Don't mind me, you guys carry on

It happened in a mere instant.

Lotus Brilliance arrived before the old man.

At first, the old man watched Lotus Brilliance appear suddenly before him, his chanting accelerating even further.

But the sound of his chanting grew softer and softer... lighter and lighter.

It was as if something had forcefully pinched his throat shut.

Until it vanished completely.

The old man slowly ceased his dancing movements, silently watching the blood-colored Lotus Brilliance slowly rotating before him.

He seemed to be admiring it.

His gaze followed the petals of the lotus, traveling all the way to the Vajra Phantom behind it, and then to the young man with calm eyes beneath the phantom.

He said softly:

"Young man, you are quite good."

As soon as the words fell.

The petals of the red lotus began to open, slowly, one by one.

Blooming to the extreme!

BOOM!!

Red light instantly filled the entire space.

Vision was swallowed by crimson, and sound was devoured by the explosion.

Almost at the exact same moment the lotus bloomed, Jiang Ran raised the arms of the Vajra Phantom, crossing them in front of him.

Even so, the force of the impact sent him and the phantom flying backward with violent momentum.

His back slammed into the rock wall, and gravel rained down with a rustling sound.

The entire underground space trembled, and countless hideous cracks split across the ceiling.

I do not know how much time passed.

The red light gradually dissipated, and the dust slowly settled.

The scene before him gradually became clear.

The spot where the old man had just been was now empty.

And beneath it...

A giant crater over ten meters in diameter appeared right beside the blood pool.

Jiang Ran lowered his arms, caught his breath, and canceled the state of Buddha's Wrathful Vajra.

The five-meter-tall phantom dissolved into specks of light that filled the air.

He then walked slowly toward the crater; this finishing move, Lotus Brilliance, was indeed powerful...

It was just a bit too powerful.

It was not very suitable for close-range use.

Of course, it was also possible that he had used it incorrectly for the first time.

Because the scene just now did not feel like throwing an ultimate punch, but rather like a long-range divine ability.

"First time using it, didn't control the form well," Jiang Ran shook his head, "I'll have to adjust next time."

It was not that he was unfamiliar with how to use the finishing move, but rather that he had not yet become accustomed to using the appropriate form of the move in the right scenario.

Because as it currently appeared, Lotus Brilliance had quite a lot of variability.

However, now was not the time for reflection.

He gathered his focus and slid down the wall of the crater.

The bottom of the pit was deeper than he had expected, roughly seven or eight meters down.

And when Jiang Ran landed and saw the scene before him, he could not help but be stunned.

He had originally thought that under an attack of that magnitude, the old man would not even have bones left to find.

But now...

The old man was still lying quietly in the center of the pit floor.

Even the shaman robe on his body remained completely intact.

It was only the hands protruding from the sleeves that had lost all their flesh.

Only golden bones remained.

They shimmered with a luster as warm and smooth as jade.

Jiang Ran frowned slightly, crouching down to reach for the Nuo Opera Mask with its swirling colors on the old man's face.

The moment he lifted the mask...

Hum.

A pale blue panel automatically popped up before his eyes.

[Congratulations on obtaining the profession material: "Martial God"]

[Do you wish to unlock the "Nuo Opera Master" (Transcendental) profession?]

Jiang Ran's eyes flickered.

Nuo Opera Master?

He was on the verge of instinctively selecting "Yes," but just then...

Click.

An extremely faint sound came from the bottom of the pit.

Jiang Ran immediately selected "No" and cast his gaze back downward.

The old man's head, now stripped of its mask, was nothing more than a golden skull.

Within the eye sockets, two faint red lights flickered slowly like candles in the wind, as if they might extinguish at any moment.

The skull was struggling with immense difficulty, turning its neck bone bit by bit to face Jiang Ran.

Its upper and lower jaws moved slightly:

"Youngster..."

"I acknowledge you..."

Jiang Ran looked at the golden skull, remained silent for two seconds, and shook his head gently:

"I do not need your acknowledgment."

The skull seemed to freeze, the red light in its eyes flickering erratically.

Jiang Ran continued in a soft voice:

"If that ancient sage you speak of were truly as remarkable as you claim, he wouldn't need you to be messing around here with a pile of bones and a mask."

"Are you guarding him, or are you guarding your own unwillingness to let go?"

As his words fell.

The skull went silent.

The only sound left at the bottom of the pit was the dripping of water from the rock crevices: drip, drip, drip.

A long time passed.

The red light in the skull's eyes suddenly swayed gently.

Jiang Ran sensed that the old man seemed to be laughing.

"Ha..."

The skull moved its jaw one last time, the sound so faint it was almost inaudible.

Then, the red light in its eyes began to slowly dissipate.

Like a burnt-out candle, it dimmed bit by bit until it finally extinguished completely.

Seeing this, Jiang Ran bent down and reached out, intending to pull the golden skeleton out of the pit.

Bones that could remain intact beneath the Lotus Brilliance were, without a doubt, valuable treasures.

However, just as his fingertips were about to touch the golden skeleton...

A distinct cracking sound suddenly came from above his head.

Jiang Ran snapped his head upward.

He saw that the rock ceiling was covered in dense, spiderweb-like cracks that had appeared out of nowhere.

Dust was falling in showers.

The cracks were spreading outward at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"..."

Jiang Ran's mouth twitched, and he murmured with a hint of helplessness:

"It seems I should have practiced a bit more next time."

The moment the words left his lips.

BOOM!!

The rock ceiling collapsed with a roar.

Massive boulders rained down, instantly swallowing the bottom of the pit.

And on the other side.

Deep within the tomb passage.

Gunfire and the roar of exploding divine abilities rang out incessantly.

The narrow corridor had completely transformed into a meat grinder.

