Samsara Paradise: Dream Weaver of Connections.

As soon as Lord Rat finished speaking, the chosen birdman rushed to Lin Yi in one stride, holding the metal box in both hands and respectfully handing it over.

His wings trembled slightly behind his back, the feathers at the tips rubbing against each other and making a soft rustling sound.

Fine beads of sweat seeped from his forehead, sliding down his cheeks, gathering into drops at his chin, and then silently falling to the ground, spreading out as dark spots in the dust.

But his gaze was unusually firm, and Lin Yi's figure was reflected in his pupils without wavering.

The action was so sudden that those around who were already preparing to snatch it were all stunned.

In the crowd, a Zerg contestant had already raised his forelimbs.

The lens in its eye reflected the bowing figure of the birdman, and the information processing system seemed to experience a brief delay.

Just now in the abandoned hall, the birdman had already recognized Lin Yi's identity—the Abyss Physician.

This is no accident. As a small to medium-sized race, their status in the void is not high. They have long been dependent on a few medium-sized powers, relying on their keen observation and cautious approach to survive in the cracks.

That is why they are particularly meticulous in their intelligence gathering.

Lin Yi and Su Xiao have been famous in the Void Arena for some time now.

The Dream Spirit Clan girl took the initiative to strike up a conversation, the Feather Clan Night Feather's subtle attitude, and the natural interaction between Lin Yi and the Destroyer of Laws Su Xiao—all these details were observed and remembered by him, piecing together a gradually clearer picture in his mind.

The rumors are true; this generation of Abyss Physicians does indeed have a close relationship with the Destroyers of Law, and seems to hold considerable influence among certain powerful races in the Void.

This is not someone he can afford to offend.

So the moment the Rat threw the box over, the Birdman made his decision.

If he kept the box, he wouldn't live more than three minutes—no, maybe not even a minute.

At least six of these contestants are clearly stronger than him, and they won't be interested in one-on-one duels; a siege is inevitable in order to compete for the qualification.

But what if we hand it over to Lin Yi?

Risks still exist.

Lin Yi might refuse to accept it, or he might feel that this is a way of shifting blame onto him.

But compared to being surrounded and killed by a crowd, at least there is a glimmer of hope.

Moreover, the birdman had observed Lin Yi's behavior—although this abyss physician's methods were unclear, he seemed to act with certain principles, unlike those beings who were completely capricious.

More importantly, if Lin Yi accepts it, then other contestants who want to snatch it will have to get past the Destroyer of Laws first.

The birdman remembered a saying from his elders: "To survive in the void, sometimes it's not about choosing the strongest backer, but about choosing the wall that's least likely to collapse."

So when he rushed forward, he had already prepared for the worst.

He even prepared his arguments and was ready to kneel and beg if necessary.

But to his surprise, Lin Yi just looked at him quietly, without any obvious emotional fluctuation.

The birdman did it cleverly; he didn't throw it over secretly, but handed it over openly, adopting a very humble posture.

Lin Yi is indeed lacking resources right now.

The investment required to cultivate an army of gods is a bottomless pit; no valuable resources can be overlooked.

He did not refuse and took the box from his hand.

The moment the box changed hands, several auras suddenly became sharp and intense among the crowd.

The five figures moved almost simultaneously.

They come from different Void races and have different appearances, but they have one thing in common—their eyes all gleam with greed and ferocity.

In their eyes, what about those who destroy the law? They are legends of a bygone era.

So what if he's an Abyss Doctor? He's just a healer.

Now is the time for these emerging races to rise; it is their turn to take center stage in the void.

The five contestants worked together seamlessly, clearly indicating that they had planned this in advance.

They pounced on Lin Yi from five different angles, sealing off all opportunities for evasion.

One person launched a frontal assault, two others flanked from the left and right, and two more attacked from behind and above, forming a massive net to completely envelop Lin Yi.

But they overlooked one thing.

Lin Yi was never alone.

Zheng——

The sound of the blade being drawn was crisp and short, like a taut string being snapped.

A blue afterimage streaked across the air.

Su Xiao made a move.

His movements didn't seem fast, even somewhat casual; he simply took a step forward, drew his sword, and slashed horizontally.

But this simple slash seemed to freeze time for a moment.

The opponent who launched the frontal assault was the first to sense the danger.

It was a race whose entire bodies were covered in bone armor, which was dark red and had lava-like patterns flowing across its surface.

It instinctively crossed its arms to protect its chest, and its bone armor instantly thickened, forming a shield.

