Chapter 1484 End of the Maze
Thousand Ink flipped his palm elegantly, drawing a half-circle in the air. A golden brush appeared in his hand.
The brush was about the length of Thousand Ink’s forearm. Although the shaft and tip both seemed to be made of metal, Thousand Ink told Xia Fan that it was all an illusion. The Thousand Soldier Brush was not solid. It was composed of energy and hidden in his arm when he wasn’t using it.
Thousand Ink sat on the ground, closed his eyes to think, and then began to move his brush.
The Golden Painting Brush moved extremely fast, and the tip was extremely agile. With just a few strokes, he drew a lifelike mouse.
Thousand Ink’s brush had barely stopped when the 2D mouse jumped off of the ground into 3D form and looked around warily. It then ran up to Thousand Ink and stood up on its hindlegs like a little soldier.
Thousand Ink repeated the process swiftly, and it wasn’t long before he had several hundred mice drawn. Then, with a flourish of his brush, the mice organized themselves into an army and charged off into the black forest. The mice looked very impressive as they all ran off.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Thousand Ink put away the Golden Brush. The drawing process required the insertion of energy, and also needed a sliver of his mental energy to be attached to each combat beast. Thus, this work was very mentally taxing.
After a brief break, Thousand Ink started to draw hummingbirds. The hummingbirds were very small, but could fly extremely fast. They covered the air while the mice were on the ground, covering all aspects of the terrain.
Thousand Ink’s work still wasn’t over. He took out some special sandpaper from his cloaked spatial ring. Different sizes of combat beasts required different sizes of sandpaper. Thousand Ink was going to draw the combat beasts on these pieces of sandpaper, fold them up into triangles, and then hold the paper triangles between his fingers.
If he ran into a foe, Thousand Ink simply needed to toss out the sandpaper to immediately summon a powerful combat beast!
This was Thousand Ink’s daily job. He had a very tough time, as he was responsible for scouting while also needing to have enough combat beasts in reserve. If he was suddenly thrust into battle, he wouldn’t have time to draw any beasts.
Every day, after training concluded and everyone went to rest, Thousand Ink would make various preparations for battle. Xia Fan saw all this, so when Thousand Ink was taking a short break, he brought over a cup of water with a little powdered Tier 9 energy stone in it.
Thousand Ink took the cup from Xia Fan and said happily, “I feel so bad, using up your energy stones again.”
Xia Fan chuckled. “What are you saying? Is there a need for brothers to be so polite around each other? Energy stones exist to be used. Every day, when everyone else is resting, you have to draw combat beasts. Who is it for? Is it not for our group?”
Thousand Ink nodded, drained the cup of water, and returned the cup to Xia Fan.
During this period of time, Xia Fan had developed a decent relationship with every member of the team. He had extremely sharp observation skills, and through the small details he noticed, he was able to adjust everything to meet everyone’s requirements.
Moreover, Xia Fan was naturally approachable, and there was always a smile on his face. Even Thousand Ink’s combat beasts liked him, let alone his friends!
At some point, Xia Fan had become the leader of the group. There was no selection process. Everyone had just naturally decided to obey Xia Fan, training in the formation Xia Fan had designed and following his orders.
After resting for a while, Thousand Ink prepared to draw some more combat beasts. But he had just unfurled a sheet of sandpaper and made only a few strokes before his brush suddenly stopped. He grimaced and closed his eyes.
Xia Fan looked at Thousand Ink in shock. He needed to Draw combat beasts in one go, but he had stopped midway, making this combat beast a waste. Something very serious must have happened for him to do that.
Thousand Ink’s eyes were shut, and his eyelids were constantly trembling. It was clear that his mind had already been drawn from his combat beasts to the front line.
Xia Fan calmly called over Traveling Buddha and the others. “Wake up!”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure, but from the look on Thousand Ink’s face, something must have happened on the front.”
After hearing Xia Fan’s words, everyone got to their feet hastily and anxiously gathered around Thousand Ink.
After around half an hour, Thousand Ink finally opened his eyes. There was a weird look on his face, and his eyes were filled with confusion.
“Ink, what’s the situation on the front?” Traveling Buddha anxiously asked.
Thousand Ink swallowed and said, “The Murder Shrine’s people are retreating rapidly!”
