The shadow of the seventh layer clung to Yao's spirit like a clammy, persistent frost. Its memory—a palpable weight of ancient malice and whispers that scraped against the mind—propelled her forward. She wanted distance, vast and consuming, between herself and that place. She fled the sixth layer with a speed that blurred the stone corridors into streaks of grey, the air whipping past her ears in a hollow roar. But before crossing the threshold into the relative sanity of the fifth floor, she paused. A subtle shift rippled across her features, bones and flesh complying with a silent command, her form dissolving and re-knitting into the visage of another—a stranger with unremarkable eyes and a forgettable stance. One more mask among many.
The fifth layer greeted her with an unsettling quiet. The earlier chaos of battling criminals and examinees had bled away, leaving behind a cavernous silence broken only by the distant drip of moisture and the low, mournful sigh of air through empty cellblocks. The metallic tang of old blood and ozone lingered. Good, she thought, a fleeting moment of relief warming her chilled nerves. This barren stillness was perfect. She could hide here, in the ribs of this stone beast, and digest the six prizes clutched tight in her spatial pouch. Their latent potential hummed against her thigh, a siren song of power.
But the silence was a lie.
A neural wire in her spine snapped taut—a primal, wordless shriek of danger.
Her body moved before her mind could articulate the threat. The Blue-Light Mystic-Turtle genetic talent ignited, summoning a shimmering, hexagonal carapace of light around her. Yet, even as the defensive halo bloomed, the shadows withinthe wall to her left shuddered. Not a silhouette cast, but the wall's own darkness convulsing. Space itself folded, compressed, and vomited forth a figure.
It was a Space Skip—First Stage. Not a flashy teleport, but a brutal, efficient violation of intervening matter. The attacker phased through a solid meter of reinforced wall as if it were mist, his emergence point not before her, but behind. The physics of it was a gut-punch. He manifested with the whispered tearof displaced reality, his right hand already a blur of lethal intent. A dagger, sleek and hungry, carved the air towards her throat. It wasn't just sharp; it wept with condensed malice, its edge humming with two fused arcane principles: Hemorrhageand Sunder.
An assassin.
Yao twisted, a contortion that threatened to snap her own spine, her body flowing sideways and back in the same desperate motion. Put distance between them. Her pupils constricted, her ocular talent activating. The world dissolved into a tapestry of elemental flows. The air sparkled with agitated Space particles, but their dance was wrong. They weren't gathering around the killing strike of his right hand. Instead, they swarmed, dense and excited, around his left.
His left?
The assassin's left hand, previously held low, snapped open. Palm out. No dagger there. Instead, a complex, silver sextant glyph blazed to life upon his skin, spinning rapidly. Lines of potent arcana connected, weaving, forming the elegant, deadly silhouette of a recurve bow. At its heart, an arrow of condensed spatial force nocked itself from nothing.
A Bow Diagram Arcana. Comprehension and refinement of a ranged principle, forged into a tangible glyph for instant invocation. Intermediate players' territory, usually those past level 40. Of course, true monsters laughed at 'usually'. The vanguard of the first echelon had theirs by thirty.
Yao's mind, cold and sharp despite the adrenaline, cataloged the threat. Diagram stages: Formation, Manifestation, Awakening. Each a leap in deadliness and difficulty. This was why she meticulously planned her own class consolidation at thirty—to build a foundation solid enough to birth her own Diagram at conception.
But an assassin shifting to an archer mid-strike? The tactical whiplash was profound. Thankfully, her eyes had caught the anomaly. The wings of light and air at her back—a gift from a fused spirit—flared. She didn't just dodge; she left a fading afterimage of light as her true form flickered three meters to the right. Her muscles coiled, ready to launch a counter-assault.
Then, the skin on her scalp crawled.
Danger!
From the ceiling above, where only shadows and structural beams hung, another form dropped. It had no true stealth, just perfect, motionless mimicry of stone. It held a massive, single-bladed axe, and its descent was pure, brutal physics augmented by arcane will: Gravity Empowerment!
The axe fell like a meteorite aimed at her crown. Now. The Mystic-Turtle shield resonated with a deep gongas it intercepted. Damage mitigation flooded the construct. It absorbed seventy percent of the devastating force.
Then it shattered.
The sound was that of a giant glacier calving. The remaining thirty percent of the force, carrying the axe's wicked momentum, crashed down. The shockwave alone hammered Yao's body, a physical blow that rattled her teeth. The axe-blade, though slowed, continued its descent.
