Across this dilapidated wasteland.
As far as the eye could see, there was the "junk" Bai Zhou had scavenged, as well as the tombstones he had erected with his own hands.
There was Laia's, and those of the soldiers...
When Bai Zhou had first arrived in the wasteland, his heart had been filled with dread. But seeing these familiar sights now gave him a subtle sense of warmth and belonging.
Compared to the living world on the surface of Blue Star, this dead world seemed all the more tranquil and cozy.
The light of the blood moon fell upon him, warm like basking before a hearth.
He loaded all the "junk" he had previously gathered into the Trojan Horse, then dug up a large stash of pitch-black "cinders."
Making money wasn't shameful.
Bai Zhou was an industrious Ruin Realm miner.
Yet no matter how warm it was, an Adventurer would never linger in one place forever.
He had to continue exploring forward.
After a while, having swept his gaze across his surroundings one last time to ensure he hadn't missed anything...
Bai Zhou drew the heavy token from his breast pocket.
The emblem of a "shield and blades," symbolizing Adventurers, seemed to glint under the blood moon's illumination.
An elusive connection existed between the token and the sky above.
Hesitating no longer, Bai Zhou channeled the spirituality he had poured into the token.
*Clang—!*
Blades resonated in unison upon the token, as though springing to life.
The instant blade and edge sparked against each other—
A pillar of rainbow light plunged from the heavens!
The beam unfolded across the sky and descended with pinpoint accuracy onto the far end of the distant cliff, resembling a seven-colored rainbow bridge connecting heaven and earth.
Bai Zhou had a feeling that as long as he drew near that rainbow bridge, it would guide him directly into the sky.
Perhaps it would even whisk him straight to the "Sun Temple" Skeleton General Ale had spoken of!
However, that cliff...
Amid the sprawling ruins, a winding trail led straight to the edge of the precipice.
Occasionally, a crimson glow lit up the abyss below the cliff—meteor-like flames tumbling down from the colossal sky city.
When these fireballs swept past, they illuminated the piles of cinders and shattered ruins lining the trail.
—This was a place where Bai Zhou had once halted, not daring to tread lightly.
For he had been certain it would not lack the distinctive traps of the local civilization.
Yet the radiant, rainbow-lit scene now resolved a question from when Bai Zhou had first arrived here—
Back then, he had found it bizarre that the ruts of military chariots and hoofprints abruptly stopped at the cliff's edge, as though everyone had leaped off.
So the cliff was actually a "teleportation anchor" meant to guide them back to the city...
*Crunch...*
Stepping across crushed stone and gravel.
Cautiously treading onto the winding trail, Bai Zhou probed his way toward the rainbow bridge at the cliff's edge.
Sure enough, just as Bai Zhou had expected, the path was riddled with traps.
Barely three paces in, the ground sank half an inch beneath his foot, and three poison-tipped crossbow bolts shot out from the side.
Seven paces out, nearly invisible tripwires crisscrossed, attached to bronze bells of unknown purpose.
At ten paces, rusted iron lanterns hung from trees, bristling with gruesome spikes, looking designed specifically to "swallow" a person's head.
There were also several gargoyles half-buried in the soil—some spewing fire, others spitting poison, while merely looking upon them produced an insidiously silent hallucinatory effect.
...It seemed that when the army had retreated back then, they had prepared quite a few surprises for the incoming zombie horde.
One contraption linked to another; even though many were now defunct, they remained terrifying enough to keep Bai Zhou on pins and needles.
That familiar tension was back.
Fortunately, Bai Zhou was no longer who he used to be.
The green, innocent youth was long gone. Stepping onto the stage now was a Special Control Bureau Class-A wanted criminal, a seasoned Adventurer, a proficient demolitions maniac, and half a trap master—
Collecting "cinders" as he went, and even salvaging a few barely functional trap devices along the way, Bai Zhou finally picked his way to the cliff's edge.
