203: Chapter 202 Embedded Multi-Trial Type Secret Realm

Lin Fan's left eye lit up, scanning from the base of the pillar of light to its peak.

The black patterns on the pillar's surface were no longer a blurry squirming in his vision, but had transformed into distinct energy circuits.

[Pure Secret Realm · Third Layer · Sealing Pillar · Core.]

[Attribute: Exit/Seal. Twin-born structure, inseparable.]

[Status: Seal integrity approximately sixty percent. Exit activation condition—defeat the Guardian Beast of the Seal.]

Lin Fan withdrew his left eye's gaze and turned to face Shen Shuang and the others.

“I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is... this is indeed the exit.”

Shen Shuang pulled her hand back from the pillar's surface, her eyebrows arching slightly.

Xu Ziyan stood up from the stone platform, forgetting to retract his right foot as it stepped onto the ground.

The others whispered among themselves, their faces showing varying degrees of joy.

“The bad news is... it’s also a Seal. To leave through the exit, we must defeat the Guardian Beast beneath the Seal.”

The voices on the stone platform suddenly vanished.

Shen Shuang’s hands hung at her sides, her fingertips just centimeters from the pillar. She slowly retracted her hand and took a step back.

“A multi-chimeric Secret Realm, where every entrance is guarded by an Armor Beast, the exit is connected to a Seal, and a Guardian Beast is suppressed beneath the Seal—this isn't a normal Secret Realm. This is a Trial-type Secret Realm.”

She paused for a moment.

“We studied this in the Secret Realm Taxonomy textbook at the Federal Military Academy. Trial-type Secret Realms are different from ordinary ones. In an ordinary Secret Realm, you can leave once you find the exit, but not in a Trial-type. The exit of a Trial-type Secret Realm is locked by a Seal, and to leave, you must defeat the Armor Beast guarding it. Every layer is a trial, and the Guardian Beasts get stronger the further down you go. The final guardian at the bottom layer is the true exit.”

Yu Nian murmured.

“For a Special-Grade Trial-type Secret Realm, what is the minimum Rank for the final Guardian Armor Beast?”

Shen Shuang did not answer.

She didn't need to.

Everyone knew the answer.

They all looked toward the stone platform in unison.

The stone platform extended nearly a hundred meters deep into the sand layers. At the base of the stone pillar was a massive shadow. That shadow wasn't just an Armor Beast; it was far larger, like a mountain submerged deep within the sea of sand.

“Rank eighty and above.”

Shen Shuang's voice was squeezed out from between her teeth.

Xu Ziyan looked horrified.

“Then why even fight? We might as well wash up and prepare for our funerals.”

Shen Shuang's expression was heavy. After a few seconds of silence, she spoke.

“Let's pull back first. I'll try to contact the outside world again.”

As she spoke, she turned and walked toward the edge of the barrier, and the others followed behind her.

Ye Qing stood up and reached out to help Lin Fan.

But she found that Lin Fan wasn't moving.

His left eye was still glowing, and the golden crystals deep within his pupil had changed from slow rotation to rapid spinning, like an overloaded processor running frantically.

“It's too late.”

Lin Fan's voice wasn't loud, but everyone on the stone platform heard it.

Everyone stopped in their tracks.

The pillar of light exploded.

The black patterns on the surface of the pillar all lit up at the same instant. Deep purple light gushed out from the patterns, illuminating the entire stone platform as bright as day.

Chains appeared in the air.

Illusory dark-gold chains condensed from the air around the pillar of light. One end of the chains was connected to the pillar, while the other end vanished into the darkness overhead.

Immediately after, the first chain snapped in the middle. A cluster of dark-gold light specks exploded at the break, dissipating into the air.

Then came the second, and the third.

The speed at which the chains snapped became faster and faster. Dark-gold light specks exploded above the stone platform like fireworks, illuminating everyone's faces in flickering light.

When the final chain snapped, the entire stone platform shuddered.

