MONSTER PARADISE

1521 - 1540

Lin Huang did not watch the battle for too long. He continued making idle banter with Bloody for a little bit after secretly crushing the five Supreme God rank-5 Advance Cards into Kylie’s body.

Realizing that Bloody was acting rather cold toward him, Lin Huang eventually left.

He did not speak to Kylie throughout the whole encounter.

However, she sensed the penetration of the Advance Cards’ energy as clear as day. She also understood that she was one step away from elevating to Supreme God rank-6.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Bloody, who had just displayed a superb acting performance while being cold to Lin Huang, also sensed the penetration of Advance Cards’ energy before the man left.

Lin Huang had five crushed Supreme God rank-4 Advance Cards into her body.

In reality, Bloody was on Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5 and could elevate to Supreme God rank-5 directly with the help of the few Advance Cards. However, she suppressed it. She chose not to break through at the moment.

One factor was that the secret territory was closing. The breakthrough of rank would not be completed instantly. Also, she did not want anyone to think that her elevation was related to the encounter with Lin Huang.

Lin Huang felt much more relaxed after completing the real objective of entering the secret prisoner territory this time.

He observed Kylie and Bloody—they were doing great. They were not troubled by the Nephilic Judge Tribe. That brought him a fair amount of relief.

He no longer had to worry about the marriage.

The reason being that Kylie already had all the elevation materials ready, while he had provided her with Advance Cards. It was only a matter of time before she would be elevated to Supreme God rank-6. She would undoubtedly go into closed-door cultivation to break through as soon as the trial in the secret zone ended.

If the Supreme God rank-5 Kylie’s identity as a princess was just a symbol, her biggest asset to the Nephilic Judge Tribe would be her marriage. However, a Pure Spirit rank-6 Kylie would definitely be the Nephilic Judge Tribe’s true queen, or perhaps even the person to hold absolute power over the entire tribe.

As soon as she elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6, the Nephilic Judge Tribe’s upper echelons would never dream about going through the marriage even if they were dumb as rocks. The reason being Kylie could lead the entire tribe to new heights on her own.

Marriage?

There really was no male Protoss that would be able to match her.

After all, there was not a single Pure Spirit rank-6 powerhouse in the entire God Territory in this era.

As soon as Kylie elevated, she could suppress all geniuses of the same level in the entire era.

In reality, Bloody had suggested to Lin Huang to help Kylie to elevate. It was a bold move.

This decision seemed to be able to resolve all of Kylie’s crises at first glance. However, it actually had a deeper and more complicated meaning that she did not reveal to Lin Huang.

The other thing was that Kylie would take control of the Nephilic Judge Tribe as soon as she elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6. In reality, it was only a matter of time before Kylie became the person of power. By then, it would mean that Lin Huang would have a peak-level grade-6 or even grade-7 massive organization under him.

Lin Huang had no idea that Bloody had set her sights on such an ambition.

One of the reasons why he agreed to help Kylie elevate to Pure Spirit rank-6 was to resolve the crisis of Kylie being married. On top of that, he was willing to elevate all of the imperial monsters under him.

If the circumstances allowed it, he was eager to elevate all of the imperial monsters under him to Pure Spirit rank-6, or even higher, which was rank-7 and rank-8.

He had to do everything by himself at the moment. That was mainly because his imperial monsters’ abilities could not keep up with his elevation speed. His imperial monsters could not fight the enemies that he encountered.

If Kylie, Bai, Lancelot, and the rest could elevate to Pure Spirit rank-6, there were many tasks that he could assign them. He would no longer have to do everything by himself.

After meeting with Kylie, Lin Huang was secretly planning his development direction next.

As he elevated to sixth-rank True God, his Heavenly God Sword Servants’ combat strength had also unlocked to sixth-rank heavenly god-level. Compared to before, there was a significant elevation of ability in his 358 Sword Servants.

High-level sixth-rank Heavenly Gods could help him handle many things.

Next would be the imperial monsters under him.

Kylie was going to break through to Supreme God rank-6 soon, while Bloody would soon be elevated to Supreme God rank-5.

Apart from them, he had three Supreme God rank-5 imperial monsters including Killer, Ku Rong (Demonic Buddhist Holy Son), and Blackscale (Symbiotic Creature of the Abyssal Fountain). With the three’s abilities, it was pretty easy for them to elevate to heavenly god-level.

There were Bai and Teng Ran (Thousand Snake Sect Leader) who were on Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5. The duo merely needed Supreme God rank-4 Advance Cards to elevate directly to Supreme God rank-5.

Meanwhile, Grimace, Charcoal, Lancelot, Bug Tribe’s Queen Mothers, and others remained on mythical-level rank-4. Lin Huang considered starting to prepare the materials for their elevation.

After all, mythical-level rank-4 powerhouses had lost their advantageous status when they arrived in the great world.

Apart from that, the over 5,000 mythical-level rank-4 Bug Kings and bug guardians under the Queen Mothers had formidable battle strength too. However, Lin Huang had insufficient Advance Cards to elevate their ranks. They could only rely on themselves to elevate their combat strength.

“I’ll elevate Bai and Teng Ran to Supreme God rank-5 first once I get out of here. Then I’ll prepare the Supreme God rank-6 elevation materials for Killer and the rest, as well as Supreme God rank-5 elevation materials for Charcoal and so on… However, I’ll probably have to spend a hefty sum to purchase those materials… Hmm, maybe I should let them hunt themselves and make money on their own…”

Lin Huang thought the outstanding imperial monsters should learn from Kylie. They should learn to obtain elevation materials themselves. After all, it was tough enough for him to provide them with Advance Cards.

‘If everyone can be like Kylie, obtaining elevation materials themselves, I’ll have such a huge burden lifted off my shoulders…’ Lin Huang quietly mumbled, ‘Not only will I provide them with Advance Cards to elevate to Supreme God rank-6, I’m even willing to elevate them to rank-7 and rank-8.’

Although he thought that, he knew that the higher rank the elevation materials were, the rarer they were, and the harder they were to obtain.

Kylie managed to gather Supreme God rank-6 elevation materials because she had a grade-6 force behind her, which was the Nephilic Judge Tribe. If Killer and the rest were to obtain elevation materials themselves, it might not be as easy as that.

After thinking to himself for a little bit, Lin Huang soon went into hunting mode. He started a fresh round of hunting.

When he began the next hunt, Bloody and Kylie had just completed theirs.

The two ladies looked at each other after putting the monster carcass away.

They did not say anything on the surface, but they were communicating secretly through voice transmission.

“Did the Advance Cards penetration work?”

“Yes, it did.”

“Don’t elevate just yet. You’ll go into closed-door cultivation to break through after the secret territory is closed,” Bloody reminded her.

“Yes, the secret territory is closing soon. We don’t have enough time. And I don’t want the surveillance cameras to capture the elevation process,” Kylie responded.

“I had Advance Cards penetrate my body too. I can break through to Supreme God rank-5 anytime now,” Bloody added.

Kylie looked at Bloody with her beautiful eyes. She was not exactly surprised. “We’ll go into closed-door cultivation together after the secret territory is closed.”

“Sure.”

The two ladies soon began their journey again after a brief chat. They began a new round of hunting.

The time inside the secret prisoner territory flew by.

Lin Huang had been standing firmly at the No.1 spot on the Hunter’s Gold Leaderboard since the beginning. Nobody could come close to challenge his position.

He would kill 12 to15 second-rank heavenly god-level prisoners per day. His points would increase over 5,000 points every day on average. It was almost five times the pace of the person who ranked No.2.

In reality, nobody could surpass his hunting points even before he met Kylie and Bloody.

Meanwhile, the No.2 was not Virtuoso from Death Sickle, but a top-tier True God-level powerhouse from God Capital—Kun Ting.

Kylie and Bloody were ranked No.3 and No.4.

The gap between the two ladies’ points was less than 300. A simple calculation showed that Bloody could actually catch up if she killed just one more first-rank Heavenly God convict and a second-rank Heavenly God convict.

Meanwhile, Kylie and Kun Ting were separated by over 1,000 points.

As for Virtuoso, he was not taking the hunting seriously at all. He was ranked a lowly No.10, and he only had 100 points more than the person who ranked No.11.

Apart from the top three, the candidates ranking No.4 to No.10 would be given similar rewards.

Many Heavenly God leaders suspected that Virtuoso felt that struggling for the No.1 spot with Xiu Mu would take far too much effort, which was why he gave up from the start.

However, Lin Huang knew that this guy likely did not care for the reward from such a leaderboard at all. He did not bother to fight for it. There was a great possibility that he was ranked in the top ten as he spoke to Buried Heaven earlier. Buried Heaven might have just been trying to be nice.

Compared to the Hunter’s Gold Leaderboard, the competition among the Virtual Gods on the Hunter’s Silver Leaderboard was much more intense.

The person who ranked No.1 on the Hunter’s Silver Leaderboard was someone that Lin Huang was familiar with—Unrivalled God from Combat God Temple.

He gave up on elevating to True God-level when he encountered Lin Huang and the Sword Servants under Great Heaven during the trial in the Great Heaven Territory over a year ago. He cultivated sword skills in closed-door cultivation. Indeed, his ability had significantly improved compared to over a year ago. He held on to the No.1 position among the Virtual Gods in the God Territory even firmer now.

He had even fancied that he might be able to beat Lin Huang if they were to meet again. However, he had no idea that Lin Huang had already elevated to True God-level. If the difference in their ability was like a fluorescent light and a candle over a year ago, it was more like a fluorescent light and dazzling sunlight now. There was no way to compare them at all.

The No.2 on the Hunter’s Silver Leaderboard was a saber cultivator from God Capital. He was only 120 points behind the Unrivalled God.

The point difference between No.3 to No.6 was minimal. Their points were a mere 200 to 300 apart.

Meanwhile, the gap between No.7 to No.10 was in the range of 300 to 500 points.

The intensity of the competition of the top ten on the Hunter’s Silver Leaderboard easily surpassed that of the Hunter’s Gold Leaderboard.

As soon as the one-month trial period in the secret prisoner territory was up, God Capital’s staff teleported all of the candidates out without wasting a second.

Lin Huang sensed countless eyes locked onto him as soon as he was teleported out of the territory.

He glanced over and saw almost all the Heavenly God leaders were staring at him. They did not care about the candidates from their organizations at all.

The first thought that flashed through his mind noticing their reaction was, ‘Have I exposed my identity as a human?!’

He quickly recollected his performance in the secret prisoner territory. He did not think he made any major slip-ups.

Just as he was contemplating making a hasty exit, Buried Heaven’s voice transmission came over slowly.

“Come over here. Don’t just stand there.”

Naturally, Buried Heaven could tell that Lin Huang was worried about his identity being exposed.

Lin Huang was relieved when he heard the voice transmission. He arrived next to him in a flash. He asked softly through the voice transmission, “Why are they staring at me?”

“You’re ranked No.1 on the Hunter’s Gold Leaderboard. Who else would they be staring at if not you?” Buried Heaven replied offhandedly.

“That’s all?” Lin Huang raised his brows.

Buried Heaven fell into silence for a moment and added, “There have been people who managed to kill third-rank Heavenly Gods with True God-level combat strength throughout history. However, including you, there were less than ten who managed to do that.”

“Alright then. I thought I’d exposed my identity…” Lin Huang did not mind that. He released a big sigh of relief after hearing Buried Heaven’s explanation.

While the pair were speaking through voice transmission, the candidates from all organizations had returned to their groups one after the other.

Virtuoso too had returned to Death Sickle. He merely glanced at Lin Huang, then he stood beside Buried Heaven. Everyone believed that the two of them were enemies.

Even Buried Heaven thought the same. He was secretly relieved when he realized that they did not break out into a fight on the spot.

Fallen Star and the rest had curiosity brimming in their eyes when they looked at Lin Huang. Although they were competing on the Hunter’s Silver Leaderboard, they could see the ranking on the Hunter’s Gold Leaderboard.

At first, they figured the rookie Buried Heaven discovered must have extraordinary ability. After all, Xie Lin was a great example. Never had they expected that this rookie named Xiu Mi would be the black horse that suppressed all the other candidates.

Wild Fiend who ranked No.3 on the White Sickle Leaderboard said nothing. Before entering the secret territory, he indirectly mocked Lin Huang on purpose, stating that Lin Huang would drag the entire Death Sickle behind.

Little did he expect that this rookie’s ability was far beyond his. He, on the other hand, had the lowest hunting points among the four True God candidates in Death Sickle.

He did not dare to look at Lin Huang, as he was afraid that Lin Huang would mock him in payback.

However, Lin Huang never spared him a glance from the beginning until the end.

He was not ignoring him on purpose. He had already forgotten that he mocked him a month ago. In fact, he could not even remember his name.

As Buried Heaven was bringing a couple of candidates to Death Sickle’s headquarters, a Heavenly God leader walked over with his team.

“Senior Buried Heaven, please stay a moment.” It was Precious Treasure Pavilion’s leader who called out to him.

He was rather plump with blushed cheeks. He looked very kind.

Buried Heaven frowned. He had already guessed the person’s intentions in asking him to stay.

“I’d like to have a brief chat with Fellow Xiu Mu.” The plump leader smiled and looked at Lin Huang.

“Me?” Lin Huang had puzzlement etched all over his face. He did not recall having any contacts with Precious Treasure Pavilion in the past at all.

“That’s right.” The plump leader from Precious Treasure Pavilion nodded with a warm smile. “Little guy, are you interested in joining my Precious Treasure Pavilion?”

The plump leader did not beat around the bush at all. He invited Lin Huang to join him right in front of Buried Heaven.

Lin Huang was stunned for a moment. He did not expect the man was here to poach him. However, he soon came up with a solid reason to reject the offer

“I’m sorry. I believe Death Sickle is plenty good enough for me.”

“No matter how great Death Sickle is, it is just a grade-6 organization. I think Fellow Xiu Mu should really consider joining a grade-7 organization.” At that moment, the Combat God Temple’s leader walked over with his team too. “I’m sure you’ve heard of us, the Combat God Temple.”

“No organization in the entire God Territory offers more handsome benefits than we, the Precious Treasure Pavilion, do.” The plump leader refused to step down and quickly played their best card.

“So what if you guys have resources and benefits?! We, Divine Clapnet, have the biggest archive in the entire God Territory.” Even the Divine Clapnet leader could not help but interject, “We even know many secrets of the universe that many other grade-7 organizations have no idea about…”

“I think it’s best that Xiu Mu joins Xeno. Everyone knows that we have the highest tolerance among all grade-7 organizations. There are many tribes that have joined us. Perhaps many peers from the tribe that Xiu Mi belongs to are already Xeno’s members…”

Apart from God Capital, four of the five grade-7 organizations had taken the initiative to poach Lin Huang. Not to mention, they were doing it in front of Buried Heaven.

Buried Heaven was pissed, but he did not show his anger. He even put up a calm front as if he was watching a show. The reason being he knew that Lin Huang would decline every invitation.

As expected, Lin Huang spoke calmly after the few grade-7 organizations extended their invitations.

‘Seniors, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear earlier. I love Death Sickle’s current situation. Therefore, I won’t transfer to any other organization. Thank you for your kindness!”

Anyone else might have transferred to another organization without hesitation. However, Lin Huang knew very well that Death Sickle was the only one that suited him.