*Click...*
A few pebbles tumbled downward. Beneath his feet lay a bottomless abyss, and before his eyes stretched the brilliant rainbow bridge.
*Hum!*
As if sensing the token's approach, the pillar of rainbow light abruptly exerted an irresistible tractor force, drawing Bai Zhou inside.
He was flying...
Everything beneath his feet shrank. As Bai Zhou's viewpoint gradually climbed, he felt profoundly minuscule.
The sensation was hard to describe, but for the first time, Bai Zhou experienced breaking free of gravity, hurtling toward the blood moon and the inverted colossal city in the sky.
Though he hadn't grown black-and-white wings, nor did he possess a flying magic carpet or broom, he had still achieved the very first flight of his life.
Regrettably, the feeling didn't last long. Before Bai Zhou could even fully take it in, both feet planted firmly back on solid ground.
Everything before his eyes had undergone an earth-shattering inversion.
—In the literal sense of the earth and sky flipping.
"What is this...?"
The blood moon was gone from view; the sky in his sight had become a shattered, blood-red "earth."
Before him lay a vista of ruins: fractured relief-carved pillars and crumbling towers everywhere he looked.
Streets split wide open, statues sheared in half, shattered terracotta figures, skewed city gates, a dried-up moat, and clusters of buildings reduced to rubble...
In the distance, the largest clock tower stood at the city center. Even with half of it collapsed, stray blue flames still flickered at its peak.
They bore an uncanny resemblance to the blue flames above the "Tinghai Rejects You" tower he had seen in the Reflected Ruin Realm.
—Everything was broken, finished.
At this moment, Bai Zhou knew he was standing within the inverted colossal city in the sky.
He had once wondered whether there might be a Sleeping Beauty scamming passersby inside this city.
The reason everything looked upside down was that he himself was inverted.
Only... why hadn't he fallen?
Was he being "held fast" by the city's gravity?
There was no time to ponder such idle thoughts, for the token in Bai Zhou's hand began growing scalding hot, like a branding iron, so hot he nearly couldn't hold onto it.
...Likely because it had sensed what stood before him.
A colossal temple, majestic as a mountain, stood silently before Bai Zhou.
In this ruined city, the remains of this temple had miraculously survived largely intact.
Enormous white stone pillars supported ceilings inlaid with reliefs, and archaic, unnamed inscriptions were engraved upon the bronze doors, radiating an aura of holiness and majesty.
Yet under the erosion of time and moisture, standing amidst the silent ruins, the temple ruins inevitably carried a trace of gloom and decay.
The faded pigments upon the doors depicted a legendary scene: a sun shining over all creation, dissolving monstrous demons that seemed plucked straight from myth.
"The Sun Temple..."
Bai Zhou's heart thudded against his ribs.
*“If you ever get the chance, go have a look at the Sun Temple in Sky City.”*
*“In our day, every fledgling Adventurer could find their path forward there!”*
Recalling Skeleton General Ale's exact words when handing over the token, Bai Zhou slowly took a deep breath.
"..."
However.
The feeling of delight quickly vanished, and before long, Bai Zhou was frowning in distress.
Because contrary to what he had imagined...
The temple doors were tightly locked.
A colossal bronze lock, engraved with the motif of a shining sun, stood half as tall as a man, barring the way like a tower shield.
Bai Zhou tried holding the token up to it, but the giant lock gave zero reaction.
This left him dumbfounded.
He had come here full of anticipation, only to find the temple locked.
One could easily imagine the scene...
The entire city had fallen. At the very end, as all hope faded, the temple's final priest had locked the doors tight to protect the sanctuary.
That sealing had lasted through the changing ages and the turning of the tides.
It seemed the zombies hadn't been able to breach it either, which was why the temple remained relatively well-preserved...
But what was Bai Zhou supposed to do?
Was he going to return empty-handed just like this?
Things having come to this—
Bai Zhou drew his purple-gold saber and leaped into midair.
