185: Chapter 185 The Lost Key

That night, Yinpinglu.

The moonlight was obscured by layers of clouds, leaving the mountains and fields in total darkness.

Beneath the collapsed mountain wall, rubble was piled high like a mountain, and the exposed wing of that pterosaur had already been cut away.

It was unclear who had done it, but the cut was very neat, as if severed in a single stroke by an extremely sharp blade, cutting through bone and skin cleanly and decisively.

However, the body pinned under the giant rocks was still there.

Granite fragments dozens of meters high were piled there like a silent tomb.

No one could dig it out.

The pterosaur's corpse was too large, and the mountain rocks pressing down on it were too heavy; digging it out would require more manpower and time than one or two factions could afford.

But just then, an abnormal movement occurred in the pterosaur's corpse, as it was being drained bit by bit by some kind of power.

Its muscles were shrinking, its essence being drawn out from the inside.

Its bones were becoming brittle, the marrow sucked dry by something.

Its scales were losing their luster, as if licked by an invisible mist that licked away all color and vitality.

A crystal core.

That fist-sized, golden-yellow crystal core was glowing.

It wasn't the normal kind of stable, restrained golden light, but a light being pulled by something, surging outward as if trying to break free from its bonds.

The light permeated from within the crystal core, through the pterosaur's flesh, through the rubble piled on top, through the heavy mountain mass, and shot straight into the sky.

There was no explosion, no roar, and no violent tremors from energy clashing.

There was only a thin, almost invisible golden beam of light shooting out from the rubble, passing through the clouds and the night sky, landing precisely above the Wuji Army camp.

That was the location where the ruins' light pillar had once lit up.

The moment the golden light pillar landed, that point in the night sky rippled like water when a stone is thrown into it, sending out visible ripples. The ripples spread, getting wider and fainter.

And then...

A massive diamond-shaped phantom emerged.

It was a full twenty meters high, completely transparent, with edges shimmering with a faint golden light.

Its shape was exactly the same as the Diamond-shaped Crystal in Qin Ce's hand, even the patterns were identical.

But it wasn't a physical entity; it was a shadow composed of energy, suspended in mid-air like a giant, inverted mirror.

The golden light pillar did not disappear.

It continuously surged from the direction of Yinpinglu, pouring into the diamond-shaped phantom. Below the phantom, liquid began to condense—not water, not blood, but a thicker, heavier golden liquid with a metallic texture.

The liquid gathered drop by drop beneath the phantom.

The phantom also began to become as if substantial.

The entire night passed.

The diamond-shaped phantom did not disappear.

It remained suspended above the Wuji Army camp like a giant, never-extinguishing lamp. It stayed in the night sky, in the morning light, and in the eyes of everyone who could see it.

Early the next morning, the Wuji Army camp exploded with activity.

The first to discover the diamond-shaped phantom was a soldier from the cooking squad.

He got up to start the fire for cooking, looked up to yawn, and then his mouth wouldn't close. He stood there, neck craned back like a stone statue, still clutching a handful of dry hay for the fire.

Then, everyone in the entire Wuji Army camp knew about it.

They poured out of the barracks in their underwear, bare-chested, hair like messy bird nests, standing on the training grounds with heads tilted back, staring at the behemoth suspended overhead. No one spoke.

The news was like a pot of boiling oil exploding, splashing out from the Wuji Army camp.

"A giant diamond-shaped phantom has appeared above the Wuji Army!"

"Twenty meters high! Golden! It's hanging in the sky and won't leave!"

"The shape is exactly the same as that previous light pillar!"

"The key! It must be the key to the ruins!"

Messenger pigeons flew out from the Wuji Army camp, the sound of fluttering wings rising and falling in the morning light like a silent rainstorm.

Signals from communication devices surged from the North toward Wind Ridge City, one after another, as dense as a poked hornet's nest.

In less than an hour, all of Wind Ridge City knew.

Qin Ce stood at the door of his barracks, looking up at the diamond-shaped phantom.

The morning light filtered through the edges of the phantom, dyeing the entire camp in a faint gold.

The pool of inverted golden liquid beneath the phantom swirled slowly, like a lake ruffled by the wind, shimmering and beautifully surreal.

His expression was calm, but his hand reached into his pocket.

Inside his pocket, the Diamond-shaped Crystal lay quietly. Its surface was still jade-white and translucent, with the silver halo inside swirling slowly.

But a layer of something had been added to the bottom—a shallow, thin, almost invisible golden liquid.

It was exactly the same as the one beneath the diamond-shaped phantom above the Wuji Army.

Qin Ce's fingers lightly brushed the bottom of the crystal. That layer of golden liquid was very cold, not an icy cold, but a deeper cold that seemed to seep out from the bones.

An image flashed through his mind.

It wasn't something he thought of himself; it was given to him by the crystal.

The image flashed by as fast as a bolt of lightning, but Qin Ce saw it clearly.

It was a pterosaur with dark red eyes and gray scales.

Qin Ce's pupils contracted slightly.

"Why does this thing look so familiar?"

Could the energy accumulation of this Diamond-shaped Crystal originate from the Gold Rank beast that was killed?

Qin Ce's throat moved slightly.

But at that moment, a light suddenly shone from afar.

Qin Ce's gaze moved away from the diamond-shaped phantom and turned toward that direction.

That was the direction of Zhenhuang Pass. The location of his privileges.

Qin Ce's eyes narrowed slightly.

Just as the light shone, a change also occurred above Zhenhuang Pass.

This time it wasn't a phantom, but a physical Diamond-shaped Crystal that fell out of the void.

It didn't glow and had no energy fluctuations, but it was exactly the same as Qin Ce's.

And the place where it fell was right into the crowd at Zhenhuang Pass.

The moment the crystal fell from the void, at least seventeen people saw it simultaneously.

They rushed forward from different directions, some riding Pet Beasts, some sprinting on foot, and some summoning their flying Pet Beasts while running.

"It's mine!"

"Get lost!"

"Whoever grabs it keeps it!"

BOOM—!!!

Conflict erupted in the very first second.

People directly attacked their competitors; fireballs, Wind Blades, and ice spikes flew through the air, not just to snatch the item but also to kill.

No one wanted anyone else to touch that crystal first.

The seventeen people became thirty-seven the moment the crystal hit the ground.

The news spread faster than the crystal fell, and more people poured in from all directions—some riding speed-type Pet Beasts, some driving modified off-road vehicles, and some dropping in directly from nearby outposts.

A melee.

A true free-for-all had begun.

The crystal passed from one hand to another, and every hand-off was accompanied by a scream, a spray of blood, and a falling corpse.

Someone grabbed the crystal, but before they could even celebrate, they were stabbed through from behind.

Someone stuffed the crystal into their shirt and ran desperately, but before they could run a hundred meters, they were snatched away, person and crystal together, by a flying Pet Beast descending from the sky.

Death.

Tragic death.

In less than half an hour, that open space at Zhenhuang Pass turned from a barren sandy plot into a bloody Shura Field.

Until a gray-robed old man appeared.

No one noticed where he came from.

He appeared on that open ground as if out of thin air, standing in the center of the melee with his feet on three still-bleeding corpses. His Pet Beast crouched at his feet—a Gold Rank Shadowbolt Leopard, entirely black with patterns like flowing shadows, nearly invisible in the sunlight.

The gray-robed old man bent down and picked up the crystal from the hand of a corpse.

In the next moment, his figure appeared a thousand meters away and quickly vanished into the mountains.

...