NOVPUBIn the depths of the Dark Forest.
Ten tall knights, clad in silver armor and wearing silver steel helmets, darted through the forest, their figures intertwined as they sprinted swiftly.
The woman in a snow skirt at the center of the group moved like a white specter, her form flickering forward intermittently.
Strangely, inside the woman’s eye sockets were not pupils but layers of dark purple spirals.
As the woman moved, countless fragments of light fluttered in the Dark Forest, following her form like streams of data rushing into her eye sockets.
Suddenly, Cha Naixue’s flickering figure came to a sudden halt, and she gently landed on a sturdy tree branch, her purple spiral eyes slowly shifting.
Panda’s large head emerged from the ground: "Master, have you found it?"
"That tree, five meters below it," Cha Naixue’s spiral eyes dissipated, reconverting to light purple pupils as she calmly pointed in a direction, "Go, dig out the key."
"Yes!" Panda rejoiced, thinking his master’s abilities were indeed formidable as he dove back into the ground.
Cha Naixue’s Spiritual Artifact was called "Nai Luo Space."
One of its abilities, "Nai Luo’s Eye," allowed her to see all information from one second in the future and three days in the past wherever she went.
In Cha Naixue’s view just moments ago, she had seen, an hour earlier—while Mi Jia was still explaining the rules—a golden key flying from the distant sky, burrowing into the soil under a large tree.
According to the rules, there were a thousand tree bark keys hidden in this forest, but only one was the real key that could unlock the treehouse seal, and it was golden in appearance.
"Found it."
Panda quickly emerged from the ground, holding up a golden key in his chubby hand.
Cha Naixue was about to nod when she suddenly said, "Run!"
Whoosh—
A green Cloud Piercing Arrow streaked across the dark night sky; Panda turned his head and disappeared into the soil.
Boom!! The Cloud Piercing Arrow was blocked in midair by a knight’s shield and exploded into a scattering of green splendor, causing the surrounding plants to rapidly decay.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—
Hundreds of dark green rockets lit up the dark sky.
"Come to Brother Gongsun’s arms, little Nai Xue~" Gongsun Ze’s playful voice rang out as everyone realized a man was swiftly approaching amidst the flurry of arrows.
Following close behind him were Yulina and eight knights.
"Boom!!!"
The forest trembled, and large swaths of trees thunderously fell.
In the distance.
A man in white and a woman in black stood side by side on a hill, looking out at the chaos of the battling forces in the distance.
"Third Rank Spiritual Pressure, one, two, well now."
Xia Feng raised an eyebrow, somewhat speechless, "Gongsun Ze really can put on an act, already at Third Rank and still wouldn’t retaliate when I hit him. This guy must be thinking of playing the fool to catch the tiger..."
Mu Qingtong glanced at the distant battlefield and softly said, "The female knight next to Cha Naixue, Silver, is also Third Rank."
Xia Feng nodded, "I remember her, she speaks very little, seems not too bright, but unexpectedly strong."
"So, these two groups have been guarding against each other all this time..."
As he said this, Xia Feng suddenly realized something, "Oh no, we’re being underestimated, they don’t seem to take us seriously?"
As he spoke, he looked at Mu Qingtong, "Miss Mu, can you tolerate this?"
The woman in the black dress turned around, her face puzzled, "Mr. Xia, you seem quite idle. It seems like from start to finish, you never thought about looking for the key? Are you here to complete a mission?"
"Key? Who said I wasn’t looking? Look, I found one here." Xia Feng pulled out a tree bark key, which he had scavenged from Number 17 after killing him.
"Eh?"
However, as soon as he got his hands on it, he looked down at the key in his hand in surprise. The brown tree bark crumbled away, revealing a silver-white material underneath, emitting a soft glow.
Mu Qingtong also looked at the key in Xia Feng’s hand with doubt and then took out her own tree bark key for comparison.
"It really is different," she said softly.
"But isn’t the real key supposed to be golden?"
Xia Feng looked puzzled, rubbing his finger over the silver-white key, which imparted no information to his mind—it looked just like any ordinary key.
Mu Qingtong shook her head, "The rules say that this forest hides a thousand tree bark keys, among which only one is the real key that can unlock the treehouse seal, and it appears golden. But that doesn’t mean the other keys are completely useless, it seems your luck is not too bad."
My luck isn’t too bad? Xia Feng subconsciously touched the unfamiliar knife at his waist, unsure whether this was truly his luck or the mysterious ability of the princess.
However, he still didn’t know the specific use of this silver key—it might actually be a useless fake key, intended to mislead.
"Let’s go, we’ll head back the way we came."
The two did not linger around the outskirts of the battlefield to avoid being dragged in and revealing their power.
Ten minutes later.
The battle ended with all First Rank knights dead, Panda severely injured, Yulina unleashing an unknown Fourth Rank one-time attack, and the key being snatched by Gongsun Ze.
Limbs and blood scattered across the battlefield.
Cha Naixue and Panda, covered in silver, disappeared into the dense forest without a trace.
"Hehe~" Yulina, with her bloodied pupils, watched Cha Naixue’s retreating figure, her lips curling into a cold smirk, "All that effort, and it was just to make a wedding gown for me."
"Stop dawdling, set up the array quickly," Gongsun Ze said sternly.
Yulina’s blood-stained pupils flickered with confusion, then quickly filled with affection as she looked at Gongsun Ze, "Yes, Brother Gongsun~"
Gongsun Ze ignored her, scanning the area to ensure no one was around before walking directly to the center of the blood-soaked battlefield and digging into the bloody soil to plant a piece of white jade wood.
Yulina arranged the eighteen corpses head out and feet in, circling the central wood, forming a circle.
"Brother Gongsun, can this really summon the Evil God Anubis?"
Gongsun Ze bent down and quickly sketched intricate patterns on the ground, smiling faintly, "The Summoning Wood only needs half an hour to nurture into a Summoning Tree. Then, within a three-kilometer radius, everyone marked with the Divine Space will be sensed, calling through countless timespaces for the divine!"
Now, in this Calamity Realm space, only he bore the Divine Space mark, and it was unlikely there was another such marked person.
"Of course, our premise still requires getting that thing from Wen Zaiye’s hands."
Speaking, he patted his hands, stood up, and with a taunting gaze, he looked towards the depths of the Dark Forest, his lips curling into an amused smile:
"When the time comes, these little mice who haven’t seen the world will have the fortune to meet the real! God!!"
"You really are amazing, Brother Gongsun," Yulina said, clinging to Gongsun Ze’s arm, her eyes filled with stars as she swayed.
Gongsun Ze frowned slightly, a trace of disgust hidden deep in his eyes.
To be honest, he had grown tired of this woman. If it were not for Yulina’s high status, he wouldn’t bother wasting his power to manipulate her spirit.
In fact, his actual target was Cha Naixue, but unfortunately, even with problems with the Black Moon Goddess, Cha Naixue still had some strange spiritual defense mechanisms.
"Well, it might be time to play with a new wildcat." He thought of Mu Qingtong as he recalled his failed attempt to invade her spirit, guessing that the beautiful girl had concealed her strength.
But no matter, when Evil God Anubis is summoned, everything will be resolved.
Gongsun Ze’s dark eyes shimmered with a tricky light, his lips wickedly curved, "And as for that Xia, it’s time to settle the score with this ignorant fool."
