I can see experience bars after being transported to another world.

The Blue Knight's aura continued to rise with each hard-hit blow, so much so that even Klaus, standing to the side, subconsciously took two steps back.

The peculiar ghouls also noticed the abnormality surrounding her, and their attacks became even more frenzied, showering her with waves of contamination. The Blue Knight, however, remained calm and composed, her rapier holding a blue silken thread that created an impenetrable barrier around her, preventing any contamination from getting close.

With each attack she blocked, her offensive intensified.

Just as the special ghoul's attack paused, a jet of bright red blood spurted from its chest cavity.

The Blue Knight's aura suddenly intensified.

The next moment, a visible sword beam erupted from her body, slender and tinged with blood red, slashing towards the pillar of blood. The pillar of blood was split in two, but the power of the sword beam remained undiminished, striking directly at the special ghoul.

Just as it instinctively raised its hand to block...

Klaus suddenly grabbed forward with both hands, his palms flashing with light.

'I've finally got my chance.'

The next moment, the green crystals that it had managed to force back into the flesh and blood surged wildly, bursting out of the flesh and blood at a speed that it could not suppress, like nails pinning it firmly to the spot.

The emerald green light, illuminated by the holy light, refracted a dreamlike glow.

Reflected in front of the special ghoul, it appeared somewhat ferocious.

The next moment, the Blue Knight's sword light followed closely behind.

It was cleaved in two by a single sword strike.

The special ghoul let out a mournful howl of resentment.

Its body began to collapse and twist, with large amounts of flesh growing wildly from the broken ends, and it was about to grow into a completely different shape... It was about to reveal its true form.

But Klaus and the Blue Knight didn't give it that chance at all. Just as it was about to transform, the two of them had already pounced on it.

On the other side of the Great Ascendant, the tear in his chest cavity was covered again by a layer of alloy that had grown out of nowhere, and he also swept past.

At that very moment, Lu Yuan stepped forward without hesitation.

He wanted to take advantage of this break to touch the bronze pillar... to see if the fragment was in this pillar or in one of the nearby ones.

The special ghoul, now a mass of flesh and blood, was still having its green crystals spreading wildly.

The Blue Knight's rapier swept across the mass of flesh and blood again and again. Klaus, however, sheathed his bone sword; the corrosive power was so strong that even his bone sword could barely withstand it.

Instead of using it, he activated his extraordinary abilities, manipulating the green crystals that were growing inside the thing to separate and sever its flesh piece by piece.

The Great Ascended One also rushed in with some resentment, his beams of light slamming into flesh and blood one after another.

The wriggling thing was surrounded and brutally beaten by three people. At this rate, it would be chopped into mincemeat sooner or later.

Lu Yuan had no time to worry about any of that.

The oppressive aura emanating from the bronze pillar was slowly dissipating. Without the control of the special ghouls, the wooden roots clinging to the pillar seemed to have lost their way, remaining motionless and unable to even instinctively feed.

'So, it's not really a living being,' Lu Yuan thought with a flicker of understanding. 'It's just been endowed with this ability.'

Compared to the world of trees he had seen inside the wooden figure, this thing before him was far inferior.

So where did this thing come from?

Lu Yuan didn't have time to think about it and reached out to press his hand on the bronze pillar.

The next moment, a completely new scene came into his view.

Dust filled the air, the whole world was shrouded in gray, and there were dead bodies everywhere.

A thin line was wriggling in the distance.

No. What is that wave made up of?

Lu Yuan turned around.

Not far behind, a massive city wall stood tall. Many armored soldiers stood atop the wall, their expressions panicked, their eyes filled with fear.

Several flags he had never seen before were planted on the city wall, golden stars against a backdrop of a blue ocean.

The next moment, the distant wave drew closer.

Lu Yuan also saw it clearly.

That's... a ghoul?

He was taken aback, then realized what it meant. That thing wasn't a ghoul, or rather, it was something that resembled a ghoul. But rather than resembling a ghoul, it looked more like the peculiar entity being ganged up on right in front of him.

Is it a war? Lu Yuan wondered.

Suddenly, a flurry of footsteps echoed on the city wall, and even more people surged forward.

"Fire!"

Countless cannons roared, their shells tracing arcs as they fell into the ghoul-like tide.

The violent explosion knocked them over, but couldn't kill them. Red and black blood stained the entire battlefield.

The next moment, Lu Yuan suddenly woke up.

Two lines of gray text appeared in my line of sight, one after the other.

[A high-risk pollution source has been detected approaching. Please be cautious.]

[A high-risk pollution source has been detected approaching. Please be cautious.]

It's a new individual. Lu Yuan realized this immediately.

Immediately afterwards, another line of gray text appeared.

Bronze City: 3/5

The new fragment has arrived.

This time, there was no need for Lu Yuan to issue a warning.

The purple net that had been woven by the servants had already enveloped the entire cavity. At the very moment the two special individuals rushed out, the net woven from purple light emitted a loud hissing sound.

One attacked from the side, and the other emerged from a deeper opening; the two figures appeared simultaneously.

