Unbeknownst to the team of four, two miles from where the young men had entered the black coffin, another group was making their way through the caverns as well.

Eight men, dressed in black garbs and holding bronze swords, marched through the darkened tunnels. These hooded beings were evil cultivators from the notorious Devil Blood Devil Sect, a demonic sect that practiced the bloodcurdling ‘Bone-Melting Palm Grasps the Elephant’s Trunk’ technique. This was a vicious art that excelled at piercing through defensive arrays to attack a cultivator’s specific weak spot. At peak mastery, the slap of one’s palm would impart two gigatons of force on an opposing cultivator’s little john, effectively rendering him a eunuch for the rest of his life.

“Remember our patriarch’s dying words.” One of the hooded figures, a muscular fellow with a snake tattoo traveling down his left eye, turned to the sect junior behind him. “Hidden within these very caverns is a supreme treasure of immense power. We must retrieve it in order to restore our great devil sect to its former glory.”

The junior cultivator furrowed one brow. “I thought the patriarch’s dying words were ‘meet blond, slay blond; meet brunette, stay with brunette*’.”

This comment immediately led to a smack on the head. The hooded man began chastising the youth. “You ignorant fool, I will not allow for the patriarch’s dying will to be met with such disrespect!”

“But Senior, we were all there when the patriarch passed away. He said-‘

“It seems you will not come to see reason! Let Senior discipline this one with a loving hand so that he may learn to respect his elders*.” The tattooed man raised one hand and slapped his junior, causing the latter to go flying into the side of a stone wall.

“S-Senior… I was only speaking the truth…” The youth struggled to get up.

“You have not had enough?! Very well, face my thousand flame asura kick!”

The junior cultivator braced himself for a kick in the midriff, only to get hit with another chop to the head. The youth immediately collapsed onto the ground.

“Enough.” A cold voice rang out. “We are not here to play around.”

“Forgive me, Senior.”

“My apologies, Senior.”

The duo quickly stood up straight and apologized.

“This Kǒudài Fāng Jīn joined the Devil Blood Devil Sect at the age of ten, and soon after rose through the ranks as the youngest genius in the sect’s history. Do not get on his bad side or he will beat you at you like a sack of potatoes.” The tattooed cultivator cupped his hands and whispered into his junior’s ears.

“Senior Sun, you seem very knowledgeable about these sect affairs. How long have you been with the Devil Blood Devil?” Cupping his hands, the junior leaned in and whispered to his senior brother.

“Junior Dan, I am glad you asked that. I have been a proud member of this esteemed Devil Blood Devil Sect for eight days.” Senior Sun proudly answered.

下一章

Sean Wu stood inside of a pitch black space with his back to a wall. The area surrounding him was tightly cramped, and did not have much room for movement. It really did feel as though he had been shoved into a coffin of sorts.

Sean pressed his hand onto the wall directly opposite of him. A strange intuition told him to “push open” the “door” in front of him and go through. As his arm extended into the empty space in front of him, Sean could feel a warm and humid air on the other side.

In an underground cavern sparsely populated with limestone, and other precious minerals, a young man stepped out of a wooden coffin wedged between two stone protrusions.

The youth panted heavily and sucked in a mouthful of air. There was no oxygen inside that empty void, and being in there warped one’s perception of reality. If he had stayed in there for too long, he probably wouldn’t have realized that he was slowly dying.

As Sean was down on his knees gasping for air, a cold steel touched the bottom of his chin. He slowly turned his head around, and was met with an expressionless Fù Chóu.

“My name is Shā Shǒu, and I have come to kill you, Shi Huáng Zì!” The man who once called himself Fù Chóu roared with a murderous intent. “My clan was slain at the hands of your heavenly ancestor. For ten long years I have studied the art of the blade. Today you-“

Before Shā Shǒu could finished with his long rant, a large body suddenly flew into him, knocking him down and sending him tumbling into the side of a wall.

Wú Yòng got up and off of the dazed Shā Shǒu. The larger man bent down to pick up his steel halberd and snarled, “Huā Shēng you bastard! Stop hiding and get your dog* self out here so I can smash your head in!”

“You think I would hide from the likes of you?! What a joke!” A sudden gust of wind spearheaded its way across the room.

Huā Shēng and Wú Yòng both clashed blades in an instant. The two had been locked in a fierce battle long before Sean Wu and Shā Shǒu had arrived. By chance, a blow from Huā Shēng had sent Wú Yòng flying into the side of Shā Shǒu, knocking the latter down.

“Get out of my way!” An enraged Shā Shǒu got up and threw out his sword between the two. The circular area around the sword erupted with torrential hellfire.

Not to be outdone, Wú Yòng swept his halberd across the ground. “Fú Yòng family martial skill, ‘Three Dragons Coiling the Sun’, 三只熊吃稀飯!”

The image of three bears sitting around a dinner table appeared atop Wú Yòng’s halberd. The able-bodied cultivator suddenly charged into the wall of flames as a qi-projection of a bear slapping a fish out of water overlapped with his person.

Shā Shǒu quickly ran up and pulled his sword from out of the ground. The would-be assassin deflected an attack from Wú Yòng, before turning to meet Huā Shēng’s strike.

Huā Shēng put one arm behind his back and made a shadow puppet resembling a fox with his free hand. An invisible familiar appeared where the shadow had been cast. The shadow of a fox encircled Wú Yòng until it came to the cultivator’s weak spot. There, the fox crouched into a stance, ready to pounce on him at a moment’s notice.

Just as the three cultivators were prepared to have an all-out, no-holds-barred battle to the death, they suddenly stopped dead in their tracks and affixed their gazes toward the one entrance in and out of the area.

From beyond the darkened halls leading out of the expanse, a sinister voice suddenly spoke up. “It looks like we have some rats running around in our tunnels.*. Kill them all and leave nothing behind.”

As if right on cue, seven figures clad in all black rushed into the open space and immediately surrounded the team of four.

Huā Shēng was the first to let down his weapon. “We will not be their match if we spend our time at each other’s throats. I suggest a temporary alliance.”

“I am agreed. We will deal with them first and then settle our differences later.” Shā Shǒu readily accepted the proposal.

Wú Yòng grinned and repositioned his halberd toward one of the figures clad in all black. “If this is what must be done, then so it shall be!! What say you, friend Shi Huáng Zì?! Now that we are all on the same page, we should-!”

“….Where did he go?”

下一章

A terrified Sean Wu ran down an underground passageway for dear life. Luckily for him, there had been another exit out of the crystal caverns hidden beneath one of the many limestone protrusions in the area.

Inside this tunnel complex with numerous twists and turns, containing caverns and tunnels that seemed to stretch on for hundreds of miles, a young man ducked and weaved his way through a series of branching pathways. It was not long before Sean became lost within this massive expanse.

Realizing that the danger of being maimed by a bunch of madmen and devil sect practitioners had instead been replaced by a foreboding sense of dread and mortality, Sean Wu sat himself down to consider his options.

At the very least, Sean thought, he could at least see was in front of him. Small crystal shards illuminated the surrounding area in a soft teal light, and there was also a soft bed of ground nearby. Now was as good time a time as any to check whether he had anything useful on him. The young man sat himself upright and began rummaging through his left pocket.

[A medical herb that continues to scream at the top of its lungs as long as it is conscious… an emblem that doesn’t work underground, an avocado that induces an acid trip.... an invitation token to an auction house event …and a hairpin that is does absolutely nothing.]

“Great.” Sean crossed his arms and fell back onto the ground. “Nothing useful at all.”

….

[Wait.]

Sean furrowed his brow.

But what about the system?

The youth pulled up his status menu.