I can find treasures in my dreams.

The hidden realm of the sunken sand abyss.

The third cycle of day and night silently rolled across this cursed Gobi Desert.

Yang Donglin and Zhou Furui were currently at the third shelter they had found.

The walls were still dark red, damp, and sticky with a faint pulsation of flesh, and the air was filled with a strange smell of rust mixed with a sweet, fishy odor.

The ghost-headed bronze mirror shimmered with an eerie light, its surface rippling like a deep pool into which a stone had been thrown, finally reflecting the true images of the other "players" besides themselves.

The objects reflected in the mirror were not humans, but two tall, beast-like humanoid creatures.

Their heads resembled those of lions, with thick manes gleaming with a dark golden sheen, and two jet-black, thick, spiraling horns growing from their foreheads.

Below the neck, he was covered in exquisite armor that was by no means a savage creation. The armor was a blend of dark silver and indigo, and a complex emblem was engraved on his chest.

They held round shields in their left hands and broad battle axes in their right, the blades gleaming coldly, clearly having drunk countless lives.

The armor was spotless, proclaiming their newfound status as new players.

Night was about to fall, but the two horned lion descendants still had not found shelter.

Ghost Eyes' fawning voice rang out: "Great master, these are hunters from the 'Horned Lion Civilization.' Their strength has reached the level of a quasi-knight. I can see that they have inherited an interesting 'war cry' technique, using sound as a blade and roar as armor."

Yang Donglin nodded slightly.

Zhou Furui glanced at Ghost Eye with some surprise, muttering to himself, "He can even see through my secret techniques?"

The two soon witnessed what the War Cry technique was all about.

One minute later.

The scene in the mirror suddenly dimmed, and the last ray of daylight was completely swallowed by the night sky.

Darkness closed like a giant maw, swallowing up the Gobi Desert, the rocks, and the two horned lion descendants.

The death game has begun once again.

The deathly silence lasted only a moment.

The next moment, the surface of the densely packed, jagged stone carvings of various shapes on the Gobi Desert simultaneously emitted a cracking sound.

The two horned lion descendants were clearly not expected that the stone sculpture would undergo such a strange change. Their eyes were filled with horror as they stood back to back, in a highly vigilant posture.

Previously, Zhou Furui had felt that they were majestic and powerful, but now he felt that they were far inferior to Lieutenant Colonel Yang.

soon.

The monsters came to life, their movements changing from stiff and swift to lightning-fast, as they pounced on the two horned lion warriors.

The two warriors instantly went into battle mode. Facing the surging, twisted black shadows, they did not immediately swing their axes and shields, but instead suddenly raised their heads, their chests heaving violently.

"Roar!"

The first war cry was deep and resonant, like a giant hammer striking the earth's core, and visible pale golden ripples spread out in a ring.

The monster touched the ripples, and its movements froze instantly. Every claw lift and every pounce became slow and difficult, as if the air was filled with viscous resistance.

"Ow!!"

The second war cry was sharp and piercing, with a penetrating force that could tear eardrums.

Several lizard-like monsters charging at the front burst open with a "poof" from their eye sockets, releasing a cloud of black blood. They let out silent howls and blindly spun around in place.

The above are clearly auxiliary battle cries.

A more robust horned lion descendant suddenly took a deep breath, its mane standing on end as if electrocuted, and its chest swelled to an almost terrifying degree.

"Boom!!!"

It was less a roar and more a gas explosion that seemed to erupt from the ground.

Centered on it, a shockwave, a mixture of gold and blood, expanded violently in a spherical shape.

The dozen or so monsters that rushed into the ripples had countless fine cracks instantly appear on their hard bodies. They staggered and two of them even fell to the ground.

This is undoubtedly a battle cry.

In just thirty seconds, more than a dozen monsters were slaughtered.

In front of the bronze mirror.

Zhou Furui was amazed: "Wow! This thing is better than many superpowers!"

The major immediately shook his head: "What a pity!"

This is only a temporary victory. The monsters in the Gobi Desert are endless. No matter how powerful the horned lion descendants are, they will eventually die from exhaustion.

Ten minutes later, the scene in the mirror was completely submerged by a tidal wave of monsters.

They came from the surrounding area and numbered an astonishing thousands, including more than a hundred birds.

The birds launched a ranged attack from above, while the beasts either roamed around to contain them or surrounded them like a pack of wolves, instantly forming a three-dimensional offensive that combined land and air power.

Zhou Furui looked at it with a serious expression.

The monsters' coordination and the sophistication of their tactics were even more impressive than he had anticipated.

The roars of the horned lion warriors grew more urgent and weaker with each passing moment.

The last thing the two saw was that they were bound by several tentacle-like limbs around their limbs and necks, and suddenly pulled into that despairing dark wave, where they were never heard again.

The battle ended, and the monsters did not fight over the food.

They slowly lowered their bodies around the remains, making strange gurgling sounds from deep in their throats, and vomited large amounts of translucent, viscous liquid, like heated wax, completely enveloping the body parts.

The body parts softened and decomposed rapidly under the liquid, and within a few dozen breaths, they completely seeped into the Gobi Desert and disappeared without a trace.

