Just for an instant.
The Lotus Brilliance had appeared before the old man.
At first, as he watched the Lotus Brilliance suddenly materialize before him, the old man's chanting only grew faster.
But his voice grew fainter... softer and softer.
As if something had forcibly choked the words off in his throat.
Until they disappeared completely.
The old man slowly stopped dancing, silently gazing at the blood-red lotus rotating before him.
He seemed to be admiring it.
His gaze traveled along the lotus petals, then to the Vajra Phantom behind the Lotus Brilliance, and finally to the calm-eyed young man beneath it.
He spoke softly:
"Young man, you're impressive."
As soon as the words left his mouth,
the Red Lotus's petals began to open, one by one.
Until it bloomed to its fullest!
Boom!!
Red light instantly flooded the entire space.
Crimson swallowed the view, and the explosion devoured every sound.
Almost the instant the Lotus Brilliance bloomed, Jiang Ran
raised the Vajra Phantom's arms and crossed them in front of himself.
Even so, the force of the impact hurled him and the phantom backward.
His back slammed into the rock wall, and rubble came raining down.
The entire underground space trembled as countless jagged cracks split across the rock ceiling.
After an unknown amount of time,
the red light gradually faded, and the dust slowly settled.
The scene before him gradually came into focus.
The spot where the old man had stood was now empty.
And beneath it...
A massive crater, over ten meters in diameter, had appeared beside the blood pool.
Jiang Ran lowered his arms, caught his breath, and canceled Buddha's Wrathful Vajra.
The five-meter-tall phantom dissolved into countless motes of light.
Then he slowly walked toward the crater. The finishing move Lotus Brilliance really was powerful...
Just a little too powerful.
It wasn't very suitable for close-range use.
Of course, maybe he'd simply used it incorrectly the first time.
The scene just now hadn't looked like he'd thrown a punch at full strength. It had seemed more like a long-range divine ability.
"First time using it. I didn't control its form properly." Jiang Ran shook his head. "I'll have to adjust it next time."
He wasn't unfamiliar with how to use finishing moves. He just hadn't yet learned which form of a finishing move suited each situation.
Lotus Brilliance seemed to have quite a few variations.
But now wasn't the time to review what had happened.
He focused himself and slid down the crater wall.
The bottom was deeper than he'd expected, perhaps seven or eight meters down.
When Jiang Ran landed and saw what lay before him, he couldn't help freezing.
He'd assumed the old man would have been reduced to nothing under an attack that powerful.
But now...
The old man still lay quietly in the center of the crater.
Even the ritual robe he wore was completely intact.
Only the hand protruding from his sleeve had lost all its flesh.
All that remained were golden bones,
gleaming with a warm, jade-like luster.
Jiang Ran furrowed his brow, crouched down, and reached for the colorful Nuo Opera Mask on the old man's face.
The moment he picked up the mask...
Buzz.
A pale blue panel automatically appeared before his eyes.
[Congratulations! You obtained profession material: "Martial God Power."]
[Unlock the "Nuo Opera Master" (Extraordinary) Profession?]
Jiang Ran's eyes shifted.
Nuo Opera Master?
He almost chose yes on instinct, but just then...
Click.
A faint sound came from the bottom of the crater.
Jiang Ran immediately chose no and looked down again.
With the mask gone, all that remained of the old man's head was a golden skull.
Two weak points of red light flickered in its eye sockets like candles in the wind, as if they might go out at any moment.
The skull struggled to turn its neck, bit by bit, toward Jiang Ran.
Its upper and lower jaws moved faintly.
"Young man..."
"I acknowledge you..."
Jiang Ran looked at the golden skull, fell silent for two seconds, then gently shook his head.
"I don't need your acknowledgment."
The skull seemed to hesitate. The red light in its eye sockets flickered unsteadily.
Jiang Ran continued softly:
"If the First Sage you spoke of really was so remarkable, you wouldn't need to use your bones and mask to carry on this nonsense."
"Are you guarding him here, or are you guarding your own unwillingness to let go?"
After he spoke,
the skull fell silent.
At the bottom of the crater, only water dripping through cracks in the rock could be heard. Drip, drip, drip.
After a long while,
the red light in the skull's eye sockets suddenly wavered.
Jiang Ran felt that the old man seemed to be smiling.
"Ha..."
The skull moved its jaw one last time, its voice so faint it was almost inaudible.
Then the red light in its eye sockets began to fade.
Like a candle burning out, it dimmed bit by bit until it finally went dark.
Seeing this, Jiang Ran bent down and reached out, intending to lift the golden skeleton from the crater.
Bones that had remained intact beneath the Lotus Brilliance had to be something valuable. There was no need to even think twice.
But just as his fingertips were about to touch the golden bones...
A distinct cracking sound suddenly came from overhead.
Jiang Ran jerked his head up.
The rock ceiling was now covered in dense cracks.
Dust sifted down.
The cracks were still spreading outward at a visible speed.
"..."
Jiang Ran's mouth twitched. He murmured helplessly:
"Looks like I'd better get the hang of it before using it next time."
As soon as he finished speaking,
Rumble!!
The ceiling collapsed with a roar.
Huge rocks came crashing down like rain, instantly swallowing the bottom of the crater.
Meanwhile,
deep in the tomb passage,
gunshots and the thunder of divine abilities rang out without pause.
The narrow passage had become a slaughterhouse.