No matter how handsome the offer the other organizations put on the table, they would definitely kill him before he managed to achieve anything the moment they found out that he was a human.

The few Heavenly God leaders seemed rather aghast after hearing Lin Huang’s direct rejection. However, they did their best not to show it.

They tried to convince him again. When they realized that Lin Huang was adamantly insisting on staying with Death Sickle, they had no choice but to give up.

However, they still insisted on getting Lin Huang’s contact number. They wanted to try to convince him again in the future.

After Lin Huang rejected them, the Heavenly God leaders soon left. The plump leader from Precious Treasure Pavilion had the thickest skin. He extended an invitation to Virtuoso right in front of Lin Huang.

Virtuoso was even more direct in his rejection, merely saying two words, “Not interested!”

The plump leader merely left while smiling after hearing the reply.

In the meeting room at the Death Sickle headquarters, Buried Heaven and the several participants who went into the secret prisoner territory gathered together.

Apart from Fallen Star and the rest, Lin Huang and Virtuoso were there as well.

“For the trip this time into the secret prisoner territory, everyone’s rankings aren’t bad at all. Following the usual custom, those who ranked in the top ten on the Hunter’s Gold Leaderboard and Hunter’s Silver Leaderboard will be rewarded. These rewards were gathered collectively from God Capital and all of the participating organizations.

“Aside from that, I’ve also had a discussion with a few Blood Sickle members. To encourage all of you to participate more in trials such as the secret prisoner territory, Death Sickle will independently give another reward to participants who ranked in the top ten.

“As Xiu Mu is involved in a share from some wagers apart from the reward, I’ll give the rest of you your rewards first.

“The first is Fallen Star, who ranked No. 4 on the Hunter’s Silver Leaderboard. The reward from God Capital is a high-level god rule battle sword relic. Meanwhile, the reward from Death Sickle is also of the same grade – a high-level god rule battle armor relic!

“You’ll elevate to True God-level soon, so you’ll be able to use them by then.

“Apart from that, your total hunting points in the secret territory was 27,186 points, and the reward points for No.4 is 3,000 points, so you have a total of 30,186 points. God Capital has already converted these points into silver coins to be used at the Secret Territory Mall so you can redeem items there. However, the silver coin’s purchasing authorization is lower than gold coins; you can check the details out for yourselves.

“Other than Fallen Star, Destiny performed quite well too, coming in at No. 9 on the Hunter’s Silver Leaderboard. You had a total of 25,418 hunting points, and the reward points for No. 9 is 300 points, so you have a total of 25,718 points. The points have also been converted into silver coins. You can check out what exactly you can purchase when you have the time.”

Destiny could not help but mumble softly, upon hearing that the reward points were merely 300 points, “What the hell, the reward points are ten times less?!”

Initially, he had been less than 2,000 points away from Fallen Star. Now with the reward points added, they were close to 5,000 points apart.

Buried Heaven heard what he said, clear as crystal. He glanced at Destiny. “Anyone who has questions about the reward points can take a look at the document on the secret territory that I sent to everyone previously. On the rewards page, the reward points for each ranking are stated clearly on the list.”

Destiny shut up immediately and said nothing more.

“The reward from God Capital is a beginner-level god rule battle sword relic for ranking No. 9 on the Hunter’s Silver Leaderboard. Meanwhile, Death Sickle’s reward is something of the same grade – a beginner-level god rule battle armor relic!”

The ranking was only five ranks apart, but the difference in how they were treated was much greater.

Fallen Star had obtained two high-level god rule relics which she could use when she elevated to true god-level. She could even use them when she elevated to the higher ranks. However, the two beginner-level god rule relics Destiny obtained could only be used when he was low-rank at most, as transitional items.

If one did not compare oneself with others, there would be no harm done.

Although Destiny had been given rewards too, he almost cried when he compared what he had gotten with those of Fallen Star, who had obtained the rewards earlier.

“It’s unfortunate that you got No. 11, Twin. You were merely less than 400 points away from No. 10. Work harder next time!

“Although there’s no reward from God Capital for ranking No. 11, and Death Sickle theoretically doesn’t give out any either, I personally think you should be rewarded. I happen to have a set of mid-level god rule battle armor relics. I’ll give it to you as a reward.”

Destiny was even more annoyed when he heard that. “Senior Buried Heaven, that’s favoritism!”

“Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘Sons should be raised in frugality and daughters in abundance’?” Although it was rather funny that Buried Heaven, who looked like a young man, would say something like that, nobody had any objections.

After giving out the rewards to the three of them, Buried Heaven then looked at Virtuoso.

“Virtuoso, you’re ranked No. 10 on the Hunter’s Gold Leaderboard. The reward from God Capital is a set of low-level god sequence battle armor relics. Meanwhile, Death Sickle is giving you a Heavenly God’s God Territory Shell Remnant!” Buried Heaven intentionally left out the grade of the reward.

Virtuoso could not help raising his brows when he heard that.

The rest did not have any comments either.

“Apart from this, your hunting point in the secret territory was 25,198 points. The reward points for ranking No.10 is 100 points, so your total is 25,298 points. God Capital has converted these points into gold coins at the Secret Territory Mall. You can redeem the items you desire there.

“Let me take the opportunity to talk about the secret territory gold coins. The gold coin’s purchasing authorization is higher than the silver coin in the God Territory’s Secret Territory Mall. Apart from a handful of rare items that you can’t purchase, essentially, you can buy most of the items on the market that you see. That even includes the Dao Weapons that Lords use. Naturally, the proviso is that you have enough gold coins.”

When Lin Huang heard this, he secretly began to harbor some anticipation.

After explaining the purchasing power of the gold coin, Buried Heaven looked at Lin Huang.

“Xiu Mu, ranked No.1 on the Hunter’s Gold Leaderboard. The reward from God Capital is a top-tier god sequence telekinetic flying dagger relic. You’ve also been given a record-breaking reward, which is a half-step lord-level telekinesis inheritance.

“Naturally, the reward from Death Sickle can’t be too shabby. After discussion with several Blood Sickle members, we’ve decided to reward Xiu Mu with a half-step lord-level God Territory Shell Remnant.

At the same time, we’ve decided to invite Xiu Mu to be a guest Gold Sickle. You’ll have all of the authorizations that a Gold Sickle member in Death Sickle would have; you’re also excused from all of the missions. Of course, we won’t stop you if you want to take on some missions to obtain points.”

Fallen Star and the others all had dropped jaws. They had no idea what to say.

Even Virtuoso could not help but raise their brows slightly under their mask.

Lin Huang thought about it and did not decline.

To avoid constraining him, Death Sickle had even given him a place as a guest Gold Sickle, and he was excused from all of the missions. Although he had no actual power, the authorization he had been given was the same as that of Buried Heaven, which was equivalent to being admitted to Death Sickle’s core circle.

“You obtained 154,610 secret territory hunting points. The points awarded for the No. 1 spot is 10,000 points. For the killing of third-rank Heavenly Gods, you’ve been given 30,000 reward points for breaking the record, so your total is 194,610 points. With this amount of secret territory gold coins, you can actually exchange them for a great many excellent items.

” It’s just a pity that you didn’t kill any fourth-rank Heavenly Gods. If you had broken the record for killing fourth-rank Heavenly God, you would have been awarded 40,000 reward points.”

Fallen Star and the rest were entirely too envious upon hearing that Lin Huang had close to 200,000 points.

Although nobody could see the expression on Virtuoso’s face as they were wearing a mask, everyone could sense the negative aura emanating from him. He was obviously somewhat jealous.

After glancing at everyone, Buried Heaven continued, “Apart from these rewards, I’ve also won many things from betting on you. We’ll share half of them.

“Your share is a total of 13 high-level god sequence relics, 41 mid-level god sequence relics, and 87 beginner-level god sequence relics…”

Fallen Star and the rest wanted to cry when they heard that.

They had initially thought that the rewards they obtained were not too shabby. However, now that they had a basis for comparison, the more they realized there was a significant difference between the two.

Some people could win first prize without having to put in too much effort, obtaining everyone’s praise and even getting all the rewards.

Meanwhile, it was considered excellent for some to get into the top ten when they had given their all.

After giving out all the rewards, Buried Heaven dismissed everyone else except for Lin Huang.

A moment of silence later in the meeting room, Buried Heaven spoke. “Do you know why we’re willing to break Death Sickle’s rules and make an exception for you to be a guest Gold Sickle?”

‘Because I’m outstanding enough?!’ Lin Huang really wanted to reply in this manner. However, he figured it would sound arrogant, so he changed his answer.

“I don’t know.”

“Your identity would be a threat to most organizations in the God Territory,” Buried Heaven said without mincing words, “There are very few individuals in the God Territory who would be willing to countenance the rising of a compelling human genius.”

“Then why doesn’t Death Sickle think the same?” Lin Huang did not think Buried Heaven wanted to have a falling out with him by saying this. If Buried Heaven had wanted to take action, he would have done so over a year ago.

“Because we’re looking at the issue from a higher dimension.” Although Buried Heaven did not say it directly, his next words revealed Death Sickle’s secret. “Humans and Protoss aren’t enemies. We’re even allies in the universe, with the same enemies.”

“The same enemies?! Do you mean the Abyssal creatures or the Bug Tribe?” Lin Huang asked immediately.

“It’s something even more powerful…” Buried Heaven said only this, unwilling to reveal more.

Lin Huang frowned and fell silent for a moment after hearing this reply. He knew that Buried Heaven would not answer him even if he proceeded to ask further. He changed topics and asked a question about something that he really wanted to know.

“Perhaps all these things you’re telling me can explain the friendly attitude that Death Sickle and yourself harbor toward me, but it doesn’t explain why Death Sickle is willing to break the rules to pull me into the core circle. No matter how you look at it, the Gold Sickle authorization that I’ve obtained would give me benefits that exceed what Death Sickle could get from me.

“Moreover, all of you should be aware that, as a human, I can’t wander in the God Territory forever. In the end, I’ll still have to return to my human world. Judging from the current relationship between humans and Protoss, no matter how successful I might be in the human world, there’s still very little that I could repay you with.”

“We’re not looking at the great world, but the greater universe. You have the potential to break through to mighty divinity-level (lord-level). As long as you don’t die, we’ll gain a great ally in the future. By then, even if you don’t bring us any returns, your existence alone can prevent many people from dying in wars. That alone is the real value that we see in you.”

From these words, Lin Huang finally realized Death Sickle’s stand. He had no idea what to say at the moment.

He suddenly thought of something else a moment later.

“Why didn’t you all give Virtuoso the same treatment? From what I know, his potential is certainly no less than mine.”

“He’s different from you.” Buried Heaven shook his head. He hesitated for a little bit but still decided to say it anyway. “He’s a reincarnation of an Almighty.

“An Almighty reincarnation might seem to have extraordinary potential, but there are actually restrictions. It’s very difficult for him to break through the level that he was born at.

“The potential isn’t the main issue. More importantly, we’re worried.

“We’re not sure if there’s anything wrong with Virtuoso’s past life. He’s been purposely hiding information on it. We can’t find any clues, we can’t differentiate whether he’s a friend or a foe. No matter how powerful he was in his past life, we dare not pull him into our core circle recklessly.”

What Buried Heaven said did indeed make sense.

Lin Huang thought to himself for a moment while frowning, but said nothing.

He was aware of Virtuoso’s background and knew that they were actually a reincarnated being. Their identity as Virtuoso was just a clone for them to disguise themselves as an Almighty reincarnation.

He also knew that Virtuoso was a member of the Club, just like he was. There was a high chance that they would not stand on the opposing side against Protoss and humans.

However, he could not tell Buried Heaven that.

Doing so would be tantamount to exposing Virtuoso’s background; it would also expose his own identity as a member of the Club.

On the other hand, he had also considered that Virtuoso probably had their own reasons to hide this information from Death Sickle.

Lin Huang pondered for a while but did not offer any opinions on the matter.

“If they could be slightly more candid, they might even be an extremely valuable ally,” Buried Heaven eventually commented.

“We’ll handle the matter of Virtuoso ourselves. You should focus on yourself first,” Buried Heaven looked at Lin Huang after saying this. “Your combat strength has elevated from first-rank True God all the way to sixth-rank True God this month. To be honest, that’s quite frightening. However, your combat strength is fairly low compared to your abilities. I personally suggest that you go into closed-door cultivation to catch up on your foundation properly before elevating to heavenly god-level. Don’t rush straight into heavenly god-level recklessly. If your foundation isn’t stable, the problem will worsen in the future and will even affect your elevation when you advance to a higher level.”

“Yes, I know.” Although Lin Huang said this, he knew better than anyone that there were no True Gods who could compare with him in terms of a stable foundation.

After the duo chatted for close to half an hour, Buried Heaven left after giving some words of advice.

Lin Huang also departed from Death Sickle’s headquarters soon after and headed straight to the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

When he got there, Mr. Fu and Kylie had gotten out of the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss much earlier. Not only that, they had gone into closed-door cultivation.1

Of their three-person team, Lin Xuan was the only person who remained at the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss.

Meanwhile, the three-person virtual god-level team consisting of Chan Dou, Xiao Mo, and Huang Wuji had entered the Battlefield of the Dragon Abyss for the second time after replenishing their supplies.

After ascertaining that they were safe, Lin Huang did not bother with them any further, returning in a flash to the Great Heaven Palace.

Sword11’s training of Wu Hao had progressed very smoothly. Wu Hao had only just advanced to imperial-level, but he had mastered all of the mythical-level and below-mythical-level sword skills that Lin Huang selected for him.

He had even broken through to the first Sword Dao true meaning level—True Martial Level.

Lin Huang did not teach Wu Hao any higher-level sword skills. Instead, the millions of sword skills, mythical-level and below, that had not been picked earlier, he transferred into Wu Hao’s mind.

Even though this youngster was powerful in Sword Dao, this amount of sword skills was sufficient for him to train for a while.

After sorting out the matter of his disciple Wu Hao, Lin Huang entered the Great Heaven Palace.

Once inside, he sat down cross-legged and checked on the condition of his imperial monsters.

His three Supreme God rank-5 imperial monsters Killer, Blackscale (Symbiotic Creature of the Abyssal Fountain), and Ku Rong (Demonic Buddhist Holy Son) had elevated to heavenly god-level.

Among the Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5 imperial monsters, Teng Ran (the Thousand Snake Sect leader) had elevated to heavenly god-level as well. However, Bai remained at ninth-rank True God-level.

The remaining ones—Grimace, Charcoal, Lancelot, the Bug Tribe’s Queen Mothers, and so on—had elevated to high-rank True God-level. Those with the lowest combat strength were at seventh-rank True God-level, while the one with the highest combat strength was Grimace, who had elevated to ninth-rank True God-level.

“I can start preparing materials for Grimace and the rest. Mythical-level rank-4 is indeed a bit too low…” Lin Huang glanced through the imperial monster card projections, and his gaze very soon fell upon Bai and Teng Ran.

He moved his fingers slightly, and both imperial monster cards turned into sparkles, which coalesced at the tips of his fingers.

The next second, the two cards once more transformed into sparkles and consolidated into two figures.

One figure had hair as white as snow, clad in a black robe with blood-red patterns that seemed alive. His eyes were red, and he had a blood-red crystal between his brows, his entire body shrouded by a faint red mist.