This reaction was remarkably swift.

But the blade of the Dragon Slayer did not stop.

The moment the blade made contact with the bone armor, there was no loud metallic clang, only a faint, teeth-grinding friction sound.

Like a hot knife cutting through butter, the blade slices into the bone armor without any resistance.

The Bone Armor race froze in place, looking down at its chest, where a thin line ran diagonally from its shoulder to its waist.

The next moment, its upper body slowly slid down along that thin line, the cross-section as smooth as a mirror, with its internal organs and bones clearly visible.

The blade of the Dragon Slayer did not stop.

It continued forward, slashing into the body of its second opponent.

This is a race similar to octopuses, with smooth skin covered in suckers.

As the blade sliced ​​into its side, it let out a sharp hiss, and all eight tentacles simultaneously coiled towards Su Xiao.

Its body is extremely flexible; when the blade cuts into its side, its muscles and internal organs automatically contract to the sides in an attempt to reduce the damage.

At the same time, the skin around the wound rapidly secretes a large amount of viscous, transparent liquid—not ordinary bodily fluid, but a highly concentrated gel that can solidify instantly, sealing the wound and trapping the enemy's weapon.

The octopus-man race revealed a ferocious smile.

It worked!
At least from its own perspective.

The Dragon Slayer Flash did indeed temporarily stop inside its body.

The octopus-man grinned menacingly, its tentacles about to wrap around Su Xiao's arm.

Then it saw Su Xiao's eyes.

That wasn't anger, anxiety, or even murderous intent.

It was a kind of indifferent calm, as if looking at a dead object.

Su Xiao did not draw his sword.

He loosened his grip on the knife with his right hand.

This action startled the octopus-man—giving up his weapon? That was tantamount to surrendering!
But it quickly realized something was wrong.

The moment Su Xiaosong loosened the hilt of the knife, she took a half step forward with her left foot, slightly turned her body, and lashed out with her right leg like a whip.

That kick landed squarely on the octopus-man's abdomen.

At the moment of contact, the octopus-man didn't even feel any pain.

It felt as if all the air in its body had been sucked out in an instant, and its abdominal cavity had sunk inward, forming a perfect hemispherical depression.

Skin, muscles, and internal organs are compressed to their limits, and then—

A muffled popping sound.

The octopus-man's abdomen exploded, leaving a hole the size of a washbasin.

It wasn't torn apart, it wasn't pierced, it exploded in the truest sense.

Under the impact of the immense force, the molecular structure of flesh and bones disintegrated, turning into fine blood mist that sprayed backward, splashing a fan-shaped crimson pattern on the ground behind it.

Minced meat and bone fragments embedded themselves in the tree trunk, hitting the ground, with the furthest splashing as far as a bystander's feet, more than ten meters away.

Its body flew backward like a tattered sack, tracing a parabola in the air.

During flight, the eight tentacles drooped limply, their bone spikes colliding with each other with a soft clanging sound.

Finally, it crashed heavily onto the trunk of an ancient tree twenty meters away. At the moment of impact, spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the surface of the trunk.

As its body slid down, it left a shocking trail of blood on the rough bark, dragging from a height of three meters all the way to the ground.

Su Xiao pulled his leg back and reached out to grasp the hilt of the Dragon Slayer Sword, which was still stuck in the octopus-man's mangled body.

The blade was still encased in that energy gel, but it had lost its activity and become fragile and brittle.

With a gentle pull, the blade left his body, bringing with it a trail of viscous tissue fluid and fragments of broken internal organs.

Shaking off the filth from the knife, Su Xiao frowned slightly.

too weak.

These opponents were much weaker than he had anticipated.

In Su Xiao's understanding, those selected for the Battle of the Strongest should at least be at the level of the three immortal wizards he encountered in the Wizarding World.

That's the strength a true powerhouse should possess.

But what's in front of me...

What Su Xiao didn't know was that this was entirely a cognitive bias.

The so-called "Battle of the Strongest" in the void is mostly attended by the best of the younger generation from various races.

They are indeed exceptionally talented and outstanding among their peers, but their age is a factor—most are no more than two hundred years old, and some are only a few decades old.

Laurent's immortal wizards have lived for countless years, and their strength has long surpassed the realm of ordinary sixth-tier wizards.

More importantly, the Void lacks the skill enhancement chambers of the Paradise of Reincarnation, and those convenient facilities that can quickly push skills to their peak.

The creatures here can only grow stronger through the slow, arduous process of time. Practicing the same move over and over again, constantly teetering on the brink of life and death, and accumulating combat experience little by little—the efficiency varies drastically.

