Once the "set" was assembled, visible changes took place across the female corpse's body. Blood-red Buddhist swastikas surfaced along her dark-gold skin, and the same crimson emblems emerged within her pale pupils.
As the swastikas appeared, Zhang Yuanqing found that his mental connection to her was severed.
She was no longer under his control.
The corpse's aura surged rapidly, her fractured soul swiftly mending itself, venting a shrill, furious screech:
"Commander of the Buliang—!"
Only a Night Walker could hear this screech. Qingzhu and Alicia merely felt an inexplicable flutter of dread in their chests, hearing no sound at all.
*Commander of the Buliang?* Zhang Yuanqing was startled. He was all too familiar with that title; several items in his possession were tied to the Commander of the Buliang from the Tang Dynasty.
He just didn't know whether the Commander of the Buliang she screamed about was the same one he had ties to.
*Her tone is steeped in bone-deep hatred and resentment. Wonder what kind of grudge she has against him...* Zhang Yuanqing mused inwardly.
"So strong..." Qingzhu backed away several steps. The aura of a Dominator was impossible to mask.
With a grave look, he studied the Blood Bodhisattva clad in a kasaya and holding a precept blade, unable to shake the impression that the sight of her wearing nothing beneath the robe, bosom half-exposed, was scandalously profane yet alluring.
Once the screech subsided, the female corpse gripped her precept blade and broke into a stride with her long legs, kasaya fluttering wildly as she charged straight for the staircase with absolute purpose.
*She really isn't under my control anymore...* Zhang Yuanqing felt a wave of disappointment.
On second thought, he found it completely reasonable. With the Blood Bodhisattva at his command, he could have bathed Exhibition Hall 3 in blood and claimed everyone's points for himself. If he could take her up to the second floor, it would be an unmitigated nightmare for the other spirit realm walkers.
Such a mechanic would be unfair to everyone else, and far too easy for whoever seized the early advantage on the first floor.
*Winning once would basically guarantee a free pass to the finals? How could things ever be that cheap?*
Assembling the S-rank artifact set and taking the lion's share of the points was already the greatest reward the trial could bestow.
Shaking off his thoughts, Zhang Yuanqing urged, "No time to lose. Let's get up to the second floor!"
The trio pursued the Blood Bodhisattva, dashing toward the staircase.
Amidst the clatter of their footsteps, they returned to the battlefield. Sensing someone drawing near, the Goddess of the Hunt midair twisted her stiff neck and looked their way.
Her unpainted face and hollow eyes remained vacant and cold.
The delicate, beautiful Blood Bodhisattva sank her knees slightly and sprang explosively, rocketing toward the Goddess of the Hunt like a loosed arrow. The goddess expressionlessly drew her bow, loosing a blood-red shaft.
The precept blade cleaved out a crescent of radiant qi. The two crimson glows collided, shockwaves detonating in overlapping bursts to form a terrifying hurricane.
"Run across!" Zhang Yuanqing was the first to sprint toward the staircase.
Alicia and Qingzhu followed hot on his heels, the latter not forgetting to snatch up the stone stele he had left behind during his charge.
The Goddess of the Hunt's stiff neck jerked around. She instantly pivoted her bow, drawing three crimson arrows to aim down at the trio.
*Clang!*
The Blood Bodhisattva's precept blade struck the goddess's shoulder, throwing off blinding sparks.
Her aim thrown off, the three arrows grazed past Zhang Yuanqing and his companions, gouging deep craters into the floor.
Mounted upon her golden-horned hind, the Goddess of the Hunt galloped across the air to put distance between them, drawing her bow once more.
Like a maggot clinging to bone, the Blood Bodhisattva pursued relentlessly, refusing to give her an opening to fire.
Beneath the ceaseless detonations blasting overhead, Zhang Yuanqing and the other two reached the staircase in no time. Flying up the steps, they cleared all sixty stairs without further incident and arrived at the second floor.
[Ding! Congratulations on completing Side Quest 1. Rewarded 10 points.]
[Side Quest 2: Safely cross your current hall and reach the next exhibition hall. Reward: 30 points.]
The clamor from below cut off entirely, as though sealed away by an invisible barrier, leaving only dead silence.
The three glanced around to survey the space. The layout of the second floor resembled the first, but it was no longer an endless expanse; the left and right boundaries were clearly in sight.
Furthermore, the staircase leading to the third floor was blocked by a six-meter-tall bronze door bearing a basin-sized circular indentation.
To the west stood a cast-bronze sculpture of a Western dragon, its membranous wings flared and head thrown back in a roar, every scale carved so exquisitely lifelike that it seemed ready to pounce.