Without another word, he mobilized his spirituality, blade light blazing—
"[Moon Cinder Holy Oath Slash]!"
"[Holy Oath Slash]! [Holy Oath Slash]!"
There certainly was no key, but who was to say brute-forcing a lock didn't count as unlocking it?
Bai Zhou slashed three times in succession.
Yet... the giant bronze lock didn't budge an inch, without so much as a scorch mark or scratch left behind.
"..."
Having tried every method and studied it for ages, Bai Zhou still failed to open the doors.
He gritted his teeth.
An Adventurer backed into a corner often hatched eccentric ideas.
Just as Crow had once remarked: a person in their comfort zone is like a tea bag steeping in warm water, but desperation brews you into an espresso.
Unwilling to give up, a spark flashed in Bai Zhou's mind, and an idea suddenly took shape.
*Should I... give that a shot?*
Though the idea carried a bit of risk...
Bai Zhou glanced left and right, confirming that the city was utterly devoid of "life" and that no entity was spying on him.
For the sake of the Adventurer pathway legacy behind these doors...
For the final remnants of an extraordinary temple from a fallen civilization—
Bai Zhou felt the gamble was worth taking!
And so, Bai Zhou took out the extraordinary paintbrush he had just acquired and began attempting to write characters on the lock.
—It wasn't even writing, strictly speaking.
Bai Zhou only drew one or two bizarre strokes upon it before leaping aside in fright.
*Crack...*
A hairline fracture appeared along the extraordinary paintbrush's remarkable shaft, making Bai Zhou's heart ache with distress.
The next instant—
*Whoosh!*
A pitch-black whirlwind sprang up abruptly.
Accompanied by falling blood-rain, countless fleeting demons and apparitions wailed and howled deep within the dark wind.
The instant he finished the strokes, as if anticipating this all along, Bai Zhou took off in a wild sprint, never looking back.
*Roar!*
Sure enough, the black mist bared fangs and claws right behind him, nearly clawing at his backside multiple times.
He fled; it pursued.
*Boom!*
Suddenly, thunder clapped across the clear ground, and blood-red lightning struck down from above!
It smashed violently into the giant bronze lock bearing the two strokes.
The innocent giant bronze lock cracked and shattered on impact, reduced to powder, the strokes forcibly wiped clean.
*Hum...*
The anomaly dissipated with a hum.
The black whirlwind, which had been a hair's breadth from dragging Bai Zhou inside, vanished alongside it.
"Phew..."
Only then did Bai Zhou stop, slowly letting out a long breath.
Unbeknownst to him, cold sweat had soaked his back.
All returned to quiet.
As if nothing had ever happened.
Only the shattered lock on the ground and the faint crack on Bai Zhou's brush bore witness to what had just transpired...
"Forbidden knowledge!"
The half of an ancient glyph Bai Zhou had once acquired with the help of the Golden Pass displayed immense might at this moment.
Previously, Bai Zhou had wondered: as forbidden knowledge unaccepted by the world, the moment it appeared, it would suffer obliteration from the world itself...
—Did that, in a sense, make it "indestructible and all-shattering"?
Whatever material carried it, no matter how mysterious or resilient, could never rival the entire world!
—Sure enough, this attempt finally validated Bai Zhou's wild idea.
Though Bai Zhou still didn't know the proper way to use this half-glyph...
By stumbling through trial and error, had he found a rather bizarre way to use it?
"An all-purpose lockpicking bomb!"
How was this not a miraculous "Open Sesame" incantation of its own?
It was just a pity that the restrictions were too heavy for frequent use...
Amid his delight, Bai Zhou also felt a few regrets.
One regret was that he would hardly ever get a chance to draw it on an "enemy."
Otherwise, Bai Zhou would have loved to write a big fat forbidden glyph right onto Major Luo's forehead, letting him get up close and personal with the howling demons in the black fog.
