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

Chapter 433 Flesh and Blood and the Fourth Fragment

Klaus grabbed Lu Yuan's wrist, touched the edge of the cliff with his toes, and leaped into the bottomless abyss with him.

A feeling of weightlessness followed, followed by a gust of wind rushing up from below. It was tens of meters deep.

After falling from above, the light in the entire space seemed to be swallowed up by something, and nothing could be seen clearly except for a hot, pungent wind blowing in our faces.

The wind grew stronger as it went down, and the enormous heartbeat grew closer and closer.

The next moment, Klaus landed, his bone armor absorbing most of the impact.

The two landed on a patch of soft, warm, and sticky ground, sinking in slightly beneath their feet. The ground beneath them was clearly made of flesh and blood.

Lu Yuan could barely make out what he saw with the help of the dim red light around him, and the gray and white characters popped up in his field of vision at the same time.

[Environmental Awareness: A forbidden aura has been detected. Please move away immediately.]

[Environmental Awareness: Pollution levels continue to rise...]

Numerous notifications flooded the screen, instantly filling the edge of his field of vision. Lu Yuan forcefully suppressed them. He knew they were extremely close to that piece of flesh.

It was only then that Lu Yuan noticed that they had landed on a protruding cliff platform in the middle of the abyss, where the ground was still pitch black and bottomless.

The heartbeat came from below, and with each beat, the flesh and blood of the entire abyss rose and fell with that heartbeat.

The patterns deposited on those bronze pillars lit up at the moment of heartbeat, then went out, their flickering light as if the entire abyss were breathing.

Using the dim red light, Lu Yuan could see the base of the bronze pillar below.

It was a huge outline made entirely of flesh and blood.

The base of each bronze pillar was inserted into that flesh and blood, with the pillar and the flesh and blood directly connected, making it impossible to tell whether the pillar was embedded in the flesh and blood, or whether the flesh and blood were crawling all over the pillar.

The flesh and blood spread out from the bottom of the abyss, its depths invisible, its surface uneven, and it gleamed with a moist sheen under the dark red light.

Around the core bronze pillars, there are countless smaller bronze pillars, too many to count.

The sealed piece of flesh had long since become one with the base and body of these pillars, the flesh stretched into strands that tightly bound the bottom of the abyss, leaving not a single gap.

The flesh and blood were still pulsating between them.

With each heartbeat, the clumps of flesh swelled, spreading from the base of the pillar to the shaft and then outwards.

The entire Bronze City was built to suppress this thing.

Lu Yuan clenched his fists instinctively.

During his previous visit to the Beifang pipeline network, he was already awestruck just by standing atop the Hive Abyss and looking down. This time, however, he had truly reached the deepest point.

The "piece of flesh and blood" that the city builder sealed away back then is probably more than just a piece of flesh.

Lu Yuan's gray and white words finally surfaced under his constant gaze.

[Target detected: Taboo? ? (Remnant limb) (Resurrection)]

[The flesh and blood of a being from the cosmos, stripped away, seems to have been corrupted by something. Over countless ages, it has developed its own consciousness. Perhaps one day, it will be crowned in this abyss.]

The moment the gray and white text appeared and Lu Yuan could see it clearly, an extremely strong sense of being watched rose in his heart.

[Warning: You are being watched by the abyss. Your sanity is being assessed...]

[Detection successful.]

[Warning: You are being watched by the stars. Determining your rationality...]

[Judgment failed. Sanity -3...132/140]

Lu Yuan frowned slightly.

The next moment, the key in his left eye emitted a faint light, enveloping his entire being. All his scattered rational judgments vanished.

Meanwhile, the piece of flesh pinned underneath began to stir. Its base spread and wriggled outwards, as if it were restless.

Deep within Lu Yuan's left eye, the worm of knowledge had awakened.

It peeked out and then hurriedly shrank back under the key.

Lu Yuan could sense the emotions it conveyed: tension mixed with apprehension, but no fear whatsoever.

During the time this little thing spent wandering in the sea of knowledge, it must have seen many similar things. It wasn't afraid, just nervous, since the authority on this thing wasn't complete.

At the same time, the chill on Lu Yuan's left leg exploded in that instant.

As if stimulated by something, the black mist around the drowning man suddenly contracted, shrinking into a small ball that clung tightly to Lu Yuan's left leg bone.

The emotion was much stronger and clearer than before; it was filled with fear, as if I was trembling from head to toe.

It desperately tried to shrink back, wanting to get as far away from this thing as possible, but it couldn't leave Lu Yuan's body after all.

