The maid cleaning the room did not notice Ye Ling hidden inside the desk lamp. She hummed an unknown tune while cheerfully tidying the butler's room.
Fortunately, the maid was not interested in the books on the bookshelf; otherwise, a few pages would have revealed something amiss.
Ye Ling, concealed within the lamp, kept his gaze fixed on the keyring at the maid's waist, pondering how to get her to remove the keys.
Just then, a rat scurried across the top of the bookshelf, catching Ye Ling's attention.
"I didn't expect there to be rats in this palace... This makes things much easier." Noticing the rat, Ye Ling's mind sparked with an idea. He wrote a rune in the air on the bookshelf, causing the rat to step into the rune trap.
The rat was ensnared by the rune. After struggling for a moment, it ceased all movement.
"I didn't think the rats in this palace had such supreme cultivation... What kind of place is this?" Ye Ling controlled the rat, sensing its cultivation, and couldn't help but marvel inwardly.
However, after a moment of astonishment, Ye Ling quickly calmed down. He immediately directed the rat to crawl towards the door. But halfway there, the rat was spotted by the maid!
"Damn it, why haven't these rats been exterminated yet?"
The maid, spotting the rat, showed a hint of impatience. With a mere grab in the air, the space around the rat distorted rapidly, about to obliterate it!
"Holy hell... she distorts space just to kill a rat?"
Seeing the rat about to be torn apart by the distorted space, Ye Ling immediately activated the power within the rat, urging it to speed up and evade the maid's attack.
The distorted space contracted swiftly, leaving a smooth, circular pit on the floor of the room, clearly a result of spatial severance.
"Still trying to run?"
The maid, seeing her attack miss, became enraged. She grabbed her broom and teleported beside the rat, bringing it down with a fierce sweep.
However, this rat was controlled by Ye Ling, its agility greatly enhanced. In a few swift movements, it dodged the maid's broom attack and dashed towards a bucket outside the door!
*Bang!*
The rat's head slammed into the bucket outside the door, tipping it over. The dirty water splashed all over the pursuing maid!
"You damn rat! I'll kill you!!!"
Drenched in dirty water, the maid erupted like a powder keg. Her entire being seethed with fury, and she unleashed her aura, pressing down heavily on the rat.
"Squeak—!"
The rat, pinned to the ground, could not move!
The maid, radiating menace, strode forward, grabbed the rat with her bare hands, and crushed it!
Blood splattered across her face!
"Tsk tsk... this crazy woman might be a pervert..."
Ye Ling, hidden in the desk lamp, clicked his tongue and shivered, his scalp tingling, as he watched the maid crush the rat of supreme cultivation alive.
However, Ye Ling knew this was an opportunity. He immediately leaped from the lamp and, unnoticed by the maid, transformed into a speck of dust, drifting onto her broom.
The maid's entire body was soiled. She was no longer in the mood to clean. Carrying her broom, she left the room and returned to her work area, intending to take a bath and change into a new uniform.
Ye Ling remained on the broom, watching the maid undress.
The moment the maid removed her clothes and stepped into the bathroom, Ye Ling immediately unleashed his Unnamed Void Realm, altering the flow of time within the room.
Within one second of the maid entering the bathroom, Ye Ling swiftly removed half of the key from the keyring, forged a fake key using runes, transformed back into dust, and hid in a corner of the work area, retracting his domain and allowing time to resume its normal flow.
Ye Ling executed this entire sequence flawlessly.
"There's a spiritual energy fluctuation?"
The maid suddenly sensed something amiss in the room. She emerged from the bathroom naked, her gaze filled with suspicion as she looked at the keyring lying on the table.
"Damn it! She still sensed it!" Ye Ling's heart tightened as he saw the maid's suspicion.
Although the white rune and the Unnamed Void Realm possessed perfect stealth, Ye Ling was simply too close to the maid and had accomplished so much in such a short period. It was difficult not to be discovered.
Watching the naked maid walk step by step towards the keyring, Ye Ling secretly activated his Devouring Domain, prepared to fight the maid with all his might.
However, at this critical juncture, another rat scurried out from a corner of the room.
"Another rat... Damn it... that old man's rat-extermination curse is utterly useless!" The maid's already irritable mood darkened further upon seeing the rat appear. Her fingers transformed into blood claws, and with a grab in the air, she sliced the rat of supreme cultivation into several pieces!
After killing the rat, the maid placed the keyring into a drawer before re-entering the bathroom.
Hearing the sound of water from the bathroom, Ye Ling breathed a sigh of relief. He offered a silent prayer for the rat that had helped him avoid disaster. Then, transforming into a wisp of smoke, he floated out of the maid's work area.
Leaving the work area, Ye Ling reverted to his human form, tossed the key in his hand, and chuckled, "Although there were some twists and turns, I truly didn't expect it to be so easy to get the key from those two!"
Without wasting any time, Ye Ling teleported to the leftmost door on the fourth floor and inserted the key he had obtained.
This door not only required a specific key to open but was also protected by an extremely terrifying external restriction. If Ye Ling hadn't possessed the white rune, which could bypass all restrictions, he would have been reduced to ashes the moment he touched it.
Perhaps the butler and the maid were too confident in the palace's restrictions, and coupled with the fact that they never expected anyone to dare steal from this place, they became careless, allowing Ye Ling to succeed.
However, it was useless to dwell on that now. Ye Ling easily broke through the restriction, opened the door, and successfully entered.
The moment Ye Ling opened the door, a blast of cold air hit him, and frost immediately formed on his entire body!
"Such a cold room!"
Even Ye Ling couldn't help but shiver. After using a bit of spiritual energy to warm his rapidly freezing skin, he surveyed the room, which was filled with ice crystals.
This room did not contain any supreme treasures as Ye Ling had imagined. Instead, there was only a crystal ice coffin.
"Why is there a coffin here?"
Ye Ling, seeing the crystal ice coffin in the center of the room, felt a surge of confusion. He walked towards the ice coffin and saw a peerlessly beautiful woman lying within.
"This is!!!" Upon seeing the woman's appearance, Ye Ling's pupils contracted sharply, and a tempestuous wave of shock surged through him!
This woman was the vanished Goddess of Creation!
"She's actually lying here!"
Ye Ling's heart pounded faster as he discovered the true Goddess of Creation. He reached out to touch the ice coffin, but his arm was instantly frozen into a block of ice!
Ye Ling pulled back his frozen arm, seeing the chilling poison spreading towards his heart.
Helplessly, Ye Ling had no choice but to destroy his arm and replace it with a new one.
"No! This profound ice is too powerful. With my current strength, I cannot open this ice coffin..."
"I need to find a way... to rescue her."