Half an hour later.
Yu Xian and Chi Feihong found Mikhail.
At that moment, Mikhail was curled up in a corner of the labyrinth, a faint layer of white frost coating his body. A small rat lay beside him, likewise bereft of any breath of life.
"..."
Yu Xian and Chi Feihong exchanged a speechless glance, both completely dumbfounded by this outcome.
They had expected a fierce battle, yet after all the trouble of tracking him down, the guy had already frozen to death. Dying like a stray dog by the roadside—what a pathetic end.
"Master, what do we do now?" Chi Feihong looked at Yu Xian and asked.
Yu Xian shrugged and said casually, "What else can we do? Since he's dead, we'll keep looking for chests and wait for your master's wife, Niman, and the others to come up and regroup."
"Fair enough. I was looking forward to beating the stuffing out of him," Chi Feihong said resignedly.
Next, he deliberately dismounted to check and confirm Mikhail was truly dead. To be safe, he even punched Mikhail once.
The punch shattered Mikhail's skull on the spot, proving the guy was indeed stone-cold dead.
Afterward, the two of them rested in a nearby dead end.
In fact... Yu Xian took out a hot pot, leaned back against his polar bear mount, and began eating.
"Whew, nothing beats hot pot in freezing weather," Yu Xian sighed happily, his eyes narrowing in bliss as he took a bite of boiled mutton.
Chi Feihong ate along with him, nodding vigorously in agreement with every bite.
And so the two of them ate hot pot and played video games, waiting for everyone to teleport up.
Of course, Yu Xian wasn't truly slacking off.
With the Silver Mirror Ghost King around, summoned beasts continued to multiply, and the search for treasure chests never ceased. He didn't intend to hoard chests; finding two for each person would be plenty.
Otherwise, with plenty of time to spare, they could easily claim the vast majority of chests for themselves.
And the cost?
The class users who failed to find chests would be the cost.
After finishing the hot pot, Yu Xian stretched out his hand, watching his fingers gradually turn cold and numb.
This floor of the labyrinth was extremely hazardous. Warm clothing could prevent hypothermia, but without any protection against the cold, this floor would sap body heat at terrifying speed.
Yu Xian's hand was a prime example; in just a bit longer, it would probably freeze stiff.
He hurried to tuck his hand into his padded coat, and soon felt comfortable again.
"No wonder that leopard spirit died so quickly."
Chi Feihong, who had also been messing around, saw that his toes had turned purple. He quickly pulled them back under the bear pelt and remarked with some emotion.
For class users without warm clothing, this floor was practically a death trap. To make matters worse, Mikhail wore only leather armor, which provided zero insulation. Furthermore, being of a race that ate raw meat, he hadn't even brought anything to make a fire.
"Supernatural flames don't seem to provide warmth," Yu Xian said to Chi Feihong as a ball of fire appeared in his palm.
This was fire he created using Primordial Power. The method was simple: through transmutation, he turned air into fire.
Yet despite both being fire, the kerosene lamp he brought gave off a touch of warmth, whereas the flame produced by this skill offered no warmth whatsoever.
No, that wasn't quite right.
Rather, before he could feel any warmth, that heat was drained away by the surrounding environment.
...
...
Not everyone was unable to rein in their greed.
Naturally, everyone understood the rules of this event and kept them firmly in mind.
When Xia Hai teleported to the second floor, his pupils shrank sharply. Seeing the time ticking down rapidly, he instantly recognized the crisis. Before he could make a move, several more class users teleported up.
After that, more and more class users teleported up.
"Motherfucker!"
"There are only five days left on this floor?"
"Fuck, what about the next floor? Could time have started running down there too?"
"Someone is probably trying to exploit the event rules to bury everyone in this labyrinth. This is bad—we're already far behind him."
"Quick, quick, find chests and get to the next floor!"
The crowd clamored all at once, then dispersed in a flurry to search for treasure chests.
A moment's thought made it obvious: if only five days remained on this floor, how much time was left on the next?
If the next floor also had only a little over five days left, then if they took more than two days searching for chests here, the next floor would only have three days remaining when they arrived.
What if time had already started running on the floor after that?
Then too bad.
Wait to be erased along with this labyrinth floor.
There is great terror between life and death. Although many knew death in the Zhen Realm was not true death, many remained skeptical.
After all, they had never died themselves; who knew what would happen?
Just because others could revive after dying didn't mean they could do the same. What if they couldn't?
There were too many uncertainties.
Besides, having fought so hard in the Zhen Realm for so long and sacrificed so much, who would willingly throw their life away? The sunk cost was simply too great.
"I have a proposal."
"Let's choose the strongest among us to take the chests everyone finds, head to the next floor, and kill him to end this lethal race!" Xia Hai suddenly called out, his voice delivered precisely into every class user's ears as they scattered.
A bald man frowned. "What if the strongest among us still can't beat him?"
"Then we form a squad specifically to kill him," Xia Hai proposed after a moment's thought.
However, a Bearfolk class user immediately spoke up, "No good. What if he's already moved on to the floor after that? Going up won't do any good."
"If he's already reached the floor after that and we don't stop him, won't we just die even faster?" Xia Hai countered.
At this point, Xia Donghai teleported up as well. After listening quietly to the discussion around him, he said, "I think this plan is worth a try. It's only a few chests. With all of us searching together, it won't take long. But if we can stop his plot, we can buy more time and ensure more people survive."
"The question is... who goes?" a class user asked.
Everyone knew that while going ahead to hunt down the frontrunner carried the risk of combat, it also offered a much higher chance of survival. After all, those who advanced first would have far more time to search for chests than those left behind on this floor.
"Simple: the highest-level ones go," Xia Hai said.
Just then, a woman spoke up, "To be safe, I believe we must establish a contract. If anyone sent to hunt the frontrunner tries to pull the same trick after killing him, the contract will kill them."
"Right, exactly. There must at least be a binding contract requiring them to wait for us on that floor once they kill him."
"Agreed. Whoever goes signs the contract."
After clamorous debate, the crowd finally reached a consensus.
A makeshift squad formed with the sole purpose of hunting down Mikhail was born.
Chapter 558