At the center of the building stood another statue of a guardian, but unlike the one before him, the guardian in the mural had no black crystal embedded in its chest. There was... nothing there at all!
Countless shattered fragments lay scattered at its feet, made of a material similar to the crystal in its chest!
Around the guardian statue were engraved immensely complex, distorted runes. They seemed to form a massive formation that held the statue firmly in place!
What made Xiao Han's heart pound even harder was the blooming... black lotus depicted on the building's dome!
Its form faintly echoed both the Shadow Demon Lotus he had encountered in the valley and the Martial Soul evolution path the system had given him as a reward!
Could it be... that the guardian's power core had not been there from the start, but had been embedded later?
And did these murals and runes record a way to control or even destroy it?
A bold guess flashed through Xiao Han's mind like lightning!
Damn system, couldn't you make your hint more direct? A friendly reminder, my ass! Yeah, right!
Xiao Han ranted furiously to himself as he dodged for his life through the guardian's storm of spatial rift blades, forcibly plunging his mind into the Eternal Night King Martial Soul in an attempt to grasp that elusive "hint."
The guardian's attacks grew increasingly frenzied. Although the cracks in its chest crystal were slowly closing, the energy fluctuations spilling out had become even more chaotic. Clearly, Xiao Han's desperate strike had affected it far more than appearances suggested.
Every slash of a spatial rift blade carried an unstable, violent aura.
Just then, Xiao Han's Eternal Night King Martial Soul trembled violently!
It was not because of the guardian's attacks, but a resonance originating from this ancient space!
Before, he had only vaguely sensed a connection between his Martial Soul and the ruins, but now, as he focused his attention completely, that sensation became clearer than ever before.
His perception seemed to pierce the raging energy storm. No longer confined to the guardian itself, it spread like a tide to every corner of the sacrificial hall.
Those broken stone pillars were not inanimate objects!
The indistinct murals on the walls were more than mere records!
Through his Eternal Night King Martial Soul's perception, he found mysterious runes engraved inside the stone pillars and deep within the murals. They were immensely complex and obscure, yet contained vast amounts of energy!
Like scattered stars, these runes covered the entire hall, linked to one another in a profound manner to form an unimaginably vast, invisible network.
And the guardian stood at the center of that network!
The black crystal in its chest, slowly repairing itself, was the hub of this energy network!
Every attack the guardian made and every time it drew upon spatial power registered clearly across the runic network, causing runes in specific areas to flicker and energy to flow through them.
The scenes from the murals he had seen earlier now flashed through his mind like a movie on fast-forward—
The Chaos Green Lotus, towering between heaven and earth, purifying all things, its vitality boundless;
The dark monarch reigning over eternal night, commanding shadows and traversing the void;
The two standing side by side against terrifying enemies from an unknown dimension, their forms twisted and radiating an ominous aura;
A world-destroying battle, stars falling and the void shattering; in the end, the green lotus withered and the monarch shattered, becoming countless fragments scattered across the heavens and myriad worlds...
One mural depicted the original form of this very sacrificial hall! The guardian statue at its center had a hollow chest, shattered crystals at its feet, and intricate chains of runes binding its body!
So that's it!
A flash of insight cleaved through the fog like lightning, and Xiao Han understood at once!
This guardian was not the original master of the ruins, nor even an independent life-form! It was more like a "program," a powerful "guard" created and controlled by the ruins' core power through the runic network!
Its source of power was the ruins themselves, with the black crystal in its chest serving as an energy interface and controller!
And the runes on the stone pillars and murals throughout the hall were the "wiring" and "nodes" that controlled it!
Attacking the guardian itself, especially the crystal capable of healing itself, was indeed effective, but as long as the ruins continued to supply energy and the runic network remained intact, it could keep recovering and might even grow stronger!
Its true weakness was not the guardian itself, but the ruins that sustained its existence—those seemingly insignificant runic nodes!
Damn it, after all that, I've been going at this the wrong way! Xiao Han cursed inwardly, but his eyes suddenly lit up.
Now that he had found the right "strategy," there was nothing to hesitate over!
His evasive path abruptly changed!
Instead of simply opening up distance and dodging attacks, he began deliberately moving toward the nearest stone pillar engraved with complex runes!
The pillar had already been battered and scarred by the energy shock waves from the earlier fighting, but its runes still emitted a faint yet resilient light, answering the crystal in the guardian's chest from afar. The flow of energy was clearly visible.
Almost the instant Xiao Han changed direction, the guardian sensed his intention!
"Hrrgh—!!!"
A shriek rang out, sharper and more piercing than any before!
It was filled with terror and fury, as though Xiao Han had touched its most fundamental taboo!
Buzz!!!
The energy fluctuations around the guardian instantly grew even more violent! It seemed to abandon the repair of its chest crystal, allowing the cracks to widen again as it gathered every ounce of power it could muster.
The power became pitch-black spatial rifts, thicker and more solid than before and radiating a terrifying aura of annihilation. Like black venomous pythons come to life, they wildly lunged at Xiao Han to tear him apart!
It would stop Xiao Han from approaching that stone pillar at any cost!
Pressure! Unprecedented pressure!
Xiao Han felt as though he were trapped in a blade-lined cage that was shrinking at a terrifying pace! Deadly threats came from every direction, and space itself was sliced to pieces.
Even dodging and weaving with A Step to the Ends of the Earth became exceptionally difficult. Several times, he barely skimmed past the edges of the rifts, sending sprays of blood flying.
He could even clearly feel the guardian's cold will locked firmly onto him. Its attacks no longer held anything back; it was fighting with every intention of taking him down with it!
"Are you crazy?! I'm just touching a pillar. Do you have to get so worked up?" Xiao Han still found the time to complain as he dodged in a sorry state.
But this only confirmed his guess! These runic stone pillars were definitely the guardian's vital weakness!
Time to risk it all!
A flash of resolve crossed Xiao Han's eyes!
He drew a deep breath and poured all the spiritual power he had left—which was already precious little—into his legs and right fist, along with the last trace of origin power he squeezed from his two great Martial Souls, the Chaos Green Lotus and the Eternal Night Monarch!