The villain, caught in a chaotic situation, only wants to boost his popularity.

The blood-red sand disappeared and then transformed into light, appearing on the waiter's chest.

The waiter's lips curled into a bloodthirsty smile.

Upon seeing this, Xue Li quickly sensed the connection between her heart and Mu Jing's.

A shocking discovery!

Their hearts had already turned into hourglass shapes.

It seeped through the blood-red sand and shimmered with an eerie red light.

She calculated with her fingers: her fine sand could last for another five minutes, but Mu Jing's only had less than a minute left!

"Damn it!" Xue Li gritted her teeth, still finding it hard to believe—she was a peak second-stage powerhouse, a "high-end combat force" in the human world, so why was she so easily manipulated by the anomaly inside the tower?

"If the fine sand runs dry, death will ensue." Mu Jing gripped the silver knife and fork he had just put away tightly in his hands. "However, killing others increases survival time. They kill each other simply to survive."

"Then we..." Xue Li began, but her words were cut short.

Mu Jing pounced like a cheetah, his silver fork piercing the neck of the man in front of him with pinpoint accuracy. The crisp sound of flesh tearing was like piercing a ripe apple, and blood splattered on his cheek, yet he showed no emotion whatsoever.

"Strike first! Use your breakthrough technique!" Mu Jing's voice came through the wind.

"Alright!" A cold glint flashed in Xue Li's eyes, and the amethyst on her chest, which had a moist, lustrous sheen, suddenly glowed with a pale blue light. "Then this time, leave it to me!"

"Sacred Mark! Breakthrough—"

The light enveloped her entire body like melting jelly, and ice crystals spread along the texture of her skin, instantly solidifying into a suit of ice-blue armor.

The shoulder armor resembles an ice butterfly spreading its wings, while the breastplate is engraved with intricate lotus patterns.

In her hand, she was holding a transparent ice blade—it exuded a chilling aura!

"【Ice Lotus Flower • Spiral Staircase】!"

A clear, melodious incantation flowed from her lips, yet it carried the piercing, sharp sound of fingernails scraping against a crystal chime, stabbing straight at the eardrums.

She lightly touched the ground with her toes.

"Crackling sound—"

Purple ripples exploded from the toes, and a half-person-high ice lotus flower bloomed with a bang, its petals edged with a cold frost.

Transparent ice blocks continuously emerged from the center of the lotus, spiraling upwards layer by layer, transforming into a spiral ice pillar about ten feet tall.

The surface of the icicle shimmered with tiny blue lights, like a frozen galaxy.

She stood atop the ice lotus, spinning and rising higher and higher with the ice pillar!

When she rose to a height of five meters, six pale blue circular halos suddenly appeared within a six-meter radius around her, with ice shards flowing around their edges, like floating ice wheels.

"【Ice Lotus Flower • Frost Thorns】!"

As the stern shout subsided, all six halos simultaneously lit up with a blinding blue light.

Hundreds of fine, hair-like ice crystals emerged from the aperture, densely packed like a rain of needles.

The aperture suddenly turned downwards, and thousands of ice hairs poured down with a sharp whooshing sound.

"Clatter—"

"Clatter—"

"Clatter—"

The muffled thuds of ice piercing flesh echoed one after another, followed by a series of thuds as people fell to the ground.

Before the "person" attempting to unleash their psionic energy could react, they were already pinned to the ground by the ice hair.

A large area of ​​scarlet rapidly spread across the dark red floor tiles, only to be frozen by the chill brought by the ice, condensing into blood-red ice flowers.

Within seconds, the entire space was enveloped in a pale, chilling aura, and the symphony of death faded away with the final thud of someone falling to the ground.

Mu Jing moved among the corpses like a ghost, his silver knife precisely reaping the remaining blood.

Each swing of the blade was accompanied by a sharp whistling sound, and crimson shadows surged toward the two men, converging behind them to form a giant hourglass phantom.

However, Mu Jing's gaze did not fall on the illusory figure, but instead stared at the system prompts that kept popping up in the void:

[Character "Xue Li" popularity +1]

[Character "Xue Li" popularity +1]

[Character "Xue Li" popularity +1]

The real-world comment section is also going crazy for Xue Li:

"What a magnificent performance! Elegant! So elegant!"

"With the Ice Lotus unleashed, who can rival it?"

"Wow! That cold, expressionless face! I really want my mom to give me that disgusted look and trample me underfoot!"

With the appearance of the word "mother," the live chat exploded with comments within seconds.

"Mother!"

"Mother!"

"Mother!"

"Oh no, my junior Wa called!"

"They're all traitors! I see now. When everyone was cheering for Xuehua, they were all nowhere to be seen, but the moment Xueli appeared, they all started attacking?"

Amid the debate, only a few scattered comments focused on Mu Jing:

"To be fair, Lao Jing can't fake a fight, he can't really fight Xue Li, he's completely outmatched. He only managed to boost his strength through sneak attacks."

"Lock Mirror is a complete slacker, relying entirely on Xue Li for carry; this play is so awful!"

"Was Mu Jing's decision to have Xue Li use her ultimate skill too reckless? If so..."

"Yes, if we handle it this way, won't the Heartless Demon appear?"

"Xue Li just used her breakthrough technique, and her holy power is almost depleted. How can she fight the Heartless Demon?"

Xue Li drifted down from the ice lotus, and her ice armor dissipated into tiny particles of light as it landed.

She was about to boast to Mu Jing that "the Holy Spirit Bureau didn't go all out that time," when she saw Mu Jing frowning and staring at the ground.

The fallen corpses were emitting wisps of black smoke.

The black mist writhed like a living thing, flowing along the cracks in the floor tiles toward the center of the building, constantly gathering, entwining, and intertwining.

It eventually condensed into a black mist that blotted out the sky, from which came a dull tremor, like a prehistoric beast awakening in the darkness.

"Oh no!" Xue Li's expression changed drastically, her Saintly Senses frantically issuing a warning, "This aura... it's a high-level second breakthrough!"

The black mist dissipated, revealing a huge, slime-like mass of sludge.

It is three meters tall, and its surface is covered with wriggling pustules. When the pustules rupture, they splatter out dark green liquid, which corrodes and creates small pits when it hits the ground.

"roar--"

A deep, guttural roar emanated from its body, causing the ground to tremble slightly.

"Oh no, my holy power is almost exhausted, I won't be able to use another breakthrough technique for a while!" Xue Li's heart sank, and she was about to pull Mu Jing away to avoid it.

The mud demon charged at her like a hammer thrown from a gun, moving so fast that it was just a blurry black shadow.

"Oh no—" Xue Li's pupils shrank suddenly, her body hadn't reacted in time, and the mud demon was about to hit her.

Suddenly, a strong force came from her waist, and a familiar large hand wrapped around her waist and spun her around sharply, bringing with it a gust of wind.

Xue Li felt dizzy and disoriented, and when she came to her senses, she had already hidden behind Mu Jing.

The mud demon crashed down on the spot where she had just stood, shattering the floor tiles and sending shards of stone flying.

"Leave the rest to me." Mu Jing patted her delicate hand, the warmth of his palm seeping through her skin, carrying a reassuring power.

He withdrew his hand from her waist.

Xue Li watched his retreating figure.

He stepped over the corpses scattered on the ground and slowly walked toward the demon.

The silver blade sliced ​​through the void, cleaving through the black mist and cold air.

Like a prince wielding a sharp sword, facing a dragon alone.

In the void, the witch who had bewitched the prince let out a sneer.

…………