80: Chapter 80 Li Qingxiao

At the same time, the terrifying effect of the Battlefield Reconstruction was fully realized!

Many meticulous geniuses, well-versed in Dungeon mechanics, had already harbored ulterior motives long before the reconstruction.

They deliberately camped at the boundary lines between the two major areas to exploit bugs!

They intended to exploit the differences in the battlefield zones, waiting for the new rules to refresh, and then immediately slip into whichever area favored them to survive, hunt, and avoid disadvantages.

But this time—they had completely miscalculated!

[This Battlefield Reconstruction: Global plate random displacement and reorganization]

The once clearly defined regional boundaries were instantly shattered, disordered, and reset!

For all the Contestants who were camping on the edges to exploit bugs, gambling on luck, or positioning themselves, the scene before them suddenly turned upside down!

One second, they were still on the safe boundary edge.

The next second, space shifted, and the plates inverted!

And some of them suddenly realized they seemed to be in the center of the battlefield.

Enemies on all sides!

Danger from every direction!

They were in the most dangerous core kill zone!

Countless opportunists instantly turned pale, their bodies went cold, and their mental states shattered completely.

Opportunism, in the face of absolute battlefield rules, was both laughable and pathetic.

And as the final earth-shattering tremor ended—the entire once-endless, withered yellow wasteland completely vanished!

In its place was a massive Corrosive Swamp, pitch-black and muddy, reeking of a foul stench, and filled with miasma!

Dark brown sludge covered the land, deep and muddy; one step would sink your ankle into the sticky, suffocating mire.

The swamp surface constantly bubbled with decay, and wisps of gray-black corrosive miasma slowly rose, permeating the entire world.

The air was humid, cold, putrid, and highly toxic.

The ground was soft and muddy, making it impossible to run at high speed, dodge quickly, or use force to maneuver.

The environment carried a weak corrosive effect, continuously wearing down the physical body.

The openness of the wasteland had completely vanished, replaced by a depressing, viscous, insidious, and trapping swamp death trap!

The brand-new battlefield—the Corrosive Swamp—had fully formed!

From this point on, this battlefield had completely entered the darkest, most oppressive, and most cruel period of overlapping rules.

[The battlefield terrain for this area is: Corrosive Swamp—this area contains a large amount of Corrosive Swamp; movement speed in this area is reduced by 15%, and one layer of corrosive damage is stacked every minute, with each layer dealing 10 points of magic damage, up to a maximum of 100 layers.]

[Current Battlefield Rules: Mana Depletion—magic and ability-type skill costs are doubled, and all characters on the field lose a fixed amount of mana per second. Remaining time: 2 hours; Item Prohibition—all items, potions, scrolls, enhancement items, mechanical accessories, consumables, etc., are banned across the field. Remaining time: 4 hours.]

Boom!

A savage battle-axe cleaved down!

A massive, thick-skinned Elite Sludge Demon King was split open at the head, its huge body crashing heavily into the sludge, splashing black mud everywhere.

[Killed Elite Sludge Demon King, points +1300]

With a backhand stomp, his physical brute force exploded, shattering two attacking Corrosive Poison Lizards.

As several consecutive elite monsters fell, Lin Yan's points rose steadily; his crushing hunt never ceased.

[Current accumulated points: 30000, Bounty points: 4000]

After clearing the last elite monster in the vicinity, the swamp finally became briefly quiet.

Lin Yan looked up, his pitch-black eyes scanning the surroundings indifferently, as he activated [Blood Qi Perception] to scout the area.

The next instant, his gaze suddenly locked onto a spot a hundred zhang away!

Monsters there were constantly falling, as if someone was crazily reaping them on the other side.

Lin Yan frowned slightly; there weren't many people who could maintain such high-efficiency monster grinding in a hellhole like the Corrosive Swamp.

So, he headed in that direction.

As he ventured deeper, he suddenly heard a clear, melodic poetic voice piercing through the miasma—sharp, unrestrained, and arrogant, like an exiled immortal descending to the mortal realm, laughing at the corrupt world, instantly drowning out all the sounds of wind, water, and monster wails in the swamp!

["Drunkenly lying in the mud for three hundred zhang, let the foul air become the spring breeze!"]

