"Follow me."
Professor En, who had been confident enough to receive them alone, had clearly prepared himself mentally well in advance.
Faced with their behavior, which was practically that of bandits showing up at his door, he had managed to endure it through sheer force of will.
Leading the three bandits onward through the ancient, complex underground passageways, En soon brought them to a peculiar place.
Wait, it was alive?
As En opened another door, what appeared before them left Fu Qian clicking his tongue in surprise.
Behind the door, beneath layer upon layer of strange restrictions, a massive, corpulent figure was crouched.
It was nearly five meters tall, its surface gleaming with a metallic sheen. It looked as though it had been cast entirely from bronze, yet it was alive—though the layers of restrictions kept it suppressed.
Fu Qian was absolutely certain of that. He could even sense a trace of divinity in the thing before him.
He had expected something like a portal. The entrance to the Forbidden Zone was on this thing? Wasn't that a little too surreal?
Fu Qian looked it up and down, his gaze finally settling on its massive belly—and the huge mouth, no smaller than its stomach.
"Its consciousness has been dormant for a long time. You have to establish a mental connection with it and earn its approval before it'll open its mouth. Dean Cas should know that, right?"
En quickly cleared up Fu Qian's confusion.
"I'm afraid I have to apologize. Professor Weilong usually handles this. My rank isn't high enough, so I can't help for now. You'll have to do it yourselves."
He went on.
Though En kept his expression carefully neutral, Fu Qian could still detect a hint of schadenfreude.
Establishing a mental connection was clearly something the Spirit