Zhou Yuan's face was livid; his longsword, wreathed in pale cyan wind blades, slashed a lunging masked figure to pieces with a single strike.

Yet behind them, more masked figures surged forward like a tidal wave.

They were silent, wearing Nuo Opera Masks of various colors, their hollow eye sockets devoid of any emotion.

There was only the instinct to slaughter.

"Captain Zhou! The right passage is cleared!"

A team member, covered in blood, rushed back from the front and shouted:

"But... that man in black is gone! We can't reach him on the radio either!"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Yuan's eyes darkened, and he couldn't help but let out a soft sigh.

He had sensed that something was wrong for a long time.

From the moment they entered the right passage, the path had been littered with the corpses of monsters, all of them violently obliterated—clearly the work of the man in black.

But as they pushed forward, there were no new signs of combat behind them.

It was as if the man in black had simply vanished into thin air halfway through.

"I reckon he just took whatever good stuff there was and left."

Qian Laojiu's sarcastic voice crackled over the radio:

"I told you, you can't rely on lone wolves like that."

Manager Sun's slow, measured voice followed immediately:

"Some people were planning to leave after getting the Seed of Return to Void anyway... It's a good thing I was behind him, Captain Zhou."

Zhou Yuan remained expressionless and cut the radio feed directly.

He possessed far more information than Qian Laojiu and the others.

The man in black had saved two police officers and several civilians during the initial opening of the Return to Void, and had subsequently cleared high-risk areas multiple times, even killing an Ancient Exotic Beast single-handedly.

Would a person like that do such a thing?

There was a possibility, but it was slim.

Moreover, the best treasure in this tomb was, at most, the Seed of Return to Void.

To the man in black, it had long since become useless.

"Captain Zhou, we can't hold the rear anymore!"

Another team member rushed over, his voice laced with anxiety:

"There are more and more masked figures; we have to retreat further inside immediately."

Zhou Yuan glanced back.

Behind the passage, a sea of black-clad masked figures was surging forward, filling the entire tomb corridor.

He hesitated no longer:

"Everyone, break through to the front! Regroup!"

"Yes!"

The teams from all three passages were ultimately forced in the same direction.

At the end of the tomb passage stood a stone gate.

The gate had already been pushed open, revealing an underground space behind it.

As Zhou Yuan led his men charging in, the teams led by Old Qian and Manager Sun crashed in from the other two entrances almost simultaneously.

Before the three parties could even exchange a word...

Everyone froze.

The space before them was larger than a football field.

And in the center of this space.

It was filled with kneeling corpses.

Countless bodies, dressed in tattered ancient attire and wearing Nuo Opera Masks of various colors, were neatly prostrated on the ground.

They were packed densely, silent and motionless.

"This... what is this..." someone's voice trembled.

"Damn it, they've got us from the front and the back; they planned to trap us here all along!" Qian Laojiu's face turned pale.

No sooner had he finished speaking.

From the three entrances behind them, the masked figures surged in like a tidal wave.

They did not charge into the crowd of corpses, but instead stopped at the entrance and slowly fanned out, forming a perimeter.

They forced everyone toward the depths of that area where the corpses knelt.

"Damn it... we've been surrounded." Manager Sun spat out a mouthful of bloody foam. "Captain Zhou, what's the call?"

Zhou Yuan's gaze swept across the surroundings, landing on the few high points within the space.

"Go there," he said in a deep voice. "Take the high ground and defend."

There was no other choice.

The three groups merged, fighting off the pursuers behind them while struggling to advance toward the high ground.

The battle had reached a fever pitch the moment they entered this space.

The masked figures seemed endless, pouring in continuously from the three entrances.

All around them, more masked figures that had been kneeling were constantly waking up.

Bullets were quickly exhausted, and divine abilities were being drained rapidly.

Everyone's eyes were bloodshot from the slaughter.

"Damn... I can't go on..." Qian Laojiu wheezed. "Fuck, that idiot ran off alone, leaving us here to wait for death."

Before he could finish his sentence.

A violent tremor suddenly erupted from the ground beneath their feet.

Immediately after...

BOOM!!!

At the same time, the center of the ground began to collapse outward over a large area.

"Watch out... the ground is collapsing!"

"Get out of the way!"

Amidst the cries of alarm, no one had time to react.

They plummeted downward along with the shattering ground.

The shaking lasted for nearly a minute.

When everything finally calmed down, Zhou Yuan struggled to crawl out from a pile of rubble.

He looked around.

This appeared to be a lower level of the space; above him was the collapsed rock layer, through which the faint glow of fire from the upper level could still be seen.

The surroundings were in shambles, with many people buried in the ruins.

Some were still struggling, while others had already stopped moving.

"Count the survivors!" Zhou Yuan shouted hoarsely.

"Captain Zhou! I'm here!"

"Manager Sun is injured!"

"Where's Old Qian?!"

"Boss Qian is buried underneath! Dig him out!"

In the midst of the chaos, Zhou Yuan suddenly heard a sound coming from not far away.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

It sounded like someone digging through the dirt.

He whipped his head around to look at the source of the noise.

Then, he froze.

He saw a familiar black figure at the edge of the ruins, back turned toward them, hands digging incessantly at something.

"That is..." Manager Sun, clutching his bleeding arm, looked over as well, his pupils constricting.

Qian Laojiu had just been dug out from the rubble, covered in dust and grime; as soon as he looked up and saw that figure, his face darkened instantly:

"Fuck..."

"Shut up."

Zhou Yuan raised a hand to stop him.

Everyone fell silent.

Only that black figure remained, digging away, stroke after stroke.

Finally, he seemed to notice the gazes of the crowd.

His movements paused.

Then, he slowly turned his head, met their collective stare, and said softly.

"Uh, don't mind me, you guys carry on."