Monster Paradise

by Stayrr

800 years ago, 3000 dimensional gates opened across the entire world. In that moment, it was as if 3000 different colored eyes opened across the world as hordes of monsters swarmed out of these gates like tears. Some could destroy city walls with one strike; They had bodies the size of a giant and fed on humans Some latched onto humans, absorbing their bodies’ nutrients and ensla

49. 1538

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Chapter 1538: Mixed Team

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm, surreptitiously following along behind the group of Bladefoot Worms. The Bladefoot Worms encountered a few search teams on the way, but nobody suspected them.

Lin Huang and the others progressed very smoothly on their journey in this manner.

Over an hour later, Lan Ling finally spoke up in excitement.

"I see the exit!"

However, her expression changed right after that moment of enthusiasm.

"What's wrong?" Lim Huang and the rest immediately noticed her unusual reaction.

"There are Bug Tribe monsters guarding the exit…" Lan Long announced the result of her spell probe. "I'm not sure of their exact combat strength, but their aura is very powerful."

Virtuoso and the rest looked rather grim, although they had expected something like this already.

"I'll get the Bladefoot Worms to check. We'll discuss more after we've confirmed their exact combat strength," Lin Huang suggested.

Virtuoso and the rest nodded immediately, agreeing to Lin Huang's suggestion.

Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to burrow into the ground and wait, while Lin Huang controlled the group of Bladefoot Worms to hurry toward the exit.

Very soon, the group of six Bladefoot Worms arrived near the exit.

Through the Bladefoot Worms' eyes, Lin Huang saw that there was a Black Blind Bug blocking the way out.

The Black Blind Bug was a bug monster that possessed no visual organs. However, their hearing was extremely developed. Not only that, they possessed sensing ability that was similar to a bat's echolocation.

The Black Blind Bug ahead was contaminated by Abyssal energy and was even bigger than usual. It was over five meters tall, while each of its sixteen bayonet-like feet was close to five meters long. Its feet were even more sharp and terrifying than those of the six Bladefoot Worms.

When the team of Bladefoot Worms appeared, the Black Blind Bug merely turned its head to look at them, and its ultrasonic waves had already swept over the Bladefoot Worms' bodies. Realizing that they were its own kind, it turned its head away and ignored them after that.

Lin Huang controlled the group of Bladefoot Worms to leave the exit.

"How was it?" Virtuoso asked immediately, noticing that Lin Huang had opened his eyes.

"Not good." Lin Huang shook his head slightly. "There's a Black Blind Bug guarding the exit, and it has ninth-rank heavenly god-level combat strength."

Virtuoso and the rest immediately looked even grimmer after hearing what Lin Huang said.

"Ninth-rank…" Tu Tong and Lan Ling frowned hard.

"My guess is that the guardians at the other exits are all ninth-rank as well. Even if they're not, their abilities probably won't go below ninth-rank," Lin Huang voiced his speculations.

"A Black Blind Bug—are you confident?" At that moment, Saber9 asked Virtuoso something that was neither here nor there.

"No." Virtuoso shook their head. "That's a ninth-rank powerhouse, after all. Not only that, types like this with extraordinary sensing ability will be much more powerful in sensing other things too. It might even be close to the level of a half-step lord, which will make it very hard to deceive."

After listening to the conversation up to this point, Lin Huang had roughly figured out that the two were discussing whether or not they could depend on Virtuoso's ability to cast illusions so they could deceive the Black Blind Bug. However, Virtuoso had answered in the negative.

"Let's find the next exit," Saber9 told Lin Huang, not dwelling on the matter after hearing Virtuoso's answer.

Lin Huang nodded and immediately ordered the Bladefoot Worms to get to the next closest exit.

With an exit that was so near yet inaccessible, Lin Huang and the others were in very low spirits. They could not force their way through by facing down the powerful Black Blind Bug guarding the way out, so they had no choice but to take a roundabout route instead.

Although there might be Bug Tribe powerhouses of the same combat strength guarding the other exits, they still might stand a chance of escaping. Even if said powerhouse was slightly weaker, the chances of them escaping would increase significantly.

The group of Bladefoot Worms started moving after receiving Lin Huang's new order. Meanwhile, Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to sneak behind them.

Along the way, Lin Huang and the rest could clearly see that there were more and more bug teams joining the search.

The group of Bladefoot Worms encountered a search team every few minutes. Fortunately, none of the teams noticed anything unusual about the Bladefoot Worms.

Lin Huang and the others stealthily followed behind the team of Bladefoot Worms for half a day, just like that, without being discovered. That is, until the Bladefoot Worms encountered a mixed team made up of members from various Bug Tribes.

On average, this mixed team was intermediate-level in terms of combat. There was a Devilish Sonic Bug that was expert in probing, two Iron Blood Bugs that were experts in combat, a King Kong Beetle with powerful defenses, and two Wretch Spiders with controlling techniques.

The mixed team did not have any major reactions when first encountering the group of Bladefoot Worms.

However, after the Bladefoot Worms passed them by, the Devilish Sonic Bug suddenly stopped walking.

Lin Huang and the rest did not expect to encounter such a team out of nowhere.

To prevent anything unforeseen from happening if they were too far apart in distance, Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to follow behind the team of Bladefoot Worms closely.

Therefore, when the Bladefoot Worms team saw the mixed team, the Boa Worm was less than 30 meters away from the mixed team.

Although Lan Ling managed to control the Boa Worm to stop in time, Lin Huang and the rest felt rather uneasy.

This was because apart from sonic wave attacks, the Devilish Sonic Bug was a bug beast that possessed probing abilities. It could hear the tiniest sound in its surroundings, including breathing and heartbeats.

When they saw the Devilish Sonic Bug suddenly stop not far above their heads after the mixed team had passed by the group of Bladefoot Worms, Lin Huang and the others had a moment of sudden tension.

The Devilish Sonic Bug raised its head high and stared fixedly at the location where the Boa Worm was hiding. It seemed to be ready to give an alarm.

At that moment, the group of Bladefoot Worms suddenly released a low, warning hum.

The Devilish Sonic Bug and the rest of the bug beasts from the mixed team all turned their heads to look at the group of Bladefoot Worms behind them.

Suddenly, six consecutive blood-red electric arcs appeared out of thin air, charging at the six bug beasts in the mixed team.

By the time the six bug beasts noticed something wrong, it was too late. The six electric arcs pierced through all six of their heads with unparalleled accuracy. It took less than half a minute for all the kills.

Saber9 and the rest stared at Lin Huang with the most extraordinary gazes when they saw him recalling the telekinetic flying daggers.

"Sixth-rank Heavenly Gods killed almost instantly…" Lan Ling's eyes widened.

"And there were two Sixth-rank Heavenly Gods," the adjacent Tu Tong added.

Saber9 was not interested in that particular point. He exclaimed, "You're a psychic as well?!"

Virtuoso was the only one who did not seem to be shocked by Lin Huang's abilities.

Lin Huang did not respond to the others' exclamations. Instead, he said to Lan Ling calmly, "Get the Boa Worm to bury the carcasses, or the other search teams will discover them very soon."

Lan Ling nodded immediately and controlled the Boa Worm to bury the six bug carcasses underground, then cleaned up all the traces of blood.

After taking care of the scene of the incident as fast as they could, they did not linger there.

Lin Huang proceeded to control the Bladefoot Worms to look for the exit, while Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to follow behind the group of Bladefoot Worms. However, she was smarter this time and extended the distance between them a bit more. Previously, it had been twenty meters, but now she stretched it out to fifty meters. Not only that, she got the Boa Worm to burrow deeper underground.

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Chapter 1539: Wasted Effort

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After half a day, the group of Bladefoot Worms finally led the Boa Worm near the second exit.

Through the Bladefoot Worms, Lin Huang had already caught sight of this exit's guardian from far off.

The bug beast guarding the exit this time was a Ghoul Spider. Its combat strength was also ninth-rank heavenly god-level.

A Ghoul Spider was a brutal bug beast that specialized in assassination.

Not only did it possess invisibility and control-type powers, but its body also contained toxins, and it was extraordinarily swift in its attacks.

Ghoul Spiders that were not contaminated with Abyssal energy were already hard to deal with.

The one that was guarding the exit had an even more terrifying aura, and its character was even more twisted.

The moment the group of Bladefoot Worms appeared in front of it, the Ghoul Spider spat out spider silk to control the six Bladefoot Worms.

Lin Huang thought his parasite technique had been discovered, so he dispersed the Leech Pods. However, after that, he saw the Ghoul Spider manipulating the Bladefoot Worms to walk over to it. It then bit off half of one of the Bladefoot Worm's bodies.

Within two minutes, the Ghoul Spider had devoured all the Bladefoot Worms completely.

Right after that, it faded from view and disappeared.

Virtuoso and the rest noticed that Lin Huang was silent and did not press him. Instead, they patiently waited for his probing results.

Lin Huang heaved a sigh of relief only after confirming that the Leech Pods had not been discovered. He then told the rest what he had seen.

"The exit guardian is a ninth-rank Ghoul Spider. I'm not sure if it was being cautious or it just happened to be hungry—it attacked my group of Bladefoot Worms and ate all six of them…"

"It wasn't being cautious, nor was it hungry," Virtuoso explained from where he was off to the side, "Ghoul Spiders are inherently brutal. They will attack any creatures that enter their territory. The Ghoul Spiders that have been contaminated with Abyssal energy are even more ruthless. It's very normal behavior for them."

"So what do we do now? Do we go to the next exit?" Lan Ling had already manipulated the Boa Worm to stop.

"This exit is also guarded by a ninth-rank bug beast, so we can basically confirm that our previous speculation is correct. The remaining exits should be guarded by ninth-rank bug beasts as well," Virtuoso said calmly, "The next exit will be the same as this."

"Are we going to charge through?" Tu Tong had entered battle mode as he spoke.

"There's no rush; let's try this first," Virtuoso swiftly performed a few hand seals with both hands as soon as he was done speaking.

The next instant, a figure that looked exactly like Virtuoso detached itself from their body. It seemed to ignore the existence of the Boa Worm and the hive walls, gradually emerging from the ground and appearing in the Maze passageway.

Virtuoso No. 2 charged quickly as soon as it found steady footing in the passageway. Their figure abruptly sprang forward, running straight at the Ghoul Spider that was guarding the exit.

The invisible Ghoul Spider attacked almost as soon as Virtuoso No. 2 appeared.

Virtuoso No.2 seemed to have sensed the incoming attack. Before Ghoul Spider's attack could come anywhere near them, they retreated quickly and turned to flee.

The Ghoul Spider chased after it for two paces, but soon recalled something. It then turned around and retreated to the exit. It watched Virtuoso No.2 as they departed in the distance, and gradually turned invisible again.

Everyone saw the scenario clearly through Lan Ling's spell projection.

"It failed." Saber9 was clearly a little disappointed.

After seeing this, Lin Huang and the rest understood that Virtuoso was attempting to lure the tiger from its den, using the shadow to draw the Ghoul Spider away. Unfortunately, it was not fooled.

"Given a Ghoul Spider's character, it will give chase under normal circumstances, but it decided to give up right away." However, Virtuoso seemed to have expected this to happen. "It proves that the orders it was given definitely included no pursuit to prevent being lured away from its post."

"If any of you have other techniques, you need to utilize them quickly. The Ghoul Spider has almost certainly reported the test we did on it earlier." Lin Huang glanced at the group. "As expected, there will be more search teams coming in this direction now. We don't have much time left."

"Let me try again." It was still Virtuoso who spoke up once more. They turned their head to look at Lan Ling as soon as they were done speaking. "In a little, when you hear my order, send the Boa Worm charging over there."

Lan Ling nodded instantly.

Virtuoso swiftly began performing complicated hand seals with both hands. The mask on their face also started lighting up with gold sigils.

A moment later, Lin Huang and the others saw the Ghoul Spider suddenly reveal itself; it was hanging above the exit. However, it suddenly froze.

What they did not know was that to the Ghoul Spider's eyes, a Boa Worm had come out from underground suddenly and was hurrying toward the exit.

The Ghoul Spider leaped down from above the exit, and a sharp claw pierced through the Boa Worm's body.

However, a few figures suddenly emerged from the Boa Worm's body and attacked it…

"Now!" As soon as Virtuoso gave the order, Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm to burrow underground toward the exit.

It took only the work of a moment for the Boa Worm to arrive beneath the Ghoul Spider. The way ahead was a dead end, so Lan Ling could only manipulate it to emerge from the ground and continue hurrying toward the exit.

However, right at this moment, a spatial fluctuation suddenly came from not too far away.

A silhouette stepped out of a Dimensional Whirlpool and happened to see the Boa Worm that was about to rush out from the exit.

A claw flashed through the distance, turning several golden gleams that pierced through the Boa Worm's body and sliced it into multiple bloody pieces.

Everyone was shocked. Never had they thought that a ninth-rank Golden-clawed Bug would emerge out of nowhere at the very last second and ruin Virtuoso's plan completely.

The Golden-clawed Bug was a being in the Bug Tribes that had extremely powerful attacks.

Their legs were unlike many of the Bug Tribe monsters—they had sharp, beast-like claws, and usually possessed slicing sequence power. The intensity of their attacks was no lower than human sword cultivators and saber cultivators of the same combat strength.

Golden-clawed Bugs that were contaminated with Abyssal energy had even tougher physical constitutions. The Abyssal energy within them could absorb Rule Bending Power and sequence power remnants from attacks. This meant that their Enhanced Regeneration ability would go into effect when they were attacked with Rule Bending Power and sequence power, which caused their close-quarter combat abilities to be even more resilient.

In the wake of the intense energy shockwaves from the Golden-clawed Bug's attack, the sixteen eyes of the Ghoul Spider above Virtuoso's group rapidly began to glow with blinding blood-red gleams.

The Ghoul Spider was awake!

The initial plan of pulling a Ghoul Spider a full level higher than their combat strength into an illusion was already the limit of Virtuoso's ability. In reality, even without any interference from the outside world, their illusion would not last for even a few seconds when cast on the ninth-rank heavenly god-level Ghoul Spider. Therefore, they had immediately urged Lan Ling to control the Boa Worm and leave at once.

However, the energy wave caused by the Golden-clawed Bug's attack made the Ghoul Spider realize something was wrong. It merely struggled a little and shook off the illusion. It then saw the carcass that the Golden-clawed Bug had sliced into multiple pieces and several figures emerging from the carcass…

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Chapter 1540: Escaping FromThe Maze

The sudden appearance of the Golden-clawed Bug was something nobody had expected at all.

Although Lin Huang and the rest knew from the beginning that there would certainly be other search teams hurrying over, they had not expected anyone to show up so soon.

They knew something was wrong the moment the Golden-clawed Bug appeared.

As expected, the Golden-clawed Bug charged and attacked the Boa Worm as soon as it stepped out of the dimensional gateway, slicing it into several pieces.

Although Lin Huang and the rest were not harmed by this attack, the Golden-clawed Bug's actions had startled the Ghoul Spider above their heads into wakefulness.

Therefore, a situation worse than the worst-case scenario occurred.

The worst-case scenario that they had anticipated previously was that the Ghoul Spider would sense something wrong before they escaped and shake off the illusion.

However, at the moment, not only were they facing an awakened, furious Ghoul Spider, but there was a Golden-clawed Bug staring at them from the sidelines as well.

Both bug beasts were ninth-rank heavenly god-level supreme powerhouses.

Even a ninth-rank heavenly god-level Protoss would have a headache if they encountered such a situation.

However, in Lin Huang's group, the person with the highest combat strength was merely ninth-rank true god-level. This was a full level lower compared to the two bug beasts.

"In a little, seize the opportunity and run. It'll better if a single one of us manages to escape than all of us getting stuck here!" Saber9 said to Lin Huang and the rest through voice transmission and was the first to emerge from the Boa Worm's carcass.

He lifted his head to look at the Ghoul Spider above him, with its blood-red pupils.

Countless golden saber gleams began to coalesce in front of him.

Virtuoso did not run either. Instead, they planted themselves firmly on a spot near Saber9 and swiftly began performing hand seals with both hands.

They spoke through voice transmission to Lin Huang and the rest as they performed the hand seals, "The few of you came in your true forms; if you're killed you'll die for real. Both of us will buy you some time. If you can escape, escape!"

As soon as they finished speaking, they completed their hand seals. Their body began to replicate rapidly. Countless figures that looked exactly the same as Virtuoso in appearance began charging at the Golden-clawed Bug on one side.

On the other side, the countless golden saber gleams in front of Saber9 also rained down like a storm, heading toward the Ghoul Spider above his head in an enveloping swarm.

Lin Huang noticed that Tu Tong and Lan Ling were still debating whether or not to help Virtuoso and Saber9. He grabbed both their wrists, one in each hand, and dragged them with him as he charged toward the exit.

"Both of them can't buy us much time. If you rush over now, not only will this not increase any chances of success, but you'd also cause a mess! They can only get an opportunity to run after you've made it out!" Lin Huang said to the pair through voice transmission. Only then did Tu Tong and Lan Ling stop resisting being dragged to the exit. However, they did not notice that Lin Huang's comments only mentioned both of them and did not include himself.

At the same time that the three of them were escaping, the Ghoul Spider above their heads had been completely swallowed up in the golden gleams. Meanwhile, the Golden-clawed Bug on the other side was utterly surrounded by tens of thousands of Virtuoso clones.

Lin Huang grabbed Lan Ling and Tu Tong, arriving at the exit almost immediately.

He paused as soon as they arrived at the exit. Instead of rushing out, he suddenly used both hands to forcefully push Tu Tong and Lan Ling outside.

At that moment, the completely unharmed Ghoul Spider suddenly broke out from the midst of Saber9's countless saber gleams. Meanwhile, the Golden-clawed Bug on the other side tore free from the circle of countless Virtuoso clones.

Despite using full force, the pair's techniques did not impede the two bug beasts for even the span of a breath.

At that very moment, countless blood-red gleams shot out of Lin Huang's sleeves like electric arcs, dividing themselves between the two ninth-rank heavenly god-level bug beasts and hurtling toward them.

Although Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis had been weakened significantly despite not touching the Maze's walls, it still worked within a short range of merely over ten meters.

This attack of Lin Huang's saw the telekinetic flying daggers compounded with eight levels of sequence power and Sword Dao heavenly rule.

Even the two bug beasts sensed the threat and immediately switched their attention to the blood-red electric arcs coming at them.

Right in the midst of Virtuoso and Saber9's amazement, they sensed a thread being tied about their waists. Almost at the same time, Lin Huang's voice sounded in their ears through voice transmission, "It's time to go!"

Only then did the duo realize that these were Lin Huang's telekinetic threads. The minute they stopped resisting, they felt a tremendous force pulling at them, and their figures flew toward the exit.

Amid their frantic retreat, they saw the blood-red electric arcs form into two giant spheres, enveloping the two ninth-rank bug beasts completely.

After pulling the duo to him, Lin Huang then dragged them both toward the exit and went through, without even turning his head to look back.

Outside the exit of the Demonic Bug Maze was a vast expanse of barren land.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling, who were waiting anxiously, saw the three of them emerging together.

"Go!" Lin Huang was still moving. After his shout, he continued running into the distance.

In the Maze, the telekinetic flying daggers fell onto the ground one after the other once Lin Huang had left.

When the two bug beasts appeared again, there were clear traces of blood on their bodies. However, these were merely flesh wounds, which rapidly recovered at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye.

Both bug beasts merely glanced once in the direction of the exit. Instead of pursuing Lin Huang and the others, they chose to report the incident immediately.

Lin Huang and the rest fled some distance away. When they realized that the Bug Tribe monsters were not coming after them, they were finally able to heave a sigh of relief.

"Both of you owe me a set of top-tier god telekinetic weapon relics," Lin Huang said to Saber9 and Virtuoso in all seriousness.

The two of them were speechless upon hearing that.

However, both of them also were aware that Lin Huang had indeed left behind that set of telekinetic flying daggers in the Demonic Bug Maze after his attack.

"We'll give you back a set each when we get out of the Abyss, alright?" Virtuoso said in some annoyance

"Alright," Lin Huang agreed cheerfully, but he soon thought of something after that, "Or you could give me materials of the same level in exchange as well."

He asked for this to prevent a lack of rare, hard-to-obtain materials for his imperial monsters when they eventually elevated their levels.

"Sure," Saber9 agreed at once.

Meanwhile, off to one side, Virtuoso rolled their eyes at Lin Huang.

However, they knew very well that if Lin Huang had not sacrificed his telekinetic flying daggers to save them and Saber9, they both might have been the ones sacrificed in the Demonic Bug Maze.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling did not understand what the three of them were talking about, nor did they dare to ask. They could only follow behind and run.

"Since those bugs didn't chase after us immediately, can we consider ourselves to have escaped successfully?" Lin Huang asked Virtuoso.

"I think so." Virtuoso nodded. "The Abyss is massive. Since they didn't come after us right away, it would be hard for them to catch up to us now.

"It's very normal for them not to pursue us, as they have no way of ascertaining if we have other partners left behind in the Maze. They'd definitely do a thorough check of the Maze immediately to prevent the Bug Queen or Queen Mother from being assassinated. As for us, we've been chased out of the Maze, so we're no longer a threat to them. Naturally, coming after us isn't as important as checking inside the Maze." Saber9 was very clear about the operation mechanisms of the Demonic Bug Maze.

"The Bug Tribe powerhouses that guard the exits must have received orders beforehand not to chase after the intruders once they escaped from the Maze. Otherwise, with that Ghoul Spider's character, there's a pretty high chance it would have come after us," Virtuoso added.

"We can consider the threat of the Demonic Bug Maze removed," Virtuoso continued, "What we must find out as soon as possible is… where exactly are we?"

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Chapter 1541: The Furies

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The surface area of the Abyss was unbelievably vast. Although it was only one part of the universe, it occupied over one-fourth of it.

Apart from the universe and the great world where Lin Huang and the rest were, the Abyss was connected to numerous great worlds, mini worlds, and time-space continuums.

Therefore, Lin Huang and the rest had no idea exactly which area they were in when they escaped from the Demonic Bug Maze.

"Lan Ling, check what monsters are around."

The reason why Virtuoso asked Lan Ling to check was not that Divine Telekinesis had no effect here, but because nobody would use Divine Telekinesis in the Abyss of their own accord.

It was not just outsiders invading the Abyss who would not do that. Even the local residents of the Abyss usually would not use their Divine Telekinesis either.

This was because as soon as they utilized their Divine Telekinesis, it was the equivalent of having exposed their location.

If the creatures within the Divine Telekinesis user's probing range were weaker than the user, that would still be alright. However, if the creatures were more powerful, the user might be targeted by the creatures' Divine Telekinesis and become prey.

Furthermore, the one thing the Abyss did not lack was powerhouses.

Even lord-level powerhouses would not simply use Divine Telekinesis when they were here. Instead, they would only use probing techniques that would not be easily sensed.

Lan Ling's spell belonged to a type that was rather rare and not known to many people. It was most suitable when used for probing. This had been proven in the Demonic Bug Maze earlier.

However, the main advantage of her probing spell was that it was a concealed method—it did not have the upper hand in terms of probing range.

Now, without the interference of the Maze, the probing range and accuracy of her spell were back to their normal parameters. However, she could only probe activity within a range of three hundred kilometers.

Although this probing range was still not very wide, it was better than using Divine Telekinesis to scan and being discovered by powerful Abyssal creatures.

Lan Ling quickly released her spell and began to probe.

As her lips moved, the incantations on both her arms swiftly sank into the ground.

She finally opened her eyes approximately two to three minutes later.

"What's the situation?" Tu Tong was the first to ask, unable to restrain himself.

"There are Furies all over within a three hundred kilometer range. I didn't find any other monsters." Lan Ling stood up slowly and looked at Virtuoso.

"Furies everywhere within a three hundred kilometer range…" Virtuoso frowned slightly.

"Could this be a Disaster Abyss Land?" Saber9 turned his head to ask Virtuoso.

"It's possible, but we can't be completely sure." Virtuoso nodded lightly. "After all, there are many regions in a place like the Abyss that have accumulated negative emotions, both great and small. Although there aren't many places where Furies gather on such a scale, this is not necessarily a Disaster Abyss Land."

"Let's walk around. If there are many other large-scale distributions of Disasters, we're most probably in a Disaster Abyss Land." Saber9 remained very sure of his guess.

Lin Huang understood the duo's conversation very well.

Although it was his first time in the Abyss, he had done his research beforehand after all and knew what sort of a place a Disaster Abyss Land was.

A Disaster Abyss Land was an area in the Abyss where massive amounts of negative emotions had accumulated.

In such regions, there were large distributions of extreme negative emotions and

creatures that were contaminated with Abyssal energy. They were called Disasters.

A Fury was one such Disaster.

Such monsters were usually Abyssal creatures that had been contaminated with raging emotions and thus been transformed.

They had massive bodies that were completely red from head to toe, enveloped in a raging fire. The flames could even infect other creatures, causing them to fall prey to rage-induced madness.

Apart from that, the Furies' forte was close-quarter combat; they were extraordinarily strong. If they were not killed immediately, each attack they encountered would enrage them further, and make them increasingly more powerful.

However, Lin Huang and the rest did not panic.

This was because such monsters were lone rangers. Although there were many of them within a three hundred kilometer range, they would not hunt in groups.

This alone made them less of a threat compared to the bug beasts in the Demonic Bug Maze.

Under Lan Ling's guidance, Lin Huang and the rest hurried on and soon encountered their first Fury.

It was Lin Huang's first time seeing a creature like the Fury.

The monster was fully twenty meters or more in height and had a humanoid form. It stood upright on two legs and resembled a great red giant. The color of its body was the red of a steamed crawfish. There was even a layer of dark red flame burning on it.

Unlike a giant, it did not have a human head, but a huge mutated head, swollen with abscesses all over it. Not only that, it had three arms of various sizes.

This was a Fury that had been transformed from a humanoid mutant. It had maintained seventy to eighty percent of its pre-Fury original form.

As Lin Huang was observing this monster that he was seeing for the first time, the Fury also noticed the group.

It released an enraged roar and charged directly at Lin Huang and the rest, with a sudden burst of energy from its legs.

Just when Lin Huang was about to attack, Saber9 beside him reacted even faster.

He performed a saber tactic with his hand, pointing two fingers at the charging Fury. The saber gleam in front of him turned into a golden ray of light and shot out.

A glow like that of a meteor traced through the air and impaled the Fury's massive, swollen head in the time it took for a breath.

The Fury abruptly stopped moving, then fell onto the ground with a thud.

The moment it fell, Lin Huang could even sense the ground quaking beneath his feet.

Saber9 only needed one blow to kill the second-rank heavenly god-level Fury. He sheathed his saber into its scabbard and unobtrusively glanced in Lin Huang's direction.

Meanwhile, the dark red flame around the Fury's carcass extinguished quickly. Its body began to dissipate at speed visible to the naked eye, transforming into a ball of dark red mist.

