The moment he saw this line of words, Chen Ling was stunned for a moment.
Before he could recover his senses, a beam of blood light suddenly burst out from the ground and swept into the token in his palm.
The surface of the Bai Qi Command Tablet was dyed with layers of blood color, which then quickly faded... Chen Ling distinctly felt a fierce intent of slaughter emanating from within.
【Audience Expectation Value +7】
Chen Ling didn't know what had happened, nor did he know why the Audience Expectation Value would increase with the integration of that blood light. He also didn't have time to think much, because right after the blood light disappeared into the token, the entire massive pit began to shake violently!
The edge of the distant pit rapidly disappeared. The earth turned into countless fine grains of sand and stone, like a collapsing sandbox world, annihilating into the nothingness at the bottom of the Ancient Vault at an astonishing speed...
A wave of annihilation was surging towards Chen Ling, blotting out the sky and covering the earth!
Chen Ling's pupils shrank slightly. Without hesitation, he turned and fled, his figure rushing back like a sword in the direction he came from. Amidst the collapse of this massive pit capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people, he was like a tiny, struggling ant, chasing after a sliver of hope for survival.
Chen Ling's speed had already been elevated to the extreme. Right at the instant the collapse was about to pull him in, he thrillingly escaped the range of the massive pit and staggered onto flat land.
Chen Ling wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and looked back, only to see that the original massive pit had completely vanished, replaced by an empty nothingness... When he looked down, it was as if he was looking down into an abyss.
The next moment, the earth began to restore. That emptiness was filled by soil surging from an unknown source. Within just a few short seconds, it was completely leveled, as if the massive pit just now had never existed.
Seeing this scene, Chen Ling's mind involuntarily recalled the scene of the Slaughter Projections automatically restoring after being killed...
So, that massive pit was also restored by some mechanism of the Ancient Vault of the Military Path?
Chen Ling glanced at the token in his hand, the doubt in his eyes growing increasingly dense. But he had no time to linger any longer. If nothing unexpected happened, those three Enforcers were about to open the door to the Ancient Vault.
He hid the token close to his body and quickly rushed back to the trial area. First, he ran to the entrance of the Ancient Vault and scratched the faces of all the corpses of the District One Enforcers. Then, he threw them all off the cliff. After hesitating for a moment, he randomly threw the corpses of two Aurora City Law Enforcers down as well.
After doing all this, Chen Ling randomly found a place with the most and messiest corpses and sat down on the spot.
Thrum——
At the same time, a low buzzing sound came from the entrance of the Ancient Vault.
The Ancient Vault of the Military Path had been opened.
Chen Ling's eyes narrowed slightly. He casually picked up a Short Blade beside him, slowly pressed the edge of the blade against his abdomen... and forcefully slashed!
His waist and abdomen were slashed open by a blade, and a large amount of fresh blood surged out from within. Chen Ling's face visibly paled. Enduring the intense pain, he lay flat on his back amidst the messy corpses...
In the pool of scarlet blood, that face pale to the point of not having a trace of blood color surfaced with an eerie smile.
"The performance is over."
His eyes closed.
...
Outside the Ancient Vault of the Military Path.
The massive hull of the ship swayed gently with the ocean waves. Beneath the black sky vault, three figures draped in windbreakers stood tall at the bow, watching the slowly opening whirlpool.
"Time is up." A Four-Stripe Enforcer had his hands behind his back. "I wonder how many will be able to step onto the Way of the Soldier God this year."
"According to previous years' situations, having seven or eight would be pretty good."
"It's estimated there will be even fewer this time... Don't forget, Yan Xicai brought that kid from the Path of the Scholar God inside. He wants to snatch others' Kill Aura, so the chances of others advancing will naturally decrease."
"Yan Xicai is cheating so blatantly, do the higher-ups really not care?"
"Mind your own business." The Five-Stripe Enforcer spoke coldly. "We just need to obey orders."
