Using the information given to her, Xue Yueliang felt that this mountain must have been used to host a tournament in the past, which would not explain much. Xue Yueliang thought for a while, but she had never had a sect in the mountains or tournaments hosted near here; this place's appearance did not make much sense.

"Whatever," she thought aloud. Then looked toward the bats, "All I have to do is kill you."

Thinking pointlessly like this would not help. If she was number one on the list, she would definitely find out what this place was about. Forming hand seals, a ball of fire appeared in front of her as she allowed it to explode with her as the centre, incinerating the bats that had formed a ring around her and causing the number near her name to increase by dozens.

"Berserk Dragon Explosion." was what she had set before it set off. Seeing the ashes that surrounded her, she smiled, satisfied wading her way forward. She simultaneously looked at the screen that had not disappeared. The ranking of the names kept on changing, but one thing had stayed the same, Li Hua was still firmly in the first place, with a few thousand by her name.

How could she have killed so many beasts? Xue Yueliang frowned, but there was nobody to answer her questions.

"I need to hurry up," she said, hoping to shrink the gap between them, and she hurried her pace.

A few more bat colonies attacked her as she walked on. They were quickly dealt with her flames, not marking a true obstruction and only serving to increase her overall ranking.

The strength of the bats increased as she continued forward on her path. After an incense stick's worth of time, Xue Yueliang was stopped by a relatively small bat colony formed by exactly a dozen bats. They were much larger than the previous group, about half the size of the average person, and had greyish stripes outlining their wings. As soon as they saw Hei Yu and Xue Yueliang, they screeched with hostility and flapped their wings, circling the duo.

Coordinated.

Xue Yueliang formed her hand seals, "Berserk Dragon Explosion," she exclaimed.

It had worked for her so far, but things did not go as she wished this time as the bats flapped their wings in unison, forming a wind barrier around them, not allowing the flames to reach them.

"Screech!"

Sharp, unpleasant voices were realeased from them in unision, forming a palpatable sound wave that directly attacked Xue Yueliang's mind. The sound waves fels like knives ripping apart her mind, injuring her and causing a trickle of blood to flow down her nose. Startled, she quickly used her Qi to form a barrrier aroung her ears, and although this could not block their attacks, it at least muffled it slightly, allowing her to ignore the head-splittting headache it caused, and unsheath her sword, "Invincible Sword Cuts All!"

Her attack managed to cut through the weak flesh of two of the bats, ruining their formation, causing a temporary quiet.

Using this young moment of clarity, Xue Yueliang used another technique in quick succession, "Invincible Sword Swirl."

A pure ring of sword Qi appeared around her; though it did not manage to kill any of the beasts, it caused injuries to appear on all but one of their bodies. At this point, the trickling blood became a stream that also flowed her mouth, making her currently bad situation even worse.

Hei Yu, who was on stand by, jumped on the neck of the uninjured one, sinking its teeth deep in and ripping its head off. This was not a testament of its strength but rather the bats fixation on attacking Xue Yueliang. They had completelly disregarded him, so this type of attack would only work once.

"Blood Moon Waves!" This attack was not as good as the Invincible Sword Swirl; it at least allowed for more flexibility, so she could change targets mid-attack. Since it would be hard to use the latter while she was so disoriented, Blood Moon Waves was her best bet in this situation.

After a gruelling battle that lasted much longer than she had anticipated, Xue Yueliang had finally managed to kill them all, but not without suffering some injuries. She was bleeding from her seven orifices and felt as if her mind was splitting in half. She dragged her body to the door and stepped out, feeling a fresh bout of spiritual Qi being absorbed into her body, it was so thick it formed a faint mist, delighting her. She sat cross-legged and began recuperating, trying to regain her strength before facing whatever happened next. With the abundant spiritual Qi, she recovered in almost no time.

She looked at the constantly open screen and noticed that the number by her name increased by almost two hundred points. This gave her about fifteen points for every bat she had killed.

Maybe, it's about the level of the beasts we kill? She thought. She had been burning bats en masse except the first one, but considering what just happened now, then perhaps, it was built upon a point system.

That seems fairer.

Getting up, she saw a flight of stairs leading upwards and followed them. These stairs were the same as the first one, lined with the same type of flame, causing the annoying feeling that she was walking around in circles to rise up in her chest. However, they were quickly suppressed by her.

Xue Yueliang was yet again confronted by two new doors. Although they were shut, some of the auras inside still escaped, showing that one was hiding ice and the other poison. The danger behind both doors was apparent, putting her in a position to choose her own poison.

Choosing your own poison, Xue Yueliang was amused and opened the poison door.

As soon as she had entered, she felt her vision blocked by a strong poisonous miasma, one so foul-smelling that she could not help but scrunch up her noise under the veil. She felt a slight numbness spread from her fingertips, and her breathing became difficult, causing her to increase the temperature of the flames surrounding her, purifying the air around her. Her expression turned serious because if this followed the tempo of the previous hall, the strength of the poisonous creatures would only increase. If she was having difficulties now, then she did not know if she would only be able to make it through.

