Chapter 1 The Silver-White Land

The Necropolis, once a silver-white land built upon bone sand.

But now, it was completely unrecognizable…

The rampaging demonic energy had tainted every grain of white sand on this land into black, and the sky had become turbid and low.

Here… it seemed to have become the border of the "Chaotic Scorched Earth," waiting to be "assimilated," to be "swallowed"…

Buzz buzz buzz…

Above the scorched earth, the runes of a magical array were buzzing.

Next to the array stood a strange man dressed in black robes, draped in a gorgeous cloak, with pure white skin, and two pupils in each eye.

His name… was Tariom, one of the two current Popes of the Illusory Demon Church (there were originally three, but after Duo Ling died, only Tariom and Samodiel were left).

Chi…

After the buzzing continued for a while, along with a burst of energy, three figures appeared in the array.

"Haa… finally succeeded." Seeing the three, Tariom breathed a sigh of relief, his body swaying involuntarily, as if he was about to collapse.

"Tariom?" After the players regained their ability to move, Xiao Ling recognized him immediately and called out his name.

"Ah…" Tariom also raised his eyes to look at Ruo Yu, Xiao Ling, and Hua Jiandao, "Long time no see… 'Three Knights of the Necropolis.'"

"Where is this?" Ruo Yu observed the surroundings, then asked, "Did you summon us here?"

"Can't recognize it, huh…" Tariom smiled wryly, "Heh… this is the Necropolis you swore allegiance to."

"What?" Hua Jian exclaimed, "This is…" She didn't finish her sentence, but looked around at the scene and asked directly, "What's happened in the meantime?"

"It's a long story…" Tariom said, "This is not a place to stay for long, please come with me to see the Spirit King first, when you get to her, she will explain everything to you."

"Wait," Xiao Ling interjected vigilantly, "When did your Illusory Demon Church… become subordinates of the Spirit King?"

"Heh heh…" Tariom smiled sinisterly, "Not subordinates, allies…" He paused, gazing at the distant sky, "You don't know… after 'that incident' happened, there are almost no forces in the main universe that are fighting alone anymore; even just to 'survive,' you need to form alliances with multiple parties."

Speaking of which, he retracted his gaze, sighed softly, and continued, "In short, just come with me… the activation of the array just now must have attracted the attention of 'them,' it won't be long before some 'redundant soldiers' come to patrol, it would be troublesome to be held back by those guys…"

The players only understood part of what Tariom said, and many questions arose, to solve these problems, they could only take things one step at a time.

Thus, Ruo Yu and the other two followed Tariom, and the four of them entered a hidden entrance to a magical dimensional passage, gradually entering the underground of the Necropolis…

…

Speaking of which, let's talk about Feng Bujue and the others.

These few, who were in the real Chaotic Scorched Earth, had also run with Lao Wang and Zun-ge to a place similar to an underground cave.

All the walls here were composed of rocks that emitted high temperatures. Except for the lack of smoke, the feeling after entering was similar to entering a sauna.

Jue-ge and Xiao Tan hadn't walked far before they were covered in sweat, so hot that they were about to stick out their tongues.

However, Xu Huishang didn't seem to be hot at all. Looking at her calm and composed appearance, without even a trace of sweat on her face, she must have some method of escaping the heat.

"I say… Xiao Shuang, why are you…" Feng Bujue asked, stopping his words halfway for some reason.

"Why what?" Xu Huishang replied.

"You know… just…" Feng Bujue said, propping himself against the wall with one hand, making an extremely charming pose, and then began a "Magic Mike" style performance, pulling at his collar while sticking out his tongue, and gently stroking away the sweat from his skin.

"Hahahaha…" Xu Huishang burst out laughing.

Xiao Tan's mouth twitched as he retorted with squinted eyes, "Are you planning to make a living with this skill if you don't write books in the future…"

"Unless 'academic knee dancing' becomes popular in the future, I'm afraid I won't be able to make a living with this…" Feng Bujue said, stopping his very amateur striptease-like twisting, and said to Xu Huishang, "But you understand what I mean, right?"

"Ha…" Xu Huishang slowly suppressed her laughter and replied, "I probably understand…" She paused and explained, "Actually, it's not that complicated, it's just one of the advanced applications of energy… similar to the technical principle I used to deal with [Sashimi]'s 'audio detection,' of course… 'isolating temperature' is much easier and less effort than 'resonance.'"

They had already communicated about the events in Linlu Town, so after she said this, Jue-ge and Xiao Tan basically understood.

"Oh, but then again, no matter how hot I am… I won't…" Xu Huishang said, also propping herself against the wall with one hand, but she didn't do Jue-ge's actions, she just stuck out her tongue and made a face.

"Tch~ I'm just livening up the atmosphere." Feng Bujue shrugged.

"The next time you want to liven up the atmosphere with a similar method, can you please give me a heads up…" Unexpectedly, Dian He Wang, who was walking in front of them, took the opportunity to retort, "Give me a few seconds to dig out my eyes first."

"You're so annoying, are you in your rebellious period?" Jue-ge retorted without showing any weakness, "Are you feeling lonely and confused, and wondering and fearing that some places on your body are starting to grow hair?"

Lao Wang didn't continue to argue with Jue-ge, because he knew he was no match, so he just silently continued forward and raised his middle finger at Jue-ge.

Although players can't do this kind of action, NPCs don't have this restriction, which is a kind of preferential treatment in a sense…

The group walked for a few more minutes, deeper into the underground cave. After passing through a few winding and dangerous paths where they could see magma, finally, a huge space with an extremely high dome appeared, and the players' eyes suddenly opened up.

"It's us, Feng Bujue and the others have arrived." After entering the space, Dian He Wang shouted loudly.

His words echoed in the empty huge cave, and then, a heavy sound of rocks rubbing against each other rang out.

Along with that sound, there was a spatial distortion…

A few seconds later, on a certain open space that was originally empty, a large piece of something that looked like optical camouflage "opened." It wasn't until that "invisible stone door" was pushed open by a third that Xiao Tan and Xu Huishang realized that there was another "entrance" there (Jue-ge used his data vision to discover it as soon as he arrived); if someone hadn't opened it from the inside, it would be impossible to see this stone door from any angle.

"We've been waiting for you…" Billy's voice rang out before the door was fully opened.

However… his voice sounded very strange, as if he was speaking in a jar, a bit muffled.

The players immediately looked over there, and saw… a giant armored puppet about two and a half meters tall, pushing open the stone door and walking out from it, and Billy's voice was coming from the puppet's "body."

When the armored puppet completely walked out of the stone door, Jue-ge and the others looked again and suddenly discovered… on the left side of the puppet's ribs, there was a large, incomplete hole that went through from front to back; the irregular shape of the edge of the opening looked as if it had been "punched through" by something.

At this moment, both sides of that gap had been sealed with glass, and inside the glass… was Billy's head.

"Hey hey… what's going on?" Jue-ge immediately said, "Did you merge with your brother?"

Feng Bujue could of course recognize that the armored puppet was Billy's brother, Bill.

Di di di…

Before Jue-ge finished speaking, Bill's square "screen face" made a :( emoticon.

"Heh…" Billy smiled wryly when he heard this, "You could say that…" He added, "To sum it up in two sentences… in a battle, I lost my limbs except for my head, and my brother lost his power source and the ability to speak." He paused again, "Well… on the bright side, his 'emoticon' function is much richer now."