The other figure had blond hair, each strand giving the impression of being a spirit serpent that could swallow one up. His eyes had snake pupils, which terrified anyone looking into them. His appearance caused the very air around to turn a few degrees colder.

“Both of you are already Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5…” Ten rank-4 Advance Cards appeared in Lin Huang’s hand as he spoke, but Bai and Teng Ran could not see them, “Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5 is nothing in the great world. Therefore, I’ve summoned both of you today so I can elevate you to Supreme God rank-5.”

Bai’s expression was calm; he already knew this day would come.

Teng Ran, on the other hand, looked utterly startled. Although he had communicated with other imperial monsters during this time and knew that Lin Huang had methods of elevating the ranks of his imperial monsters, Teng Ran did not expect that he himself would receive such treatment as well.

Materials were not required for Pseudo-supreme God rank-4.5 imperial monsters; they could directly use Advance Cards to elevate to Supreme God rank-5. Therefore, Lin Huang did not mind Teng Ran having seniority among the imperial monsters under him.

He had his Goldfinger, Xiao Hei, anyway, so he did not have to be suspicious of his imperial monsters’ loyalty.

As he crushed the ten rank-4 Advance Cards in his hand, the cards coalesced into two golden gleams, which penetrated Bai and Teng Ran’s bodies respectively.

The bodies of the two swiftly transformed into two gigantic cocoons at a speed visible to the naked eye…

There were two cocoons in the Great Heaven Palace. One was blood-red, while the other was dark purple; both had peculiar sigils circulating faintly on them.

Lin Huang observed them for a while to confirm that the two were in stable condition before he looked away from the two cocoons.

He knew that Bai and Teng Ran would not be emerging from their cocoons any time soon.

After settling the matter of Bai and Teng Ran, he thought for a little while and sent his consciousness into his body. He began looking at the card projections of Grimace, Charcoal, Lancelot, and the rest of his mythical-level rank-4 imperial monsters, recording down all the materials they needed for advancement.

Later on, he sent each of these lists of advancement materials to their respective imperial monsters via voice transmission.

After he had finished sending all the lists out, Lin Huang spoke through voice transmission again.

“Since combat strength authorization for heavenly god-level has now been made accessible, your combat strength is sufficient for you to elevate your level to where you can be independent in the great world.

“All of you will have to find ways to obtain future advancement materials on your own. If you really can’t find some of the rare materials, you can come to me and trade with items of the same value.

“Apart from that, all of you will have to take responsibility for your daily expenses from now on. I won’t be providing complimentary food and accommodation services anymore. Naturally, you can come to me to trade items of the same value for items that are hard to obtain on the market, if there’s any that you require. After all, you are my imperial monsters so I won’t collect extra handling fees.

“In order to allow you to obtain sufficient cultivation resources and advancement materials, all of you may roam freely in the great world most of the time from now on. However, this freedom comes with a caveat—you must form a team consisting of at least two people. Furthermore, unless it’s the last resort, members of the same team can’t go off on their own.

“Discuss among yourselves about forming teams, and send me the group list within the next three days. From that time on, you will all move in your individual teams. For those who haven’t come up with a group during these three days, I’ll recall them into card forms right away.

“Also, there’s one last thing. There are many powerhouses in the great world, so don’t stir things up on purpose. If any of you offend half-step lord-level or lord-level powerhouses and are killed by Odylic Force, there’s no way you can be revived.”

Lin Huang had another reason for being able to release his imperial monsters without worrying, apart from allowing them to elevate their combat strength to heavenly god-level. He could revive the imperial monsters with his Rule Bending Power in the God Territory if they were killed.

However, the God Territory’s Rule Bending Power would not be able to revive them if they were killed by Odylic Force.

“Be as low profile as you can when you’re out there. If you’re considering stirring things up, please consider first whether you can handle it.” Lin Huang was clearly saying this for Grimace’s benefit.

Among all the imperial monsters, Grimace was the one he was most worried about.

The imperial monsters had thus far spent most of their time in card form. Even when they were summoned, they did everything under Lin Huang’s scrutiny. He could see whatever Grimace did, clear as anything. However, now that Grimace had been given sufficient freedom, Lin Huang could almost foresee that this fellow would certainly misbehave.

All of the imperial monsters were stunned when they heard Lin Huang’s voice transmission.

For one, they had not expected that they would be given the freedom to be out on their own most of the time. On the other hand, their master had halted their supply of cultivation and advancement resources. They would have to depend on themselves to obtain all sorts of resources from now on.

Obtaining cultivation resources was doable, but there was a degree of difficulty in obtaining advancement resources.

This change was something the imperial monsters were not accustomed to. However, they had to get used to it.

They were also aware that the higher their advancement in rank, the more increasingly difficult it would be to obtain the necessary advancement materials. It was a massive burden to their master as well.

As the number of imperial monsters grew, the burden increased too.

Therefore, the imperial monsters understood why Lin Huang was doing this.

They soon adjusted themselves and began their transition into workers.

After all, they had been relying on someone to take care of them previously; now, they had to take care of themselves.

As the voice transmission with his imperial monsters ended, Lin Huang received questions one after the other from Charcoal and the rest, and he answered them one by one.

The imperial monsters began teaming up on their own after clarifying the rules of this new game.

Within ten minutes, Lin Huang began receiving the grouping lists.

Approximately an hour later, most of the imperial monsters had formed their own teams.

At that moment, Lin Huang received a voice transmission from Grimace.

“It’s not that I’m unwilling to form a group. I’ve been trying to contact Bai for an hour, but he’s ignoring me…”

Lin Huang could not help raising his brows upon hearing the voice transmission.

“Bai is elevating. He’ll need at least a month to complete his advancement. You should look for someone else.”

“I don’t want to team up with anyone else. I’ll wait for him to get out of closed-door cultivation.” Grimace insisted on teaming up with Bai. “That fellow is too much! I can’t believe he quietly went off to advance his level without saying a word to anyone!”

“Don’t wait for Bai. His abilities will be way ahead of yours after he gets out of closed-door cultivation. If you both team up, the opponents that you fight won’t give him any training results, and you’ll only be able to sit on the sidelines and watch while he fights his opponents. A team like that won’t do any good for either of you.”

After saying that, Lin Huang glanced at the group lists that had already been sent over to him before continuing, “Join Charcoal and Lancelot’s group. I’ll feel more relieved with them watching you.”

“The way you put it is as if I might possibly do something bad…” Grimace was rather annoyed. He did not expect himself to be assigned so succinctly to another group.

However, he could not decline his master’s arrangement. He could only agree to it, feeling aggrieved.

On the other end, Lancelot and Charcoal were puzzled. They had chosen to team up with each other and were not expecting another person to join them out of nowhere. The two-person team had become a three-person team now.

They thought it was Grimace who had chosen to do this and asked him through voice transmission immediately.

“Haven’t you always teamed up with Bai? Why did you choose to be in our group this time?”

“Bai is in the middle of advancement…” Grimace did not bother to explain any further.

“So we’re your second choice?” Charcoal pouted.

“No,” Grimace denied with complete honesty.

“Then, why did you choose us?” Charcoal proceeded to ask.

“Our almighty master arranged that,” Grimace replied in a huff.

“Alright then…” Clearly, Charcoal had not expected that answer.

“Since the team has already been decided upon, let’s discuss where to meet.” At that moment, Lancelot, who had been listening to the duo’s conversation, finally spoke up. “Let’s share our coordinates with each other.”

The three of them did not raise any further objections to Lin Huang’s arrangement.

Grimace was the first to speak after the three of them shared their coordinates.

“What kind of lousy corner are you guys in?”

“We’re at the border of the Devil Hunter Star Zone. Why did you go so far away?!” Charcoal blinked his eyes twice. Grimace’s coordinates were close to the God Territory’s core zone.

“What resources would there be in the middle of nowhere?” Grimace smirked. “Let me tell you guys what the core zone is. It’s the most developed place in the entire God Territory with the richest resources. We can obtain many resources much more easily in such a place; we can even obtain those rare advancement materials that others find difficult to obtain…”

“That makes sense…” Charcoal nodded slightly while cupping his chin with a claw.

Meanwhile, Lancelet fell silent as well on the other end…

After sending out the notification allowing the imperial monsters to be independent, Lin Huang finally began focusing on himself.

The rewards he had obtained from this trip into the secret prisoner territory were the biggest that he had ever gotten in his life.

Not only had he elevated from first-rank True God to sixth-rank True God, but the rewards that he received from God Capital and Death Sickle were also extremely generous.

“1 top-tier god sequence telekinetic flying dagger relic, 13 high-level god sequence relics, 41 mid-level god sequence relics, and 87 beginner-level god sequence relics… I can trade these god sequence relics and the 400-plus Heavenly God carcasses for other resources.

“194,610 points worth of secret territory gold coins… Based on the purchasing power of the secret territory gold coins, a high-level god sequence relic would cost around 10,000 gold coins. I can exchange these for a good many resources.”

Lin Huang did an inventory of his rewards. He then discovered that apart from the half-step lord-level telekinesis inheritance and the half-step lord-level God Territory Shell Remnant, the rest of the items were useless to him. He could only use them to trade for other resources.

He was very interested in the half-step lord-level telekinesis inheritance.

He had cultivated Seamless to the highest level, which was level-10. It could now cultivate on its own without him having to initiate the process. The number of his telekinetic threads would automatically increase by 1,000 per hour.

As far as he was concerned, the half-step lord-level telekinesis inheritance had come at the perfect time for him.

As he immersed his consciousness into the inheritance, his consciousness appeared in a sky full of stars a second later.

He was puzzled at first but soon realized the countless stars before his eyes were moving in an odd manner.

The trajectory of the stars’ movement seemed to be controlled by humans, who were using the stars to attack giant celestial beasts in the distance, one after the other…

Lin Huang was fully immersed in this strange, extraordinary scene.

His consciousness returned to his body a long time later, but he could not calm himself down even after some time had passed.

“Telekinesis can be used like that?!”

In the inherited image, Lin Huang had witnessed this half-step Lord controlling telekinetic weapons with telekinesis and turning them into stars before attacking in a bizarre manner.

This direct attack was just an ordinary technique, but he unleashed all the stars’ characteristics in their entirety, turning them into various forms.

He imbued the fire element’s elemental truth into the telekinetic weapons, virtually transforming them into stars. He then drew everything together with telekinesis and set up a massive fire formation, burning everything.

He also infused the dark element’s elemental truth and the engulf sequence into the telekinetic weapons, turning them into terrifying black holes. Once more, he used telekinesis to set up a great engulf formation, swallowing up everything.

…

This had inspired Lin Huang to think in that direction.

On a certain level, god weapons were more suitable for such high-level maneuverings.

Unlike the forms of god sequence relics that could only be realized virtually, Lin Huang’s telekinetic god weapons could materialize into concrete form from his visualizations. Since it was not just a virtual object, the impact would be more powerful.

Third-rank god weapons were sufficiently powerful to materialize into real celestial bodies, including stars and black holes.

Apart from that, a god weapon was the equivalent of a body’s extension. It could convert all sorts of energies, rules, and sequence powers 100% without any loss. That was much more powerful than god rule relics and god sequence relics.

He had to admit that this inheritance had opened a brand new door for him.

Perhaps it was difficult for most people who obtained this inheritance to learn what was contained in it, but Lin Huang had a firm foundation in Seamless. No matter what the number of telekinetic threads was, the intensity, or control of detail, he was able to do it.

He could even foresee using this inheritance as a foundation in the future, discovering more ways of using telekinesis, and playing around with more styles.

Apart from this new way of using telekinesis, there was also a Divine Telekinesis visualization method in the inheritance.

There were a total of 108 visualization images with extremely complex sigils on each of them.

Each of the sigils had the effect of fortifying and refining Divine Telekinesis.

When a visualization image was successfully visualized, a Divine Seal would be consolidated, and one’s Divine Telekinesis would be fortified once.

According to the records in the inheritance, if someone managed to visualize all 108 visualization images, the strength of their Divine Telekinesis would reach lord-level right away.

Lin Huang merely gave the visualization method a rough glance and, without hesitation, adjusted the time flow in the Great Heaven Palace to be 1,000 times faster than the outside world. He then went into closed-door cultivation at once.

Time passed swiftly, a day at a time, in the Great Heaven Palace.

Lin Huang’s visualization was exceptionally successful in the beginning. He spent less than ten minutes to visualize the first ten images and was rapidly done.

From the 11th to the 20th image, the time he took for visualization became longer. Altogether, it took him approximately one and a half hours to do that.

He spent a total of at least 15 hours on the 21st to 30th images.

Later on, he spent almost a week on the 31st to 40th images.

He spent over two months on the 41st to 50th images.

After that, he spent over 600 days on the 51st to 60th images.

He then spent at least 17 years on the 61st to 70th images…

Almost a week had passed by in the outside world.

However, Lin Huang still did not stop, continuing to visualize the rest of the visualization images…

…

Bai and Teng Ran had gotten out of their cocoons much earlier, having successfully elevated to Supreme God rank-5.

Lin Huang did not have the time to check the duo’s card information. He sent both of them out of the Great Heaven Palace right away during a break between visualizations.

The duo then teamed up and began their journey to obtain resources.

…

While Lin Huang was in the midst of closed-door cultivation, something major happened in the Nephilic Judge Tribe.

The incident in question was that little princess Kylie had elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6 after over a month in closed-door cultivation, becoming the first Pure Spirit Protoss in this era.

Bloody came out of closed-door cultivation with her as well, having completed the elevation to Supreme God rank-5.

However, the news of Kylie’s elevation did not spread. Only a handful of the Nephilic Judge Tribe’s upper echelons knew the truth.

They merely told the public that little princess Kylie had broken through to heavenly god-level in her closed-door cultivation this round.

Even the rest of the Nephilic Judge Tribe thought that Kylie going into closed-door cultivation this time was so she could break through to heavenly god-level.

Kylie’s advancement was undoubtedly news as shocking as a nuclear explosion to the Nephilic Judge Tribe’s upper echelons.

They had never thought that anyone from the Nephilic Judge Tribe would be able to achieve this, as no one had the quality and potential for elevation to Pure Spirit rank-6.

Even though Kylie had shown extraordinary quality and potential in the beginning, in the eyes of the Nephilic Judge Tribes upper echelons, she was still far from being able to achieve Pure Spirit rank-6.

Therefore, she had been treated all along as a marriage pawn.

However, Kylie had used concrete action to give everyone a slap in the face.

Her successful advancement had made her status in the Nephilic Judge Tribe soar to peak heights in a flash.

Previously, she had been treated like a little princess who could do nothing. Now, in the eyes of Nephilic Judge Tribe’s upper echelons, she had transformed into a bona fide noble queen to whom everyone would willingly give their allegiance…

Time passed by day after day in the Great Heaven Palace.

Lin Huang immersed himself in cultivation mode completely, unable to extricate himself.

Although the time flow in the Great Heaven Palace had been sped up 1,000 times, over two months had passed in the outside world.

Lin Huang had only just completed cultivating the 71st to 80th visualization images, and the strength of his Divine Telekinesis had elevated once more.

As he visualized over and over again, the automatic cultivation of Seamless within him was also accelerating.

From the initial automatic gain of 1,000 telekinetic threads per hour, it had sped up to 3,000 threads per hour after he had finished visualizing the 80th image.