Lin Huang's gaze was full of puzzlement as he watched this happening. "What's that mist?"

"It's the concrete form of anger," Virtuoso explained from beside him.

In the material world, things like emotions could not be touched or seen. However, in the Abyss, they could materialize into a concrete form.

It was Lin Huang's first time hearing such a thing; he was rather astonished.

"It's best if all of you don't come into contact with these materialized negative emotions. If you touch them, you might lose control of your emotions if it's a minor case. A more serious case might mean you could be contaminated right away and turn into a Disaster," Virtuoso added.

"Can't it be used?" Lin Huang was still curious about these negative emotions.

"It can't. These emotional energies have been completely integrated with Abyssal energy. Even Abyssal creatures are extra cautious when they absorb these energies, as they will turn into Disasters if they're not careful—what more creatures from outside the Abyss," the adjacent Saber9 explained, "Only Disasters of the same species can absorb these energies completely to strengthen themselves. They're toxic to other creatures."

"Alright then…" Lin Huang was clearly a little disappointed when he heard that.

Virtuoso also noticed Lin Huang's disappointment. "If you have a vessel, you can collect a little of the mist. However, never release it in an open environment, as it will automatically contaminate all living things in the area. Now it's consolidated into a ball only because it's reverted to its original form after just having lost its host. It's in an inert state at the moment."

"It's that dangerous?!" Lin Huang had thought this thing was merely a cloud of mist; it had never crossed his mind that its form was just temporary.

"This cloud is enough to contaminate an entire planet," Saber9 added from beside him.

Lin Huang could not help being bereft of speech.

However, he could not restrain his curiosity; he retrieved a vessel and collected a wisp of the mist.

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Chapter 1542: The Jealousies

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Under Lan Ling's guidance, Lin Huang and the rest hurried along. It took them half a day to get out of the Furies' gathering area, killing 27 Furies of various forms along the way.

"We've left the Furies' gathering place. Ahead, there are Jealousies all over within three hundred kilometers of my sensing range." Lan Ling stopped and informed the others of her probing results after some investigation.

"This place is most certainly a Disaster Abyss Land," Saber9 said to Virtuoso, who was next to him.

Virtuoso nodded lightly. "We can basically confirm that now."

Lin Huang and the rest had flown for the better part of half a day before finally getting out of the Furies' gathering place. The vast size of the area where the rage emotions were dispersed clearly indicated that this was no ordinary gathering point for negative emotions. Now that they had discovered another type of Disaster up ahead, it proved that there were many types of negative emotions here. They could basically eliminate the possibility of them being anywhere else now.

Only a Disaster Abyss Land could gather so many types of negative emotions in such a vast area.

"What do we have to take note of to counter the Jealousies?" Lin Huang could not help asking.

He knew of course that a Jealousy was an Abyssal creature created from the contamination of extreme jealous emotions. However, in the information that he had gathered previously, there were not many descriptions of this particular kind of monster.

"The Jealousies are indeed rather unique creatures. Let me explain," Virtuoso said calmly.

"The Jealousies are monsters that are intensely jealous and usually exist only in spirit form. They're immune to most physical attacks, including those using Rule Bending Power and sequence power. Only spirit-type attacks can harm them directly.

"However, if an individual is envied by a Jealousy, all attacks from the Jealousy's target will work. In other words, if one of us is being targeted by a Jealousy and nobody around the target has spirit-type attack techniques, we can't help. The target can only rely on themselves.

"Another interesting thing is that if an individual is within a Jealousy's sensing range, but they have nothing for the Jealousy to be envious about, the Jealousy will ignore that individual. Even if the individual walks over when the Jealousy is watching, that individual won't be attacked.

"However, Jealousies have strange points of jealousy. Not only that, every one of them is different. They might be jealous of things that don't bother us at all. For instance, your hair is longer than mine, so I want to kill you. Why is your lipstick color so nice? I want to kill you for that…"

Lan Ling lifted her hand in seemingly casual fashion to wipe off the lipstick on her mouth after she heard this.

"The target has to kill the Jealousy as soon as they've been targeted. This is because the longer one drags things out, the more envious the Jealousy becomes. It might even go into a state of madness, which causes its ability to skyrocket.

"There's one more thing to note. Before Jealousies lock onto their target, they have a certain level of resistance to spirit-type attacks. Furthermore, if they're attacked under such circumstances, they will immediately go into a state of madness."

Even Tu Tong and Lan Ling could not stop nodding after hearing Virtuoso's explanation, not just Lin Huang. Clearly, it was their first time hearing this information as well.

"Don't panic if you become targets. My Saber Dao heavenly rule has spirit-type attack attributes," Saber9 comforted Lan Ling, then glanced at Lin Huang.

Saber Dao and Sword Dao heavenly rules belonged to a class of extreme physical attack techniques that went beyond the physical immunity upper limits of spirits. These attacks had the effect of harming spirits directly.

Saber9's comments did not refer to not the harm that Saber Dao heavenly rule could inflict. Rather, they referred to the spirit-type attack Saber Dao techniques that Saber9 had mastered.

Lin Huang understood what Saber9 meant and also noticed the slight challenge in Saber9's gaze. However, it did not particularly bother him.

As for Sword Dao heavenly rule, Lin Huang had indeed just elevated to level-2, Heavenly Heart—perhaps Saber9, who had been at level-2 for a long time, was not aware of this. However, all the Sword Servants under Lin Huang had recovered their combat strength to seventh-rank heavenly god-level, so he could borrow over three hundred types of Sword Dao heavenly rules. Among them were a few that had been unlocked to level-3, Heavenly Dao.

He was confident that he definitely would not lose to Saber9 if they were to spar with swords or sabers, even though Saber9's Primordium was an extremely powerful Almighty, as well as a member of the Club.

However, Saber9 himself was just a clone, after all. Not only that, his combat strength was merely at ninth-rank true god-level.

Therefore, Lin Huang did not have much intention of challenging Saber9.

In reality, he was more interested in Saber9's Primordium than in Saber9.

Previously, Lin Huang had been curious about how powerful Saber9's Primordium would be at ninth-rank, compared to his clone, and if Saber9's combined ability was more powerful than his own.

As they progressed further on their journey, very soon, they encountered the first Jealousy.

It was Lin Huang's first time seeing a Jealousy.

This Jealousy resembled a female ghost in a red dress; she hovered in the air. She had long, black hair that came to her waist

In the beginning, she had her back to them.

However, after sensing the auras of Lin Huang and the others, her head turned one hundred and eighty degrees, revealing her deathly pale face.

The most extraordinary thing was that although her face was bloodless, her lips were painted a vibrant and beautiful shade of blood red.

Even though Lin Huang was already a true god-level cultivator, he could not help feeling a little terrified when he saw the Jealousy in front of them, immediately recalling the horror movies that he had watched back on Earth.

After the Jealousy turned her head, she began observing Lin Huang and the others carefully.

After a round of scrutiny, she eventually locked onto Lan Ling.

Lan Ling's heart thudded hard immediately once she noticed the Jealousy ignoring the rest entirely and staring at her without blinking. She knew that she had become a target.

After targeting Lan Ling, the Jealousy's body turned around to where her head was facing.

The next second, she appeared in front of Lan Ling directly as if she had teleported.

Tu Tong wanted to attack, but Virtuoso clamped a hand on his shoulder.

They shook their head and said to Tu Tong through voice transmission, "She's not finished locking onto her target yet."

The long-haired Jealousy hovered less than half a meter in front of Lan Ling and began to scrutinize the girl from head to toe.

A moment later, her gaze alighted on Lan Ling's chest, and she enquired as if she was talking to herself,

"Why is your chest so big?!"

Subsequently, her voice began to repeat like a language-learning device. She stared at Lan Ling's chest and began to repeat her words over and over again.

She began speaking faster and faster, and her pitch rose increasingly until everyone's ears hurt.

Noticing that Virtuoso was signaling her not to attack yet, Lan Ling had no idea what to do at the moment.

The Jealousy repeated, "Why is your chest so big?" over and over, and her pupils rapidly became bloodshot. A few seconds later, her eyes were completely red—the pupils and irises could no longer be seen. Her black hair began to undulate like snakes.

A moment later, countless strands of hair surged forward like waves, charging at Lan Ling wildly as if they wanted to swallow her up.

Just when Lan Ling was about to retreat hastily, she saw a blinding golden gleam flash before her eyes, tearing through the entire swathe of black waves.

"Too noisy!" Saber9 sheathed his saber as soon as he finished speaking.

The black waves disintegrated immediately. The female Jealousy glanced in Saber9's direction, looking stunned. Subsequently, a golden gleam lit up right between her brows, and her body began to fade slowly, starting from that golden gleam…

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Chapter 1543: The Anomalies Among The Disasters

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The area where the Jealousies were distributed was even larger than that of the Furies previously. It took Lin Huang and the others a full day before they managed to get out of the area where the Jealousies were.

Along the way, they encountered over forty Jealousies. These were of various forms, and their jealousies were each more peculiar than the other.

Everyone in Lin Huang's group was targeted by Jealousies for various strange reasons.

For instance, Lin Huang was targeted with, "Why are you so good looking?" while Virtuoso was targeted with, "Why is your mask so pretty?""You've got a few years on you, but why is your aura still so good?" was directed at Saber9, while "Why is your mustache so thick?!" was aimed at Tu Tong. "Why do you have such a nice body when you're so short?!" was what Lan Ling received…

Fortunately, they were able to avoid high-level Jealousies thanks to Lan Ling's advance warning. The beginner-stage and intermediate-stage Jealousies were not powerful enough to be threats to them.

After leaving the Jealousies' territory, Lan Ling performed a new round of probing immediately.

"Up ahead is the Greeds' territory."

"We've finally reached the good stuff," Tu Tong commented with a smile.

He said this because when these monsters called Greeds were killed, they would drop various materials. Sometimes, there would even be rare materials dropping from their corpses.

"Don't be reckless. There are extremely powerful fellows among Greeds as well," Virtuoso reminded, "Most Greeds covet superficial things. However, there's a small minority of them who will steal the essence of their prey after discovering the fundamental essence of the prey's power. Such Greeds can be as powerful as any sixth-rank being."

"According to the data records within the universe, among the seven most common types of Disasters, Greeds are the second-most numerous group to have elevated to Lords—they've even surpassed the Gluttons," Saber9 added from where he was off to the side.

"Then which of them is ranked No.1?" Lin Huang asked curiously.

"I guess it should be the Arrogances," Lan Ling answered before Virtuoso and Saber9 could do so.

"That's right." Saber9 nodded.

"Only extremely haughty individuals become Arrogances. Many of them were geniuses from various tribes before their transformation, so their foundation is much better than the other types of Disasters. They also have the strongest talent and potential after transforming into Arrogances," Virtuoso added, noticing that Saber9 did not have the intention of elaborating further.

The few of them chatted about various Disasters all along the way and very soon came upon their first Greed.

This was also Lin Huang's first time encountering such a monster.

The Greed before them resembled a Patchwork Monster with many limbs and eyeballs of various forms.

It looked terrifying, but in reality, it was the weakest kind among the Greeds.

Watching as this Patchwork Monster charged toward them, Sword9 did not even have the desire to fight.

Tu Tong, on the other hand, felt that this was his chance to shine. He dashed forward and swung a heavy punch at it.

Within less than ten seconds, his blows had reduced the Greed to a puddle of pulverized flesh.

What depressed Tu Tong was that this Greed was so weak, no material fell out of it after it was killed.

After resolving the matter of this first Greed, they proceeded on their journey again.

Unlike before when they had avoided Disasters as much as they could, Lan Ling's route this time took them straight toward the Greeds. Apart from high-level heavenly god-level Greeds, she did not bypass any beginner-stage or intermediate-stage ones if they were along her route. All along the way, she led the group to monsters that they could kill.

As anticipated, apart from the first Greed that did not drop any materials, the rest of the Greeds dropped materials whenever they were killed.

Lin Huang was excited at first, but seeing that Tu Tong was happy to do the fighting for them, he did not bother to interfere.

However, later on, he could not help jumping into the fray when they encountered intermediate-stage Greeds. He obtained many materials along the way, even some rare ones.

Just as they were about to leave the Greeds' gathering area, they finally encountered a powerful Greed.

This Greed was a skeletal monster clad in a black robe. Before Lin Huang and the rest had even arrived, it had already sensed them from far away.

It did not use Divine Telekinesis; this was purely spiritual perception.

It stretched its arms into the void and retrieved a gigantic black sickle.

Right after that, it brandished the sickle and launched an attack from dozens of kilometers away.

Like a wave, the black sickle gleam swelled on the wind, charging at the group in destructive fury. By the time it reached them, it had become a massive tsunami.

Even Lin Huang's pupils contracted involuntarily when he saw this.

This attack alone was on par with level-2 Sword Dao heavenly rule, at the very least.

Before Lin Huang could make a move, the nearby Saber9's battle intent peaked. His saber gleam shot forward like a golden electric arc and collided forcefully with the sickle gleam.

Sword cultivators and saber cultivators had always been rivals who were unwilling to yield to one another. Saber9 had been looking for the opportunity to spar with Lin Huang along the way, but Lin Huang had repeatedly declined.

Saber9 had nursed his irritation for the entire journey. Now that the group had suddenly come upon a powerful sword cultivator Disaster, it was only natural that he could no longer restrain himself.

This time, he held nothing back in his attack.

At first, the saber gleam was just a golden meteor, but it grew increasingly blinding.

By the time it collided with the black wave, it was already like a blazing sun.

The collision of these two forces was like a massive wave colliding with a sun in the heavens.

Both forces were at a stalemate for a long time. Eventually, they exploded and collapsed almost simultaneously…

A terrifying energy storm swept in all directions, swirling around.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling could not even keep a steady footing. It was not until Virtuoso held up a god sequence shield relic that they were able to resist the aftermath impact of the energy shockwaves.

"So powerful!" Tu Tong's eyes gleamed as he stared at the explosion.

He and Saber9 were both ninth-rank True Gods, but his ability was nowhere near that of Saber9.

A trace of fear flickered in Lan Ling's eyes.

Lin Huang and Virtuoso were unfazed, however. Both of them felt it was nothing out of the ordinary for Saber9 to possess such ability.

In reality, Lin Huang had thought of challenging this sword cultivator Greed earlier. However, since Saber9 did it first, he did not bother trying to compete for the monster with him.

However, since they had seen so many weak Greeds previously, he was still very interested in this Greed that had abilities on par with Saber9.

"Is this a type of Greed that's mastered power essence?" Lin Huang turned his head to ask Virtuoso beside him.

"Yes." Virtuoso nodded. "It's only at third-rank heavily god-level, but it has abilities closer to seventh-rank. It must have plundered quite a few god sequence chains."

"Greeds can plunder other people's god sequence chains directly?" Lin Huang was rather puzzled. He himself had the ability to plunder god sequence chains as well, but he had always thought that such an ability was extremely incredible, so it should be rare.

"Very few Greeds have such an ability." Virtuoso nodded. "First of all, it must realize that god sequence chains are the source of a Heavenly God's power. Secondly, it must find the right method of plundering and extracting the god sequence chains from its prey's body. Thirdly, it must find the right way of integrating the god sequence chains that it has plundered.

"It's actually extremely difficult to achieve these three conditions because Disasters inherently have clouded consciousness. Moreover, their behaviors are dominated by negative emotions; they're unable to make judgments on their own.

"Those that can generate a spark of self-awareness in their cloudy minds and shake off being completely dominated by negative emotions are the anomalies among the Disasters."

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Chapter 1544: Ascetic Buddhist Tribe

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

In the void, the battle between Saber9 and the skeleton Greed continued; it was impossible to determine who was the winner or loser for now.

Although Saber9's combat experience was far superior to the monster, and he was more practiced in the use of sequence power, he had not mastered as many god sequence chains as the Greed.

Apart from Sword Dao heavenly rule, the skeleton Greed had mastered at least ten different god sequence chains. It was just that its limits only allowed it to use a maximum of seven god sequence chains, the power of which was on par with Saber9's attacks.

Perhaps it was because the Greed was not in total control of its consciousness, or perhaps the god sequence chains it plundered could not be compounded and integrated well, but the combination of god sequence chains that it used was not very logical.

Saber9 soon noticed this issue and very soon dominated his opponent completely.

However, as the two were battling intensely, Lin Huang suddenly had a slight change of expression.

He had felt that that Lan Ling's probing range was too small, and far from sufficient to give advance warning or to probe the path ahead. Therefore, he had secretly released many Leech Pods along the way and had been continuously monitoring their surroundings at all times.

Through the Leech Pods just now, he saw that some Greeds nearby might have sensed the energy waves from the battle between Saber9 and the skeleton Greed. Although most of them had sensed the threat and distanced themselves of their own accord, there were also several high-level ones whose greed skyrocketed after sensing the waves and were now heading toward the battlefield. Among them was even a powerful ninth-rank being.

After a moment of hesitation, Lin Huang urged Saber9, "Saber9, can you finish it off quickly?"

Saber9 was stunned when he heard this, while Virtuoso and the rest looked at Lin Huang, feeling rather puzzled.

Urging teammates to hurry up like this was rude behavior, as everybody had their own tempo of battle. If one suddenly pressed a teammate to hurry, it could very well directly interfere with their fighting tempo.

"What's wrong?" Virtuoso knew there must be a reason why Lin Huang had spoken up to urge Saber9.

Lin Huang hesitated but decided to reveal the reason anyway. "There are high-level Greeds heading over now after sensing the battle waves here…"

He did not explain how he knew this, and Virtuoso did not pursue the matter further. They merely glanced at him very intently.

Lin Huang did not use voice transmission when he replied to Virtuoso. Saber9, in the midst of battle, heard him loud and clear.

Initially, he was wondering whether or not Lin Huang was hurrying him up just to provoke him. Now he finally realized that his battle had alerted the other Greeds far away.

The minute Lan Ling heard what Lin Huang had to say, she hurriedly performed her hand seals again, initiating another new round of probing.

However, she soon said to Lin Huang doubtfully, "I didn't sense any Greeds on the way. Instead, I saw many of them leaving the area that we're in."

"The weaker ones have certainly sensed the threat, so they're leaving of their own volition. However, the powerful ones are being drawn here. You didn't sense them as they haven't come into your sensing range yet," Lin Huang explained, "I don't want to elaborate on what kind of probing technique I used, but trust me, I'm not wrong about this."

"Alright then…" Lan Ling reluctantly accepted Lin Huang's explanation.

The others also did not enquire further into exactly what kind of probing technique Lin Huang had used.

As the clone of a Club member, Saber9 was naturally aware that all Club members had their own secrets.

With barely any hesitation, he chose to believe Lin Huang and began increasing the power of his attacks, as well as the frequency of them.

As the tempo of battle changed, the skeleton Greed clearly failed to react. Its consciousness was already not fully under its control, and as time went by, not only was it unable to adapt to the new battle tempo, but its flaws began to show even more. Saber9 had already dominated it initially, and it soon went into a completely passive mode.

Within three minutes after Lin Huang's warning, Saber9 killed the skeleton Greed with his saber.

Right as he completed the kill, Lan Ling gave a startled exclamation.

"A high-level Greed has entered my sensing range! It's heading in our direction!"

Tu Tong had been initially doubtful of Lin Huang's words but had not expressed his opinion all this while. Any suspicions he had previously harbored now vanished completely.

"At such close proximity, it's too late to think of escaping. Let's just fight it!" Lin Huang said expressionlessly, "We only need to take care of this one as soon as we can before the next one arrives."

He shook his sleeves as soon as he was done speaking, and telekinetic flying daggers shot out like a school of fish.

Saber9, who had just finished with his battle, did not sheathe his saber either. Instead, he brandished his weapon and turned around, staring in the direction where Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers were pointing.

Although Virtuoso did not move, the circulating Divine Power around them accelerated in preparation for going into battle at any moment.

Meanwhile, Tu Tong and Lan Ling retreated to one side.

High-level heavenly god-level powerhouses were already beyond their capabilities.

Very soon, a Greed with a powerful aura showed up in front of them.

This monster's form vaguely resembled a human.

It was bald and excruciatingly thin, with swarthy skin.

The biggest difference between itself and humans was that it had six arms and three eyes.

"The Ascetic Buddhist Tribe?!" Saber9 could not help a startled exclamation the minute he set eyes on it.

Lin Huang was stunned as well upon hearing that.

He had also heard about the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe, which was a unique tribe in the great world.

The Tribe members aspired to become ascetic cultivators.

They even rejected using equipment and most cultivation resources.

Not only that, they pursued the simplest life possible. If they did not have to eat, they would not eat; if they did not need to drink water, they would not either. They severed connections with anything related to desires, retaining only the most basic requirements in life.

Therefore, the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe members had powerful inner strength and terrifying wills.

This was also why Saber9 was so shocked to see this Greed.

The Ascetic Buddhist Tribe could unanimously be considered by everyone in the entire universe as the Tribe with the least desires.

They could even get rid of their most basic biological desires, what more greed.

However, the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe member before them had fallen and transformed into something that was practically impossible for its Tribe—a Greed.

'What's this fellow greedy for?' Almost everyone present, including Lin Huang, had a similar question pop up in the minds.

However, they soon found out the answer to that.

The third eye on the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's forehead opened abruptly. All of a sudden, myriad rays of Buddha's Light flooded the entire area. Countless golden sutras circulated around, enveloping the surroundings and turning them into a Buddhist kingdom.

The Ascetic Buddhist Greed levitated gradually into the air, and the silhouette of a massive golden Buddha appeared behind it slowly.

A low mutter reached the ears of Lin Huang and the others very clearly.

"We'll become a Buddha after cleansing the Abyss…"

These muttered words abruptly caused them to understand why this fellow had turned into a Greed.

This Ascetic Buddhist Tribe member must have been obsessed with cleansing the Abyss of Abyssal monsters. In the end, it was overcome by greed, which had then magnified its obsession, and it had turned into a monster itself.

After mumbling for a while, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed lowered its head to look at Lin Huang and the others. Its third eye gradually turned red.

Its six palms shot out almost simultaneously without holding back, as if six massive mountains had tumbled down.

"Die, monster!"

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Chapter 1545: The Opportunity To Attack

An individual in the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe, the purest Tribe with the least desires, had become the most improbable Disaster of all—a Greed.

If they had not seen it with their own eyes, everyone present might not have believed that such a thing could happen.

Even Virtuoso and Saber9—who were both experienced and knowledgeable—were stunned when they first set eyes on the Greed. However, right after that, their expressions changed slightly.

The Ascetic Buddhist Tribe were the purest ascetic cultivators.

They had immensely strong wills and spirits, which meant their abilities were generally powerful.

Although this transformed Ascetic Buddhist Tribe Greed before them only possessed seventh-rank heavenly god-level combat strength, the aura emanating from it was terrifying.

Furthermore, it attacked at full force as soon as it arrived. All six of its arms struck at once, turning into six massive, unbelievably tall mountains, tumbling toward Lin Huang and the rest.

Each of these mountains was encompassed by at least nine levels of sequence power.

Just this attack alone could completely overwhelm a ninth-rank heavenly god-level powerhouse.

Saber9 and Virtuoso could not help having a drastic change of expression.

Both of them attacked immediately, attempting to block this assault.

Up to one hundred saber formations lit up like golden gleams in front of Saber9, layering each upon the other. Over a million golden saber gleams illuminated the saber formations, so dense that they utterly blotted out the sun and the heavens.

He unleashed this attack full force, holding nothing back.

Even Lin Huang was rather shocked as he watched from the sidelines.

However, something happened next that shocked him even more.

Virtuoso did exactly the same thing as Saber9. Up to one hundred saber formations consolidated quickly in front of them, and over a million golden saber gleams lit up like a sky full of stars.

"What's happening?!"

Lin Huang's eyes widened. As a sword cultivator himself, he had not sensed any aura of a saber cultivator on Virtuoso at all from the beginning until now.

However, at present, Virtuoso was executing the exact same technique as Saber9. Not only that, Lin Huang could clearly sense that the saber formations and saber gleams that Virtuoso had consolidated were real, rather than an illusion.

Tu Tong, standing off to the side, seemed to have noticed Lin Huang's confusion. He then explained through voice transmission, "This is the effect of the imitation god sequence chain our teacher has mastered. He can imitate and copy others' techniques."

Lin Huang only noticed then that under Virtuoso's mask, faint blood-red sigils were swirling in their pupils.

Under Saber9 and Virtuoso's combined forces, countless saber gleams were attacking the Greed's massive palms.

It was like a meteor shower colliding with a monumental wall.

Endless golden streams of light blasted forth, crashing against the massive mountain-like palms.

All of a sudden, the streams of light vanished, and the mountains collapsed.

Under Virtuoso and Saber9's combined forces, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's attack was finally blocked.

Judging from this, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's ability was merely average.

When its attack was blocked, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed was merely stunned for a second before it struck out with all six palms again.

Each strike was more and more ferocious, and it kept shrieking continuously as it attacked.

"I will wipe all of you out even if I die today, you monsters!"

The blood-red fury in its three eyes increased even more.

Lin Huang did not attack as he watched Saber9 and Virtuoso barely holding off the powerful palms of the Ascetic Buddhist Greed.

Instead, he seemed to be pondering deeply as he stared at the monster.

"This fellow doesn't seem to realize at all that it's been transformed into a Greed…"

"Aren't you going to help?" Off on the sidelines, Lan Ling could not help asking as she noticed Saber9 and Virtuoso having a difficult time with the monster.

"I'm waiting for the opportunity to attack," Lin Huang returned calmly.

The reason he did not participate in the battle was that he was very much aware that, even if he did join in, it would be very difficult to end the fight within a short time. It would be extremely hard for them to escape before the next monster arrived.

He did not elaborate further after his comment.

Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Virtuoso spoke to the Ascetic Buddhist Greed during the battle.

"You keep calling us monsters, but you don't seem to realize at all that you're the only monster here. We're ordinary people who haven't been contaminated by Abyssal energy."

"Nonsense!" The Ascetic Buddhist Greed slammed its palms down again.

"You're a monk from the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe. Don't tell me you're completely unaware of the abnormalities in your body? Or perhaps you do know, but you've chosen to ignore it?!"

"You're trying to delude me with your lies!" The Ascetic Buddhist Greed struck out with its palms once more.

"You're the best judge of whether or not we're trying to delude you. I don't believe that as an eminent monk, you would be completely unable to sense the Abyssal energy and negative emotions that have contaminated your body."

"If it doesn't believe you, show it the Mirror of Truth. Let it see what it looks like now, and that should settle things," Lin Huang could not help chiming in on the discussion despite being an onlooker.

"That's a great idea!" Virtuoso exclaimed. Immediately after, he retrieved a mirror from his space storage and turned it to face the Ascetic Buddhist Greed.

Although it did not believe what Virtuoso and Lin Huang had said, the Ascetic Buddhist Greed could not help looking into the mirror.

One glance and it saw its appearance as it was currently.

It was as emaciated as a mummy—not only that, it had six arms and three eyes, and was extremely hideous.