Two attackers? No. Her ocular sight, piercing elemental veils, saw the truth. The axe-wielder was not elemental, nor was it a true organic life form. It was… a construct of dense, purpose-driven matter.
A First-Sequence Entity Division talent. A tangible clone, sharing near-parity with the original. First-Sequence gifts were of the primal gene-stuff; her current ocular level couldn't pierce their essence. Not even Xie Yiyuan likely could, unless his own First-Sequence gifts leaned that way. There was no foresight against this. Only reaction.
And Yao couldn't react fast enough. Her fusion with Xiao Huang granted her shared agility, a blur of desperate motion. She twisted, trying to pivot her shoulder away from the axe's path.
CRUNCH-THUD!
The axe-bit, diverted from her skull, bit deep into the meat and bone of her left shoulder. The clone had no true face, just a humanoid outline of condensed force, but its eyes—mirrors of its creator's—held a pitiless, analytical cold. As the axe lodged, its edge morphed. Barbed hooks sprouted from the metal, digging deep into torn muscle, scraping against bone, hookinginto the very structure of her body. A brutal anchoring technique.
Crisis. Red warnings flashed in her mind's eye: Hemorrhaging (Blood Loss +30%). Bone Fracture (Pain/Weakened State +20%). Anchored (Immobilized).
Synchronously, seven meters away, the main body—a young man with a nest of unruly hair, looking like a street urchin—watched with eyes like chips of flint. He brought his palms together. On each, the silver Bow Diagram blazed. He overlapped his hands, back to back. The diagrams fused, their geometry complexifying.
Composite Arcane Diagram: Spatial Twin-Arrow.
A resonant HUMfilled the chamber. Two arrows of distorted space, capable of ignoring intervening matter, materialized and shot as one, aimed for the space between her eyes.
In that sliver of a second, the young man's cold composure cracked with a flicker of surprise. Because Yao, anchored by the axe, made a choice.
Her right hand, formed of shimmering, semi-solid light, chopped down on her own left shoulder.
A wet, terrible snap. The severed arm, still hooked by the barbed axe, fell to the floor with a sickening thud. She wrenched free, staggering back. From the bloody stump of her left shoulder, not gore, but a mass of writhing, prehensile tentacles erupted. They fused, solidified, and reformed into a new, functional arm in the span of a heartbeat.
Simultaneously, within her private spatial pocket, Xiao Huang was moving. Fifty vials of psychic elixirs—some hers, some plundered from the likes of Qin Minfeng—had their stoppers pulled by tiny, frantic hands. A flood of iridescent liquid was absorbed, a desperate, prodigal expenditure.
Triple Digestion: Green-Blood metabolism, Xiao Huang's fusion, her own genetic talents. A tsunami of mental energy ignited within her, a raw, screaming power that strained the very channels of her spirit.
Unleash.
Brilliance: Triple Accumulation, Discharge.
She threw her arms wide. From her body, not beams, but a galaxyof light was born. Ten thousand threads of incandescent fury, each a needle of condensed solar rage, erupted in all directions. They pierced, they interwooed, they detonated. It was her ultimate, all-consuming strike, a move that emptied her psychic reserves to the dregs, amplified further by the temporary, digestion-fueled surge.
Thirty thousand units of psychic energy, transmuted into elemental chaos. The chamber vanished inside a cage of light, a sphere of utter annihilation that engulfed both the young man and his clone.
The world became sound and fury. Stone walls vaporized into powder. The floor heaved and cratered.
Holy—The damage output flickered at the edge of Elite Level 45. Enough to erase most first-echelon talents.
The scruffy-haired boy's eyes finally widened. Offense switched to desperate defense. The clone dissolved, rushing back into his body as he crossed his arms. A multi-layered, hexagonal barrier of force shimmered into being around him. The light-spears hammered into it. The shield screamed, its surface pockmarked instantly by thousands of fine, burning holes.
Damn it! What kind of Area-of-Effect hell is this?!
He had to pour his energy into reinforcing the disintegrating barrier, leaving no focus for attack.
Yao, in the eye of her own storm, was a drained, ragged husk. Yet, through the overwhelming riot of Light elements she had birthed, her profound affinity sensed a dissonance. A few strands of light recoiled, repelled by an invasive, swallowing presence.
Darkness. A profound, hungry Dark.
Understanding dawned, cold and clear. This boy hadn't been waiting here by accident. His partner, sensing anomalies on the fourth layer, had guessed a shadow-player was at work. They deduced someone had profited from the chaos. So, she sent her companion to lie in wait.
