90: Chapter 89 Who told you to show him that?

The setting sun was like blood, splashing the firmament of Xibalba with a layer of viscous scarlet.

Pei Duo paused before the bizarrely styled house, her fingertips slowly gliding over the seam where wood met steel.

There was an extremely hideous welding mark there, resembling a giant centipede that had forcibly stitched two completely different materials together.

Even though she had cleared the trial, when her fingertips touched the cold steel, Pei Duo could still feel a lingering, heart-pounding aura of brutality.

That wasn't the oppression of divine power, but an extremely pure killing intent.

"This door..." Kaban, who had originally been immersed in awe of Pei Duo's status as a 'Clearer,' instantly turned pale upon hearing the question, as if recalling an extremely terrifying scene.

He subconsciously adjusted the collar of his bespoke suit, seemingly trying to mask his inner panic, but his trembling fingers betrayed him.

He subconsciously tugged at the collar of his bespoke suit, attempting to alleviate the feeling of suffocation, but his quivering fingers gave away his current discomposure.

"Miss Pei, you can also see that this house... looks a bit like an illegal structure, right?" Kaban forced a wry smile, touching the steel plate patch.

"It wasn't like this originally. This is the Maya Pantheon's supreme treasure, the 'Divine Heartwood,' which grew naturally. It has self-healing capabilities; even if a demigod punched it, it could grow back on its own."

Hearing this, Xu Mo's gaze slightly condensed. An S-rank Divine Material, self-repairing, yet it still needed patching?

"If it's that tough, why did it need a steel plate welded on?" Lin Sa frowned and asked. Although she had lost her memories from the illusion, a warrior's intuition made her uneasy about the scar.

"Because someone split it open," Kaban took a deep breath, his voice lowered, as if afraid of disturbing some deity in the heavens.

"Several years ago, there was also a young man from the East, who had not yet ascended to his current imperial throne. At that time, he had only recently taken charge of the Underworld. Hearing that Xibalba had a good place for tempering the heart, he was invited to come."

Kaban paused here, secretly glancing at Pei Duo before swallowing hard and continuing, "You have experienced the mechanism of this house; it reads the deepest fears of intruders."

Pei Duo's heart skipped a beat.

"The house was also courting death, foolishly simulating... the scene of that Lord's closest kin dying tragically." Kaban's voice began to tremble, "According to the rules, as long as one can maintain composure in the illusion and see through the falsehood, they clear the trial. But that Lord..."

"He didn't see through it?" Xu Mo pushed up his glasses, his brow tightly furrowed. Based on his understanding of the Underworld Son of Heaven, such a low-level illusionary technique shouldn't have been able to trap him.

"No, he saw through it instantly." Kaban wore an expression bordering on absurdity, "But he... got angry."

"He said: 'Not even a fake is acceptable.'"

"And then?" Pei Duo's throat tightened.

Kaban gestured fiercely in the air, his eyes filled with terror: "And then? He didn't follow the decryption process at all! He directly summoned an unformed Dharma Idol and flipped the table right there in the illusion! He roared, 'Who the hell approved you showing me this?' and then with one sword—"

"With such a plain and unadorned sword strike, he split this S-rank mythical artifact, along with the illusionary rules within it, right down the middle! Physically down the middle!"

Hiss—

Xu Mo and Lin Sa both sucked in a cold breath, feeling their scalps tingle.

Others came to take an exam; he came to bomb the school!

"That day, all of Xibalba shook, and the Divine Heartwood screamed for seven days and seven nights. The 'Dao injury' left by that sword strike was too severe; the Divine Wood couldn't heal at all. In the end, that Lord pulled out a piece of Nine Nether Cold Iron from his private treasury to compensate us, and only then did we reluctantly weld it on," Kaban wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, clearly recognizing that as the darkest moment of his career.

Xu Mo looked at the ugly steel scar, and the image of the usually lazy youth who only played Mahjong and drank 'happy water' flashed through his mind. Who would have thought that beneath that slovenly exterior hid such an unreasonable, devoted protector of his sister?

This kind of arrogance that trampled rules underfoot... was truly exhilarating.

Xu Mo turned to look at Pei Duo.

At that moment, Pei Duo stared intently at the crack. She didn't speak, her eyes were red, but the corner of her mouth slowly curled up into an extremely faint, yet extremely fierce smile.

It wasn't emotion, but a sense of relief. A pride born of 'we share the same mad blood running in our veins.'

One destroyed the trial because they 'cared too much'; the other saw through the trial because they 'wanted to become stronger.'

Though their paths were different, this ferocity was identical.

"Let's go," Pei Duo turned around, her voice eerily quiet. "Don't let him wait too long."

This time, her steps were steady. Every footfall seemed intended to crush the weak self of the past into the mud.

The maya attendants along the way lowered their heads and made way. It was no longer because she was the 'Underworld Son of Heaven's sister,' but because of the baleful aura she carried, which hadn't completely dissipated, brought back from hell.

...

The top floor of the temple, the Administration Hall.

Outside the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, Xibalba's eternal, dazzling aurora shone, but inside the hall, smoke billowed, and the atmosphere shifted drastically.

A Mahjong table carved from white bone was placed in the center. The twelve lords who governed the laws of death were seated around it. This group of grim reapers who should have caused people's sanity to plummet were now all looking dejected, staring at the tiles in their hands with more hesitation than when judging the souls of the dead.

Pei Fei, sitting in the main seat, had one leg crossed over the other, idly playing with a skull die. The chips in front of him were already piled into a small mountain.

"I say, hurry up! What's with the dawdling?" Pei Fei yawned, casually grabbing a glass of Blood Agave and taking a sip. "If you don't play your card soon, I'll start collecting interest by the second!"

The face of the chairman, 'One Death,' a withered mummy, was covered in sweat. He held a 'Two of Bamboo' tile in his hand, hesitating as if he were about to give away an entire city.

Just then, the heavy hall doors were slowly pushed open.

Footsteps sounded.

'One Death's' hand trembled, and with a 'thud,' the 'Two of Bamboo' tile he had been agonizing over fell onto the table.

But he couldn't care less.

Twelve pairs of eyes burning with Netherworld ghost fire looked uniformly toward the doorway.

When they clearly saw the figure walking in, the air in the entire hall seemed to freeze for a second.

Pei Duo walked in the front, with Xu Mo and Lin Sa half a step behind. Her bespoke suit was dusty, and her hair was a mess, but her eyes... were too bright.

That wasn't the brightness of a naive calf unafraid of a tiger, but the sharpness that remained after chewing up life and death and swallowing them whole.

"They're out?!"

As the Plague Lord, 'Seven Deaths' widened his rotten eyeballs, almost cracking his voice. "How long has it been? Less than two hours? This is the 'Trial of the Six Pillars!' Even a demigod going in would lose a layer of skin if they didn't die!"