Sun Xin began to feel drowsy, as if a force was twisting and spreading within his skull, with the phantom of a station platform about to emerge!
Ma Chao’s train was hurtling through the void, approaching.
Suddenly, at that moment, a temporal feedback sound appeared.
[Shao Min returned my 1N investment.]
Sun Xin’s face froze for a second, then he vanished from the spot with a whoosh.
The White Shadow Thought-Dragon, rampaging the room, lifted its head.
The man, chased and desperate, screamed “Ah!” and leaped over the railing from upstairs, caring no longer what lay below, hoping only to escape this nightmare.
Less than two seconds later, a dull explosion sounded from below.
Yang Zicang, who had thrown the pebble, estimated his accumulated temporal energy—already over 15,000 years.
“？”
Through the Silent Night, Yang Zicang clearly sensed that the person posing the greatest threat to the White Shadow Thought-Dragon had suddenly disappeared.
……
A-Level Interlaced Space.
Under the dark gray clouds, the demon’s wings flying in the sky twisted and fell.
Two deformed monster corpses lay on the ground.
“As expected of the big shots from the Xiongying Group—they work fast.”
Opposite Yu Fei stood four individuals, radiating an aura of pressure.
These were the formidable experts in the Xiongying Group, named after figures from literary classics. Even with just four people, they made rapid progress in this A-Level Interlaced Space; each one of them was stronger than Yu Fei’s entire team.
Beside Yu Fei, Huang Zhaoming, wearing a denim suit, wiped the sweat from his face with a hint of excitement.
“Deputy Yu, this is already the second scene barrier. At this rate, we’ll probably be able to open the gate to that town in just a few dozen hours.”
This was something Huang Zhaoming wouldn’t have dared to imagine before.
Zhao Yun came over and said, “Captain Huang, according to my informant, Zhou Heng is looking for you.”
“Looking for me? What does he want from me? A big shot like him.”
“Of course, to ask how many of us are here. Cut off your Mental Link quickly and let him take a look.”
The Shennv Alliance members resting on the ground immediately scrambled to their feet, staring in terror at the four members of the Xiongying Group, whose faces remained calm.
“Has headquarters found out? Who leaked the information?”
Sly dealings with the other side in the dark were one thing here and there. But now, a bunch of experts from headquarters had gathered around the rat cave. To be found out at this moment—wasn’t that asking for death?
Zhao Yun smiled faintly. “I believe it’s not your doing. But right now, there are indeed signs that our entry into the A-level Interleaving Zone has been leaked.”
“No… that can’t be.”
Yu Fei felt a pang of panic—this crystal had been exchanged from headquarters with his own resources.
“Then let’s get out of here quickly and seal the entrance using frequency crystals. There’s no way we can let them discover us.”
Just then…
“Leave? Where do you think you’ll be going?”
Mist cascaded down from the sky, silhouettes of several figures appeared in the distance, and Yu Fei was shocked to realize they had already entered the Interleaving Zone.
Yu Fei shouted nervously, “Wasn’t the spatial gate sealed? How did they get in!”
He turned his head to look at the handsome man who was tossing the crystal in his hand.
Zhao Yun smiled and said, “Of course I… let them in.”
The members of the Divine Maiden Brotherhood instantly felt their scalps tingle.
……
Zhao Yun raised his head, his gaze falling on the six people emerging from the mist, and curled the corners of his mouth:
“Didn’t ten people come? Oh, afraid that the moonshadow would appear in the Intersecting Land, so they stayed outside?”
Among those from headquarters, the one in front used slender fingers to take off his crystal-clear glasses, pulled a cloth from his cotton thin shirt to wipe them, and looked up at the other side with a smile.
“You really are here, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Sun Shangxiang, and Turtle Though Beast. Ha, four of the top eight from the Heroes’ Division’s Famous Division are all here. Huang Zhaoming, we really have to thank you—this time we can wipe out these people in one fell swoop.”
Zhao Yun raised the frequency crystal in his hand, which emitted a red light, and the entrance to this Intersecting Land shook and closed.
Feeling the Intersecting Land sealed off, beside Zhou Heng, who was wiping his glasses, a big man in a shirt pushed up his sunglasses and said:
“We were already prepared for that move of yours. But no matter, as long as we kill you, we can seize the frequency crystal.”
“What if we just leave directly?”
“……”
Tong Wenqi from headquarters chuckled and said, “That doesn’t matter either. Letting everyone know you fled like beaten dogs would only add to our department’s prestige.”
Zhou Heng’s gaze carried a faint murderous intent:
“Just surrender. It’ll be better for both of us, you monsters who have abandoned human emotions.”
The man in the duckbill cap, bearing the name Zhao Yun, let out a cold snort: “So, is a city that forbids killing yet allows robbery, fraud, and threats against the disabled walking freely considered righteous?”
“Construction cannot be achieved in a single step.”
“If that’s the case, then you can stay here and stabilize the interlaced ground slowly, building it bit by bit. We’ve already been in; the quota is taken. Once you enter Pivot Town, we can easily get in ourselves.”
“You guys!” Huang Zhaoming and the others, including Yu Fei, looked at Xiongying Group’s members in panic—was that their true aim?
Behind Ma Chao, who was clad in armor, energy rapidly converged, and a mist-shrouded platform emerged, overlapping with the underground basement.
Woo¬Hoo ~*
The phantom sound of a high-speed train echoed in the minds of the group.
