57: Chapter 57, Sixth Level – “The Realm of Beasts”

Everyone passed through the long tunnel, and their vision suddenly opened up.

The sixth level of Mictlan—"The Realm of the Herds".

The gray mist pressed down overhead like moldy cotton batting.

The ground was covered in a thick layer of white bones; with every step, a crisp "crack, crack" sound came from beneath their feet, making one's scalp tingle.

"Everyone, be careful."

Old Ghost's expression became more solemn than ever. He lowered his voice, "This level is a playground for beast spirits. Jaguars hunt souls filled with fear, rattlesnakes are drawn to desire, and the harpies in the sky harvest the impious."

He stopped, turned back, and said, "According to legend, the only way out is to keep a heart as still as water. In this place, the scent of fear and sin attracts them more than the smell of blood. Don't make eye contact, don't provoke them, understand?"

"Give it a rest, Old Ghost. Stop using your charlatan theories to fool outsiders."

A man nicknamed "Old Shotgun" stepped out. Wu Lie, a former poacher who once roamed the borders, had been sucked into the Thriller Game due to his insatiable greed.

He squatted down, skillfully pinching a bit of feces with brown bristles from the bone pile, sniffed it, and showed a disdainful sneer: "The feline skins I've peeled could cover a whole playground. beast spirits, gods—they're all just animals in the face of bullets. This level is my home turf."

"Idiot!" Old Ghost barked in anger. "This is the Underworld! You're bringing the ways of the living world here to seek death? You'll get everyone killed!"

Xu Mo stood in the middle of the group, ignoring their bickering. He pushed up the glasses on his nose, his gaze behind the lenses somewhat dark.

His sense of dissonance... was getting stronger and stronger.

The group rested for only a moment.

A scraping sound rang out without warning from the rock crevices in all directions.

Next, hundreds of rattlesnakes as thick as buckets converged toward the center like a black spring gushing from underground.

In the sky, the gray mist was torn apart, and hundreds of monsters with hideous female faces and eagle claws on human bodies circled down, their piercing screams penetrating everyone's eardrums.

Everyone froze instantly, forgetting even to breathe. Wu Lie, who had just bragged about his home turf, didn't even dare to raise his fog shotgun.

"Calm? How the hell do you want me to be calm!" A team member watched a venomous snake crawl over his foot, his mental defenses collapsing instantly as he pulled out a Kukri from his waist and slashed wildly.

This single move completely stirred up the hornet's nest.

"Roar!"

The special tripwire traps Wu Lie had been so proud of and confidently set earlier were more fragile than tissue paper under its claws, snapping instantly.

"No... this is impossible! My traps are made of alloy..." Before Wu Lie's cry could land, it was drowned out by the deafening roar of the herd.

The defensive line collapsed in an instant, and the group fled across the bone wasteland in a pathetic scramble, like ducks being driven.

"What a bunch of teammates I can't carry..."

On a weathered boulder, a hidden Pei Duo sighed and helplessly held her forehead.

She saw clearly that the black jaguar had already targeted Lin Sa's back. Its emerald pupils were filled with the cruelty of a cat playing with a mouse.

Pei Duo reached into her qiankun bag and pulled out a small, pitch-black triangular flag—the [Nine Nether Command Flag].

This was a token used by the Underworld's regular army to mobilize patrolling Yin Soldiers.

Although it was suppressed by the rules in a Western dungeon and couldn't summon a hundred thousand troops, summoning a few phantoms to put on a show was more than enough.

"Nine Nethers, hear my command! Yin Soldiers, clear the way! Open!"

With a flick of Pei Duo's wrist, the command flag fluttered loudly.

Boom—!

The temperature of the originally hot and foul-smelling wasteland suddenly dropped to the freezing point.

The void shattered, and dozens of Yin Soldier phantoms clad in dark gold heavy armor and holding two-meter pikes descended amidst rolling nether smoke.

