22: Chapter 22 A Zeno Clan Traitor, A White Flower Blooming in a Vacuum

In the dungeon lobby, the air was as quiet as if it had frozen.

Inside the individually carved-out small spaces, the faces of the novice professionals still wore looks of disbelief upon seeing the words "Cleared". After hearing Shangguan Yunshu's cold declaration, they became somewhat frightened.

Any normal person would understand that with Shangguan Yunshu personally appearing here and causing such a huge commotion, the situation was definitely unusual!

Almost everyone present had heard about alien races from the Milky Way sending people to assassinate human Geniuses.

But those were things in the news, things that happened elsewhere to other people.

Everyone felt that such matters were very far away from them.

Never did they expect to experience it firsthand today!

Most importantly, this big shot Lu Yang was actually a freak of nature who could solo-clear a Nightmare-grade welfare dungeon!

For a Genius of this level, what kind of traitor must it be to come and assassinate him?!

The newbies present were just innocent fish caught in a fire; if a real fight broke out, they probably wouldn't even be able to react in time—wouldn't they just bite the dust directly?!

Quite a few people already felt cold all over, their backs drenched in cold sweat. Some instinctively leaned towards their companions, only to find that separated by that carved-out space, they couldn't even get close.

Meanwhile, the expressions of the few people beside Shangguan Yunshu were equally incomparably grave.

Everyone switched into their gear in an instant, weapons falling into their hands. The sound of metal scraping was exceptionally clear in the quiet space.

Everyone was waiting, ready for battle at any moment!

Only the two young girls, Shen Qingci and Rebecca Parker, remained somewhat dazed.

They exchanged glances, and their eyes were filled with nothing but shock.

As professionals who had personally ventured through the Nightmare difficulty Withered Forest, the two of them knew all too well how strong the bosses in this dungeon were!

Even the first boss, Kezhi, was so strong that it drove them to despair!

The overwhelming black branches lashed down with nowhere to hide, and the pain of being pierced was still carved into their bones to this day.

One could only imagine how terrifying the final boss Gu Feng must be!

This classmate Lu Yang, soloing it alone, actually cleared the entire dungeon?!

Even the final boss was defeated?!

What was most outrageous was that the time it took Lu Yang to complete the entire dungeon was roughly the same as the time it took them to finish just the first half!

And that even included the time spent conquering both bosses!

Rebecca Parker's slender, heroic-looking eyebrows arched slightly, her pretty face filled with an expression of doubting life: "No... how did he do that??"

Shen Qingci shook her head, her pitch-black ponytail swaying gently with the movement.

"I don't know... so amazing, classmate Lu Yang."

Looking at the word "Cleared" on the record stele, her eyes were filled with admiration.

Afterwards, Shen Qingci thought of something, her eyes lighting up slightly.

This classmate Lu Yang... she had heard his name when she underwent her Awakening yesterday.

It seemed he was also a student from No. 4 High School?

She would find someone later to ask for this classmate's contact info and add him as a friend.

Although Shen Qingci had yet to step into society, as a young lady born into a family of professionals, she had been imbued by her family since childhood with educational concepts regarding professionals.

When encountering a top-tier Genius, if one could be on good terms with them, naturally, one should strive to do so.

Without dwelling on it further, she cast her gaze toward the dungeon exit.

Not just Shen Qingci, Rebecca, Shangguan Yunshu, Advisor Jiang Lan... everyone's gaze at this moment was fixed on the dungeon exit.

They were waiting for this Genius who had solo-cleared the Nightmare-grade welfare dungeon to appear!

The air was quiet, and everyone involuntarily held their breath with taut expressions.

In a state of intense focus, every second seemed to pass very slowly.

The white vortex light gate continuously swirled unhurriedly, occasionally drifting out wisps of silver light particles.

Not knowing how much time had passed, the white vortex suddenly flashed slightly, and a figure walked out from within.

That was a handsome-looking teenage boy.

His skin was fair and delicate, his nose bridge high and straight, his eyes slender and clean, and his eyebrows thick and long yet not messy.

His facial features were sharply defined yet gentle, and combined together, they gave people a very comfortable feeling.

His face carried a hint of an excited smile that had not yet fully faded, giving the immediate impression of a sunny and bright neighborhood boy!

The moment Lu Yang appeared, the space in front of him suddenly distorted for a split second, and a silvery-white light emerged out of thin air like an extremely condensed blade edge, tearing open the air and slashing straight toward his face.

However, at the very instant that this space-distorting white light was about to touch Lu Yang, it abruptly vanished.