Meanwhile, the strength of his Divine Telekinesis had skyrocketed from sixth-rank heavenly god-level to peak eighth-rank heavenly god-level.

Lin Huang had initially wanted to continue closed-door cultivation to further elevate the strength of his Divine Telekinesis. However, he quietly calculated the visualization time it would take and discovered that to complete the cultivation of the 81st to 90th images, he would have to spend close to two years for that, even when time had been sped up 1,000 times. He gave up on the idea.

Temporarily setting aside the cultivation of his Divine Telekinesis, he retrieved the Sword seal fragment that Virtuoso had given him.

According to Virtuoso, a Sword seal was the Sword Dao seal that consolidated in a Heavenly God sword cultivator’s body. As soon as the Heavenly God died, the Dao seal in their body would shatter automatically, becoming fragments of various sizes.

Lin Huang obtained a similar fragment back when he killed the Regal Sword Killer in the gravel world. Since it looked like a page from a book and also contained a massive amount of sword skills, he had named it the One Page Sword Scripture.

Back then, the One Page Sword Scripture had a corner missing.

Upon his return to the gravel world, he had then killed the revived Regal Sword Killer and obtained the missing corner.

When the two fragments integrated, they formed an ancient and mysterious seal tactic.

Lin Huang only found out that the seal tactic was actually a complete Sword seal after listening to Virtuoso’s explanation. When he discovered this, he was astounded, because he already had within him a complete Dao seal that only Heavenly Gods could consolidate.

If he could control the Dao seal perfectly, it was equivalent to directly possessing lord-level ability.

However, until now, he still could not understand why the Regal Sword Killer would have a complete Sword seal within him.

According to what Virtuoso said, when a Heavenly God died, the Dao seal would scatter to the four winds after it shattered. Even if there were other Heavenly God powerhouses present, they might not be able to obtain all of the fragments.

This was because the impact from the Dao seal shattering was terrifying, and even Heavenly God powerhouses would be impacted if they were too close. Moreover, the shattered Dao seal might pierce through layers of space and time, becoming instantly untraceable.

Although he could not understand why the Regal Sword Killer had a complete Sword seal within his body, Lin Huang did not dwell on it.

He could sense clearly that the Sword seal within him had a burning desire for the Sword seal fragment in his hand.

After only a slight moment of consideration, he placed the Sword seal fragment—that looked like a torn page—into his inner world.

Almost at the same time the Sword seal fragment entered his inner world, the battle sword in the Sword Soul’s hand released an infinite sun-like golden ray.

Only Lin Huang was able to see that the source of the golden ray was the completed Sword seal.

Under the illumination of the golden ray, the Sword seal fragment seemed to have come alive. Golden divine patterns lit up on the torn page, and the ray of light grew more and more.

A moment later, the torn page transformed into golden sparkles and gathered around the divine patterns. Meanwhile, the divine patterns were like tiny golden snakes surrounded by hazy starlight, surging rapidly to where the Sword Spirit was.

At last, they penetrated the Sword seal on top of the Sword Heart.

The integration of the Sword seal fragment initiated an immediate transformation in the original Sword seal.

One by one, the divine patterns rearranged themselves. This process lasted for a full 12 days, finally creating an even more complex and mysterious Sword seal.

Lin Huang glanced at it quickly, not daring to stare at it too much. He could only roughly judge that the new Sword seal was 70 to 80 percent similar to the previous one.

As the new Sword seal took shape, he felt as if his Sword Dao heavenly rule had been unblocked by an invisible force. It began to grow more powerful at lightning speed.

Originally, he had only recently elevated to Sword Dao heavenly rule. To be exact, he had only just crossed the first threshold of level-1, Heavenly Sword.

However, he could clearly sense that his rank was now advancing.

Within ten seconds, he had elevated to the peak of Heavenly Sword and was still advancing.

After remaining at the peak of Heavenly Sword for over ten seconds, Lin Huang suddenly felt that his comprehension of Sword Dao had reached a new level.

A second later, his Sword Dao heavenly rule broke through straight away from level-1, Heavenly Sword, to level-2, Heavenly Heart.

This breakthrough that came out of nowhere puzzled Lin Huang.

He had even planned to go into closed-door cultivation once he advanced to ninth-rank true god-level, before breaking through to heavenly god-level. He wanted to try his best to achieve a breakthrough to Heavenly Heart for his Sword Dao.

Never had he expected to achieve that same goal without even being aware of it.

‘What should I do before elevating to Heavenly God-level now? Should I achieve a Sword Dao heavenly rule breakthrough to level-3, which is Heavenly Dao?!’ Lin Huang grumbled quietly to himself.

Right now, the elevation of Sword Dao heavenly rule was finally slowing down.

Lin Huang had honestly not expected that a mere Sword seal fragment could directly elevate his Sword Dao heavenly rule by a rank.

Moreover, apart from the elevation in Sword Dao rank, he discovered that his Sword Dao inheritance memories had increased as well.

There were around one-fifth more memories compared to before.

Lin Huang was rather upset about that.

He already had no time to learn many of the original sword skills in the inheritance memories that he obtained previously. Before he was done with his homework, he had now been given more.

He did not even bother to go check his inheritance memories; instead, he merely focused on an item in his hand that he had retrieved.

A purplish-black crystal the size of a thumb hovered above his palm.

It was Death Sickle’s reward – a half-step lord-level God Territory Shell Remnant.

According to Buried Heaven’s explanation, this God Territory Shell Remnant’s owner used to be an Abyssal half-step Lord who had been killed by two of Death Sickle’s Blood Sickle members.

After his death, a Blood Sickle member retrieved the God Territory in his body and put it through a proper cleansing. There was no trace of Abyssal energy left behind at all now.

When the Blood Sickle member was cleansing it, he purged all of the living things in the God Territory as well.

Therefore, the God Territory Shell Remnant was merely an empty shell now.

However, to Lin Huang, it had great value despite being just an empty shell.

This was because as soon as integration was completed, it would mean that he possessed a half-step lord-level God Territory immediately.

His God Territory, Monster Paradise, would also be able to obtain a corresponding advancement. The coverage range alone would expand hundreds and thousands of times…

Time passed by day by day in the Great Heaven Palace.

The speed at which Lin Huang’s God Territory integrated with the God Territory Shell Remnant was very slow.

He spent almost three and a half years to complete the integration between his own God Territory and the God Territory Shell Remnant.

However, merely a day had passed in the outside world.

The integrated God Territory had some new changes in it.

“God Territory: Monster Paradise”

“God Territory Ability 1: After a summoning beast dies, the dead summoning beast’s soul will return to the God Territory with its body reconstructed with Divine Power and revived. Those that have broken souls will have their broken soul pieces recalled and recovered.”

“Remark 1: Unlimited number of revivals in theory.”

“Remark 2: If killed by an Odylic attack coming from a Lord or a being above Lord, it will truly die and cannot be revived.”

“Remark 3: If killed multiple times by a half-step Lord’s Odylic attacks, there is a possibility that it will be unable to be revived.”

“Remark 4: Each revival requires the expenditure of a certain amount of Godly Right Power (the expended Godly Right can be replenished).

“Derivative Ability: If the God Territory possessor dies, they can choose a summoning beast to substitute death.”

“Remark 1: The number of substitute deaths per day depends on the number of summoning beasts. Each summoning beast can only die in place of the host once within 24 hours.”

“Remark 2: If the God Territory possessor is killed by the Odyl of a Lord or a being above Lord, they will truly die and cannot be substituted by a summoning beast.”

“Remark 3: If killed multiple times by a half-step Lord’s Odylic attacks, there is also a possibility that it will be unable to be revived.”

“Remark 4: After a summoning beast dies in place of its host, it will return to the God Territory to be revived.”

…

“God Territory Ability 2: The God Territory possessor can borrow any skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers of all summoning beasts at any time.”

“Remark 1: The borrowing of Monster Skills already possessed by the God Territory possessor is invalid and will not produce compounded effects.”

“Remark 2: In theory, the number of borrowed skills is not restricted by the upper limit of the God Territory possessor’s number of Monster Skills. It will only be affected by how much the God Territory possessor’s physical strength and spirit strength can bear.”

“Remark 3: It is not restricted by the space and time in which the summoning beast is located.”

“Remark 4: When a summoning beast truly dies, all of its skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers can no longer be borrowed.”

…

“God Territory Ability 3: The God Territory possessor can use any of the residents’ skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers at any time.”

“Remark 1: The borrowing of skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers already possessed by the God Territory possessor is invalid and will not produce compounded effects.”

“Remark 2: In theory, the number of borrowed skills has no upper limit restrictions. It will only be affected by how much the God Territory possessor’s physical strength and spirit strength can bear.”

“Remark 3: The God Territory possessor can only borrow from residents within their bodies which have the world imprint.”

“Remark 4: It is not restricted by the space and time in which the residents are located.”

Remark 5: When a resident dies, all of their skills, divine abilities, rules, and sequence powers can no longer be borrowed.”

…

Lin Huang noticed that the biggest change was that previously, he or his imperial monsters would be killed right away as soon as they were hit by Odylic attacks. However, since the integration of the God Territory Shell Remnant, only Odylic attacks coming from Lords or beings above Lords could kill him and his imperial monsters.

In other words, if they were killed by a half-step Lord’s Odylic attack, it would not affect his revival or that of his imperial monsters.

There was no reason given in the information from Xiaohei’s side, but Lin Huang roughly speculated that the effects of Odylic attacks might possibly be borne by the God Territory since it had now been elevated.

If that were the case, there was definitely a limit to the attacks that the God Territory could bear. If death happened multiple times from a half-step Lord’s Odylic attacks, it might exceed the limit that the God Territory could bear, and result in true death.

“So it’s best that I don’t offend half-step Lord powerhouses for nothing…” Lin Huang rapidly came to this conclusion.

After turning off Monster Paradise’s information panel, Lin Huang began to check on the changes brought about this time by his closed-door cultivation.

Although his combat level had not elevated, the strength of his Divine Telekinesis had increased significantly.

His Sword Dao had also elevated to level-2 of Sword Dao heavenly rule—Heavenly Heart.

His God Territory had also elevated further since its successful integration with the God Territory Shell Remnant.

Not only had its functions become significantly more powerful, but its range had also expanded thousands upon ten thousand times.

Within the Great Heaven Territory, many years had already passed.

However, since the speed of time there had been sped up 1,000 times, merely less than two and a half months had passed in the outside world.

“Although my combat level hasn’t elevated, there’s still a significant elevation in my abilities.” Lin Huang was fairly satisfied with the result of his closed-door cultivation this time.

Realizing that he would not be able to elevate his abilities further within a short period, Lin Huang opened the doors somewhat reluctantly and walked out of the Great Heaven Palace.

Sword1, who had been guarding the doors of the Palace, stood up as soon as he saw Lin Huang come out of closed-door cultivation.

“Lord Swordmaster…” As soon as he greeted Lin Huang, he noticed that Lin Huang’s Sword Dao had advanced again. The gleam in his eyes brightened. “Congratulations, Lord Swordmaster, on your Sword Dao elevating to Heavenly Heart!”

Lin Huang was not surprised that Sword1 had seen through him. He was not wearing Thousand Face to hide his aura, after all. Moreover, the Sword Servants themselves were powerful sword cultivators and were extra sensitive to Sword Dao levels.

“Mm.” Lin Huang responded, then asked, “How long have I been in closed-door cultivation?”

“Today is the 71st day,” Sword1 reported the number without any hesitation. Clearly, he had been counting the days.

“It’s been less than two and a half months…” Lin Huang had actually set an alarm according to the time flow—which had been sped up 1,000 times—so that he would exit his state of closed-door cultivation when three months had passed the outside world. He had ended his cultivation before the alarm rang, and he had not bothered to count the days since he would be able to find out by asking once he got out.

“I’m a month away from the arrangement I made with Virtuoso…” Lin Huang mumbled softly.

After chatting with Sword1 and asking about matters in the Great Heaven Territory recently, Lin Huang bid him farewell and teleported out of the Territory.

The identity ring on his finger vibrated repeatedly as soon as he got out of the Great Heaven Territory.

He tapped into the communication page and saw he had a missed call and two unread messages.

The missed call was from an unknown number. In general, there was a high chance of unknown numbers being advertisements. Lin Huang merely glanced at it and proceeded to ignore it. He then checked the two unread messages.

Of the two messages, one was from Mr. Fu, while the other was also from an unknown number.

Lin Huang checked Mr. Fu’s message first.

In the message, Mr. Fu informed Lin Huang that he had come out of closed-door cultivation and had elevated to second-rank true god-level. Mr. Fu also said that the possibility of elevating his ability further in the immediate short-term was low after coming out of closed-door cultivation this time. Therefore, he wanted to check out other places in the great world so he could learn more.

Lin Huang was not worried about Mr. Fu; he had already spoken to a few Sword Servants previously while in the Devil Hunter Star Zone. When Mr. Fu departed this time, there would most certainly be a Sword Servant secretly following him.

When he checked on the date that the message had been sent, it was almost two months ago.

Lin Huang considered for a moment but did not call back right away. Instead, he read the message that had been sent from the unknown number.

This message contained only one sentence:

“Take care of Hong Zhuang for me…”

Lin Huang was stunned when he saw this; he knew immediately that it was definitely Yang Ling who had sent the message.

He called the number back at once. However, the response message was, “The number you have dialed is not in service…”

Yang Ling was in trouble!

Lin Huang frowned hard.

He remembered clearly that Yang Ling said he might have been targeted by Raiders when he helped Lin Huang create his fake identities a couple of months ago.

At that time, he had mentioned that he wanted Lin Huang to take care of Hong Zhuang if something really happened to him.

Lin Huang thought for a moment, then tapped into the contact page again. He looked at the unknown number of the missed call.

This number was different from the one that had been used to send the message.

However, when he checked the date of the call, it was April 4th—the same day the message had been sent.

Not only that, the time of the call request was merely two minutes before the message was sent.

Lin Huang guessed that the number was most probably Yang Ling’s. With hardly any hesitation, he returned the call.

However, the same response message soon played again. “The number you have dialed is not in service…”

The same thing happened with both numbers. This made Lin Huang certain that something had definitely happened to Yang Ling!

It was May 21st now, one and a half months since the message had been sent. Going by the Raiders’ modus operandi, Yang Ling might already be dead.

Even if he were still alive, he most probably had been captured by the Raiders, otherwise, he would not be out of contact.

However, judging by the message that Yang Ling had sent, Hong Zhuang should still have been safe one-and-a-half months ago.

Even if that were the case, though, Lin Huang had no way of ascertaining if she was still safe or not, since one-and-a-half months had already gone by.

What left him speechless was that Yang Ling had not left him any clues to her whereabouts at all.

As Yang Ling’s girlfriend, there was a high possibility that Hong Zhuang had been targeted by Raiders as well.

Therefore, she might already be dead, or she might have been captured by Raiders.

If either of these two possibilities occurred, naturally, Lin Huang was not under any obligation to look after her.

After all, at his current level of ability, there was a high possibility that he might be killed too if he were to provoke the Raiders.

He did not like Hong Zhuang very much, as the woman was just too secretive and unfathomable. One never knew which of her words were truthful and which were lies.

However, no matter what, she and Lin Huang could be considered familiar with each other. Moreover, she was Yang Ling’s girlfriend, and Yang Ling was a man from Earth, Lin Huang’s home.

