Sizzle—

The Tyrant's Barricade Spear, infused with the divine power of the swamp, erupted with a sound like water poured into a hot oil pan the moment it touched the black, particulate smoke on the surface of the shadow demon.

The black mist roiled, the tiny cyclones swirling around the beast rapidly circulating, agitating the air and creating thousands of thrusts in different directions, crisscrossing and intersecting, like a blender, trying to grind anything caught within into pieces.

However, divine power surged forth, like a vast ocean current, creating a tough barrier on the surface of the Tyrant's Barricade Spear, disregarding the cost and stubbornly blocking all counterattacks.

This allowed the sharp spear blade to steadily and quickly push downward, cutting and tearing through the shadow demon's body.

Skin, tendons, bones...

Accompanied by a dense and noisy cracking sound, the spear cut through most of the shadow demon's neck, severing its entire spine, and slicing out from under its right arm.

The shadow demon's head was only connected by a layer of skin and flesh at the edge of its neck, wobbling weakly in the air. It tried to roar, but the strength in its body and the light in its scarlet eyes rapidly faded.

Its massive body slowly knelt forward, as if in slow motion.

With a crash, it slammed onto the ground, splashing green blood.

“...”

Li Ang's gaze sharpened as he stepped on the invisible steps created by the Ti Yun Zong (sky walking) technique.

The Tyrant's Barricade Spear swept down again, completely severing the shadow demon's upper right body, including its head.

Then, using the invisible steps, he retreated dozens of meters to prevent the corpse from self-destructing or causing other mutations.

Fortunately, after waiting for several seconds, the corpse did not change, and the black mist enveloping the huge room gradually withered and dissipated with the death of the shadow demon.

The Kuiniu (夔牛) mech and Liu Wudai slowly descended to a corner of the room with gravel, cautiously taking two steps forward to confirm the demon's complete death.

“It's dead?”

Ding Zisi switched the scanner back to low-power mode and asked hesitantly, “I thought its vitality would be a little more tenacious...”

“This creature was already at the end of its rope.”

Li Ang said lightly, “If I'm not mistaken, it should have died long ago. It's only been able to survive until now thanks to the Jishi Qi (積屍氣, accumulated corpse energy) formed by the monster corpses in these underground palaces.”

“Jishi Qi?”

A look of surprise appeared on Ding Zisi's face. He was about to ask another question, but Li Ang raised his hand to interrupt him, “Let's contact Hohenheim and the others first.”

He picked up the [Lightning Eleven Intercom] with the number 5 sticker from his waist and pressed the button, “Hello, anyone there? Can you hear me?”

A burst of static white noise sounded from the intercom, probably due to the signal weakening effect of the entire underground palace, which the players had heard during previous experiments.

Li Ang waited for a few seconds and repeated himself. This time, the intercom responded.

“Yes... can hear you.”

Hohenheim's voice sounded on the intercom, “I'm still alive.

The black smoke emitted by that monster had a teleportation effect. I'm now in a room full of traps.

Are you all okay? What happened to that monster?”

“David and Amberlee were also teleported away and are missing. We're fine. That monster is dead.”

Li Ang briefly summarized the current situation. Not long after, David and Amberlee's voices also sounded in the intercom network.

The former had been teleported to a room with incredibly smooth walls that were difficult to climb, and the doors were all on the ceiling.

The latter had fallen into a room full of cooled lava.

The situation wasn't too bad. With their strength, the traps in these rooms couldn't stop them.

The only problem was finding the way back to the exit of the underground palace.

“Everyone, don't turn off the intercom yet. The orange indicator light on the intercom actually has a certain positioning function. The closer you are to the host, which is the number one machine I'm holding, the faster the indicator light will flash.”

Hohenheim's voice was calm, “The magnitude of this change in flicker is very, very small for normal people and cannot be seen at all.

However, if your perception attribute is higher than or equal to twelve points, plus some buffs that enhance visual reaction speed, you should be able to see it.

Mr. David and Ms. Amberlee should be fine. We will regroup first, and then return to the room where the shadow demon is to find you. Is that okay?”

Hmm?

Li Ang raised an eyebrow. Hohenheim had not mentioned that these props had a positioning effect to some extent when he introduced the functions of the [Lightning Eleven Intercom].

But this was normal. Even in the high-level first echelon, there was no shortage of infighting between randomly matched players (in some ways, there was even more).

Li Ang had also prepared his own countermeasures.