"This is a trick—what utter nonsense!" the Ascetic Buddhist Greed gave a low growl.

"This is definitely not a trick. This is how you currently look like to us," Virtuoso explained, "You've been blinded by Abyssal energy and negative emotions, so you're unable to see the truth of the matter.

"In your eyes, you're normal, while we're monsters. However, in reality, it's the complete opposite. The image shown in the Mirror of Truth has proven that."

"The Mirror of Truth can be faked!" the Ascetic Buddhist Greed insisted.

"You judge for yourself whether it's fake or not then!" Virtuoso tossed the Mirror of Truth directly at the Ascetic Buddhist Greed.

The Ascetic Buddhist Greed picked up the mirror. The first thing it saw its emaciated, swarthy face.

It then used the mirror to look over the rest of its body, and the frown on its brow began to deepen.

As an Ascetic Buddhist Tribe member, its spirit strength and force of will had far surpassed the majority of seventh-ranks, to the point that it had already achieved the standard of a ninth-rank. It was practically impossible for anyone below half-step lord-level to have sufficient ability to pull it into an illusion.

Therefore, the Mirror of Truth it was looking at had to be real.

The Ascetic Buddhist Greed found it hard to accept these thoughts for a while and remained rooted to the spot, dumbstruck.

It had spent years killing monsters, but it had never thought that the biggest monster would actually be itself.

Right at this moment, a blood-red sword gleam flashed through the void.

It was Lin Huang, who had been ready to attack for a while now.

This was the opportunity that he had been waiting for.

He did not hold back anything at all in this attack, compounding Sword Dao heavenly rule and nine levels of god sequence chains.

The sword gleam was like Death's sickle; it also resembled a blood-red crescent moon suspended in the heavens.

It slashed through the Ascetic Buddhist Greed's body in an instant…

The Ascetic Buddhist Greed had no time to dodge, nor was it able to defend itself against the attack. All it saw was a red gleam coming toward it, and its body was immediately reduced to a headless corpse…

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Chapter 1546: Elevating To Eighth-Rank

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

As he sensed the massive number of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers rushing into his body, Lin Huang felt utterly satisfied, but also slightly puzzled at the same time.

The number of Rule Bending Powers that he had plundered from this Ascetic Buddhist Disaster exceeded that of any Heavenly Gods he had ever killed. There were over seven hundred thousand types of Rule Bending Powers, which was at least ten times more than what he had obtained from other Heavenly Gods. There were even over eighteen god sequence chains.

This caused Lin Huang to speculate involuntarily, 'Is this a unique trait of the Ascetic Buddhist Tribe, or a characteristic of a Greed that plunders Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers?'

As he contemplated this question, Tu Tong and Lan Ling were looking at him, their expressions utterly shocked.

They knew that Lin Huang had powerful abilities, but they had never expected that he would be this powerful.

With just one sword strike, he had killed the powerhouse that Saber9 and Virtuoso could only contend with after they had joined forces. Although the attack was a stealth attack instead of an upfront assault, it was enough to demonstrate Lin Huang's ability.

The intensity of Saber9's gaze also increased as he looked at Lin Huang. He already knew that Lin Huang was a sword cultivator, but so far, he had never seen Lin Huang using his sword. This was the first time he had seen it, and it stunned him.

Even Saber9 himself did not have full confidence to pull off the attack that killed the Ascetic Buddhist Disaster earlier.

The more this was the case, however, the more he felt that Lin Huang was an opponent worthy of being challenged.

In the team, Virtuoso seemed to be the only one who was not surprised. They merely glanced at Lin Huang, then turned their eyes away.

"Let's go. There'll be more Ascetic Buddhist Disasters coming if we linger." After he had extracted all the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers in the Ascetic Buddhist Disaster's body, Lin Huang turned around immediately and headed toward their next destination.

He was much more enthusiastic in the subsequent hunt for Greeds after obtaining so many Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers from the Ascetic Buddhist Disaster.

He did not even conceal his probing technique at all and began to lead. The route they took was mostly through the areas distributed with intermediate-level Greeds.

Noticing that Lin Huang had begun to fight more frequently, Virtuoso and the rest merely thought he wanted to end the battles sooner. They had no idea that he was testing out the number of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers that he could obtain from various Greeds.

After more than ten rounds of testing, he basically confirmed that the more powerful the ability of a Greed, the more Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers it could plunder from others.

In particular, Greeds that had mastered power essence had an incredible number of Rule Bending Powers within their bodies.

Lin Huang even managed to plunder close to 200,000 types of Rule Bending Powers from a fourth-rank Greed.

However, they had already stayed in the Greeds' gathering grounds for a full day, and Lin Huang did not feel right about continuing to lead everyone to wander around this area. After confirming his speculations, he did not linger there for very long. Instead, he led the rest to the next area—the Gluttons' gathering grounds.

These monsters called Gluttons were contaminated by Abyssal energy and gluttony.

Such monsters remained forever in a state of hunger. They were eager to eat every second of their lives.

Only food could bring them joy.

Furthermore, the frightening thing about these monsters was that they did not even need to think or cultivate—they could grow more powerful just by eating continuously.

They were able to obtain nutrients from every food they ate so they could gain energy.

In reality, Gluttons were not the only ones in the Greeds' territory. There were Arrogances as well.

However, Lin Huang chose to go to the area with Gluttons.

He did this because he thought that some Gluttons might possess the ability to plunder the Rule Bending Powers and god sequence chains from their preys' bodies, just like some Greeds could.

He even speculated that the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers within Gluttons might be more plentiful than in any of the other Disasters.

Therefore, he decided to verify his speculations.

After entering the Gluttons' territory, the first Glutton Lin Huang and the rest encountered was a giant ball of flesh.

The ball of flesh was approximately over three meters in diameter, hovering in mid-air. Mouths of various sizes grew all over its body as well as tentacles of varied sizes and lengths.

Each tentacle appeared to have a unique sensory organ—from far off, they had already sensed the presence of Lin Huang and the others.

Countless tentacles extended swiftly and swept toward Lin Huang and the rest like long whips.

The creature was so greedy that it wanted to capture all of them at once and swallow them up together.

However, what greeted it were red electric arcs that were up to a hundred times faster than its own tentacles.

Without waiting for the rest to react, Lin Huang attacked first.

His reason for taking the initiative was simple—he merely wanted to verify if his speculations were correct.

This fourth-rank Glutton was rather unfortunate. It had barely extended its tentacles before Lin Huang's telekinetic flying daggers turned them into sieves full of holes.

One exchange of blows, and it was all over.

It had made only made an appearance for less than half a second.

Noticing that Lin Huang had grabbed the opportunity to attack, Virtuoso and the rest felt even more that he wanted to leave this Disaster Abyss Land as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang rapidly sensed the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers surging into his body after killing the Glutton.

Just as he had anticipated, the number of Rule Bending Powers he obtained from this Glutton was more than several times that of an ordinary fourth-rank Heavenly God.

However, one Glutton was not proof of the entire matter. This Glutton might be a special case.

To verify his speculations, he needed more Gluttons as reference.

"Let's go. What are you standing there for?" Lin Huang did not even look at the Glutton, which had not yet fully turned into a negative emotion. He immediately bestirred himself and headed swiftly to the location of the second target.

Virtuoso and the rest glanced at the dead Glutton, only following Lin Huang after making sure that it was not going to revive.

In the few subsequent hunts, Lin Huang very quickly verified his speculations.

Practically all Gluttons had more Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers than other monsters of the same combat strength. However, most of these Gluttons existed in a state of muddled ignorance.

Eating was the only thing on their minds, and their use of sequence powers was by instinct. Even if they harbored powers stronger than the other Disasters, they could only showcase a fraction of their abilities.

However, this made it easy for Lin Huang—the efficiency of his Rule Bending Power plundering increased more than a few times.

Virtuoso and the rest were quietly pleased as they watched him killing monsters so enthusiastically.

They followed him the entire way and watched him shine.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang killed swiftly everywhere he went. Sometimes he did not even stop walking, disposing of his opponents in a second by using telekinetic flying daggers from a distance.

Virtuoso and the rest soon realized that Lin Huang was killing Gluttons intentionally. This was because the number of Gluttons they had encountered today was several times more than the number of Disasters they had encountered in other areas.

Within the short space of a day, Lin Huang had killed more than two hundred Gluttons.

Each monster provided him with over one hundred thousand Rule Bending Powers at the very least and seven to eight hundred thousand Rule Bending Power at most.

The number of Rule Bending Powers that the two hundred over Gluttons provided allowed him to elevate from seventh-rank to eighth-rank successfully.

If it were not for Virtuoso and the rest following along with him, he would very probably have hunted in this area until he broke through to ninth-rank.

However, considering that he came with the team, he could only abandon the thought. After completing a full day's hunting, only then did he leave the Gluttons' territory, feeling unsatisfied…

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Chapter 1547: Heading In The One O'Clock Direction

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

"Have we… left the Disaster Abyss Land?"

Virtuoso asked this because they could clearly sense that the negative emotions which had been lingering around them at all times had completely vanished.

The rest soon noticed this as well.

"I think so." Lin Huang was not too sure of the Disaster Abyss Land's demarcation. Although he sensed the negative emotions around them were gone, he could not answer for sure. "Where do we go now?"

"What can you sense?" Virtuoso asked.

"There are a group of Carnivorous Giants at 10 o'clock, approximately 600 kilometers away.

"At 11 o'clock, approximately 1,100 kilometers ahead, there's a decaying toxic forest.

"There are a group of Ghoul Jackals at 12 o'clock, approximately 500 kilometers away.

"There's a toxic fog swamp at one o'clock within 1,300 kilometers, but the exact situation is unknown for now.

"At two o'clock, roughly around 800 kilometers off, there's a large cluster of Dead Spirit monsters.

"If we head in the direction of nine o'clock and three o'clock, we'll go back to the Disaster Abyss Land."

Lin Huang turned his head to look at Virtuoso. Noticing that they were frowning in deep thought, he could not help asking, "Don't you have a specific destination in mind?"

Only then did Virtuoso look at him. "The place I want to go to is called Phantom City. My objective is to retrieve the castellan's seal. I also know the exact coordinates of a few phantom cities. The problem is I'm not sure where we are right now. That's because there are hundreds, even to up to thousands of discovered Disaster Abyss Lands in the Abyss, and there are even more Demonic Bug Mazes. Although there are many phantom cities too, it's not easy to encounter one."

"So which direction do we go now?" Lin Huang asked.

Virtuoso hesitated for a moment but made a decision. "The toxic swamp then."

Lin Huang could not help frowning upon hearing their answer.

"You might want to think this through. That might be the most dangerous place of all these few options. My probing technique will be blocked in the fog too, and we won't know what's happening in there."

"Let's just go there. We can see through the rest just with a glance anyway. Moreover, a phantom city's entrance is usually somewhere that's not easily discoverable." Virtuoso clearly did not have any better choices. "If there really is a phantom city nearby, the entrance is most probably in the swamp. Let's bet on that!"

"What do you all think?" Lin Huang glanced at the rest.

"Since Phantom City is our destination, no matter what, we'll still have to look for the entrance regardless. The rest of the entrance locations might not be as safe as the swamp anyway." What Lan Ling said was something Lin Huang had never expected.

To him, she was an introverted, timid sort of girl.

"I think what Lan Ling said makes sense," Tu Tong, off to one side, agreed immediately.

"Let's go!" Saber9 was even more straightforward.

Since he saw that everyone was unanimous in their agreement, Lin Huang did not object any further.

He was not worried at all that he might die. After all, he had the abilities from Monster Paradise. As long as he was not killed by lord-level powerhouses, he could be revived with full health.

He had intentionally brought this up earlier since he was mainly worried that Tu Tong and Lan Ling might not possess sufficient ability. However, since the two of them had agreed, he could not really say anything more.

After deciding on the direction, they headed straight to the foggy swamp.

"You don't need to worry about us. In reality, there are many such foggy swamps in the Abyss. It shouldn't be a problem as long as we're careful," Lan Ling suddenly said to Lin Huang through voice transmission as they were on the way, "Also, my spell probing is effective most of the time in such foggy areas."

Lin Huang nodded at her slightly but did not reply.

All of them hurried along and soon arrived at the foggy swamp that Lin Huang had mentioned earlier.

White fog covered the place as far as the eye could see, dense as clouds.

They could not see anything of the swamp at all.

If anyone were to barge in carelessly, however, they might fall into the swamp immediately and be corroded to death.

Very wisely, Lin Huang and the others paused in front of the fog.

Virtuoso and the rest all looked at Lan Ling.

She was also aware that it was time for her to demonstrate her abilities.

She rolled up both of her sleeves and swiftly began performing complex hand seals with both hands.

A moment later, incantations like tiny snakes appeared on her skinny arms immediately, squirming about rapidly on them as if they were alive.

She abruptly pressed both palms onto the ground, and the incantations swiftly began to wriggle into the earth.

After that, she sat with her legs crossed and closed her eyes.

Quite sometime later, Lan Ling finally opened her eyes slowly. However, she could not help but frown. "My probing technique is experiencing a significant blockage in this foggy area."

"How far can you probe?" Virtuoso asked immediately.

"The distance is even shorter than in the Demonic Bug Maze, 10 kilometers at most," Lan Ling said helplessly, "This fog seems to have the ability to absorb spells and refract them. The further I probe, the faster the spell wears out—you could say it's exponentially effective."

"If I'm not wrong, your spell isn't the only thing that's being affected here." Lin Huang released a wisp of Divine Telekinesis as he spoke. As expected, it experienced extreme blockage.

He could clearly sense that the fog was absorbing his telekinesis. Once his Divine Telekinesis was swallowed up by the fog, it disappeared into it and vanished entirely. Even information feedback was significantly affected.

"I can't use my Divine Telekinesis either," Lin Huang reported the results of his experiment after he tried. His Divine Telekinesis could only extend to just about 1,000 meters in this fog.

Virtuoso and the rest tried their Divine Telekinesis too after hearing what Lin Huang had said and quickly came to the same conclusion.

"We can only rely on you now," Tu Tong said, smiling at Lan Ling.

"Lead the way, Xiao Lanlan," Virtuoso too turned their head to look at Lan Ling.

She nodded immediately and said, "Let's go into the swamp from the 12 o'clock direction, that is, straight ahead.

"Be careful, however; the swamp contains many Enchanted Toads and Poison Arrow Frogs. If we're merely attacked, it won't be something life-threatening. However, if we fall into the swamp, there's a high chance that we'd be contaminated by the dense Abyssal energy and become Abyssal creatures."

"Don't make it sound so scary, can you?" From off to one side, Tu Tong gave a forced, rather stiff smile. "This place is already dangerous enough. Now that you've said this, I don't want to go in at all."

"What's the point of your current physique then!" Lan Ling's lips curled slightly. "You're good to look at, but you're useless."

"I'll lead the way," Lin Huang volunteered the suggestion.

He was not doing this to show off but because he possessed Mirror (the upgraded version of Dark Mirror), an unbelievably powerful defensive technique.

If he took the lead, this would minimize his other teammates' casualties.

"Both of us will bring up the rear." Saber9 nodded as well.

Naturally, he meant himself and Virtuoso when he said, "Both of us."

Once the three of them had taken their positions, the remaining two naturally stood in the middle, which was also the safest position in the entire team.

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Chapter 1548: Poison Arrow Frogs

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lin Huang took the first step into the foggy area. His figure levitated into the air slightly, approximately a meter above the swamp beneath.

He chose that particular height because the fog was too dense; any higher, and he would not be able to see the surface of the swamp anymore.

In this foggy area, everyone's Divine Telekinesis was severely constrained. The information they sensed might be incomplete; for now, they could only rely on their eyes to help.

Even though Lin Huang's Divine Telekinesis was powerful beyond compare, his sensing range was limited to approximately one thousand meters only. The further the range, the more blurry the images he sensed. Some images were even distorted, so he had no way of identifying what they were.

This irritated Lin Huang because such severe limits on his Divine Telekinesis not only affected his accuracy in targeting his telekinetic flying daggers but also severely restricted his power.

"Please be careful," Virtuoso frowned lightly and said to everyone through voice transmission, "Every area of fog here has different effects. Right now, nobody knows if this fog does anything else other than affecting our sensing techniques, such as Divine Telekinesis. Since we haven't ascertained whether or not this fog poses any further threats, please keep the defenses on your armor activated at all times."

Before Lin Huang and the rest entered the foggy area, they had already taken precautions by activating their inner armor. The defense layer created by this armor automatically shielded their outer bodies.

Virtuoso reminded them again to prevent them from lowering their guard.

All of them nodded.

Lin Huang, who was at the forefront of the team, suddenly decreased his flying speed, looking through the dense fog in a specific direction.

In reality, his eyes were not able to see through the thick fog, but his Divine Telekinesis was able to sense that the area ahead was a gathering ground for Poison Arrow Frogs.

The Poison Arrow Frog was a type of monster that was inherently heavenly god-level from birth. However, unlike most heavenly god-level monsters, they were used to living in groups.

Their croaking could travel over long distances, attracting monsters of the same kind to gather.

Clearly, the Poison Arrow Frogs contaminated by Abyssal energy retained their old habits; they still enjoyed living in groups.

"There's a situation ahead?" Tu Tong hurriedly asked, being the first to notice Lin Huang slowing down

"There's a group of Poison Arrow Frogs ahead, at least fifty of them," Lin Huang said calmly.

"Can we go around them?" Tu Tong wanted to know.

However, it was not Lin Huang who answered this question, but Lan Ling. "We can't go around them. Not only are there Poison Arrow Frogs ahead, but also Enchanted Toads and Thousand-legged Snakes. The entire swamp seems to have been divided into various territories by different monsters. There are practically no areas that are safe."

Tu Tong was bereft of speech upon hearing that.

"We don't need to go around them; let's just forge straight ahead," Virtuoso suggested, "If everyone can be a little more careful, that would be good."

Only after that did Lin Huang lead everyone in flying forward.

However, before they could fly very far, black arrow-like gleams sped toward them like lightning.

It was the Poison Arrow Frogs' signature technique – the Poison Arrow Skill.

Simply put, they compressed the toxins in their bodies into fine, tiny arrows. They then imbued Divine Power, Rule Bending Power, and sequence power into those arrows, and shot them out of their mouths.

Such an attack not only contained poison that could easily kill powerhouses of the same combat strength, but it was also extremely fast. It was almost on par with an arrow cultivator of the same combat strength. The most frightening thing was that the Poison Arrow Frogs could utilize their technique continuously until they exhausted the toxins stored in their bodies.

Meanwhile, the Poison Arrow Frogs contaminated by Abyssal energy had even more terrifying poison arrows, as they contained a layer of Abyssal energy within them. Their power and corrosive abilities were undoubtedly elevated even further.

Seeing the poison arrows flying toward them, Virtuoso and the rest prepared to retaliate, but they noticed that Lin Huang had not unsheathed his sword at all.

Just when they thought that he was preparing to fight using telekinetic flying daggers, they saw Lin Huang extend a finger in the void.

With just a light tap of that finger, circle upon circle of black ripples appeared in the air. The ripples slowly spread, rapidly becoming a massive curved mirror, shielding the five of them behind it.

Virtuoso and the rest were able to see the poison arrows attacking them as they looked through the curved mirror; none of them thought Lin Huang's defense technique was a good idea. This was because such a technique would drain a massive amount of Divine Power once it was under siege. No matter how powerful Lin Huang was, it was impossible for him to have more Divine Power than the Poison Arrow Frogs.

Therefore, theoretically, Lin Huang's Divine Power would soon be depleted by the attacks of the Poison Arrow Frogs and the mirror-like shield would collapse sooner or later.

'Is this fellow planning to charge ahead with the shield?' Virtuoso and the rest did not stop Lin Huang's near-suicidal behavior because they all had the same misunderstanding.

However, very soon, they saw something that shocked them.

When the poison arrows hit the curved mirror, they bounced back right away practically without pause. Wherever they had been shot from was where they returned to.

The group could even clearly hear the Frogs' devastating cries from far away.

Virtuoso and the rest had no idea what to say when they saw such an extraordinary scene.

Under normal circumstances, the more frequently the Poison Arrow Frogs attacked, the more powerful their attacks would become.

However, this time, the Poison Arrow Frogs' attacks began to weaken not long after they began.

Not only was the frequency of the attacks plummeting at a speed visible to the naked eye, but their power was also draining away.

Even the Frogs' devastating cries decreased continuously, becoming subsequently weaker.

Two minutes later, the entire swamp fell silent after the last cry from the Frogs was heard.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling looked at Lin Huang, mouths agape, while off to one side, Saber9's expression was a complex mixture of emotions. Virtuoso's expression could not be seen as their face was covered by their mask. However, the rest imagined that Virtuoso was shocked as well.

From beginning to end, Lin Huang had merely held up an odd, mirror-like shield. He had done nothing else after that, and the entire group of Poison Arrow Frogs was completely annihilated within less than three minutes.

This technique was downright terrifying!

If they had not seen it with their own eyes, perhaps Tu Tong and the rest would not have believed that this was really happening right in front of them.

Noticing that the Poison Arrow Frogs were quiet now, Lin Huang released his Divine Telekinesis for a round of probing. He only recalled Mirror after making sure that the Poison Arrow Frogs were all dead. Retrieving the carcasses with telekinetic threads one after the other, he put them all away into his space storage right in front of the others.

The rest finally discovered the exact number of Poison Arrow Frogs—58 of them.

"Let's go," Lin Huang glanced at the rest behind him after putting away the carcasses, then hurried straight ahead.

Virtuoso and the rest followed him immediately.

"That skill that you used… what's the most powerful attack it can defend against?" Saber9 hesitated for quite a while but finally could not restrain himself from asking.

"Ten times that of my strongest attack." Lin Huang did not conceal this fact; there was no need to hide such a thing anyway since, in reality, no one knew exactly how powerful his strongest attack was.

Even Virtuoso raised their brows under their mask upon hearing that.

"How about the refraction? How powerful of an attack can it refract?" Saber9 asked again.

"The same," Lin Huang's answer was concise.

However, Tu Tong and the rest inhaled sharply when they heard that…

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Chapter 1549: Fiendish Swamp Monster

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

As a member of the Club as well, Virtuoso's Primordial had actually done a thorough investigation on Lin Huang.

Not only did they know he was a sword cultivator and a psychic, they even knew of his identity as an Imperial Censor—something that people in the God Territory had no idea about.

Despite that, they still saw Lin Huang performing incredible techniques over and over again during this trip together.

No matter if it was the probing ability that he had revealed in the Disaster Abyss Land previously or the defense technique he had just performed in the foggy swamp—there were no such records of anything like it in the Club.

Initially, Virtuoso had invited Lin Huang to join the team merely for his combat abilities. Given his abilities as both a sword cultivator and a psychic, it meant that his attack power would not only be stunning, but he would also have extremely powerful long-distance attack techniques.

However, Lin Huang had demonstrated far more comprehensive abilities than Virtuoso had initially expected.

With his shield, the team was moving forward much faster than they had expected in the foggy swamp, practically without any obstacles.

Mirror's defense and refractive abilities were just too terrifying. Virtuoso and Saber9 were even a little doubtful if a ninth-rank Heavenly God might be able to break through Lin Huang's current defenses.

"There's a group of Fiendish Swamp Monsters ahead. Do we go around them?" Lan Ling suddenly asked as the team moved forward.

She asked this because the Fiendish Swamp Monsters were rather unique creatures.

They could transform themselves into a part of the swamp and hide perfectly in any swamp terrain. When they were hiding, most probing techniques would not work on them, including Divine Telekinesis.

Naturally, Divine Telekinesis was not entirely useless. If one's combat strength was a level higher than the Fiendish Swamp Monsters, the monsters could not hide from being sensed by Divine Telekinesis.

Apart from being able to conceal themselves, the Fiendish Swamp Monsters were also experts in covert killing. With their perfect camouflage, their attacks were almost entirely unpredictable.

Their covert killing skills were even more dangerous within the toxic swamp's terrain. If their prey fell into the swamp, there was almost no chance of escaping.

In a foggy area, almost everyone would choose to circumvent monsters that they would not be able to sense.

That was why Lan Ling still asked such a question, even though they were progressing swiftly on their way without any obstacles.

Virtuoso did not answer the question upon hearing it. Instead, they and Saber9 looked at Lin Huang.

"There's no need to go around; just continue straight ahead." There was no change of expression on Lin Huang's face at all.

The rest were relieved to hear this. Since Lin Huang had said that, it meant he was confident about passing through the Fiendish Swamp Monsters' gathering area.

Soon after they moved forward, Lan Ling suddenly gave warning, "There are Fiendish Swamp Monsters hiding approximately one thousand meters ahead."

Lin Huang released his Divine Telekinesis but found nothing.

He could not help secretly exclaiming that Lan Ling's spell probing technique was indeed extremely useful.

Lin Huang sent out his Divine Telekinesis again after the team had advanced for several hundred meters. He thought that perhaps he would find something with his Divine Telekinesis since they were closer now. However, he still did not sense anything unusual. The swamp seemed peaceful; apart from a ground full of mud and mire, there was nothing else.

Aside from Lin Huang, Virtuoso and the rest also sent out their Divine Telekinesis and found nothing either.

If not for Lan Ling's spell detection sensing those Fiendish Swamp Monsters, perhaps the entire team would have fallen into the Fiendish Swamp Monsters' trap.

The group continued moving forward, but the Fiendish Swamp Monster restrained itself and did not attack.

It only attacked at last when Lin Huang and the rest flew by above it.

Over a hundred coal-black tentacles shot up from the swamp as if a volcano had erupted, ensnaring the team like a massive web, as if it wanted to capture all five of them.

If Lan Ling had not given advance warning, this ambush that came out of nowhere might really have succeeded. Although it was hard to capture Lin Huang and the others, the attack was enough to put them in an awkward situation for a while.

However, since Lan Ling had mentioned it to them earlier, they had come prepared.

The moment the Fiendish Swamp Monster attacked, Lin Huang held Mirror under everyone's bodies.

The tentacles above that were about to ensnare everyone were blocked directly. To be precise, not only were they blocked, but the hundred-over tentacles bounced back the moment they collided with Mirror.

The Fiendish Swamp Monster that had made the covert attack clearly had not foreseen this happening. Before it could react, its hundred-over tentacles had been stabbed full of holes like a sieve. In the blink of an eye, its life force was gone.

Its disgusting green carcass floated up from the swamp, and everyone was finally able to see what the monster really looked like.

It was a soft-bodied monster, entirely green in color. It had multiple tumors of various sizes on its skin like a toad, and its entire body exuded a rotten, pungent stench that was worse than the swamp.

As for the tentacles it had extended earlier, it was not that the monster had tentacles. Instead, it had simulated them with its body.

After sensing the Fiendish Swamp Monster's death, as well as the Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers that surged into his body, Lin Huang raised his brows, puzzled.