Another regret was that against special materials like the giant bronze lock, where not even the Moon Cinder Holy Oath Slash could leave the slightest mark, nothing else would work.
He could only rely on the extraordinary paintbrush.
Yet Bai Zhou had only this single extraordinary paintbrush.
A single crack had already forced him to stop, grieving over the damage.
Unless forced by absolute necessity, he had no desire to wear out his newly acquired treasure so soon...
*Tap, tap!*
Trotting back from afar, Bai Zhou stood before the temple doors once more.
Above the shattered lock, a crack had finally opened between the temple doors.
A faint, damp smell of decayed spices mixed with verdigris quietly drifted out through the gap.
"Finally..."
Taking a deep breath, Bai Zhou pressed both hands against the temple doors and shoved with steady force.
*Creak...*
The bronze doors swung inward, revealing a long, pitch-black corridor.
Bai Zhou took a step forward.
Suddenly, a vibration came from the token inside his robe.
The heavy token, as if drawn by some force, flew out from his breast on its own, hovering in midair.
*Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!*
An alarm-like sound echoed throughout the corridor.
"What's going on?!"
Could he have been identified as an intruder?
What kind of temple is this, being so "smart"?!
Cursing his bad luck, Bai Zhou spun around to flee in panic and suspicion.
Yet in the very next instant—
*Swish!*
A beam of silver-white light plunged from above, descending with an incredible, unavoidable speed, enveloping Bai Zhou in the blink of an eye.
At the same time, an obscure, ancient, cold mechanical voice echoed beside Bai Zhou's ears.
The mechanical sound resonated directly into Bai Zhou's mind, its meaning inexplicably clear to him. It seemed to say...
"Scanning... Only pilgrim in countless years."
"Fate Principle detected as [Chen]. Meets qualification for the temple assessment."
The cold mechanical voice echoed in Bai Zhou's mind, completely devoid of emotion.
The next second, the token transformed accordingly, its original bronze sheen turning into shimmering, bright silver, matching the color of the descending light beam.
The token... leveled up?
Bai Zhou was bewildered, not understanding what was happening.
—Immediately following that, however:
Another pillar of light descended from above, dazzling golden radiance enveloping Bai Zhou head-on.
The icy mechanical voice rang out again, its tone seemingly carrying an imperceptible flicker of variation:
"Deep scan..."
"Congratulations, new pilgrim."
"Fate Principle height: five feet five inches, exceeding three feet. Qualified to enter the temple's elite assessment."
Radiance flared!
In a flash, the token was reshaped and upgraded once more before Bai Zhou's eyes, the silver fading away into brilliant gold.
"Elite assessment, preparations complete."
"—Pilgrim, please begin your assessment!"
The moment the words fell, the golden pillar enveloping Bai Zhou began burning like fire.
As the luminous flames erupted, the scene before Bai Zhou's eyes shifted.
The weightlessness he had felt while riding the rainbow beam returned, sending the world spinning around him.
"What...?"
When he opened his eyes again, Bai Zhou had arrived in an unfamiliar enclosed space.
"Where is this?!"
Bai Zhou forced himself to calm down, warily examining his surroundings.
The dim space was vast, lit by a faint blue glow from blue gems set overhead.
Densely packed characters and figure illustrations covered the walls on all four sides.
And on the ground...
Beneath Bai Zhou's feet lay countless chilling skeletons.
Lying, sitting, in varied postures, all thoroughly decayed.
Bai Zhou suspected they were former examinees!
Beside these bones, red spider lilies bloomed profusely across the floor.
They were breathtakingly beautiful, making the place resemble the shores of the underworld river.
—Yet when Bai Zhou looked closely, he realized these were no red spider lilies at all...
They were crimson last words left behind by the bones, squirming across the ground, jostling and overlapping one another, blanketing the entire floor in dense layers—
Layer upon layer!
Leaving virtually nowhere to set foot!
Chapter 97