In addition, the intercoms other than number one only had a positioning effect on the host, meaning that only others could track the host, and the host couldn't track others, which was acceptable.

As for whether Hohenheim was lying...

Probably not. This kind of petty scheming in a team could only be exposed once, and there couldn't be a second time.

Li Ang closed the mental network of the Group Mind Link, and together with Liu Wudai, turned off their respective intercoms, leaving only the one in Ding Zisi's hand for Hohenheim to report the location—by informing Hohenheim of the change in the distance between the two sides through the change in the flashing frequency of the indicator light.

After all, among the three, only the Kuiniu mech could see the change in the indicator light without much effort.

After making preparations,

the three people present began to wait for David, Hohenheim, and the others to return.

The mission had a time limit of 18 hours, which was relatively sufficient, so they could wait for a while.

The Special Affairs Bureau timing function module installed inside the Kuiniu mech could also ensure that there would be no "the underground palace environment is special, making people unable to feel the passage of time, thus exceeding the time limit"—this kind of time trap had appeared in many arena game cases.

“It really is stinky.”

Standing at the edge of the pool of blood, Li Ang took out steel plates from the backpack, threw them into the pool of blood, and walked step by step towards the shadow demon's corpse, while marveling, “This feeling is like herring cans mixed with boiled durian, snail noodles, stinky tofu, Icelandic shark meat, and Eskimo marinated sea swallows, boiled into a thick soup, and eaten deliciously.”

Liu Wudai, who was wearing a full-coverage gas mask next to him, showed a strange expression on her face.

The smell in this room was indeed extremely strong. Even though she was wearing a very high-quality mask that could completely filter the air, she still felt a burning and irritating sensation.

She silently pressed down on the gas mask, thinking that she would have to do a set of disinfection procedures on her equipment later. She stepped on the steel plate that Li Ang had thrown into the pool of blood and said softly, “Is there a problem with the respirator you're wearing?”

With her discerning eye for props that she often purchased at the mall auction house, the quality of the gas mask under Li Ang's dragon head mask was probably not very high, and its ability to isolate the air

certainly wasn't as good as her mask, and the air internal circulation system of Ding Zisi's Kuiniu mech.

“No problem, thank you for your concern.”

Li Ang grinned and didn't explain that he actually had two sets of lung air circulation systems, and that his nose and skin all over his body had completed special evolutions, which could filter toxic gases, and could also close the pores all over his body to block internal and external air, relying entirely on internal organs to complete oxygen circulation.

If he wasn't afraid of being too weird, he could even directly insert an oxygen cylinder into his skin and calmly continue the mission.

“Okay.”

Liu Wudai nodded. Since Li Ang said there was no problem, then there probably wasn't a problem.

She turned around, looked at the dissolving black mist floating on the ceiling, and said softly, “These are, substantialized negative energy, right?”

“To some extent, that's actually corpse odor.”

Li Ang looked at the shadow demon's corpse and said casually, “This room is airtight, the temperature is higher than the outside room temperature, and the air is humid.

A large number of biological remains are piled up together, just like fermentation, the longer it takes, the stronger the taste.”

As he spoke, he casually pointed at the mountain of remains and released the [Scattering Shards] skill, blasting away a pile of remains on the surface of the mountain. Just then, a suspicious organ fell in front of him.

“See this organ? It looks very fresh, with no signs of decay at all. But... in fact, it should have been dead for many, many years.”

Li Ang squatted down and covered the surface of the organ with swamp divine power, isolating the surrounding air.

The organ then rapidly decayed and withered at a speed visible to the naked eye.

“The environment of this room is special. The negative energy generated by the massive biological remains forms a certain cycle in the closed environment, protecting the mountain of remains from rotting, and also preventing the shadow demon from aging.

If the external environment remains unchanged, it will always remain in a dormant state—like hibernating in a refrigerator.

Metabolism is reduced to the limit.”

Li Ang casually threw away the organ, stood up, and said lightly, “I saw this information in a mystical book from another world.

According to the records in the book,

this kind of energy field is called Jishi Qi, which is sometimes generated by chance under special external conditions. Sometimes it is artificially created.”

That book was naturally the *Ji Du An Chi Jiu You Yin (計都闇魑九幽引, Rahu Dark Ghoul Nine Nether Guidance)* that Chai Da Xiaojie (柴大小姐, Miss Chai) was practicing.

