Trap

Time rewound half an hour.

Outside Brightlight Building, in a concealed room, Xie An, dressed in a plain white robe, gazed deeply at the building opposite him.

Within his field of vision, an unassuming black car slowly drove into the entrance to Brightlight Building's underground parking garage.

The car bore no markings, and its windows were obscured by dark tint, making it impossible to see inside from the outside. But such concealment was meaningless to Xie An.

Dense Mythic Factors gathered in his eyes, a dark gleam flickering in the depths of his pupils. Through the tinted window, Xie An clearly saw the man seated in the back.

The man's red trench coat was exceptionally conspicuous. His bloodthirsty gaze was like that of a savage beast, as though he were ready at any moment to pounce upon and tear apart his prey.

Blood Hound, deputy leader of the Night Banquet Gang, a Scavenger Third Rank Mythic Walker.

Last night, it had been Blood Hound who led the team that stormed Fortune Shop and attempted to capture Xie An.

"Just as I thought, he's here!"

A smile appeared on Xie An's gloomy face. Shadows churned around him, and with a single step, he vanished from the room.

The scenery around him seemed veiled in shadow. The once clear and radiant sky turned a bleak, corpse-white in Xie An's sight.

It was not the clean white of purity, but the ghastly pallor of a dead man's face, carrying an unsettling aura.

The buildings' colors changed as well. The bright GG signs became dim and lifeless, while the brand-new glass curtain walls were shrouded in grayish-white mist. The entire world seemed blanketed by shadows.

His figure moved swiftly through space, passing through the walls of building after building as he headed toward Brightlight Building. Those skyscrapers that soared into the clouds in the real world had become twisted shadowy outlines on the dark side.

When the scene around him stabilized once more, Xie An was already inside a concealed elevator in Brightlight Building.

"It has been a long time since I used a Mythic Trait. I'm actually a little rusty now."

He murmured softly, with a trace of self-mockery in his tone.

Traversing Yin and Yang!

This was the first Mythic Trait Xie An had obtained after containing the Wealth-at-First-Sight Hat.

Once he activated this Mythic Trait, Xie An could slip into a Darkside Space utterly opposed to the real world, where he could travel freely and anchor locations in reality.

However, Xie An's realm was too low for him to sustain this Mythic Trait for long.

Moreover, precisely because this Mythic Trait was so extraordinary and possessed such immense potential, Xie An had not been stripped of his status as a student of the Five Great Academies even though he had failed to advance for years.

Quite a few instructors were waiting for Xie An to find suitable Mythic Materials and complete his advancement, allowing him to truly bring out the potential of Traversing Yin and Yang.

But only Xie An himself knew that simply traversing space was not the whole of this trait, because he could clearly sense that the dark side space attached to reality was incomplete.

Once the dark side space became whole, this traversal of yin and yang would undergo an unimaginable qualitative transformation. But that was still far too distant for him.

A dark gleam flickered in Xie An's eyes as he locked onto Blood Hound's location on the third underground floor and pressed the elevator button.

The elevator slowly descended, immediately drawing the attention of the Night Banquet Gang members.

When the elevator reached the first basement level, two oddly shaped Aberrants approached the elevator doors, preparing to inspect it.

At that moment, the elevator doors opened, and Xie An's face immediately appeared before the Night Banquet Gang members.

"You are?"

"Xie An!!!"

"Correct. Too bad there's no prize." The instant his words fell, a white Mourning Staff suddenly appeared in his right hand.

It was a wooden staff roughly a meter long, wholly bone-white in color. Withered willow branches were wound around its surface, dotted with scraps like paper money that swayed gently with Xie An's movements, rustling softly.

Xie An swung the Mourning Staff at the two Aberrants before him.

The two Aberrants instinctively raised their arms to block. The tall Aberrant's arms were as thick as iron pillars, the muscles under its skin bulging with a metallic sheen. The short Aberrant, meanwhile, waved its sharp claws, attempting to crush the Mourning Staff.

But in the next instant, something bizarre happened.

The Mourning Staff passed through their arms as effortlessly as through air, striking their heads without the slightest obstruction.

Bang! Bang!

Two dull thuds rang out almost simultaneously.

The pupils of the two Aberrants instantly dimmed, and the red light in their eyes vanished. They stood stiffly for a moment before their bodies collapsed backward as though they had lost all support.

The two massive bodies crashed heavily onto the ground, kicking up clouds of dust.

Their eyes remained open, but all light had vanished from their gazes, as if their souls had been taken away.

This Mourning Staff was Xie An's second Mythic Trait. It could ignore physical defenses and attack the soul directly.

Especially against creatures like Aberrants, which had lost all life and relied solely on Mythic Factors to control their flesh, there was simply no way to withstand the Mourning Staff's attacks.

One strike, and the soul scattered into smoke.

The commotion at the elevator naturally drew the attention of the other Night Banquet Gang members. Hurried footsteps and furious roars came from the end of the corridor.

"An intruder!"

"It's Xie An! Damn it, how did he find this place?"

"Stop talking and stop him!"

Seven or eight figures rushed out from the rooms on both sides of the corridor.

There were Aberrants, ordinary Mythic Walkers, and several armed thugs, all wearing vicious expressions.

Under Blood Hound's deliberate propaganda, Xie An's escape after being surrounded by the Night Banquet Gang had led these gang members to instinctively regard him as a soft persimmon fit only to be squeezed.

