In the Arena City.

Yang Qian and his team emerged from the room, utterly exhausted.

“Wow, so many people.”

He thought his faction was already a somewhat sizable force in the city, but he never expected so many people to be gathered on the platform ahead.

A figure shaking a colorful scroll was hawking amidst the crowd.

“My name is A-Guo. Anyone willing to invest in me? The Time Fracture Sequence I draw will be split evenly, and the prototype gear gets priority sale!”

Before his words faded, countless folded beams had already gathered over his chest, nearly forming a cone of light. The man, his face almost splitting with a grin, took his place in the lottery line, waiting for his turn to try his luck.

“Your ten tries are up—my turn! It’s mine now!”

The platform buzzed with noise, a crowd gathered around a big spinning wheel.

A figure in a faded, tawny leather jacket, carrying a sword sheathed in a protective scabbard on his back, had just pulled the lever for the last time when someone grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him aside.

His teammate seized control in one go!

Beside the newcomer stood two men clenching their fists, one of them with a blood-stained bandage wrapped around his hand.

“Old Xu, you got this!”

Old Xu’s gaze turned resolute, his steady hand gripping the electrical lever.

“Ah! Let’s go! Good mysterious prize, appear for me!”

Crack!

—“Congratulations! You’ve won a fine apron. With it, dinner will be even more delicious.”

“Again!”

Crack! Crash! Crack! Crash!

The spinning wheel turned continuously, and soon all ten chances were used up. The man, whose face was gradually collapsing with despair, was yanked out by someone.

“No envelope… no… it’s fake, a deceptive trick.”

The man muttered painfully, when suddenly a burst of cheers erupted beside him.

“I’ve got the envelope!”

Rip! The envelope’s opening was instantly torn open, and the man used his hand to spread the edges.

[I have obtained the 【Sub-Ether Channel Trial: Dark Gold Hubville】.]

{Dude, fifteen million hours of time base, plus future protection, and a monthly free time base deduction sponsorship.}

{Sell this to me, and I’ll give you thirty million hours of time base, plus a villa in Hubville!}

{Twenty million plus a Century Weapon, big shot, sell it to me!}

“Give it to me!” A man snatched his arm in a lunge.

Amidst the chaotic silver streaks of light, the man who had drawn the envelope quickly used his red “Pawl” token, voluntarily forfeiting his right to continue competing to avoid being attacked.

Some of the surrounding onlookers, who had been eyeing him with menace, reluctantly gave up their intention to snatch it.

However, just as the five-second countdown was about to end, a faint glimmer of light flickered in the sky, beside the blazing sun!

Whoosh! In an instant, the man holding the envelope emitted a series of erratic crackling sounds, his body shriveling into a charred black husk. The trial photo paper, however, still fluttered between his now-defiled, living fingernails.

The crowd erupted into chaos.

The crowd’s hair stood on end. This spike-like streak of light split the sky in an instant, shot down onto the platform, and precisely struck down the man who had just grabbed the photo.

{I am Lü Bu. Touch the photo and die!}

Over a hundred people on the platform turned their heads, glaring at a man in a thin down jacket and a baseball cap. With eyes full of scorn in his eyes, he stepped out from a Mordo Fang Chamber.

A group of Red Model people emerged from behind him, approaching the area.

“Lü Bu! How dare you provoke everyone here!”

No sooner had a man radiating a fierce red light in the crowd roared than another beam of light shot down from the sky.

Bang! Caught in the crowd, he instantly turned into a stinky, foot-odor-emitting char.

“Ah!”

The people around him recoiled in terror, narrowly avoiding pushing down those beside them and causing a stampede.

A pale-faced boy walked forward from Lü Bu’s side, and everyone before him made way. Just as the boy was about to reach the human-shaped char still clutching the photo paper, someone suddenly reached out and snatched it away.

“Hahaha, it’s mine. I’ve already used my ratchet. I struck in the last second—there’s nothing you can do…”

“Very well. Your teammates, everyone you care about, won’t live past mid-month. If you want to flee this with some pitiful ten-thousand-year credit reserves? Sorry, until this MagicHero Palace disappears, you can neither arrange that nor send the item away.”

Zhou Yu stepped forward with a smile, looking at the person clutching the photo, as well as the two teammates behind him.

The two were terrified as they stared at the man shrouded in an energy layer resembling bent water droplets. In the next second, they only felt a sharp pain, their vision blurring, and their consciousness fading away…

“You didn’t need to hand me the photo because it was already ours.”

Zhou Yu smiled as he looked at everyone ahead:

“All the envelopes here are ours. Come on, everyone, line up and start drawing lots one by one.”

{People of City 41, we will invest in you. Together, you can take him down…}

“Brothers, everyone, let’s—”

Boom!

A dazzling burst of light flashed across the sky!

Before the speaker among the crowd could finish, he was reduced to charcoal under a flash resembling a camera’s shutter.

Those who had just shown some hesitation immediately backed off.

{Why aren’t you moving! Whoever takes down the meddler, I’ll reward him with fifty thousand Temporal Clocks.}

{Whoever wants to leave this place, we will grant them investment and guarantee not to withdraw funds.}

Threads glowing with bits of information flickered, but no one dared to respond.

Lü Bu tugged at the brim of his cap. “You keep an eye on this place. Zhao Yun, let’s continue.”

……

“Lü Bu.” Yang Zicang furrowed his brows tightly together.

