Seeing the Spirit of Pride suppressed into a compressed biscuit by thousands of talismans, the crisis seemed to have vanished.
Su Wan let out a soft breath, her staff lowering, her voice trembling slightly: "Is it over?"
"No."
In mid-air, Lin Qingqingyue frowned.
Her golden eyes, like two sharp arrows, stared fixedly at the lump of black sludge that was slowly collapsing.
"This guy's Pride has already twisted into some kind of curse."
Before her words fell, a sudden change occurred.
The [Spirit of Pride], whose self-destruction process had been forcibly interrupted, did not simply vanish into thin air.
At the core suppressed by thousands of talismans, the wriggling body actually condensed into a black singularity the size of a fist.
It was infinitely deep, so much so that even light could not escape.
The struggling had completely stopped.
The singularity spun madly, emitting a piercing hum.
Immediately after.
That point turned into a hole.
A pure black hole that could even devour light.
"Since you've destroyed my perfection..."
The monster's distorted and hollow voice seemed to come from another dimension, carrying a curse of resentment:
"Then fall into that eternal void with me, rot! And stink!"
This was the final curse the Spirit of Pride left for this world.
Sacrificing itself to create a conceptual singularity.
Voom—!
A terrifying suction force erupted.
It wasn't simple wind, but space itself violently collapsing.
Everything in sight—the bright light, the broken stone pillars, the thin air, even the most basic sense of distance—was ruthlessly pulled into that pitch-black maw in an instant.
"Holy shit! This BOSS is fucking cheating!"
Lin Xiyue let out a strange cry. Her body, clad in over two hundred jin of plate armor, was now light as a feather, irresistibly sucked toward the abyss.
"Su Wan! Grab on!"
Xia Lian reacted swiftly. Her Ranger's grappling hook shot out like a venomous snake, wrapping around a thick, broken stone pillar.
With her other hand, she grabbed Su Wan beside her with a death grip.
But in the face of a "conceptual black hole," all physical means seemed utterly fragile.
Crack!
The stone pillar was uprooted.
The four of them, like a string of kites with broken lines, fell helplessly into that boundless, pitch-black abyss.
At the last moment before being completely swallowed by the darkness, Lin Qingyue unfurled the ink-colored wings on her back, trying her best to wrap all her teammates within them.
"Hold onto me tight!"
Afterward, their vision returned completely to nothingness.
-
The viscous darkness devoured all perception.
Sight, hearing, and even the most basic sense of direction completely dissolved.
The concept of time vanished without a trace.
The giant screen overhead and the BGM were also gone.
Her consciousness drifted and sank in the weightless void, as if it would be assimilated by this eternal silence at any moment, turning into a speck of cosmic dust.
Just as Lin Qingyue felt she was about to completely dissipate, a familiar mechanical voice sounded in her mind without warning.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, Host! You have successfully defeated the "Spirit of Pride (Boss)"!]
[It is detected that during the battle, the Host did not rely on pure numerical superiority, but instead carried out a comprehensive dimensionality reduction strike and bullying against the enemy from three dimensions: "aesthetics," "logic," and "psychology."]
[Congratulations on obtaining the special achievement: "Aesthetic Bully."]
[Obtained special reward: "Yunkui Summit Martial Arts Tradition."]
In the darkness, Lin Qingyue's brilliant golden pupils suddenly opened, shining with a clear light.
"Bully?"
Her thoughts swept through her Sea of Consciousness like a machine gun.
"System, get out here! Who's bullying whom? Does it have a right to be ugly? I was maintaining public environmental safety and purifying visual pollution, which constitutes self-defense!"
The System remained silent as the cold professional panel refreshed with new information.
[Detected that the "Pride" haze has been dispelled, and the path to the true Divine Realm has opened.]
[Trial of the Heavenly Gods mission progress updated.]
[Current Stage: Two.]
[Mission Goal: Soothe the endless void of the Celestial God, Azure Dragon.]
-
Lin Qingyue's consciousness, floating in the darkness, completely stalled.
She seriously suspected her data receiver was malfunctioning.
"What kind of nonsense is this?"
"Soothe... endless void?!"
She felt a slight ache in her skull.
"Are you sure this mission description hasn't been corrupted by a virus? Why does this sound so much like a tawdry late-night paid channel advertisement?!"
"I'm a proper Purifier, here to fight monsters, level up, and save the world, not to apply as a late-night emotional radio host! And definitely not to act as some strange service staff!"
"How dare you write this entry in a way that's so prone to misunderstanding?!"
"Azure Dragon! One of the Four Celestial Gods! The Eastern Jia-Yi Wood! What a majestic existence He is! He would feel empty? At most, He's just bored out of his mind!"
Before the storm of complaints could even subside, the world enveloping her had already begun to crumble.
The viscous darkness did not recede like a tide, but instead, like thick ink dropped into clear water, it rapidly spread, faded, and finally vanished without a trace.
The feeling of weightlessness came to an abrupt halt.
A warm and solid touch truly came from beneath her feet.
The blinding light gradually softened, and the aura redefined the entire world.
Lin Qingyue immediately restrained all her outward emotions and assumed a defensive posture.
But when she clearly saw the scene before her, that fierce fighting spirit still froze involuntarily.
There were no broken walls or ruins.
There were no monstrous black sludge tentacles.
And there was certainly no sign of that lump of industrial waste she had beaten into an "X."
What met her eyes was an elegant and profound sapphire jade corridor.
The corridor seemed endless, winding into the unknown distance.
On both sides were exquisitely carved openwork wooden windows. Outside, a sea of clouds billowed and surged, sealing away all the noise of the mortal world.
Beneath her feet was a warm blue-green floor. The material was like wood but not wood, like jade but not jade. Walking upon it made no sound, only a reassuring sense of solidity.
Pillars of Phoebe zhennan wood, covered in cloud patterns, supported this tranquil world.
Every five paces, an ancient bronze palace lantern was hung.
The lampflame was small as a bean, casting a warm yellow aura that coated this cold space in a filter called "time."
The acrid smell of burnt flesh and blood from the previous battle was completely gone from the air.
In its place was a very faint scent of sandalwood, mixed with the uniquely bitter fragrance of old books and ink.
This place...
It was as quiet as a library forgotten by the gods.
"Xiyue?"
Lin Qingyue called out tentatively, her voice rippling through the empty corridor, yet it met with not even a hint of an echo.
"Su Wan? Xia Lian?"
What answered her was still a deathly silence.
Lin Qingyue's heart sank slightly.
The black hole from just now was clearly not a simple means of dealing damage.
It was a forced cross-spatial teleportation mechanism.
Lin Qingyue lowered her head, her gaze falling upon herself.
The [Yixuan] Character Card had not yet been removed.
The Xuanhuang Daoist Robe still fluttered gently in the wind, and the power within her body flowed without obstruction.
This meant she had not been out of combat for too long, nor had she suffered any irreversible damage.
She quickly calmed down, focusing all her thoughts into a single point.
In the previous Vermilion Bird trial, they had also been drawn into different Illusions separately.
Xiyue and the others had faced the fears deep within their hearts.
While she herself, at the time, had directly confronted the Vermilion Bird's remnant soul.
"If this is the Azure Dragon's trial ground..."
Lin Qingyue walked forward slowly and cautiously, rapidly sorting through the clues in her mind.
"The Vermilion Bird corresponded to 'Wrath', but the trial's content was to face fear."
"Now the Azure Dragon corresponds to 'Pride'."
So.
"What will be the core of this trial?"
Would the Azure Dragon really be "emptiness"?