"Squeak." Hei Yu's voice sounded as he snuggled up to her, sensing her worries.

"Yeah, you're right. Worrying is pointless." She laughed, attacking a creature that had lunged at her. It was a horrid looking being, with teeth half as long as a person's arm and an eye only the fraction of hers.

"How do you even see with that?!" She wondered aloud but looking at the thick miasma encircling her, she felt it had limited use for eyesight.

A sharp cling sounded as she unsheathed her sword, drawing a large distance between them as she stared at it cautiously.

This creature was a true abomination, ignoring its mismatched facial features, it looked like a giant blob of flesh-coloured slime that released green smoke from its pores, adding another colour to this strange place. It was only at the third level of the Foundation Establishment Realm, causing her to reason that it would not be a difficult battle.

"Invincible Sword Cuts All!" Xue Yueliang declared, cutting the peculiar beast into a clean half, and smiled as the halves separated. However, before the smile could fully form on her lips, the neat halves formed tentacles as they merged back together, twisting back to their former shape. Xue Yueliang felt an instinctive disgust as she witnessed this sight but forcefully suppressed those feelings.

"Hei Yu, how about you fight it?" Xue Yueliang asked.

Hei Yu whimpered, but she forced him to. She had not seen it fight for so long, and it was good for her to find out the full extent of its strength. Besides, she could barely stomach watching the creature. Fighting it was too much, so she delegated the task.

Hei Yu sadly hopped away and headed toward the abomination, looking up at it angrily. The absolute size difference made this scene appear comical, but Hei Yu's anger was real. The abomination felt its presence, but its tiny eyes and enormous size made it so that Hei Yu completely escaped his limited sight, frustrating it. It rolled its huge body toward Hei Yu, intending to steamroll it and crush him underfoot along with his surroundings.

Xue Yueliang jumped far away from the battle area and watched with interest, hoping that Hei Yu would have a wonderful surprise for her.

Feeling that it was not taken seriously, Hei Yu growled and jumped toward the beast, attacking its midriff area and biting off a chunk the same size as him. However, due to the slime-like creature's enormous body, this injury was not much to it, and its flesh bubbled and expanded, instantly recovering and covering the bite mark.

"Grrr," Hei Yu bared its teeth, and suddenly, his body grew larger, reaching the same size as the beast.

Its claws cut into the beast and ripped it apart, but the individual parts tried to bind him, and the rate at which the green fumes were expelled increased. Alas, Hei Yu was never a living creature, the poison had no effect on him, but the binding proved its effect as it slowed down his movements and allowed the creature to fully surround him.

"As I thought," Xue Yueliang mumbled, "There's no proper way to fight this."

The only way she could think of was using the Berserk Dragon Flames, but because she was using it to protect herself from the poison, she could not use it to battle. This instantly restrained one of her strongest weapon, forcing her to rely on Hei Yu, who seemingly had no way to deal with it either.

Hei Yu struggled under the trap, tearing the tentacles that wrapped around him, but they were instantly replaced, firmly putting him at a disadvantage. Xue Yueliang placed her hand on her hilt and was preparing to help out Hei Yu, but before she could, he growled out loudly, biting deeply onto its flesh, then... slurped.

In less than a few breaths, the poisonous creature was out of sight, it's last bit sliding down Hei Yu's throat. Though this scene was less than appetizing, it proved effective. The black bunny finally relaxed, shrinking and landing in her arms. He looked dispirited and disgusted but was not harmed anywhere.

Xue Yueliang patted his head and comforted him, "You did well."

Suddenly a fleshy tentacle slid out of his mouth, but it was forced back again, causing Xue Yueliang to feel grossed out.

"We really need to leave here," she sighed. The miasma restricted one of her strongest trump cards, and strange creatures that she had never seen resided in here and along with the scarce spiritual Qi, this place was less than welcoming for her.

Just as she was lost in her thoughts, a small ding was heard, causing her gaze to naturally fall on the screen. She noticed that her ranking increased, as an extra fifty was added to the number next to her name.

She was surprised yet again by the complexity of the system as it did not only rely on the level of the beasts they killed but also the relative difficulty of killing them. Although Hei Yu killed this beast, she was only ranked twenty-first among the fifty-seven other people here. She was only slightly over the average.

"We have to up our killing count," she said, letting go of Hei Yu. Hei Yu turned into a giant being again, stampeding all over, killing the many weaker beasts that got in his way. Xue Yueliang stayed by the side, ending the beasts that managed to survive his initial attacks, steadily climbing the rankings.

Sadly, their wanton destruction did not last for long as they soon heard a loud roar coming from the distance. It appeared to come from all places and none at once, and due to the surrounding miasma and her locked divine sense, Xue Yueliang found it impossible to identify where the roar had come from.

She increased her wariness but did not change much from her movements, steadily heading toward the end of the hall. The sound of flapping wings rang out clearly, startling her and causing her to cautiously turn to her right, but she was incapable of seeing anything beyond the edge of her sword.