With a hissing sound, the ochre-yellow subway car burst through the barriers separating reality, perfectly charging onto the platform materialized from sheer illusion.
“Stop them!”
Power flashed across the six members of Zhou Heng’s team. The air in this space roared with a muffled boom as streaks of blade energy cut through.
Suddenly, Zhou Heng’s expression shifted.
[I’ve failed. Respawn points taken 1N.]
“So, you’ve realized it now,” Zhao Yun said, his eyes flickering with a cold gleam. “Hmph, did you think we only came with four this time? We brought the entire force here.”
Ma Chao smirked: “Lu Bu has long been waiting at the entrance to the intersection. Your four rear-guard comrades might as well stick out their necks and await death!”
Zhou Heng’s pupils constricted sharply. The moment the entrance closed, another feedback came through.
[I have already fallen 1N.]
[I am already out of order 1N.]
In just three seconds—one second per report—three HQ experts sealed outside the door had perished.
How could they die so fast? Those were elite members of the headquarters!
“Quick! We must trap them here!”
Two quadrilateral lights flickered. Blazing flames tinged with red erupted from their bodies as they charged toward the train opposite them.
Yet the gap between them and those four men was, compared to the distance to the train, far too vast.
Suddenly, a refracted beam of light shot toward them—it was Yan Yi, frantic with worry.
{Something’s wrong, Zhou Heng!}
[We’ve already figured it out! This is a diversion, a lure-away scheme!]
{No, that’s not it!}
Before Yan Yi could finish speaking, everyone trapped in this sequential dilation zone heard a weighty, disappointed voice.
[The Defender has been born. The final cultivators are Lu Zhishen and Huang Zhong.]
[All candidates must do their utmost to confront the Defender’s onslaught and seal it within one hour. If they fail, everyone in the zone will lose three hundred years of their lifespan.]
Countless people within the zone listened in shock to the voice that had suddenly manifested in their minds.
“Huang Zhong? Who’s that? Has the Chivalrous Group produced another classical expert?”
“How could this be!”
Some who stood near the edge of the zone scrambled to flee outward, desperately trying to evade the punishment from the timed reduction.
Zhao Yun looked into the distance at Zhou Heng and the others:
“Ha, it’s quite nice to see you looking so humiliated.”
“What do you think? Surprised, huh? The nest that was guarded by hundreds of people, yet someone managed to infiltrate it unnoticed. Haha, this time it was really easy.” Another member of the Xiongying Team mocked.
A burly man behind Zhou Heng shouted in fury, “How the hell did you get in?”
The only woman among Zhao Yun’s group of four was a middle-aged woman, and the diffusion of acoustic wave-like barriers in front of her blocked most of the attacks.
“The people born on that bus are all excellent. You have Yang Zicang, and we also have an additional member, Huang Zhong. As for what his accompanying ability is, you can try to guess. I recall there is someone among you who enjoys speculating about the direction of events; is he here?”
The four entered the subway train behind Ma Chao.
Zhao Yun tossed the frequency crystal in his hand while casting a glance at Zhou Heng, who had calmed down again.
“If you want to survive, stabilize the space with all your might.”
“Farewell, everyone.”
“Wait for us…” Seeing that the Xiongying Group had no intention of taking them along, Shennv Brothers Alliance’s Yu Fei and the others looked in fear toward the approaching headquarters members behind them.
Boom! The train instantly accelerated from a standstill, turning into an afterimage that twisted the platform like distorted ink wash painting, carrying this energy and dissipating onto the grassland.
The six of them rushed in front of the train that had vanished.
Huang Zhaoming, the captain of the Shennv Alliance, gritted his teeth as their scheme fell apart, saying, “Hurry up and enter another intersecting scene!”
The burly man beside Zhou Heng raised his hand, and the ground beneath them exploded violently. A pillar of earth radiating a golden-red faint light, like a massive steel fang, pierced through Huang Zhaoming’s body.
The burly man glared fiercely at the members of the Shennv Brothers Alliance, snarling, “You helped them trap us? How dare you! Run again if you can!”
The remaining members dared not move, their legs weak as they cowered before these several experts from headquarters.
“Please, don’t kill us. We only wanted to stabilize the intersecting ground—this wasn’t our scheme.” Standing beside the corpse of Captain Huang, the men trembled and pleaded.
Beside Zhou Heng, a member of the Monster Hunter camp offered a suggestion:
“Now that things have come to this, let’s spare their lives. We need to stabilize this space quickly to open the entrance to Hub Town so we can get out of here.”
Upon hearing someone interceding on their behalf, the members of the Shennv Brothers Alliance clung to a flicker of hope.
But this would inevitably waste a great deal of time.
Zhou Heng had already contacted those within the area to flee as quickly as possible, at any cost.
Though the Temporal Diffusion Field appeared to be controlled by the Monster Hunter Alliance, the Xiongying Team had just executed a diversionary tactic to instantly turn the tide of this game.
Yu Fei, facing Zhou Heng and the others who were approaching, forced a smile that was uglier than tears:
“Yes, we’ll do our utmost to stabilize the space quickly, and we won’t dare contact them again. These people simply don’t care whether we live or die.”
The big man who had killed Huang Zhaoming calmed down a bit, tucked his head, hands on his hips, and walked back a few steps, considered as agreeing with this suggestion.
Only Zhou Heng pushed his glasses up.
“It’s already too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kill them all. That way, Ma Chao won’t be able to return through the implanted platform.”
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