Although this Fiendish Swamp Monster only had the combat strength of a fourth-rank Heavenly God, the amount of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers that he obtained from it were far higher than most monsters of the same combat strength. It was only slightly less than the Gluttons and Greeds of the same combat strength.

This was an unexpectedly pleasurable surprise for Lin Huang.

'I wonder if this is a special case, or if all Fiendish Swamp Monsters master a great many Rule Bending Powers…' Lin Huang had his doubts, but he knew the answer to his question would soon be revealed.

Very soon, the team encountered a second Fiendish Swamp Monster.

Lin Huang took the lead in killing it and once more plundered a great number of Rule Bending Powers again.

It was the same for the subsequent third and fourth Fiendish Swamp Monsters. Each of them provided him with a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers.

This allowed Lin Huang to be certain that Fiendish Swamp Monsters would provide a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers, and that the first one was not just a special case.

However, he could not quite understand why such a monster would have such an extraordinarily large number of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers—far beyond the usual amount.

He continued to puzzle over this until Virtuoso unintentionally mentioned that Fiendish Swamp Monsters were actually saprophagous monsters that would clear the swamp of all debris. Their method of doing so was to swallow everything.

This made Lin Huang speculate that the Fiendish Swamp Monsters had an ability similar to Gluttons, whereby they could obtain Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers from powerhouses' dead bodies.

However, just like Gluttons, although they obtained many Rule Bending Power and sequence power, they could not use many of them. Their overall ability was no more powerful than monsters of the same level.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang was able to take advantage of the monsters' trait of possessing many Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers.

Lin Huang—who was initially not interested in the Fiendish Swamp Monsters—had his interest piqued considerably after confirming that such monsters could provide him with a massive amount of Rule Bending Powers.

He was now in a rather enthusiastic hunting frame of mind, having fallen into manic monster-hunting mode ever since the Gluttons and the Greeds…

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Chapter 1550: All The EXP!

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lin Huang spent less than twenty minutes killing all the Fiendish Swamp Monsters along the way, plundering millions of Rule Bending Powers.

If not for the consideration that he was still a part of Virtuoso's team, he would most certainly have killed all the Fiendish Swamp Monsters in the area instead of only killing the Fiendish Swamp Monsters along the way; none of them would have been spared. After all, these were monsters that gave him EXP and they were hard to come by.

After leaving the Fiendish Swamp Monsters' territory, the team continued moving forward.

Lan Ling used her spell probe, again and again, attempting to locate the unusual place that Virtuoso had mentioned. However, her efforts were of no avail.

As they had Lin Huang with them, they passed through the monsters' gathering areas one after the other without any difficulty.

Despite this, their progress was not exactly swift.

After all, their senses were impeded. Not only that, there was danger almost everywhere in this swamp area.

After passing by a monster-gathering area, Lan Ling initiated a new round of probing.

She opened her eyes a moment later. "There's a Demonic Fir Forest ahead of us…"

She glanced at Lin Huang after saying that and hesitated a moment before asking, "Do we go around it?"

The last time she asked that question had been when they had encountered the Fiendish Swamp Monsters.

As if worried that Lin Huang might not understand the situation, she added, "The situation in the Demonic Fir Forest is rather complicated. Apart from the Demonic Firs having inherently powerful territorial instincts and extremely powerful offensive capabilities, there are many tribes that live in symbiosis with them in the Demonic Fir Forest—for instance, the Dead Spirit Vines, Fish Apes, Lightning Snakes, and so on…"

Lin Huang's eyes lit up when he heard that.

As far as he was concerned, the more monsters there were, the more rules he could plunder.

One must know that he had reaped an abundance of EXP before hunting the Fiendish Swamp Monsters. Subsequent rounds after that had gotten him less than one-third of the EXP he had obtained from killing the Fiendish Swamp Monsters.

Now, upon hearing that there were many types of monsters in the Demonic Fir Forest, his first thought was that this was the perfect chance to gain a massive amount of EXP. Naturally, he would not let such an opportunity pass him by.

"Let's just go in." Lin Huang glanced at Virtuoso beside him after saying that. "What if the phantom city's entrance is in this forest? We'd miss it if we detour around it."

He said this intentionally as he was worried that everyone would opt for going around it.

However, what he said made some sense.

If the entrance to the phantom city was within this Demonic Fir Forest, they would completely miss it if they made a detour around the Forest. It would also mean that their journey into the foggy swamp was all for naught.

Virtuoso had initially chosen to explore this area, as they suspected that it might be the phantom city's entrance.

"Let's go in then." Virtuoso pondered for a while but still nodded in the end.

The rest made no objections after Virtuoso had spoken.

After all, Virtuoso was the one who had formed the team. The main objective for them gathering in the Abyss was to help Virtuoso obtain the castellan's seal of Phantom City.

After confirming that they would not detour around, Lin Huang once again blazed the trail. Leading the team, he flew into the Demonic Fir Forest area up ahead.The Demonic Fir was a type of plant monster. Actually, 'Demonic Fir' was the general overarching name for an entire category. There were many types of different Demonic Firs that fell under this category, and all of them had different names.

The monsters in the foggy area's Demonic Fir Forest were called Night Demon Firs.

This type of monster had a very unique characteristic—they were basically in a state of deep slumber during the day. During the day, even if people passed through the whole of the Demonic Fir Forest, they might not be attacked by even one Night Demon Fir. As long as their bodies did not touch the Night Demon Firs, and they did not make any loud noises, they basically would not wake the trees.

However, the Night Demon Firs would fully come alive at night.

Nighttime was party time for all Night Demon Firs; it was also their time for hunting.

They would extend their branches and use their blade-like leaves to shred apart any intruders that approached their territory.

However, the most frightening thing about the Demonic Fir Forest was not the Demonic Firs themselves, but the monsters that were living in symbiosis with them.

There might be powerful beings hiding among those monsters.

Lin Huang could not help being stunned when he saw the Night Demon Firs before him.

Although he had already read the information about the Demonic Firs much earlier on, he had not expected them to be so massive when he set eyes on them in person.

Each of these Firs had a diameter of over two meters. They were so tall that their tops were in the clouds.

At the same time, Lin Huang heard startled gasps near him.

"So big!" This exclamation came from Lan Ling.

"So thick!" This was from Tu Tong.

Lin Huang's thoughts took a slightly perverse turn when both exclamations came together.

However, at that moment, the several Night Demon Firs within their field of vision moved almost simultaneously.

Countless branches whipped out like lightning, the leaves on the twigs unfolding like blades.

If this attack had struck them, Lin Huang's entire group might have been sliced into countless lumps of meat immediately.

However, since they had come prepared, they were naturally not caught off guard. As soon as the Night Demon Firs attacked, they reacted at once.

Lin Huang's finger stabbed out, and a black mirror coalesced in front of him.

This time, he did not shield the rest.

He did this mainly because earlier, he had been too enthusiastic when he was hunting the Fiendish Swamp Monsters and did not give the rest the opportunity to showcase their skills. It was Virtuoso who suggested that he give Lan Ling and Tu Tong some opportunities for combat.

In subsequent battles, therefore, he had intentionally not taken special care to protect both of them.

Furthermore, the Night Demon Firs did not have stealth techniques, and their abilities could not be considered overwhelming. For Lan Ling and Tu Tong, these were the best combat opponents to practice on.

Naturally, he did not have to protect Virtuoso and Saber9.

Therefore, Lin Huang only protected himself when he raised his shield this time, ignoring the rest.

The several Night Demon Firs whipped their branches around maniacally as if they were dancing in the dark.

However, any branches that came at Lin Huang were flung back in a strange manner when they struck the black mirror in front of him. The fully-unfurled leaves on the branches were now aimed at the Night Demon Fir instead, wildly attacking it.

The Night Demon Fir was not an inherently intelligent monster. By the time it realized something was wrong, it was too late.

In an instant, countless leaves collided with the branches. Within less than half a second, the massive tree was left with a short, bald trunk stump jutting out from the ground, less than 18 centimeters high.

If there had been any onlookers who did not understand the reason for this, they might have been astonished and wondered why this Night Demon Fir had committed suicide.

Did it not have the confidence to live just because it looked too ordinary?

The battle on Lin Huang's side ended in no time at all. The entire process had taken less than half a second.

However, Virtuoso and the rest were still in combat.

After disposing of the Night Demon Fir that had attacked him, Lin Huang checked on the situation with the rest. He then turned his eyes away and closed them to feel the Rule Bending Powers surging into his body. A moment later, he suddenly opened his eyes, and there was a slight gleam in them.

This Night Demon Fir had provided a substantial amount of rules, only slightly less than Fiendish Swamp Monsters of the same combat strength.

This stirred up Lin Huang's hunting spirit, causing it to blaze once again.

"These trees are all EXP!"

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Chapter 1551: Triple Happiness!

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

For every ordinary fourth-rank Heavenly God that he killed, Lin Huang could obtain twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand types of Rule Bending Powers.

However, he obtained eighty thousand to one hundred thousand types of Rule Bending Powers just from killing one fourth-rank Night Demon Fir. It was almost four times more than what he could get from Heavenly Gods of the same combat strength.

The Night Demon Firs with higher combat strength would have even more Rule Bending Powers within their bodies.

As far as Lin Huang was concerned, killing these monsters was undoubtedly the best way to obtain EXP.

As he led the team forward, apart from letting Tu Tong and Lan Ling practice on the beginner-level monsters, he would kill the rest right away. He did not give Virtuoso and Saber9 any combat opportunities at all.

Virtuoso and Saber9 did not say anything either. They had already begun to realize that Lin Huang seemed to be extra enthusiastic about killing specific monsters.

This was because he clearly did not bother to battle certain monsters, but others he would rush in to kill.

However, the two of them could not figure out what aroused Lin Huang's interest for killing these monsters. To them, the several types of monsters he was enthusiastic about killing did not seem to have anything in common.

The team continued moving ahead in the Demonic Fir Forest.

Very soon, Lin Huang had obtained over a million Rule Bending Powers easily. It was certainly more than several times faster than killing regular monsters.

Suddenly, Lan Ling issued a reminder, "There'll be Dead Spirit Vines ahead."

The Dead Spirit Vine was a parasitic vine monster that lived on the Demonic Firs. While simultaneously obtaining nutrients from the Demonic Firs, they would repay this by using their strength to help the Demonic Firs hunt. Their attacks were not physical like the Demonic Firs but directly targeted the spiritual-layer.

Once the Dead Spirit Vines had extracted more nutrients than the Demonic Firs could give out, the Dead Spirit Vines would usually choose to leave their host Demonic Firs and look for a more powerful Demonic Fir to live on as a parasite. This was to prevent the Demonic Firs from being harmed. Meanwhile, powerful Dead Spirit Vines that could not be satisfied by the nutrients provided by one Demonic Fir would live on multiple Demonic Firs at the same time to divide up the burden. However, such powerful Dead Spirit Vines usually possessed terrifying ability, which could support the hunting proclivities of multiple Demonic Firs.

The symbiotic relationship between the Dead Spirit Vines and Demonic Firs was a mutually beneficial virtuous cycle.

For the Night Demon Firs, the benefits they received from the Dead Spirit Vines was even greater. This was because the Dead Spirit Vines would take the initiative to hunt and kill any creatures that invaded their territory when the Night Demon Firs were asleep during the day.

Everyone in the team plucked up their courage when they heard Lan Ling's reminder, and were even more on their guard.

The Dead Spirit Vines' combat abilities were more powerful than Night Demon Firs of the same combat strength. Not only that, they had many techniques. Their overall ability would elevate significantly when they combined forces with the Demonic Firs to fight.

However, when Lin Huang heard Lan Ling's reminder, the first thought that flashed through his head was, 'Since they're the Night Demon Firs' parasites, wouldn't they have similar amounts of Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers as the Night Demon Firs?!'

His eyes lit up again when he considered this.

If that were really the case, it would mean that he would gain double EXP—double the happiness!

Naturally, Virtuoso and the rest had no idea about these strange thoughts in his head.

Lin Huang led the team forward, seemingly cautious. Not far into the journey, they encountered a new round of stealth attacks.

This round was different from the previous battle, as this time the Night Demon Firs and Dead Spirit Vines attacked simultaneously.

Vine silhouettes and branches extended, filling the air. The intensity of the attack was more than several times stronger than before; furthermore, this time the attacks targeted all the members of the team.

The members of the team were armed and ready for battle; even Saber9 looked much more serious now.

As for Virtuoso, although their expression was not visible under the mask, the rest could clearly see that they were no longer as relaxed as before.

Due to the intersecting attacks of vine silhouettes and tree branches, it was very hard to differentiate which were spiritual attacks from the Dead Spirit Vines, and which were the Night Demon Firs' physical attacks.

Lin Huang was the only one who felt unusually excited.

Seeing the attacks coming toward them, dense as rain, he stabbed a finger into the air, raising Mirror to shield everyone in the team.

This time, he raised Mirror without any trouble at all, as if he were worried that his comrades could not handle the monsters. However, Lin Huang was the only one who knew that the actual motivation behind this was so he could kill the monsters himself and obtain all the benefits.

Mirror steadily suspended itself in the air, over everyone's heads. Virtuoso and the rest were initially worried that it might not be able to provide any defense against spiritual attacks. However, they soon realized that Lin Huang's Mirror was much more powerful than they had ever imagined. Very quickly, they felt at ease and settled down to watch the scenario play out.

In the void, branches and vines surged toward the group like a furious storm. The moment they touched Mirror, however, they bounced back at an even faster speed.

On the heels of that, blood-curdling screams could be heard in the fog.

A moment later, the attacks that had blotted out the sky were completely gone, and the fog had also become silent.

Lin Huang had dominated the entire place with just one finger.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling were so utterly stunned, they could not snap back to their senses even a moment later.

Virtuoso and Sword9 looked at each other and saw astonishment in each other's eyes that was hard to conceal. This defense technique was practically invincible!

Lin Huang, on the other hand, stood where he was, sensing the massive number of rules that were surging into his body.

Just simply pointing a finger had gained him up to one million EXP's worth of rules.

He sensed that his earlier speculation had been confirmed as well.

Each Dead Spirit Vine had a similar number of rules to the Night Demon Firs that they latched onto as parasites.

The rewards he reaped this round really made him feel twice as happy!

After dispelling Mirror, Lin Huang extended his telekinetic threads one after the other to drag the carcasses back.

He was also finally able to see the Dead Spirit Vines' form.

It was a type of black rattan, the thickness of which varied from that of an adult's thigh to the size of a bucket. They were like massive boa constrictors.

What was more unusual was that all these rattans did not look entirely alike. Apart from a black-colored base, they were all different.

Some had sprouted thorns on their surfaces; some were full of fleshy tumors; some had scales, while some were covered with poisonous secretions…

Although the Dead Spirit Vines would divide into multiple branches when they attacked, one could imagine the consequences if one's soul were struck by those rattans.

Lan Ling and Tu Tong thought it was rather frightening as they watched from the sidelines.

"Store them up. Dead Spirit Vines are great materials for refining spirit weapons even in the universe," Virtuoso commented with a smile, "You should be able to sell them at a good price when we get out of here."

Lin Huang's brows shot up when he heard that. He had not expected to have an extra windfall like this.

Spirit-type god relics were usually expensive as the refinement materials were rare, what more the god sequence relics that Heavenly Gods used.

Naturally, the price for Dead Spirit Vines would be high as they were the main materials for refining god sequence relics. The demand would be high as well.

Lin Huang was even more interested in hunting Dead Spirit Vines now that Virtuoso had provided this information.

This was not merely double happiness—it was triple happiness!

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Chapter 1552: Two Young Ones

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The first round of battle where the Night Demon Firs and Dead Spirit Vines combined their attacks was intense, but it also ended very rapidly.

As the team moved on ahead, the same thing happened in the second and third rounds.

With Lin Huang's Mirror, not a single attacking Night Demon Fir and Dead Spirit Vine could survive.

Virtuoso and the rest were feeling more and more stunned by the invincibility of this skill.

"Won't this skill… drain your Divine Power?" Lan Ling finally could not help asking after she had observed for a while along the way.

"How could that be possible?!" Lin Huang thought her question was rather baffling, but he explained patiently anyway, "Every time Mirror defends against an attack, one-tenth of my Divine Power is drained. If my opponent's attack contains spiritual power, Rule Bending Power or sequence power, I'll drain one-tenth of their spiritual power, Rule Bending Power or sequence power."

After listening to this explanation, Virtuoso and the rest thought this skill called Mirror was even more incredible.

Lin Huang could send his opponents' attacks back at them just by draining one-tenth of his Divine Power.

This was the equivalent of doing practically nothing except holding up Mirror, and his enemies would have their powers drained.

The reason for this was because no matter what attack his opponent sent at him, the drain on Lin Huang's side would forever be one-tenth of his opponent's powers.

Saber9 fell into deep contemplation after hearing Lin Huang's explanation; he was thinking of a way to counter Lin Huang's attack. However, no matter how hard he thought, he could only come up with two ways of doing so.

One was for the power of the attack to exceed Mirror's limit, which meant that it had to exceed ten times that of Lin Huang's most powerful attack. He felt that perhaps even most ninth-rank Heavenly Gods could not achieve this.

The other way was to surround Lin Huang with a multitude.

Although a single person would find it hard to drain Lin Huang's Divine Power, as long as there were enough opponents, they would be able to completely exhaust his Divine Power sooner or later.

Naturally, Saber9 was not wrong in his idea, but what he did not know was that the density of Lin Huang's Divine Power far exceeded that of ordinary people. Draining the Divine Power within Lin Huang's body like that would require many more individuals than Saber9 had anticipated.

As the team moved on in the fog, the number of rules that Lin Huang obtained also increased.

Within less than half an hour even, the number of rules within him had skyrocketed to tens of millions.

However, they seemed to be going deeper into the Demonic Fir Forest. The further they went, the higher the combat strength of the Night Demon Firs and Dead Spirit Vines. The frequency of Lin Huang and the rest encountering other monsters living in groups in the Demonic Forest increased as well.

Although Virtuoso and the rest began participating in combat, Lin Huang's efficiency in obtaining rules only increased.

Over an hour later, the number of rules within Lin Huang's body had broken through to one hundred million.

However, he was still only halfway to breaking through to ninth-rank.

He was extraordinarily excited. If not for Virtuoso and the rest being present, he would have stayed to hunt until his combat strength achieved another breakthrough.

Right in the midst of Lin Huang's enthusiastic killing spree, Lan Ling's voice suddenly came through.

"There might be a powerful Dead Spirit Vine approximately ten kilometers ahead…"

"Can't you confirm the probe results?" Virtuoso asked immediately.

"It isn't that—I didn't detect the Dead Spirit Vine, but I detected trails similar to those left behind by Dead Spirit Vines slithering through," Lan Ling paused, then continued, "Judging by the trails, this Dead Spirit Vine is at least three meters thick…"

Virtuoso fell silent after hearing what she said.

"Three meters thick?! Are you sure about that?" Lin Huang could not help asking. Even he thought that was quite unbelievable.

It must be noted that most of the Dead Spirit Vines Lin Huang's group had encountered were merely as thick as an adult's thigh, while the thickest one was as thick as a bucket. Basically, they did not see many that were half a meter in diameter. Naturally, everyone was doubtful when Lan Ling reported that the Dead Spirit Vine was three meters thick.

"I'm very certain about how thick it is!" Lan Ling added after that, "However, it also might be left behind by monsters such as boa constrictors."

"If it's really a Dead Spirit Vine of that size, its combat strength might be above ninth-rank. There's a high possibility that it might be a half-step Lord as well," Virtuoso said, glancing at Saber9 and Lin Huang.

Saber9 said nothing. Instead, he looked at Lin Huang.

Lin Huang noticed everyone looking at him and knew that they were waiting for him to voice his opinion."I definitely can't kill a half-step Lord. But… I think we can go check it out first. What if it's not a half-step Lord?"

"What if it is, though?" Virtuoso asked Lin Huang.

"If it is, I have a way of escape." Lin Huang was not particularly worried; at most, he could utilize a substitute for death so he would not die. "However, the chances of the rest of you dying will be very high…

"That's not acceptable. Why don't I go check it out first?" Lin Huang suggested again.

"Wouldn't it be easier to just detour around it?" Tu Tong could not help commenting.

"Lan Ling merely detected suspicious trails on the ground. Even if it's really a Dead Spirit Vine, we have no guarantee that it will linger in that area. Other areas might not be safe either. After all, such a massive Dead Spirit Vine is sure to have many Night Demon Firs protecting it—we have no way of knowing where the borders of their protected area lie anyway.

"Furthermore, the area under this Dead Spirit Vine's protection ought to be massive. We can't rule out the possibility that the phantom city's entrance is within this area."

The latter part of Lin Huang's comment was also the reason for Virtuoso's hesitation.

If not for this consideration, Virtuoso would definitely have let everyone detour without hesitation. He, too, was unwilling to take on a half-step Lord powerhouse.

Saber9 said nothing; he had realized this as well.

Seeing that Virtuoso was taking a long time to make up his mind, Saber9 finally spoke up.

"How about this—we'll leave the two young ones here, and the three of us will go check it out first."

He obviously meant Lan Ling and Tu Tong when he referred to 'the two young ones.' By now, he was treating Lin Huang entirely as a senior of the same level.

Virtuoso nodded only after Saber9 said this. "Let's do that then."

"Are you sure you won't die if we encounter a half-step Lord?" Lin Huang looked at Virtuoso and Saber9. "If you're not confident of that, then it's better if I go on my own."

"You're underestimating us a little too much," Virtuoso snapped, annoyed.

"My Primordium left me something for my survival." Surprisingly, Saber9 was much more frank.

Although Virtuoso said nothing, they clearly had a similar method.

"That's no problem then." Lin Huang had no more objections.

Virtuoso turned around and looked at Lan Ling and Tu Tong. "Both of you stay here. We'll contact you after we've done some reconnaissance."

The pair nodded immediately. Although Virtuoso was not their master's Primordium, Virtuoso was their master's clone after all. They did not dare disobey an order Virtuoso had given.

Lin Huang led Saber9 and Virtuoso ahead after Virtuoso had given instructions to Tu Tong and Lan Ling.

Lan Ling watched the three of them disappear into the fog. After a long while, she said in a tiny voice, "Master also left us a survival method…"

Beside her, Tu Tong patted her shoulder. "We'll just mess things up if we go with them. We'd better wait obediently here and see what they find."

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Chapter 1553: We're Here Anyway

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lin Huang led his team of three forward after leaving Lan Ling and Tu Tong behind.

After two rounds of being attacked by monsters, they finally saw the trail left behind by the Dead Spirit Vine that Lan Ling had mentioned.

It was a shallow gully, but its diameter was approximately three meters wide. It looked very much as if a massive creature approximately three meters wide had pressed down on the road as it went, leaving such a trail behind.

When they saw the gully, Lin Huang and the other two scanned their surroundings with Divine Telekinesis, gathering whatever information they could.

"It ought to have been a few days since this trail was left behind. There are no aura remnants on it at all, and there's no trace of Divine Power and Rule Bending Power in the surrounding area," Saber9 was the first to speak up.

"Whether or not the trail was left by a Dead Spirit Vine, it should have been a while since it appeared nearby." Lin Huang nodded lightly. "It might not be around here anymore."

"We're here anyway, so let's just look around." Virtuoso did not seem content for them to have wasted their time coming here.

Lin Huang and Saber9 had no objections to this. All of them continued moving forward, following the direction where the gully extended.

After advancing for a short while, they soon noticed something unusual.

"There's not a single monster around, not even a Night Demon Fir…" Lin Huang frowned slightly and could not help raising his concerns. "Is this normal?"

"It's very strange," Saber9 answered before Virtuoso could speak.

"Can we ascertain what exactly the situation is?" Lin Huang fixed his gaze on Virtuoso when he asked that.

"We can't confirm anything for the time being," Virtuoso shook their head and replied in the negative.

Lin Huang's brows lifted when he heard this reply; he said nothing more after that.

Clearly, Virtuoso had some speculations but they could not confirm anything just yet.

Under such circumstances, it was futile to press them further.

If there were things essential for them to know, Virtuoso would definitely tell them.

The three continued moving forward, but the quietness around remained. No living things appeared within the sensing range of their Divine Telekinesis.

Not only were there no monsters, but there were also no Night Demon Firs or even Dead Spirit Vines.

Lin Huang even had faint suspicions about whether or not they had already left the Demon Fir Forest area.

The three flew on in this manner for over ten minutes before their Divine Telekinesis finally sensed a dense Night Demon Fir Forest coming up ahead.

They immediately had their guards up when they saw the Night Demon Fir Forest again.

Any anomalies happening that meant something was definitely wrong!

As expected, before they went too much further, they sensed a colossal monster hiding in the dense forest within the sensing range of their Divine Telekinesis.

It was a monster similar to a giant boa constrictor. The diameter of its torso was at least three meters wide.

Although they had only sensed part of the monster's body, they immediately speculated that this was the monster that had previously left the trail on the ground.

Judging by its aura, Lin Huang and the others were sure that this monster was a Dead Spirit Vine.

It was an unusually massive Dead Spirit Vine!

Almost as soon as their Divine Telekinesis picked up on the Dead Spirit Vine, the Dead Spirit Vine also became aware of their Divine Telekinesis.

At the same time, Lin Huang and the others felt an overwhelming Divine Telekinesis sweeping through, then locking onto each of them.

Their expressions immediately changed, as they could clearly sense that the strength of this creature's Divine Telekinesis had exceeded the standard of a Heavenly God.

As the Divine Telekinesis locked onto them, a terrifying suppression descended.

The three of them felt a sudden weight on their shoulders, as if something heavy was pressing down on them.

The suppression was so powerful that it felt tangible, directly affecting their movements.

In the face of this wave of suppression, a long saber quickly coalesced in Saber9's hand. From head to toe, his Saber Dao heavenly rule activated at its peak, while his saber force soared, forcibly contending against the suppression.

Virtuoso's form, on the other hand, began turning illusory. Their body appeared to be an illusion stacked upon with many layers; it looked extremely creepy.

Instead of contending against the suppression like Saber9, Virtuoso chose to offload the force. They used countless illusory clones to share the suppression load. The final remaining force on their body was almost non-existent.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang consolidated Sword Dao heavenly rule within his body, battle sword in hand. Terrifying sword force emanated from him, consolidating a blood-red sword-wielding shadow above his head.

The shadow wore scarlet battle armor, and the sword in its grasp was 90% similar to Nebula, the battle sword Lin Huang wielded.

However, the shadow was entirely wreathed in red mist so its face could not be seen clearly.

Saber9 and Virtuoso were stunned when they saw the shadow consolidating above Lin Huang's head.

Naturally, they knew what this shadow consolidated from sword force meant.

This was the projection of Great Dao Will. Only powerhouses who had touched Dao could bring about the emergence of Great Dao Will to project such a phenomenon.

The appearance of the shadow proved that Lin Huang's Sword Dao had already touched the threshold of Dao.

