Chapter 296

Huh? An A-rank dungeon passage opened above the Special Affairs Group headquarters?

Qin Chuan, returning by fighter jet, heard Feng Yin's news, and a look of surprise involuntarily appeared on his face.

This truly is…

A great piece of news.

Ji Huai has already been sent out to destroy the B-rank dungeon passage, but Feng Yin and Long Ji are still holding down the headquarters, and besides that, Lin Yue is also there waiting for news.

The A-rank dungeon passage descending directly there would avoid unnecessary casualties, and the Special Affairs Group could destroy it as quickly as possible, minimizing the damage.

But upon hearing Feng Yin's next words, Qin Chuan's expression tightened slightly.

"The passage mouth isn't stable yet, and already a being suspected to be at the peak of the Legendary Stage has walked out?"

Dungeon descents into reality have already happened nearly two hundred times; powerful otherworldly beings discovering the passage and descending vary in speed—some perhaps appear within minutes, while others might not show up even after the passage is destroyed.

But the current situation is especially unusual.

The passage mouth had just formed, and the other side had already appeared.

This shows that the other side had already been guarding outside the dungeon before its descent!

Such a situation had never happened in the past—no, it actually occurred once before.

Qin Chuan suddenly recalled something.

After the Tidal Demon King Da Lai Sa Yi's descent, another B-rank dungeon descended afterward, but that dungeon passage was not destroyed by humanity.

It was destroyed instead by Da Lai Sa Yi, who arrived first.

After the dungeon passage was destroyed, the Storm Demon King Da Yi Lai appeared.

It is obvious that Da Yi Lai came out through that destroyed passage.

Da Lai Sa Yi wasn't helping humanity out of kindness; he was merely meeting his sister.

Although the current situation isn't exactly the same as before, it does share a common point.

That is, the other side appeared as soon as the dungeon descended, having been prepared beforehand!

"Is that Legendary Stage peak being from the Nether Ghost Clan?" Qin Chuan said in a low voice.

"Indeed." Feng Yin nodded. "Although the opponent's appearance was brief, Yue Li has already beaten them back into the passage, but we can still tell this."

"Surely it's a Nether Ghost…" Qin Chuan frowned, not relaxing at all despite Lin Yue's intervention, "This is getting troublesome."

"What are you thinking?" Feng Yin sensed the meaning in Qin Chuan's words and asked.

"Da Lai Sa Yi and Da Yi Lai once said that the Heavenly Stairway and our world are, to them, like an existence similar to the Dream World." Qin Chuan spoke slowly.

"If we make that comparison, even if we kill the opponent, it isn't a true kill; at most it's just making them delete their account and restart."

"When we enter the Dream World, they, on the contrary, will return to their own world."

"As fellow Nether Ghosts, the Sleepless One Sfenjarde will surely be able to contact other Nether Ghost clans and, before their next arrival in our world, plan the invasion with other high-ranking Nether Ghosts on the Heavenly Stairway."

"That's why the opponent could appear so quickly at the dungeon passage entrance."

"That's likely the case." Feng Yin said in a low voice. "Otherworldly beings entering our world bring negative impacts far beyond the threat of their own strength."

"They're like a vanguard, able to quickly rendezvous with other members of their kind arriving."

The two fell silent for a moment.

"How is Yue Li doing now?" Qin Chuan asked.

"She has already rushed into the dungeon passage, with no sign of coming out yet." Feng Yin quickly said. "Don't worry, I'll inform you immediately of any developments."

"Hmm." Qin Chuan gave a slight nod.

He knew Lin Yue's strength well; under the blessing of Praying Life, a mere Legendary Stage peak existence could not possibly overcome her.

The opponent appearing too quickly isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Myth and Legend are separated by a hair's breadth, yet the gap is vast.

Mila Jier prepared and waited inside the passage for over half an hour before stepping out of the dungeon passage, thereby allowing her to break through to the Mythic Stage in battle and face Qin Chuan at full strength.

This Nether Ghost currently has no time to recover its strength, and under the influence of luck, it is hard for it to break through to the Mythic Stage in battle with Lin Yue.

The only thing to worry about is that other strong beings descending from the Mythic Stage might enter the dungeon passage, putting Lin Yue in a situation of facing multiple foes.

However, the Mythic Stage is no cabbage, and voluntarily lowering one's strength is extremely dangerous; Qin Chuan doesn't think the Sleepless One could persuade many Mythic Stage beings to make such a choice.

"Brother, speed up." Qin Chuan spoke softly.

"Big brother, if we go any faster the jet will literally fall apart." The pilot sitting in front of Qin Chuan wore a wry smile, "We were already flying overloaded when we got here."