Zhou Yuan's face was ashen. Pale green wind blades wrapped around the longsword in his hand as he cleaved apart a masked figure lunging at him.
But behind him, more masked figures surged forward like a tide.
They were silent, wearing Nuo masks of every color. Their hollow eye sockets held no emotion.
Only the instinct to kill.
"Captain Zhou! The passage on the right is clear!"
A blood-soaked team member ran back from ahead, shouting:
"But... that man in black is gone! We can't reach him on the radio!"
At the news, Zhou Yuan couldn't help letting out a soft sigh.
He'd sensed something was wrong a while ago.
From the moment they entered the passage on the right, they'd found nothing but monster corpses along the way, all brutally smashed to pieces—clearly the work of the man in black.
But as they pressed forward, there were no more signs of fighting behind them.
It was as if the man in black had simply vanished halfway through.
"I bet he found something good and left."
Qian Laojiu's sarcastic voice came through the radio.
"I said it from the start. You can't rely on lone wolves like that."
Manager Sun followed in an unhurried voice:
"Some people wanted to take the Seed of Return to Void and leave, too... Good thing I was behind him, Captain Zhou."
Zhou Yuan's expression didn't change. He cut off the radio.
He knew far more than Qian Laojiu and the others did.
The man in black had rescued two police officers and several others shortly after the Abyssal Void opened. He'd repeatedly cleared high-risk areas and even killed an ancient Exotic Beast on his own.
Would someone like that really do such a thing?
It was possible, but unlikely.
Besides, the best thing in this tomb could only be the Seed of Return to Void.
The man in black had no use for it anymore.
"Captain Zhou, we can't hold them back!"
Another team member rushed over, his voice urgent.
"There are more and more masked figures. We have to fall back farther inside!"
Zhou Yuan glanced behind him.
A sea of masked figures surged through the passage, filling it from wall to wall.
He didn't hesitate.
"Everyone, push forward! We'll regroup!"
"Yes!"
The people from all three passages were eventually forced toward the same place.
At the end of the passage stood a stone door.
It had already been pushed open. Beyond it lay an underground chamber.
When Zhou Yuan and his people charged inside, Old Qian and Manager Sun's teams burst in through the other two entrances almost at the same time.
Before the three groups could exchange a word...
Everyone froze.
The chamber before them was larger than a soccer field.
And at its center,
skeletons knelt in rows.
Countless corpses in tattered ancient clothes, their faces hidden behind Nuo masks of every color, knelt in orderly rows.
They stretched as far as the eye could see, utterly silent.
"Th-this is..." Someone's voice trembled.
"Damn it, they've blocked both the front and the back. They planned to trap us in here from the start!" Qian Laojiu's face turned pale.
As soon as he finished speaking,
masked figures poured through all three entrances behind them like a tide.
They didn't charge into the sea of corpses. Instead, they stopped at the entrance and slowly spread out, forming a circle.
They were driving everyone toward the depths of the kneeling corpses.
"Shit... We're surrounded." Manager Sun spat out a mouthful of blood. "Captain Zhou, what's the call?"
Zhou Yuan swept his gaze around, then looked toward one of the few elevated spots in the area.
"Head there," he said in a low voice. "Take the high ground and defend it."
There was no other choice.
The three groups joined forces. Fighting off the pursuers behind them, they struggled to advance toward the high ground.
The fighting had reached a fever pitch ever since they entered this space.
The masked figures seemed endless, pouring in through all three entrances.
More kneeling figures in masks kept waking up around them.
Their bullets ran out quickly, and their supernatural abilities were being drained at a terrifying rate.
Everyone was fighting with murderous intensity.
"Shit... I can't keep going..." Qian Laojiu gasped. "That damn idiot ran off by himself, leaving us here to die."
Before he could finish speaking,
the ground beneath their feet suddenly began to shake violently.
Then...
Rumble!!!
At the same time, the ground in the center began collapsing over a wide area.
"Watch out... The ground's caving in!"
"Get clear!"
Amid the cries of alarm, no one had time to react.
They fell with the collapsing ground.
The shaking continued for nearly a minute.
When everything finally settled, Zhou Yuan struggled out from beneath the rubble.
He looked around.
This seemed to be a lower level. Collapsed rock lay overhead, and through the gaps, he could just make out the flames in the space above.
The area was in ruins, with many people buried beneath the debris.
Some were still struggling, while others had gone still.
"Sound off!" Zhou Yuan shouted hoarsely.
"Captain Zhou! I'm over here!"
"Manager Sun's hurt!"
"Where's Old Qian?!"
"Boss Qian's buried underneath! Dig him out!"
Amid the chaos, Zhou Yuan suddenly heard a noise not far away.
"Scrape, scrape, scrape."
It sounded like someone digging through the dirt.
He whipped around toward the sound.
Then he froze.
At the edge of the ruins, a familiar black figure stood with his back to them, digging at something with both hands.
"That's..." Manager Sun clutched his bleeding arm and looked over too, his pupils narrowing.
Qian Laojiu had just been dug out from under the rubble. Covered in dust, he looked up, spotted the figure, and immediately darkened.
"Shit..."
"Shut up."
Zhou Yuan raised a hand to stop him.
Everyone fell silent.
Only the black figure kept digging, again and again.
At last, he seemed to notice everyone staring at him.
His movements paused.
Then he slowly turned around and said softly, meeting their eyes,
"Uh, don't mind me. Carry on."
Before you continue