of a godly thief that managed to cause empires to go mad because of his stealing skills? It does make sense. The tomb of a godly thief such as myself would cause multiple empires to go crazy trying to rob it. There are many precious royal heirlooms and the like inside here but how could I just let you take it for free?" The voice's tone had some playfulness to it. "Do you know how many enemies I made by stealing across the world? Back in my day, if any of these treasures were to get out, the heavens themselves might just strike you for acquiring such godlike treasures. Perhaps that's why I died in this place, never to enter the reincarnation wheel for myself because I gained too much for a mortal!"
No one interrupted the talkative ghost. Whoever this ghost was, everyone could clearly feel just how powerful he was. Shang couldn't even secretly try and create a formation to save all of them. The ghost was able to watch his every movement, no matter how small it might be. If he was this strong even as a ghost, Shang couldn't fathom how powerful he was when he was alive. And since he was a thief, he was probably informed about all types of tricks and schemes. Not that Shang was well-versed in them anyway. As a genius, when did he ever have to rely on petty tricks? Never, that's when.
'We might stand a chance of surviving if that cow succeeds in gaining the Mystic Flame...' Jiajia spoke to Bing from inside his void world.
'So we need to stall him, huh?' Sweat dripped from Bing's body.
From one dangerous life-threatening situation to the next... To say that he was surprised would be a lie. As a member of Heaven's Angels, he simply had to get used to being in such dire situations until they were just a common thing. Like waking up to eat breakfast or having a casual conversation with a peer. Was it sad to say that he was already used to the rapid beating of his heart from terror and having his mind race in thinking of ways to survive this situation with his life and the life of his friends intact?
"I beg your forgiveness, Demon God Thief!" Bing turned his body, banged his forehead to the ground, and kowtowed to the spirit. "If you so wish, we will leave your resting place this instance and never return to bother you again!" He shouted with his body shivering.
"Ho... So you intrude on my resting place, mess up the feng shu of my belongings and how they were placed, and then ask for forgiveness?"
"I'm willing to do anything so that you can forgive us and let us leave with our lives!" Bing responded.
"Now, now, I am a sensible ghost. While I can barely control myself looking at your succulent body, I am a man willing to give others a fair chance. How about this... Since your friend with the evil sword is about to take the Mystic Flame I placed to protect my treasures from ghosts, all I require is one of your lives in return." He asked politely. "You three will fight until there are only two of you remaining. You can team up or fight individually. It doesn't matter to me." He explained.
"You...! How could-" Jie's righteous anger was interrupted by Bing's sudden assault.
"Swift Devil!" Bing tackled into Jie and knocked her into a wall.
He winked towards Shang, who caught on quickly to what he was doing. Shang skillfully twirled his staff as he ran towards Bing. Bing fought like a complete coward. Once he saw the prodigy coming towards him, he threw piles of gold and anything within range to stop him from coming any closer. Laughter could be heard above Bing and Shang.
"Bing! Why the hell?! You're playing into his hands! Stop fighting!" Jie shouted.
She ran over with her sword to break the two of them up so that they could work together to escape this situation. Unfortunately, her seemingly logical plan didn't fit the narrative of anyone else. When Bing heard Jie coming up from behind him, an arm grew out of his back and punched her in the gut, sending her flying away once again. At this point, Jie's patience would've normally run out but falling in love with the man named Hu Tao changed her.
In truth, her patience ran out when Bing first knocked into her. When she was going to break up Bing and Shang's fight, she was actually going to beat them half to death and force them into listening to her. Her patience hasn't improved but actually lowered significantly. It was because of this lower patience that she asked Jing to help her become a woman that could keep Hu Tao under control and be loved by him. Jie's poor little heart wouldn't be able to last long if she couldn't do anything about Hu Tao except be in love with him.
As Jie was about to get up to half-murder Bing, she felt something fall off of her stomach. It was that strange talisman that Bing and Ying had. Her eyes narrowed as she closely read the words on the talisman. A sense of relief and anger washed over her once she read it. She was still upset about being hit by Bing but now that she thought about it, she wasn't hurt all that much. The only damage she took was from crashing into the wall twice and even that was negligible because she coated her body in qi to brace for impact. Jie soon got up and charged back towards Bing and Shang with rage and greed in her eyes.
"Hmm? What's this?" Demon God Thief plucked the talisman off the ground.
As the slip of paper floated in front of his eyes, he frowned. There was nothing on it. He tried infusing his ghostly qi into it but still nothing happened. Something wasn't adding up... Why did that girl look like she was reading something if there was nothing on this talisman? Demon God Thief couldn't come up with an explanation for it so, he tried ripping it up.
"Hmm?" He couldn't rip it. Maybe he just wasn't trying hard enough. "Nhhhg!" Okay, this talisman obviously wasn't normal.
"Die!" The sound of combat temporarily recaptured his interest.
A spray of blood shot out from the fatty's chest. He fell to the ground clutching his wound as his eyes frantically looked around the room for something to save his life with. He scooted backward with his butt in terror from the young girl slowly inching towards him with a menacing look on her face. Demon God Thief couldn't believe how easy it was getting these three to turn on each other. His instincts were telling him that something was off but that fatty's injury was too severe for this to be faked. That fatty was going to die soon even if he had healing pills or got treatment soon.
Despite this though, the Demon God Thief didn't lower his guard. How could the king of thieves be foolish enough to believe what he saw with his eyes? You don't become the king of thieves by simply trusting your eyes. If anything, eyes were the most untrustworthy organs! He'd rather trust his nose than his eyes!
"Sorry, tubby." The girl grinned. "Looks like the treasure is all ours." Were her final words to the dying fatty.
"Work harder in your next life." The handsome boy looked down on him.
Demon God Thief was very satisfied by this outcome. Once the fatty's breathing stopped, he would award the two survivors by allowing them to take one treasure of their choice. When they escape, they'll inevitably tell more people about his tomb, allowing him to bring more and more people to his resting place. Some will be used for entertainment purposes while others will be nutrients for him to feed on.
"You're mine, you stupid flame! I, Yue Ying, will never give up something that I want! As a member of the Yue Family, asking me to give up something I want is the same as asking me to die! My conviction isn't so weak that I would lose to a barely developed flame like you." Ying's voice cried out.
A purple flame erupted from Ying's body. Two figures in particular fiercely recoiled at this purple flame. One retreated inside Bing's body while the other floated closer to the ceiling.