Director Liu: Su Yuan, If You're Willing to Join the Artifact Refining Department, I'll Do Anything!

As Su Yuan's words fell, the black miasma coiling between the Old One Sword Armor and the Xuanji Demonic Sword finally merged into one.

On the sword armor's surface, once gleaming with a metallic sheen, the rows of bizarre, twisted patterns seemed to come alive. They became writhing fleshly tentacles that coiled around the spiral blade of the Xuanji Demonic Sword.

The two evil forces intertwined, forming an invisible vortex.

Pan Yunqing and every spectator watching Su Yuan felt their consciousness being peeled away by some indescribable evil force.

Before their eyes, the Xuan Ji Sword and the tentacles on its body began spinning like a storm.

Everyone's consciousness spun along with them.

In a daze, a brand-new world appeared before them.

It was a bizarre world beyond words: blood-red, dark, sacred, uncanny...

In this sinister world, monstrous tentacles periodically swept across the sky, wiping out patches of life on the ground.

The spectators instinctively tried to glimpse the source of the tentacles, but the closer their gaze drew, the more maddening whispers rang in their ears.

In a normal state of mind, spectators who sensed something was wrong would have backed away long ago instead of courting death.

But from the moment they were dragged into this strange world, their reason had been rapidly ebbing away. By now, they had become fanatical, obsessive seekers of the Dao.

They fearlessly probed for the truth, their minds sinking ever deeper.

From Director Liu's perspective as a Nascent Soul True Lord, the instant Su Yuan activated "Old One," more than ninety percent of the audience—including Chou Tianze, Zhuo Lixin, Qi Hanyua, and the other top twelve contestants—had fallen into some sort of hallucination.

In that unknown illusion, the spectators seemed to be having bizarre experiences. Strange, satisfied smiles spread across their faces,