Inside White Mist's headquarters on Heaven and Earth Star.
Red Tail sat in a quiet room, holding some documents the organization recently obtained. She chuckled. "To think Feng Xu is actually the one who came. Looks like His Majesty really attaches great value to this Grand Commander of ours!"
She was also from the Bloodline Alliance, so Red Tail naturally knew what kind of figure Feng Xu was.
Setting aside his background for now, even Feng Xu's position in the Bloodline Alliance was higher than hers—if they didn't count certain secret matters.
Lin Yunyun was sitting beside her and spoke softly, "My Lord…"
"I said you can call me Mom when no one's around," Red Tail interrupted her, then stretched out her hand to rub Lin Yunyun's head.
Lin Yunyun bit her lip lightly. "Mom… how powerful is a Void Cutter Realm cultivator?"
"Very powerful, very powerful." Red Tail smiled and explained, "So powerful that any one of them can destroy a whole planet."
"Then… Why did Uncle provoke them?" Lin Yunyun frowned in confusion.
In her impression, that uncle seemed to have never encountered this kind of situation before.
"I also want to know." Red Tail's graze gradually drifted away, becoming a bit fleeting. "Just what kind of item can make that one descend in person?"
...
"Gu Nan is connected to White Mist?" Feng Xu frowned after reading the latest information.
Ping Jiushan nodded. "According to our current information, Gu Nan probably went to White Mist as soon as he arrived at Heaven and Earth Star and even fought with the Sand King."
"The result is… No one has ever seen any trace of the Sand King again," not even Ping Jiushan could help feeling a little terrified when he said this.
It wasn't like he'd never heard about this battle before, but he just treated it as an interesting anecdote at the time. He didn't expect His Majesty to also be implicated in this matter.
'Now that I'm thinking about it, could the Sand King have actually died in that fight?'
"The Sand King is dead." Feng Xu stroked his beard with narrowed eyes. "Yet White Mist still exists. Looks like that woman colluded with Gu Nan."
"You mean Red Tail?! How can that be possible—" Ping Jiushan immediately exclaimed.
"There's nothing impossible about it. Red Tail is not a simple person." Feng Xu shook his head lightly. "But she won't admit it even if we ask her directly. Let's start from inside White Mist."
Feng Xu handed Ping Jiushan a piece of paper with a name written on it: Guan Sheng.
...
"Hahahaha! This Lord has hidden here for 20 years…"
The exact same lines were uttered from the enemy's mouth, and the exact same crimson sickle fell.
Zi Yi was calm and unruffled, setting down thirty purple illusory shadows in front of her. Her defenses could absolutely be called airtight, but it was still useless.
The blood-red sickle sliced through thirty purple shadows in a row and instantly cut Zi Yi in two.
"Damned fleas, always jumping around. I'll kill you all!" Came the familiar line.
The four of them were returned to the starting point again. This time, Qiu Wenran's expression turned even uglier. He didn't feel that Zi Yi's death was anything to celebrate at all. Her death only showed how difficult the enemy's attack was.
"Sealing all laws, a strike of certain death." Zi Yi was also frowning when she reappeared.
"The law of certain death…" Qiu Wenran gasped. There was no doubt that this kind of law was powerful. He didn't expect to encounter it here.
The so-called law of certain death was a law that declared certain death for the enemy after a condition had been met.
Escape was impossible, not unless they also possessed a law of the same level.
"What's the condition that triggered certain death?" In a rare display, both sides of Zuo Zuo's face looked symmetrical, like he was lost in thought.
At this time, Gu Nan suddenly interrupted, "It might be… forbidding flight."
Moments later, the four landed safely in front of the crimson guard, and the scarlet sickle never appeared again.
"It was as simple as that?! They utilized the law of certain death for such a trivial thing?!" Qiu Wenran looked like he was gnashing his teeth.
Actually, it wasn't just him. Zuo Zuo and Zi Yi were in a similar mood. It's just that these two were more shrewd and didn't lose control of their emotions on the spot.
Gu Nan shook his head helplessly. In fact, the line "Damned fleas, always jumping around" had already hinted at this point, but because the solution was too simple, the three Star Rulers were unwilling to believe it.
But for Gu Nan, this answer was entirely normal—this was just the beginning of the Second Phase, so the system wouldn't make life hard for the players right now.
Besides, it was nothing more than a rule inside the game—it didn't matter to the game whether it used the law of certain death or not, so there was no need for the game to be stingy with resources and use this law sparingly.
It's just that the emergence of this kind of situation made Gu Nan even more convinced that this dungeon really was modified based on his memories.
'That means… I'm afraid this boss won't be an easy fight.' Gu Nan secretly shook his head. He had zero confidence in these NPCs' dungeon-clearing abilities.
An hour later, the four of them reappeared at the starting point of the Second Phase for the 29th time.
"Everyone, the amount of time I can stay in the Starry Road has reached the limit, so I can only continue next time," Zi Yi prevented the next attempt and said helplessly.
Star Rulers entered the Starry Road as wisps of consciousness, so they naturally couldn't stay for too long.
Zuo Zuo gave a small nod. "This world… really is a little weird. Let's return next time when we're prepared."
"Then let's plan to meet three days later. Is that inconvenient for anyone?" Zi Yi asked.
Zuo Zuo and Qiu Wenran shook their heads, but Gu Nan frowned. "Three days? The flow of time for each world is different. How can you determine the time?"
Zuo Zuo smiled. His right face had a kind smile and his left face had a twisted smile. "The flow of time is the same for the 36 Myriad Heavens and 72 Realms."
"So that's it…" Gu Nan suddenly seemed to understand something.
...
Gu Nan slowly opened his eyes inside a small room. His mind was still thinking about the Myriad Heavens Starry Road, but his mouth was sighing slightly.
What caused the four of them to experience 30 consecutive party wipes in the Second Phase wasn't a particularly strong enemy. Instead, it was a very simple game technique.
The three Star Rulers really were strong, and the fighting power shown by any one of them far exceeded Tier 3. Not even Gu Nan could say for certain that he could win against them.
Therefore, the crimson guard was beaten until he had no strength to fight back. However, everytime he was about to die, he would split into forty smaller guards.
All forty of these guards were different. They must be killed in a fixed order, or else they'd all self-detonate simultaneously.
"Is it really so hard to kill 40 mobs in order?" Gu Nan shook his head helplessly. Someone in the team always made a mistake at this stage.
But in fact, he also knew that it was extremely hard for NPCs to accept the game concept that they must kill people in a certain order.
The strong all had their own inherent knowledge about the world, so they couldn't understand an excessively artificial design like this.
He opened the Evil God Temple to check. There was a new message inside, which wasn't received when he was in the personal dungeon.
「Completed First Phase of the mission in the 'Splendid World' personal dungeon. Obtained 300 points」
'300 points, not bad.' It was so high probably because it was the first clear reward; it definitely wouldn't be as high the second time. Gu Nan knew this very well.
In this way, he had already saved up 1,700 points, and with Lan Si's efforts, his Evil Value had also reached 450, which was one step closer to Tier 4's threshold.
Gu Nan's consciousness withdrew from the Evil God Temple. He thought about it, then wrote down three names—Zuo Zuo, Zi Yi, and Qiu Wenran—and sent them back to White Mist via a secret method, asking Red Tail to help investigate those three.
Gu Nan also held a deep curiosity about his three temporary companions.
However, someone suddenly knocked on his door at this moment.
Before Gu Nan could act, the door had been pushed open, and an unexpected person appeared in front of him.
This was a person who absolutely shouldn't have appeared here—his left face was twisted and his right face was peaceful. It was Zuo Zuo.