Jishi Qi, Yin Qi (陰氣, Yin energy), Sha Qi (煞氣, baleful aura), Yin Sha (陰煞, Yin balefulness)... Although the special energies represented by these names all belong to negative energy, there are very big differences in actual operation, just like petroleum and cooking oil.

Only under special conditions can these energies be converted, such as converting Jishi Qi into Yin Qi that can be used by ghost cultivators.

“...”

Liu Wudai frowned slightly, “Do you think this was formed naturally, or was it arranged by someone or something?”

“It should be the latter.”

Li Ang said slowly, “During the battle just now, this monster showed a combat instinct close to intelligence. It took the lead in teleporting away Hohenheim, David, and Amberlee, who showed the highest energy levels among us.

It teleported them into different rooms, wanting to use the terrain of the underground palace to defeat them one by one.

This proves that it still has a little bit of weak thinking ability, and doesn't act entirely on animal instinct.”

He glanced at the terrifying and strange mountain and calmly used the Tyrant's Barricade Spear to dissect the shadow demon's body, “Since it has thinking ability, then it wouldn't inexplicably stay in such a dangerous and uncomfortable environment.

Oh, look, the respiratory system of this creature is deformed and mutated, but it's still relatively intact,

it should be able to smell this all-pervasive stench.”

Whoosh—

The mountain in the distance suddenly made a sound, and some biological remains slid down the slope of the mountain, attracting the attention of Liu Wudai and Ding Zisi.

“The circulation of Jishi Qi has been broken. It's normal for the mountain, which relies on Jishi Qi to maintain its shape, to be collapsing and disintegrating.”

Li Ang didn't turn his head and continued to dissect the shadow demon, “Hmm... this should be the stomach, right?”

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Clang.

The Tyrant's Barricade Spear touched some kind of hard object. It wasn't bone, but...

A brick.

Li Ang's eyes lit up. He gently spun the spear tip and twisted a rectangular brick from the shadow demon's stomach. He flicked it into the air and then skillfully caught it with the spear tip.

“This is...”

Liu Wudai's eyes narrowed. She walked to Li Ang's side and was about to carefully identify the shape of the brick when

she saw Li Ang take off his respirator, pat his chest with his left hand, and then—

“Ugh, ugh ugh, ugh ugh.”

Li Ang actually opened his eyes wide and vomited violently, spitting out a miniature waterfall-like, rainbow-colored stream, passing through the dragon's mouth of the dragon head mask and pouring it on the surface of the brick.

Liu Wudai was taken aback, thinking that Li Ang had been hit by some extremely terrifying curse. She instinctively took out three curse-removing talismans given by the Special Affairs Bureau.

Before she could slap the talismans heavily on Li Ang's back, the latter patted his chest again and stood up as if nothing had happened. He casually put his respirator back on.

“What's wrong?”

Li Ang, who had stopped releasing the [Drowning Assassination Technique] on himself, looked at Liu Wudai, who was holding the yellow paper talisman in the air, with a bewildered expression.

“... Nothing.”

Liu Wudai's eyes twitched, and she put away the yellow paper talisman, “Is this that skill you used to have? Doesn't it spit out clear water? Why did it turn into a rainbow?”

“Oh, this one.”

Li Ang said calmly, “I did some research and felt that just spitting out plain water seemed a bit monotonous and uninspired.

So I stuck some rainbow candy powder on the inside of my mouth. This way, when I release the water-making skill on myself, I can spit out a rainbow—after all, I'm at a high level now, and the enemies I encounter have varying degrees of resistance to this kind of skill, and sometimes it doesn't have a great effect.

If I release it on myself, it can also confuse my opponents during battle, making them think that I'm about to release a big move with my rainbow vomit.”

... Although I don't want to admit it, I somehow think what you said makes some sense. It's quite scary when your opponent suddenly vomits in the middle of a fight.

“In addition to rainbow colors, I also prepared Xiangpiaopiao (香飘飘, a popular milk tea brand), Nestlé, and soy milk powder. If my teammates are thirsty during the mission, I can sprinkle some into my mouth and spit out different flavored brewed drinks. It's simply a humanoid walking beverage vending machine, which sounds like a great business opportunity.

It's a pity that it can't be promoted on a large scale, otherwise, what would happen to milk tea shops?”

Li Ang ignored Liu Wudai's strange expression and took out a tissue from his sodium ring.

He wiped away the water stains and stubborn blood stains on the surface of the brick, and in the middle of the brick, he found the flowing cloud pattern that was the same as the one shown by the village chief.

“That stolen brick is in the stomach of this shadow demon.”