Chapter 111
Chapter 111
As the rough black diamonds pierced the gunmen, Xiao Huai suddenly felt as though his own heart had been impaled.
In that instant–
He saw the grotesque grins on the gunmen’s faces.
[Warning! Special dead spirit attacked. Sanity decreased by 1. Current Sanity: 49. Pain received has doubled.]
[Warning! Special dead spirit attacked. Sanity decreased by 1. Current Sanity: 48. Pain received has doubled.]
Xiao Huai’s lips turned pale, and a fine layer of sweat appeared across his cheeks.
The gods who admired him felt their hearts draw tight as bowstrings. They could see something was wrong and had little desire to watch a favored player die on the mere third floor.
Even though they knew how vicious this battle would become.
Other gods had already grown uncontrollably excited. They immediately disavowed the faint fondness they had begun feeling for Xiao Huai and sighed, “Humans are humans. Unbelievably fragile.”
But at that moment, they heard a sound that should never have existed on a battlefield.
They heard…
Xiao Huai laughing.
Xiao Huai slowly lifted his head. The smile at the corner of his mouth resembled fireworks blooming across the night sky, striking hard at every god’s visual senses.
“I really do hate this instance.”
Laughing coldly, he emptied his entire balance of Survival Coins.
Every potion capable of restoring Sanity was expensive. But after three game instances, it was not as though he had accumulated nothing.
Survival Coins had many uses. Even though his store was only Level Two, saving money was never a bad idea.
But this was not the time to save.
The fiery feathers grew more powerful. Xiao Huai ignored the pain entirely and smiled into the distance.
A cold smile crossed his face. Rough black diamonds pierced the bodies of countless monsters, and he did not so much as furrow his brows.
But the fine sweat on his forehead revealed how badly he was suffering.
Moisture clung to his lashes. The rough black diamonds reflected the flames, and his gaze made everything boil.
Xiao Huai injected a white potion into his neck, his voice emerging from the depths of his throat with merciless indifference.
“If you want to kill me, we’ll see whether I fall first or every last one of you dies.”
His life was burning. His soul was shining.
The battlefield was deafening, yet to the gods in the livestream, all the surrounding noise seemed to vanish. Details they had never noticed before were magnified without limit.
They watched Xiao Huai in absolute silence.
System alerts shrieked through his mind again and again while his Sanity fluctuated wildly.
The monsters’ attacks had visibly slowed. Xiao Huai did not relax, nor did he remain standing in place.
What had happened all those years ago? What had the prince done? Other than curses, what else did this place contain?
He reminded himself not to forget why he had come.
To hunt for treasure.
If this was a treasure hunt, the purpose could not be to trap him in an unwinnable battle.
Dragging this out would do him no good.
The corner of his mouth lifted. One thing had remained present ever since he entered the Lost Land.
Time.
[3. Curfew lasts from three to six in the morning. Anyone who leaves their room will die.]
When he first entered the Lost Land, the time had been twelve thirty-two. Back then, he had wandered around the Kingdom of Lande like a tourist.
But the moment the time reached three, everything changed. The world became dangerous, making it difficult to focus.
What if… the time he had been given in advance was meant to let him memorize the terrain? To remember certain routes?
One question had remained since the very beginning of the game.
Why had he received the Topographic Map of the Pudu Desert when he became the Holy Father?
If he had never played the guide, what use would that map have served?
Light flashed through his eyes, and the Topographic Map of the Pudu Desert appeared in his hand.
Xiao Huai’s pupils contracted, and his smile deepened.
At last, he had guessed correctly.
The Topographic Map of the Pudu Desert looked nothing like it had at first. It radiated an eerie blue light.
Two points of light appeared on the map.
One shone red, the other gold.
Whenever Xiao Huai moved, the red light moved with him.
The red point represented Xiao Huai himself.
He understood.
He searched the fragments of his memory. The treasure map he had received earlier depicted the Kingdom of Lande.
He combined that knowledge with the landmarks he had memorized while wandering through the Lost Land.
The golden light had to be inside the palace!
Reaching it from his current location would take only thirty minutes.
Xiao Huai had no desire to prolong the fight. He turned and ran east.
The monsters seemed to sense that something was wrong and became even more frantic.
Xiao Huai had long since grown accustomed to their methods of attack. Their attempts to stop him were useless, and the fierce wind swept back the young man’s fringe.
When he glanced at the monsters from the corner of his eye, he looked like a young deer leaping into a deep forest, vivid light filling his eyes.
A cunning, mischievous smile touched their corners.
As though he were bidding farewell to everything.
He stretched out a hand. Flames carried a petal-shaped piece of black diamond to the highest point in the sky.
With a boom, he truly created a firework.
In an instant, the firework shaped by Lethal Lotus dyed the sky crimson, its brilliance scorching the distant clouds as it bloomed.
Xiao Huai laughed softly. When the sparks fell, they became lethal meteors.
The pain attached to every monster he destroyed slowed his steps, but he merely gritted his teeth. After one light tremor passed through his body, he charged east again.
He ran until he lost all sense of time. Without him noticing, the monsters had long since stopped pursuing him.
The time read [4:12].
Lethal Lotus had entered cooldown, leaving his current combat strength rather low.
Beneath the night sky, a ruined palace appeared before him.
Only the frame remained of its main gate, swaying as though about to collapse.
Xiao Huai staggered to the entrance. His stomach churned, and his internal organs felt as though they had shattered.
“Cough…” Xiao Huai clutched his abdomen. Unable to suppress the nausea born of pain, he spat a mouthful of black blood onto the ground.
His brows drew tightly together, and his body trembled faintly. Then he tucked away his vulnerability once more, light shining within his eyes.
There was no point making a fuss over it.
He clenched his hand and took out the map again.
The golden light lay directly ahead.
The instant he wiped the blood from his mouth and stepped into the palace, earthshaking shrieks came from every direction.
“Ahhhhh!!”
Xiao Huai’s frown deepened. His eardrums felt ready to burst.
As expected, there was a reason the monsters had stopped following him.
They were afraid of the creatures inside the palace.
With the fearless recklessness of a novice, Xiao Huai entered without the slightest hesitation, even though he was practically half crippled.
There was no fear in his eyes. They seemed to hold the faint afterglow of sunset, gentle enough to calm the heart.
He gave a soft sigh. “Mm… It seems I really can’t go any farther alone for now.”
Four three-legged crows occupied the eastern, western, southern, and northern sides of the palace. The shrieks had come from them, and their eyes were filled with vicious hostility.