A Void race genius might need ten years of arduous training to elevate their swordsmanship to the "master level".

In the Paradise of Reincarnation, as long as you have enough Paradise Coins and permissions, it may only take five minutes.

This is the gap.

Su Xiao had grown accustomed to the rhythm of the Reincarnation Paradise, and to the contractors who had experienced countless derivative worlds and repeatedly teetered between life and death.

He forgot that for most Void creatures, "battle" is not a daily occurrence, and "life-or-death struggle" is an extreme experience in rare circumstances.

So when he faced these contestants, he felt like an adult facing a child with a stick.

The other three attackers didn't even have time to get close to Lin Yi.

At the same time that Su Xiao made his move, the other three figures also moved.

The figure of the demon clan member Vago appeared to Lin Yi's left.

When the enemy attacking from the left lunged forward, Vago simply extended one finger.

His fingertip touched the center of the Zerg's forehead.

There was no light, no energy fluctuations, and not even a tangible feeling of touch.

But the Zerg's advance came to an abrupt halt.

All its compound eyes lost focus at the same instant, its six arms hung limply, and its body collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

When it fell to the ground, a tiny black dot appeared on its forehead. Spiderweb-like cracks began to spread around the dot, and wherever the cracks passed, its carapace, muscles, and bones turned into grayish-white powder.

One strike, and the soul is annihilated.

To Lin Yi's right, the Feather Clan's Shang Yue drew his scimitar and then sheathed it again.

The flash of the blade was so fast that one might doubt whether it was an illusion.

The merman contestant who attacked from the right remained frozen in mid-air, still in a forward-leaning posture, before its head slowly slid off its neck.

The incision was clean, and the blood gushed out after a half-second delay.

Shangyue didn't even glance at the corpse; her gaze remained fixed on Lin Yi, her wings slightly spread, ready to face the next wave of attacks.

As for the fifth enemy that attacked from behind, it didn't even get within ten meters of Lin Yi.

The Dream Spirit Clan girl appeared in that direction at some unknown time.

She stood barefoot on the ground, her hands forming a complex mudra in front of her chest, muttering incantations.

The enemy who had tried to ambush from behind suddenly stumbled out of the shadows.

It clutched its head and let out a shrill scream, its body convulsing violently, black mist gushing from its seven orifices.

The mist dissipated quickly after leaving the body, and the body shriveled up, eventually turning into a skin-and-bones mummy.

The girl released her handprint and clapped her hands, as if dusting off some dirt.

She turned her head, winked at Lin Yi, and smiled, revealing her little tiger teeth.

The entire process of killing the five attackers, from the moment they struck to their complete annihilation, took no more than three seconds.

The open space in front of the abandoned hall fell into a deathly silence.

All the other contestants stopped what they were doing, and those who were originally itching to participate also suppressed their impulses.

They looked at the several corpses in the field, each with a different manner of death, and then at the people around Lin Yi—

Su Xiao, the destroyer of the law, was wiping the blood off his hands with a cloth, his expression as calm as if he had just casually swatted a few flies.

The demon Vago wore a playful smile, as if he had just done something insignificant.

The Winged Clan's Moonfall, his scimitar sheathed, his black feathered robe gleaming coldly in the twilight.

The Dream Spirit Clan girl skipped back to Lin Yi's side, her face beaming with a "please praise me" expression.

Lin Yi himself stood there, holding the metal box in his hand, his expression unchanged from beginning to end, as if he had known this would be the outcome all along.

This lineup...

Several contestants from powerful clans exchanged glances, all seeing seriousness in each other's eyes.

Although the perpetrators of the Dharma have waned in power, their influence remains.

The Feathered Clan is one of the top clans in the Void, and their presence here represents a certain attitude.

Although the Dream Spirit Clan is slightly inferior, it is still a second-tier powerful clan, and the mental attack methods that this girl just displayed should not be underestimated.

More importantly, these people all seem to be surrounding Lin Yi.

This pool of water is too deep.

Just as the atmosphere reached a stalemate, a voice suddenly rang out from the crowd: "Let's attack together! There are only a few of them!"

The voice was elusive, clearly indicating the use of some method to alter the position of the vocal timbre, making it impossible to pinpoint its source.

Shangyue's wings unfolded completely in an instant, and a faint light shone from Vago's fingertips. Su Xiao's hand returned to the hilt of the sword.

But the anticipated siege did not occur.

