"Don't move! Be careful..."
Just as Xu Chan nervously stepped into Ruru's footprints one after another, a muffled, indistinct voice suddenly sounded behind her.
She whipped her head around, only to find nothing behind her.
There was no one else in the entire empty area, and not even an echo of that voice lingered.
A ghost?
A warning?
Xu Chan was shaken. That sudden warning jolted her out of the passivity the situation had forced upon her, and she gradually began to calm down.
Looking at the enormous pillar before her, more than a meter wide and stretching all the way to the ceiling, she suspected that whatever hid behind it was anything but harmless.
"Who are you?"
After a moment's thought, Xu Chan finally tried speaking to the voice, hoping to glean some information.
But that indistinct voice never came again. She stood frozen in place for over two minutes, yet it had vanished without a trace and made no further sound.
Her brows drew tighter and tighter. Time slipped away, but she could no longer feel it passing.
Only that relentless scraping persisted, each stroke seeming to scrape against her own skin, until phantom pain spread throughout her body.
At last, when she reached the limits of her endurance, Xu Chan made her decision.
For their group, success was the only option today. Even a draw was unacceptable, so they always had to keep pace with events and seize control of them.
Xu Chan did not disappoint Li Guanqi. When she sensed something uncanny, she did not retreat. After a brief stalemate, she took the initiative.
And with that step, her true test officially began.
Behind the Stone Pillar that concealed everything from view, the source of the scraping was finally revealed in all its horror.
The instant