You Still Haven't Realized How Serious the Problem Is

Easy for you to say! There could be danger at every turn, and people could die!

Two monsters we encountered outside have already caused casualties, and you still want everyone to venture deeper inside?

Fu Qian's words immediately sparked a fierce reaction—or rather, fierce opposition.

"Go inside the ruins..."

Li Weixuan considered it for a moment, then looked at Ji Liushuang and the others.

"What do you think?"

"If we don't want to sit here and wait for death, going inside to look for a way out is our only option."

Unexpectedly, Ji Liushuang's stance was remarkably firm.

"And the sooner, the better. Most people are still in decent shape. If we wait any longer, we'll die by inches."

What decisiveness! Fu Qian secretly praised her.

"Isn't the risk too great?"

Yuan Xin suddenly interjected.

"This whole ruin reeks of something strange. We have no idea what we might run into inside. Charging in like this is far too reckless."

For once, he was standing his ground. Was he really going to oppose the goddess?

Fu Qian glanced at Yuan Xin with interest and found the latter glaring at him coldly.

He'd overestimated him. It seemed Yuan Xin was simply unhappy that Ji Liushuang agreed with Fu Qian's suggestion.

"We're not out of options yet. Some people are injured. I think it'd be safer to rest here for a while."

Huang Zhaoyan quickly chimed in.

He and Yuan Xin might have their differences, but that didn't mean he wanted to get himself killed.

"If we go several days without sending word, people outside will realize something is wrong.

"Once they send someone to investigate, we can work together from both sides to figure something out. Things aren't nearly as bad as you're making them out to be."

"You want to rest and wait for help in a place where you have no idea what danger might hit you next? What were you thinking? Do you even know how far the academy is from here?"

Ji Liushuang let out a cold laugh and retorted without holding back.

As everyone fell into an argument, Li Weixuan furrowed his brow.

He was skilled and confident, so he was inclined to explore the ruins. But their lives were at stake, and as a competent leader, he couldn't ignore the students' opinions and force his decision on them.

"Idiots."

Fu Qian shook his head.

"What do you mean?"

Huang Zhaoyan had hardly dared look at Fu Qian since earlier, but now that he'd been called an idiot outright, he couldn't just let it pass.

"Have any of you considered one thing?"

Fu Qian looked around at them.

"This place has clearly been here for a long time. So why don't any of you have information about it?"

That...

Fu Qian's words left everyone deep in thought.

It was strange, now that they thought about it. The place was remote, sure, but given how dangerous and unusual it was, it made no sense that there hadn't been a single rumor about it all these years.

"Could it be possible that...?"

Fu Qian looked around, pleased by their reactions.

"The moment you enter this place, your existence outside is erased."

What?

Everyone froze.

"Is that so hard to understand? Then let me ask you: has anyone ever heard of somebody disappearing here?"

"Not that I know of."

Ji Liushuang's eyes went unfocused as she murmured to herself.

"Then how do you explain that pile of hair and arms we encountered? Just from those two monsters, there must have been plenty of victims."

"So the truth is, once you step inside, every trace of your existence in the outside world is erased. No one will remember you or even know you ever existed—whether they're your family, your friends, or your lover."

"Pay attention: it's not death, it's erasure. They won't even retain their memories of you.

"Even if there's a wedding photo on your bedside table, the person closest to you will still look right past you in it. They'll only wonder why they bought two sets of tableware."

Fu Qian winked at Ji Liushuang.

"Beautiful lady, there's a chance your parents have already forgotten they ever had a daughter like you."

"Stop talking nonsense! How could that be possible?"

"That's absurd!"

"Ridiculous scare tactics. I've never heard of anything like that!"

The scene Fu Qian described in his calm, measured tone was so horrifying that everyone instinctively denied it.

Could it really happen?

Ji Liushuang bit her lip. Now that she thought about it, some things really didn't add up.

Everyone had done their homework before setting out to explore such a strange place, yet they'd found no information about it at all.

Unless someone had deliberately kept it hidden...

But if what he said was true...

The thought of vanishing completely from her parents' world, without even a trace of a memory left behind, made it hard for even someone as strong as her to breathe.

"So give up on your pointless fantasies. No one's coming to save you."

Fu Qian twisted the knife once more.

"Unless you get out on your own."

In the end, Li Weixuan was the first to recover. Seeing everyone fall silent, he drew a deep breath.

"This place really is strange. Sitting here and waiting for death isn't an option. From now on, everyone will follow me into the ruins to investigate."

This time, no one objected. In fact, no one said a word.

Done!

Fu Qian snapped his fingers, quite pleased with the result.

No matter what, Li Weixuan was a powerful fighter, and he couldn't afford to leave him behind on their first exploration of the ruins. So the others had to come too.

Of course, strictly speaking, what he'd said was still just an unverified guess.

But people were like that. As long as you gave them an explanation, no matter how far-fetched, they couldn't help considering it if they had no other answers.

The more they thought about it, the more terrifying it became.

The group fell into oppressive silence as they made their way onward. Everyone seemed dazed, morale -99.

With his own strength, Fu Qian had brought the team's morale to the brink of collapse.

Li Weixuan wasn't as calm as he looked, either. But as a master among masters, he put his advantage to good use and turned his unease into fury.

Wielding a long sword temporarily borrowed from one of the students, he led the way almost the entire time. Whenever he saw anything moving, a storm of sword slashes swept over it.

The sinister hair monsters and the nimble, savage hands that had given the team so much trouble before were shredded to pieces by the frenzied sword qi of a Peak Fourth Order expert.

He was so efficient that even Fu Qian abandoned the idea of stealing the kills.

The students behind him kept their heads down, not daring to make a sound. They'd already been shaken to their cores, and now the might of a heavenly deity terrified them completely.

With Li Weixuan leading the way in his furious state, the group was nearly unstoppable as they plunged into the heart of the ruins.

It was even stranger inside than it had been around the outskirts.

Buildings of all kinds were piled layer upon layer, crammed together in an utterly baffling fashion. At a glance, it looked like a packed holiday rush, with not even a path to be found. In many places, the only way forward was over the rooftops.

And besides the hair and hands they'd seen before, there was another kind of creature here: enormous white centipedes.

Looking closely, each segment of a centipede's body was made up of a human skull.

Their deformed jaws gaped wide, clamped tight around the crown of the next skull, and continued in that fashion, segment after segment, stretching on without end.