The contestants present weren't fools. That shout was loud, but who wanted to be the first to stick their neck out?

Who would be willing to risk their life to deplete the power of those few strong individuals, only to let others reap the benefits? Who would be willing to be cannon fodder to test the waters? Who would be willing to gamble their life at the very beginning of the struggle for supremacy?

The silence lasted for about five seconds.

Then, as if by prior arrangement, the crowd began to retreat.

At first, only a few people moved their feet quietly, then more and more people turned around, and finally it turned into a collective collapse.

The dark mass of people scattered and rushed into the forest of Twilight Island.

Some people chose to go alone, while others formed groups of two or three. Everyone tried to get away from the open space as quickly as possible, away from Lin Yi and his terrifying companions.

In the blink of an eye, only Lin Yi and his group, along with those few corpses, remained on the open ground.

Oh, and there's also Lord Rat.

The guide was perched atop his mechanical vehicle, watching the scene with great interest.

Only after the crowd dispersed did it jump off the roof of the car and waddle over on its short legs.

Su Xiao carefully put away the clean cloth, and the scabbard made a soft click as it returned to its original position.

He looked at Lin Yi and nodded slightly, meaning "It's all done."

Lin Yi nodded, then turned and walked towards Lord Rat.

Lord Rat was stroking his whiskers, his blood-red eyes darting around the metal box in Lin Yi's hand.

Seeing Lin Yi approach, it grinned, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth.

Lin Yi stopped in front of Lord Rat without saying a word.

Lord Rat tilted his head and then stretched out his hand.

It's a very straightforward action: palms facing up, fingers spread out.

Lin Yi was stunned for a moment, then he understood.

He thought for a moment and took something out of his storage space—not a metal box, but a transparent glass bottle.

The bottle is slender and about the height of a palm, and it contains an amber-colored liquid.

The liquid shimmered with a warm glow in the twilight, and tiny golden specks could be faintly seen suspended within it.

This is not the beer Reed usually brews, but a premium fruit wine he specially makes using time acceleration technology.

The raw material comes from golden apples from a magical world, and seventeen rare spices were added during the brewing process. Finally, it was aged for thirty years in a time barrier.

This wine is produced in very low quantities; Reed can only produce about ten bottles a year.

Lin Yi himself only had less than three bottles, and he was reluctant to drink them normally, only taking them out on certain special occasions.

When Lord Rat saw the wine bottle, his eyes lit up noticeably.

It took the bottle, brought it close to its eyes to examine it carefully, shook it, and looked at the traces of liquid clinging to the bottle's walls.

Then it used its paws to pry open the bottle stopper, and a rich fruity aroma instantly filled the air.

The aroma is rich and layered, starting with fresh apple and citrus notes, followed by the sweetness of honey and caramel, and finally a subtle woody and spicy finish.

Just smelling it makes your mouth water.

Lord Rat took a deep breath, his blood-red eyes narrowing into slits.

Without hesitation, it tilted its head back and took a big bite.

As the wine entered its throat, its expression changed noticeably.

Lord Rat raised his eyebrows, twitched his ears twice, and his whiskers trembled slightly.

It smacked its lips, took another small sip, and this time held it in its mouth for a while before swallowing, allowing the wine to fully contact its taste buds.

"Mmm..." it hummed contentedly, "This taste... is interesting."

Lord Rat usually drinks strong liquor, high-proof distilled spirits, and one sip feels like being on fire.

That kind of wine is suitable for drinking on the battlefield, suitable for drinking in cold environments, and can quickly bring warmth.

But this fruit wine is completely different.

It has a low alcohol content, only around ten degrees, and is smooth to drink without any irritation.

But the flavor is surprisingly complex, with different layers to taste in every bite, leaving a long-lasting and pleasant aftertaste.

It took a few more sips before reluctantly putting the cork back on and carefully tucking the bottle into its arms.

Then Lord Rat looked up at Lin Yi, his gaze different from before.

"Kid, you've got a good eye." Lord Rat patted the spot on his chest where the wine bottle had been. "I'll take this. In exchange..."

It leaned closer and lowered its voice: "I'm so thirsty, and this weather is so hot. If only I could swim around in the sea..."

Lin Yi's heart stirred slightly, but his face remained expressionless: "Thank you for the reminder."

Lord Rat waved his hand and jumped back onto the mechanical chariot: "Alright, go do what you're supposed to do. The first phase has already begun, don't just stand around here."

It started its chariot, the engine roared, and it sped off in another direction in the forest, quickly disappearing into the shadows. (End of Chapter)