Li Ban was seeing the Sea of Monsters for the very first time.
The others were equally shocked.
No matter how many times someone laid eyes on the Sea of Monsters, its overwhelming expanse and grotesque, twisted horrors were always staggering.
When numbers and breadth reached such extremes, a single glance was enough to induce despair.
At that moment, more than one person was screaming in their head: Can anyone actually cross the Sea of Monsters and reach the rift at the very center?
"Phew—" Li Ban exhaled softly, finally breaking the heavy silence. "Look on the bright side. We don't have to force our way through the Sea of Monsters right this second. No need to fall into despair so soon."
Priest Huinv had already adapted to Dila's flight. Without bothering to strap herself in, she stood directly on the black dragon's back.
"The fact that you can still joke means you're quite confident," she said.
"Ah, confidence is all I have left right now." Li Ban looked down at the map in his hands. "We're heading to Wanghai Cliff first."
Li Ban's primary target for this trip, the Director, should still be living there.
"Alright, Dila, stop staring. Fly southeast, and don't land until I tell you to." Li Ban patted the black dragon, who had almost forgotten to flap his wings, snapping him back to reality.
Just as Dila shudderingly changed course, a flock of Rib Birds suddenly erupted from the Sea of Monsters, shooting straight toward Li Ban's group.
"I've got this!"
Suddenly energized, Priest Huinv leaped from the black dragon's back and hurled a handful of flying knives.
The blades were massive—each a meter long and a palm's width across.
They had no handles. Instead, the bases were forged into metal rings connected to the thin wire held in Priest Huinv's hands.
Wearing specialized gloves, Priest Huinv only had to flick her wrists to send the rows of knives spinning through the air at high speed. They became a meat grinder, slicing the incoming Rib Birds into chunks.
The falling chunks were immediately devoured by the surviving Rib Birds.
Perhaps stunned by Priest Huinv's sheer lethality, the few remaining Rib Birds actually shrank back into the Sea of Monsters.
Priest Huinv let the knives spin twice more in the air to bleed off their momentum, then stored them away in her Cubic Space.
She didn't immediately return to Dila's back. Instead, she hovered in the air, staring blankly down at the roiling, monster-infested sea.
"She's not going to charge in there, is she?" Tail asked worriedly, scratching her cheek.
"She won't. Priest Huinv knows what she's doing," Zhu Yao said softly.
Having spent two months together, the group had grown quite familiar with one another.
Priest Huinv excelled at combat.
Whenever they ran into enemies or monsters on the road, she would immediately charge to the front—a stark contrast to her usual lazy, carefree demeanor.
Tail loved Priest Huinv's fighting style. Unfortunately, Tail wasn't a Priest; she couldn't use spells, and she had no way to fly.
Here in the Recycling Station, even if you dug out someone else's Wizard Embryo Fragment, you couldn't merge with it. Tail had absolutely zero chance of becoming a Priest in this place.
Once we get out of here, I have to find a way to get my hands on a Wizard Embryo Fragment, even if it means becoming a Black Robe, Tail thought to herself.
But she quickly glanced at Zhu Yao and Li Ban nearby and grimaced. Ugh, those two probably wouldn't allow it. Seriously, having companions is such a hassle.
Sure enough, after hovering for a minute, the Priest returned to Dila's back.
Her face showed no other emotion, only a languid smile.
"Priest Li Ban, aren't you planning to take a look inside the Sea of Monsters? With our strength, as long as we don't go deeper than a single kilometer, we can get in and out safely. It's quite interesting in there."
"I definitely will, just not right now."
Even if Li Ban had no intention of using the Sea of Monsters to escape the Recycling Station, he still wanted to explore it.
Countless Spirit Practitioners and Priests had perished in there. Their remains likely held massive amounts of waste elements, perhaps even intact elements. To Li Ban, it was a literal treasure trove. As long as the risk-to-reward ratio was right, he could easily justify a tour through the sea's shallow layers.
Others only braved the Sea of Monsters when they had no other choice, since they could only expend spiritual rhinoceros here without any way to replenish it.
Li Ban was different.
With just a few passing glances earlier, he had already spotted a fragment suspected to be a waste element dangling from a monster's tentacle.
But he was in no rush. Right now, both he and Zhu Yao had plenty of waste elements stored in their Cubic Spaces. He could afford to plan thoroughly before diving in.
He was going in for a treasure hunt, not a suicide mission.
Having received Li Ban's orders, Dila the black dragon hurriedly banked away.
"I see only ordinary monsters on the periphery. Are the fallen Priests and Spirit Practitioners deeper inside?"
Even though it was a heavy topic for Zhu Yao and Priest Huinv, Li Ban had to ask.
