The moment the Blue Knight sliced through the final layer of the fleshy wall, everyone looked forward in unison.
Below lay a pitch-black, bottomless void. At the edges of the passage, several bronze pillars could be seen crisscrossing, showing only a fraction of their shafts before plunging into the depths of the channel below.
Clearly, they were nearing the core of The Bronze Sin.
But that was not the key point. The key was that within the darkness, everyone could see a massive silhouette slowly rising and falling.
They had discovered it.
And it had discovered them as well.
The pipe network layer behind the copper wall was a completely different world from the one in front of it.
Selena continued deeper inside, leading several mentors. The surrounding pipes had long since vanished, and even the bronze walls had disappeared with them. All that remained in sight was a dense layer of eerie inscriptions, covering every single inch of the walls.
Those inscriptions were still writhing, spinning in slow, concentric circles. The longer one stared, the more they felt their eyes being dragged in, their consciousness spinning along with them.
Selena immediately withdrew her gaze, her footsteps never faltering.
The mentors behind her did not possess her level of composure.
The young mentor walking at the very back suddenly slowed down. His eyes locked onto a circle of spinning inscriptions on the right wall, his mouth hanging slightly open as his entire body was pulled toward it.
He reached out, his fingertips coming within an inch of the inscriptions.
Without even turning her head, Selena slapped her palm backward.
A layer of pale grey mist dispersed from her palm, instantly enveloping everyone.
The young mentor violently shuddered, snapping his hand back, his forehead drenched in cold sweat.
“What are you panicking for?” Selena's voice was not loud, and her footsteps did not slow down. “Since you've obtained what you wanted, paying the corresponding price is only natural. If you want to leave now, you can, but can you bear the consequences?”
Hearing this, no one spoke.
The young mentor lowered his head, clutching his fingers as he caught up with the group.
The grey mist drifted close to everyone's skin, blocking out the pull of the inscriptions.
Selena walked at the very front. Her expression remained unchanged, though her pace was slightly faster than before.
The further they went, the denser the inscriptions became.
Eventually, they were no longer just on the walls; the ceiling, the floor, and both sides were completely wrapped in spinning inscriptions, making it impossible to distinguish wall from floor.
The entire passage no longer had anything to do with the Bronze City; it felt more like the domain of some special existence.
A faint buzzing began to ring in the mentors' ears, though it was hard to tell if it was an actual sound or the resonance of the surrounding inscriptions themselves.
Selena also frowned slightly, and her pace finally slowed down.
Up ahead, a piercing golden light shone through the gaps in the inscriptions.
The light was cold and blinding, a pure golden color completely different from holy light, forcefully splitting the entire space ahead in two.
The inscriptions stopped at the edge of the golden light, not daring to advance any further.
Selena stopped. She saw the wall.
A massive copper wall stood at the end of the passage, significantly taller than what she had heard described by the master last time.
The surface of the wall was already distorted. The originally flat bronze surface was now filled with bulging contours, swelling outward from the inside time and again, as if something was trapped within.
But it was attempting to break free, or rather, trying to burst through these shackles.
That golden light was spilling out from within the copper wall.
“We're here,” Selena said, looking back at the mentors behind her.
She knelt down and opened the largest box in her hands.
Inside the box coiled a mass of greyish-white flesh, its surface covered in fine patterns, writhing slightly.
Selena took it out and placed it on the ground directly in front of the copper wall.
The other mentors opened their respective boxes one by one, taking out pieces of flesh of varying sizes and arranging them around the first mass.
Selena's lips began to move.
Her voice was extremely low, making it impossible to hear what she was chanting. Only muffled syllables slipped past her teeth.
Her layer of pale grey mist suddenly thickened, spreading outward from her feet and blanketing the entire space in front of the copper wall, along with everyone in it.
In the next instant, the flesh on the ground suddenly writhed violently.
The flesh coalesced into a single mass and lunged toward the spinning eerie inscriptions around them.
The moment the flesh made contact, the slowly spinning inscriptions accelerated frantically, whirling left and right. A sound so sharp it was nearly inaudible echoed from deep within the inscriptions, forcing several mentors to cover their ears.
The entire structure of the pipe network layer began to vibrate.
It was not just this passage; Selena could feel the vibrations beneath her feet spreading in all directions, causing the entire pipe network layer to tremble.
The inscriptions expanded outward at an uncontrollable speed, devouring and burying the original bronze patterns on the pipe walls layer by layer wherever they passed.
The layer of grey mist beneath Selena's feet protected them securely. The inscriptions bypassed the outer edges of the mist, leaving them completely untouched.
Yet the inscriptions were not spreading aimlessly. Selena looked up and saw the frantically expanding lines converging, crossing and adhering to one another to form a massive shape.
It was an eye.
Selena's expression darkened.
Before she could look any closer, a dull boom echoed from behind the copper wall.
