Where Have We Ended Up?
With a blank expression, Su Luo watched the twisted monster in front of her vanish into Ethereal. She stepped forward and picked up the White Card container that had condensed on the ground, along with a small pile of clinking gold coins.
The whole process was done casually, but the invisible "mark" surrounding him grew increasingly dense and heavy, almost turning into a dark red aura that could be seen with the naked eye.
[Currently in effect: Desolation Plague]
[Blight Shield (Level 20): All enemies gain an additional 1000% maximum Health Points.]
[Desolation Plague Spear (Tier 10): Deals an additional 1525% damage to all enemies.]
[Time Maze: You cannot play more than fifteen cards per turn.]
[Void Crystal: Lose 1 energy at the start of each round.]
[Random Thoughts: Draw one less card each turn.]
With the shackles of sanctions falling one after another, a tower climber who relies solely on card and Relic systems would likely find themselves unable to make any progress in the face of such a terrifying accumulation of Desolation Plague.
This means that the enemy's health is eleven times that of normal, and the damage is sixteen and a half times that of normal. At the same time, Su Luo's energy acquisition and card draw efficiency are severely restricted, and every attack from the enemy can directly kill Su Luo from the perspective of the card game.
The Tower was in a hurry, with layers upon layers of Desolation Plague descending, but there was nothing it could do. Su Luo had taken the legal route, and her power had been legally restored and used through the rules of the Dreamscape.
Since the power is his own and the way he uses it is "legal"—if anyone is to blame, it's the Dreamscape rules for leaving gaps that could be deciphered when constructing the "Source Essence Circulator" and "Power Mapping," or the monsters in the Tower for being too weak. In any case, Su Luo can't be blamed.
"Wait... if... if battles could be fought like this, without drawing cards, without calculating energy, without considering card order and combinations... then what's the point of our 'decks'?"
Iron Guard still couldn't accept the reality that the first level was all about playing cards, and the second level was about unleashing a brutal massacre.
"Can you... still use your own power without the cards?" Su Luo turned around.
"Um..." Iron Guard paused for a moment, "Should... be okay? The rules inside and outside the tower are different. I've been inside the tower for too long, I really don't know."
"Yes, those hunting Craft, assassination techniques, and concealment techniques... these are already ingrained in my bones, becoming as natural as breathing. The cards in the Tower simply 'encapsulate' these instincts in a certain regulated form, making them easier to use under the unique combat rules within the tower."
Jingjing, on the other hand, was very confident, and raised her hand to make a knife flourish.
Upon entering the next room, Su Luo immediately sensed a fundamental change in her surroundings.
It's not a simple scene change; rather, the fundamental parameters of the entire Dreamscape space have shifted—the "depth" has increased.
This place feels like an isolated bubble sinking deeper into a sea of Dreamscape. The space itself has a viscous "texture," the light is distorted, and the boundaries of objects in the field of vision are blurred.
It is so striking that it can cause confusion, yet without realizing it, one's thoughts can suddenly become clear.
In the Void, there seemed to be countless images of monsters and treasures, seemingly within reach yet unattainable, both illusory and real.
Crimson rules of Text coalesced against this Chaos backdrop:
[Defeat a first-phase boss to obtain a rare Relic.]
[Upgrade all cards; you can no longer Rebirth.]
[Gained 999 gold coins and two Curse cards.]
"This... no! This isn't a second-stage event, is it?" Jingjing feeling the Chaos in her mind and the contradiction between reality and reality, she was somewhat bewildered.
Iron Guard remained silent, but the undulating purple flames around him revealed his inner turmoil. He recognized the atmosphere, which caused the fragments of his broken memories to stir restlessly.
"What stage is that?" Su Luo said, noting that she felt the Dreamscape was getting deeper.
"Phase three... Has the Tower gone mad?"
Su Luo thought about it and felt that the first option was the most interesting.
The first stage boss is the [Demon Doppelganger]. If Iron Guard goes to fight it again, can he inherit the skill again?
Choose the first one.
Su Luo doesn't rely on the Tower's cards in combat at all now, so the second option is useless, and the third option is meaningless.
The moment the three made up their minds, a sudden change occurred!
The entire Chaos space twisted and spun violently, and the flowing, broken light and shadow accelerated their mixing, bursting out with dazzling, multicolored light.
A feeling of weightlessness came from beneath my feet, not a fall, but a more indescribable feeling of "falling." The "depth" of the Dreamscape continued to deepen at an alarming rate, and everything around me quickly became unreal.
Su Luo immediately realized that the Tower was using some means to transfer them, and without hesitation, she used the energy overflowing from the Tower as it changed to rapidly convert into Source Essence.
[Source Essence: 1076]
All of it flows back to the main body, leveraging its power.
An even greater force surged back like a flood bursting its banks, and finally, about one percent of the original body's power remained within this Dreamscape Consciousness Entity.
The Chaos and illusion before them gradually solidified, becoming real. However, what appeared was not the dark corridor and the mirror image of the Demon Doppelganger that they had expected on the first floor.
They stood on a patch of Burn earth.
The sky is an eternal, Stars Veil of darkness, pressing down heavily on the earth.
The air was thick with the acrid smell of burning and blood. Before me lay a village of considerable size, or rather, the ruins of a village.
Most of the wooden and stone houses were engulfed in flames, with thick black smoke billowing up and black flames licking at everything, crackling and wailing.
At the village entrance, a warped, charred iron sign lay askew on the ground, with a few faint characters still discernible. "Ironclad Legion."
Countless corpses were scattered on the ground.
They wore armor similar in style and uniformity to that of the Iron Guards, but now most of it is tattered and torn apart by flames and violence.
Death is frozen in various gruesome forms: chests pierced by sharp claws, necks snapped by brute force, and charred into ash by flames... In the silence, only the sound of Burn flames accentuates a chilling stillness.
There is Mana in this environment, Iron Guard's abilities also bear many traces of Spell, indicating that this civilization is quite accomplished in the Mana Side.
Su Luo tried to draw a card, but found she couldn't. This wasn't even inside the Tower.
On the contrary, the one percent of his original power that had just been awakened, as well as his Spells and energy manipulation abilities, were exceptionally clear and usable.
Iron Guard and Jingjing were also trying to play cards, but the battle hadn't started, so they couldn't draw cards.
"Where are we going? Still inside the tower?"