But Xie An did not slow down at all. He strolled out of the elevator as though taking a leisurely walk, his body ghostlike as shadows churned around him once more. His figure flickered continuously between reality and the dark side.

A thug carrying a machete charged before Xie An and raised the blade high before chopping down.

But the blade passed through Xie An's body as though it had struck thin air. The next second, Xie An emerged from the dark side behind the thug and lightly tapped the back of his head with the Mourning Staff.

The thug's eyes immediately went blank. His body swayed twice before crumpling limply to the floor.

A Scavenger First Rank Mythic Walker attempted to cast a spell. His hands formed seals, Mythic Factors within his body circulating madly as scorching flames began to gather in the air.

But Xie An was faster. He stepped into the dark side, instantly crossing several meters to appear before that Mythic Walker.

The Mourning Staff traced an elegant arc through the air and struck the man's forehead.

The Mythic Walker's eyes rolled back as his body fell backward. The half-formed spell lost control, and the gathered flames exploded in midair, scorching the surrounding walls.

Xie An slaughtered his way toward the third underground floor.

In truth, even before the Night Banquet Gang made its move, Xie An had already sensed that something was amiss in Yin Mountain City.

After the Yellow Wind Little Sage departed that day, Xie An had been organizing information on the Yellow Wind Little Sage's Ascension Ritual when, among the Mythic Materials he had accumulated over many years, he happened upon a strangely shaped Mourning Staff and used it to verify his suspicions.

The Mourning Staff was a Mythic Material he had acquired by chance after arriving in Yin Mountain City. Usually, he kept it buried at the bottom of a box.

His advancement to Scavenger Second Rank had gone unexpectedly smoothly. After successfully containing the Mourning Staff's Mythic Trait, Xie An could no longer suppress the wild joy in his heart.

He had been a Mythic Walker for more than a decade. With the deep foundation he had built as a graduate of the Five Great Academies, the barriers between Scavenger Ranks meant nothing to him. So long as he gathered enough Underworld Mythic Materials, he could quickly complete his advancement.

Thus, Xie An began actively searching for Mythic Materials on the Yin Mountain City market. But Yin Mountain City was too small, and high-level Mythic Materials were mostly concentrated in the hands of the major powers, with very few circulating publicly. So Xie An turned his attention to the provincial capital.

He first sent messages to former classmates employed in the provincial capital, asking them to collect Underworld Mythic Materials for him. But they informed him that strange natural disasters had broken out outside, disrupting communication between the provincial capital and Yin Mountain City, and that contact could not be reestablished anytime soon.

That excuse might fool others, but how could it deceive Xie An, who came from the Five Great Academies?

He immediately realized something was wrong. He secretly contacted channels for smuggling out of the city, only to discover that the human traffickers who had once operated in Yinshan Black Market had vanished without a trace two months earlier.

Then, later that very night, Blood Hound, deputy leader of the Night Banquet Gang, led several Mythic Walkers and more than ten Aberrants to surround Fortune Shop.

No one knew that Xie An had already advanced to Scavenger Second Rank. With his strength, he could have killed every single intruder then and there.

But Xie An knew full well that the Night Banquet Gang were merely hyenas driven by the Yinshan Investigation Branch. So he went along with the situation, pretending to be outmatched and fleeing in haste. Afterward, he hid in the shadows and tracked Blood Hound, intending to use him to find the Night Banquet Gang's lair and eliminate them once and for all.

This would not only temporarily ease the crisis, but also let him investigate why the Yin Mountain Branch Office was making such a massive move.

Now, it was time to inspect the results.

Under Xie An's lock-on, dozens of Night Banquet Gang members on the third underground floor died beneath the Mourning Staff.

Some tried to flee during that time, but how could they possibly outrun Xie An's Traversing Yin and Yang?

Leaving corpses strewn across the floor, Xie An reached the end of the third underground level.

There stood a heavy metal door with no markings, yet it emitted dense fluctuations of Mythic Factors.

Xie An's gaze could not penetrate the metal door covered in Mythic Factors, but he could clearly sense that the Blood Hound he had locked onto was inside the secret chamber. Another Scavenger Third Rank Mythic Walker was with Blood Hound, most likely Night Owl, leader of the Night Banquet Gang.

"Struggling on death's doorstep?"

A gentle smile appeared on Xie An's face. Yet his plain white robes, the Mourning Staff in his hand, and the yin energy lingering around him gave that smile an added chill.

The space around Xie An shifted, and he stepped into the secret chamber.

The instant he entered, the smile vanished from Xie An's face.

There was no sign of Blood Hound or Night Owl in the chamber. Instead, two Straw Men sat on the chairs, each with a talisman nailed to its head. The talismans bore the names Night Owl and Blood Hound respectively.

"It's a trap!"

Xie An instinctively tried to escape, but the massive amount of explosives in the secret chamber detonated in an instant, terrifying flames flooding the entire space.

The force of the explosion was confined within the narrow chamber, magnifying its power dozens of times. The heat released by the flames instantly reached several thousand degrees.

Xie An's pupils suddenly contracted. He keenly realized that it was already too late to use Traversing Yin and Yang, and could only squeeze every last drop of Mythic Factors from within his body.

The branches on the Mourning Staff whipped about like wailing fiends. An invisible Ghost Domain combined with the trait of Traversing Yin and Yang and manifested in the mortal world.

The next instant, his body was swallowed by the blinding flames.