"Yes. Closer to the center of the sea, there are even many Seventh- and 8th-Tier Priests," Priest Huinv replied, her voice noticeably colder. "Even though they've become monsters and can no longer use spells or spiritual rhinoceros, their physical bodies are incredibly lethal weapons all on their own."
Zhu Yao sighed softly. "Priest Qian Que is in there as well. The Sea of Monsters is unique; anyone who falls inside is bound to become part of the horde. So, he is our enemy too."
"What Tier was Priest Qian Que at the time?" Li Ban asked.
In Li Ban's Wizard World, Priest Qian Que was only at the Seventh Tier.
"He was an 8th-Tier Solar Priest." Zhu Yao couldn't help but sigh again. "Originally, Priest Qian Que had great hope of becoming a Divine Offspring Priest. But while he was stabilizing his mental state prior to his Solar Priest advancement, the Myriad Ancient Pagoda at the Unreturning Place was suddenly ambushed by Black Robe Xiao Suo. Somehow, Xiao Suo had become an 8th-Tier Priest. To protect everyone and stop the insect tide from breaking through, Priest Qian Que was forced to advance early. As a result, his mental state became unstable, making it incredibly difficult for him to ever become a Divine Offspring Priest."
The mere mention of Black Robe Xiao Suo made Li Ban grit his teeth in hatred.
"I don't know what kind of special identity or ability this Xiao Suo has, but it seems like he just can't be killed."
"Can't be killed?"
Zhu Yao and Priest Huinv both caught Li Ban's choice of words and gave him a strange look.
"Did that not happen on your end?" Li Ban saw their confusion and recounted Xiao Suo's two deaths. "I once saw the outside Priests catch Xiao Suo in the Imperial Palace in the Capital City. But not long after, I ran into him again. He was in rough shape, but he was undeniably alive. It was like a corpse reviving."
"The Imperial Palace..." Zhu Yao mused. "In my timeline, we did set a trap and catch him in the palace. But right when we were requesting instructions from the Wizard Lord, he somehow used a spell to swap himself out with a body double. We never managed to kill him."
"Is that so? Because in my timeline, I watched him turn to dust with my own eyes. You all even extracted his Wizard Embryo Fragment."
Zhu Yao shook her head again. "We didn't get his Wizard Embryo Fragment. It was because he escaped that time that he later returned to exact his revenge on the Myriad Ancient Pagoda. That was the attack that forced Priest Qian Que to advance to the Solar Tier."
"Did Priest Qian Que manage to kill Xiao Suo after advancing to the 8th Tier?"
"Unfortunately, he got away again. He escaped through the vortex at the very bottom of the Unreturning Place. Even though it's incredibly dangerous for Priests to enter that place, Xiao Suo had terrifying luck. It didn't take him long to return to the Wizard World."
Priest Huinv chimed in. "After he came back, he ran to the Capital City and cooked up a massive conspiracy. We nearly lost a dozen Priests. We finally managed to capture him, only to lose him again because Realm Emperor Li Zhai betrayed us."
Li Ban whipped around. "Li Zhai betrayed you? When did he become Xiao Suo's man?"
"Right after Zhu Yao caught him in the Capital City. He made a show of fleeing, but actually doubled back and secretly lured in Li Zhai—who lacked the talent to generate his own Wizard Embryo Fragment—by promising him a way to become a Great Wizard."
Li Ban never expected that the Li Zhai of the previous timeline had become Xiao Suo's lapdog.
What about Zhai Liu in the current timeline?
Back then, Zhai Liu had laid down his life just to rip open a path for Li Ban, which was what allowed the Priests waiting outside in ambush to locate Xiao Suo.
Would the current timeline's version of him serve Xiao Suo again?
Once I'm out of here, I definitely need to check up on Li Zhai, Li Ban thought.
He then shared his own experiences with the two Priests. "In my world, Xiao Suo was killed once in the Capital City. But right after that, he showed up with a corrupted Du An to attack the Unreturning Place again. Priest Qian Que must have been forced to advance to the 8th Tier during that assault as well. And I watched Xiao Suo shatter into pieces yet again."
"But thinking back on the utterly fearless look in his eyes... I honestly can't be certain that he really died."
"If that's true, the Xiao Suo in your timeline is terrifyingly powerful," Priest Huinv whispered, joining the telepathic exchange.
Zhu Yao and Priest Huinv fell silent.
Because they were communicating via a three-way telepathic link, to everyone else, it just looked like they were quietly scanning their surroundings on high alert.
Li Ban looked completely normal, even periodically adjusting Dila's flight path.
"Now—" Li Ban said after a moment, "I have a new conjecture."
