154: Chapter 154 Frost Armor Tomb

The black stone gate was pulled open.

A rush of cold wind from behind the gate slammed out.

The gray-white mist was torn apart, rolling past their legs toward the fungal forest.

Zhao Mengmeng had just raised her crossbow when her shoulders shivered.

Cold.

This chill carried no moisture, drilling directly into the gaps of her bones.

She had just been so stifled by the spores on the Fifth Floor that she almost vomited, and now she felt as if her windpipe was about to frost over.

"Brother Lin, does this tower offer hot and cold alternating massages?"

"The fee is expensive."

Lin Ye did not step forward.

He released the door ring.

Blood seeped from the seams of his gloves, quickly freezing into dark red ice crystals at his knuckles.

There were no stairs leading upward inside the gate.

Nor were there any narrow passages.

What revealed itself before them was an underground ice plain plaza with no visible edges.

The ground was covered in a thick layer of white frost.

Beneath the frost layer lay blue-black stone slabs.

In the distance, ice mist spread horizontally, and countless inverted icicles hung from the gray, dim dome.

The plaza was filled with statues.

Thousands of them.

Each one was over two meters tall.

Clad in heavy armor, holding spears, greatswords, war hammers, and scimitars.

Their entire bodies were sealed in deep blue, solid ice.

They maintained poses of charging, slashing, blocking, kneeling with heads raised, and so on.

Damaged armor was sealed within the ice.

Black frost marks remained in the gaps of the armor.

This was a graveyard frozen in time after a battle.

A pale blue light screen popped up before his right eye.

[Sixth Floor: Frost Armored Soldier Tomb]

Zhao Mengmeng scanned the surroundings and lowered her voice.

"Soldier Tomb? That's an ominous name."

"Don't enter the formation yet."

Lin Ye crouched down and picked up a piece of broken ice near the door.

As soon as the ice touched his hand, a layer of white frost formed on the outer layer of his glove.

He didn't rush to test it.

Left Eye opened instantly.

The world shed its surface cold light.

The interiors of the vast majority of the ice statues were dim.

There was no vitality, nor were there any dangerous fluctuations.

Yet, within this dimness, dozens of glaring red dots were hidden very deep.

The red dots were encased in deep blue ice, scattered throughout the statue array.

No breathing.

No heartbeat.

Only an extremely high concentration of pollution activity.

Dormant.

Waiting.

Lin Ye closed his eyes.

Having used Left Eye at high frequency on the Fifth Floor, his mental energy had been ground to the edge.

The stinging pain at the base of his eyes had not yet dissipated.

But this one look was enough.

"There are living ones inside."

Zhao Mengmeng hooked her finger onto the trigger guard.

"How many?"

"Dozens."

She looked at the three thousand-plus ice statues, her expression ugly.

"Dozens hidden among three thousand, are we playing a blind box game?"

"Yes, pick wrong and you die."

Lin Ye swapped the broken ice for a black stone.

This stone had crumbled off the threshold of the Fifth Floor and was frozen hard.

He casually tossed it toward an empty space a dozen meters to his right.

Snap.

The stone hit the ground.

The crisp sound exploded across the ice plain plaza.

The vast space amplified and rebounded the sound, hitting the surface of every heavy-armored statue.

Crack.

The ice layer on the head of a sword-wielding knight to the front right cracked.

Cracks spread downward from the top of the helmet.

Two clusters of ghostly green cold light lit up inside the armor.

It turned its head stiffly.

The thick ice armor rubbed against itself, emitting a harsh, shattering sound.

Zhao Mengmeng raised her crossbow.

The arrowhead locked onto the ice knight's helmet.

A strange thing happened.

The awakened ice knight froze in place.

The greatsword that had just been raised half an inch stopped.

The ghostly green cold light inside the helmet was still shining, but it did not continue to advance.

Zhao Mengmeng's eyes felt sore, but she forced herself not to blink.

"It stopped?"

"Keep staring."

Lin Ye's voice was extremely clipped.

Zhao Mengmeng didn't dare shift her gaze.

The ice plain plaza returned to silence.

Only the fungal forest behind the gate was still dropping white fluff in the distance.

Zhao Mengmeng's eyelids were numbed by the cold wind.

She held on for over ten seconds, but finally couldn't hold it any longer.

She blinked once.

Click!

The ice knight vanished from its spot.

The next instant, it shifted three meters.

Its deep blue heavy armor dragging broken ice, it was almost within five steps of Lin Ye.

Zhao Mengmeng's scalp prickled violently.

Her crossbow locked onto it again.

The ice knight froze once more.

Its greatsword was already raised, the blade less than two meters from Lin Ye's shoulder.

"Holy crap!"

Zhao Mengmeng's curse almost cracked.

"Don't blink for too long."

Lin Ye raised his Fire Axe.

The axe blade pointed toward the side seam of the ice knight's knee armor.

He didn't strike.

Shattering this one would attract more with the noise.

No one knew if this thing would explode into a large area of cold mist after dying.

"Line-of-sight judgment."

Zhao Mengmeng swallowed, her eyes wide and red.

"It doesn't move if you stare at it, but gets right in your face if you don't?"

"Sound induction."

Lin Ye looked at the point where the stone had landed.

"It was woken up by the sound just now."

"Does the designer of this floor have some serious illness?"

"The illness is quite systematic."

Lin Ye stepped back half a step, standing back-to-back with Zhao Mengmeng.

He pressed his left hand on her shoulder armor, adjusting their positioning.

