Chapter 1 A Silver Land Built on Bone Sand

The Kingdom of the Dead, once a silver-white land built on bone sand,

was now unrecognizable…

The rampaging demonic energy had tainted every grain of white sand in this land black, and the sky had become murky and heavy.

Here… it seemed as if it had become the border of the "Chaotic Wasteland," waiting to be "assimilated," to be "swallowed up…"

Buzz buzz buzz…

On the scorched earth, the runes of a magic array were humming.

Next to the array stood a bizarre man clad in black robes and a gorgeous cloak, with pure white skin and two pupils in each eye.

His name… was Tariom, one of the two current popes of the Illusory Demon Church (there were originally three, but after Duoling died, only Tariom and Samodier were left).

Chi…

After the humming continued for a while, accompanied by a sound of energy surging, three figures appeared in the array.

"Haa… finally succeeded." Seeing those three, Tariom breathed a long sigh of relief, his body swaying involuntarily as if he was about to collapse from exhaustion.

"Tariom?" After gaining the ability to move, Xiao Ling recognized this guy at first glance and called out his name.

"Ah…" Tariom also looked up at Ruo Yu, Xiao Ling, and Huajian Dao, "Long time no see… 'Three Knights of the Dead.'"

"Where is this?" Ruo Yu observed the surroundings and then asked, "Did you summon us here?"

"Can't recognize it anymore?" Tariom gave a wry smile, "Heh… this is the Kingdom of the Dead you swore allegiance to."

"What?" Hua Jian exclaimed, "This is…" She didn't finish her sentence, but instead, looked around at the surrounding scenery and asked directly, "What happened during this time?"

"It's a long story…" Tariom said, "This is not a place to stay for long, please follow me to see the Spirit King first. Once you get to her, she will explain everything to you."

"Wait." At this moment, Xiao Ling interjected vigilantly, "When did your Illusory Demon Church… become subordinates of the Spirit King?"

"Hehe…" Tariom chuckled sinisterly, "Not subordinates, allies…" He paused, glancing at the sky in the distance, "You don't know… after 'that incident' happened, there are almost no lone wolf forces left in the main universe. Even just to 'survive,' you need multiple alliances to do it."

Speaking of this, he retracted his gaze, sighed softly, and continued, "In short, just follow me… I'm sure that activating the magic array has already attracted the attention of 'them,' and it won't be long before 'redundant soldiers' come to patrol. It would be troublesome if we were held back by those guys…"

The players only understood a part of Tariom's words, and many questions arose with them. To solve these problems, they could only take it one step at a time.

Thus, Ruo Yu and the other two followed Tariom and moved together. The four entered a hidden entrance into a magical dimensional channel, gradually entering the depths of the Kingdom of the Dead…

…………

Meanwhile, on the other side, let's talk about Feng Bujue and the others.

These few who were in the real Chaotic Wasteland had also run with Lao Wang and Zun Ge to a place similar to an underground cave.

All the walls here were made of rocks that radiated high temperatures. Except for the lack of smoke, the feeling after entering was almost like entering a sauna.

Jue-ge and Xiao Tan hadn't walked far before they were covered in sweat, so hot they were practically panting.

However, Xu Huaisang seemed completely unaffected by the heat. Looking at her calm and composed demeanor, without even a bead of sweat on her face, she must have some method of avoiding the heat.

"I say… Xiao Sang, why are you…" Feng Bujue asked, stopping his sentence halfway for no apparent reason.

"Why what?" Xu Huaisang replied.

"You know… that is…" Feng Bujue said, leaning against the wall with one hand, making an extremely charming pose, and then began a "Magic Mike" style performance. He tugged at his collar, stuck out his tongue, and slowly used his hand to gently wipe the sweat from his skin.

"Hahahaha…" Xu Huaisang burst out laughing on the spot.

Xiao Tan's mouth twitched as he complained with narrowed eyes, "Are you planning to use this skill to make a living if you don't write books anymore…"

"Unless 'academic knee dancing' becomes popular in the future, I'm afraid I won't be able to make a living with this…" Feng Bujue said, stopping his very amateur striptease-like wiggling, and said to Xu Huaisang, "But you understand what I mean, right?"

"Ha…" Xu Huaisang slowly suppressed her laughter and replied, "I roughly understand…" She paused and explained, "Actually, it's not that complicated, it's just one of the advanced uses of energy… similar to the technical principles I used when dealing with [Sashimi]'s 'audio detection', of course… 'isolating temperature' is much easier and less energy-consuming than 'resonance'."

They had already discussed the events in Linlu Town before, so when she said this now, Jue-ge and Xiao Tan basically understood.

"Oh, but then again, no matter how hot I am… I won't…" Xu Huaisang said, also leaning against the wall with one hand, but she didn't make the same movements as Jue-ge. She just stuck out her tongue and made a funny face.

"Tch~ I'm just livening up the atmosphere." Feng Bujue shrugged.

"The next time you want to liven up the atmosphere with a similar method, can you please give me a heads up first…" Unexpectedly, Dian He Wang, who was walking in front of them, took the opportunity to complain, "Give me a few seconds to dig out my own eyes first."

"You're so annoying, are you going through puberty?" Jue-ge retorted without showing any weakness, "Do you feel lonely and confused, and are you puzzled and scared that some places on your body are starting to grow hair?"

Lao Wang didn't continue to argue with Jue-ge because he knew he was no match for him, so he just silently continued forward and raised his middle finger at Jue-ge.

Although players can't do this kind of action, NPCs don't have this restriction. In a sense, this can be considered a kind of preferential treatment…

The group walked for a few more minutes, deeper into the underground cave. After passing through several winding and dangerous paths where they could see lava, finally, a huge space with an extremely high dome appeared, and the players' eyes suddenly widened.

"It's us, Feng Bujue and the others are here." After entering that space, Dian He Wang shouted loudly.

His words echoed in the empty, huge cave, and then, a heavy sound of rocks rubbing together rang out.

Along with that sound came a distortion of space…

A few seconds later, on a certain open space that was originally empty, a large area that looked like optical camouflage "opened up." It wasn't until the "invisible stone door" was pushed open by a third that Xiao Tan and Xu Huaisang realized that there was another "entrance" there (Jue-ge had already discovered it with his data perspective as soon as he arrived); if someone didn't open it from the inside, it would be impossible to see this stone door from any angle.

"We've been waiting for you…" Billy's voice rang out before the door was fully opened.

However… his voice sounded very strange, as if he was speaking in a jar, a little muffled.

The players immediately looked over there, and saw… a giant armored puppet about two and a half meters tall, pushing open the stone door and walking out of it, and Billy's voice was coming from the puppet's "body."

When the armored puppet completely walked out of the stone door, Jue-ge and the others took a closer look and were shocked to discover… on the left side of the puppet's rib cage, there was a large, incomplete hole that went through from front to back; the irregular shape of the edge of the gap looked as if it had been "punched through" by something.

At this moment, both sides of the gap had been sealed with glass, and inside the glass… was Billy's head.

"Hey hey… what's going on?" Jue-ge immediately said, "Did you combine with your brother?"

Feng Bujue could certainly recognize that the armored puppet was Billy's younger brother, Bill.

Di di di…

Before Jue-ge finished speaking, Bill's square "display screen face" made a :( emoticon.

"Heh…" Billy smiled wryly when he heard this, "You could say that…" He added, "To sum it up in two sentences… in a battle, I lost all my limbs except my head, and my brother lost his power source and the ability to speak." He paused, "Well… on the bright side, his 'emoticon' function is much richer now."