Lin Wu tried to get closer to the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle, but felt the air heat up.

"Whoa there! It's me Lin Wu," Lin Wu spoke up.

But even after a minute, he revived no answer. Furrowing his brows, he tried to get a better sense of the situation. Since the system couldn't do much and his spirit sense was suppressed as well, Lin Wu chose the final option that he had.

"Alrighty! Radiation perception… ON!" Lin Wu said as his eyes glowed with a very chunni look.

Upon doing this, he could see a thick layer of thermal radiation surrounding the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle. It was very dense around her body and the body itself was glowing like the sun under a thermal scanner.

It was fully white and looking at it hurt Lin Wu's eyes. He quickly stopped using the skill and realized what it was, probably.

"This must be a defensive instinct automatically activated by the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle due to her bloodline. The air around her is hot enough to melt steel and even rocks. I don't even know what would happen to those that touch." Lin Wu said to himself.

Though, just wanting to test it out, Lin Wu picked up a small stone pebble from the ground and lightly threw it near the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle, making sure that it didn't hit the beast itself.

~poof~

The pebbled didn't even hit the ground before it was heated up, melted and reduced to ash that blew away. All that happens in less than two seconds and was very shocking to Lin Wu.

~phew~

"Good thing I didn't go closer or my crystal body would have probably cracked due to the heat or worse… melted." Lin Wu muttered to himself after taking a breath of relief.

Putting some more distance between them, Lin Wu observed the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle for a minute before deciding to do something else.

"Let's get Shirong all sorted out, shall we?" Lin Wu said to himself before heading out.

The way he was going to was exactly the opposite of the entrant of the main hall. Shirong was trapped between the outer two barriers and according to the data that the system was currently showing him, he was completely fine.

Though due to the interference, the system hadn't been able to fully update the data for Shirong and he would have to get closer to know what actually happened to him.

'At least he's alive.' Lin Wu thought to himself.

Lin Wu crossed ten barriers before reaching the third barrier of the ruins. From here, he could see out, but others could not see in. This was the way these barriers were designed, the inner part of the barriers was hidden and its size could not be estimated.

In a way, it was ingenious as that meant that if someone managed to get through the first couple of layers, they would keep on wandering around trying to get to the next part, or just think this was the last area and leave.

It was a good attempt at misdirection, to be honest and Lin Wu added that to his list of tricks… or rather the system did. Lin Wu even wondered if the area that Ji Quan was accessed in a similar way. The intruders might have entered behind Ji Quan or vice a versa and Ji Quan ended up dying somehow.

Though the question still existed, how did Ji Quan die, and if the intruders did it, why did they leave behind his corpses?

Though them not having any items on them also hinted to the fact that their corpses had been robbed, perhaps.

Converging his thoughts for now, Lin Wu decided to leave it all to Shirong for now and let him figure things out. He looked at the area where Shirong was trapped and saw him sitting cross legged. His eyes were closed and spirit Qi steadily flowed around him.

"Huh… so he's been cultivating all this time. Maybe he doesn't even realize it's been over two months now…" Lin Wu spoke.

Lin Wu had seen Shirong cultivating for a month as if it was nothing before at the Deer Wood city. Just another month extra was probably nothing to him at this point. Seeing this, Lin Wu went over his plan and shrunk down his body to the smallest size he could reach.

Then he drilled into the ground and went to the spot where he had put the replacement for himself. It was a fake spear, made in the same shape as him and would emit similar spirit Qi fluctuations as well.

Overall, it was a good decoy and was something Lin Wu was intending to make use of further… albeit with some modifications and improvements.

"Here we go… time to act," Lin Wu muttered to himself as he touched the decoy from the bottom and absorbed it into his body while replacing it exactly with himself.

~shua~

Shirong, who had been dormant all this time, opened his eyes upon sensing the fluctuations coming from the front.

"So you are ready…" Shirong said in a low voice.

~humm~

Just as he said that, the Immortal Crystal Armament that had been embedded in the ground rose up automatically and glowed, as if beckoning to him. A smile appeared on Shirong's face as he stood up to grasp it.

~Crack~

Shirong's Knuckles cracked as he clasped his fingers around the handle of the Immortal Crystal Armament.

'Feels nice…' Shirong thought.

~Huala~

In the next moment, the barrier in front of him opened up like a curtain, allowing him to see beyond it.

"Perfect!" Shirong said upon seeing this and stepped into the next layer.

There, he saw another barrier in the front and furrowed his brows. He walked up to the barrier and placed his hand against it.

~flickered~

The Barrier flickered against his hand but did not let him in.