"What a lunatic..." Xiao Yan reached the summit of the Death Forest, taking in the entire expanse from a bird's-eye view.
The Death Forest before him was unimaginably vast, yet its overall structure resembled not a forest at all, but rather a gigantic chessboard. The only difference was that instead of chess pieces, the board held forest-like vegetation and human figures. The entire chessboard was perfectly symmetrical left to right, separated down the center by a river boundary, with eight rows on each side and ten grid squares in every row.
The ground of the Death Forest, saturated with blood, appeared exceptionally flat. Across every single square of the chessboard-and even around every stronghold-faint, rule-governed fissures flickered in and out of existence.
The chessboard was divided into left and right halves, their black-and-white dual colors deeply eerie yet exuding a sense of intense unease.
"Welcome to successfully passing the trial of the Death Forest." Shortly after, before the shock on Xiao Yan's face could dissipate, the Demonic Scholar-looking like a refined scholar-appeared entirely alone. Accompanied by a burst of intense evil light, he plucked Xiao Yan's body once more from the Death Forest and returned him to the Gu Clan Square.
"Hu... hu." With a sudden shift in the light before him, Xiao Yan looked at the white throne in front of him, the Demonic Scholar upon the opposite black throne, and the projection of the Death Forest that had appeared in the sky above the chessboard right between the two thrones. He forced himself to calm the anger churning within him and spoke softly.
Because Xiao Yan's power was currently restricted, fighting to the death would likely result in nothing more than a pointless sacrifice. Under such circumstances, it was better to use the chessboard to decide the outcome.