To the east hung a painting—a blank canvas roughly two meters long and one meter wide, impossible to miss.
To the north stood an ancient Greek-style statue, heavily bearded with a broad nose and rugged features, clutching a staff entwined with grapevines and tipped with a pine cone.
To the south stood a sculpture of Guanyin, graceful and dignified, holding a white vase in one hand and pinching a mudra with the other.
Between these four colossal artifacts stood several display cases, spaced more than ten meters apart. There weren't many, easily counted at a glance—nine in total!
Qingzhu breathed a sigh of relief. "We're fortunate. We're the first to reach the second floor."
Exhibition Hall 2 held only the three of them.
*Of course we are. With the Eye of the Wind as a data collector and me, a Night Walker, acting as the data processor, we saved an enormous amount of time and effort, all right?* Zhang Yuanqing thought.
The trio turned their attention to the standing map beside the staircase.
The map indicated that the second floor had three halls, and this was Hall 2.
Qingzhu mused, "Six halls on the first floor, three on the second... Following that pattern, there should only be one hall on the third floor. All surviving participants will converge there."
Alicia added, "Three exhibition halls on the second floor means Hall 1 combines the walkers from Halls 1 and 2 on the first floor, while Hall 2 takes those from Halls 3 and 4, and so on.
"Our opponents are the spirit realm walkers from Exhibition Hall 4."
At that point, she glanced at the leaderboard again, her eyes dimming slightly. "There are only twenty-two people left in the entire trial. The first floor weeded out half of the spirit realm walkers. Those who survived to reach the second floor are all top-tier powerhouses. The silver lining is that the enemies we face won't be many, probably no more than three.
"Sigh, Sleeping Dragon Lord's score is frighteningly high. It's a shame Jumang didn't join this killing trial. Without him around, who can keep Sleeping Dragon Lord in check?"
Then, Alicia and Qingzhu turned toward Daode Tianzun, awaiting his analysis.
"Why are you looking at me!" Zhang Yuanqing said, annoyed. "You two took all the words right out of my mouth! What else is there for me to say?"
Alicia and Qingzhu sheepishly averted their eyes. A few seconds later, unwilling to leave it at that, Alicia turned back. "You can perform Stargazing."
Qingzhu shook his head. "A Stargazer's Stargazing can only be used at night, and it must be done outdoors. To perform it indoors, one would need to inscribe a talisman star chart, but that wastes far too much time."
As a Senior Deacon of the Five Elements Alliance, he knew the Night Walker class inside and out.
*I have the Great Luo Astrolabe,* Zhang Yuanqing thought. Standing before the map, his mind turned over the situation, and worry surfaced once again.
First, this museum didn't depend purely on raw personal strength. Cultural artifacts were effectively items; as long as one subdued enough artifacts, an ordinary Level 6 Saint could kill a peak Saint.
And subduing artifacts came down to comprehensive capabilities, skill counters, and tactical compatibility.
In that regard, Fire Mages took a severe penalty, since they possessed little beyond sheer, explosive destructive power.
Second, it was unclear whether the trial's matchmaking was balanced by headcount and classes or entirely random. If it was random, situations could easily arise where evil classes outnumbered orthodox classes.
Should that happen, the orthodox walkers in that hall would be in deep trouble.
Finally, this museum trial was like a venom jar, cultivating survivors from the first floor straight to the third. Whoever reached the final stage alive would inevitably belong to the absolute upper echelon of Saints.
The casualty rate was absurdly high. He worried that if he didn't run into Xiao Yuan, Huang Taiji, Yin Ji, or Xiahou Aotian on the second floor, he might never see them again on the third...
With that in mind, he pulled up the leaderboard and scanned it rapidly.
1: Sleeping Dragon Lord — 310 pts
2: Osmond — 208 pts
3: Daode Tianzun — 162 pts
4: Reilly Eugene — 150 pts
5: Bloody Fluid — 136 pts
6: Xiahou Aotian — 133 pts
7: Hundred-Armed Demonic Insect — 110 pts
8: Beast Hybrid — 108 pts
9: Chazo — 97 pts
10: Yin Ji — 93 pts
The rankings had shifted slightly. After assembling the Blood Bodhisattva set, Zhang Yuanqing had jumped from fourth to third, while Reilly Eugene slipped from second to fourth.
Sleeping Dragon Lord's score sat in a league of its own, unnaturally high. He either possessed some exceptional ability or was exploiting an oversight in the Spirit Realm's rules. After all, everyone was a peak Saint; differences in skill existed, but they shouldn't be so absurdly wide.
Additionally, Hoover, the genius Wind Mage from Heaven's Punishment headquarters, had returned to the Spirit Realm, as had North, a peak Saint from the New York branch.