"Follow my instructions."

"I'll watch the front, you watch the right."

"Don't look at me, and don't turn your head randomly."

Zhao Mengmeng's voice squeezed through her teeth.

"What about the left?"

"I'll remind you when I switch eyes."

"Are you sure?"

"Not sure, but staying here means certain death."

Zhao Mengmeng couldn't refute that.

"Fine, I'll practice the non-blinking stunt today."

Lin Ye held the Fire Axe across his chest.

He didn't activate Left Eye for a full sweep again.

He only used extremely short gazes to confirm danger points within ten meters ahead.

Of the three nearest living ice statues, one had awakened, and two had not moved.

Dead statues blocked the path, living statues created gaps.

They had to pass through the array and find the exit to the Sixth Floor.

Retreat to the Fifth Floor?

The blue ball algae was exhausted.

Martin and Blake's deaths had activated a large area of the parasitic zone; going back would only result in being gnawed into empty shells by the spores.

"First step, put your right foot in my footprint."

Lin Ye spoke.

Zhao Mengmeng stared at the awakened ice knight on the right and moved her body backward.

The two moved slowly sideways, back to back.

Their boot soles stepped across the white frost.

The frost layer cracked into fine pieces.

The sound was unusually harsh on the ice plain.

The ice knight on the right did not move.

The red light inside a spear-wielding statue ahead was locked by Lin Ye.

He nailed his gaze onto the position of its helmet.

That statue was still sealed in its ice shell.

He couldn't gamble.

The two succeeded in the first step.

Second step.

Third step.

Every step was slow.

So slow that hot sweat broke out on Zhao Mengmeng's forehead in the low temperature.

Her eyes were stung by the freezing wind.

As soon as tears welled up, they were instantly frozen into tiny ice points.

"Brother Lin, my eyeballs are about to be wind-dried."

"Tell me before you blink."

"Won't it move once I'm done saying it?"

"I'll cover."

"Cover my ass, it's faster than my landlord chasing rent."

"Then don't blink."

Zhao Mengmeng forced herself to hold it.

The Great Xia Live Stream had already exploded.

[Holy shit! The mechanic of this Sixth Floor is so sinister!]

[Stare and it doesn't move, blink and it teleports; who can handle this?]

[Dozens of living ones hidden among over three thousand statues, an ordinary person would be gone in ten steps.]

[Brother Eye threw a stone to test the mechanic just now, and it almost threw my heart out.]

[The overseas livestream rooms were equally boiling.]

[Because Blake had just died, the shouting in the USA livestream room had quieted down a lot.]

[The Sakura Country livestream room, however, was suddenly spamming frantically.]

[Because on the other side of the screen, at the edge of the ice plain.]

[Two figures crawled out from a hidden crack.]

[Takahashi.]

[Sato.]

[Two Sakura Country Challengers.]

[They were draped in gray-white animal skins, their cheeks frozen blue.]

[Takahashi was in his early thirties, thin, with cold and sinister eyes.]

[Sato was younger, carrying a tattered leather bag, with two sharp bone blades tucked into his waist.]

[They didn't take the Fifth Floor final gate.]

[Instead, they bypassed to the edge of the Sixth Floor through a narrow passage extending from a collapsed area in the side wall.]

[This path was extremely dangerous.]

[Relying on climbing hooks collected earlier, they had climbed through the cracks in the rift wall for nearly two hours.]

[The team originally had four people.]

[Two companions died in the cold currents of the narrow fissure.]

[Takahashi and Sato survived, with only half a bag of dried meat, a flint, and two bone blades left.]

[They didn't dare to go around anymore.]

[Great Xia's Lin Ye had continuously obtained special feedback, and Sakura Country's national fortune score in reality had been left far behind.]

[The coastal refuge areas were under immense pressure, and the warnings issued by the domestic high command had become almost substantial threats.]

[Takahashi was very clear.]

[As long as he brought back one high-value resource, he could become a national hero.]

[If he could kill Lin Ye, Great Xia's momentum would be forcibly cut off.]

[This benefit was worth gambling his life for.]

["Mr. Takahashi, those two are Great Xia contestants."]

[Sato spoke in a low voice in the Sakura language.]

[Takahashi raised his hand to suppress him.]

["Don't make a sound."]

[When they first entered, they had also disturbed an ice statue.]

[Relying on strong self-control, Takahashi stared at that ice statue for a full half-minute before figuring out a bit of the pattern.]

[Line of sight locked, ice statue stops.]

[Line of sight removed, ice statue teleports and kills.]

[Sound wakes up nearby sleepers.]

[Takahashi watched Lin Ye and Zhao Mengmeng's movement route.]

[Those two were weaving through the dense heavy-armored statues, every turn extremely decisive, without triggering any abnormal movement from any nearby statue at all.]

[Once is luck.]

[Passing through dozens of meters continuously, there was definitely a basis.]

["He has a safe route."]

[Sato lowered his voice.]

["Let them scout the path."]

[Takahashi's mouth tightened.]

["We'll follow by stepping in their footprints."]

["Should we make a move?"]

["We can't fight head-on."]

[Takahashi saw clearly the crossbow in Zhao Mengmeng's hand, and also the Dark Weaver arm guard at Lin Ye's waist.]

[They only had two bone blades.]

["Then what should we do?"]

[Takahashi picked up a piece of broken ice near his feet, rubbing it slowly with his fingertips.]

["Let them draw the attention of the statues."]

[He stared at Lin Ye's back.]

["Or, let the statues kill them."]