Lin Huang felt that if Hong Zhuang really did manage to escape from the Raiders, he would certainly be willing to fulfill Yang Ling’s dying wish that Lin Huang take care of her.

Many thoughts flashed through his head, and he called both unknown numbers once more. However, the response message was the same each time—the numbers were not in service.

With no leads to go on, Lin Huang had no option but to give up.

“Given Yang Ling’s character, if he left no clues behind, it was probably for the sake of Hong Zhuang’s safety. However, since he asked me to take care of her, he might have left something for her so that she could find me…”

Lin Huang did not dwell any further on the matter once he got to this point in his musings.

If Hong Zhuang did manage to escape, she would likely follow Yang Ling’s plan and look for Lin Huang.

After all, it was just too difficult for her to survive in the great world alone, given her previous imperial-level combat strength.

Lin Huang put aside the matter of Yang Ling and Hong Zhuang and logged onto Death Sickle’s official website.

It was less than a month away from the arrangements he had made with Virtuoso to go to the Abyss.

This was not enough time for him to go into another round of closed-door cultivation, nor was it sufficient for him to make one more trip into the ruins.

For this reason, he decided to take the opportunity and use this period to accept a few Death Sickle missions.

For Death Sickle’s authorizations, his identity as Xiu Mu was already a Gold Sickle member, and his corresponding authorizations had all been activated.

However, he clicked on the information section first before checking the available missions.

As he glanced through, a trending hot topic caught his attention.

The subject was “Will the Little Princess of the Nephilic Judge Tribe Manage to Escape the Fate Of Marriage Since She Has Elevated to Heavenly God-level?”

Lin Huang clicked on the link immediately. After reading through, he felt slightly more relieved.

The Nephilic Judge Tribe was shrewd enough to have revealed only that Kylie had elevated to heavenly god-level. They had not disclosed that, in reality, she had elevated to Pure Spirit rank-6.

The more outstanding one was, the more one would be targeted for destruction.

Although all the organizations in the God Territory were eagerly anticipating that the God Territory would produce a Pure Spirit rank-6 powerhouse, they all hoped that this powerhouse would be someone within their own organization.

As soon as the news of Kylie’s elevation to Pure Spirit rank-6 leaked out, the other organizations would outwardly show goodwill, but the entire Nephilic Judge Tribe would secretly become a target on all sides.

The several grade-7 organizations, in particular, would not watch helplessly as Kylie grew to lead the Nephilic Judge Tribe in elevating to a grade-7 organization as well.

After all, there were only so many top-notch resources in the God Territory. One more grade-7 organization appearing would mean that the resources given to other grade-7 organizations would lessen correspondingly.

Not only would the Nephilic Judge Tribe be targeted, but Kylie would also become the target of many assassinations.

Therefore, the shrewdest way of going about things was to underplay the matter, saying that Kylie had elevated to heavenly god-level.

When the time came, all the antagonism would naturally not exist.

However, Lin Huang also knew that it might be difficult for the Nephilic Judge Tribe to continue concealing the matter.

Kylie’s status would be exposed sooner or later—it was only a matter of time.

Lin Huang felt a little more relieved as he glanced through the comments below. At least nobody suspected Kylie’s elevation at the moment.

After all, she had been at ninth-rank true god-level before this, so it made sense that she would elevate to heavenly god-level after closed-door cultivation. Moreover, the announcement that the Nephilic Judge Tribe made for the little princess was also a normal occurence.

Lin Huang was not worried about Kylie’s current situation. For one thing, she had Bloody with her. For another, given her current status, the Nephilic Judge upper echelons would take good care of her.

As for the matter of her Pure Spirit rank-6 standing being exposed, that would be something to worry about in the future.

When things reached the point where the Nephilic Judge Tribe really could not handle it, Bloody would definitely contact him immediately. The worst-case scenario would be Lin Huang recalling both of them forcibly into card form when that happened.

After closing the thread about Kylie, Lin Huang noticed that there was a Gold Sickle symbol on the first thread pinned on top of the information section.

The thread had been posted half a month ago, with the subject “Regarding the Conquest Expedition to the Abyss.”

Lin Huang clicked on the thread immediately when he saw that it had something to do with the Abyss.

It was only after spending a minute or more to finish reading the thread that Lin Huang discovered Virtuoso had invited him to team up and go into the Abyss because they had found out about this piece of news ahead of time.

The mission was a small-scale conquest expedition into the Abyss organized by the God Territory.

There were only a few major grade-7 and grade-6 organizations as well as a handful of top grade-5 organizations participating in this.

Of the seven Blood Sickle members of Death Sickle, five would participate this time.

Buried Heaven and a few top Heavenly Gods from Death Sickle were on the list too.

It was the same for the other organizations.

The participants were the Lords, half-step Lords, and top Heavenly God powerhouses from the various organizations.

The reason for pinning the thread on top was to inform all Gold Sickle members that the Abyss would be extremely dangerous during this period, and everyone should not attempt to enter.

At the same time, it was mentioned that the rest of the Gold Sickle members should follow the orders of the remaining two Blood Sickle members and assist in handling all Death Sickle matters, maintaining Death Sickle’s usual operations.

After he finished reading, Lin Huang could not help secretly exclaiming that Virtuoso was bold and reckless.

Virtuoso had invited him to enter the Abyss on the second day that the powerhouses from the major organizations would be there.

Clearly, Virtuoso wanted to take advantage of the conquest expedition and gain more benefits amidst the chaos that ensued.

Lin Huang checked out a couple of threads in the information section before looking through the missions section.

This time the missions section was clearly different from the one previously.

Before this, Lin Huang’s status was only that of a Black Sickle. There had been only two panels in the missions section—one was missions for reserve members, while the other was Black Sickle missions. Now, there were four panels for reserve missions, Black Sickle missions, White Sickle missions, and Gold Sickle missions.

As soon as Lin Huang clicked into the missions section, his default choice was the Gold Sickle missions panel.

The difficulty level for Gold Sickle missions was that of fighting Heavenly Gods.

Ordinarily speaking, one would either have to assassinate a Heavenly God, or they would encounter conflict with a Heavenly God powerhouse during the mission.

Lin Huang glanced over the missions list and discovered that the missions were sorted according to the time they were posted. The later the posting, the closer to the top of the list it would appear.

He immediately changed how the missions were sorted, choosing to display them in the order of the most handsome rewards.

The missions list immediately changed.

He scanned through the list again and found out that most of the missions in the top spots had been published for years.

The one that ranked first was posted over 8,000 years ago.

As for the objective of the mission, it was to kill a half-step lord-level Bug Tribe Queen Mother.

Lin Huang merely glanced at the title and skipped past, not even bothering to see what the reward was.

At his ability, he had to avoid half-step lord-level powerhouses for now, what more a half-step lord-level Bug Tribe Queen Mother.

One must know that a Bug Tribe Queen Mother of such combat strength could mass-produce high-level Heavenly God Bug Kings and even Bug Queens as long as they had sufficient material. They might even be able to produce half-step lord-level Bug Kings and Bug Queens.

Apart from that, a Bug Tribe Queen Mother with such combat strength was a treasure to the Bug Tribe. There would be at least several half-step lord-level Bug Servants guarding her closely or even lord-level Bug Tribe powerhouses.

Never mind Gold Sickle members—Lin Huang felt this mission might not be possible even with all seven Blood Sickle members working together.

He looked at the second mission right after skipping the first one.

After reading the heading, he was speechless again.

This was because the mission was to kill a Bug Tribe Queen Mother as well. However, it was to kill a fallen Queen Mother in the Abyss. The fallen Queen Mother also had the combat strength of a half-step Lord.

From Lin Huang’s point of view, if one did not consider external influences, this fallen Queen Mother might have an overall ability that was even more powerful than the Queen Mother from the first mission.

The reason she was ranked second was probably that she did not have any Bug Tribe Lords by her side as bodyguards.

However, Lin Huang believed that the fallen Queen Mother would have Abyssal lord-level powerhouses behind her.

The reason for this was that the Queen Mother was an excellent tool for conquest. It was impossible that Abyssal lord-level powerhouses would be unaware of the fallen Queen Mother’s existence.

The reason she had been able to hide herself so well in the Abyss without being noticed was most probably because she had become the subject of a lord-level powerhouse.

Therefore, the difficulty of hunting this fallen Queen Mother was actually no less than that of hunting the Queen Mother from the previous first-ranked mission.

“Does Death Sickle have a problem with Queen Mothers…” Lin Huang grumbled, then looked at the third mission—hunting the half-step lord-level Succubus Mia.

“Succubus?” Lin Huang tapped open this mission with some curiosity.

There was no reason other than a succubus being the sexiest creature in the world, and he wanted to see for himself exactly how sexy it was.

When he clicked in, there was only a description of the mission. There were no pictures at all.

Regarding the nonexistent pictures, Death Sickle’s explanation was that a half-step lord-level succubus possessed the ability to affect most creatures below half-step lord-level through images and sound.

If pictures of the succubus were attached, it was entirely possible that the Gold Sickle members who clicked in from Death Sickle’s website would be affected.

“She’s so powerful she can affect people through pictures and sound?!” Even Lin Huang thought this was unbelievable.

However, that was not the only powerful thing that he noticed about this succubus.

According to the mission’s description, she had at least three lord-level paramours and some powerful half-step lord-level lovers.

One would have to be prepared to be hunted by at least three Abyssal Lords and over ten half-step Lords if one were to kill her.

“I’m terrified already!” Lin Huang hurriedly closed that mission thread immediately and looked at the missions below it.

He looked through over ten missions, one after the other, and all of them required the killing of half-step Lords.

Further down, there were missions to kill ninth-rank Heavenly Gods, but the targets were either supreme god-level rank-5 geniuses, half-step Lords, or even the supporters of a Lord.

There were thirty missions on the first page, but Lin Huang did not see any that suited him.

At present, all of them were beyond his scope.

He thought about it for a moment. Instead of going to the next page, he directly typed ‘God Territory’ into the section on mission rewards.

He would need to obtain a massive amount of Rule Bending Power from the God Territory within Heavenly Gods’ bodies in order to elevate his combat strength. Killing Heavenly Gods was one way; obtaining the God Territory Shell Remnant in a dead Heavenly God’s body was another.

Moreover, he knew that Death Sickle had many missions that gave out God Territory Shell Remnants as rewards.

In reality, a normal God Territory Shell Remnant was not like the half-step Lord Shell Remnant that he had obtained from Buried Heaven previously.

The God Territory Shell Remnant that Buried Heaven gave him was cleansed because it had been utterly contaminated with Abyssal energy.

He would not have been able to integrate it if it were not cleansed.

Integrating it directly would have caused his God Territory to be contaminated with Abyssal energy as well.

Under normal circumstances, when Death Sickle’s Gold Sickle members killed a Heavenly God, they would retrieve the Heavenly God’s God Territory entirely and keep it perfectly preserved. The Rule Bending Powers, sequence powers, and even the number of creatures in there would not undergo any significant changes compared to the time the Heavenly God was still alive.

If the fallen Heavenly God’s God Territory was damaged, causing the internal Rule Bending Powers and sequence powers to be missing, it had to be mentioned when it was retrieved and sold on the market.

This was because an incomplete God Territory Shell Remnant would be sold at a much lower price.

The God Territory Shell Remnants that Death Sickle used as mission rewards were generally complete.

The half-step lord-level God Territory Shell Remnant Lin Huang got from Buried Heaven was just an exception.

Meanwhile, the rewards for the missions he was looking at were complete God Territory Shell Remnants.

This was also something that he needed most at the moment.

Lin Huang sorted the missions in the order of God Territory Shell Remnant rewards, then he sorted them again so the best rewards would be shown first.

The first one that gave generous rewards was the killing of a ninth-rank Heavenly God.

Lin Huang gave up on that mission right away and proceeded to check the next one.

Only when he got to the third page did he see a mission to kill a fourth-rank Heavenly God. The reward was a complete fourth-rank Heavenly God’s God Territory Shell Remnant.

Lin Huang chose this difficulty level, not because his ability was that low, but because he could only display that level of ability in front of Death Sickle’s upper echelons. It would be too unusual if he displayed more than that

Given that his scheduled appointment with Virtuoso to go into the Abyss was happening soon, Lin Huang accepted twenty missions to kill fourth-rank Heavenly Gods for the time being.

“He disappeared for over two months, and now as soon as he’s back on the radar, he takes up twenty missions to kill fourth-rank Heavenly Gods… It looks like either his combat level’s made a breakthrough again, or he was previously holding back his abilities…”

As soon as Lin Huang accepted the missions, the Death Sickle upper echelons were already noticing his movements.

Given his genius level, it would indeed be strange if he were not noticed.

Lin Huang was also aware that he would certainly draw attention to himself, so he only chose hunting targets that were fourth-rank.

He planned his route according to distance. The first hunting target he chose was a Lightning Fox.

The mission was to capture this Lightning Fox alive, and the reward was two fifth-rank God Territory Shell Remnants.

Meanwhile, the Lightning Fox referred to in the mission was located in some battlefield ruins not far away from the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

Although its combat level was merely fourth-rank, this Lightning Fox had mastered the Lightning Sequence and possessed astounding speed and explosive power.

In reality, many Gold Sickle members from Death Sickle had attempted this mission, but all of them had failed.

After all, such a reward was not enough to attract high-level Gold Sickle members to attempt such a task. Meanwhile, this fourth-rank Lightning Fox possessed a speed that was on par with most sixth-rank Heavenly Gods.

Lin Huang was confident he could capture it, not because he was just as fast as the creature itself, but because he felt that this Lightning Fox could not possibly be swifter than his own Divine Telekinesis.

Upon entering the rarely-visited battlefield ruins, he spread his Divine Telekinesis and began searching for the Lightning Fox.

Within two minutes, he had located his target.

“I’ve found you, little creature!”

As soon as the Lightning Fox sensed that it was being scanned by Divine Telekinesis, it turned into a lightning arc and tried to flee.

The next second, an invisible telekinetic thread twined around its rear right leg and stopped it from running away entirely.

The Lightning Fox let out a yelp of surprise. Just as it was about to unleash its might and struggle free, another telekinetic thread looped around its neck the next instant.

It immediately settled down, as it knew that if it continued to struggle, Lin Huang could easily cut off its head.

Noticing that the Lightning Fox had stopped struggling, Lin Huang did not hesitate.

A snap of his fingers and several telekinetic threads wrapped around the Lightning Fox, turning it into a cocoon, which was then dragged back to Lin Huang’s side.

It was a mission that was practically impossible for anyone else, but when Lin Huang took it up, including his time on the road, he spent less than five minutes to complete it.

“Not bad. It went more smoothly than I expected.” Lin Huang patted the Divine Telekinesis cocoon and put it away in the God Territory within him, inside the foothold where his Sword Servants were.

After advising his Sword Servants, he proceeded to check out the next mission.

To maximize his efficiency in completing his missions, Lin Huang had prepared to finish off all twenty missions at once and then submit them as soon as he was done.

The second mission was located in a neighboring star zone next to the Devil Hunter Star Zone.

The target of the mission was a third-rank heavenly god-level pure blood Protoss.

The reward was five fourth-rank God Territory Shell Remnants.

