From Shao Min’s perspective of perception, countless pipes crisscrossed and interlaced, resembling a three-dimensional spiderweb.
The cold air hologram easily located the corpse of the rat slain by Yang Zicang, following the trail of blood unrelentingly.
Bypassing a few monster carcasses, they gradually spotted figures of beasts sprinting into view, drawn by the stench of blood and the calls of their own kind.
–No wonder this is born from a B-level overlap zone—this peculiar space actually has so many monsters.–
The cold hologram descended ever deeper.
In the twists and bends of the metal channel, some forty to fifty meters down.
Yang Zicang was fleeing for his life, with a massive swarm of rats behind him, like packs of hunting dogs surging from all directions—at a glance, no fewer than fifty or sixty of them.
The ruckus was so great that more and more mutated rats converged from steel pipes above, below, left, and right, like a charging army of monsters.
About ten meters ahead lay a broken pipeline.
The surrounding space had collapsed, with a bottomless abyss beneath, and only a half-extended giant steel pipe protruding ten meters or so above on the opposite side.
–Squeak, squeak, squeak!–
–Roar, roar, roar—ooohh!–
Yang Zicang was exasperated—why was it that when that guy stayed here for a whole day and night, nothing happened, yet the moment he showed up, he stirred up so many monsters?
With no time to think, he glanced back at the densely packed glowing eyes behind him, then, amid Liang Xi’s anxious anticipation, he charged straight toward the broken opening ahead.
[Brother Yang…]
Liang Xi felt that she was the one who had brought this upon him.
In the sensory feed, Yang Zicang showed no sign of stopping; he dashed toward the edge of the pipeline with lightning speed, making no movement to slow down.
Liang Xi instinctively shut her eyes, unable to bear witnessing this scene.
Suddenly, a chilling aura surged from behind—a sinister pair of cartoon-like figures emerged from the high shadows deep within the tunnel!
Elementary Corpse Leap!
Yang Zicang squatted down low, then sprang into the air.
Outside, Shao Min watched as the swarm of rats rose up like rabid dogs. Even though he wasn’t there, he could still feel the bone-chilling dread and silently vowed never to set foot in this godforsaken place.
But when he saw a figure moving faster than the rats at their full sprint, his heart skipped a beat.
This person’s speed is incredible.
It seems his ability isn’t just the rumored wind field—he must also have enhanced speed.
–Wind Field and Acceleration? Those are actually decent support abilities—assuming there’s no Force Field involved.– Shao Min thought with regret.
He sighed inwardly, the –seed– should be saved, and Matt Chao wouldn’t need to make a personal move.
Even with a millennium’s worth of Chronos principal, it would be drained here by the dense waves of monsters; this newcomer, as arrogant as Zhang Fei, is done for.
–This is the price for not fearing this world,– he muttered to himself.
No sooner had he spoken than Shao Min saw, through the cartoon phantom’s perspective, that youthful, agile figure leaping impossibly from the edge of a broken pipe!
–What?!–
Like the shoddy special effects of a sprint in a movie, Yang Zicang’s arms dragged through the air as he rebounded, bending his legs just once to vault seven or eight meters high!
But the pipe opening looming high ahead was still several meters away.
–Is he going to fall?– Shao Min watched nervously.
Buzz!
Several meters-long whip-like shadows lashed in, and with a low growl, Yang Zicang’s body shot upward again, the shadows scraping beneath his feet.
A second acceleration mid-air!
With a thud, Yang Zicang’s hands caught the pipe’s edge.
Watching this, Shao Min was utterly baffled—this was possible? No wonder he’d heard so many rumors about this newcomer when he came back last night.
–Hmph, but you’ll still die.–
Shao Min’s gaze turned dark.
He commanded the Twin Frostborn to swiftly dash out of the large pipe where the monsters had gathered and charge diagonally upward.
Just as Yang Zicang managed to lift one leg up, the chilling mist, almost overlapping with his back, stuffed the Moxel platform—its misty moon held in their hands—into Yang Zicang’s skull.
–Success!–
Shao Min smirked inwardly, ceasing the use of her ability. This consumption of Chronos was no small feat.
A surge of icy cold shot through Yang Zicang’s head, accompanied by an intense emotional disturbance.
Glancing down below, a few pursuing rats, unable to brake in time, leaped out of the passage along with him and plunged into the profound darkness below. It was a long while before he heard the faint echo of their impacts.
In the deep abyss, the crushed bodies of the monsters emitted an invisible black smoke that rose slowly before dissipating into nothingness.
{Brother Yang, I totally worship you! But, I think something just appeared behind you. Like, a kind of mist.}
Struggling to climb into the long-unvisited pit, Yang Zicang turned to look over his shoulder. There was no trace of mist at all.
His heart sank. Combing that feeling with the emotional ordeal from a moment ago, he feared he had fallen prey to some sort of scheme.
–Squeak!–
–Growl!–
The monsters gathered, pacing about in a manic frenzy.
Yang Zicang ignored the sounds behind him, first checking the passage ahead—thick dust blanketed the ground, and a dead silence reigned within.
It seemed safe enough up here for now.
Only then did he turn to look at the creatures clogging the pipe exit, howling at him.