Even Lin Huang thought it was strange when he saw the appearance of the shadow. Naturally, he knew what it was. However, he knew that the Great Dao Will's projection had very little to do with his Sword Dao level.

After all, his Sword Dao heavenly rule had only just crossed the threshold of Heavenly Heart—he was still very far from reaching Heavenly Dao.

The emergence of the Great Dao Will might have been caused by the presence of the Sword seal within his body.

However, he did not have the time to dwell on the matter as he had to face a powerful enemy.

After the appearance of the Great Dao Will, the suppression from the Dead Spirit Vine disappeared completely. This also boosted Lin Huang's confidence.

He was not satisfied with merely removing the pressure coming from the suppression. From what he could see, the three of them would be attacked sooner or later since the Dead Spirit Vine's Divine Telekinesis had locked onto them.

He would seize the chance to gain the upper hand now that the pressure had been dispelled before his opponent could make another move.

Lin Huang hesitated no further at this point.

The battle sword in his hand transformed into a long, narrow blade.

Weapon in both hands, his figure turned into a blood-red electric arc as he charged in the direction of the Dead Spirit Vine.

Almost simultaneously, the giant projection above his head moved as well, doing the exact same thing he was doing.

At the same time that Lin Huang moved, the Dead Spirit Vine moved too.

Countless rattans surged forward like a tangle of snakes, sweeping toward the three of them like a tsunami.

At the same time that the Dead Spirit Vine attacked, the Night Demon Firs in the forest ahead also extended their branches to join in the massacre.

In comparison, Lin Huang seemed like a solitary ant charging at an ocean wave. He looked unbelievably tiny.

Behind him, Virtuoso and Saber9 had not expected him to be so extreme.

He had unsheathed his sword for the kill without a single word.

However, after a mere second's delay, they reacted immediately.

The two looked at each other and immediately understood what the other was thinking.

When facing a powerful enemy, there was no fleeing—only battle!

Golden saber gleams filled the sky along with countless white palm prints, attacking the rattan horde, leaving the way free for Lin Huang and clearing the surroundings…

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Chapter 1554: A Massive EXP Pack

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Countless rattans and branches intersected, practically blotting out the entire sky as they surged forth like a tsunami.

Lin Huang and the other two were like three little boats traveling in the waves, against the wind. They looked as if their boats would capsize anytime.

In the face of an opponent suspected to be half-step lord-level, the three of them showed no fear at all.

Countless rattans were crushed into dust as they were swallowed up by Lin Huang's blood-red sword gleam.

Meanwhile, Virtuoso and Saber9, who were behind him on both sides, held nothing back in their attacks. Wave upon wave of palm prints and saber gleams filled the sky with brilliant golden and white luster.

Both of them were fighting as hard as they could so Lin Huang could have an opportunity to attack.

The three of them surrounded the opponent on three fronts and tore a rift in the massive wave by force.

If one were to watch from above, it was as if a strand of golden, red, and white thread was going against the current amid the massive tsunami-like wave without a single pause along the way.

Quite some time later, the thread made it to the top of the wave at last.

Lin Huang and the other two also finally saw the culprit that had attacked earlier—the Dead Spirit Vine.

Within the Night Demon Fir Forest that had now collapsed to the ground, a gigantic Dead Spirit Vine seemed to be staring at the three of them like a snake.

Lin Huang and the other two had yet to catch a glimpse of its entire form, but while the Dead Spirit Vine was slithering, they were also able to see scales on it that looked like those of a dragon.

If not for their Divine Telekinesis having sensed things, they might have thought that it was a Dragon Tribe monster terrorizing the place if they had relied on the evidence of their eyes.

However, Virtuoso and Saber9 knew very well that this Dead Spirit Vine having such scales on its surface was very likely because it had swallowed a member of the Dragon Tribe or a Dragon Tribe member's remains.

When it saw Lin Huang and the others approaching, the strength and frequency of the Dead Spirit Vine's attacks peaked almost immediately.

However, Lin Huang merely made a grand gesture, and Mirror appeared as a shield in front of the three of them, completely blocking all the attacks.

Countless rattans and branches were deflected back when they hit Mirror, landing on the Dead Spirit Vine's massive body.

"This fellow isn't a half-step Lord!" Lin Huang confirmed as soon as he witnessed Mirror taking effect. He shared the news with Virtuoso and Saber9 through voice transmission.

Virtuoso and Saber9 already had their suspicions when the three of them managed to tear a rift through the wave of rattans. However, they also considered that since they were just attacking casually, the Dead Spirit Vine might not be taking them seriously, so its attack strength was rather weak.

However, now the three of them were almost right in front of it.

By all normal logic, it was impossible that this Dead Spirit Vine would hold back on its attacks. At this point, the power of its attacks would definitely be at its usual standard, perhaps even stronger.

However, its attack did not break through Lin Huang's Mirror's defense. It clearly proved that its combat strength was not yet at half-step lord-level.

The three of them heaved a sigh of relief after confirming that the Dead Spirit Vine was not a half-step Lord, but merely a peak ninth-rank powerhouse.

They looked at each other, and it seemed that all of them could read the excitement in each others' eyes.

Now that there was no longer the fear of fighting a half-step Lord, all three's hunting enthusiasm suddenly soared to the highest level.

They had never encountered a peak ninth-rank heavenly god-level powerhouse before. It was the most powerful enemy they had ever fought, which was why their will to fight skyrocketed

The Dead Spirit Vine also appeared to have sensed the three's intentions and became fully enraged.

Countless rattans swarmed from all directions, descending upon them like torrents of rain.

Lin Huang moved his fingers slightly, and Mirror turned into a sphere immediately, enveloping himself, Virtuoso, and Saber9. It countered this round of attack flawlessly.

"Is your Divine Power and Rule Bending Power enough to defend against such an attack?" Virtuoso could not help asking.

Beside them, Saber9 had the same doubts, and he looked at Lin Huang as well.

"I'll give advance notice if I'm running out." Lin Huang's expression was calm with no hint of concern. "I'm not one of those stubborn people who's afraid of admitting defeat."

The duo was relieved as they could tell by Lin Huang's expression that he could handle it.

In reality, Dead Spirit Vine's attack did not last very long either.

It seemed to sense that its attack could not break through Lin Huang's defense, and completely abandoned the attempt after less than five minutes.

After all, an attack of such frequency and intensity was a great drain and burden to it.

Most importantly, Lin Huang's defensive skill was savage. Many attacks were deflected back at it—the gains did not make up for the losses. Although the deflected attacks could not harm the Vine on a physical level, more of its Divine Power and sequence power would be drained to defend itself against them.

Noticing that the Dead Spirit Vine's attacks had weakened, Lin Huang immediately dispelled Mirror that was enveloping them.

He had no idea what Virtuoso and Saber9 had in mind but to him, the Dead Spirit Vine was undoubtedly a massive EXP pack.

The fourth-rank heavenly god-level Dead Spirit Vine from before had provided him with over one hundred thousand types of Rule Bending Powers. The number of rules within this peak ninth-rank Dead Spirit Vine would definitely be considerable.

However, what he had not expected was that Virtuoso and Saber9 would fight for this monster as well.

As soon as Mirror was dispelled, Virtuoso attacked the Dead Spirit Vine first before Lin Huang could react.

Their jade-like white palms struck out, transforming into tens of thousands of palm prints in the void, all targeting the Dead Spirit Vine.

Almost simultaneously when Virtuoso attacked, countless golden saber gleams consolidated in front of Saber9, surging toward the Dead Spirit Vine like a storm.

Lin Huang was rather confused as to why both of them were even more enthusiastic than he was.

Naturally, he would not back down. If they killed this monster, he might need to spend a few days making up for the EXP that he would lose.

He attacked without hesitation, and it was an extremely powerful attack.

He charged with eleven compounded levels of sequence power and Sword Dao heavenly rule.

A brilliant blood-red glow lit up on the blade at once.

The power of the attack was like a massive blood-red sun descending upon the world. Even the fog around Lin Huang faded a little.

Meanwhile, the sword-wielding Great Dao Will above his head did exactly the same thing.

The gargantuan sword in its hand shone with a red glow that light up the area for miles.

Two red glows, one large and one small, gradually integrated within the void. As Lin Huang swung his sword, the glows turned into an invincible shockwave that shot out…

The Dead Spirit Vine seemed to have sensed this fatal threat, and completely abandoned dealing with Virtuoso and Saber9's attacks. It sent all of its rattans surging forward in an attempt to defend itself against Lin Huang's assault.

However, all of the rattans turned into dust whenever the blood-red shockwave passed by; they did not manage to block the attack at all. The velocity of the attack did not slow down either, not even a little.

Sensing that its defense had failed, the Dead Spirit Vine finally thought of running away. However, it could not escape in time as it was too big.

Almost as soon as the thought of fleeing entered its head, its body was struck by the blood-red shockwave. The shockwave pierced through its body almost effortlessly, leaving a giant hole that was over a meter in diameter on its torso.

The Dead Spirit Vine could sense a terrifying sequence power rushing into its wound, spreading rapidly in all directions.

Meanwhile, its body began to collapse, starting from the wound area…

Lin Huang felt satisfaction like never before as he sensed close to three million Rule Bending Powers surging into his body like a wave. The feeling was over ten thousand times better than soaking in a hot spring during winter.

When the Dead Spirit Vine's carcass collapsed, Lin Huang, who had just devoured all of the Rule Bending Powers, suddenly felt an overwhelming Divine Telekinesis sweeping through.

The suppression coming from the wave of Divine Telekinesis was many times more powerful than this last Dead Spirit Vine.

Saber9 and Virtuoso clearly sensed the same thing. Their newly-relaxed nerves grew tense again. Under the force of this overwhelming suppression, they both even had their knees bowed slightly, and their breathing was visibly more labored now…

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Chapter 1555: Phantom City Gatekeeper

Sensing the wave of terrifying suppression, Lin Huang, Saber9, and Virtuoso all had a change of expression.

The Dead Spirit Vine just now was already a peak ninth-rank heavenly god-level powerhouse. The current suppression was so powerful that it was already at the next level. It was obviously a half-step Lord, no doubt about it.

Although Lin Huang was curious about how much of a difference there was between his ability and that of a half-step Lord, he knew very well that this newly-emerged enemy had exceeded the range of what he could handle. He began having thoughts of retreating.

He had dared to attack without hesitation when confronting the Dead Spirit Vine earlier because the suppression from his opponent was not powerful enough to make him want to give up at once. The suppression this time, however, truly gave him the sense that he had met with an invincible foe.

His rational side reasoned that he had no chance of winning at all if the group were to battle their foe head-on. As soon as they fought, there would only be one conclusion, which was that their opponent would kill them.

Just when he was going to tell Virtuoso and Saber9 via voice transmission to retreat, Virtuoso's voice transmission came through first.

"Don't imagine how powerful the enemy might be. The stronger you think it is, the more powerful it will be!"

Lin Huang was stunned when he heard this, but he reacted immediately. "It's an illusion?!"

"You can think of it as that," Virtuoso responded.

At that moment, Lin Huang saw Virtuoso dispelling their defensive technique. Their knees, initially bent, gradually straightened. A moment later, they stood upright within the suppression, as if they were not affected at all.

"We've found Phantom City's entrance." Virtuoso's gaze seemed to have pierced through the fog, looking into the distance.

"Can we talk about entrances later—how do we settle the threat in front of us now?" Lin Huang asked through voice transmission immediately.

"That Dead Spirit Vine that we encountered earlier and this monster are Phantom City's gatekeepers. To put it simply, they're actually illusions that Phantom City created."

"So the Dead Spirit Vine that we killed earlier was an illusion as well?" Lin Huang's brows lifted when he heard that; he had his doubts.

The notifications that came from Xiao Hei were real enough. Meanwhile, the massive amount of Rule Bending Powers that surged into his body was real too.

If it were an illusion, Xiao Hei would certainly not have transmitted fatality notifications.

Virtuoso seemed to notice Lin Huang's doubts. They then explained further, "It wasn't a simple illusion, but a real illusion that's similar to my ability.

"If those who fall under the illusion think it's real, it will become real and can also interfere with reality. If they insist that it's fake, then it will merely be a fabricated illusion."

"Do you mean to say we wasted our efforts killing that Dead Spirit Vine earlier? When in reality, we could have ignored it completely?" Lin Huang was rather speechless.

"That's right. If we insist on believing that it's not real, it will just be imaginary." Virtuoso nodded. "There's only one way to pass through Phantom City's gatekeepers, which is to believe that they're not real."

"Can't we kill all of the gatekeepers by force?" Lin Huang raised his doubts.

"It's futile. A new gatekeeper will appear every time a gatekeeper is killed. Their abilities will be even more powerful, and their numbers will also increase," Virtuoso explained somewhat helplessly, "Theoretically, there is no upper limit to the gatekeeper's abilities.

"Furthermore, no Almighty would be bored enough to come to Phantom City to kill the gatekeepers just for fun."

While both of them were conversing, Lin Huang noticed that on the other side, Saber9 had stood up as well. He dispelled his defense technique, completely ignoring this wave of powerful, invincible suppression.

At that moment, a gigantic Night Demon Fir extended its branches. Countless leaves blotted out the entire sky in an instant, surrounding the entire space where the three of them were.

The dense branches were like endless tentacles, coming at Lin Huang and the other two from every direction.

"You must steadfastly believe that this attack is just imaginary and that the half-step Lord who launched it isn't real!" Virtuoso immediately said to Lin Huang through voice transmission as they saw the branches surging toward them like a wave.

Virtuoso already had a rough understanding of Lin Huang's abilities. Although Lin Huang was powerful, he was far from able to take on a half-step lord-level powerhouse.

If Lin Huang was hit by the attack, he would certainly die!

As his Divine Telekinesis sensed countless branches approaching the group, Lin Huang could not calm himself down. He instinctively wanted to counter and attack with his sword; he was completely unable to ignore this wave of threat.

A moment later, countless branches pierced through the fog. They pierced through Virtuoso and Saber9's bodies immediately, as if they were passing through two shadows.

The two of them did not defend, nor did they dodge, much less show signs of being struck by the attack.

The next second, over a hundred branches forced their way in front of Lin Huang. Instinctively, he called up Mirror in front of him to shield him.

However, Mirror only lasted for less than a second before it suddenly shattered. The branches directly stabbed through like metal knives piercing through glass.

Lin Huang spat a mouthful of blood. This was the backlash from Mirror's inability to take the attack and, thus, collapsing.

This was also Lin Huang's first time encountering a situation where Mirror had been shattered by an assault.

The branches easily pierced through Mirror and continued coming straight at Lin Huang.

Virtuoso and Saber9 were in a panic, but they could not help.

Watching the branches coming at him, Lin Huang suddenly closed his eyes slightly and moved his lips. His emotions soon calmed down.

An instant later, when he opened his eyes, a branch went straight through the middle of his brow. However, there was no trace of blood at all. A moment later, his body was impaled by countless branches, but it was as if they had gone through a shadow.

Only then did Lin Huang lift his hand to wipe at the blood on the corner of his lips. He nodded at Virtuoso and Saber9 lightly. "It's over!"

"How did you do that just now?" Saber9 could not help asking.

He was aware that if he were put in a life-or-death situation after his defenses had been breached, it would be impossible for him to immediately alter his thoughts to ignore the attack.

"It's just a little trick of a Buddhist cultivator," Lin Huang explained calmly.

In reality, he knew very well that if he did not have the imperial monster, Demonic Buddhist Holy Son, it would have been hard for him to escape death earlier.

He had borrowed the Demonic Buddhist Holy Son's meditation secret skill to clear all the thoughts in his mind immediately so he could stay calm. He then imagined that the attack was purely illusory—that the half-step Lord did not really exist.

The whole process had been a close call. If there had been just the slightest flaw, he would have had to use a substitute for death and would need to be revived by now.

Fortunately, he had handled the entire thing without any mistakes in between, which allowed him to barely escape this fatal attack.

"What do we do next?" Lin Huang lifted his head to look at Virtuoso.

"It's simple. Imagine Phantom City's entrance." As soon as Virtuoso was done speaking, they gestured with their hand. A glittering, dazzling golden gate appeared before them. "We just have to open the gates and go in."

Once they finished speaking, Virtuoso pushed open the gates that had appeared out of thin air. Pulling at Lin Huang and Saber9's arms, Virtuoso stepped through the door directly…

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Chapter 1556: Little Inkblot and Bald Monster

After considering that Tu Tong and Lan Ling might not be able to withstand the test set by Phantom City's gatekeeper, Virtuoso did not contact them and ask them to catch up to the group. Instead, they led Lin Huang and Saber9 through the gate immediately.

Lin Huang had thought that they would arrive in Phantom City as soon as they stepped through the gate. However, what met their eyes was a completely blank white space.

Amid Lin Huang's doubts, Virtuoso spoke from beside the pair through voice transmission.

"Everyone must design themselves a character before entering Phantom City. You can imagine yourself to be of any race and appearance. When you get to Phantom City, your form will be whatever you've imagined it to be.

"Apart from race and appearance, you also must set your personality, hobbies… also, your skills, divine abilities, rules, sequence powers, and other information.

"Once that's done and we're in Phantom City, we have to act in character according to the persona we've created. If we're out of character, we'll be kicked out of Phantom City immediately."

'Like an RPG?' Lin Huang thought to himself. It sounded similar to the many role-playing games that he had played in the past.

However, in this place, the individual would be the one role-playing, not the game character on computers or mobile phones.

"Can't I bring all of my skills, divine abilities, and the rest into Phantom City?" Lin Huang raised the issue that mattered to him the most.

"Theoretically, it has to fit your character." Virtuoso smiled while shaking their head. "After all, if your character is a snake monster, it doesn't make sense if you set yourself as a sword cultivator or a saber cultivator.

"However, there are loopholes," Virtuoso continued, "For instance, my character is a masked freak. For the skills and divine abilities on my skill sheet, I possess all sorts of strange and incredible techniques. My character background has a certain mysteriousness included in it, while there are no concrete settings on my skills and divine abilities. However, I included my own abilities. With a character sheet like this, most of my abilities can be used when we get to Phantom City."

"Or you can do what I did." Beside them, Saber9 picked up the topic. "I set myself as a weapons master, whereby I can use all weapons. My character sheet basically included all of my skills as a saber cultivator; I can use many non-saber cultivator techniques too."

What the pair said gave Lin Huang significant inspiration. He soon began working on his character design.

"Character: Mysterious

Race: Suspected to be Protoss, Fallen Protoss, or human

Characteristics: Wears a black robe and a black mask

Combat Strength: Unknown

Cultivation Direction: Unknown

God Territory: Unknown

Skills: Unknown

Divine Abilities: Unknown

Rules: Unknown

Sequences: Unknown"Virtuoso and Saber9 noticed that Lin Huang now had a black robe over him. His physique had become much more majestic, and his aura was now enigmatic and mysterious. Realizing that he had now grasped the essentials of designing his character, they said nothing more and began setting their own character sheets.

A moment later, Saber9 turned into a Buddha with many arms. His long hair, originally tied up in a bun, was no longer there. He had turned completely bald, and his head was full of the ordination scars of a Buddhist monk. (TN: After accepting Buddhist precepts, Buddhist monks use lighted incense sticks to burn parts of their bodies as an offering to Buddha and the bodhisattvas. These are known as ordination scars.) His green robe had transformed into a gray monk's robe.

His appearance was still around 60 to 70% similar to what he looked like before, but his charisma was nothing as otherworldly and elegant as he had been previously. His face held a touch of faint melancholy as if he had been through all the vicissitudes of life.

Beside them, Virtuoso did not seem to have altered much. They had changed their garb for something more sumptuous, and the mask on their face was now golden. They were also carrying a black walking stick. They still gave off the feeling of a wealthy young master—however, their charisma was no longer as cold and aloof as before. Instead, they were more approachable and warm.

"Aren't you…worried about being recognized like this?" Lin Huang could not help asking. His voice was much deeper and hoarser now.

The reason he asked because the famous geniuses in the God Territory would basically be on the hunting lists of each tribe. Virtuoso was a powerhouse who ranked among the top True Gods and was a target of many tribes outside the God Territory. Naturally, they were on the Abyss' hunting list. Trouble would be inevitable if anyone were to recognize them.

"Don't worry, in Phantom City, there's all manner of appearances. Not many people will notice us. Moreover, even if anyone did, they wouldn't connect it with me." Virtuoso was calm; they did not seem worried at all.

As soon as they were done speaking about themselves, Virtuoso turned their head and looked at Saber9 next to him. "What's up with you? Do you think you have too much hair or too few arms?"

"I want to see what it feels like to slay someone while wielding sabers in many hands, but I thought that turning into a multiple-armed Abyssal monster would be too ugly…" Saber9 explained in all seriousness, "So I thought of the Thousand Hand Bodhisattva in Buddhism."

"Isn't your bald head just as ugly?!" Virtuoso teased, not standing on ceremony.

"Do you believe I'll try my sabers out on you?" Saber9 lifted his head and stared at Virtuoso.

Noticing that both of them showed sights of wanting to fight due to the disagreement, Lin Huang frowned lightly and stepped forward between them, blocking their way.

"We have urgent business at hand. Let's finish up our character designs and enter Phantom City!"

Only now did Virtuoso and Saber9 notice that not only was Lin Huang enveloped entirely in a black robe, but even his aura was so mysterious that it was unfathomable.

Virtuoso looked at the darkness under the hood and probed it using their Divine Telekinesis, only to find that it was completely blocked. "You're wearing a mask too?"

Although they did not see a mask nor sense the presence of one, Virtuoso guessed that it was there anyway.

"I am." Lin Huang's reply was simple.

He had actually ingeniously integrated Thousand Face into his character design, enhancing his character's mysteriousness.

"Have you finished your character design and skills?" Virtuoso did not dwell on Lin Huang's transformation, asking instead.

Lin Huang nodded, "From now on, my name will be Hermit."

"I'll be Thousand Hands then," Saber9 informed them of his new name.

"Let me think about it…" Virtuoso, on the other hand, did not give out their name immediately. Instead, they thought for a moment, cupping their chin. They spoke again only after a while, "Call me Mask then.

"Or you could call me Xiao Mianmian as well," Virtuoso said to Lin Huang and Saber9 with a smile, after coming up with their name. (TN: In Chinese, the word for 'Mask' is 'mian ju'; Virtuoso is using a deliberately cute diminutive of their character's name both here and below.)

Lin Huang and Saber9 turned around and walked away at once, not bothering to pay attention to Virtuoso.

"Don't you like it? If you don't, you can call me Xiao Juju instead…"

"Let's go, Little Inkblot," Lin Huang ignored the two nauseating endearments they had picked for themselves and gave them a nickname instead.

"I like it." Saber9 gave Lin Huang a thumbs up.

"I can't believe you betrayed me, you bald monster. We've known each other for so many years and you're now ganging up with this brat to come up with a nickname for me?!"

"There are three things that I'd like to correct," Saber9 said solemnly, "First, my head is shaved, not bald. Having one's head shaved and being bald are two different things. Secondly, my Primordium has certainly known your Primordium for years, but this is only the second time both of us have met. We aren't very close. Thirdly, it wasn't me who came up with that nickname. I merely agreed with it…"

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Chapter 1557: Phantom City

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lin Huang had imagined many images of how the phantom city might look like inside. However, it looked nothing like his imaginations when they really entered the phantom city.

It was completely different from other places in the abyss. It was an extremely bustling, massive city. There were even skyscrapers that were very similar to the human world.

If not for the various creatures of all shapes and forms on the streets, he would think that he had returned to a grade-A foothold in the gravel world.

"There are so many people?" That was what confused Lin Huang the most.

The reason being the gatekeeper obstacle alone was enough to block most people for getting in.

"In reality, there are little outsiders in the phantom city. Most of them are local residents," Virtuoso explained, "A portion of the residents and the buildings here are made by the possessor of the castellan's seal, while a portion of them were created by the phantom city automatically.

Hearing that explanation, a term popped into Lin Huang's head instantly – NPC.

If he looked at the phantom city as a RPG, then these local residents were undoubtedly the world's NPCs. To Lin Huang, the outsider, he was the player.

"So how do they differentiate the player, I mean the outsiders and local residents?" Lin Huang almost asked the difference between players and NPCs.

"There's no proper way to do that," Virtuoso shook their head and smiled, "However, under usual circumstances, those with exaggerated form and style have a high possibility of being an outsider. However, such a determination method isn't 100% effective."

"I supposed the castellan's seal you're after is in an outsider's hand?" Lin Huang asked again.

"It's not as simple as you think…" Virtuoso shook their head, "Indeed, there's a real living thing required to activate the castellan's seal to build the phantom city.

However, the castellan's seal might not be a complete piece, but a couple of fragments. As long as we're able to gather them into one, we can activate it as well. If that's the case, the fragments might be in the hands of a few different people.

Also, the castellan's seal must stay inside the phantom city, but the seal's possessor might not. There might be a possibility that the person might get a local resident to take care of the castellan's seal. After all, many of the local residents are characters the person created, whereby he knows who is the one that he can trust the most. Therefore, the castellan's seal wouldn't be 100% with an outsider."

"So what's your plan?" Hearing Virtuoso's explanation, Lin Huang figured the mission might be much more difficult than he imagined.

"If there's a castellan in this city, there's a certain chance that the castellan's seal is with the castellan. Even if it isn't, he definitely knows something about the castellan's seal.

If there's no single castellan, but a group of people managing, we look for the few who have the highest position among them. Even if we can't find the castellan's seal directly, we should be able to find some intel that's useful.

The thing I'm most worried about is that there's nobody managing the city, or the manager is just a puppet, whereby nobody knows who this phantom city's creator is…"

Virtuoso raised a few possibilities, "No matter what, the first thing we need to do now is to gather information. Gather as much as we can, gather information about this phantom city."

"Do we split up?" Lin Huang asked.

He asked that as the efficiency of gathering information would be higher if they split up than three of them staying together.

"I agreed with splitting up," Saber9 nodded.

They were no longer in the foggy swamp. They did not have to worry if they were lost.

The three of them had different styles of conduct. Naturally, they would use different ways to gather information in order to obtain more sources. Theoretically, although they would gather many repeating information at the same time, the amount of information would be greater.

"We'll split up for two days. During the two days, gather as much information as we can. Hold back even if we find out something important. Do not be rash to move on to the next step.

We'll meet under the highest building two days later. We'll discuss our strategy after organizing the information each of us obtained," Virtuoso soon came up with a plan.

Lin Huang and Saber9 agreed.

Subsequently, the three of them split up and went toward the direction they chose.

Lin Huang chose to move cautiously after breaking away from the team and being alone.

After all, nobody knew if there were any Lords in this phantom city.

According to Virtuoso's description, if the possessor of the castellan's seal was a lord-level powerhouse, he could create lord-level local residents, as well as setting the city's entrance authorization to lord-level.

If there were really Lords in this phantom city, not only that would mean the chances of the three of them obtaining the castellan's seal was pretty slim, if would also mean that they were in an extremely dangerous city.