Zhou Furui asked instinctively, "What...what are they doing?"

The ghost blinked and explained slowly, "They are 'sowing,' using the flesh and souls of the defeated as slurry to cultivate new statue embryos."

"The endless forest of stone sculptures you see in this abyss, each one once belonged to a player. Death here is not the end, but rather a source of materials, a cycle that continues endlessly."

Zhou Furui couldn't help but shiver.

Another thought popped into his head: "How could Ghost Eye know so much information?"

The longer he spent with Lieutenant Colonel Yang, the more he felt that the colonel seemed to have a somewhat unfathomable nature.

In fact.

The origin of the Ghost Head Bronze Mirror is indeed quite extraordinary.

After obtaining the card, Yang Donglin asked his father how it knew so many secrets.

His father told him that the original prototype of the Ghost Head Bronze Mirror was a mysterious device that was good at spying on secrets, and it was later modified into a card.

At that time, he truly admired his father to the extreme.

I've never heard of a magical artifact being modified, yet my father always manages to create incredible miracles.

At this time.

Yang Donglin suddenly turned to Zhou Furui, his voice calm but undeniable: "Major Zhou, you stay in the shelter, I have to go out for a bit."

Zhou Furui's pupils contracted sharply, almost thinking he had misheard: "Out? Lieutenant Colonel, outside..."

He had only said a few words when he suddenly remembered that for the past three days, every six hours, a strange, flowing ink-colored blush would appear without warning beside Lieutenant Colonel Yang. The color would then disappear, and the lieutenant colonel never explained it.

This is by no means an ordinary superpower; it's more like some kind of... timed-triggered signal, or coordinate.

This made him suspect that Lieutenant Colonel Yang was indeed carrying a top-secret mission far beyond his authority, and that his sudden decision to venture into such a dangerous place was probably for that mission.

All thoughts flashed through his mind like lightning. Zhou Furui swallowed all the advice and questions, and solemnly replied, "Understood! Please be careful."

Yang Donglin nodded slightly and said no more.

He took a step forward, his sharply defined, silver-white armor shimmering and dimming, making him appear like a reflection in water before vanishing completely into the damp air of the shelter.

“Great master, your courage and decisiveness make this tedious game of death pale in comparison! I am willing to follow behind you and wait to witness the miracles you will create…”

Ghost Eyes's obsequious, almost greasy voice rang out at just the right moment, and then, in the instant the last syllable faded, it vanished into the depths of the bronze mirror along with its true form. The sanctuary returned to deathly silence, leaving only Zhou Furui behind.

Fortunately, the bronze mirror with the ghost head remained quietly suspended in its original place, its surface shimmering with a faint light, clearly reflecting the outside world, preventing him from becoming completely blind.

He sighed softly, staring intently at the bronze mirror.

About a hundred meters from the entrance of the shelter, the air rippled silently, like water being struck by a pebble.

next moment.

Yang Donglin's figure appeared out of thin air without warning, his silver armor radiating a faint, cold glow, like a lighthouse suddenly lit in the darkness.

Almost simultaneously, the countless wandering, crawling, or newly emerged monsters on the Gobi Desert all paused, and thousands of heads turned toward that glimmer of light.

After a brief silence, a deafening roar erupted.

A deafening, low, sharp roar, mixed with the sounds of grinding teeth and claws scraping the ground, exploded out.

The nearest hundreds of black shadows of various shapes pounced on them like a swarm of sharks that had smelled blood.

Faced with this terrifying tide that could instantly drive a quasi-knight to despair, Yang Donglin in the mirror didn't even twitch an eyebrow.

He simply raised his right hand, his five fingers outstretched, the movement as simple as turning the pages of a book.

The gilded soul card album unfolded out of thin air, its pages flipping rapidly with a "whoosh".

A card with dark red, blood-red edges and tangled spiral patterns on its surface shot out from the pages of the book.

The card flew above the horde of beasts and shattered into a dark red ball of light without warning.

What followed was a chilling and unforgettable scene.

The shattered points of light suddenly expanded and stretched, transforming into the source of countless blood-red vines.

This is not the vibrant green of a plant, but the dark red of the deepest, thickest blood after it has congealed, as if it were a mixture of flowing lava and shadows.

Tens of thousands of vines, no thicker than a finger, burst forth like the floodgates of the Styx opened from nothingness!

They moved faster than the limits of visual perception, with a strange, serpentine vitality and greed, sweeping across the herd of beasts.

The monsters' tough skin, their scales gleaming with a metallic glint, and even the energy shields generated on the bodies of some individuals, were so tough that even the two horned lion descendants who had just died in battle could only break through them with their battle axes.

But compared to the seemingly delicate and fragile blood-red vines, they were as fragile as paper.

The tips of the vines shimmered with a barely perceptible eerie light, easily piercing, penetrating, and then deeply burrowing into the monsters' bodies.

"Chuck! Chuck! Chuck!"

Monsters pierced by the vines, regardless of size or species, all their roars and struggles instantly cease.

Their bodies seemed to be violently sucked out from the inside by some invisible force, rapidly shriveling and shrinking.