The attendant's expression changed drastically.

The next moment, all the purple light suddenly intensified, and the swaying tentacles on the ground swelled up abruptly.

A silver-white light shone from his body as he struggled to avoid the backlash from the suppression of the Bronze City while desperately holding onto the net.

Klaus and his group noticed it too. Ignoring everything else, they became even more ruthless, determined to chop the special individual in their hands to pieces and kill it on the spot.

However, the next moment, the attendant's net shattered with a crash, and more than half of the area that had turned the entire cavity purple disappeared.

A kind of visible pollution was spreading upwards along the purple light emanating from the servants.

Stronger pollution.

The servant immediately realized that of the two that had just emerged, one was far stronger than the one before him, by an unknown amount.

"careful!"

As the warning was issued, all the swaying tentacles wove together to form a wall of light, which stood firmly between the extremely powerful individual and Klaus and his group.

Click.

The wall of light shattered. The attendant was jolted back two steps, and the silver disc he wore on his person disappeared with it.

Lu Yuan had already slipped away by now.

He ran towards Adrian and Margaret, not caring whether he would be exposed; if he didn't run, he would really die there.

The moment the light wall shattered, Adrian murmured, and golden light emanated from his body.

A faint, ethereal figure slowly emerged behind him, and the scriptures on his chest moved without wind.

Several blessings fell upon everyone present at the same time.

Except for the Great Ascended Ones.

Several lines of text appeared before Lu Yuan's eyes.

You have been blessed by angels.

You have been favored by the angels.

You are enveloped in holy light.

You will enjoy the power of light.

Your rationality has been anchored.

Lu Yuan's eyes lit up when he saw the last line.

Without hesitation, he used a skill he rarely used: the skill granted by the Guardian, which could temporarily reduce his sanity cap in exchange for an extra amount of sanity.

Lu Yuan simultaneously activated the timekeeping function.

The next moment, the power of the pocket watch began to turn, pressing down on the Blue Knight and Klaus respectively.

Reason receded like a receding tide.

[Sanity: -5...135/140]

[Sanity: -5...130/140]

Lu Yuan remained completely calm and immediately activated his defenses to reduce his sanity limit.

[Your maximum sanity -20. Deduction failed because the sanity anchor point is locked.]

[Your maximum sanity -30. Deduction failed because the sanity anchor point is locked.]

[Sanity: +50...180/140]

[Sanity: +50...230/140]

Lu Yuan's rationality surged to 230/140 in an instant.

Even if a second of timekeeping takes away ten points of his sanity, his substantial reserves are enough to sustain him for quite some time. He's even prepared to use his defenses a third time.

The reason he didn't immediately redeem for the third time was because his head was heavy and throbbing. The once calm river of reason was now surging wildly like a flood.

And just then, what appeared before him...

[Rationality IV: +1]

[Rationality IV: +1]

Lu Yuan's eyes lit up. His sanity experience bar, which had been dormant for a long time, had actually increased.

He casually cast another speed boost on himself, making his feet even faster.

On the other side, the Blue Knight, who was charging towards the two special ghouls, was bursting with golden light.

The moment she lunged forward, her speed suddenly increased dramatically, so much so that she lost control of her body and crashed into the approaching ghoul, instantly piercing it through.

The Blue Knight was taken aback, then realized what it meant. She had experienced something similar when she was at the Knight Academy.

There was no room for hesitation. She began to count down in her mind: she only had five seconds.

five.

The Blue Knight lunged at the special individual that had broken through the purple light wall, its figure stretching into a thin line in the air, disappearing and reappearing in an instant. At the same moment, the special individual's arms were severed at the root.

Four.

On Klaus's side, two afterimages had already formed behind him, heading towards another special individual. With this blessing and the acceleration from the timer, Klaus estimated that his speed was at least twice as fast.

The bone sword reformed, its blade shimmering with purple light and swirling with golden radiance. The special entity's body swelled violently, churning with copious amounts of blood and contamination, but Klaus disregarded it all and charged straight at it, the blessing granting him unwavering confidence.

three.

The Blue Knight had already reduced the special individual to a human stump. But it showed no fear, or rather, it felt no pain at all.

The severed limbs began to writhe at a speed visible to the naked eye; the severed limbs seemed to have their own consciousness, desperately crawling back onto the almost shredded body.

At this moment, the Great Ascendant looked at the two guys who were glowing and whose speed had increased dramatically, and curled his lip in displeasure.

But there's nothing that can be done about it. As a member of the Ascension Society, he was born unable to receive any blessings, just as he was unable to receive any pollution; he couldn't be touched by either.

The energy in the chest of the Great Ascended One recombines and continues to bombard the shredded flesh.

Energy explodes within the flesh, burning it until it's carbonized and thoroughly cooked, but in the blink of an eye, it grows back to its original state.

On the servant's side, purple light danced between his fingers, constantly blocking the escape routes of the two creatures for Klaus and the Blue Knight.

two.

At that moment, another line of gray text popped up in Lu Yuan's field of vision.

[A high-risk pollution source has been detected approaching. Please be cautious.]