“Retreating? In which direction? Did they find the exit?” Ping Feng asked.
Thousand Ink shook his head. “No, they’re retreating toward the Demon Chasm’s third level. The scouts and guards they left behind have all disappeared. I’ve confirmed through my combat beasts that they’re moving down on a large scale. It seems something very serious has happened in the maze on the third level!
“Could there be a battle? Maybe the Murder Shrine ran into some kind of boss and had to call for reinforcements?” Xia Fan asked.
Thousand Ink shook his head. “There was no battle. While my combat beasts don’t dare to get too close, if there had been a battle, I would have known immediately. In truth, the third level is very quiet! Unexpectedly quiet! There isn’t even a single monster!”
Everyone was flabbergasted. They couldn’t understand why the Murder Shrine had abruptly chosen to withdraw into the third level. Just what had they encountered or what had happened?
Everyone looked to Xia Fan. After some thought, Xia Fan said, “Since the enemy has retreated, we’ll advance! Come on! Down to the next level!”
…
Distance wasn’t a problem to Xia Fan and his team.
After receiving Xia Fan’s order, Jin Yu began to use his Beast Morphing ability. Xia Fan watched golden feathers rapidly sprout from Jin Yu’s face and body, and a pair of wings erupt from his back. In the blink of an eye, he had turned into a gigantic golden macaw, with a wingspan of one hundred meters!
Everyone climbed onto Jin Yu’s back before he flapped his wings. With just a few beats, he hurtled several thousand meters into the air, and then started to glide down. Once he was close to the ground, he would increase his altitude again and repeat the process.
It had been the dream of humans since ancient times to fly like birds. While Xia Fan was fast, sitting on Jin Yu’s back was a completely different experience. His vision broadened, all of the forest was open to him, and the winds howled past his ear.
Thousand Ink was the guide, and it wasn’t long before they approached the hole leading to the second level of the Demon Chasm.
What they saw along the way was horrifying. The closer they came, the more corpses they saw on the ground, painting all of the black soil red.
It wasn’t long before Xia Fan saw a black hole. That black hole led straight down. It was around a kilometer in diameter and seemed bottomless.
Xia Fan peeked his head over and looked down, just as a powerful cold wind battered his face. It turned out that the sudden gust of wind that had blown through the black forest had come from the second level through this passage!
Jin Yu carried Xia Fan and company and circled down toward the hole. As they descended deeper and deeper, the temperature began to drop. But they were all outstanding warriors, and that level of cold couldn’t threaten them.
But the intense air currents caused Jin Yu flightpath to wobble and sway. Thus, he decided to just draw back his wings and descend in a freefalling dive.
Gradually, Xia Fan and the others saw light, and a vast plain of snow. At that moment, Jin Yu suddenly unfurled his wings to slow his rate of descent.
As they drew closer, Xia Fan saw that there were patches of red on this plain of white. Upon closer look, he realized that it was more blood.
Counting the number of corpses at a glance or two, he found that the powerful Murder Shrine really had lost no less than twenty thousand people.
The ones who had killed these humans were some other kind of monster. They had snow-white bodies and were more than three meters tall. Even their eyes, teeth, and claws were white, free of any other shade of color. As they were capable of inflicting such severe losses on the Murder Shrine, these polar-bear-like creatures were clearly much stronger than the monsters on the first level.
Xia Fan didn’t have time to investigate the battlefield. He urged Jin Yu to move faster, wanting to see exactly where the Murder Shrine’s army had run off to. Through another seemingly bottomless hole, Xia Fan’s company finally arrived at the Demon Chasm’s third level.
Unlike the openness of the first and second levels, the third level of the Demon Chasm was very cramped, as it was a maze. The ceiling was four meters high at most, and at its most narrow, the passages were only two men wide. The maze was primarily made from some kind of glossy black stone.
Jin Yu could no longer use his abilities here, but thankfully, the team had Xia Fan. He used a rope to pull everyone along like a train engine.
Thousand Ink had his rats standing at every branch in the maze. Xia Fan simply needed to follow their lead to find the correct path.
The journey was extremely smooth. They saw no bodies and no sign of the Murder Shrine’s members. Without encountering any obstructions, Xia Fan’s team soon reached the end of the maze.
But the end of the maze wasn’t at all what they had imagined, and they were all stunned.