The mission reward exceeded the target’s combat level considerably because this pure blood Protoss had a small clan backing him. The clan’s master was a high-level eighth-rank Heavenly God.

The target was the master’s grandchild.

Others might have taken the clan into consideration, but Lin Huang did not bother about this.

He noticed that the mission was a private commission. The commission documents had detailed evidence that this pure blood Protoss had humiliated and abused many female Protoss.

Lin Huang took merely ten minutes and arrived at the nearby Siri Star Zone through a dimensional portal.

When he arrived close to the planet where his target was, he soon locked onto his prey with Divine Telekinesis.

This was a young man who looked like he was in his early 20s—tall, with shoulder-length blond hair.

He was currently lying in a bathhouse, embracing two female Protoss with amazing bodies, one on each side of him.

Suddenly, a barely perceptible blood-red ray sparked like an electric arc, piercing right through the middle of the man’s brows.

A red dot only appeared a moment later between the man’s brows. Thin trickles of blood seeped out and dripped off his face into the bathhouse.

Only then did the two ladies notice something was wrong and cried out in alarm.

A brawny man was guarding the door outside the bathhouse. However, he did not notice anything unusual.

He ignored the ladies screaming and knocking on the door. He had seen far too many scenarios like this, and the best way of handling them was not to meddle in anything.

Despite having successfully killed the target of the mission, Lin Huang was not very happy.

Having killed the target at such a distance, he was unable to retrieve the God Territory within the target’s body.

After spending less than twenty minutes to complete this second mission, Lin Huang did not stop at all. He checked out the third mission immediately…

He spent less than two days to complete all twenty missions.

After locating a Death Sickle branch to submit the missions, he obtained his mission rewards—forty-six fourth-rank and seven fifth-rank God Territory Shell Remnants.

Including the God Territories that he had extracted from the targets’ bodies, he had accumulated almost 1.8 million Rule Bending Powers.

As soon as he submitted the twenty missions, Lin Huang accepted a further one hundred and fifty missions all at once, swiftly entering a second round of hunting.

This time, he merely spent eighteen days to complete all one hundred and fifty missions.

The mission rewards were four hundred and thirteen fourth-rank and thirty-four fifth-rank God Territory Shell Remnants.

Including the God Territories he had extracted from the targets’ bodies, he had accumulated almost 15 million Rule Bending Powers.

Realizing that it was merely a few days away from his appointment with Virtuoso, Lin Huang did not accept any more missions. Instead, he set an alarm and began closed-door cultivation to refine the God Territory Shell Remnants that he had obtained.

When he was in closed-door cultivation, the Death Sickle upper echelons held another meeting.

All seven Blood Sickle members were present in the meeting room. Apart from that, there were a few top-tier Heavenly Gods in attendance, including Buried Heaven.

These dozen-over people had gathered mainly to discuss final matters before entering the Abyss.

When all of the agendas had been discussed and the meeting was coming to an end, a Blood Sickle member suddenly spoke up,” I noticed something interesting recently…

“That little fellow named Xiu Mu’s taken up over a hundred missions to hunt fourth-rank Heavenly Gods since being given Gold Sickle authorization. Not only that, he’s completed all of them…”

“I’ve noticed his unusual movements too,” another Blood Sickle member next to him commented while smiling, “Moreover, the strange thing is that all the missions he selected had God Territory Shell Remnants as rewards. I can’t figure why this little guy is so persistent in strengthening his God Territory.”

“A possibility is that his cultivation method has something to do with his God Territory,” another Blood Sickle member could not help speaking up at this point.

The meeting room fell silent for a moment. Prying into the roots of a person’s cultivation was a taboo in the cultivation world.

However, that particular Blood Sickle member’s comment could not help but cause everyone to speculate on how this powerful Xiu Mu fellow cultivated exactly.

Noticing that the atmosphere was off, Buried Heaven spoke up to change the subjec, “Xiu Mu has great potential. No matter which universe he’s in, he’d be in the outstanding elite among Protoss! I have a feeling that in the future, he’ll grow into a compelling man that I would definitely admire…”

In a flash, several days had passed again.

Soon, the day of Lin Huang and Virtuoso’s appointment arrived.

At 8.50 in the morning, Lin Huang arrived at the agreed location after breakfast—a cafe by the beach, located quite far from Shelter No. 3.

It was mid-June at the moment; in this region where the café was located, it was already the beginning of summer.

A glance showed swimsuit-clad men and ladies everywhere at the beach. Lin Huang, who was in a black robe, looked out of place among them. He even received judgmental glances directed at him every now and then.

Lin Huang ignored the stares from those people. He found himself a table in the alfresco area and took a seat. He then ordered a cup of coffee and waited patiently for Virtuoso to show up.

Very soon, his coffee was served by a young female attendant in a short serving maid outfit.

Lin Huang lifted the cup and took a sip. He could not help frowning slightly, putting down the cup.

He thought there were probably two words that could best describe this cup of coffee – utterly undrinkable.

It was not an exaggeration to say that this was the worst cup of coffee he had ever tasted since he traveled to this world.

He even had some suspicions as to how this café had survived until now.

‘Don’t tell me those pretty girls in maid attire are the only appeal?!’

At 9 a.m. sharp, none of the several team members that Virtuoso mentioned to him had arrived.

“Did that fellow blow me off?” Lin Huang raised his brows. However, after some careful consideration, he felt that he had nothing to lose since he had already obtained a Sword seal fragment.

After thinking about it, he figured he would send Virtuoso a message. “Where are you? We agreed to meet at 9, where’s everyone?!”

“We’re on the way. Wait for a few more minutes,” Virtuoso replied almost immediately.

Lin Huang could only continue to wait patiently. After all, he had accepted the deposit. There was no need for him to rage-quit just because they were a few minutes late.

What he thought strange was that not only was Virtuoso absent, but the rest had yet to arrive as well.

Right after he turned off his communication page, Lin Huang sensed a dimensional wave coming from not far away.

A black whirlpool opened up, and two figures walked out of it.

One of them was a burly, bald man who was over two meters tall. He had a face full of stubble and was clad in golden armor.

Meanwhile, the other figure was a thin, small lady in a blue robe, whose height did not even reach 1.4 meters. She looked a little like an adolescent girl.

Lin Huang had a rough idea of their identities.

The two newcomers noticed Lin Huang sitting outside the cafe as soon as they teleported in. They walked directly over to him.

“I suppose you’re Xiu Mu? I’m Tu Tong,” the burly man in golden armor extended his hand immediately.

Lin Huang stretched out his own hand as well and gave Tu Tong a handshake.

The lady in the blue robe seemed to be a little timid. Her gaze at Lin Huang was somewhat fugitive.

“This is Lan Ling.” Noticing what was going on, the man in golden armor immediately introduced his companion.

“Hello,” Lin Huang greeted with a smile.

“I heard that you’re a sword cultivator?” Tu Tong seemed to be rather interested in Lin Huang’s status as a sword cultivator.

“Yes, that’s right,” Lin Huang nodded in acknowledgment.

Although Xiu Mu’s status in Death Sickle was only that of a psychic, Virtuoso had seen through him completely. Therefore, there was no need for him to hide his sword cultivator status in front of the duo.

“I’m a combat cultivator. Let’s spar when we have the chance. Sparring with sword cultivators and saber cultivators is what I like best.” Tu Tong looked eager to try this.

If not for the unsuitable time and location, he might just have sparred with Lin Huang right away.

In comparison with Tu Tong, Lan Ling, who had remained on the sidelines, was quiet throughout.

She had been listening to their conversation, but she did not show any signs of wishing to contribute at all.

As Lin Huang and Tu Tong were chatting, another dimensional wave suddenly came out of nowhere.

The three of them looked toward the source of the dimensional wave at almost the same time.

A figure in a green robe slowly walked out of the black whirlpool.

Lin Huang did not even need to think about it to know that the third team member had arrived.

This was because he sensed an overwhelming saber intent within the man’s body. It was at least as powerful as his own sword intent—perhaps even more powerful.

“Sword cultivator?” The man in the green robe raised his eyes and looked at Lin Huang as soon as he stepped out of the whirlpool.

The next second, he took a stride forward and appeared before the three of them.

“Senior Saber.” Tu Tong and Lan Ling stood up almost at the same time.

“Just call me Saber9, that will do.” Only then did the man in the green robe shift his gaze from Lin Huang to look at the pair in front of him.

Clearly, the three of them knew each other.

Noticing this, Lin Huang stood up immediately and took the initiative to introduce himself, “This humble one is Xiu Mu.”

“I know you—Virtuoso has mentioned you before.” Saber9 nodded slightly.

He appeared to be in his early 30s but was the kind who looked young. If he were to say that he was 27 or 28, people would still believe him. However, his aura was coldly arrogant and extremely elegant.

“Isn’t he here yet?” Saber9 glanced around and asked Tu Tong and Lan Ling.

“I don’t think so…” Tu Tong answered immediately, but he secretly wondered, ‘Why ask me when I wasn’t the first one who arrived here?’

“I’ve messaged him already to prompt him,” Lin Huang spoke up as well, “Why don’t all of you order something to drink first? Not coffee though—this cafe’s coffee tastes like crap.”

The three ordered one after the other, then all four of them sat together at a table and waited patiently for Virtuoso.

When the drinks were served, the three of them merely took a sip, then put down their cups.

“Are they terrible too?” Lin Huang could not help asking when he noticed this.

“Just like you said, it tastes like crap,” Saber9 gave the same comment.

Beside him, Tu Tong and Lan Ling nodded immediately.

None of the three had ordered coffee; they had even ordered three different drinks.

The fact that the cafe had managed to make four different drinks that were equally terrible made Lin Huang feel a slight trace of dubious admiration.

He was even more doubtful now. ‘How in the world has this cafe survived?!’

The four of them waited until 9.15 a.m. but there was still no sign of Virtuoso.

Lin Huang did not mind, but Saber9 had on a long face the entire time. Tu Tong and Lan Ling stole glances at him every now and again; they were clearly anxious.

“Let me hurry him up one more time.” Seeing this, Lin Huang called Virtuoso again. They picked up almost immediately.

“Could you hurry up a little? The four of us have arrived; we’re all waiting for you.”

“Right away! Right away!” Virtuoso ended the call immediately after saying that.

Virtuoso said that they would be there right away, but the four of them still waited for over ten minutes more.

At 9:30 a.m., the white-robed Virtuoso finally arrived.

“My apologies, everyone. I’m late.” Although he said that, Virtuoso’s expression did not seem to indicate he was sorry.

“Of all the good qualities you could have learned, you had to pick up on your Primordium’s bad habit of being late,” Saber9 said, angrily.

“Ah Jiu, don’t be angry.” Lin Huang had goosebumps when he heard how Virtuoso addressed Saber9.

However, the odd thing was that Saber9 merely registered his protests with his eyes instead of verbally correcting the term of address.

“Ahh, Tutu, and Lanlan, it’s been a while!” Virtuoso greeted Tu Tong and Lan Ling in a sappy manner.

The pair looked helpless, but neither did they correct the endearments.

At that moment, Virtuoso looked at Lin Huang.

Before they could speak, Lin Huang spoke up first, “We’re not that close, don’t you dare do that to me.”

Only then did Virtuoso drop the matter rather sulkily.

As the five stepped out of the Dimensional Whirlpool, they soon arrived in an expanse of nothingness.

Lin Huang saw a gigantic black hole in the void before them, like a massive eyeball hovering in the air. He could not help but feel a trace of awe and admiration rising within him.

It was his first time seeing the real Abyss.

Prior to this, he had seen pictures and video documentations before and had even imagined a great deal. However, now that he had seen it in person, the sense of awe still remained.

What was strange was that he had the vague illusion that he seemed to be watching an endless, massive living creature, even though the black abyss ahead was merely the entrance to the Abyss proper.

“Do all of you have this feeling that the entrance looks like an eyeball staring at us?” Lin Huang could not help asking.

He faintly recalled something that he used to always hear—if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.

“Everyone has that feeling when they see the Abyss for the first time. It’s just an illusion,” Saber9 explained calmly from where he was off to the side, “You won’t have this feeling when you come again.”

“Why does such an illusion happen?” Lin Huang felt he did not quite understand.

“No idea, it’s the same for everyone.” Before Saber9 could speak, Virtuoso answered the question directly, “There’s no need to dwell further on this matter.”

At that moment, the small, skinny Lan Ling raised her arm weakly, “I-I know…”

Lin Huang and the rest looked at her.

Only then did Lan Ling murmur softly, “I-I’ve seen related research papers.

“To put it simply, in reality, the Abyss comes with an extremely subtle mental suppression, which causes fear in one’s subconscious mind. Therefore, our subconscious mind views it as a great threat, resulting in such an illusion the first time we see the Abyss.

“As to why this illusion only happens the first time, the explanation in the study was that our subconscious minds become accustomed to the mental suppression from the Abyss after the first visit. As the fear has been removed from the subconscious mind, we no longer see it as a threat.”

Although Lan Ling’s explanation sounded reasonable, Lin Huang still felt he was not convinced.

At that moment, Tu Tong could no longer contain himself and finally joined in the discussion.

“I’ve seen an explanation on the internet which garnered many likes. The thread said that the Abyss is a gigantic living creature that’s in deep sleep mode. Each entrance is actually one of the creature’s eyes. These eyes subconsciously examine everyone who enters its body. Therefore, we have the feeling that we’re being stared at.

“As to why we only experience this feeling the first time we see the Abyss, it’s because this scrutiny comes with a memory function—it only targets strangers. If the person were entering the Abyss for the second or third time, they would pass this scrutiny by default.”

After listening to this, Lin Huang felt Tu Tong’s explanation was more convincing to him. Just when he was about to agree, he heard Virtuoso’s straightforward, mocking voice from the sidelines.

“Only you would believe this nonsense, Tutu.”

“This explanation has certainly gone viral on the internet, but it’s false.” Off to one side, Lan Ling nodded and explained, “The biggest galaxy discovered throughout the history of the universe is merely the size of three star zones. That’s the size limit of a life form.

“Meanwhile, the Abyss occupied at least one-fourth of the universe, and this is only the part that’s within the universe. Its complete form might even be bigger than the entire universe itself. Based on size alone, it can’t possibly be a life form. Even if it’s an existence above lord-level, it would be impossible for it to control such a gigantic body.

“Also, judging by its mass, there’s no life structure that could bear such a massive body physical body without collapsing. Even a combat cultivator powerhouse above lord-level in the archaic epoch couldn’t maintain a functioning body of such mass.”

Lin Huang fell silent. Although Lan Ling’s explanation made a lot of sense, he felt that Tu Tong’s explanation might be possible as well.

“Alright, time is precious. Let’s go in.” Virtuoso did not bother to waste more time on this topic and directly interrupted the discussion to put an end to it.

However, they did not seem to realize that they were the last person who had the right to say that time was precious.

If they had not wasted everybody’s time and met up with them half an hour late, they might have hunted for a few rounds in the Abyss already.

Virtuoso extended their hand to Lin Huang as soon as they were done speaking.

Lin Huang was startled for a moment but immediately responded. The conditions for entering the Abyss might involve randomly teleporting the individuals who entered.

Under such circumstances, all of them had to maintain bodily contact to be teleported as a unit, so that they would not be separated.

Once he considered this, Lin Huang extended his hand, grasping Virtuoso’s right hand.