"Alright." Qin Chuan nodded helplessly.

When his own flight speed could surpass that of the jet, he would absolutely refuse to ride it.

A thought stirred in his mind, and Qin Chuan took out the Abyssal Ring from his equipment menu.

The pitch-black ring, emanating a chilling and lethal aura, appeared before him, prompting him to recall the feat of slaughtering through thirty-nine layers of the Abyss in one breath, and a faint smile crossed his face.

The Abyssal Ring is a red item, but it's relatively somewhat useless.

It can replace the surroundings with an Abyssal environment, but only if he wears the red title "Abyssal Disaster" can Qin Chuan obtain a noticeable boost from it; without that title, the Abyssal Ring merely changes the terrain in a simple way.

This is only one aspect of its uselessness.

On the other hand, the Abyssal Ring is currently the only item of equipment that Qin Chuan cannot use in reality.

The dungeon and the Heavenly Stairway share the same origin, so swapping the dungeon's environment for the Abyss would be much easier, but the real world belongs to the material realm; replacing it with the Abyss is something a mere red piece of equipment cannot achieve.

For these two reasons, Qin Chuan had not placed much importance on this item until today.

But after his battle with Mirajel, he had some new ideas.

The Roaring Arena is Mirajel's most important piece of equipment; it can drag both sides into the arena, where only one person can walk out alive.

Moreover, the environment inside the arena is equivalent to that of the Heavenly Stairway.

Therefore, there Qin Chuan can use Time Stop.

This aroused Qin Chuan's strong interest.

If the Abyssal Ring could have a similar effect, he would only need to create an abyssal environment in reality to be able to use Time Stop in reality.

Red items aren't enough; what about golden items?

Thinking this, Qin Chuan had an extra small bottle in his hand, filled with surging golden liquid.

【【Gold】】 Demon Dwarf Forging Essence: The essence of the Demon Dwarf Clan's creation power; applying it to any red item equipment upgrades the equipment to gold.

After killing Mi La Jie Er, Qin Chuan did not obtain the Roaring Combat Arena or other equipment from him, but he got this.

Qin Chuan, who originally planned to use it to further enhance the Dragon-Slaying Blade, now has a new idea.

The small bottle opened, and the golden liquid dripped onto the Abyssal Ring; the Abyssal Ring emitted a brilliant light, instantly devouring the golden liquid like a black hole.

Shortly after, dark golden patterns appeared on the Abyssal Ring, its texture much stronger than before.

【【Gold】】 Abyssal Ring: Temporarily transforms a large area into an abyssal environment.

The same introduction as before.

But when Qin Chuan wore the brand-new Abyssal Ring on his finger, he could feel it was completely different.

He casually raised his hand, and dark power instantly enveloped everything around him.

Looking at the Time Stop before him, Qin Chuan smiled.

Indeed, as he had expected.

The golden-quality Abyssal Ring can already alter reality to some extent, and his limitation of being unable to use Time Stop in reality has completely disappeared.

"What the hell! Why is it so dark?!"

"Our contact with the Signal Station has been cut off!!!"

The front-seat driver's exclamation brought Qin Chuan back to his senses.

"Ah sorry, I just tested my new ability." Qin Chuan gave an embarrassed smile, withdrew his power, and earned a resentful look from the driver.

——

"Boom!!!"

Within the Tutana Necropolis, an A-rank dungeon where Descent had lasted less than ten minutes, a scarlet figure and a figure surrounded by surging malevolent ghostly aura fought, the battle drawing to a close.

"It's over." Lin Yue calmly looked at the figure whose aura had plummeted, her right leg blazing with scorching heat, merging with the surrounding flames, "This is already your fourth failed attempt to break through the Mythic Stage."

"Damn it, Si Fen Jia De, you've really screwed me over…" A former Mythic Stage powerhouse of the Nether Ghost Clan let out a reluctant low roar, "I, the Spirit Bone Sovereign Suo Lai Yi, have actually been driven to this state by an ant that hasn't even reached Mythic Stage!"

The last time he returned to this world, Si Fen Jia De sought him out; due to their past friendship, he trusted him greatly, beforehand suppressing his realm, he lay in wait outside the dungeon that had not yet become a passage, waiting for the moment the dungeon passage opened.

Suo Lai Yi got what he wished for, but the situation was far from as smooth as he had expected.

The Human Race of Blue Star not only immediately locked onto the passage entrance, but also dispatched someone whose strength was not inferior to his to intervene.

Damn it! This is completely different from what Si Fen Jia De said!

Having been forced back into the passage by the female human before him, Suo Lai Yi already realized that sneaking into the human world to meet with Si Fen Jia De had become a vain hope.