One must know that the outsiders in the phantom city were the equivalence to players, they did not have a second life. Players could be revived after death. However, outsiders would really die if they died in the city.

Even though Lin Huang could substitute death with his imperial monster, facing a Lord's Odylic attack, he would not be able to be revived.

Meanwhile for Virtuoso and Saber9, although they had the technique of saving their lives their Primordium left behind that could defend lord-level attacks, there was a limitation to that.

Lin Huang was cautious as he had his guards up on the possible Lords in this city.

He did not sense any Divine Telekinesis' detection, so he was being extra careful not to spread his Divine Telekinesis.

He looked around, there were creatures of all forms and appearances around him.

There were abyssal creatures, Bug Tribe monsters, Immortal Tribe and Protoss…

His odd getup in black robe looked the most ordinary among the crowd, so he did not attract any attention.

He was relieved sensing there were no eyes staring at him.

He soon had his eyes on a cafe nearby. He frowned slightly.

'There's even a cafe here?!'

This phantom city was highly similar to a human city. That made him have a faint suspicion that the possessor of the castellan's seal was a human. Or maybe that person stayed in the human world for a little while.

He walked to the cafe and sat under the umbrella in the al fresco area. He ordered a cup of coffee.

Very soon, a lady attendant with rabbit ears brought his coffee.

If he was somewhere else, Lin Huang might not be able to hold back and to look at a rabbit-eared lady attendant. However, he had seen many creatures of various forms, so the rabbit-eared lady in front of him looked ordinary now.

He did not forget what he was here for when the rabbit-eared lady served the coffee to his table. A gush of red glow flashed through his eyes when he locked eyes with the lady attendant.

He managed to read the lady's memory during that mere moment.

He did that by borrowing Grimace's Ocular Skill Rule.

However, the rabbit-eared lady did not notice that. She merely put down the coffee with a light smile on her face and left.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang picked up the coffee and began to retrieve the information that was useful to him from the memory he read…

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Chapter 1558: Holder With A Split Personality?

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

It only took a moment for Lin Huang to finish reading the information he had retrieved from the memory of the rabbit-eared female attendant. However, he was not able to glean very much useful information.

The rabbit-eared lady attendant was an ordinary person with no cultivation base at all, so her memory contained no information about cultivators.

"Do ordinary people in this city have no idea at all that cultivators exist?" Lin Huang frowned slightly.

This was something he had previously not anticipated. Based on his earlier assumptions, there ought to be many cultivators among the local residents. Besides, a small-scale battle caused by even the slightest of conflicts would cause anomalies people could see.

However, in the rabbit-eared lady's memory, to the authorities, most of these anomalies were accounted for as weather phenomena. A small number of these strange happenings were regarded as man-made flying machines.

There was almost nothing useful to Lin Huang in the rabbit-eared lady's memory, apart from a simple map, some common sense, and knowledge of this current world.

"It looks like I'll still need to find a cultivator first…" Lin Huang drummed lightly on the table with the fingers of his left hand, raising the coffee cup to his mouth with his right hand and taking a sip.

After a moment of thought, he released colorless and formless Leech Pods from his body that dispersed in all directions.

He did not dare to use Divine Telekinesis rashly just yet, but he could use Leech Pods. This was because it was hard for Leech Pods to be discovered without the use of Divine Telekinesis.

Of course, he did not disperse them in a wide range. Instead, he manipulated the Leech Pods to within a five-kilometer radius around him.

After all, the wider the area that the Leech Pods spread to, the higher the possibility of encountering a powerhouse. Furthermore, his current objective was to gather information. He did not want to attract unwanted trouble before officially taking action.

Lin Huang drank his coffee casually, silently monitoring the real-time images that the hundreds of Leech Pods sent back.

Within five minutes, he noticed a few individuals he suspected might be cultivators.

Since he did not use Divine Telekinesis for detection, and these individuals had no energy fluctuations emanating from them at all, Lin Huang could only make basic speculations based on the images the Leech Pods sent.

To use Lin Huang's own words, to observe someone's essence, qi, spirit, and so on was actually a purely subjective matter.

After locking onto these several potential individuals, Lin Huang thought to himself for a moment and abandoned the idea of appearing in front of them directly. Instead, he controlled a few of the Leech Pods to infiltrate the suspected candidates' bodies.

There were a total of four individuals who were infiltrated by Leech Pods. However, only one of them was a real cultivator, while the remaining three were merely ordinary people.

Lin Huang felt slightly embarrassed to have discovered this from the Leech Pods.

However, he was thick-skinned enough and soon recovered from his embarrassment. He began extracting the information that the Leech Pod had retrieved from the cultivator's mind.

This particular cultivator was a Silt Monster.

This type of monster was a creature that took the form of a lump of dark-brown mud—it had no distinguishable essence, qi, or spirit on it at all. Essence, qi, and spirit aside, even if Lin Huang were to stand right in front of it, he would not be able to locate its face.

The reason he locked onto this monster was purely that it was the only Silt Monster within range of his hundreds of Leech Pods.

This Silt Monster was a Virtual God rank-7; Lin Huang finally managed to extract some comparatively useful information from its memory.

In this phantom city, the ratio of ordinary people to cultivators was 9:1. The cultivators mingled with these ordinary individuals, living in the normal world.

What made Lin Huang more curious was that in this Silt Monster's memory, the lowest combat strength among the cultivators in this world was that of Virtual God. There were no cultivators below god-level. Individuals below Virtual Gods were ordinary people; there was a huge gap where mid-level cultivators would be.

Moreover, since the beginning of time, ordinary people were completely cut off from any information about cultivators in this world.

Ordinary people did not admire cultivators, nor did they idolize them. They had no idea that cultivators even existed.

Even if these ordinary people witnessed something about cultivators occasionally, they would forget about it automatically.

Meanwhile, for cultivators, it was an unspoken rule that their skills and divine abilities should not be displayed in front of ordinary people, much less attack them.

The Silt Monster had no idea why exactly they could not attack ordinary people. However, from the information in its memory, it was clear that something bad might happen if they killed normal individuals.

Therefore, ordinary people and cultivators had lived peacefully thus far in this odd state of co-existence.

Lin Huang thought such a social structure was rather interesting, although it was clearly an artificial construct.

What piqued his interest even more as he read the information was that he realized this city was different from any other cities that he had seen.

"There's an inner world that's like an inverted image…" As Lin Huang mumbled softly, the curiosity gleaming in his eyes grew even more.

He had retrieved a rather special bit of information from the Silt Monster's memory.

At the moment, he was only looking at the surface of the city. Meanwhile, hidden underneath the surface, the city possessed another side.

As soon as one passed through a certain door, cultivators could enter this inner world within the city.

That city was exactly the same as this one. However, there were no ordinary people, only cultivators.

There were markets for trading for all sorts of items and channels to obtain various kinds of information. Not only that, killings and battles could happen at any time…

Compared to the peace and quiet of the surface world, although there was a certain order in this inner world as well, what emerged more frequently was the unbridled growth of madness and desire.

The cultivators fought bitterly in the inner world, but as soon as they returned to the surface world, they blended into the circles of ordinary folk.

Life was at peace in the mortal world.

Lin Huang even quietly speculated that the holder of the castellan's seal of Phantom City might be a person with a split personality.

After reading the Silt Monster's memory, what disappointed Lin Huang more was that he did not find out anything about the castellan's seal, or the holder of the castellan's seal.

The Silt Monster's memory was completely blank as far as this information was concerned.

Although there was no direct clue to the castellan's seal, Lin Huang did not feel defeated. At the very least, he had now discovered the existence of the inner world, as well as how to enter it. Finding more clues was only a matter of time.

After all, the Silt Monster was merely a Virtual God. It was considered the lowest form of existence in this phantom city. If Lin Huang were to view Phantom City as a game, the Silt Monster would be just a minor creature in it.

Going by a game designer's way of thinking, they would not store very much important information within a minor creature by the roadside.

Following common game design practices, the more powerful the monster, the more information it would contain.

Furthermore, this game even had a new, hidden map now, which would undoubtedly allow the players to gain more rewards.

Lin Huang was not at all worried about obtaining more information later.

From the Silt Monster's mind, he retrieved the closest coordinates to the inner world's entrance. With no hesitation, he disappeared in a flash…

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Chapter 1559: I'm Lost

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

There were many entrances and exits to Phantom City's inner world. Lin Huang soon found the closest one by following the coordinates in the Silt Monster's memory.

This set of coordinates was located in an alley surrounded by low, old buildings.

When Lin Huang arrived close to the coordinates, he did not go into the alley immediately. Instead, he observed the environment of the surrounding areas.

These old buildings seemed to have existed for at least thirty to forty years. Compared with the skyscrapers he had seen earlier, they seemed to be of considerable age.

Some were already dilapidated and had been gazetted as dangerous buildings. No one lived in them any longer.

However, there were still some old buildings with residents of various races.

When Lin Huang appeared, clad in his black robe, he did not attract the residents' attention.

Only a few of them glanced at him, then went about their own business.

After scanning his surroundings and realizing that nobody was watching him, in a flash, Lin Huang entered the alley he had seen from the Silt Monster's memory.

The alley was less than a meter wide and was very narrow. If he had not seen the image in the Silt Monster's memory, it would have been hard for him to imagine that the inner world's entrance and exit could be located in such a cramped place.

Lin Huang halted after he had walked some twenty meters into the alley. He spread his Divine Telekinesis slightly, and his gaze fell on an inconspicuous black dot on the wall on the right.

The dot looked like it had been lightly dotted onto the wall with a ballpoint pen. It was even smaller than a sesame seed.

However, Lin Huang knew it was not the ink left by some ballpoint pen, but the inner world's entrance and exit in its miniature form. People without Divine Telekinesis would not be able to see it at all.

Lin Huang extended a finger, pressed on the black dot, then channeled Divine Power into it.

As the Divine Power channeled through, the insignificant, almost imperceptible black dot began to grow quickly at a speed visible to the naked eye. Within just the time it took for a breath, the dot's diameter had surpassed two meters, transforming into a round black whirlpool.

Once he saw that the whirlpool had formed completely, Lin Huang drew back his hand and stepped into the whirlpool.

As soon as his body submerged into the swirling mass, the black whirlpool shrank immediately. Within less than the time it took for a breath, it reverted to its original size of a black dot.

A moment later, its color faded slowly, and it gradually vanished, as if it had never existed.

Lin Huang raised his head for a look after he had teleported through the entrance, and his brows quirked involuntarily.

He was still in the narrow alleyway and its surroundings. He was even standing in exactly the same spot he had been before he stepped through.

However, he soon noticed something different. Even without using his Divine Telekinesis, he could clearly sense the auras of extremely mighty powerhouses nearby. Not only that, there were many of them.

There were even a few auras within a very close distance, gathered at the end of the alley.

Lin Huang raised his eyes and looked up as a giant eyeball with three pupils hovered in the air, leaning forward. It was looking down condescendingly from high above the alley.

He only noticed this one eyeball, not the monster's full appearance. However, he could see the disdain in its eyes.

The next instant, Lin Huang appeared in a flash right at the entrance to the alley.

Almost at the same time, a red beam shot out from his sleeve, piercing through the eyeball immediately.

A miserable shriek rang through the air at once.

Only then did Lin Huang notice that there were four monsters blocking the alleyway.

The fellow who had spied on him by releasing the eyeball was a humanoid monster.

The biggest difference between itself and humans was that it had no head. There were only tentacles extending from its neck up, and each tentacle had a massive eyeball connected to its tip. A total of seven eyeballs hovered in midair; they looked extremely strange.

Lin Huang had no idea what species this monster belonged to at all. He had never seen anything remotely similar even in the monster guide.

As for the other three monsters, one of them looked a little like an oversized monitor lizard. The scales all over its body were black and shiny; only the six eyes on its forehead were dark green.

Another monster was an ice-blue ancient humanoid corpse, standing close to three meters tall. It was clear that it had not been human when it was still alive. It stood on the rooftop of a building opposite, its gaze ice-cold.

The remaining monster was a bird beast reduced to skeleton form. Lin Huang could not even guess what kind of species it had been when it was alive. It flew in circles above their heads, while from its crimson eyes, two streams of fire trailed through the air.

In the face of these four who were blocking the road, Lin Huang did not panic at all.

He had already learned from the Silt Monster's memory earlier that there was a high chance of newbies being attacked when they entered the inner world.

There would be a group of fellows hiding near each inner world's entrance and exit, waiting to kill the new faces.

There were also some others who would lurk around to watch. After all, there was limited entertainment in this city.

According to the Silt Monster's memory, the only safe place was the alley where the entrance and exit were located. As soon as one walked out of the alley, someone might intercept them.

Therefore, Lin Huang chose to attack first.

If someone was intercepting a target for the kill, it was only natural that there would be retaliation.

This was permissible by the rules of the inner world.

As long as they did not attack in the crowded regions of the city under the city guards' surveillance, basically, nobody would bother.

Watching the eyeball monster being impaled, screaming continuously as its body began to disintegrate, the other three interceptors' expressions revealed shock.

Many onlookers began whispering to each other.

"Dumb Bird and the rest have met their match this time…"

"That newbie is a tough one!"

Lin Huang did not even look at the eyeball monster. He glanced over the remaining three monsters. "Are you… sure you want to fight me?"

As soon as he said that, the eyeball monster's miserable howls stopped, and its body disintegrated completely.

To Lin Huang, the eyeball monster was merely a seventh-rank True God. It could not even be considered an opponent. He had not even used sequence power in the attack earlier, merely true god-level Rule Bending Power.

The remaining three were not much more powerful than the eyeball monster. There was very little in the way of benefits if he killed them, so he really could not be bothered to attack.

The three remaining monsters were also not fools. They had been wandering the inner world for years and had seen many powerhouses. Although Lin Huang's demonstrated ability was merely the tip of the iceberg, they knew they could not afford to offend the person in front of them.

"I've no intention of fighting. I merely sensed that your aura is rather unfamiliar, so I thought I would observe," the iced-blue corpse spoke up first. Since he stood the farthest from the three, it made sense for him to say that he was just watching the battle.

"Me too. I was just curious and thought I'd watch," the completely black 'monitor lizard' chimed in hastily.

Lin Huang said nothing. He lifted his head to look at the skeleton bird beast that was still circling in the sky.

The skeleton bird beast noticed Lin Huang looking at it and was so scared it slowed down a beat in its flapping, almost falling out of the sky. In a panic, it stuttered, "I-I'm lost. I-I accidentally f-flew over here…"

The onlookers were rendered speechless.

However, Lin Huang's reaction surprised all of them. He merely nodded lightly and responded, "Oh, I see."

Almost everyone had the same thought pop into their heads, 'You actually believe such nonsense?!'

The next instant, however, Lin Huang took a step forward and directly appeared on the back of the skeleton bird beast.

The skeleton bird beast was stunned for a moment, thinking it was going to die, but it heard Lin Huang's voice transmission in its ears a second later.

"Take me to where you live."

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Chapter 1560: The Tallest Building

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Lin Huang took a step forward and appeared right away on the skeleton bird beast's back.

Upon seeing that, everyone thought it was the end for the skeleton bird beast, not just the skeleton bird beast itself.

Many of the onlookers even secretly lamented that this Dumb Bird had brought it upon itself by not being able to use its brains, even when trying to lie.

The next instant, however, everyone present saw the skeleton bird beast flapping its wings, bringing with it the mysterious black-robed man…

All that remained were a group of onlookers staring at each other.

"What happened? That black-robed man really bought into Dumb Bird's nonsense?"The place where the skeleton bird beast lived was not at all far from the inner world's entrance and exit—less than five minutes away, in fact. It landed on top of a building, bearing Lin Huang with it.

Lin Huang looked at the sunken rooftop of the two or three-story building and realized that it was probably the skeleton bird beast's nest where it normally lived. It had forced a perfectly good roof into the shape of a nest by sleeping on it.

"S-Senior, what do you need me to do?" Although it was over ten times bigger than Lin Huang, the skeleton bird beast was as obedient as a student before him.

After all, he had killed the eyeball monster with merely one blow, and its ability was not much more powerful than that particular eyeball monster.

"Eighth-rank true god-level…" From up close, Lin Huang sized up the skeleton bird beast, causing it to panic. "I supposed you've been staying in the inner world for many years now?"

"I-It's…it's been a few years." The skeleton bird beast hesitated a little but nodded anyway.

"Excellent." As soon as Lin Huang finished speaking, the pupils of his eyes turned pitch-black, and the skeleton bird beast's body froze suddenly as well. Its crimson eyes also became pitch-black at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The way Lin Huang saw it, although the skeleton bird beast's ability was average, it still had eighth-rank true god-level combat strength after all. Moreover, it had stayed in the inner world for quite a few years. Its knowledge of this world would certainly be much greater than that of the Silt Monster.

Therefore, he read the bird's memory directly with barely any hesitation.

It had to be said that although this skeleton bird beast was not very intelligent, Lin Huang retrieved a great deal of useful information from its memory. A lot of it was on matters that the Silt Monster was unclear about, and there were even some things that the Silt Monster knew nothing about at all.

One particular piece of information was the one Lin Huang had wanted to discover the most.

It was information suspected to be about the founder of Phantom City!

In the skeleton bird beast's memory, Lin Huang found a tale that appeared to be a legend.

In ancient times, there were three Almighties who spread cultivation methods and founded this inner world.

The three Almighties were, respectively, a fabulously wealthy massive golden dragon, a nine-tailed demon fox of unparalleled beauty, and a compassionate, enlightened eminent Tantric Buddhist monk.

However, apart from several stories within the legend itself, there was no further information about the three.

According to the skeleton bird beast's memory, the current inner world did not have any specific masters. Instead, six ninth-rank true god-level powerhouses shared the work of keeping it under control.

'Legend says that the three Almighties created the inner world, so there's a chance the castellan's seal is divided into only three fragments. Now that there are six individuals who share the duties of keeping the world under control at the moment, it's highly possible that the castellan's seal is with three of the six.' Lin Huang quietly analyzed the possession of the castellan's seal. 'However, it can't be completely ruled out that the legend was purposely created to conceal the truth—in reality, all six of them might possess a fragment of the castellan's seal…

'There's also the possibility that none of these prominent six have any of the fragments. The six of them could just be decoys set up by the actual holder of the castellan's seal…'

Even after some analysis, Lin Huang still could not come to a clear conclusion.

'Although I can't be sure who has the castellan's seal, at least there's a new clue…'

Lin Huang set his sights on the six inner world overlords. Even if they did not have the castellan's seal fragments with them, he was sure that they definitely knew a great deal more information about the castellan's seal.

However, Lin Huang did not intend to rashly contact these six individuals. He had other plans.

As the pitch-black color in his eyes faded, the skeleton bird beast gradually recovered its consciousness.

By the time it was completely clear-headed, Lin Huang was long gone from the top of the building.

"Where did he go?" The skeleton bird beast looked around but did not see Lin Huang anywhere. "What happened?"

It thought back carefully, but could not recall exactly what happened earlier. It faintly remembered a whirlpool similar to a black hole that seemed to have appeared beneath the black hood…

Since the skeleton bird beast really could not recall what happened, it did not bother with wasting its already limited brain cells. It shook its head, pushing the rather uneasy memory from before to the back of its mind.

In the inner world, two days went by in a flash.

Lin Huang arrived at the tallest building in the city's central district at the agreed-upon time.

He took a seat at an open-air restaurant, ordered a drink, and patiently waited for Virtuoso and Saber9.

Two days ago, the three of them had agreed to meet under the tallest building here.

Although they had no idea back then that the phantom city had a surface world and an inner world, Lin Huang knew that Virtuoso and Saber9 would definitely come to this building in the inner world instead of the one in the surface world.

As expected, Saber9 appeared under the building not long later.

Lin Huang looked over at him. As if sensing his gaze, Saber9 turned to look in Lin Huang's direction as well.

Noticing Lin Huang, Saber9 walked directly to the table he was sitting at without any hesitation. He then took a seat across from Lin Huang.

"What will you drink?" Lin Huang asked with a smile.

Saber9 peered at the coffee mug in front of Lin Huang. "The same thing you're having will be fine."

The waiter very soon served Saber9's coffee, and the pair chatted as they drank. They did not mention the castellan's seal at all.

Virtuoso had yet to arrive, so it did not make sense for them to talk about that now.

After they had chatted for a while, Lin Huang realized that he was finishing his coffee and could not help glancing at the time. "It's almost the time we agreed upon. Will that fellow be late again, I wonder?"

Saber9 said in some irritation, "Instead of picking up their Primordium's good habits, that fellow picked up all the bad ones!"

Fortunately, Virtuoso was punctual this time.

They arrived at 9 a.m. sharp.

They caught sight of Lin Huang and Saber9 immediately. Walking toward the both of them directly, they took a seat without ceremony.

"You're punctual today," Lin Huang commented with a quirk of his lips.

"Of course. I said I would get here at 9, so I got here at 9. I'm not late by even a minute!" Virtuoso replied, sounding very pleased with themselves.

"I wonder who it is who's never been punctual even after agreeing on a set time," Saber9 unceremoniously pulled the rug out from under Virtuoso's feet.

Virtuoso directly ignored Saber9's snub, directing his words to the two of them, "We'll end the small talk here. Let's get down to business."

Seeing that Virtuoso had used serious matters to change the subject, Saber9 had to let things be.

"How did your investigations go these last two days? Tell me one at a time." Virtuoso went straight to the point.

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Chapter 1561: Target Locked

"I've learned from many people that according to legend, there are three founders of the inner world. One is a member of the Dragon Tribe, another is a nine-tailed demon fox, and the last is an eminent monk from the Buddhist Tribe. This point I managed to verify later from an underground channel; it isn't just a mere legend.

"However, these three founders were only active for a little while during the initial stages of founding the inner world. Subsequently, they went quiet very rapidly.

"After the three founders faded into the background, high-level Heavenly Gods sprang up one after another not long after. Most of these were short-lived. This situation only stabilized 3,000 years ago, when six overlords each took over various territories to maintain a system of checks and balances.

"Among these six, two of them were the earliest to emerge—almost within 100 years of the three founders going quiet.

"One of the two is a four-faced individual with four faces, each with a different character. Each character has different divine abilities and techniques.

"The other is three-tailed a snake lady who is an expert in illusory techniques and inherently bewitching.

"As for the most likely candidates who possess information about the castellan's seal, going by the timeline, it would definitely be these two. It's even possible that they might have the castellan's seal fragments with them…"

Lin Huang briefly described the results of his investigations, at the same time using Divine Power to project the pieces of information he had discovered one at a time.

Of course, only the three of them sitting at the table could see these projections, as Virtuoso had set up an illusion barrier around the area where the table was.

Outsiders were only able to see that the three of them were drinking and chatting.

Saber9 only spoke after looking over the information Lin Huang had gathered.

"What I've discovered is similar to Lin Xie.

"After finding out about the three founders, I spent a great deal of effort to find out information about them after they went quiet, but to almost no avail. Whatever I found out can't be verified. There are dozens of versions alone about where the three of them eventually ended up.

"Subsequently, I also changed the focus of my investigation to the six overlords instead. However, I didn't find anything useful as I was worried about alerting people."

Lin Huang could not help nodding when he heard that.

"I had the same idea that you did—I originally wanted to get information from their subordinates. However, after careful consideration, I abandoned the idea, as I don't want to alert anyone."

"Targeting their subordinates is the right thing to do, but we'll have to plan it thoroughly first." Virtuoso nodded as well. "After all, these six are top powerhouses among Heavenly Gods. It would be far too difficult to take them on directly.

"Moreover, even though Lin Xie has narrowed the targets down to two people based on the timeline, there's no guarantee that this is accurate at all. There's still a possibility that these two people know nothing about the castellan's seal, and the secret is held by the remaining four. We need to obtain more accurate information before making our final conclusions.

"We need to find a chance to lock onto our target and succeed on our first try!

"If we fail the first time, the remaining five will definitely be even more on their guard. This will significantly increase our difficulty in retrieving the castellan's seal.

"I've carried out some investigations over the last two days. The information I managed to obtain is basically the same as what both of you have mentioned.

"The castellan's seal is most likely divided into three fragments, and they're in the hands of the three inner world founders. As for the disappearance of the three of them, they might have gone into hiding deliberately to prevent people from seizing the castellan's seal. Perhaps something might have happened to them as well, such as being robbed, or something else.

"If that's the case, someone among the current six overlords should know about the castellan's seal.

"The second possibility is that the castellan's seal fragments are in the possession of one of the six current overlords.

"If that's true, then this would be the most beneficial to us. This is because as soon as we identify the person with the fragments, all we'll have to do is to find ways to retrieve the fragments.

"The third possibility is the most problematic one, which is that after the three founders went into hiding, the castellan's seal fell into the hands of some unknown individual. The emergence of the six overlords has nothing to do with the castellan's seal, while all six of them have no clue about the castellan's seal at all.

"If that's the case, it means that everything we've done previously is a waste of time. We'll have to look for clues again."

"If it's the third possibility, I think there's no need for us to waste any more time in this phantom city. Let's just go straight to the next one." The expression on Saber9's face did not seem as if he was joking; he really did look like he was planning on doing that.

Although what he said was out of pique, it was still considered a logical strategy.

This was because, based on the current situation in this phantom city, searching for new leads all over again might be even more difficult than going to another phantom city to look for the castellan's seal afresh.

"After all, we've only had two days, and the information the three of us obtained is limited. From the limited information we have at present, all three possibilities are plausible. Let's sort out the details of the information we've individually obtained, and then discuss our next move."

As Virtuoso spoke, they arranged the information they had gathered and sent it to Lin Huang and Saber9 through mental transmission.

Lin Huang and Saber9 shared their information as well.

It did not take the three of them very long to respectively process the integrated information.

Virtuoso glanced at the two of them. "I'll go first.

"There's no way we can confirm which of the three possibilities the castellan's seal falls under. However, the most promising breakthrough currently would be the six local overlords.

"Based on Lin Xie's analysis, the four-faced individual and the three-tailed snake lady are undoubtedly the most likely candidates among the six. Furthermore, apart from the timeline, there aren't any more clues to prove that the other four have an even higher chance of possessing information on the castellan's seal.

"Therefore, I think it's best to choose these two as our first target."

Lin Huang nodded slightly at this point.

Beside him, Saber9 nodded as well. "I've no comments."

"Then let's try our best to obtain more information from the subordinates of these two individuals over the next few days…" Virtuoso continued, "First ascertain a name list of their subordinates and some basic information on these underlings, then take action when they're alone….

"There's one thing that we need to take note of—don't kill them," Virtuoso suddenly reminded everyone, "These subordinates might have something like a Soul Lamp warning system set up—when a member dies, the corresponding Soul Lamp will be destroyed. We would set off an alert if that happened."

Lin Huang nodded slightly when he heard this. Saber9, on the other hand, frowned a little.