He then stretched out his right hand to hold Saber9’s left hand on the other side.

“Don’t think of anything once we enter. Just keep flying ahead,” Virtuoso’s voice came through very soon.

They said this mainly for Lin Huang’s benefit since the rest had been to the Abyss before.

Hand-in-hand, the five of them headed together into the black abyss of the entrance.

Lin Huang could only feel that they were getting closer and closer to the black abyss. In front of him, everything was pitch-black. When they finally entered the darkness, they were unable to see anything at all.

However, he followed Virtuoso’s reminder before, which was to follow his feelings and keep flying forward.

Lin Huang secretly calculated the time—almost over a minute later, they finally saw a ray of light appearing not far away.

The five of them flew towards the source of the light at once. As they got closer, the light became brighter as well.

Eventually, they exited the darkness completely.

Lin Huang cast his gaze over where they were. The sky was dark, and in front of them was an expanse of black earth. He had no way of determining his location.

Right as he was going to spread his Divine Telekinesis, he suddenly heard a voice transmission from Virtuoso.

“Hide your aura, don’t release your Divine Telekinesis for now.”

Although Lin Huang had no idea what happened, he heard the seriousness in Virtuoso’s tone, so he did as they said.

At that moment, he finally became aware that the rest had somewhat unhappy expressions on their faces.

“What happened?” Lin Huang hastily enquired through voice transmission.

“The normal entry time of each Abyss entrance should be ten seconds,” Saber9 replied calmly through voice transmission.

“Ten seconds?! But our entry this time took at least a minute, right?” Lin Huang could not help frowning. Although he had no idea what had caused this, he knew that something was definitely wrong.

“Perhaps someone did something while we were being teleported, or perhaps it’s the after-effects of Lord powerhouses in combat. I personally hope it’s the latter,” Virtuoso explained very seriously, before adding, “If it’s the former, there’s a high possibility of the five of us dying here.”

“So what do we do next?” Lin Huang asked immediately through voice transmission.

He was the only one going into the Abyss for the first time and had no experience at all handling something like this. It was best that he did not act rashly.

The others had been in the Abyss before. Even if they had never encountered such a thing, they should have at least heard of such a situation and perhaps had a way of dealing with it.

“Lan Ling, check out the situation nearby.” How Virtuoso addressed Lan Ling had changed; his attitude had clearly become serious now.

Lan Ling nodded slightly and rolled up her left sleeve, revealing a frail, skinny arm.

As her lips moved, her right hand swiftly formed a seal tactic. On her left arm, black incantations immediately appeared—they looked like they were formed from countless ants.

The complex, mysterious incantations seemed like tiny living snakes, writhing and slithering on her arm at incredible speed.

A moment later, she spread all five fingers and pressed her palm on the ground. The tiny snake-like incantations slid from her arm and squirmed underground at lightning speed.

After that, Lan Ling shut her eyes and sat down cross-legged.

This was Lin Huang’s first time seeing such a strange technique. However, he noticed something odd.

He did not sense any Divine Power waves from Lan Ling’s body at all throughout the whole process, nor did he sense any sort of waves on a psychic level.

He immediately realized what such a probing technique meant—it could not be sensed at all by ordinary measures.

Approximately two to three minutes later, sigils began to appear again on half of Lan Ling’s exposed arm. Only then did she slowly open her eyes.

She pulled her sleeve down to cover her arm once more and stood up.

“I didn’t sense any lord-level or more powerful auras within range…”

To Lin Huang, that sounded like good news. However, the adjacent Saber9 and Tu Tong did not relax their tense expressions at all.

Although he could not see the expression on Virtuoso’s face because of their mask, Lin Huang could sense from their aura that Virtuoso was still very much on their guard.

“However, we’ve certainly been sent to a slightly more problematic area…” Lan Ling paused before giving the name of their whereabouts, “A Demonic Bug Maze!”

Everyone had a slight change of expression upon hearing the name.

Lin Huang was no exception.

Although he had never been to the Abyss, he had spent some time doing some homework before coming, so he knew some basic things about it.

The Demonic Bug Maze was a special type of area in the Abyss.

This type of area was usually formed by massive gatherings of Demonic Bug Tribes.

The multitudes of Demonic Bug Tribes would gather into groups under the Bug Queen or Queen Mother’s command, forming a gigantic structure similar to a hive. They would then live in it.

This special structure would even come with some of the hive’s characteristics; the structure itself, however, was even more complex.

A normal hive had tens of thousands of tunnels. In a Demonic Bug Maze of the same size, there would be even more tunnels that were more winding, mysterious and unfathomable.

If anyone was to intrude accidentally, there was a very high chance that they would be lost inside. This was because the Demonic Bug Maze would block most probing techniques, and one would not know which tunnel would lead to the exit. A wrong turn might make one lose their chance of escaping entirely.

Lin Huang raised a doubt in his mind as he recalled all of the information about Demonic Bug Mazes.

“Are you sure this is really a Demonic Bug Maze? Why can we still see the sky?”

“This is an illusion the Bewilderment Bug groups created,” Virtuoso explained calmly, “Ignore this illusion. It relies on the hive walls to exist; it doesn’t really affect us. Moreover, nobody below lord-level can dispel it.”

Lin Huang only realized at this point that nothing was mentioned about this matter in the information that he had looked up.

“Did you sense any Bug Queens or Queen Mothers?” Saber9 asked.

“No,” Lan Ling shook her head. “This Demonic Bug Maze has a very complex structure. I’m worried that there might be special sensing bug groups around, so I didn’t dare to probe too far in.

“However, judging by the complexity of the bug group’s’ structure alone, the leader of this Maze might be a Lord or a half-step lord-level powerhouse.”

Lin Huang knew Saber9’s objective in asking this question—he wanted to determine if the leader of the Maze was a Queen Mother or a Bug Queen.

If it was just a Bug Queen, it could not sense whether its underlings were dead or alive.

However, if it was a Queen Mother, it could sense the state of all its offspring’s life cycles. This would mean that it would be even more difficult if they wanted to get out of the Maze.

“Although we can’t be sure if the leader is a Queen Mother or not, it’s best to be a bit more careful.” Although Virtuoso sounded calm, the rest could hear the caution in their tone.

The few times that Lin Huang had come into contact with Virtuoso, he had never felt that Virtuoso did anything cautiously. Now, hearing Virtuoso say they had to be careful, he was even a little suspicious about whether or not the Virtuoso in front of him had been replaced by someone else.

“Do you have a solution?” Lin Huang had no clue at all.

To him, finding the exit of the Demonic Bug Maze was a great challenge.

There were just too many tunnels; they could not be sure which was the right one.

Not only that, the biggest problem was that these Bug Tribes were contaminated by Abyssal energy and possessed clouded minds. There was no way of reading any information from them.

Virtuoso glanced at Lin Huang but did not even nod. “Let’s try first. We might not succeed though.”

Including Lin Huang, none of the others objected to this.

After all, nobody had a better solution for now; they could only try out Virtuoso’s idea.

Subsequently, Virtuoso began to explain their solution through voice transmission.

In reality, their plan was simple and very rough. It was to have everyone hide within a demonic bug’s body and let Lan Ling use spells to control the bug’s movement.

This way, they could avoid fighting with other Bug Tribes in the Maze as much as possible, to avoid causing this Bug Tribe to be wiped out.

This could also prevent the Bug Tribe Queen Mother from sensing their presence.

Although they were not sure whether or not the Demonic Bug Maze’s leader was a Queen Mother, it was best to plan with the worst-case scenario in mind.

Although Virtuoso’s plan was simple and rough to the point of being crude, everyone agreed to the plan as soon as they were done explaining it.

After all, this solution had a certain feasibility. Moreover, they could not think of anything better.

Once the plan was set, they began discussing the details in short order.

With all five of them brainstorming, the details were soon hammered out.

Almost immediately, Lan Ling formed an incantation seal with both hands. Around her, the incantation sigils slithered like snakes and disappeared underground.

Very soon, a huge, decaying bug beast crawled over quickly and prostrated itself before them.

Lin Huang and the rest frowned slightly. This was an entirely physiological reaction—the stench coming from the decaying bug beast was comparable to a biochemical weapon.

No, to be precise, it was a biochemical weapon.

In reality, there were all sorts of toxins and Abyssal energy particles hidden within the terrible stench.

Lin Huang and the rest were True Gods, and the Divine Fire in their bodies came with a cleansing function. Therefore, they were not affected by the noxious fumes.

However, cultivators below true god-level and even Virtual Gods might be infected by the toxins and Abyssal energy particles in the terrible stench.

Seeing that the rest made no move, Lin Huang leaped onto the huge, decaying bug beast’s back. With the tip of his sword, he cut an opening close to its abdomen. He then enveloped his entire body with Telekinesis and wriggled in directly.

Virtuoso and the others did not stand on ceremony after that. They hopped onto the bug’s back and crawled in one after the other, concealing their auras…

Under Lan Ling’s control, the giant decaying beetle headed toward the winding tunnels.

The five of them hid in the beetle’s back. They hid their auras and stopped breathing as well as they patiently waited.

No matter what, there were only two possibilities in the end.

They would either be discovered, or they would pass through successfully.

The giant beetle they were hiding in was called a Tank Beetle in the Bug Tribe. These beetles were usually beginner-stage to intermediate-stage heavenly god-level. They were a type of bug with powerful defenses and incredible biting ability.

They were usually the vanguards of the Bug Tribe, the defensive formation that would attack the enemy.

Meanwhile, the one they were hiding in had clearly been contaminated with Abyssal energy to the point where it had become an undying species.

Its body was in advanced stages of decay, and an intense rotten stench wafted out from it. Even the odor particles it exuded contained definite concentrations of Abyssal energy.

However, it was the perfect cover for Lin Huang and the others who were hiding inside its body.

The Tank Beetle took the group through several intersections; everything went very smoothly. Even several demonic bugs contaminated with Abyssal energy that they encountered along the way did not sense anything out of the ordinary.

However, Lin Huang and the rest could do nothing apart from shielding their aura.

They began chatting through voice transmission from sheer boredom.

“The plan is going pretty well so far. Have you all done any rough calculations on our chances of being able to successfully make it out of here?” Lin Huang could not help asking Virtuoso, who had come up with the idea.

“Theoretically…” Virtuoso paused and turned their head to look at Lin Huang, “The success rate is close to zero.”

“???” Lin Huang looked utterly bewildered. He had not expected Virtuoso to give such an answer.

However, the rest did not seem to be surprised at this reply.

“We’re not even entirely sure if the Tank Beetle is going in the correct direction,” Lan Ling delivered another piece of bad news.

“Didn’t you investigate the nearby distribution of the bugs earlier?” Lin Huang was even more puzzled now, “I think it shouldn’t be too hard to ascertain the general direction according to the rules of the bug distribution in the Demonic Bug Maze, right?”

Although the internal passages in the Demonic Bug Maze were complex, the distribution of bug beasts in the Maze followed the habitat rule of the Bug Tribe in the hive—the higher the level and combat strength of the bugs, the deeper their habitat would be in the Demonic Bug Maze.

Conversely, the lower their combat strength, the closer the bugs’ habitat would be to the maze’s exit.

Many people actually knew about this rule. However, as most probing techniques were restricted in the Demonic Bug Maze, not many were able to discover the distribution of the bugs.

Meanwhile, Lan Ling had used a spell to probe as soon as they were teleported here and had found out the distribution of monsters nearby.

This was also why Lin Huang was doubtful when Lan Ling said she was not sure of the general direction.

Lan Ling knew why Lin Huang was doubtful, so she explained immediately, “This Demonic Bug Maze is massive, and the interior is extremely vast. The distance between bugs is also very wide. My spell probe is a probing technique for short to medium distances. Moreover, as it’s affected by the Maze, the probing range becomes very limited.

“The probe I did earlier was only able to obtain information from five distributions. Although there is a mix of combat strength levels, I can’t be entirely sure that the two tribes with low combat strength are in the direction of the exit.

“Theoretically, the distribution of bugs follows the rule that the lower their combat strength, the closer they are to the exit. However, in reality, there’s a definite complexity to the bugs’ distribution in this Maze. The bugs are very close in terms of ability, so they might be in the same region.

“For instance, we’re currently going toward the Scarlet Centipedes. Although their average combat strength is merely third-rank heavenly god-level, they might be in the fourth-rank heavenly god-level bugs’ region, or even close to the fifth-rank heavenly god-level bugs’ region.

“We’re only judging based on partial distribution now. Scarlet Centipedes have rather low combat strength on average, so it’s possible that they’re closer to the exit. However, if we’re looking at this from the standpoint of the entire bug distribution, we might be going deeper into the maze.”

Lin Huang only understood what Lan Ling meant now. The bugs were not neatly distributed in the Demonic Bug Maze. It was just that as a whole, the habitat of the lower combat strength bugs would be closer to the exit. However, if they were looking at only a partial distribution, bugs that were close in combat strength would be mixed in the same region.

Therefore, they could not determine the actual direction just by looking at the bugs’ combat strength in a partial distribution.

Lin Huang also immediately understood why Virtuoso said the success rate for this escape plan might be near-zero.

This was because they might go through a lot of trial and error.

Given that the partial distribution of bugs according to combat strength might not be the same as the overall Bug Tribe combat strength, Lan Ling would have probe all over again every time they got to a certain distance.

If the probing result came out the same after many tries, it would prove that the Tank Beetle was going in the correct direction.

If the result was different, they might need to use another tunnel to go in another direction, until the result of multiple probes came out the same.

It was a process of constant trial and error.

However, the longer they stayed in the Demonic Bug Maze, the higher the chances of them being discovered.

“Fortunately, we’re currently in the Demonic Bug Maze’s outer region. Moreover, our situation is much better than those who have their probing techniques completely prohibited,” Tu Tong, who was off to one side, could not help commenting.

However, nobody knew whether he said this to console himself or to console others.

“Better my a*s, who comes into the Demonic Bug Maze to play around just because they’re bored?” Virtuoso ridiculed, not standing on ceremony. Clearly, they were pissed to have been teleported into the Demonic Bug Maze for no reason, “They’d better not let me find out who’s been pulling a fast one on us!”

“They better not let me find out who’s been pulling tricks!” The adjacent Saber9 also had a flash of killing intent in his eyes.

Both their Primordiums were big shots in the Club—big shots who might even have surpassed Lords.

If their clones died, they might really go into battle to avenge themselves.

Lan Ling and Tu Tong fell as silent as the grave when they heard that and did not dare say anything more.

Lin Huang, on the other hand, had no idea how powerful Virtuoso and Saber 9’s Primordiums were, so he did not really feel anything.

The Tank Beetle continued advancing, under Lan Ling’s control. After some twenty minutes, they finally arrived at the first destination of the plan – the gathering grounds of the Scarlet Centipedes.

The Scarlet Centipedes were not Bug Tribe beasts contaminated by Abyssal energy, but demons that were born in the Abyss.

These monsters bore some resemblance to bugs with many legs, like giant centipedes. Their bodies measured between eight to twelve meters and were wreathed in toxic red mist.

From birth, they had innate mastery of the Toxic Sequence of such poisons. A handful of gifted ones could even derive other sequence powers and Rule Bending Powers.

This was the first bug territory in the route Lan Ling had planned. They had to pass through this area anyway; there was no way of avoiding it or circumventing it.