These Eastern Yin Soldiers made no unnecessary movements and felt no so-called fear. They simply formed three mechanical ranks, and their black giant shields slammed into the ground in unison.

"Thud!"

A dull thud rang out, like a heavy hammer hitting a drum.

The jaguar, which had been aggressively pouncing toward Lin Sa and Xu Mo, felt as if it had slammed head-on into a moving Mount Tai. Its massive body was actually forced back in mid-air, letting out a whimper of pain as it rolled back into the herd in disgrace.

"What... what on earth is this?!" Xu Mo skidded to a halt, his soles grinding sparks against the bone-strewn ground.

He looked at this suddenly appearing ghostly guard, which exuded a solemn Eastern aura, and his brain froze for a moment.

"Could it be..." Lin Sa clutched her injured arm, subconsciously wanting to say the name of that system, but the words were wiped from her mind by a powerful force of rules.

The herd was completely enraged by this "foreign power," and more monsters roared as they emerged from the mist.

"Oh, still not backing down?"

Pei Duo snorted coldly and put away the command flag. In her fingertips appeared an extremely seductive, blood-red lotus—the [Karma Fire Red Lotus].

"Since none of you want to be reincarnated, let's just burn you all to save you the trouble of waiting in line."

She lightly flicked her finger.

The red lotus floated light as a feather toward the center of the herd.

Fire.

Not the golden sun, but a blood-colored karmic fire, deep to the extreme and carrying an aura of judgment, bloomed silently in the center of the wasteland.

This fire did not burn the white bones on the ground, nor did it burn the decaying withered grass; it only climbed frantically along the sins and souls of those beasts.

"Awoo—!!"

The previously arrogant jaguar was instantly swallowed by the red lotus. It didn't even have time to struggle before its powerful physical body turned into a handful of crystalline karmic ash within three seconds.

Then, the fire spread.

The rattlesnakes and harpies were incinerated in swaths like harvested wheat, leaving not even a scrap behind.

The terrifying pressure of the Eastern Underworld forcibly cleared an absolute "vacuum zone" with a radius of a hundred meters in this territory of a primitive pantheon.

"A miracle... it's truly a miracle!" Old Ghost was the first to react.

Even though his knees were shaking, this old fox's brain was working faster than anyone's. He fell to his knees again with a "thud," kowtowing frantically to the air, his eyes flashing with a fanatical yet shrewd light:

"Thank you for your protection, Lord Xiuolotl! Everyone, look! This is the god's reward for the devout! It is the divine fire that purified these impurities!"

The other team members, who had been scared out of their wits, followed suit and knelt down, looking at Old Ghost with awe after their narrow escape.

Lin Sa's brow furrowed tightly: "Old Ghost, those soldiers are wearing Eastern armor! Where would Aztec get Yin Soldiers?"

"Ignorant!" Old Ghost scolded. "Gods can take ten thousand forms; this is to cater to our aesthetics! Now that we've been saved, that's the fact!"

Lin Sa was about to snap back when a hand pressed down on her shoulder.

Xu Mo's gaze lingered for a moment on the gradually disappearing karmic fire, and he whispered.

"Stop arguing. Let's go, enter the valley ahead first. Old Ghost is right; it doesn't matter who holds the 'lifeline' right now; what matters is that we're still alive."

He turned around, but his mind was constantly pondering.

This "nanny-level" protection happened too frequently, and this simple and crude style of clearing the field... why did it look so familiar?

Taking advantage of the remaining power of the karmic fire, the group fled into a hidden gourd-shaped valley.

The valley entrance was narrow, making it an excellent defensive point.

To regain the face he had just lost, Wu Lie volunteered his services.

With a dark face, he used his remaining top-tier special steel cables and homemade high explosives to set up a complex series of traps at the valley entrance.

"Don't worry, as long as they dare to step into this valley entrance, I can blow them into pieces." Wu Lie patted his gun.