"If we go our separate ways, even if Lin Xie and I manage to interrogate them, there's no way for us to erase their memories…"

Lin Huang remained silent when he heard what Saber9 said. He did not explain that he possessed such a technique.

Virtuoso glanced at Saber9. "Stun them, then I'll deal with it.

"Make contact with any subordinates that we can speak with, no matter what their status. We'll try our best to obtain more information about the four-faced individual and the three-tailed snake lady. It's alright if we obtain a lot of repetitive information…"

Virtuoso sketched out the plan briefly. After that, the three of them soon began discussing the exact details of how to carry out the plan.

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Chapter 1562: The Gilded Fiend

Painted Face was the first target that Lin Huang focused his attention on.

He had never seen this monster in the monster guide before. However, at first glance, the creature reminded him of ancient Chinese opera characters on Earth.

Apart from resembling a Chinese opera character with a painted face, the second impression Lin Huang had of this monster was that of a paper doll.

Although this monster appeared human, it looked more like the paper dolls on Earth which Chinese people customarily burned as offerings at the graves of their ancestors.

It had a pair of legs, just like a human. However, its feet never touched the ground; it perpetually hovered in the air.

Based on the information Lin Huang managed to dig up, Painted Face was one of three underlings who had followed the four-faced individual the longest. If one were to go by qualifications, It was definitely considered very senior in terms of experience.

However, due to its combat strength staying stagnant at beginner-level, it had slowly been removed from the four-faced individual's core power circle and become an unimportant character.

It had previously wanted to work hard to strengthen its cultivation. However, due to its limited talent, it was unable to break through to fourth-rank heavenly god-level at all. As time went by, it gradually abandoned the struggle.

Lin Huang had chosen Painted Face as his target because, for one, it knew more about the four-faced individual's past. It had witnessed the entire process of the four-faced individual's emergence. For another, compared to the others in the core power circle, it was the easiest to target.

On that day, as per its usual custom, Painted Face arrived on the rooftop of a building.

All along, it had had a unique way of passing time, which was to hum songs while walking on the edge of all sorts of buildings, its arms thrown wide, and imagining it was walking on a tightrope.

From up close, however, one could see its feet were actually one to two centimeters off the ground, never actually touching the ground at all.

However, on this day, right when it had climbed to the rooftop and taken a few steps on the edge, it suddenly noticed a black silhouette blocking its path.

It was a man in a black robe, and the face under his black hood was covered by a black mask.

Painted Face had only just caught sight of the figure; before it could even take a good look at this person, two black gleams of light lit up under the hood.

Painted Face's body froze on the spot immediately.

The man in the black robe was, of course, Lin Huang. He had waited a night and a day just to get the chance to make his move; at least he had managed to wait until Painted Face was completely alone.

Painted Face's combat strength was merely that of a low-level Heavenly God. Among Heavenly Gods of the same combat strength, it was even considered one of the weaker ones. In the face of Lin Huang's sequence power, it had absolutely no ability to resist at all.

The memory retrieval Lin Huang carried out went extraordinarily smoothly with no interference at all.

Within a short two minutes, Lin Huang had completely copied Painted Face's memory.

"That went more smoothly than I anticipated…" Lin Huang shot a glance at Painted Face, who still had not entirely detached itself from the memory retrieval process. He extended a finger and tapped it between Painted Face's brows.

Painted Face's body immediately went limp, and Lin Huang's telekinetic threads tossed it into the God Territory within Lin Huang's body.

After scanning his surroundings with Divine Telekinesis and making sure he had left no traces behind, Lin Huang did not linger. Instead, he departed in a flash.

"The second target is… the Gilded Fiend…"

The Gilded Fiend was an Abyssal creature found in the monster guide.

Monsters of this kind were usually powerful combat cultivators who had been contaminated with Abyssal energy. After they had become Abyssal creatures and been baptized in the Abyssal blood spring, they would transform into such monsters.

They possessed a powerful physical body, with strength that could be compared to Star Titan in the ancient era.

This target that Lin Huang chose had the combat strength of an eighth-rank Heavenly God, but the strength of its physical body might even be at least that of a half-step Lord. Very few individuals below lord-level would be able to break through its defenses.

It was not that Lin Huang wanted to challenge himself by choosing a target like this. Instead, he had done so because although the Gilded Fiend had a near-invincible physical body, its spirit strength was generally low.

Legend said that the Abyssal blood spring was a tributary of the death spring, which also had the effect of eroding one's God's soul.

Practically anyone who transformed into a Gilded Fiend would have a damaged God's soul.

Most Gilded Fiends were either unintelligent and stupid, or insane… Regardless, none of them were normal in their heads. Some would even lose their minds completely during the process of transformation and become perfect material for puppet refinement.

From Lin Huang's point of view, it was no big issue if these monsters were mentally abnormal. As long as they stored information about what they had seen or heard in their minds, that was sufficient.

Furthermore, because of its low intelligence, the Gilded Fiend had always been the four-faced individual's most trusted subordinate—the only one, in fact.

It had even been the four-faced individual's bodyguard at a much earlier point in time. Of course, calling it a bodyguard was just sugar-coating things; in reality, it was merely a shield in human form.

It was only almost one thousand years ago when the four-faced individual's overlord status had been fully secured and stabilized, that the Gilded Fiend's status had been upgraded. The Gilded Fiend was always being given tasks that required violence.

One of the reasons why Lin Huang chose the Gilded Fiend as his target was that it had been in close proximity with the four-faced individual for a long time, and had heard and seen many of this individual's secrets. Another reason was that it was always being given missions that required it to go into the outside world. This made it easier to catch it on its own.

In the black market, the Gilded Fiend's whereabouts were also never a secret.

In reality, the fairly famous warlords under the command of the six overlords had always been the ones that all the major and minor organizations in the inner world paid attention to.

This was because their activities might lead to a change of circumstances in the entire inner world.

By closely observing these people, the organizations would be alerted ahead of time regarding even the slightest stir.

Lin Huang managed to purchase a log of the Gilded Fiend's recent whereabouts without needing to put in much effort at all.

"It seems I'm pretty lucky…" Lin Huang raised his brows slightly after glancing through the information in the log.

According to the black market's records, the Gilded Fiend just happened to leave the headquarters guarded by the four-faced person a day ago. It appeared to be out on some mission.

He glanced at the information provided by the black market, and realized that someone had discovered the Gilded Fiend's coordinates over an hour ago, even taking a photo secretly…

Within less than an hour, Lin Huang arrived at the coordinates mentioned in the black market's log.

This place was a crowded market with people of various sizes and forms coming and going.

On both sides of the streets were all sorts of stalls.

Lin Huang glanced around and noticed they were selling items that were above the level of god relics.

However, he did not have much of a heart look for bargains. Instead, he glanced around and began to search for traces of the Gilded Fiend.

There were cultivators above virtual god-level everywhere in this market. It was a bad idea for him to use his Divine Telekinesis, so he could only release Leech Pods along the way to help with the search.

Under Lin Huang's control, the Leech Pods were not drifting around at random. Instead, they were attaching themselves to various items along the way.

After releasing thousands of Leech Pods, Lin Huang was wondering whether or not the Gilded Fiend might have already left when a Leech Pod suddenly sent an image through.

The image showed a dark-gold monster of tall stature. It stood within the crowd, head and shoulders above everyone else, and was looking around…

"Found you!" Lin Huang's eyes lit up.

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Chapter 1563: We Can Talk About It At Leisure

After discovering the Gilded Fiend, Lin Huang did not rashly go up to it. Instead, he passed slowly through the crowd while approaching it and continued to use Leech Pods to observe its behavior.

The Gilded Fiend seemed to be looking for something in the stalls. This made Lin Huang rather uncertain as to why it did not use Divine Telekinesis but was instead checking the stalls carefully one by one.

Theoretically, given its identity, it had absolutely no need to worry about its Divine Telekinesis being sensed by others.

'What exactly is this fellow looking for?' Lin Huang was rather curious about this.

The Gilded Fiend moved ahead slowly, carefully scrutinizing each stall along the way. Although it tried its best to seem indifferent, any outsiders could tell right away that it was very likely searching for something.

In this inner world, practically everybody knew the Gilded Fiend. Upon observing its demeanor, they were secretly speculating about whether or not the four-faced individual might have heard some gossip of late about something valuable hidden in the market. That might be the reason why the Gilded Fiend had been sent to investigate.

Therefore, many people began secretly checking through all stalls in the market, trying to get a head start.

There were even quite a few stall owners who checked their own goods again, seeing if there was anything that they might have missed.

Even Lin Huang could not help secretly speculating, even though his purpose for coming here had nothing to do with buying goods. He even began attentively checking out all the items at the stalls along the way.

After all, anything that the Gilded Fiend—or even the four-faced individual—considered to be important, had to be valuable.

Even if Lin Huang could not use it himself, he could sell it off at a good price.

Lin Huang strolled around the market while quietly making his way closer to the Gilded Fiend.

Over three hours passed by in no time at all, and the Gilded Fiend had walked around the entire market twice, looking through all the goods at every stall. However, it had not bought a single thing.

Lin Huang had also followed the Gilded Fiend around for over three hours and had bought a few small items.

He had actually noticed many excellent items on both sides of the street. Although most of them were not enough to pique his interest, to most ordinary True Gods, many of these goods were of the best quality. For instance, there were medicinal pills that could aid one's combat strength in achieving a breakthrough, top-grade god rule relics, and other assorted items.

Although Phantom City was similar to a virtual game world, the items one obtained from this world were the real deal, even in the outside world. There were even some fantasy items that could not be obtained at all in the outside world.

However, after strolling around twice while following the Gilded Fiend, Lin Huang had not noticed anything special that could pique the Gilded Fiend's interest.

At the stalls, the highest grade items were expert-grade god sequence relics. At the Gilded Fiend's level of ability, these things were nothing to it.

'This fellow has been around the market twice already; there's no telling how much longer it will keep walking around,' Lin Huang could not help muttering in his mind upon noticing that the Gilded Fiend did not seem to have any intention of leaving yet.

Moreover, Lin Huang was not the only one who was intently keeping an eye on the Gilded Fiend.

However, these individuals observing the Gilded Fiend's every movement had no intention of attacking it. Instead, they were curious about what it was looking for and wanted to snatch the item up before it could make a purchase.

After strolling around the market twice, the Gilded Fiend seemed to have thought of something a short while later. It suddenly halted and turned around, heading in Lin Huang's direction.

'Have I been discovered?' Lin Huang was startled.

His first reaction was that the Gilded Fiend had discovered he was tailing it. However, he remained calm.

He glanced through the goods at the stall in front of him and casually picked up something pleasing to the eye, pretending to scrutinize it. He then asked the stall owner for the price.

"How much is this?" Lin Huang was holding an ancient coin. It looked rather rusty, and he did not recognize any of the words engraved on it. There were flowers and birds imprinted on both sides, and the craftsmanship seemed fairly good.

The ancient coin was only a showpiece to admire. There was no energy in it at all.

"10,000 Divine Stones!" The bald owner glanced at Lin Huang and immediately asked for a ridiculous price.

"Why don't you rob me instead?!" Lin Huang raised his brows when he heard how much the item cost. Even though he usually did not like to bargain when he bought things, he could tell that the stall owner was trying to rip him off. "This piece doesn't have any energy fluctuations at all; it's just an ordinary item. You're asking the price for a top-grade god relic. Boss, this isn't how you do business."

"How much are you willing to pay, then?" The owner smiled, not embarrassed in the least. Instead, he redirected the question to Lin Huang.

"One Divine Stone. I'll take it if you're willing to sell it for that amount." Lin Huang immediately went down to 1/10000 of the original asking price.

"You said that I'm not sincere in selling this item to you at my asking price, but you're clearly not sincere in wanting to purchase it since you're bargaining like this," the stall owner grumbled.

"One Divine Stone is almost clean net profit for you. I'm sure you didn't spend very much to purchase this." Lin Huang remained adamant.

Before the owner could argue, Lin Huang continued, "There aren't many people collecting ancient coins after all, and you only have this one single coin at your stall. It proves that you also knew it would depend on luck whether or not you would be able to sell it. Therefore, there's no way that you would purchase an ancient coin at a high price. You'd suffer a loss if you couldn't sell it—only a simpleton would do such a thing."

The stall owner had prepared a retort, but he swallowed his words entirely after hearing what Lin Huang had to say.

He had wanted to say that he had indeed purchased the coin at a high price. However, if he said so, it would be the equivalent of admitting that he was a simpleton.

"In that case, could you raise your asking price a little more?" After some consideration, the stall owner did not persist any further. His expression altered as well; he wanted to curry favor with Lin Huang now.

"Two Divine Stones, then. That's my last offer." Lin Huang generously added one more Divine Stone to his asking price.

The stall owner felt rather helpless, but he nodded anyway. "Alright, it's sold!"

Lin Huang tossed two Divine Stones to the owner and was about to put the ancient coin away into his space storage when a deep, resonant voice suddenly spoke up.

"I want this ancient coin! How much is it?"

The voice caught the attention of many people's attention as soon as it sounded.

The stall owner was stunned at first, but he immediately said with an apologetic smile, "Sir, the ancient coin has already been sold to this man."

Lin Huang turned his head to look at the looming figure standing next to him. It was the Gilded Fiend that he had been stalking for over three hours.

'This fellow is interested in the ancient coin I'm holding?!'

Lin Huang was stunned as well. He had not expected that the item the Gilded Fiend had been searching several hours for would accidentally come into his possession just like that.

He lowered his head to study the ancient coin, then secretly checked it with Divine Telekinesis. However, he still did not notice anything out of the ordinary.

At that moment, the Gilded Fiend turned its head and looked at Lin Huang.

"Friend, could you sell this ancient coin to me?" After making this request, the Gilded Fiend added, "I'm Gildy, Master Four Face's subordinate."

A strange gleam flashed through Lin Huang's eyes. Although he had no idea what exactly the ancient coin was, it was undoubtedly an opportunity to get close to the Gilded Fiend…

"I can sell it to you, but the price… We can talk about it at leisure somewhere less crowded…"

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Chapter 1564: The Cautious Four-Faced Individual

In an abandoned building far from the market, the pitch-black color of Lin Huang's pupils gradually faded.

Noticing that the black in the Gilded Fiend's eyes was fading as well, he extended his hand and tapped two fingers right in the middle of the Gilded Fiend's brows.

The next instant, the Gilded Fiend's body went limp and crumpled to the ground.

Meanwhile, Lin Huang, who had initially been hovering in midair, landed slowly on the ground together with the Gilded Fiend's massive bulk.

However, once he landed, he did not put the Gilded Fiend into the God Territory within his body right away. Instead, he froze on the spot for a moment.

The reason for this brief stunned instance was because he had retrieved important information he wanted from the Gilded Fiend's memory.

A moment later, he snapped back to his senses and used telekinetic threads to drag the Gilded Fiend into the God Territory within him. He then bestirred himself and headed toward his third target…

Three days went by in no time; Lin Huang, Virtuoso, and Saber9 gathered once again after that.

"What are the results of your investigations?" Virtuoso asked immediately.

Lin Huang glanced at Saber9. "You go first."

Saber9 nodded. "I investigated the three-tailed snake lady's subordinates. One is her previous best friend, two are her lovers, and another two are her trusted underlings.

"However, the interrogation didn't go well. The five of them don't seem to know about the castellan's seal.

"With my technique, there's not a very high chance of these five concealing anything from me. Therefore, I feel there are two possibilities. Either the three-tailed snake lady is hiding things very well and hasn't told anyone around her about the castellan's seal, or she doesn't have it at all."

"Were there any anomalies when she rose to prominence?" Virtuoso could not help inquiring.

"She rose to her position primarily by relying on men, her looks, and her ability to entice. Practically no man can resist her. She's been sitting in the overlord's position all these years mainly because among the remaining five overlords, two of them are her lovers. Moreover, she's used her allure to gather a group of high-level Heavenly Gods to serve her. Her subordinates' overall combat strength is certainly no lower than the rest of the overlords."

Virtuoso fell into deep thought for a while after hearing this. "Then let's rule her out for now. I came across information about her through other channels as well and did some investigation. The conclusion I came to is similar to yours—she most probably doesn't have the castellan's seal."

After they had ruled out the three-tailed snake lady, Virtuoso and Saber9 turned their heads to look at Lin Huang.

"Let me share my investigation results then…" Lin Huang began speaking only after he saw their attention was focused on him.

"I investigated the four-faced individual's subordinates, Painted Face and the Gilded Fiend, as well as his current mistress… and I definitely discovered a considerable amount of useful information.

"The information Painted Face provided mentioned that the four-faced individual's ability came out of nowhere. Painted Face had always suspected that his master had obtained some kind of treasure, but Painted Face never knew what it was.

"The information provided by the Gilded Fiend stated that the four-faced individual is unfathomably powerful. The Gilded Fiend personally witnessed him elevating a low-rank Heavenly God's combat strength to ninth-rank heavenly god-level," Lin Huang paused at this point in his narrative. He then looked at Virtuoso and Saber9. "This person isn't exactly unfamiliar to the two of you either…"

Saber9 was momentarily stunned, but Virtuoso reacted immediately. "The three-tailed snake lady?!"

Lin Huang nodded slightly.

Saber9 regained his composure at this point. Although he knew that the four-faced individual was the three-tailed snake lady's lover, he was not aware of this additional facet of their relationship.

"He forcibly elevated a person's combat strength several ranks, without any side-effects. Not only that, the whole process took less than half an hour. This alone is enough to prove that he has the castellan's seal."

Lin Huang was very certain of this because only individuals who possessed the castellan's seal could be like a gamemaster, directly modifying a character's data within Phantom City.

"Apart from that, based on what the Gilded Fiend stated, the four-faced individual seems to have been collecting objects. Previously, he even went out to collect these items personally instead of asking someone to do it for him. It's only been in recent years that he has let a trusted subordinate aid him in this matter.

"The Gilded Fiend also mentioned that the few collectibles it had seen were all peculiar odds and ends. Some don't even possess any energy fluctuations at all. They're just like ordinary objects.

"I suspect the items he's looking for are the remaining fragments of the castellan's seal. However, he doesn't seem to know what forms these seal fragments might take. Every time he instructed the Gilded Fiend to look for objects, his descriptions were always very vague. He would only give a rough outline, then ask the Gilded Fiend to search based on its intuition.

"That's why I speculate that the castellan's seal fragments might exist in any random form."

From his space storage, Lin Huang retrieved the ancient coin that he had recently purchased from the market. "Before this, at the market, the Gilded Fiend was eyeing this ancient coin I was holding. It even offered a high price so that I would sell it to them."

Lin Huang flicked his thumb, and the ancient coin landed squarely in the palm of Virtuoso's hand.

"Take a look at it. What if this is one of the castellan's seal fragments?"

Virtuoso ignored Lin Huang's teasing tone. Instead, they picked up the ancient coin and began scrutinizing it closely.

A while later, they turned their gaze from the ancient coin and shook their head at Lin Huang and Saber9.

"I can't be sure whether or not this is a fragment of the castellan's seal."

"Is there no way of verifying this at all?" Lin Huang could not help asking.

"Of course there are ways. The simplest would be to get another fragment of the castellan's seal. As long as they're within a certain proximity of each other, both fragments should certainly display a reaction.

"The problem is, however, we don't have another fragment with us," Virtuoso commented, spreading their hands out.

"How did the Gilded Fiend decide that this might be the item that the four-faced individual was looking for?" Saber9 asked Lin Huang from where he was standing to one side.

"Based on what it said, it watched me pick up this ancient coin while it was at a distance. It then felt this might be the thing the four-faced individual was looking for, so it asked me to sell the coin to it. It's just pure intuition, there aren't any reliable deciding factors…" Even as he spoke, Lin Huang felt somewhat bereft of words. "From what the Gilded Fiend said, the four-faced individual even encouraged such behavior. Furthermore, he even told it to buy anything that it thought might be valuable."

"Although this is most probably an ordinary coin, let's just keep it anyway," Virtuoso stated and tossed the coin back to Lin Huang. "What if it really is a fragment of the castellan's seal?"

Lin Huang caught the ancient coin and put it away in his space storage before he resumed speaking.

"As far as the four-faced individual's mistress goes, she didn't provide very much useful information. The four-faced individual is more cautious around her and has never mentioned the castellan's seal fragments at all. Furthermore, based on my previous speculations, the seal could very well exist in whatever form. Trying to obtain the castellan's seal fragments from the four-faced individual is an incredibly difficult undertaking!"

"Both of you don't have to worry about that. All you need to be responsible for is gathering information. The rest, you can leave to me, and I'll think of a solution!" Virtuoso seemed to have some kind of idea already. "Since we're now sure that the four-faced individual has the fragments of the castellan's seal, let's start with him first!"

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Chapter 1565: Virtuoso's Special Technique

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The four-faced individual sat on a black metal throne, toying with a storage ring in his hand. All four of his faces wore thoughtful expressions.

"It's been a long time since you last had that look on your faces." A voice suddenly drifted in from the palace door, followed by the crisp, clear clack of high heels against the ground, approaching from a distance.

"Yes…" The four-faced individual's four faces let out a low sigh almost simultaneously.

"I just saw Gildy going out." The lady in heels slowly made her way over to the four-faced individual. She was a female succubus. To be precise, even among succubi, her figure and attractiveness were still considered top-notch. "If I'm not mistaken, this has something to do with him, doesn't it?"

The four-faced individual fell silent for a moment before he turned his gaze to the succubus. "I suspect that he's lying to me."

"Gildy?!" The tone of the succubus' voice raised slightly. "With his intelligence, do you think that's even possible? Moreover, if I'm not wrong, wasn't he was one of the first ones to throw his lot in with you?"

"I didn't think it would be possible as well, but he has indeed lied to me today." The four-faced individual was very certain of this.

"Why not tell me what exactly happened, and I'll listen." The succubus made her way over to the four-faced individual and sat down cross-legged on the ground in front of the throne. Tilting her head up to look at the four-faced individual, she smiled faintly.

The four-faced individual fell silent for a brief moment before slowly beginning to speak.

"I had him look for something for me. I actually left on him some means by which he would sense the object I wanted whenever it showed up in his vicinity, and I would sense it as well on my end.

"Three days ago, I definitely sensed that item showing up somewhere in his surroundings. However, when he returned this time, whatever he passed to me didn't include that particular object."

"How did he explain that?" The succubus asked, smiling.

"He said that he was certain he sensed something from a specific item, but someone else bought it before he could get his hands on it. He offered a high price so he could acquire the object, but the original purchaser refused to agree."

"Isn't that very normal?" The succubus raised her brows, "Or are you blaming him for not forcibly acquiring the item?"

The four-faced individual did not answer this question, continuing instead, "Given Gildy's character, in the past, he would always do his best to complete the missions I gave him. He would steal, plunder, and kill to obtain the things I wanted. He wouldn't give up just because the other party refused to trade. Something must have happened between Gildy and that person."

"Didn't you ask for any details?"

"No. If he's unwilling to tell me, it makes no sense for me to ask. He might not tell the truth even if I did pursue the matter." The four-faced individual shook his head slightly.

"What are you planning to do then? Dispose of him?" The succubus asked in a seemingly careless fashion.

"I'll get someone to watch him first to see if they can find out anything useful," the four-faced individual said blandly.

"Take a bath and relax; stop always thinking about things that worry you." The succubus rose and approached the four-faced individual. Wave after wave of ripples began emanating from her narrow eyes, and a light fragrance began to waft through the air.

The four-faced individual's breathing grew heavier. All four faces had their eyes closed, allowing the fragrance to drift into their nostrils. He only opened his eyes a while later. "You little imp. Wasn't all that tussling around last night enough for you?"

The succubus said nothing. She merely smiled slightly and extended her hand to investigate the four-faced individual's chest. Her fingers, soft and seemingly boneless, wandered over his body, teasing his desire.

The four-faced individual did not stop her either. He closed his eyes, indulging himself in these intoxicating ministrations.

Before very long, the succubus' ministrations abruptly stopped. The four-faced individual opened his eyes and discovered that, without realizing it, he had arrived at the side of the bathtub with her. Moreover, the succubus was already completely undressed and right in front of him.

For a moment, the four-faced individual could hardly tear his eyes away.

He allowed the succubus to take off his clothes, one item at a time until finally, he was left without a stitch on. Even his storage ring had been taken off by the succubus and set to one side…

Hot steam bubbled up from the bath, and mist roiled.

The two figures—one muscular, another buxom—were gradually swallowed up in the mist…

Almost at the same time, in an abandoned building a considerable distance away, the corners of Virtuoso's lips quirked up slightly.

A full set of clothing gradually coalesced in their hands. This even included shoes, socks, and several accessories like a few rings.

"This is…?" Lin Huang and Saber9's expressions were full of incredulity.

They retreated a few steps, hastily distancing themselves from Virtuoso. This was because the two of them clearly scented the pungent odor of smelly feet.

When they caught a whiff of that odor, their expressions at present were even more peculiar as they glanced at Virtuoso.

Virtuoso frowned as well. Hurriedly, they blocked their sense of smell and explained, "These are the four-faced individual's clothes. Everything he wore today is here."

"How did you manage this?" Lin Huang's face was full of shock. This was the first time he had heard that someone could strip another person naked from a distance.

Such ability was nothing short of incredible!

Even Saber9, standing off to one side, wore an expression of utter incomprehension.

"I managed to subjugate someone close to him and replaced his clothes when he was taking a bath," Virtuoso explained, sounding very pleased with themselves.

"Won't that be discovered?" Lin Huang asked.

"On such short notice, definitely not. First of all, I made a copy of his clothes and left them in their original spot when I made the exchange. Secondly, the person that I made use of is a succubus. He won't be leaving the bathtub any time soon…"

Lin Huang and Saber9 came to a sudden realization when they heard the term 'succubus.'

Monsters like succubi had desires that were far more powerful than most species and could maintain an intense mating period for a long time. As long as they wanted to, they could even have intercourse continuously for a few months at a time

Many people were aware that, in reality, succubi had no definite gender. They could be male, female, and could even transform into other species. (They would have an initial gender when they were born, but they could change their forms and genders at will.)

Many monsters with strong desires would be willing to date lovers like the succubi.

This was not just because succubi could transform into members of the same tribe species; for a great many more, it was because every day they could experience something new and fresh.

Even an ambitious and ruthless man like the four-faced individual was unable to reject a succubus who completely conformed to his aesthetic.

Furthermore, since Virtuoso had managed to subjugate the succubus, this meant that if nothing went wrong, whatever time the four-faced individual got out of the bathtub depended entirely on when Virtuouso wanted to let him out of the bath.

"The four-faced individual would never place something like the castellan's seal very far from his person. It's either in his storage equipment or somewhere very close to himself." As Virtuoso spoke, they held up the clothes in their hands.

"What if he refined it and integrated it into his body?" Lin Huang asked at once.

Before Virtuoso could reply, Saber9—who was beside them—answered the question.