A hunter, waiting for another hunter. A classic, brutal plunder.
Now, spent from her ultimate move, with only Xiao Huang (kept hidden for such speed-based foes) as her last unreserved card, Yao assessed. The approaching dark presence felt stronger, more seasoned. Dark versus Light—a natural counter. The advantage was not hers.
Her will solidified. The tentacle-formed arm morphed again.
The girl in black arrived then, stepping from the shadows as if born from them. She was spattered in fresh blood, having clearly cut her way here. She didn't pause. Melding into the fading light-storm, her palm thrust forward. A vortex of pure negation bloomed—a Dark Swirl that greedily devoured the surrounding Light elements, snuffing them out. With her other hand, a single finger pointed. Corrosive black mist erupted, coiling like a viper intent on digestion.
Yao didn't try to stand her ground. In the split second before the dark maw consumed her, her body was engulfed by her own writhing tentacles, forming a protective cocoon. Then, the cocoon sankinto the solid stone wall behind her.
Not through a door. Not through a crack. Intothe stone itself.
Continuous, frantic tunneling through layer after layer of solid matter.
The dark-clad girl blinked, a rare flicker of surprise in her weary, ice-cold eyes. The boy, letting his battered shield drop, scowled. "What in the abyss? What kind of wall-phasing technique is that? She used a First-Sequence tentacle to mergewith the stone?"
"Pursuit?"
The girl looked about seventeen, poised on the delicate cusp between youth and womanhood, though her aura of lethal melancholy aged her. She wiped blood from her cheek with a detached air, pulled a flask of black coffee from her belt, and took a long sip, the mundane act stark against the background of destruction. "Won't catch her," she stated, voice flat. "Non-density phasing attribute. A rare First-Sequence gift. With that, in a labyrinthine environment, her survivability is top-tier. No wonder she ran circles around everyone and secured the sixth-floor prize."
The boy fished out a cigarette, considered it, then put it away seeing her exhaustion. "So I got played. That bastard's ruthless, though. Severed his own arm without a flinch. Pity you were late. Your hunt?"
"Adequate. Secured one of the three special rewards." Meaning the unique prison treasures from floors three, four, and five had been split three ways.
"You got one. So, which of the three—Hong Yan, Li Cang, or Xie Yiyuan—lost out?"
"Xie Yiyuan. The ape-demon pinned him down. I capitalized." 'Capitalized' was a mild word for snatching treasure from the jaws of a top-tier contender.
The hunting grounds were abuzz. Three major clashes had just concluded. Hong Yan took the third floor, then clashed with Li Cang on the fourth. Li Cang, with familial support from Li Yu and others, managed to seize the fourth-floor treasure, though Hong Yan claimed the elimination points. On the fifth floor, just as Xie Yiyuan seemed poised to win, this black-clad girl emerged from nowhere to steal the prize. And now, this clash with 'Oaks'…
"She dared to divert her strongest ally to ambush someone while contesting Xie Yiyuan? Audacious."
"Who is she? Who are they?"
The names surfaced: "The boy is Yue Mingze. The girl is Wei Mingtang. Both from West Prefecture City."
"Wei Mingtang?" A voice from the Yun family cluster—Yun Tuantuan, Yun Baobao's elder sister, petite and deceptively youthful-looking—perked up. "West Prefecture Begonia?"
Under questioning, she explained, "I was in West Prefecture sourcing pet supplies. Heard students mention a 'West Prefecture Begonia.' Thought it was a flower. Asked. They said it was their inter-school top beauty, famous across middle school, high school, and university. Excellent in studies and combat. Background… poor. Orphanage. I considered recruiting her, but her test scores, while good, were only top-100 citywide. Sent an invite anyway. She refused."
A Yun elder frowned. "Insufficient offer?"
Yun Tuantuan looked pained. "Her stated reason was… she holds a grudge against the wealthy."
A beat of stunned silence. Then, collective, exaggerated sighs from the Yun elders. "Ah, the curse of our affluence!" "Such a burden!" "Truly, a tragedy!"
Yun Tuantuan rolled her eyes. "Joking aside, had I known her real caliber, I'd have tried harder. A missed opportunity."
Wei Mingtang, the 'West Prefecture Begonia,' was now the darkest horse, darker even than Oaks. The Orange-Blood families wore complex expressions. The Que family, with Que Baige sidelined, was mostly silent until a matron murmured, "Only the branch family boy is left now."
