123: Chapter 123: What happened to the promised hell mode? Why is the art style so refreshing now?

Outside the Demon Suppressing Tower, as the light dots representing the life signatures of all the prisoners on the sixth floor were extinguished within a mere fifteen minutes, the entire monitoring center fell into an unprecedented, deathly silence.

Deputy Commander Li Tiancheng's face was ashen. He knew that the mess he had created was now too massive to be cleaned up.

Inside the Wenxin Pavilion, Commander-in-Chief Wei Zheng's casual words, "Watch the situation and let nature take its course," acted like a stabilizing anchor, instantly suppressing all the chaos that was about to erupt.

Until...

"Pass down my order."

"Seal off the perimeter of the Demon Suppressing Tower; no one is allowed to approach! All information regarding the anomalies within the tower is classified as top secret. Anyone who dares to leak a single word will be charged with treason and their entire clan within three generations will be executed!"

Deputy Commander Li Tiancheng trembled violently.

Block the news?

Not even reporting to Your Majesty??

"My Lord, Your Majesty has been closely following this matter. If we do not report..."

Before he could finish, Deputy Commander Li Tiancheng collapsed to his knees with a thud, his eyes filled with a fear that reached his very marrow.

Commander-in-Chief Wei Zheng paid him no more attention, instead refocusing his gaze on that massive black tower that stood silently like an ancient Vicious Beast.

Within those deep eyes, a strange light flashed—one that even he himself had not noticed.

"This chess piece you've placed... whose chessboard exactly are you trying to overturn?"

...

Meanwhile, in the Demon Suppressing Tower, at the entrance leading from the sixth floor to the seventh.

Lin Feng exhaled a long breath of turbid air tinged with the scent of blood and flicked the non-existent blood off the Life-Slaying Blade.

At his feet lay the head of the sixth-floor's overlord, a Demonic Path titan who had one foot in the Martial Extremity Realm, his eyes still wide in death.

[Ding! Successfully killed a Peak ninth-level Martial Ancestor Realm Martial Artist!]

[critical hit multiplier increased to 9,000x! Obtained 20,000,000 critical hit points!]

Hearing the System prompts in his mind, Lin Feng curled his lip, a look of slight dissatisfaction appearing on his face.

"Only twenty million? Cheapskate."

He glanced at his attribute panel, which had surged significantly once again, and the feeling of boredom that came with being powerful intensified slightly.

[Host: Lin Feng]

[Realm: First-level Martial Soul Realm (Suppressed by the "Mortal-Binding Formation")]

[Cultivation Technique: Indestructible Asura Body (Entry-level)]

[Martial Skill: ... (Collapsed)]

[Movement Technique: ... (Collapsed)]

[critical hit multiplier: 9,000x]

[critical hit points: 685,600,000]

"680 million... barely enough to level up the Body Refining technique to Minor Achievement."

Lin Feng shook his head; he could no longer muster much interest in such "mosquito leg" gains.

He looked up, casting his gaze toward the massive bronze door that led to the seventh floor, which exuded an ancient and weathered aura.

According to the wails of those prisoners before they died, the seventh floor was the true core of the Demon Suppressing Tower.

What was imprisoned there were no longer mere criminals, but "taboos" capable of shaking the very foundations of the nation!

"I hope there's a decent appetizer."

Lin Feng stretched his limbs, his body emitting a series of pops like crackling beans. Then, under the suppression of the "Mortal-Binding Formation" that would make anyone outside feel their scalp go numb, he pushed open the million-jin bronze door as if taking a leisurely stroll.

Creak.

Amidst the ear-piercing friction, a scent completely different from the bloody, violent, and putrid air of the first six floors wafted toward him.

It was a scent of...

Elegant ink mixed with a faint sandalwood fragrance, along with the quiet, distinct smell of ancient book paper.

Lin Feng's brow twitched imperceptibly.

The script is wrong.

What happened to the promised Hell mode?

Why has the style suddenly become so fresh and elegant?

He stepped inside. The scene before him caused even his heart, long since tempered into a state of stillness by mountains of corpses and seas of blood, to ripple slightly.

There were no mountains of blades or seas of fire as imagined, no wailing ghosts, and certainly no peerless demons bound by iron chains.

Instead, this place was an incredibly vast yet exquisitely elegant academy.

Bookshelves that seemed to reach the ceiling were crafted from an unknown wood, neatly lined with a vast ocean of ancient texts—everything from classics and histories to martial secrets, from strange tales to astrology and divination was included.

The floor was paved with warm white marble, polished to a mirror-like shine.

In the center was a small pond where several koi swam leisurely. Beside it grew a gnarled ancient pine, and beneath the pine sat a stone table with an unfinished game of Go.

Beside that unfinished game, a middle-aged man dressed in a faded scholar's robe, with a face as warm as jade and a refined, gentle temperament, sat cross-legged with an ancient zither across his knees.

His eyes were slightly closed as his long fingers lightly plucked the strings. A piece of music, ethereal and distant as if it could cleanse the soul—"High Mountains and Flowing Water"—slowly flowed from his fingertips, adding a touch of indescribable Zen to this deathly silent space.

Lin Feng stood at the door, unmoving.

His Divine Sense, comparable to that of a Martial Extremity Realm powerhouse, instantly enveloped the entire seventh floor like an invisible tide.

However, the results he obtained caused alarm bells to ring in his heart!

The middle-aged scholar before him had no spiritual energy fluctuations, no True Qi flow, and not even a shred of Killing Intent.

He seemed just like the most ordinary, frail schoolteacher.

But Lin Feng's beast-like intuition, honed through countless life-and-death battles, was screaming at him frantically!

Danger!

Extreme danger!

That feeling was like a rabbit stumbling into the lair of a slumbering ancient Dragon capable of devouring the heavens and earth!

The scholar's zither music slowly ceased.

He did not open his eyes but simply turned his gaze toward Lin Feng's direction, a gentle smile appearing on his lips as if he had long known of his arrival.

"Once you enter this door, you sever your past and end your worldly thoughts."

His voice was warm and magnetic, like a spring breeze brushing against the face, making one unconsciously feel a sense of closeness.

"Young friend, since you have come, why stand at the door?"

"Why not come over for a game?"

He pointed to the unfinished game before him and issued an invitation.

Lin Feng's eyes narrowed slightly.

He could feel that from the moment he stepped onto this seventh floor, he had been completely locked on by an invisible force.

That was not "aura," nor was it a "domain," but a higher level of Law power that seemed to merge with the entire Demon Suppressing Tower!

Here, the opponent was the Heavens!

"Interesting."

Far from showing any fear, Lin Feng's face lit up with a spark of spirited excitement.

He stowed the Life-Slaying Blade and strode over, sitting down calmly opposite the middle-aged scholar.

"Please."