The two Four-Stripe Enforcers instantly shut up.
As the whirlpool grew larger and larger, half a minute later, it had already returned to the size when the crowd entered. They stood at the bow of the ship, waiting for the Law Enforcers who had completed the trial to return from it.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes...
Three minutes later, the whirlpool remained deadly silent, without the slightest sign of anyone coming out from inside.
"What's going on? Did they remember the time wrong?" The Four-Stripe Enforcer was very puzzled.
"They shouldn't have... Nothing happened inside, right?"
"What could happen in such a peripheral trial? Losing one or two people is the limit." The other Enforcer shrugged. "They're probably still unwilling to give up and want to try again... Let's wait a bit."
The three waited for another ten minutes, but the whirlpool still had no reaction.
"...Something's not right."
The Five-Stripe Enforcer frowned slightly. He pondered for a moment. "Let's go in and take a look."
"Ah? But our rank has already surpassed the Fourth Order, we'll be rejected by this place, right?"
"The situation is urgent. As escorts, we have the secret treasure given by Aurora City as a token, allowing us to move around inside for a short period."
Standing at the bow of the ship, he solemnly bowed towards the black giant sword that pierced through heaven and earth, then leaped and directly disappeared into the whirlpool. The other two Enforcers exchanged a glance and closely followed.
A feeling of the world spinning came over them, and the next moment, the three stood steadily at the edge of the cliff.
A pungent smell of blood instantly rushed into their nasal cavities!
The three Enforcers frowned at the same time. When they saw the situation clearly at the edge of the cliff, their expressions suddenly changed drastically!
They saw over ten corpses of Law Enforcers scattered everywhere on the cliff, seeming as if most of them were killed by bullets. It was exactly that batch of people who had entered the Ancient Vault previously!
"What happened?!" The Four-Stripe Enforcer spoke in shock. "How... how did so many people die??"
The Five-Stripe Enforcer's face was ashen. He quickly walked a circle among the corpses, his gaze locking onto one of the figures, and slowly squatted down...
"Something's not right." He grabbed the face of that corpse and looked closely for a while. "Among this batch of Law Enforcers who entered the Ancient Vault, there was no such person."
"Are you saying someone sneaked into the Law Enforcers' team?"
"Who?"
The Five-Stripe Enforcer didn't answer. He immediately stood up and rapidly walked towards the depths of the Ancient Vault.
The deeper they went, the more corpses there were. The massive Ancient Vault was deadly silent, and this dead silence was deafening in the ears of the three Enforcers at this moment.
"Is that... Yan Xicai?"
A Four-Stripe Enforcer raised his hand trembling, pointing to a certain corner.
The other two abruptly turned their heads, seeing a skinny figure twisted into a fried dough twist in the pool of blood. They were stunned for a full moment before recovering their senses... It wasn't that they didn't recognize Yan Xicai, it was truly because the flesh-and-blood-sucked Yan Xicai looked too different from before.
If they didn't carefully identify the details on his face, it would be hard for the three of them to connect this dried corpse dying with eyes wide open to the arrogant Young Master Yan on the ship.
"It really is him..." The other Four-Stripe spoke hoarsely, fear and dread surfacing in his eyes. "Even Yan Xicai died in the Ancient Vault. There's going to be a huge mess on Aurora City's side."
"Quick, see if there are any still alive!"
The three split up to search. One of them arrived under the Hill where the slaughter was most tragic. Here, the corpses of dozens of Law Enforcers and Fire-Stealers were piled together, as if they had gone through a life-and-death battle akin to a meat grinder.
The more the three searched, the colder their hearts became. In the past hundred years, there had never been such large-scale casualties among newcomers... They couldn't figure out what on earth had happened inside within just 24 hours.
Amidst the corpses covering the ground, a figure that already had no breath slightly moved a finger.
"This!!" The Four-Stripe Enforcer's pupils shrank, and he immediately yelled. "There's still one survivor here!!"