"Que Baimo? Second echelon at best. Ranked fifties currently."
Every major family had branch participants. The assumption of Orange-Blood dominance was now shattered. A wildcard had outmaneuvered them all. Another wildcard duo now seemed the strongest force. Both from humble origins. It wasn't just a slap; it was a stomp on the face of elite cultivation.
On screen, Wei Mingtang bent and picked up the severed arm. She rubbed the blood between her fingers, thoughtful. "If we can't catch her now, be cautious next time. That was likely Oaks. Not groomed by a Great House. Her resource efficiency is extreme. With those prizes digested, she'll be a different beast in a short time. You'd likely die in a rematch."
Yue Mingze raised a brow. "So little faith?"
"I have faith only in accurate assessment. Disobey, and I'll replace you." Her tone held no malice, just the absolute, chilling pragmatism of one raised in a pitiless orphanage, where survival was a calculus of cold choices, including choosing allies.
Yue Mingze, also from common stock, shrugged. Unlike the cunning Qin Minfeng or the stoic Lin Chengxiu, he was somewhere in between. "Fine. Just glad you're not a lovestruck fool like that little princess of the Lian family, practically serving her family's fortune to that two-faced Qin on a platter. How do you girls even fall for that?"
Wei Mingtang, still examining the arm as if it were a fascinating specimen, replied absently, "He's average."
"Talent or character?"
"Looks."
So, both his talent and his scheming nature were beneath her notice. Even his looks, his supposed trump card, were merely 'average.' It was a devastating, off-hand dismissal.
The Lian family's faces turned ashen. Qin Minfeng, elsewhere, felt another surge of humiliated fury, quickly turning to reassure his fuming girlfriend, Lian Sujin, who was sputtering about 'true love.' Wei Mingtang paid them no mind. She tossed the arm into her own spatial pack.
Yue Mingze stared. "Uh… why?"
"Snack for later. But let's spread a little truth. Don't let Xie Yiyuan take all the blame. Even if they share a surname." Her tone was意味深长 (meaningful). The Xie family observers grimaced. Another shrewd young schemer, redirecting blame, making it seem like Oaks and Xie Yiyuan were in cahoots.
Inside the Xie family, opinions split. Some blamed Oaks for causing trouble and implicating their stellar Xie Yiyuan. Others saw Oaks's potential. "Contact Zhou Miao. Get her stance."
"Don't bother the Patriarch. This is beneath him."
But Zhou Miao, as unpredictable as ever, remained unreachable.
"But if Oaks truly digests those resources… could she rival Yiyuan?"
A heavy pause. "Resource utilization has limits. She's already Green-Blooded with a genetic talent. Unless she advances to Blue Blood or awakens a higher-tier talent, her growth is capped. Her weaknesses remain: level 20, lower psychic reserves, and now, severe injury. The exam ends in thirty minutes. How does she turn this around?"
The rankings now read: Hong Yan, Li Cang, Xie Yiyuan, Wei Mingtang, Yun Baobao, Zhang Doudou… Oaks, at ninety-second. She'd caused chaos but gained few points. The final tally was all that mattered.
Deep within the prison's stone bowels, Yao was indeed in dire straits. Agony from the stump gnawed at her, sapping her strength. Continuous phasing through walls drained her severely. She finally collapsed in a hollowed-out pocket deep within the stone, utterly spent. But time was a luxury. Xiao Huang emerged, and a cocktail of healing and energy potions were consumed. Triple Digestion activated. In one minute, a third of her psychic energy was restored—a monstrous rate.
Yet, as she raised a hand to use a high-tier Light Reconstruction art on the stump, she stopped. Using that art… it was signature to 'Yao.' It would blow her cover.
Instead, she used standard potions and lesser light-healing skills. Slower, less effective, but anonymous. In the coming bloodbath, a slight physical disadvantage mattered less than secrecy.
"My identity is compromised. They'll likely reveal it, painting a target on my back for Hong Yan and the rest. I have the sixth-floor prize. They'll see me as a threat." She'd made powerful enemies. A chill crept down her spine.
No time. She laid out the six prizes.
Five standard prison boxes yielded: 2 items worth 1000 points each (2000 total, useful for rank but not immediate combat), a Pet Egg (Imperial Research Institute issue, Blue-Grade Mechanical Pet, adapts to user), a Blue-Grade Attack Principle Stone (Ranged Multi-Fluid Manipulation), another (Single-Target Critical Burst), and a third (Multi-Target Crowd Control).