Lu Yuan activated the power in his mind, and the teardrop-shaped key turned slightly, exuding a trace of energy.

But before that breath could reach his left leg, the drowning man stopped moving.

The black mist was still trembling slightly, indicating that it had indeed stopped struggling. Its two empty black eye sockets slowly closed, clearly realizing that it could not escape.

Lu Yuan stared at the shrinking black energy on his left leg for a moment. "This thing is starting to make its own judgments," he thought to himself.

He did not reclaim any authority and instead turned his attention back to the present.

Klaus was standing on the edge of the cliff.

The green light on the bone ring stopped flashing, and the thread that had guided the special individual's retreat direction broke completely here, pointing to the deeper darkness.

Klaus's eyes were covered by a layer of green light, staring motionlessly at the flesh and blood at the bottom of the abyss.

Lu Yuan didn't immediately go over. His attention was drawn to something else.

Deep in his consciousness, the thread that held the first three fragments suddenly stretched to its limit, pointing straight ahead to a bronze pillar half-buried in the flesh and blood of the cliff face to his right.

The fourth fragment is clearly there.

Without any hesitation, Lu Yuan bent down and ran towards the bronze pillar.

Most of the pillar was embedded in the flesh and blood of the cliff face, with only a palm-width section of bronze surface showing.

He didn't hesitate. He didn't know if the flesh below would really go berserk, but he knew even better that once he revealed that he had "contacted the fragments," the thing below would definitely try to kill him.

It has become conscious and must remember what the city builders did to it back then.

Lu Yuan placed his hand on it.

A cold touch came, and my consciousness sank.

The moment consciousness encountered the fragments, a fragmented image suddenly flooded into the mind.

Lu Yuan saw a figure.

The figure was extremely tall and thin, wearing a long robe of unknown era, standing in a pitch-black space.

He was holding something in his hands, but the image was blurry, and Lu Yuan couldn't see the whole thing.

The image tore apart. The Taoist figure had made some kind of deal with a tiny figure in front of him.

He took off the crown from his head and handed it down, whereupon the small figure below reached out and caught it.

It was a huge golden crown, inlaid with seven glass beads of different colors.

Perhaps they weren't glass beads, and Lu Yuan didn't know what they were. He only saw that the beads emitted a dreamlike luster in the dark space, exuding an indescribable warmth.

The screen flickered again.

The figure who received the crown arrived in front of a bronze wall, made some simple arrangements, and then placed the crown inside.

The moment the crown disappeared into the copper wall, the wall slammed shut with a resounding boom, and golden light burst forth from the gaps.

In the last frame, the person turns around.

A golden, sun-like object hovered beside him. Lu Yuan couldn't see it clearly; the image was extremely distorted, leaving only a blurry outline and an indescribable ancient aura.

The gray and white text finally popped up.

Bronze City: 4/5

[Current Status of Bronze City: +1...]

Lu Yuan's mind went blank.

The footage didn't actually contain much information, but the aura it exuded gave Lu Yuan the illusion that he was spying on some forbidden being.

It was only then that Lu Yuan realized that a whole bunch of rationality judgments had popped up in front of him, but under the protection of the key, they all succeeded.

This being is of an extremely high level. Even if one only glimpses a fraction of it, one's reason would be severely damaged. Fortunately, he has the key to the sea of knowledge.

The crown appears extremely sacred and powerful in the picture, and the luster it exudes carries a warm feeling.

But this feeling was quite different from what Lu Yuan had seen and heard before.

The scene he had seen inside the Bronze City walls before exuded an extremely unsettling atmosphere, completely different from the scene before him.

Has something else gone wrong?

There was no time to think.

The moment the fragment was activated, the flesh below seemed to be stimulated.

In the distance, Klaus had already stood up.

The green light emanating from him was fading, and the luster on his bone ring was dimming. His expression was calm, but Lu Yuan felt that his eyes were different from before, as if something was added or missing.

Klaus didn't take anything from underneath.

He took one last look at the blood and flesh, then turned and walked towards Lu Yuan.

"Hurry up."

His voice was very low, leaving no room for maneuver.

Lu Yuan did not speak, nor was he allowed to ask at this moment.

The echoing heartbeats in the surrounding abyss grew deeper and faster.

The flesh and blood coiled on the bronze pillars surged toward Lu Yuan and Klaus as if they had gone mad.

A faint shadow surged out from below, its flesh and blood resembling lava, spraying upwards in streams.

That thing went berserk.

Or rather, it got provoked.

A scorching, fishy wind swept in from below. A new line of gray text appeared before Lu Yuan's eyes.

[Environmental Awareness: Forbidden presence detected. Please flee.]