–Heh.– Yang Zicang himself didn’t realize just how sinister that smile was. At that moment, all he felt was a surging bloodlust in his chest, an overwhelming desire to exact vengeance immediately.
Whatever had driven them into this frenzy, this was precisely the perfect time to reap.
He pulled out a handful of prepared pebbles from his pocket, as a glowing aperture form ed before his chest.
–Die!–
A dozen arcing trajectories streaked through the chaotic space.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Each precise strike blasted the head of a monstrous rat, turning the opening below into a veritable slaughterhouse.
Moxel’s mental voice rang out, invigorating Yang Zicang immensely.
He tossed out two more handfuls of stones; the monsters, sensing the danger, scrambled back en masse.
[I have harvested a total of 521.7 N.]
–Ha! This truly is paradise.–
Though none of these rat monsters matched the size of the beast Liang Xi had encountered, their sheer abundance compensated—allowing Chronos to reap a dense and ceaseless harvest.
Indeed, there are gains for every effort; this life-or-death crisis directly netted over five hundred years of Chronos.
Yang Zicang, having satisfied Moxel’s bloodlust, gradually calmed down somewhat.
Though some were frightened off, new monsters were still surging up from below.
With his emotions somewhat steadier, Yang Zicang now looked again at the horrifying scene below and the foul stench permeating the air; he only felt his stomach churning.
–I can’t take it anymore.–
He quickly turned and ran into the passage, knowing he would vomit if he delayed another second.
[Brother Yang, I really want to rush over to you right now!]
Liang Xi watched with surging excitement.
Even though he had stayed here for a month and was used to scenes of monster corpses, witnessing this through his perception angle was still breathtakingly shocking.
The young man had now realized that his Brother Yang possessed an incredible ability—he could simultaneously control the trajectories and strike ranges of so many stones.
But Yang Zicang, now advancing along the pipeline, sighed inwardly. Fortunately, he had inexplicably obtained that leaping ability last night; otherwise, he would have been dead for sure.
No wonder Captain Luo Xin had warned this was a dangerous place.
After feeling how useful the skill was, he tried hard to recall the information from his nightmare; at that time, he seemed to have heard some kind of sound.
–Quad, last night… did I say anything before I had the nightmare?–
He tried asking.
–Am I seriously trying to recall something I’ve already forgotten? Oh, even for the great Quad, that’s a bit troublesome…–
Yang Zicang felt himself involuntarily slipping into deeper recollection, but nothing came to mind.
–Let me think, what was the content of yesterday’s daily summary…–
The summary!
A spark of insight flashed through Yang Zicang’s mind. With this hook, as if he’d pierced through a paper window, he suddenly recalled some parts.
It was the daily summary!
His eyebrows twisted together. First, there was that he’d met the average yield per hour, and then there was a reminder about an unmet target—what was it…
–What hadn’t I met my target on yesterday?–
A fluorescence lit up in the darkness ahead.
After passing through this tunnel, Yang Zicang saw a cave. In the wall niches and along the corners sprouted many finger-length blue crystals.
–Mana crystals?– He just swept a glance over these crystals before his gaze landed on an old, rusty iron table beside the cave.
It had been abandoned for who knows how many years, the dust and sand nearly burying that corner of the table entirely.
Yang Zicang tried to cover his mouth with one hand while brushing the dust, gravel, and soil onto the ground with the other, but as he pushed with his hand, the skeletal half-corpse hidden beneath thudded as it fell to the floor.
The small box nestled in its arms tumbled down with it.
[I have found traces of the ‘Tome.’]
Hearing the voice of thought, Yang Zicang reached out, picked up the small wooden box from the dust, and opened it, revealing a strange, silver-white curled piece of paper with an unusual texture.
It resembled the material of currencies from certain countries on Earth, intricate with elegant cryptic patterns, upon which was written in characters of an unknown civilization.
–A Liang, do you know what the Tome is?–
{Tome? Is it a page? Hmm, I recall someone mentioning that headquarters has been collecting them, and there’s talk that it’s connected to the city and why we exist.}
Then, Liang Xi exclaimed in surprise.
{Ah, Brother Yang, did you actually find the page? I’ve heard headquarters say that anyone who finds even one page can be handsomely rewarded!}
Yang Zicang’s heart skipped a beat—it seemed this was an extremely important item, collected even by those at headquarters.
It undoubtedly concealed profound secrets about this world.
Maybe, through them, he could still find a way back.
[These are the writings of another world. Even I, the great Quad, only know this: only by obtaining an item containing the Ring of Blood can one decipher them.]
Ring of Blood?
Yang Zicang listened to this telepathic voice and silently memorized the term.
This place seemed like an underground study, littered with collapsed iron bookshelves; unfortunately, the books on them had turned to ash.
Yang Zicang searched one by one until, among the moldering books that crumbled at a touch, he found a tome from another world with a sturdy cover.
It was forged from a metal resembling tin and black iron, every page crafted the same way.
Opening its first page, he saw an image of a monstrous sculpture steeped in an eerie aura.
The following pages, aside from those unknown scripts, depicted various sigils and images of minerals and plants, resembling the refinement process of something. The final pages featured extensive totems and constellation patterns, ending with a magical array.
The moment he saw the magical array, Yang Zicang felt his head spin.
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