Chapter 348

Chapter 348: Killing Intent!

Yu Sheng’s heart lurched.

A vast, boundless power—or rather, an intent—surged through his mind like a gale, crossing time and space to slam into him. His vision swam. After a brief, dizzy reset, he opened his eyes again and found the darkness had retreated.

He stood in an endless sea of yellow sand.

Foxy was beside him, hugging two tails like a bodyguard and scanning the surroundings. Irene weighed heavy on his shoulder. Luna stood a short distance ahead and to the side. Xuan Che had already started popping pills.

“Whoa…” Irene stared at the dunes and let out a small gasp. “Yeah, okay. If nobody told me, I’d never guess this is where you end up after walking down that mine slope.”

“This is one of Otherworld’s illusion realms you can reach by taking that path,” Xuan Che said. “Everyone stay sharp. According to the cultivator who reported back after investigating, even scenes we’ve already confirmed will change each time you enter—the details, what appears, all of it.”

Irene responded offhandedly, then watched Luna for a bit and suddenly blurted, “Hey, C Buckle, you’re wearing high heels in a desert. Don’t you sink? What’s the principle?”

Luna moved her limbs, like she was trying hard to explain why she could move freely in sand. She struggled for a long time, then finally spat out two words. “Training.”

Listening to them, Yu Sheng felt more and more that something was off. He couldn’t hold it in. “Didn’t any of you hear a voice when we came in? Like a bunch of people shouting together.”

“A bunch of people shouting?” Foxy tilted her head. “Nope. Didn’t hear anything.”

You didn’t? Yu Sheng’s stomach tightened. Only he had heard it?

Xuan Che’s face instantly turned serious. “What kind of shouting?”

“I couldn’t make it out. It was all booming echoes. I only caught a few words—something about ‘activate’ and ‘grand formation.'”

“Activate the grand formation?!” Xuan Che whipped around, staring into the deep sands as if guarding against a trap. But after scanning the surroundings, he found nothing beyond distant, ruin-like shadows stretching across the dunes. There was no sign of any grand formation triggering.

“There is no formation here,” Xuan Che said, voice tight. “Or the formation has fused into nature so perfectly it cannot be sensed. But if Mr. Yu truly heard it, then something is wrong.”

Foxy didn’t hesitate. Light flared around her as she transformed directly into a huge nine-tailed silver fox.

Yu Sheng opened a door at his side and pulled out his tetanus staff. Then he opened another small door and yanked out Rebar Irene to mount on his shoulder.

The doll was completely dazed at being hauled out. It took a moment for her to blink herself awake.

“Let’s check that way first,” Xuan Che said, drawing his ice-cold sword and pointing toward the distant ruin-shadows. “The exit should be in those ruins.”

Yu Sheng jumped onto Foxy’s back. “Go!”

They rushed toward the shadows. The demon fox ran like thunder. Xuan Che turned into a light wind. Even Luna—usually slow—regained her elegant, ghostlike stride when she moved. With her short-range space teleportation, she even took the lead the whole way.

And then Yu Sheng finally saw what those “ruins” truly were.

“What the…?”

The group stopped.

Yu Sheng craned his neck, staring at huge golden-armored giants half-buried in sand. One propped itself up on a long halberd. Another had tilted and fallen, swallowed by dunes. From far away they were shadows. Up close, they were towering figures, each more than ten meters tall.

They wore golden armor and helms and held long halberds. Their faces were hidden behind heavy masks. They stood like statues, ancient and silent, while the sand slowly claimed them.

“Are these… locals from the Grand Void Spiritual Axis too?” Yu Sheng stood on Foxy’s head and still had to look up. After a long moment, he turned to Xuan Che. “These look even taller than Snow White Princess’s Thunder Titan!”

Xuan Che frowned. He flew up, leapt onto one giant’s arm, and examined something closely. After a moment, he jumped back down.

“Automaton.”

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow. “Automaton?”

“Yes. The top-tier kind.” Xuan Che’s voice grew heavy. “A Formation-Breaking Giant Divine Armament—peak grade.”

“And…?” Yu Sheng asked.

Xuan Che lifted his hand and traced lines in the air. Spiritual light formed an ancient, intricate rune. Only then did he speak, low and grim. “The mark of Reclining Cloud Ten Halls.”

“Reclining Cloud Ten Halls?” Yu Sheng processed it, then remembered. “Wait—the Reclining Cloud Ten Halls, one of the five great sects on the Grand Void Spiritual Axis? The one you said was good at artifact forging and city-building… These automatons were built by them?!”