Large as the museum was, it was still an indoor environment. Wind Mages couldn't leverage their fighter-jet mobility, making high casualties normal, yet Zhang Yuanqing couldn't help sighing inwardly.
They were familiar faces, after all.
In the outside world, they had commanded immense respect for years, making names for themselves with Heaven's Punishment at their backs. Yet in this killing trial, their lives were snuffed out just like that.
Such was a killing trial—a crucible with a mortality rate exceeding even S-rank scenarios.
Those mighty, illustrious figures were treated no differently from grass here.
Still, what gave Zhang Yuanqing relief was that the people he truly cared about were all still alive. Yin Ji had even made significant gains, breaking into the top ten.
It seemed she had diligently cultivated the Pure Yang Body Cleansing Record.
Wielding the divine power of the sun at the Saint stage was quite a modest cheat.
*Xiao Yuan, Jiang Ju, and Huang Taiji's states look strange, though. In a killing trial, failing to defeat the enemy usually means death. How are they neither dying nor gaining points?* Zhang Yuanqing suspected the three might have been imprisoned.
Yet what purpose would enemies have in keeping them captive? It was completely unnecessary.
Gathering his thoughts, Zhang Yuanqing sat cross-legged and said, "Before exploring Exhibition Hall 2, I'll perform a Stargazing. Guard me."
Seeing the doubt written across Qingzhu and Alicia's faces, Zhang Yuanqing spun a casual lie: "I am a Stargazer specializing in astral power. I advanced to Saint thirty years ago and entered secluded cultivation within the Taiyi Sect. Only recently did inspiration strike; after divination through the stars, I realized my opportunity to become a Dominator had arrived, which is why I finally came out."
Alicia couldn't quite wrap her head around it, but felt deeply impressed nonetheless. She glanced at Qingzhu.
Qingzhu shook his head repeatedly, signaling that he hadn't even been weaned thirty years ago and had no way of knowing whether Daode Tianzun was telling the truth or pulling their legs.
Still, after cooperating on the first floor, they had built a baseline of trust. As long as Daode Tianzun didn't cross any lines, they didn't mind.
They immediately moved to stand guard for him.
Zhang Yuanqing retrieved the Great Luo Astrolabe, masking its presence with an illusion. Unless one belonged to the Night Walker, Illusionist, or Scout class, seeing through it was impossible.
Amidst the shifting stars, Zhang Yuanqing saw five hazy figures advancing up the stairs. One of them wore a purple-gold gourd at his waist that pulsed with faint light, vaguely reflecting two silhouettes trapped inside.
He saw the five take flight, hurtling toward the three of them as a brutal clash erupted.
He saw scorching flames consume Qingzhu, and black water swallow one of the evil class members.
Stargazing could perceive the trajectory of all things, but because he was indoors and not beneath an open night sky, relying solely on the Great Luo Astrolabe yielded only fragmented, blurred flashes.
They couldn't form a coherent sequence of events.
*Trying to set a trap based on such fragmented clues is a bit tough... But using them as danger warnings is plenty. The flames and black water probably come from trial hazards, and there are five enemies coming from Hall 4...*
*From those brief glimpses, all five are evil classes. Did all the orthodox members in Hall 4 die?*
*Well, trial-specific details are too sparse to make proactive arrangements, but against those five, we can prepare in advance...*
Zhang Yuanqing opened his eyes to find Qingzhu and Alicia watching him with mixed anticipation and doubt.
"What did you see?" Qingzhu asked.
*I saw that you're going to get roasted by fire...* Zhang Yuanqing replied, "There are five enemies from Exhibition Hall 4, all evil classes, and they'll be coming up shortly."
Alicia's expression changed. "Five?"
That was far more than she had anticipated.
Qingzhu's face darkened instantly as well. If Daode Tianzun's Stargazing was reliable, then before any trial hazards hit them, they would first have to weather a coordinated assault from five evil class members.
They faced a crippling numerical disadvantage.
Seeing that their panic was stoked, Zhang Yuanqing seized the opening. "I have a plan to deal with them, but I need your cooperation..."
A moment later, Qingzhu and Alicia—technically cooperating, but practically serving as bait—decided to gamble and put their faith in Daode Tianzun.
The two strode toward the display cases, positioning themselves in plain sight, and waited in silence.
A few minutes later, footsteps echoed from the direction of the staircase, accompanied by a sinister chuckle:
"Deacon Hundred-Arms, those two haven't dissolved into pus yet? Tsk, that broad is such a looker. Melting her down like this really is a waste."
Another voice, low and ruthless, answered:
"As someone of an unaffiliated class, she chose to help an orthodox walker. She deserves to die."
Chapter 786