Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

A brilliant red screen of light surged from the ground, serving as a towering barrier that sealed off the space, leaving only Li Guanqi and the black-robed man within..

Li Guanqi narrowed his eyes. He tossed his armor forward and leaped up. The armor snapped into place around him in mid-air, encasing his body in full. The Emerald Wolf Sword gleamed with a purple glow in his hand, letting out faint cries. But the black-robed man made no move—he merely looked on with amusement.

The ground in front of Li Guanqi surged upward, transforming into a metal wall a hundred zhang high. He rammed straight into it, but it didn’t budge; it sent all his momentum rebounding back. Fortunately, the armor absorbed most of the shock, though his chest still ached from the impact.

Li Guanqi froze in place, brows tightly furrowed, unable to make sense of the situation. Then came the sound of laughter. “Hahaha! The ignorance of youth! Since you came here, you’ll take part in the gamble of your life!”

Rumble!

A loud rumble came from all directions, and the ground beneath him quaked. With a sudden jolt, the ground beneath his feet rose more than ten zhang into the air. At the same time, the ground beyond the red screen dropped away rapidly. All the staircases leading to the underground city vanished without a trace.

The Daxia Sword Sect disciples who had already descended suddenly found a bright red light blooming beneath their feet, then they vanished without a trace.

Li Guanqi stared at the pitch-black space behind him. When the ground rose again, another bright red light screen snapped into place. Inside were the Daxia Sword Sect disciples who’d disappeared. They bore injuries of varying degrees—many barely standing with the support of others, some completely out cold.

Li Guanqi counted eighteen people inside.

Zhou Zhi was propping up a pale-faced girl—Jiang Su.When Zhou Zhi saw Li Guanqi on the other side of the light screen, he froze for a beat, then shouted, “Junior Brother Li! How did you get in there? What happened?”

Li Guanqi’s face darkened with fury as realization struck—he had fallen directly into the enemy’s trap. “Senior Brother... I don’t know what’s happening either.”

Rumble!

Li Guanqi turned around, and the metal wall before him lowered slowly. A hundred zhang away, the black-robed man stood behind his own light screen.

Standing on his own raised platform, the man peeled off his mask, revealing his face. He was a middle-aged man with stubble, his skin marked by crisscrossed scars. His hooked nose jutted prominently from his slightly gaunt face.

He spread his arms wide, looking at Li Guanqi with a snarl.

“I should really thank you,” he said. “If you hadn’t shown up, we might not have been able to activate the Thousand-Mechanism Array on the thirteenth floor. It’s twelve against nineteen. If I win, you all die.”

With that, he slammed his palms into the platform, pouring vast quantities of vital force into it.

Within a few breaths, glowing blue lines etched themselves into the stone floor—vertical and horizontal, forming a grid of five hundred rectangles, each ten zhang long and twenty-five zhang wide.

Li Guanqi responded instantly, pressing his palms into his own platform and channeling his vital force. Mysterious patterns lit up beneath him. Countless similar lines of spirit light appeared on the ground, though the ones on his side were purple.

Buzz!

He might’ve started later, but Li Guanqi quickly caught up. When boxes appeared on the black-robed man’s side, they also materialized on Li Guanqi’s own.

Five strange, black stone statues rose from the ground in front of their platforms.

When Li Guanqi saw the man’s stone statues, he was shocked to find that they bore the exact same face as the man himself.

He tried to glance at his own statues, but the platform obstructed his view.

Suddenly, several thorns pierced through the platforms and into their feet.

Li Guanqi groaned in pain.

“Junior Brother Li!”

“Junior Brother Li! What the fuck is happening?!”

Bang! Bang!

Many people rammed against the light screen as hard as they could, but it was futile. The sharp thorns had emerged too suddenly, so neither Li Guanqi nor the black-robed man reacted in time. After skewering their feet, the tips split open, pinning them down.

Li Guanqi’s face flushed red as he turned and shouted, “Don’t worry! I’m fine! I think this was their goal all along. It didn’t matter who got trapped—they would’ve also ended up like this.”

Li Guanqi glared at them coldly and smirked. “Twelve against nineteen? You want me to stake my life on this? Heh. Good thing it’s me standing here and not Ye Feng.”

A deafening rumble split the air, and the closest boxes on each side lit up.

Two muscular puppet soldiers appeared in front of their platforms, one black and one white. The white one was on the black-robed man’s side, while the black one was on Li Guanqi’s side.

Li Guanqi focused on the silver-white one and couldn’t help but think of the puppet soldier orbs he carried. However, the puppets from the orbs were clearly inferior.

The crimson eyes of the puppets blazed with violence.

Suddenly, vital force surged through the silver-white puppet. It lunged off the ground, covering several boxes in a single bound, swift and savage like a panther on the hunt.

Li Guanqi immediately focused his mind, pumping more vital force into his platform. But this time, there was no reaction.

Boom!

The silver puppet brushed past the black one, shattering one of Li Guanqi’s stone statues with one slash of its sword.

The stone statue exploded.

Li Guanqi stiffened and his hands shook, his fingers twisting in pain. His head jerked back, his veins bulging along his neck as he let out a hoarse scream. It felt like his muscles were being torn from the bone, sending waves of pain throughout his body.

His sea of consciousness shook, and his divine consciousness leaked out.

The altar in his dantian shook madly, and he only recovered several moments later. His pure white eyes became bloodshot, and the Daxia Sword Sect disciples who noticed his situation roared in outrage.

Zhou Zhi slammed his fist against the light screen. “Junior Brother!”

No words were needed. In an instant, all of them drew their swords and began slashing at the light screen with everything they had. However, the light screen was soundproof, so Li Guanqi couldn’t hear them.

Hundreds of zhang away, the man sneered. “Hahahaha! Did that feel good? Today, you all shall die here. Your lives will unlock the treasure hidden within this Thousand-Mechanism Array for millennia!”