The Nether Armor King stared at Chi Feihong, falling silent.
The way behind was a dead end, and Chi Feihong blocked the path ahead; it didn't believe it could break through this time.
Surprise moves were only effective because they hadn't been seen before, catching an enemy off guard. Once the enemy was on guard, such moves lost their edge.
"Yu Xian, I admit... you won this time."
"Don't get cocky, though. Next time... what you'll face is—"
Before the Nether Armor King could finish, dense cracks spiderwebbed across its armor, and it detonated itself.
Its reason for ending its own life was simple: it knew it had zero chance of winning. Continuing to fight would only feed the enemy. At its current level, if Yu Xian really managed to kill it, he would likely become terrifyingly strong.
That was something it could never tolerate. It would rather commit suicide than die by Yu Xian's hand.
Besides, the power of its self-destruction was formidable; perhaps it might even take a life from Yu Xian.
*Boom!*
The explosion generated a terrifying blast wave.
Chi Feihong was instantly blown backward, flattening against the labyrinth wall.
Then, the skin on his face began to split, as if sliced right down the middle and torn from both sides, gradually exposing the muscle tissue beneath.
The process was agonizingly painful, wrenching screams from Chi Feihong's throat.
Once the skin was stripped away, the shockwave continued scouring his body. Dense tears ripped through his muscle fibers, and blood was blasted onto the wall the instant it seeped out.
A bloody silhouette now marked the labyrinth wall, with Chi Feihong at its center.
"Need a hand?" Yu Xian asked, seeing how much agony Chi Feihong was in.
Yet Chi Feihong refused. "Master, this is my trial! No matter how great the pain, as long as it doesn't kill me, it will become my stepping stone! My defense will only grow stronger, stronger, STRONGER! AAAAAAH!!!"
"Good willpower. Then endure it, and don't die!" Yu Xian chuckled.
Now he genuinely admired Chi Feihong a little. Although Yu Xian was a slacker himself, he liked people who possessed firm wills and clear goals.
Originally, his agreement to take him as a disciple had been an offhand reply without much seriousness, but now he actually wanted to see just how far Chi Feihong could go under his guidance.
The explosion actually didn't last very long.
Moreover, unlike the Nether Armor King's blade energy, the shockwave didn't curve around corners. After being weakened again and again by the labyrinth walls, whatever was left had almost no impact on the outside area.
The only one truly miserable was Chi Feihong, who had taken the blast head-on at point-blank range.
When the explosion completely subsided, Chi Feihong slid off the wall. The surface behind him was coated in blood, leaving only a human-shaped blank silhouette.
On his front, his bones were clearly visible, and one could faintly see his heart beating inside his ribcage. His back, however, remained completely undamaged.
"..."
Chi Feihong lay face down on the ground, parting his lips, but with most of the flesh around his throat torn away, he naturally couldn't make a sound.
In the end, he cleanly passed out as his HP slowly ticked down.
About three minutes passed.
Yu Xian hurried over. Seeing Chi Feihong covered in blood and mutilated beyond recognition, he immediately pulled out a healing spray and sprayed him indiscriminately.
Next, he summoned the Origin Codex and released everyone one by one.
Instructed by Yu Xian, Fang Qinghao began administering more meticulous treatment to Chi Feihong.
"This guy... *hiss*, being sliced to pieces by a thousand cuts wouldn't look worse than this," Zhang Shou said in shock, sucking in a cold breath as he looked down at Chi Feihong on the ground.
Niman looked at Yu Xian and asked, "Yu Xian, what happened?"
"It's a long story, so I'll make it short. The Class Hunter Society came looking for trouble again, I took an apprentice, and then we drove the troublemaker to suicide," Yu Xian said briskly after a moment's thought.
Cheng Pi quipped, "Well, that certainly is brief."
"So... this is your apprentice?" Jin Sheng asked with a hint of pity, eyeing Chi Feihong, who looked like a puddle of flesh on the ground.
Being Yu Xian's apprentice was a little too tragic. Just looking at these injuries sent chills down their spines; it was hard to imagine how agonizing it must have been to endure such an attack.
Under Fang Qinghao's treatment, Chi Feihong, formerly a 'puddle,' gradually regained human form.
Then, with various medicines continuously applied, combined with Chi Feihong's formidable constitution, his injuries visibly recovered at a rapid pace.
Three hours later, Chi Feihong finally woke up. Finding himself wrapped up like a mummy, he moved his hands and feet. Feeling fine, he sat up and looked at Yu Xian, who was sleeping nearby.
No.
Yu Xian wasn't sleeping—his consciousness simply wasn't here.
With so much time passing, the others naturally couldn't just stand guard waiting for Chi Feihong to wake up. Don't forget, the event was still going on.
Therefore, except for Yu Xian, everyone else had scattered to hunt for treasure chests. Yu Xian had only left a Silver Mirror Ghost King here to stand watch. Even if Chi Feihong looked like he could drop dead at any moment, the truth was that in the entire labyrinth, fewer than ten classholders could actually harm him.
This guy was simply too tanky. Unless he encountered a monster like the Nether Armor King, whose basic attacks were stronger than regular skills, dealing damage to him was ridiculously difficult.
The moment Chi Feihong woke up, Yu Xian knew it as his master.
The Silver Mirror Ghost King opened its eyes, looked at Chi Feihong, and said, "Good, you're awake. Can you still move?"
"No problem at all!" Chi Feihong moved his limbs and nodded.
Although he was still heavily injured, it was enough. To him, feelings like pain were not debuffs, but buffs that kept his mind sharper.
"Then get ready to head to the next floor."
Yu Xian swapped positions with the Silver Mirror Ghost King, took out three treasure chests, and handed them to Chi Feihong.
This event was a scheme orchestrated by the Class Hunter Society, and he couldn't be sure whether there were more of their agents mingled among the classholders. Safety came first; it was best to leave as soon as possible.
Half an hour later, the group gathered together and teleported to the second floor.
Upon arriving on the second floor, everyone froze. The walls here were no longer grayish-white rock, but made entirely of mirrors.
Furthermore, the remaining time for the second floor was six and a half days, and the clock was ticking down.
"Holy shit," Zhang Shou couldn't help swearing when he saw the timer.
Everyone's expressions quickly turned grim. Niman frowned. "There are a hundred floors in the labyrinth. If every floor originally only had seven days, then the earlier someone enters the next floor, the safer they'll be. The later they enter, the more dangerous it gets."
Suppose Yu Xian entered the labyrinth, reached the next floor three minutes later, and then reached the floor after that three minutes after that—the timers on both floors would elapse concurrently with the first floor.
If someone insisted on staying on the first floor until the very end before advancing, they would despair to find that they only had about three minutes left.
Even if they managed to find three treasure chests within those three minutes, the next floor would still only have three minutes left.
Besides, finding three treasure chests in a mere three minutes was practically impossible. That meant those people would face certain death.
Only at this moment did everyone clearly realize that the danger of this event came not only from the Class Hunter Society, but from the event labyrinth itself. They had to reach the next floor as quickly as possible to see if the timer for the subsequent floor had already begun ticking.
Chapter 554