Xuan Che nodded slowly, confusion threading through his tone. “Yet I’ve never heard of them building this model of giant divine armament. An automaton of this level—if it had truly been made and used—could never be hidden from the world.”

“And don’t forget this is Otherworld,” Irene added. “Why would their automatons be inside Otherworld?”

Xuan Che didn’t answer. His expression darkened.

Then Irene snapped her head up again, staring into the sandy shadows between the giants.

“Killing intent!”

Again?

Yu Sheng barely had time to think before his spiritual intuition tightened. The next second, shadows wriggled and rose in the distance. A shriek split the air as something charged through the sandstorm.

Several figures in black robes and black armor, faces covered by bizarre masks, burst from the shadows like lightning and lunged straight at Yu Sheng’s group beneath the giant divine armaments!

“Holy shit!” Yu Sheng shouted. “There really is killing intent!”

He only got that much out before a chilling light slammed toward his face—a flying sword wrapped in the sound of wind and thunder. He threw up his arm to block. The impact numbed him. Foxy jerked back two steps, helping him bleed off the force. Her nine tails spread like a blooming fan, and a storm of foxfire turned into a barrage that hammered down on the black-robed cultivator!

Irene’s black spider silk and scorching ray erupted together, pinning several attackers and wrecking their momentum. In that brief window, Xuan Che burned several talismanic runes he’d been holding the whole time, swallowed more elixir, and charged a black-robed cultivator. He threw a plain, brutal straight punch.

“Medical Brawl Exploding Fist!”

Yu Sheng almost slipped off Foxy’s head. This honest buddy really shouted the name.

The attacker barely dodged the punch, flashed back, and a long sword appeared in his hand. He stabbed straight at Xuan Che’s face.

Xuan Che was just as fast. He slipped the blade and struck out with his palm. Thunder wrapped the strike. The air compressed and ignited, exploding with a deafening crack.

“Doctor-Patient Relationship Correction Palm!”

The black-robed cultivator’s reaction slowed by half a beat—whether from crushing pressure or sheer disbelief at the move name. He still got hit.

But the expected explosive death didn’t happen. Colors flared across the black armor. Sharp cracks followed as a treasure hanging on the attacker’s chest shattered into pieces. He had taken the palm hit without injury by sacrificing the artifact, then retreated instantly, widening the gap from Xuan Che.

Pain flashed in his eyes at the loss of his protective treasure, but his stance remained steady. Once he planted his feet, he swung his sword again. The killing intent in that strike surged to its peak.

At the same time, several enemies focused on the most conspicuous presence: the nine-tailed silver fox. A handful of black-robed cultivators formed a battle array. Hazy light rose around them, and they actually withstood a full round of foxfire gatling barrage. Then they lunged straight for Yu Sheng atop Foxy’s head.

Not for any deep reason. Yu Sheng stood on the nine-tailed silver fox’s head with two short, laser-and-spider-silk cannons on his shoulder. Anyone who looked that much like a boss got targeted.

But in the next instant, a ghostlike figure leapt from the sand. With movements like a dance, it disrupted the attackers’ array. Razor-edged blades slashed down, forcing the lead enemy to halt and dodge.

Luna stepped lightly and elegantly through them. Metal rang in a rapid chorus.

In combat, she looked like a different person. Nothing remained of her usual slowness, her occasional freezing.

The leading black-robed cultivator felt true danger for the first time. He stared at Luna’s tall figure standing in the sand and sensed something else coiling around her—thicker than killing intent. A pure death intent brewed in the air, dense and cold.

Behind that smiling, pale face was a gaze that watched corpses.

“Everyone, be careful!” the leader shouted. “This automaton has ancient—”

Before he could finish, Luna vanished.

In the next blink, she was right in front of him. Ten fingertip blades stabbed straight in.

But the leader was formidable. Even under that ambush, he reacted. His sword danced, blocking every strike. He sprang back, and behind him rose a phantom treasure mirror. Light spilled across its surface. In an instant, it reflected Luna’s figure and locked her in midair!

Not much, the black-robed cultivator rejoiced inwardly. He stepped forward to take the steel doll’s life.

Then, in the next second, an endless wilderness rushed at him.

The Nether River hung inverted across the sky. A gray wasteland stretched without end. A soul-piercing cold wind howled. And a blond female knight in holy armor stood before him.