A deafening dragon's roar echoed from underground, making everyone's eardrums ache from the vibration.

Xu Ziyan stood up from the ground, both legs trembling. “What on earth is locked down there?”

An information panel popped up in Lin Fan's left eye. Through the already cracked ground, he saw a pair of fierce pupils.

[Species]: Wanjun Dust Dragon

[Rank]: Rank 83

[Aptitude]: Mid-tier saint spirit rank

[Attribute]: Earth

[Status]: Under Seal, awakened, currently breaking through the final layer of the Seal.

[Evaluation]: A mid-tier saint spirit rank Dragon-type Armor Beast, renowned for its defense and area-of-effect attacks. Its scales have extremely high resistance to physical attacks and most elemental attacks. Its wings can whip up sandstorms to cover a large area. Its Dragon Breath is a high-temperature air current mixed with sand grains, capable of melting through rock.

[Weakness]: The belly scales are relatively thin. The eyes are not covered by scales.

A Rank 83 Armor Beast, and a dragon-type at that. Even the usually optimistic Lin Fan felt that they were truly doomed this time.

Just then, the ground shook violently, and a bottomless fissure cracked open.

A grayish-white claw emerged from the fissure, covered in fine scales.

The scales were grayish-white, and the claw had five curved, sharp talons. The talons were blackish-gray, each as long as Xu Ziyan's forearm.

Then came a section of a grayish-white long tail. There was no venomous stinger at the tip, but the scales on the tail were larger and thicker than those on the body, like rows of connected shields.

Then came the head.

The head emerging from the hollow was larger than the entire body of the Desert Emperor Scorpion.

Its snout was long and slender, and grayish-white air currents puffed from its nostrils, mixed with tiny grains of sand.

Its eyes were deep brown with vertical pupils as it rose from the hollow.

As those eyes moved from darkness into the light, the pupils constricted sharply. After adjusting to the moonlight, they slowly dilated, locking onto the seven people on the stone platform.

Its body was even larger than the outline scanned by Lin Fan's left eye, nearly a hundred meters in total length, like a moving hill.

The grayish-white scales shimmered with a dull silver light under the moon. The edges of the scales were dark gray, as if each one had been toasted by charcoal fire.

Its wings unfolded from its back, with a wingspan longer than its body. The wing membranes were grayish-white and translucent, allowing the blood vessels beneath to be seen pulsing.

The fissure expanded frantically, and sand poured down like a rainstorm.

The Wanjun Dust Dragon's massive body was rising inch by inch from deep underground.

Every time it moved upward, the entire stone platform vibrated violently.

The hard rocky foundation emitted the sound of cracking under the unbearable weight.

A grayish-white giant claw pressed heavily onto the ground, its five blackish-gray talons embedding deeply into the rock, leaving behind several bone-deep gouges.

The long tail swept across, the wind pressure booming in mid-air. The stone pillars near the group were instantly snapped in half.

The breaks were as smooth as mirrors. Before the rubble could even hit the ground, it was ground to dust by the raging sand whipped up around the beast.

Then, the head, comparable to a small mountain peak, completely emerged from the darkness.

The grayish-white air currents exhaled from its nostrils carried scalding sand, stinging the faces of everyone present with a burning heat.

The deep brown vertical pupils slowly scanned the scene, devoid of emotion, containing only the most primal ferocity and indifference, as if looking at a swarm of insignificant ants.

When its hundred-meter-long body was fully revealed under the moonlight, the entire sea of sand seemed to pale in comparison.

The semi-transparent wings slowly unfurled behind it. As the membranes flapped, a wild wind rose, and the sky-filling dust was swept up, forming circles of turbid sand rings that enveloped the entire stone platform.

It did not roar immediately, nor did it launch an attack.

It simply hovered quietly in mid-air, lowering its head slightly.

The terrifying pressure originating from a saint spirit rank dragon species crashed down like a mountain, leaving everyone present stiff and making even breathing incredibly difficult.

The Wanjun Dust Dragon had officially descended.