"Which is?" Zhu Yao asked softly.
"When Xiao Suo showed up at the Unreturning Place, all the Priests reacted with surprise and fury. I assumed they were feeling the same thing I was, but looking back, there was something missing in their reaction. They lacked the sheer shock of seeing a dead man come back to life."
"Hold on." Priest Huinv looked incredulous. "Are you saying that, aside from you, none of the others realized they had already killed him?"
"That's what I'm thinking. I just misinterpreted their surprise at the time, and then I ended up in the Recycling Station before I could ask them about it. Moreover, I suspect—"
"Your timelines might have suffered from the exact same thing."
The telepathic link went dead silent again.
Several minutes passed. It wasn't until Li Ban had started directing Dila to descend that he finally heard Zhu Yao's voice, trembling with dazed shock.
"So... we actually did kill Xiao Suo multiple times. But not only can he revive from the dead, he can also alter our cognition!"
Priest Huinv chimed in, "That's not an ability any Priest could possess. Even standard Great Wizards can't do that!"
"Which begs the question," Li Ban asked the two. "Do you know who Xiao Suo actually is?"
Zhu Yao remained silent.
"We didn't even notice he was resurrecting," Priest Huinv muttered grimly. "We just treated him like a cunning Black Robe."
After hearing Priest Huinv's reply, Zhu Yao finally spoke up. "He must be backed by a Wizard Lord."
"A Wizard Lord? I've heard that Great Wizards don't draw a line between white and black."
"That's true," Zhu Yao said. "However, black-robed priests incite infighting among the Priests, which is detrimental to the Wizard World. That's why the three Wizard Lords of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda, the Imperial Dynasty, and the Mist Realm banned Black Robes from appearing in the Wizard World. But in the Shattered Realm, there are quite a few black-robed priests. And in the unknown worlds beyond the Shattered Realm, there's no telling whether Priests divide themselves into black and white at all."
"Order is established by the Great Wizards," Priest Huinv concluded.
Even though Xiao Suo had once given Li Ban a perfectly righteous justification for the Black Robes' motives, Li Ban didn't believe that waving a righteous banner gave anyone the right to casually sacrifice those whose goals differed.
Especially when that banner only sounded just on paper. What the man actually thought and what he would actually do were completely unpredictable.
Li Ban felt that Black Robe Xiao Suo's chaotic meddling had to serve some ultimate goal. But because his actions were so erratic, it was impossible to figure out what that true goal was.
Now he had another thing to add to his to-do list for when he got out.
He needed to inform the Priests of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda about Xiao Suo's anomalies.
If everyone understood Xiao Suo's situation and reported it to the Great Wizards, they might finally be able to eradicate this aberrant Black Robe.
But Li Ban was also worried about one thing: what if the Great Wizards just didn't care?
If Xiao Suo really had been killed more than once, then Xiao Suo's Witch Embryo Shards must have been sacrificed to the Great Wizards multiple times. Could it be that even the Great Wizards hadn't noticed him resurrecting?
Or had they noticed, but simply chose to ignore it?
Li Ban didn't know which conjecture was more terrifying.
"That's Wanghai Cliff," Guo Kao suddenly stood up and pointed at a prominent mountain peak.
The peak was surrounded almost entirely by flatland covered in a lush, dark grey forest.
Wanghai Cliff thrust violently from the earth. One side slanted at a nearly sixty-degree angle, while the other was even more extreme—perfectly sheer, as if cleaved by a giant axe.
On the sheer side of the peak, there was a gear-driven elevator platform.
The platform's gears were currently turning. And bizarrely enough, they were being cranked by a group of monkeys.
"Don't land right away." Li Ban stopped Dila from touching down on the peak. "This is the Continental Center, and people have all sorts of weird weapons. Let's be careful in case there are long-range attacks here."
Not yet knowing the Director's intentions, Li Ban didn't want to blunder straight into a trap.
He had Dila circle a short distance away from Wanghai Cliff before finding a clearing outside the forest to make a temporary landing.
The price for finding that clearing was that the moment they touched down, they were besieged by a horde of monsters.
Fortunately, thanks to Li Ban's presence, Zhu Yao was no longer short on spiritual rhinoceros. She could fight to her heart's content.
Priest Huinv fought without using spiritual rhinoceros for the most part, as Li Ban hadn't given her any White Seeds.
Li Ban was well aware that he could supply one, two, or even a double-digit number of Priests, but he couldn't take care of everyone in the Recycling Station.
If he ever exposed his true secret, he would absolutely be swarmed by the vast majority of the Priests and turned into nothing more than a living energy converter.
At least, until the batch erasure occurred.
When the vast majority of the veterans disappeared, replaced by newcomers.