Seven days had passed since Yu Xuan and Lingluo stepped into the chaos tower’s trial grounds.
The air carried the sa scent of iron and damp earth, the sa unchanging blood moon hanging above their heads every night. Yet, when Yu Xuan’s gaze fell upon the crude markings carved into the bark of a towering tree, his steps slowed.
His thoughts stirred.
"Sister," he called, his voice low but certain, "I think we’re back at the sa place we first arrived."
Lingluo approached, her silver-purple hair swaying as she studied the grooves with narrowed eyes. She traced her fingers over the faint lines as if to confirm their authenticity.
Her gaze shifted to the plains beyond, where the two of them had clashed with the horde of green-skinned monsters on their first day.
"I think so too," she said, frowning. "But how odd... there isn’t even a trace of our fight. Not a drop of blood, not a single crack in the ground. It’s as if it never happened."
Yu Xuan’s expression hardened. He too had noticed.
The battle had been fierce, leaving the earth shattered, and corpses littering the field. Even after seven days, the scars should have remained.
Yet everything was whole. Untouched.
’Soone... or sothing... erased it.’ he thought
His mind turned sharply.
’Was it the trial itself resetting the field? Or an enemy hidden in the dark, covering their tracks? If it was the first, this trial is far stranger than we thought. If it’s the second... then our enemies are more terrifying than we imagined.’
Neither option comforted him.
"Let’s move ahead," Lingluo said firmly. "If this is really the sa place, then the other battlegrounds should give us more clues."
Together, they pressed deeper into the forest, following a path etched with Yu Xuan’s careful markings. Their pace quickened until, at last, the trees parted.
Lingluo halted first. Her eyes widened.
"Again?" she exclaid.
It was the spot where the crimson-eyed hunters had ambushed them during the night. She could still recall the leader’s sneer, calling her an "inferior species," and the way fury had ignited her bloodline. But now...
Only silence.
The ground was smooth. The torn earth was whole. The broken branches had regrown. And the corpses, those dozens she had slain with her claws — were gone, without a single shred of evidence they had ever existed.
Yu Xuan stepped past her, his gaze distant, golden eyes faintly glowing with calculation. His mind began to weave together every turn, every path they had taken since the start.
Slowly, carefully, he connected the dots.
When the final piece fell into place, a chill ran down his spine.
A pentagram.
Every route they had taken, every turn, they were all positioned at the corners and intersections of a pentagram. And always, the enemy’s leaders had appeared at those points, waiting as if guided by design.
The more he thought about it, the heavier his heavier beca. Pentagrams were not symbols of fortune. And in enemy territory, they almost never represented anything good.
Yu Xuan’s fists clenched at his side, feeling slightly annoyed, he cursed inwardly.
’This entire trial is a conspiracy. We’re not just fighting for survival, we’re being moved, into soone else’s formation. !@#$@’
He turned his gaze to Lingluo, who was still scanning the pristine forest with narrowed eyes. Her cheerful deanor had dimd, replaced by a rare edge of unease.
He exhaled slowly.
For the first ti since entering, Yu Xuan felt it keenly.
They were not challengers inside a tower.
They were prey inside a web.
Now he understood what the description of the trial said when he had arrived here.
Challenge: Survive the next week
Here you are the prey, they are the predators, lurking in the dark and even light survive the attack of the various warriors of the Fallen Heavens.
He sighed, he then let his thoughts drift back through the days they had spent here.
On the first day, the battle had co swiftly. They fought the hulking green monsters whose veins pulsed with black blood. Yu Xuan had dismissed it at the ti as nothing more than a brutal welco to the tower.
But in hindsight, it had been the first sign. And that sa night, he had been forced into another confrontation — this ti with a grotesque blood-devouring boss monster. That one had been hard. His sister had fought with a fury that nearly matched her wierd bloodline awakening.
The second day had brought the Mad Killer. Unlike the others, this guardian had arrived alone, towering and savage, carrying an axe that dripped slaughter intent.
Yu Xuan had realized afterward that this was the odd one out. If the Mad Killer had truly co with his band of subordinates like the others, defeating him would have been difficult.
The third day was calm. Too calm. No ambushes, no monsters lurking in the forest. He and Lingluo had walked from one corner of the pentagram to the next without disturbance. At the ti, it had felt like a blessing.
But now, Yu Xuan suspected it had been intentional, the calm before the storm, the silence designed to push them deeper into the formation without suspicion.
The fourth day had shattered that peace. Another guardian appeared at the turn, a winged humanoid who called herself the Third Guardian Flying Queen.
She was monstrous yet eerily beautiful, with vast feathered wings and a mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth. Unlike the Mad Killer, she had not co alone.
Dozens of bird-like people swooped through the sky, circling and harassing them. Yu Xuan had cursed them as "annoying pests," but their advantage in flight had been a genuine threat.
It had taken both him and Lingluo working in perfect sync to cut them from the sky before the Flying Queen could unleash her true strength. For once, they had slain a guardian before she could unlock whatever boss monster transformation lay hidden within.
On the fifth day, as they neared yet another turn of the pentagram, another group had appeared — but this ti, the enemy was not monstrous at all. They were human.
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