Whether due to the influence of hierarchy, it was clear that Lü Bu’s satellite Demonic Nightmare attack range had already shrunk.

If this continues, the attack range of its satellite demonic nightmares might shrink to the thickness of a bucket, a bowl, or even a bottle cap, at which point Li Mi’s planned countermeasures will become ineffective.

In the scene, Lü Bu, accompanied only by Zhao Yun, stepped into the next chamber filled with hordes of monsters—the Mordo Fang Chamber.

Two or three hours later, Yang Zicang saw the two of them pass through the third water curtain, arriving at the most critical battle point designed by Boboli.

In Boboli’s design, the two cities of the Demon Hero Hall lock together like the “Tai Chi double fish,” intertwining with each other, while the core wheel set serves as the “black and white” Yin-Yang eyes.

At this moment, the mental power field of the Demon Hero Hall directly connects the geographic spaces of the two cities. Each city can only collect up to four colored pawls, and the fifth pawl of a different color must be obtained from the opposing city, thus granting eligibility to reach the “eye position” and unlock the water path to the final chamber.

“You’ve made it here by the third day… it seems you might actually reach the final chamber within five days.”

Yang Zicang once again examined the cube that imprisoned him.

Suddenly, the murmurs of Lü Bu and Zhao Yun reached his ears. Following Zhao Yun’s finger, Yang Zicang looked into the distant gaps between the rotating gears, where several large palaces of various colors were suspected to exist.

{In the duel of the Twin Cities clash, participants can head to the Five-Color Hall to obtain the right to have all spectators invest in themselves.}

“What?”

{Reminder: Once you reach the vicinity of the Five-Color Hall, you automatically gain the financing right. You are free to decide whether to let the accumulated time sequence exceed 10,000 years.}

{Duration of financing rights: three hundred and sixty-five days!}

Yang Zicang stood up in shock.

“This is also Croft’s doing!”

……

“Heh heh, this is my revision.”

Somewhere, Croft lounged lazily in his chair, his legs propped up on a spacious desk, watching the “Permanent Magic Hero Hall Live Broadcast” in front of him.

On the desk in front of him stood a triangular brass plate, inscribed with the words: [Chief Advisor of the First Permanent Magic Hero Hall Expert Advisory Group: Head Designer Dwight Croft, Executive].

“As the proposer of the urgently formed expert advisory group, if I don’t show off my skills properly, how can I keep those factions in check, huh… and how can I justify the enthusiastic investments from all these spectators?”

……

The grayish-black mini engine appeared in Yang Zicang’s palm.

[I have been informed that the Sub-Ether Space is being sealed up as well.]

“Even the Etheric passages can be sealed away.”

Yang Zicang looked up, seeing faint ripples of dense energy slowly spreading across the surface of the cube.

“The only option is to wait? No…”

Yang Zicang initiated his contemplation, and all external perceptions were completely cut off.

“Although one can clearly see the outside from within, it is difficult to sense the outside world with mental power.”

Yang Zicang, restless and frazzled, let his thoughts wander aimlessly. He stood up and walked over to the toilet.

“Even with the help of the ‘Right of Mental Manifestation,’ it’s still hard to perceive it.”

I’ll just have to wait until the fifth day then!

Will I, by that time, be in time to do anything?

Gurgle, gurgle.

The water screen of the toilet rippled.

Even setting aside the city’s ranking, wasn’t there an additional reward given by the parliament member? It was placed as a prize in the year-end City Ranking Battle. What could that reward be?

As the surface of the puddle inside the toilet returned to calm, Yang Zicang’s finger hovered over the flush button of the toilet.

Suddenly, a thought struck him.

“The toilet?”

In the empty room, the young man stood before the toilet, his hand frozen above the flush button.

“The water level has always had this amplitude… where does the flushed water go? If it’s manifested from energy, then what about my waste? That’s not made of energy.”

Yang Zicang’s heart grew a bit tense.

He sensed the “Right of Mental Manifestation” within himself. Perhaps because he was trapped in confinement, or because the Lost Illusion Company had rarely applied for such benefits, this mental enhancement power—granted by some powerful entity—had not yet been stripped away.

Yang Zicang stared intently at the water’s surface.

If all things were holding some kind of dialogue with him in the Silent Night, then the substance that inherently carried his own aura would surely be far easier to control.

[I, the insignificant quadrilateral, activate the Silent Night.]

“It’s up to you now, the gift of the lost fate!”

Yang Zicang pressed the flush button.

[I, the insignificant quadrilateral, begin to employ the “Right of Mental Manifestation.”]

With the aid of the powerful “Right of Mental Manifestation,” the “Silent Night” quickly located this released stream of hot water.

It was swiftly carried by the water gushing out of the tank, rushing into tight spaces.

The Right of Mental Manifestation traced its movement trajectory in the sea of the mind—the toilet, through a mysterious channel, rapidly transported the excreted waste to the outside world.

Dark, putrid, and with a strong air of inherent disgust… Yang Zicang struggled to suppress the discomfort within.

The White Shadow Thought-Dragon hesitated as it charged into the sewer, only to be quickly blocked by a mass of mysterious energy.

“My spiritual power has indeed connected to the outside, but now what… what should I do…”

A dozen or so rooms away, in the Radiance Department, Huan Bao’er’s gaze suddenly flickered slightly.

“Hmm?” She lowered her head-propping hand, the corner of her eye twitching, “That kid… he’s really efficient at stirring things up.”

With that, she shifted her gaze back to the ancient screen in front of her.