As the poetic voice faded, a wild wind suddenly arose.

Large swathes of miasma were actually blown away.

Immediately after—Boom!

Dozens of swamp monsters were torn apart by wind blades.

Lin Yan continued forward; the poetic voice drew nearer, and the scene before him gradually became clear.

He saw a young man in white standing in the center of the swamp, poetic light swirling under his feet.

Dozens of monsters surrounded and attacked him, but he didn't look like he was fighting at all; instead, he looked like he was out for a leisurely stroll.

Walking.

Reciting poetry.

Killing monsters.

["Hidden in my sleeves are the sun and moon, beneath my sword rise mountains and rivers."]

Clang!

The long sword was unsheathed.

A hundred-zhang sword light swept across, and monsters fell in swathes.

["The Corrosive Swamp buries withered bones, poetry and wine comfort a lifetime."]

Poetic charm flowed, and mana was restored.

The mana he had just consumed was instantly replenished.

The hidden Contestants around were completely numb; the young man in white, surrounded by cyan and white poetic spiritual light, was actually slowly recovering, circulating, and filling up!

Others' mana bars were completely dried up, not a sliver of spiritual energy remaining!

He, however, was actually regenerating mana!

Under the rules that banned all spiritual energy across the field, this person could recover mana against the trend just by reciting poetry!

Heaven-defying!

It completely shattered everyone's understanding!

All around the swamp, there was dead silence and terror.

Others were being tortured to the point of wanting to die by [Mana Depletion].

This guy was reciting poetry while regenerating mana; while others were struggling to survive, he seemed to be on a vacation.

Seeing this, Lin Yan finally stopped and took his first serious look at this person.

Just then, the last elite monster crashed down.

The young man in white then slowly sheathed his sword.

Seeming to sense something, he turned his head to look.

Their gazes collided across the swamp.

Li Qingxiao was stunned for a moment, then his eyes lit up.

He looked at the battle scars on Lin Yan's heavy armor, as if he had finally found something interesting.

He suddenly burst into loud laughter.

"Hahahaha!"

"Finally, I've met someone decent!"

"All the way here, all I've met are rats hiding and cowering."

"It's rare to come across someone who dares to push forward head-on in the swamp."

He wore a pure white robe with wide sleeves, his garments flapping arrogantly in the wind, unstained by a single speck of swamp mud or dust.

His long hair was tied up casually, his brows and eyes sharp and unruly, carrying an air of dashing wildness that looked down upon the common people.

In his hand, he casually waved a flowing cloud white feather fan; hanging at his waist was a slender Qingxiao long sword.

Though the sword was not drawn, its edge already concealed the power of heaven and earth.

His gait was casual and unrestrained; beneath his feet was the impassable Corrosive Swamp, yet he walked upon it as if it were flat ground, elegant as an immortal.

The swamp's slowing effect, the miasma's corrosion—it seemed that all negative effects were completely ineffective against him!

The young man in white walked out slowly, standing in the center of the cleared area, his voice like a gentle breeze passing through the ears, heroic and open, carrying the unique dashing pride of a poetry immortal.

"I am Li Qingxiao."

[Li Qingxiao, A-Rank Talent · Poetic Charm Over the Heavens—reciting poetry grants corresponding bonuses.]

As he spoke, he raised his hand and pointed into the distance.

Li Qingxiao's eyes suddenly became fervent.

Deep within the thick miasma, a pale cyan light seemed to pierce through the heavy black fog; with thick spiritual energy and condensed light, another Elite Resource Point had refreshed!

"Riding the wind to this place, I see a treasure appear.

Battlefield treasures have always belonged to the strong.

You and I shall rely on our own abilities; the winner takes this treasure, and the loser departs."

"How about it?"

No tedious formalities, no coy refinement; it was clean, decisive, wild, and unrestrained.

On the field, Lin Yan's expression remained unchanged.

He looked at the dashing and arrogant young man in white before him, his eyes devoid of surprise or astonishment, holding only a calm indifference.

All the way here, he had relied on his physical body to push through all enemies; in the face of absolute physical hardness, everything else was vanity.

Lin Yan gripped his battle-axe with one hand, his body sinking slightly, silently signaling his acceptance of the challenge.