She could only carefully control the Tank Beetle to get nearer to the Scarlet Centipedes’ territory.

When they arrived close to the Scarlet Centipedes’ territory, a few Centipedes soon surrounded them.

Lan Ling controlled the Tank Beetle to stop.

This was a routine check.

The several giant Centipedes lifted their massive, ugly heads and clustered around the Tank Beetle, sniffing. It was as if they did not register the rotten stench coming from it; instead, it looked as though they enjoyed it.

After circling the Tank Beetle a few times and sniffing at it, the several Scarlet Centipedes retreated.

Just when Lan Ling was about to control the Tank Beetle to leave, a Scarlet Centipede that was much bigger than the previous few barred the Tank Beetle’s way.

Not only was it much bigger, but it also had three heads.

The scarlet eyes on its three heads were staring at the Tank Beetle. A viscous purple liquid was flowing out of its three large mouths…

It did not discover anything unusual and merely thought the Tank Beetle was rather delicious.

Lin Huang and the rest were anxious; they were even ready to fight.

However, right at that point, a strange low hum sounded.

The three-headed Scarlet Centipede turned its head and glanced at the Scarlet Centipedes’ territory. It only hesitated for a moment, before retreating into the shadows…

Lan Ling hurriedly controlled the Tank Beetle to leave.

What Lin Huang and the rest did now know was that in the Scarlet Centipedes’ territory, a pitch-black centipede raised its head and glanced at the layers of hive walls, looking in the direction of where the Tank Beetle had departed…

“That was so close!”

Everyone was relieved when they left the Scarlet Centipedes’ gathering grounds. Tu Tong was the first to speak, unable to hold back.

“I’ve just found out that Scarlet Centipedes can grow three heads…” Lin Huang cared more about the Scarlet Centipede’s form.

Although they could not use Divine Telekinesis to probe what was happening outside, Lin Huang and the others could still see everything out there clearly, thanks to Lan Ling’s spell projection.

“The chances of mutated indigenous monsters in the Abyss are much higher than in other places. Some that look like distorted mutations to the outside world are actually a way for them to elevate. Just like that three-headed monster earlier—its level might be class-5.5, which has far surpassed its own tribe,” Virtuoso, who was next to them, explained calmly.

Not only Lin Huang, but even Tu Tong and Lan Ling fell silent at that. Clearly, it was their first time hearing about such a unique method of elevation.

“The three-headed Centipede doesn’t seem like the bugs’ leader though,” Lin Huang commented after that, “The one that released the low hum and stopped it from attacking us might be the real leader.”

“But I didn’t sense any more auras more powerful than the three-headed Centipede among the Scarlet Centipedes earlier.” Lan Ling, on the other hand, shook her head to voice her doubt.

“That was probably a Mother Bug. It might even be that three-headed Centipede’s mother.” It was Saber9 who explained this time.

The Mother Bug that he mentioned was not merely a female bug but also one that possessed reproductive ability. Mother Bugs had a high status in the Bug Tribe; they might even be the leaders of the entire Bug Tribe. Mother Bugs becoming leaders of the Bug Tribe had nothing to do with their abilities. Usually, this was determined by the number of offspring that had surpassed a specific ratio. (The Queen Mother was a special kind of Mother Bug. Among Mother Bugs, only those with reproductive abilities that had exceeded normal limits would be named Queen Mothers.)

“That Mother Bug is very wise. It’s probably fairly high-level…” Virtuoso smiled and noted.

Although they did not say it outright, Lin Huang and the rest caught the hidden meaning behind their words.

“Do you mean we’ve been discovered?!” Lin Huang asked immediately.

“There’s an eighty percent chance we’ve most probably been discovered.” Virtuoso nodded calmly.

Lin Huang was rather confused, as he had not noticed anything odd.

Tu Tong and Lan Ling had not noticed anything out of the ordinary either.

Noticing their confusion on their faces, Virtuoso then explained calmly, “The bugs don’t live in harmony with each other in Demonic Bug Mazes. Conflicts are common, and it’s something very normal for a single bug beast to be eaten by other bugs. That’s also the reason why we were stopped by the three-headed Scarlet Centipede.

“In reality, the three-headed Centipede was famished, and had already locked onto the Tank Beetle we’re in as its prey. Under normal circumstances, the Mother Bug wouldn’t stop it from hunting and eating since it was hungry. That’s because hunting a single Tank Beetle is nothing.

“However, it was strange that the Mother Bug was so eager to stop it from attacking us…

“The only reasonable explanation is that it discovered us hiding in the Tank Beetle’s body. It was even shrewd enough to speculate that its bugs would lose as soon as a fight broke out… To prevent the bugs from being hurt, the only choice it had was to release the Tank Beetle to avoid conflict with us.”

Lin Huang and the rest felt that Virtuoso’s speculation made sense after listening to their explanation.

“If it’s really as you say, then I suspect we’ve already been discovered by now.” Lin Huang rapidly became aware of another issue. “That Mother Bug must have already spread the news about us.”

Clearly, Virtuoso and the rest had realized this too. After a moment of silence, Virtuoso turned their head to look at Lan Ling, “Wait for a little and find an opportunity—we’ll change to another puppet.”

Lan Ling nodded immediately.

Approximately less than three minutes later, she found a second puppet—a Boa Worm.

The Boa Worm was a bug monster that looked like a massive boa constrictor but bore a slight resemblance to an earthworm as well. Its body was usually more than twenty meters long, and its forte was soil elemental truth.

If not for Lan Ling’s ability with spells, it would have been very difficult for even an ordinary Heavenly God to capture a Boa Worm, as they were extremely proficient in soil escape methods.

When they saw the Boa Worm appearing under Lan Ling’s control, Lin Huang and the rest abandoned the Tank Beetle. After killing it, they climbed into the Boa Worm’s body.

The Boa Worm might have been an expert in soil escape methods, but in reality, to Lin Huang and the rest, it was even more suitable as a means of transport.

There were many restrictions in the Demonic Bug Maze, as well as many places that the Boa Worm could not pass through with its escape method.

However, under Lan Ling’s control, the Boa Worm moved forward at least ten times faster than the Tank Beetle from before.

Meanwhile, within five minutes of their departure, a Bug Tribe team hastened to where the Tank Beetle’s carcass was.

“They must have hidden in the Tank Beetle’s back previously…” After some investigation, a few bugs soon noticed the sliced opening on the Tank Beetle’s back.

“They’ve already escaped. They must be hiding in another bug beast now.”

“The trail seems to be left by a Boa Worm…”

“It might just have been passing through.”

“Whether it’s a coincidence or not, we must strictly monitor all Boa Worm movements!”

Lin Huang and the others remained hiding in the Boa Worm, and progress was smooth.

Very soon, Lan Ling determined that the general direction they started in was the correct one.

They could not help but be relieved.

This was because they would have to backtrack if the direction was wrong. There might even be a great deal of trial and error involved to determine where the general direction of the exit was.

“Since we’re in the correct general direction, the next thing that we need to do is to look for the passageway that leads to the exit,” Virtuoso said calmly.

However, Lin Huang did not forget to remind them, “We still need to escape the bugs’ pursuit as well!”

They knew that by now, the news of them invading the Demonic Bug Maze would have already been broadcast everywhere.

Almost all the bugs from the shallower areas of the entire Maze had left their lairs in search of the five of them.

If the Bug Tribe’s probing techniques had not also been affected by the Demonic Bug Maze, the group might have been discovered way early on.

“We’ll fight our way out if we really can’t escape them!” Saber9’s tone was grim. He was obviously not joking, judging by the expression on his face—he genuinely had every intention of doing it.

“That has to be the last resort,” Lin Huang disagreed, “If we can, we should avoid battle as much as possible. After all, this is the Demonic Bugs’ lair. No matter how powerful our individual abilities are, we’re not Lords after all. We can’t hold off the entire Maze; it’s only a matter of time before we exhaust ourselves and die.”

Saber9 shot a glance at Lin Huang and said nothing more.

Lan Ling remained silent from beginning to end. Given that she was the one using spells to control the Boa Worm, she was the one who faced the most pressure out of everyone there. She did not have extra energy to participate in the discussion…

Lan Ling controlled the Boa Worm as they sneaked around, quietly slipping through a few of the bugs’ gathering places.

“We’re looking at first-rank heavenly god-level bug territory now. We should be close to the exit.” When Virtuoso finished speaking, they looked at Lan Ling. “You still haven’t found the tunnel that leads to the exit?”

“No…” Lan Ling shook her head helplessly.

A major difference between the Demonic Bug Maze and the Bug Tribe’s hive was that the combat strength disparity between bugs in the hive could be very big. Among the hives that had a heavenly god-level Queen Mother or Bug Queen as ruler, it was extremely normal to have Heavenly Gods, True Gods, and even virtual god-level Bug Tribe fighters in the hive together. However, it was different in a Demonic Bug Maze. In a Maze that was ruled by a Heavenly God, there would only be heavenly god-level bug beasts. If bug beasts below heavenly god-level came in, they would be treated as food and eaten.

Therefore, the first-rank heavenly god-level bug territory in the Demonic Bug Maze—where Lin Huang and the rest were now— housed the bugs with the lowest combat strength. Their gathering place was the shallowest layer in the entire Maze, and closest to the region where the Maze’s exit was.

Generally, there was more than one exit and entrance in a Demonic Bug Maze. However, there would not be many of them.

Judging from the scale of the Demonic Bug Maze that they were currently in, there should be four to six entrances and exits.

However, it meant that there would only be four to six passageways that led to the exits. Locating those few specific passageways among the tens of thousands of other complex passages was an astronomically difficult undertaking.

“The range of my probing ability is approximately thirty kilometers at most in this Maze. Furthermore, with the direction we’re traveling in, it’s still at least several thousand kilometers to the border region where the exit is—possibly even up to ten thousand kilometers… If we’re unlucky, I might need to probe up to a hundred times before I find the exit.” Lan Ling did not have any better ideas either. She could only look for the exit the hard way, probing repeatedly.

The rest were helpless too. After all, everyone’s probing techniques had been blocked. Lan Ling’s rather unusual spell ability was the only probing technique that could be used here.

Lin Huang pondered for a moment, then spoke up suddenly, “The efficiency of this method is too low.”

“You have a plan?” Virtuoso asked immediately. The rest looked at Lin Huang as well.

“I’m not sure how feasible it is, but we can try.” Lin Huang nodded, then said to Lan Ling, “Don’t go around the bugs when you encounter them later. Stop for a little bit.”

“Sure!” Lan Ling heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing someone taking the initiative to share her burden. She nodded immediately in agreement.

Very soon, she controlled the Boa Worm to slow down.

“There are a group of bugs approximately three kilometers ahead.”

Lin Huang nodded and eased himself half out of the Boa Worm’s back. As he moved his ten fingers slightly, tens of thousands of invisible Leech Pods wafted forth.

As the master of Monster Paradise, he could borrow Bloody’s Leech Pods ability with ease.

Leech Pods could be cast on all creatures with combat strength that was either the same as or lower than Bloody. Furthermore, she had gone into closed-door cultivation together with Kylie previously. Not only had she elevated to fifth-rank, but she had also achieved a breakthrough to first-rank heavenly god-level.

The Leech Pod ability was perfect for use in the current situation.

Lin Huang wriggled back into the Boa Worm’s body as soon as he was done releasing the Leech Pods.

Although Lan Ling’s projection allowed the others to see what he had done, they were not able to see the Leech Pods.

“What did you do?” Tu Tong was the first to ask as soon as Lin Huang returned, unable to restrain himself.

They did not use their sensing techniques, so it was only natural that they could not sense the Leech Pods.

“Just a little trick.” Lin Huang smiled but did not elaborate. “We’ll find out when we check out the bugs’ gathering place.”

“Are you sure you want us to barge in directly?” Virtuoso spoke before Lan Ling could ask any questions.

“Don’t all of you want to know what I did?” Lin Huang replied to Virtuoso, smiling.

Lan Ling, on the other hand, seemed to be hesitating a little. She was not sure if she should listen to Lin Huang.

Off to the side, Virtuoso fell silent for a moment, then nodded at Lan Ling. “Let’s go take a look.”

Lan Ling’s worries eased only after getting Virtuoso’s confirmation. She then controlled the Boa Worm and headed to the bugs’ gathering area.

A moment later, the Boa Worm arrived where the bugs were.

This was a group of Bladefoot Worms, approximately two thousand of them. Their bodies were purplish-black from being contaminated by Abyssal energy and were wreathed in black miasma. A number of them had mutated, sprouting even more strangely-shaped bladed feet on their bodies… They looked even more frightening than normal Bladefoot Worms.

However, what puzzled Virtuoso and the rest was that the Bladefoot Worms in front of them had tidily ordered themselves into a square formation.

Not only that, they did nothing when they saw the Boa Worm. They remained where they were neatly, seemingly waiting to be inspected.

“What is this…” Even Lan Ling thought this was rather unbelievable.

“I’ve never heard of an Imperial Censor who can control bugs, let alone control bugs from a distance.” Virtuoso glanced at Lin Huang. They were clearly somewhat surprised.

“I merely used a little trick,” Lin Huang said, smiling.

“If you’ve got such a trick up your sleeve, when didn’t you use it earlier?” Tu Tong asked from off to the side. He was not skeptical; instead, he was shocked.

“At the moment, I can only control first-rank heavenly god-level bugs at most. I can’t control those with higher combat strength,” Lin Huang explained rather helplessly. Naturally, he did not tell them that the reason for this was that Bloody—whom he had borrowed the ability from—only had the combat strength of a first-rank Heavenly God.

“To be able to control a group of first-rank Heavenly Gods while at true god-level—this trick of yours is already quite incredible,” Saber9, who had been quiet all along, gave his assessment apropos.

“What do you plan to do? Use these Bladefoot Worms to find the path for us?” Virtuoso asked.

“No, I’ll command a few of them to leave this Demonic Bug Maze from the closest exit,” Lin Huang answered unexpectedly. “We just need to follow them secretly.”

The others understood Lin Huang’s intentions immediately.

There was no way of retrieving information from the Bug Tribe beasts’ minds, as they were contaminated with Abyssal energy. However, the beasts definitely knew where the Demonic Bug Maze’s exits were.

Although Lin Huang’s command was simple, he could very efficiently turn the Bladefoot Worms into their guides.

“That’s a great idea!” When Virtuoso and the others heard that, their eyes lit up.

At that moment, six Bladefoot Worms emerged from the multitude. They formed a small group and left quickly in a specific direction.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Bladefoot Worms that were in formation soon resumed their usual relaxed mode.

“Follow them!” Lin Huang said to Lan Ling immediately.

Lan Ling hurriedly controlled the Boa Worm to follow behind the group of Bladefoot Worms.

“You’ve even specifically put together a search team. What a smart trick!” Virtuoso gave Lin Huang a thumbs-up. “Nobody would suspect them even if they ran into other search teams.”

“Details determine whether a plan succeeds or fails,” Lin Huang said expressionlessly.

“I have a question. Can you control more Bug Tribe monsters with this ability?” Lan Ling could not help asking.

“Yes.”

“Then how many can you control at the most?” Lan Ling questioned further.

Lin Huang turned his head to glance at her, giving her a slight smile. “That’s a secret.”

“…” Not just Lan Ling, but the rest were also bereft of speech.

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.

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…

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?”