Chapter 267: Long Corridor

"Careful! It's a dark curtain beast!"

The sudden attack threw everyone into a panic; Xia Nai immediately activated the magic ring on her left hand, a gift from Sai Fa Er before she left the Maztek continent—the Rainbow Magic Ring.

Xia Nai raised her left hand, and rainbow-colored light burst forth instantly, the surging mana stirring the air into a vortex inside the cavern. In an instant, a multicolored light membrane extended from the ring, spreading outward.

Nine-Ring Abjuration Spell—Rainbow Light Orb!

In the sky, countless oddly shaped stalactites rained down like a storm, slamming into the shield with a series of dull thuds, yet they could not breach the sturdy defense.

The multicolored light on the shield flickered continuously; the thin layer of light membrane was as hard as the toughest shield in the world.

Kaide, already frightened into crouching on the ground, after a long while realized he was unharmed and lifted his head, stunned by the surrounding dazzling rainbow light.

"Is... is this the legendary Rainbow Light Orb?!" Kaide was first bewildered, then excitedly approached the light membrane to examine it.

"Rainbow Light Orb? What kind of thing is that?" Ebi Si asked with some surprise; she didn't know what the spell was, but her intuition told her it wasn't one of Kaide's usual tricks.

"What thing?" Kaide snorted coldly, as if Ebi Si's adjective insulted the Rainbow Light Orb he spoke of.

"This is the legendary Nine-Ring spell that can defend against any attack; not even those stone octopuses outside, nor an elderly red dragon standing before us, could shatter this light membrane!" Kaide said, his eyes shining.

Ebi Si curled her lip; she didn't care about any light membrane, she just wanted to find Mo Rey Nuo quickly and get out of this cursed place.

"But how do we get out of here? Are we supposed to starve to death inside this turtle shell?" Ebi Si said, her face grim as she watched countless dark curtain beasts surging on the ground outside the light membrane.

Xia Nai smiled, "No need to rush; the Rainbow Light Orb's power is not limited to defense."

As soon as she finished speaking, the bodies of countless dark curtain beasts that leapt onto the light membrane began to show various abnormalities.

Some suddenly ignited in flames, reduced to ash; some were frozen by ice, collapsing into fragments; others were torn apart or vanished within a burst of violet light.

As the ultimate Abjuration spell, the Rainbow Light Orb not only possesses absolute defensive capability beneath the Legendary tier, but also considerable offense; any creature that contacts the orb suffers an attack equivalent to the Rainbow Spray.

Of course, this attack is only at the level of a Seven-Ring spell; it would not affect a Legendary-level combatant like the former general of the Kuruta Ka Kingdom, but it does not mean the ordinary monsters of the shadow realm outside are immune.

These creatures called 'dark curtain beasts', as bizarre as stalactites, seemed unintelligent; even as their companions died, they kept charging toward the orb. The three of them stood silently inside the orb, watching hundreds of monsters in the cavern kill themselves.

Xia Nai gently raised her left hand, and the orb vanished with a sound; the rainbow light on the ring faded, and silence fell.

"One more use left," Xia Nai whispered, biting her lip, a bit regretful of her impulsiveness; the Rainbow Magic Ring can cast the Rainbow Light Orb twice a day, and wasting a precious use on these feeble beasts was unwise.

"We need to be more careful from now on," Xia Nai said coldly, "If we encounter another ambush like this, we probably won't make it to the summit."

Kaide hung his head shamefully; he knew his chatter had awakened the beasts, giving them a chance to strike.

The Rainbow Light Orb, as a Nine-Ring spell, regardless of how the opponent releases it, is an extremely limited trump card; wasting it here was unwise.

The three continued onward in silence; the underground cavern seemed to contain only those earlier dark curtain beasts, and they encountered no further monsters.

"Look! It seems there's an exit ahead!" Ebi Si, walking at the front, keenly noticed they had reached the cavern's end. A spiraling upward staircase appeared before them.

"We are already at the volcano's core; going up from here should lead to the summit," Xia Nai confirmed.

Kaide hesitated, "Wait. I just thought—if we're inside a volcano, why haven't we seen magma? Did we take the wrong path?"

He recalled that the volcano he saw before arriving was in an eruptive state!

Xia Nai shook her head, "In Ying Ying Ming Jie, all common sense cannot be compared to the primary material plane; common sense doesn't work here."

"This demi-plane already possesses the fundamental traits of Ying Ying Ming Jie; what appears to you as a magma-filled erupting volcano may actually be solid rock inside, with the magma merely simulated by shadow energy as a natural environment."

"Remember, here everything that existed on the primary material plane is merely an illusion," Xia Nai warned.

Ebi Si nodded in agreement; as a shadow assassin capable of wielding shadow energy, she had some knowledge of Ying Ying Ming Jie and knew the mage's words were true.

The three circled the staircase, climbing layer by layer, scaling what seemed an endless stair.

An hour later, the exhausted, panting group finally saw a solitary door standing at the staircase's end.

Behind the door was nothing; further upward was only a slab of rock blocking their path. Under Xia Nai's encouraging gaze, Ebi Si hesitantly opened the door.

!

Strangely, after the door opened, the scene beyond was entirely different: an exquisitely ornate and noble corridor appeared before them.

Ebi Si found it unbelievable, looking back and forth at the door's exterior and interior. Clearly it was an isolated door, yet opening it revealed a different scene.

"It's a portal," Xia Nai whispered.

She inhaled deeply, brushed past Ebi Si, and was the first to step into the corridor.

A deep crimson carpet edged with gold stretched beneath their feet to the far end; the three entered the long corridor and found a painting every five meters on both sides.

Each painting depicted different scenes, yet the protagonist was the same in all.

A gaunt, skeleton-like humanoid, clad in a wrinkled blue noble robe, its pupils glowing with a faint green fire, studied books through the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

"Ya Se Lie Ke," Xia Nai murmured softly.

"What?" Ebi Si, not hearing clearly, looked at her and asked.

Xia Nai shook her head, saying nothing. Beside them, Kaide's face turned pale as he said, "The skulls in these paintings look like liches?"

"Could this be a lich's tomb?" Kaide asked fearfully.

(End of Chapter)