Facing the Demon

The silent walking along the rock face lasted for about half a cup of tea's time.

But for the group of them, the time it took to drink half a cup of tea felt like half a century.

Despite the Talismans used to eliminate the high temperature, the narrow, winding passages within the rock wall, the almost stagnant, stuffy air, and the absolute darkness without a trace of light made people extremely uneasy.

It was as if the rock wall might close at any moment, swallowing them up forever; or as if some terrifying Yaomo might leap out from a dark corner and drag them away.

Especially Seagull and Fei Dao —even though they were already in the very center of the group, they still felt a little apprehensive and on edge.

"My goodness, this is terrifying," Fei Dao muttered. "And we're getting close to that horrifying spider Yaomo, right? What if it has some kind of plan?"

"No, layman. Not to mention that this passage is newly appeared and it didn't have time to make any arrangements," Xuan Yunzi's voice came from the front of the group. "This place is located on the edge of the talisman array, the place with the most abundant Talismans, and it has just been covered by my new talisman array—the old and new talisman arrays overlap. Even if it had any arrangements or backup plans here before, they would have been detected and cleared away by the Talismans long ago."

"Don't forget, the purpose of this talisman array is to seal and imprison it. If it escapes easily, what will happen?"

Xuan Yunzi's explanation temporarily relieved Fei Dao.

But before he could relax for long, the faint sounds coming from behind him made Fei Dao tense up again.

"Click, click..."

A soft, rustling sound arose, like some creature chewing and swallowing.

Moreover, the chewing sound, though faint, was quite clear, as if it were coming from not far behind them.

What's that noise?

"Fei Dao," he said in a panic.

The Seagull behind him also heard the sound.

"It looks like something is chewing something..."

The Seagull's cries were trembling, sounding more terrifying than Fei Dao.

The Snowy Owl and the Gao Shan in front turned around.

The Snowy Owl spoke up unhappily, "What are you talking about? Don't scare yourselves!"

Gao Shan calmly replied, "This is the interior of a newly cracked rock face, and the temperature is so high... It's normal to hear some rocks breaking and debris falling."

"No, no, no, it definitely wasn't the sound of stones. That sound was like chewing—I even heard swallowing!"

Fei Dao spoke with certainty, but his voice was filled with even more fear. "Could it be some kind of Yaomo eating people's fingers or something?"

Hearing Fei Dao's terrified words, the Seagull was even more frightened.

"Brothers, brothers, don't talk nonsense! This is a talisman array space, where would Yaomo come from?"

And at this moment...

"Glug!"

A clear swallowing sound rang out, this time even the Gao Shan and Snowy Owl could hear it.

"What's that noise?! Those of you covering the rear, did you hear it?"

Then Li Nian, who was responsible for covering the rear, spoke up.

"I heard you..."

But after saying only three words, Li Nian couldn't hold back any longer and burst into laughter. "Hahahaha, Sister Yao, look how scared you were!"

After Li Nian finished speaking, Lin Yu's calm voice came from behind.

"Oh, sorry, I'm really exhausted and a little hungry. I was eating something just now."

"Sorry, I only brought my own portion."

Hearing Lin Yu say this, Gao Shan and Snowy Owl were both helpless.

"Look at you two... when you hear the sound of eating, shouldn't your first thought be that it's your teammates behind you?" the Snowy Owl said helplessly. "Do you always have to think of something terrifying?"

Hearing the Snowy Owl's words, the Seagull weakly retorted, "Well... this claustrophobic atmosphere is too terrifying, so I misjudged it."

"Besides, the two people behind me didn't even warn me—why didn't you two say something?"

"I never thought I'd have to talk about these things," Li Nian said with a grin. "Of course, it was just that your reactions were hilarious."

Lin Yu calmly replied, "I'm eating. My mouth is full, so I don't have time to talk."

Both the Seagull and the Fei Dao were speechless.

Lin Yu was doing this on purpose, of course.

While he ate partly to replenish his energy, another reason was... to gain some buffs before entering the BOSS room.

The [Carnival Pendant] given by the God of Banquets couldn't be wasted—but the [Reusable Delicious Paper] had already been handed over to Three Suns, so Lin Yu was currently eating [Chat's Supplies].

However, the quantity and quality of food from [Chat's Supplies] are limited, so Lin Yu had to make use of another characteristic of [Chat's Supplies] in order to get the buff.

It can collect surrounding "fear" to power itself and transform it into new food.

Therefore, Lin Yu started using this point when he was chewing the first cookie.

The more he chewed the first two, the more afraid he became, and the more afraid he became, the more new food he could eat.

Final...

After eating eight cookies, Lin Yu was lucky enough to get a new buff that lasted for two hours.

[Solid and Tight: Slightly increases your overall density and toughness, making you heavier, more durable, and more energetic.]

It's a very common boost to physical constitution, and the increase isn't significant. Since it's not particularly useful and is currently the most needed buff for enhancing Combat Power and survivability, there's no need to store it in the form of celestial wine using the [Blissful Immortal Pot]. It's better to just keep it on your person.

Lin Yu assessed the situation and found the actual improvement to be around ten percent.

However... given that Lin Yu already possesses various enhancements, and his Life Force and physical strength are already quite substantial, this 10% boost is actually quite considerable.

"Overall, it's not bad."

Lin Yu was satisfied with the result and put away [Chat's Supplies].

This little incident, however, was not without its benefits for the two "victims," Seagull and the Fei Dao.

At least for the two of them, after being so frightened, they discovered a result that seemed to be "approaching science," and they were no longer so scared.

Soon, they reached the end of the rock passage—at the bend, faint light and the sound of churning lava revealed that another runic space was just around the corner.

"We've arrived... Fellow warriors, please be careful!"

The old Xuan Yunzi spoke in a low voice, and then...

The group carefully filed out of the rock face!

The underground space, half-lit by the lava, appeared before everyone's eyes—in the distance, the ancient and pitch-black ruins of Willow Town stood, with a giant spider Yaomo perched on top of them.

When a truly colossal Yaomo, as large as a mountain, comes into view, its relatively slender spider legs appear like towering, pitch-black Giant Tower reaching to the heavens.

Even Lin Yu, who had met him once before, couldn't help but feel the urge to back down now that he was looking up at Lin Yu instead of looking down at him.

"I'm afraid... it'll be very difficult to win head-on."