Besides this, after the female human entered the passage, most of her attacks would miss due to various coincidences that made him shudder before they hit.

Realizing how troublesome the opponent was, Suo Lai Yi hesitated not at all in wanting to break through.

Breaking through to the Mythic Stage, in the face of absolute strength crushing everything, all is illusion!

Then he blankly discovered that he had failed.

It wasn't just one failed breakthrough attempt, but multiple attempts to break through the Mythic Stage, all of which failed.

"Bear!!!"

The low roar of blazing flames echoed; seeing the leg whip rapidly enlarging in his vision, Suo Lai Yi muttered, "I'm not resigned…"

"Boom!!!"

The whip leg directly struck Suo Lai Yi's face; in the next instant, terrifying firelight exploded at the point of impact, the raging ultra-high temperature engulfing his body and reducing him to ash.

Spirit Descent Blazing Tail Effect: The flame leg is filled with extremely concentrated flame power; a target directly hit by the flame leg suffers an additional 200% damage.

Standing in place, the flames around Lin Yue gradually faded; hearing the cheers echoing in her mind, the corner of her mouth involuntarily curled into a smile.

If she sensed something, Lin Yue turned her head toward a nearby stone no different from an ordinary one, picked it up, and crushed it.

In the next instant, the dungeon passage collapsed.

——

When Qin Chuan returned to the Special Affairs Group headquarters and saw Lin Yue again, all six Descent B-rank dungeons already had Hall Tier superhumans rushing to the scene to handle them.

Even though they had exerted their utmost effort, many still slipped through the net.

A large number of Hall Tier beings, seven Epic Stage and two Legendary Stage entities, before anyone arrived, stepped out of the dungeon passage first and entered Blue Star.

Fortunately, they could not escape the detection of the Imperial Observatory.

Including Qin Chuan and Lin Yue, a large number of high-tier transcendent beings mobilized forces, launching a pursuit and encirclement suppression campaign across the entire Blue Star.

One hour after the Descent, the last four B-rank dungeon portals were destroyed by the high-tier transcendent beings who had freed up after completing the encirclement in the previous three rounds, leaving none alive.

By 11:30 PM, only a small portion of Hall Tier beings were still fleeing; the Epic and Legendary tiers had all been slain.

Throughout the six-hour calamity, Blue Star suffered over ten thousand deaths, hundreds of thousands seriously injured, and more than a hundred elite-level or higher players perished.

It was a victory, yet also a bitter victory.

When the final results were made public, transcendent beings worldwide fell silent.

Although they had long known that dungeons would bring disaster, only when it actually unfolded before their eyes did many truly realize this.

"You say the progress of clearing low-level dungeons has nearly doubled?"

Upon hearing the voice on the other end of the phone, Qin Chuan's face showed a hint of delight.

"Yes." Feng Yin chuckled lightly, "Although this disaster has caused us heavy losses, it's also a case of loss bringing gain, I suppose."

Now the number of uncleared dungeons has surpassed the 100,000 mark and continues to grow; such a quantity is no longer something official transcendent beings can handle alone.

Dungeons below A-rank, even if they receive an SSS rating, cannot increase the number of clear attempts, yet they constitute the absolute majority of uncleared dungeons, accounting for over 99%.

This means that only with the wholehearted unity of all transcendent beings on Blue Star is there hope to clear such a vast number of low-level dungeons.

Before today, this had always been a headache for all sides.

Although clearing dungeons can earn rewards, dungeons also pose dangers, and this is not quite the same as in the Dream World—dying in a dungeon means a real death, which leads many who have the strength to clear dungeons to be unwilling to try.

Nowadays, some things are quietly changing.

After hanging up the phone, breathing in the salty sea breeze, Qin Chuan's face still retained a smile.

"Is this the place you used to live?"

Standing on the reef by the shore, Lin Yue turned her head to look.

The girl's graceful figure gained a touch of hazy beauty under the falling moonlight; gazing at her lovely face so close, Qin Chuan's heart involuntarily steadied a bit.

"That's right, this is Ancestor Mother Hidden Shoal." Qin Chuan smiled. "We won't make it back to Yan Capital tonight; we'll rest here for the night and head back tomorrow."

"Hmm..." Lin Yue gently nodded, her teeth lightly biting, a hint of bashfulness hard to notice in the moonlight appearing on her lovely face, "But why is there only one room?"

"Uh... it's probably because the rooms are limited." Qin Chuan's heart raced a bit faster.

No matter who arranged it, he just wants to say, well done!

——

Playing out during the Duanwu holiday, today's one update.

(End of chapter)