It was as if it had been directly wiped from the world by someone, as though it had never appeared at all, leaving not even a trace of residual aura behind.

At the same time.

Outside Yunmeng Star, in the vacuum nearly one hundred thousand kilometers away.

Space distorted silently, and a streak of white light surfaced.

That white light suddenly grew brighter, resembling a cold white sun exploding in the darkness.

All the surrounding vacuum zones were illuminated brightly by this white light, and countless miniature meteorites floating in orbit were dyed a ghastly pale white in that instant.

Following that, dense arrays of sharp white lights erupted from this white sun, shooting out in all directions.

Every streak of white light was sharp to the extreme, slicing through the vacuum and cutting all matter encountered along the way—including meteorites, asteroid fragments, abandoned space debris, and so on—into the finest powder, transforming them into a silently expanding cloud of dust!

The white light spread for thousands of kilometers, blooming layer upon layer against the pitch-black backdrop of deep space, looking like a flawless white flower suddenly blossoming in the boundless darkness.

Meanwhile, inside the dungeon lobby, a hint of sternness flashed across Shangguan Yunshu's eyes, her cold and pretty face covered in frost: "Found you!"

No one saw her make the slightest movement.

The moment before, she had been standing calmly with her hands hanging at her sides; the next moment, her right hand was already gripping a long sword.

The sword was entirely silver-blue, its body emitting a deep and cold luster under the lights.

Embedded at the crossguard was a black crystal, and faintly sealed within the crystal seemed to be an entire rotating miniature galaxy, with speckles of light slowly flowing inside.

The tip of the long sword pointed obliquely at the ground, and deep silver-gray light flowed across the blade.

At the same time, from the corner of the dungeon lobby, a muffled and painful low grunt came over.

Everyone abruptly turned their heads to look.

A sturdy teenager who had originally been standing quietly in the corner suddenly had his limbs severed at the roots.

Crimson blood gushed out from the severed stumps, splashing onto the metal floor and unexpectedly emitting a sizzling corrosive sound, burning small wisps of white smoke and dents onto the metal surface.

His limbless torso crashed heavily onto the ground, but the impact sound it emitted was much heavier than that of a normal human body.

The moment he hit the ground, his body began to distort, undergoing terrifying changes.

His originally fair human skin gradually faded away, replaced by a layer of bronze-colored outer skin carrying a natural metallic matte texture.

His arms and legs scattered to the side were also changing, with dark iron-gray bone plates emerging on the outer sides of his forearms and the front of his lower legs, resembling a layer of exoskeleton armor.

His entire head was likewise deforming.

His dark brown hair vanished, and the top of his head was completely covered by dark iron-gray bone plates.

His facial shape became even more angular, with his brow ridges protruding high to form a natural bone ridge protecting the sunken eye sockets below.

His cheekbones were high, his jaw wide and powerful, and he lacked external auricles. Both sides of his temples and jaw were covered in dense scales that also gleamed with a metallic luster, and his nose was flat, with only two slit-like longitudinal nostrils plastered onto his face.

As for his eyes, the pupils were deep red and shaped like horizontal rectangles.

His lips were extremely thin, revealing two rows of jagged, interlocking sharp teeth inside when opened.

He only had four fingers, but each had one more joint than a human's. His fingers were longer and more flexible, lacking fingernails at the fingertips, which were instead replaced by hardened, keratinized finger pads.

Most conspicuously, behind his bronze-colored torso dragged a sturdy tail about a meter long, the tip of which was similarly covered with dark iron-gray bone plates.

The moment they saw this creature, the expressions of all the surrounding newbies instantly changed.

Most of them revealed expressions of anger and disgust.

"The Xenor Race!"

"To think it's a traitor from the Xenor Race! Damn it!"

"Was he planning to assassinate big shot Lu Yang just now?! Screw his ancestors down to the eighteenth generation!"

"..."

The relationship between the Blue Star Alliance and the Xenor Alliance could only be described with the two words: mortal enemies.

As two of the four top-tier powers in the Milky Way, the Blue Star Alliance occupied the Sagittarius Arm, while the Xenor Alliance occupied the Norma Arm.

Over the past thousands of years, both sides had experienced numerous bloody battles!

Five years ago, when the Xenor Alliance launched a surprise attack on the Azure Pass, it was precisely Shangguan Yunshu who defended it single-handedly.

Regarding the fact that the person attempting to assassinate Lu Yang was a Xenor Race traitor, no one present felt surprised; there was only anger and hatred!