"The castellan's seal can't be refined if it's in a fragmented state. There's only one legitimate authority in every phantom city, and only one will is acknowledged and accepted, so only the fully whole castellan's seal can be refined. Although one can make use of the power of the castellan's seal with just a single fragment to build and modify a phantom city, they only have control of the phantom city, not ownership of it. One can only legitimately have ownership of a phantom city if they have refined the castellan's seal in its fully whole state."

Something suddenly occurred to Saber9 after he finished his explanation.

"However, if the four-faced individual placed the castellan's seal in the God Territory within his body, it would mean that whatever we've done so far is wasted effort."

Virtuoso ignored the conversation between the two and began checking through the clothes carefully.

The castellan's seal could elude being sensed by Divine Telekinesis, so using one's eyes to search was much more reliable in times like this.

Lin Huang and Saber9 hurried forward immediately and helped examine the clothes…

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Chapter 1566: Pure Blind Luck

"We haven't found any unusual items. Right now, the only things we haven't checked are what's in the storage rings." Saber9 looked at the last two storage rings after a meticulous search.

"Even if we haven't discovered anything, it doesn't mean nothing unusual is present." Virtuoso's gaze fell upon the two storage rings. "After all, we have no idea what the fragments of the castellan's seal for this Phantom City look like."

"Is there any way of accessing these two storage rings?" Lin Huang went straight to the point.

Virtuoso extended his hand and picked up the two storage rings, "These two storage rings belong to an older style of secret key rings. One must adjust their Divine Telekinesis to a specific frequency to be able to unlock them; that's the only way to gain access. Having the rings is useless if you don't have the secret key.

"However… I just so happen to know the secret keys for both these storage rings…" As they spoke, Virtuoso had already adjusted their Divine Telekinesis to a specific frequency. They glanced at the two storage rings in quick succession.

Even without Virtuoso saying anything further, Lin Huang and Saber9 knew that they must have read the memory of one of the four-faced individual's close associates. Furthermore, this person just happened to have the information about the two secret keys in their memory.

Virtuoso searched both the storage rings for a long time before finally retrieving one single item.

"I used my Divine Telekinesis to scan every item in these two storage rings three times, but I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary…" Virtuoso suddenly turned their head to look at Lin Huang when they finished speaking. "However, I found this."

They opened up their palm. In the middle of it was an ancient silver coin.

Lin Huang could not help frowning when he saw the ancient coin. Before he could open his mouth, Virtuoso spoke first.

"Does this ancient coin look like the one you bought at the market a few days back?"

"Not at all." Lin Huang shook his head, "Yours looks like a silver coin. The one I bought looks more like a bronze coin. Not only are the colors different, but the size, thickness, and carvings also aren't the same at all. Your silver coin is at least one size smaller than my bronze coin.

"Why? Do you suspect that this silver coin might be a fragment of the castellan's seal?" Lin Huang asked, raising his brows.

"If you bring out your ancient coin, we'll find out whether or not this is a fragment of the castellan's seal." Virtuoso had hitherto always been calm, but right now, his tone carried a sense of urgency.

The castellan's seal fragments could sense each other. If the ancient coin in Virtuoso's hand was able to sense the one that Lin Huang had purchased, they could basically confirm that the two ancient coins were fragments of the castellan's seal.

Lin Huang felt that Virtuoso was indulging in wild fantasies. The ancient coin that he himself had purchased at the market was considered a commemorative coin. For whatever reason, however, Virtuoso had somehow linked both these entirely different objects together through some wild feat of imagination. Not only did they believe that the two coins were related, they even believed that both were fragments of the castellan's seal.

However, Lin Huang did not bother arguing with Virtuoso over the subject. He retrieved the ancient coin—which had cost him two Divine Stones to purchase at the market—from his space storage.

The way he saw it, as long as the ancient coin that he took out showed no reaction, it would be sufficient to prove right away that Virtuoso's baseless speculation was wrong. There was no need for Lin Huang to waste his breath arguing with them.

However, as soon as he took out the 'bronze coin', the 'silver coin' in Virtuoso's palm began to vibrate intensely. At the same time, Lin Huang could clearly sense the 'bronze coin' between his fingers vibrating just as intensely also.

The feeling one got was that of a dog wagging its tail maniacally in excitement when its owner got home from work.

Without waiting for Lin Huang to inquire further, Virtuoso had already pulled his palm away from the ancient coin. Seeing this, Lin Huang let go of his own coin as well, allowing the ancient coins to hover on their own in midair.

Both coins were different in terms of color, size, thickness, and even patterns. However, the current scenario was proof enough that the two objects were being drawn to each other.

After Lin Huang and Virtuoso released their hold, the two ancient coins soon transformed into two dazzling beams of light—one gold, one silver—that intersected in midair like a vortex. They were whirling rapidly, like Gemini's twin stars drifting in the galaxy.

As the vortex swirled, the distance between both beams of light became shorter and shorter, and the rays that they released grew increasingly more dazzling to the eye.

Very soon, the two resplendent beams had reached their brightest, to the point where both silver and gold colors could not be distinguished from each other. Even Lin Huang and the others were unable to look through the light beams to observe what transformations were happening within.

Meanwhile, Virtuoso had made preparations much earlier and shielded the area. If not for this, the dazzling rays of light—brilliant enough to illuminate the entire sky—would attract unwanted trouble.

A good while later, the blinding rays gradually faded away. The initial two ancient coins had disappeared, replaced instead by a golden coin that looked rather old.

"The two ancient coins really are the castellan's seal fragments?!" Lin Huang's face was full of shock. He had not expected that something he had bought so casually at the market would turn out to be a fragment of the castellan's seal.

"We're pretty lucky." Virtuoso smiled.

"How did you figure this out?" Lin Huang was still a little confused.

"The castellan's seal fragments can take the form of anything at all. However, the different fragments of the seal have a definite connection to each other," Virtuoso explained, smiling, "Let me give you an example. If one of the fragments is a key, then the other fragment might be a key of another shape—or it could be a lock, even a door.

"When I saw this silver coin and scanned it, my Divine Telekinesis picked up nothing out of the ordinary. To be honest, this is rather rare in the inner world. Therefore, I immediately thought of the bronze coin you bought at the market. There aren't any energy waves on it at all, as if two coins from the surface world had somehow drifted into this place.

"Of course, we can't entirely rule out that someone brought common coins from the surface world into the inner world. Therefore, I wasn't completely sure if the two ancient coins were fragments of the castellan's seal. I would only be able to ascertain this through the two fragments sensing each other…

"You both know what happened next," Virtuoso did admit that figuring this matter out had involved a great deal more guesswork on his part.

Lin Huang had nothing much to say about Virtuoso's less-than-scientifically-rigorous logical approach. All that could be said was that the three of them had been very fortunate—it was pure blind luck.

"Wait for me a moment. Let me return these things," Virtuoso explained, then hurriedly transported the clothing and items back immediately.

"Are you sure the swap won't be discovered?" Lin Huang could not help asking as he waited for Virtuoso to finish transporting the items back.

However, Virtuoso's answer was completely unexpected. "Of course it's going to be discovered!

"As soon as the four-faced individual checks through the items in his storage ring with Divine Telekinesis, he'll definitely find out that the castellan's seal fragment is missing. Not only that, he'll soon discover that outsiders have arrived in this Phantom City.

"Therefore, we need to find the last fragment of the castellan's seal as soon as we can. The best would be before the four-faced individual finds out that his own fragment has been stolen."

"Absolutely. If he discovers that the castellan's seal fragment has been stolen, he'll most certainly send people en masse to hunt for the outsiders. That would inconvenience our subsequent movements greatly." Lin Huang nodded slightly as well.

"The longer we drag this out, the more difficult it will be for us to extricate ourselves," Saber9 said, looking serious.

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Chapter 1567: An Inside Man

In the inner world, in a suburb far from the city, was a flaking, dilapidated low villa almost completely overrun by plants.

This phenomenon was not merely confined to the outer walls—even the inner walls and the floor were covered with vines of various colors.

It was in this deserted, uninhabited place that a figure suddenly emerged.

In appearance, this figure looked rather like a tall, burly human. A pure black robe was draped over its body, concealing its form entirely.

The figure slowly walked over to the side of a low-rise building, then turned to face the vine-infested wall before taking off the hood of its robe.

The face that was revealed—more precisely, the four faces revealed—belonged to one of the six overlords of the inner world, the four-faced individual.

Almost at the same time that he removed his hood, one of the vines on the overgrown wall began to squirm. In practically the blink of an eye, it had formed itself into the shape of a giant face.

"Four Face, I'm extremely surprised that you requested we meet alone this time," the giant face formed by the vine spoke first. "Tell me. What exactly happened to make you insist on conferring with me, despite the risk that I might kill you?"

"Someone stole my fragment of the castellan's seal," the four-faced individual stated right away, without even a word of greeting.

"It's been stolen?! Do you know who did it?" Upon hearing this, the giant face on the wall took on a startled expression; its tone also full of astonishment.

"I don't know who it is exactly, but I feel that there's a ninety percent chance of it being outsiders." The four-faced individual appeared to be very sure of this.

"How did you lose it? Why don't you explain a little further in detail?" The giant face asked.

"I placed the fragment in this storage ring, the one I wear most often," the four-faced individual said and pulled up his sleeve, revealing the storage ring he wore on his left middle finger. "Every time I take something from it or put items away, I instinctively do a scan with Divine Telekinesis. However, when I was retrieving something yesterday, I suddenly discovered that the fragment was gone."

"How did you lose something inside a ring you're always wearing?" The giant face was rather confused. "Did you remove the ring?"

"I definitely did when I took a bath two days ago. What's more, I put a batch of items into the ring three days ago. I used Divine Telekinesis to scan through the space storage back then, and the fragment was still there." The four-faced individual nodded. "So I'm sure that the castellan's seal fragment went missing between both those times I scanned the space storage with Divine Telekinesis. Moreover, I happened to take off the storage ring during that period. Someone must have seized the chance to covertly pull some monkey business."

"To know when you removed the storage ring—to be able to access it, then stealthily return the ring to its place…" The giant face formed from the vine gave a faintly mocking smile. "There just might be an inside man among your subordinates then. Someone who can unlock your storage ring ought to be someone very close to you."

"That's what I thought too." At this point, the four-faced individual's expression turned gloomy.

"The inside man escaped?" The giant face asked with a smile, noticing the four-faced individual's expression.

"I killed her." The four-faced individual's face turned grim when he said this.

As soon as he discovered that the fragment of the castellan's seal had disappeared without a trace, he had immediately gone to find the succubus.

After interrogating her and unsuccessfully trying to extract a confession, he had killed the succubus himself.

"You didn't manage to find out anything?" The giant face continued its questioning.

"No." The four-faced individual shook his head. "She must have been controlled by some form of hypnosis. She knew nothing at all about the castellan's seal fragment. I forcibly read her memory, and I still wasn't able to find out anything about the mastermind behind this."

"Not even a clue?" The giant face also found this rather peculiar.

"No." The four-faced individual shook his head."That's why I said it was probably stolen by outsiders."

"You've lost your fragment of the castellan's seal, so why are you here to see me? Are you asking me to help you look for it?" The giant face asked, smiling. In reality, it had more or less guessed the other party's true intentions.

"Since these outsiders are obviously here for the castellan's seal fragments, they'll come looking for you sooner or later," the four-faced individual said bluntly without beating around the bush. "I want to join forces with you to kill these people!"

The giant face fell silent for a moment when it heard what the four-faced individual said. It only spoke again after some time.

"Why should I trust you? You might have concocted a story, while your real objective is to get hold of the fragment that I have."

"If you want me to prove I have an item, that's very easy—I can just bring it out and show you. However, if you want me to prove that I don't have something, I can't do it. There's no way for me to prove that my fragment of the castellan's seal is missing." The four-faced individual shook his head. "All I can say is that I've come here this time in good faith. My target is that group of outsiders; I have no designs on that fragment in your possession.

"Whether you believe it or not, that's up to you. If you're willing to work together with me, then we'll join forces. If you're not willing to do that, I won't force the issue either. I'll think of other ways to take revenge on them.

"However, I must still remind you that it's only a matter of time before they find out you have a fragment of the castellan's seal. Sooner or later, they'll come looking for you…"

The giant face fell silent once again. It had known the four-faced individual for years and was aware that he was a cunning, treacherous old fox. However, this time it did not seem as if he were setting a trap. If he was, then his acting skill was truly beyond words.

"Let's assume that everything you've said is the truth. If so, why are you helping me?"

"These outsiders are here for the castellan's seal. If they really do manage to gather all of the fragments, what do you think will happen next?" The four-faced individual did not answer the giant face's question. Instead, he posed yet another question.

"If the outsiders get hold of the castellan's seal…" The giant face on the wall sported a rather peculiar expression now. "They might… wipe out everything that exists currently, and rebuild Phantom City…"

Only now, when the words had unthinkingly slipped out of its mouth, did the giant face seem to realize the true seriousness of the issue.

Earlier, this aspect of things had never occurred to it. It had merely thought that the four-faced individual losing the fragment of the castellan's seal was rather amusing. However, now that it was considering the matter, it felt extremely fearful.

"It's not 'might wipe out everything', they absolutely will wipe out everything!" The four-faced individual corrected, "Think about it. If you're an outsider who has obtained the fully restored castellan's seal, would you leave the original Phantom City as it is and not change anything at all? On the contrary, if it were me, I'd demolish everything in the original set-up, and rebuild a Phantom City that I could call my own!"

"We'll be erased…" The giant face brought up the point that mattered to it most of all.

The four-faced individual said nothing more. Patiently, he stared at the giant face on the wall, waiting for it to give him an answer.

It only took a moment for the giant face to make a decision. It spoke again, "How do you want to join forces?"

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Chapter 1568: On The Brink Of Change

After obtaining the two fragments of the castellan's seal, Lin Huang and the other two were not idle. They spent the next few days searching for information on the last fragment.

After ruling out the four-faced individual, as well as the three-tailed snake lady whom they had investigated before, they took stock of the remaining four overlords out of the original six, one after the other.

Finally, they set their sights on the Nine Gloom Vine.

The Nine Gloom Vine was a monster with the body of a vine. It consumed the negative emotions of various monsters as food.

According to the various pieces of information Lin Huang and the rest obtained, the Nine Gloom Vine in the inner world was known to everyone as the monster who had lived there the longest—there was no other. In terms of seniority, he ranked higher than even the four-faced individual and the rest.

However, his actual rise to prominence as an overlord of the inner world came much later compared to the four-faced individual and the three-tailed snake lady.

Among the six overlords, he was ranked second last.

According to Lin Huang, Saber9, and Virtuoso's investigations, there was a high possibility that his rise as an overlord had something to do with the castellan's seal fragment.

"Of the four remaining overlords, the Nine Gloom Vine is the biggest suspect. The last fragment is most probably with him," Virtuoso concluded the results of their investigation over the last few days.

"For now, let's not think about what happens if he doesn't have the fragment of the castellan's seal. Let's assume that he does have it, and we're now devising a plan of attack," Lin Huang quickly listed out the points that he had thought of.

"After all, it's been three days since we obtained the castellan's seal fragment from the four-faced individual. We have to consider the worst-case scenario, which is that the four-faced individual knows the Nine Gloom Vine has the fragment of the castellan's seal, and he has already informed the Nine Gloom Vine about the loss of his own fragment.

"If that's the case, there's a high chance that they might join forces. They might even have set up a trap and are waiting for us to fall into it."

What Lin Huang said made Saber9 frown from where he was off to the side.

Although Virtuoso's expression could not be seen through the mask, they had fallen silent as well.

"What's the success rate of using your previous technique—switching the item out with a fake after stealing it—if we were to use it on the Nine Gloom Vine?" Noticing that the other two were not saying anything, Lin Huang turned his head toward Virtuoso and inquired.

"If the situation is as you said, then the success rate is practically zero," Virtuoso answered with barely any hesitation, "It succeeded with the four-faced individual because he didn't see it coming. However, if both of them have communicated, the Nine Gloom Vine will be fully on his guard.

"That's not the biggest obstacle either. The four-faced individual's item was hidden in his storage ring, and the people closest to him were aware of that. Meanwhile, the Nine Gloom Vine has no trusted aides. Although he has many plant monsters under his command, no one can approach the area where he lives, let alone know where he's hiding the castellan's seal fragment."

"If stealing the item and leaving a replacement doesn't work, we can't take it by storm either, right?" Saber9 frowned hard.

The three of them fell silent, as they knew that such a tactic would be even worse.

Even if the Nine Gloom Vine were alone, the three of them still might not have the advantage. Being an overlord in the inner world meant that the Nine Gloom Vine's ability could not be compared to that of ordinary ninth-rank heavenly gods. Even if he had yet to achieve half-step lord-level, he might not be far from it.

Opponents of such ability were beyond the trio's capacity to handle, more so when taking into consideration that the other overlord—the four-faced individual—might already be collaborating with the Nine Gloom Vine.

The three of them fell silent for a long time.

"Actually, there might still be a way," Lin Huang spoke up after some thought, "Apart from the four-faced individual, the Nine Gloom Vine and ourselves, there are many others who have their eyes on the castellan's seal fragment. At the very least, the other four overlords are most certainly interested in it…"

Lin Huang explained his plan in detail very quickly, and Virtuoso and Saber9 nodded repeatedly after they heard what he had to say. The two of them also swiftly came up with ideas to perfect the various details of the plan.

That afternoon, a shocking piece of news spread throughout the entire inner world.

Almost all the organizations in the inner world, no matter how big or small, were discussing the same topic.

"Did you hear? There's news of the castellan's seal fragments! One of them is said to be with the Nine Gloom Vine!"

"I knew one of the six overlords would definitely have a fragment of the castellan's seal!"

"I always thought the so-called castellan's seal fragment was just a legend. I can't believe it's actually real!"A man clad in a suit of silver battle armor sat high on a throne in the inner sanctum of a grand building.

"How true is the news about the castellan's seal fragment?" His voice was like a low, electronically synthesized sound.

"It's probably true that the Nine Gloom Vine has the fragment. However, I can't be sure how many of the other details are true."

"Have you found the source of this piece of news?" The man in battle armor inquired further.

"No. The information this time was disseminated suddenly from multiple sources at once. I found a few of these individuals after some investigation. However, they can't recall where exactly they heard the news from; it's as if a portion of their memories has been erased."

"Keep a close eye on any further news, and inform me as soon as anything comes up!"The next day.

A giant purplish-red sarcoma occupied almost half of a massive building that looked like a stadium.

The sarcoma was covered in capillary-like veins and even had countless tentacles of various sizes and thicknesses growing out of it.

Not too far from the stadium entrance stood a tall, slender figure.

"New information came in early this morning. It alleges that the four-faced individual has a castellan's seal fragment too. Not only that, he seems to have formed an alliance with the Nine Gloom Vine and is secretly plotting something…"

"The four-faced individual, huh? That's not surprising at all!" The sarcoma's voice came from some part of its body and sounded abnormally gravelly and hoarse.

"For the time being, we can't verify how true this news is yet. However, some of our spies have already reported that the four-faced individual is definitely not in his foothold," the slender figure put forward the facts of the investigative results.

"Continue to investigate and see if the four-faced individual has really made an alliance with the Nine Gloom Vine."The third day.

In the pitch-black underground, a crimson light suddenly flared up.

From afar, it looked like a huge, red-hot soldering iron. However, through the halo of light surrounding it, one could see it was a giant eyeball.

It did not look like a mammal's eyeball. Instead, it bore more resemblance to a bug's compound eye that was made of countless tiny eyes.

As the eyeball lit up, a black figure slowly materialized at the mouth of the cave.

"New information has just come to light. The four-faced individual has formed an alliance with the Nine Gloom Vine, and both of them are working together to search for the last fragment of the castellan's seal!

"However, not long after this news surfaced, both of them made an appearance to dismiss the rumors. Both of them denied that they possessed any castellan's seal fragments, and also denied any alliance between them. They also said that the news currently being disseminated is all rumors and that someone is secretly trying to stir up trouble…"

The crimson eye listened to all of this. In an extraordinarily calm tone, it commented, "The veracity of the news is no longer important. What's important is that this inner world is poised on the brink of change."

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Chapter 1569: Let's Fight Then!

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The Nine Gloom Vine and the four-faced individual were not expecting that they would face a counterattack before their prey had fallen into the trap they had set.

Day after day, more news was made public. Some of the news was real, and some were fake, but they were all fabricated very well and in great detail.

It did not matter how many people truly believed the news. In any case, the misleading effects saw definite results.

For the last few days, an increasing number of powerhouses had been gathering outside the dense forest where the Nine Gloom Vine was hiding.

In the inner world, anyone who had any sort of ability at all had opinions about the castellan's seal.

Now that news had spread about the Nine Gloom Vine and the four-faced individual each possessing a castellan's seal fragment, it was only natural that this would draw the covetous gaze of countless organizations, large or small.

After all, a ferocious tiger could not defeat a pack of wolves. Moreover, everyone knew that while the two overlords—the ferocious tigers—were powerful, there were still four more overlords on the side of the masses, hovering and waiting.

The masses were not powerful enough to fight against these two overlord powerhouses, but what if there was a chance of the masses benefiting from a clash between all six overlords?

Within the foothold, the Nine Gloom Vine's giant face materialized in midair, brow furrowed tightly.

"Trouble's come knocking on our door now!"

On the sidelines, the expressions on the four faces of the four-faced individual all looked extremely unpleasant.

"I originally thought these rumors would only persist for a few days before dying down and that Silver Armor and the rest wouldn't take them seriously… I didn't expect that the four of them would all gather here today!"

The reason for the four-faced individual saying this was because he had sensed that the other four overlords—the two of them excluded— were gathered outside the dense forest. They had clearly formed a line of battle.

"Let's not talk about whether or not the news is true. If it were you, would you give up the perfect opportunity for eradicating your opponents?"

Upon hearing that, the four-faced individual's four faces looked even grimmer.

He knew that he would not give up such an opportunity.

At present, there were six overlords in the inner world, which meant the entire world's resources had to be divided into six portions. If there could be two people less, that would be exactly what the remaining four overlords wanted. This was because the ones left would definitely be able to divide up more resources.

Therefore, whether or not the news about the castellan's seal fragments was true, it was a rare opportunity to join forces in order to get rid of the four-faced individual and the Nine Gloom Vine. The remaining four overlords would certainly not let this chance pass by.

What disappointed the four-faced individual most of all was that the three-tailed snake lady was clearly on the opposing side.

Although their relationship was only that of lovers, generally taking whatever they needed from each other to fulfill their physiological and business needs, they were not very emotionally attached. However, it made the four-faced individual rather uncomfortable that she had turned against him without hesitation.The outside of the dense forest was closely surrounded by hundreds of organizations.

The last few days had been a sea of chaos.

No one was willing to attack first, nor was there anyone who could subdue the entire crowd to reach a unanimous consensus.

The four-faced individual and the Nine Gloom Vine did not bother with the organizations that had gathered out there. For one, these people were nothing to them. For another, there were serious internal conflicts among these people, which caused them all to be in a complete state of disunity. Therefore, they were nothing to be afraid of.

Today, however, the squabbles that had been going on for the past few days suddenly stopped.

Within five seconds, the thousands of people on the scene fell silent because all of them sensed the impending arrival of four domineering auras.

Everyone present automatically shut their mouths, lifting their heads and looking up at the sky in the same direction.

Under the gaze of thousands of people, four figures descended!

The one on the far left was a flirtatious beauty with three snake tails.

From the waist down, she was covered in blueish-purple snake scales, three snake tails—each ten meters or more—extending from her lower body. From the waist up, her form was that of a human lady wearing a gold crown.

If one were only to look at her upper body, it could be said that her face and figure were the very pinnacles of beauty. The word 'pretty' was insufficient to describe how lovely she was, as the term could not adequately describe a work of art.

Her appearance, body, charisma, and allure were not only charming to males, but also attracted the attention of many females.

Next to her stood a humanoid monster in silver armor.

He was tall and well-built, fully three or more meters tall. His entire body was enveloped in silver armor, with only the eye holes on the helmet revealing a crimson glow.

Of the four overlords, the aura that exuded from his being was the most compelling and overbearing.

On the armored man's right was a gigantic purplish-red sarcoma in the shape of a sphere.

The sarcoma had clearly shrunk his size down a great deal if one were to compare his present form with his actual size. Currently, he maintained a body that was merely three meters or more in diameter.

There seemed to be parasites continuously squirming on the surface of the sarcoma. Even more terrifying were the countless tentacles of various sizes and lengths that extended from its surface.

On the far right was a huge eye hovering in midair.

It did not really look like a mammal's eyeball; it bore more resemblance to the eye of a gigantic fly.

The entire eye was densely covered with countless tiny eyes. Each tiny eye seemed to be alive and could see at different angles.

If a person with trypophobia saw this giant eye, they might immediately get goosebumps all over their body.

Everybody present identified the four newcomers immediately.

They were the three-tailed snake lady, Silver Armor, Giant Sarcoma, and Crimson Eye.

Excluding the four four-faced individual and the Nine Gloom Vine, they were very clearly the remaining four overlords out of the six.

Although everyone had speculated that one of the four overlords would certainly come, no one had expected all four of them to show up. Not only that, they had all arrived at the same time.

As to what this meant, all those present could immediately guess.

These four individuals had secretly come to some kind of agreement for sure.

As expected, the four of them released their auras as soon as they showed up, not bothering to hide their arrivals at all.

In the presence of four overbearing, close to half-step lord-level auras released without concealment, more than half of the thousands present fell to the ground.

At such proximity, the only ones who could remain standing were basically high-level Heavenly Gods.

Even so, most of the high-level Heavenly Gods were finding it hard to stand their ground.

Fortunately, the four overlords did not maintain their auras for too long and began shouting right away.

An electronic synthesizer-like voice filled the air like muffled thunder, deep and low.

"Four Face, Nine Gloom, hand over the items, and this matter can be entirely settled peacefully."

As soon as Silver Armor spoke, a response immediately came from the dense forest.

"We've already said that those were rumors spread by outsiders. What do you want us to hand over? We don't have the castellan's seal fragments at all!" The four-faced individual was the one who responded; he sounded as if he felt somewhat wronged. The reality was that he genuinely did not have the castellan's seal fragment in his possession.

"Whether you have the fragments or not, come out, both of you, and let us verify it. Then we'll know." it was Giant Sarcoma who spoke this time. His voice sounded like it had been squeezed out of continuously squirming flesh.

"Nonsense!" The Nine Gloom Vine's voice came right away, rejecting this suggestion.

"If both of you are recalcitrant, then there won't be any friendly way to resolve this matter." At this point, the three-tailed snake lady finally spoke up. From far away, her gaze cut through the distance as she looked in the direction of the four-faced individual, "Please listen to me. Stop being stubborn; let's settle this peaceably."

The four-faced individual locked eyes with her from far away as well. No matter what, he could not hate this woman. However, although she was the one who spoke, she could not change his stand.

"Since there's no friendly way to resolve this, let's fight then!"

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