The jade box held: a book. Orange-Grade: Gene Awakening Primer.
A headache throbbed behind her eyes. Points were just numbers now. The pet egg was a fantastic windfall, a powerful ally, but a newborn pet, even Blue-Grade, was useless against Hong Yan without time to level. The principle stones were crucial, but comprehending them took time she didn't have. She already had one partially learned. Three more? Impossible.
Then the book. A 50% chance to awaken a genetic talent, provided one lay dormant. Did 'Oaks,' with her poor innate talent and an already-awakened ocular gift, have another? Did 'Yao,' with two talents, have a third? The odds were terrible.
But she was out of options. She could feel scans probing the area. Hunters were closing in. If Xie Yiyuan teamed with another sensor-type…
Desperation bred heresy. If she was going to gamble, she'd gamble big.
She accessed a different spatial pouch—not hers, but the one looted from Lian Sujin, Chen Sihai, and Qin Minfeng. She had little faith in the first two's judgment. But Qin Minfeng… she loathed him, but she couldn't deny his protagonist-tier luck. She rummaged through his herbs.
Her hand closed on a small, ornate case. Opening it, she froze.
Inside, coiled like a sleeping serpent, was a vine. Its stem was a deep, arterial crimson, but its leaves were a brilliant, burnished gold. A stunning,霸气 (overbearing) contrast.
"A century-old Thousand-Luo Star-Devouring Vine? He actually got this?!" Envy, sharp and bitter, lanced through her. This was Orange-Grade alchemical material! The Lian family wouldn't bestow this. This was pure, unadulterated protagonist luck.
A cold resolve hardened her fear. "He can't be left alive. He'll rise too fast."
She summoned Xiao Huang. "Sister?" the small spirit chimed.
"Listen carefully. Use your life-siphoning skill on this vine. But be crude. Slow. Maximize absorption of its fibrous tissue and organic matter into this severed arm. Delay the blood-conversion. Keep it in a state between plant and flesh. Can you do it?"
Xiao Huang, ever clever, nodded.
Yao's tentacles morphed, forming a crude, new left arm. Xiao Huang merged with her, and the digestion began. The unique properties of the Star-Devouring Vine flooded the tentacle-arm. Yao, with agonizing precision, used fine threads of light to weave and repair flesh amidst the invading plant fibers. The pain was exquisite, a symphony of violation as two different genetic templates—the primal flexibility of her tentacles, the hungry vitality of the vine, and her own human flesh—were forcibly fused.
She endured. When the new arm was complete yet separate, she severed the main tentacle connection. The arm was now a distinct, living mass of composite tissue. She placed the Gene Awakening Primeragainst it and activated the book.
The principle was simple, insane, and brilliant: The primer worked on any living organic tissue with genes. This arm qualified. By severing her own genetic link at the critical moment, the awakening would target the arm alone, not consuming a 'slot' on her main genetic tree. A 50% chance, concentrated on a single limb.
Would it work?
The tentacle was cut. She lost feeling in the arm. She stared, her ocular talent fixed on it. One second. Two. A pulse of energy. The primer's work was done.
In the third second, her other tentacles shot into the stump, re-fusing with the dormant genetic material there, reconnecting, installing the arm onto her shoulder. Light-reconstruction seals flared, stitching nerve, vessel, and sinew.
The fourth second. A wave of pain, then… information. A new awareness. She finished the healing, flexing the new fingers. It was her arm, yet… different.
She felt it. The fusion was happening on a deeper level—the plant genes of the Star-Devouring Vine with the ancient, botanical heritage of the Xie line's 'Demon Orchid' ancestry. Her hypothesis was right. They were compatible.
Thousand-Luo Star-Devouring Vine: High-risk predatory flora. Can entangle energy-rich life forms and rapidly drain their power to replenish itself. Can release a 'Star-Devour' skill to absorb ambient elemental energy. At peak manifestation, can generate a dense field of vines, creating an elemental vacuum.
Yao willed it. From her left palm, a single, slender, crimson vine sprouted, delicate yet humming with latent, hungry power.
A strange thought surfaced: Am I a plant-person now?
More than that. In the lingering afterglow of pain, she acted. She took the mechanical pet egg and, on instinct, let a drop of blood from her new left arm fall upon it. Binding complete.
She had a profound sense that this spur-of-the-moment creation, this Star-Devouring Vine arm, was a pivotal divergence. A genetic collision of inspiration.
She hoped the pet egg would be the next.