The boom originated from deep within the copper wall.
The bulging contours struggled violently, cracking the bronze surface of the copper wall in several places. From the rifts, an even more intense golden light burst forth, illuminating the entire pipe network passage.
Selena could not help but squint.
The moment the golden light receded, she saw it.
Deep within the copper wall, a massive silhouette was emerging from the rifts.
It was a crown, seemingly crafted of solid gold and shimmering with a cold light. Its dimensions were absurdly large—about as tall as a person and more than two people wide—clearly not something meant for a human head.
The crown had seven points, and the tip of each point was embedded with an eye—a real eye encased in metal, six of which were still slowly spinning and writhing.
The one in the very center was the largest, resembling glazed glass, shimmering with a dreamlike, colorful luster under the golden light.
All seven eyes were staring directly in Selena's direction.
Selena's breath hitched for a moment.
The mentors beside her could no longer hold on. The grey mist had worn incredibly thin under the impact of the golden light. Their faces were pale, and their legs trembled, clearly suffering from immense mental pressure.
Selena had no time to hesitate and urgently chanted a name.
The moment the name left her mouth, a response came from the direction of the Polymath Tower.
At the top of the Polymath Tower.
The Guardian sat upright in his original spot, his long white hair draped over his shoulders. His pitch-black aura was intertwined with the walls of the Polymath Tower, and before him hovered the small skull condensed from greyish-white mist.
Just moments ago, that small skull had suddenly trembled.
The Guardian noticed immediately. The skull had not moved, but the consciousness of The Man on the Wall was drifting outward.
He acted without hesitation.
Black threads surged from his body, wrapping tightly around the surface of the skull in a sudden constriction, attempting to forcefully drag the consciousness of The Man on the Wall back.
But The Man on the Wall had no intention of backing down either.
The small greyish-white skull suddenly lit up, and an incredibly heavy force exploded from within, forcefully repelling the Guardian's threads.
The Guardian was jarred half a step backward by the impact.
Over a dozen black eyeballs emerged from his body, all staring at the skull. His killing intent surged. This thing had been restricting him from acting just a second ago, yet it had slipped out itself immediately after.
It was treating him as if he were completely beneath notice.
But in the next instant, the Guardian suppressed his killing intent once more.
No, that was not right.
The consciousness of The Man on the Wall had not appeared within the Bronze City.
His perception was already linked with the Bronze City. If The Man on the Wall showed his face in any corner of the city, he would know instantly.
Yet right now, he sensed nothing.
The Man on the Wall had gone to a place he did not know.
The Guardian did not pursue. He retracted the black threads, wrapping them around the giant skull once more, tighter with each coil.
He sat in his original spot.
Waiting for The Man on the Wall to return. If he could not provide a reasonable explanation, the Guardian would crush both the skull and his consciousness together. At worst, he would die, and The Man on the Wall would fall back into a deep slumber.
Back at the copper wall.
The air beside Selena suddenly warped.
A small, greyish-white skull materialized out of thin air, half a step away from her side.
The skull, condensed from mist, was barely larger than a fist. Its features were blurry, yet it was clearly staring straight ahead.
The Man on the Wall had arrived.
The gaze of the small skull swept past Selena, landing on the golden, seven-eyed crown deep within the copper wall.
It watched for a couple of breaths.
Its misty face, which should have been completely devoid of emotion, suddenly changed. Its features tightened violently, the once blurry brows knitting together.
“Take it back.”
The voice emerged from the small skull, urgent and leaving no room for argument.
“Retrieve all the flesh. Do not touch those inscriptions again.”
Selena was taken aback.
To suddenly call a halt halfway through the task?
Although she did not understand the reason, she could hear the absolute certainty in the voice of The Man on the Wall—it was even more urgent than when he had first arranged this job.
“Do it,” The Man on the Wall urged once more.
Selena hesitated no longer.
She turned around and instructed the mentors to close their boxes.
In a flurry of motion, the mentors recalled the masses of flesh still writhing on the inscriptions, stuffing them back into their respective boxes and snapping the latches shut.
The moment the flesh was detached from the inscriptions, the frantically spinning lines decelerated sharply. The massive eye they had formed dissolved, the lines slowly separating and returning to their original, individual rotations.
Deep within the copper wall, the golden light of the seven-eyed crown gradually dimmed, sinking back behind the wall once more.
One by one, the seven eyes closed. Finally, only the glazed sphere in the center remained faintly lit, but it did not last long before it too went dark.
The small, greyish-white skull did not linger.
It cast a glance at Selena without saying another word. The mist gathered inward and dissipated bit by bit as it hastily retreated in the direction of the Polymath Tower.
Selena packed away the last box, stood up, and patted the dust from her robes.
“Let's go,” she said, her tone returning to its usual composure.
Rate on N.U.