The full muscles collapsed, the eyeballs lost their luster and became sunken, and the hard shell became wrinkled due to the loss of internal support.

Within just three to five seconds.

The first hundred or so monsters to be covered have turned into withered, dried corpses tightly wrapped in bones, maintaining their last ferocious or terrified postures, frozen in time on the Gobi Desert.

As the night wind swept by, the remains, like sand sculptures weathered over millions of years, crumbled into dust and vanished without a trace.

More crimson vines continued to pour out from the shattered card's light, sweeping back towards the surging tide of monsters that had been alerted and were now swarming in from afar.

Dark red and pitch black intertwine in the mirror to create a cruel yet efficient depiction of death.

Inside the shelter.

Zhou Furui's mouth opened slightly unconsciously, and he froze on the spot, as if he had even forgotten to breathe.

too strong!
These monsters, which had forced the horned lion cadets to fight for a long time until they finally died from exhaustion, fell like stalks of wheat before the cards that Lieutenant Colonel Yang casually summoned, utterly powerless to fight back.

This power is far beyond what a mid-level warrior could possess; even a knight-level expert would probably be no more than this!

It turns out that such a person truly exists in the world, whose actual combat power has long since transcended the realm of reality and reached an unbelievable level.

Zhou Furui exhaled, his eyes filled with awe and reverence.

The depths of this game of the ancient gods are probably far beyond his initial imagination.

The mist surrounding Lieutenant Colonel Yang, who accompanied him here, seemed far thicker than the darkness of the sinking sands.

Inside the mirror.

The scene changed again.

Lieutenant Colonel Yang stood quietly in the center of the area purified by the blood-red vines, while the ashes of the monsters around him had not yet completely settled.

His gaze flickered, landing on the hard ground beneath his feet that had just swallowed the flesh and blood of the horned lion progeny.

He did not move, and the gilded soul card album silently reappeared.

A card, completely different from the previous Crimson Vine Card, was presented with a deep, tranquil, dark blue color and was automatically placed into the lieutenant colonel's hand.

Lieutenant Colonel Yang held the card between two fingers and flicked it toward the area where the horned lion descendants had died.

"Ding!"

There was a crisp sound.

The azure card shattered into a soft azure halo, which then transformed into a pale blue incense burner about a foot tall.

This incense burner has an ancient and simple shape, with three legs and two handles. The body of the burner is faintly decorated with cloud and water dragon patterns, as if it were carved from the finest blue crystal. Its form is between reality and illusion, and it exudes a cool, tranquil aura that penetrates deep into the soul.

"Om~"

The illusory image of the incense burner trembled slightly, and wisps of extremely faint, almost transparent blue smoke drifted out from the illusory opening of the burner.

The wisps of smoke were strange; instead of rising, they slowly descended, seeping into the slightly darker ground below.

A few breaths later, a sudden change occurred.

In the sandy area soaked with blue smoke, the ground began to undulate slightly, as if something was struggling underneath.

Tiny, minute threads of light painstakingly emerged from between the grains of sand.

As the incense burner continued to emit wisps of smoke, more and more filaments of light attracted and converged with each other, outlining a blurry and distorted silhouette, and finally coalescing into two incomplete pale golden phantoms.

These are two horned lion descendants.

Another moment passed.

The two remnant souls trembled and were sucked into the incense burner.

Zhou Furui instantly realized: "Remnant souls! So Lieutenant Colonel Yang's real goal is to collect the remnant souls of the fallen!"

He naturally understood that, according to Ghost Eye's previous statement and the "wax melting" scene he had witnessed, the body and soul of the horned lion descendant had been "digested and absorbed" by this strange Gobi Desert, becoming the material for the creation of a new statue.

What the lieutenant colonel was doing at that moment was tantamount to forcibly peeling off and extracting that little bit of "residue" that had not yet been completely worn away from the slag of this highly efficient furnace.

Even without understanding the specific principles, he could imagine that this was something beyond imagination.

Not only must it contend with the devouring rules of the secret realm itself, but it also likely involves extremely profound and forbidden secret techniques of the soul realm.

*
Azure civilization.

At the summit of the Dream City, the Star Gazing Platform.

A larger, three-legged, two-eared, ice-blue incense burner, over two meters tall, stands quietly on the black and white checkerboard-like ground.

Just as the incense burner controlled by Yang Donglin absorbed the two remnant souls, the incense burner trembled a few times with a "buzzing" sound.

Two extremely faint shadowy figures then appeared on the incense burner.

Yang Wanyu and her brother Yang Yanchen cheered together.

Yang Yanchen was overjoyed: "Dad's methods are really amazing! This 'Soul-Tethering Spirit Furnace' can not only penetrate the cracks that appear periodically in the secret realm and contact my second brother from such a distance, but it can also forcibly separate souls to form 'soul anchors'."

Yang Wanyu nodded repeatedly: "As long as the Spirit Furnace has more Soul Anchors, the Dream God Capital can more accurately pinpoint the location of Donglin. According to Father's prediction, a change should be about to occur in the Secret Realm, and then the opportunity will come." (End of this chapter)