The subway station should have been underground—but for some reason, raindrops were falling inside.
"The wind howls cold over the Yi River; the warrior leaves, never to return."
Amidst the wind and rain, in such a dangerous place steeped in atmosphere, Ren Asakura couldn't help but recite a poem.
Mai helplessly covered her face—this was way too embarrassing.
But the others were long used to Ren Asakura's shameless behavior.
Lu Mingfei looked around at the vast and interconnected station, then expanded his spiritual sense.
But this alchemical labyrinth seemed to block any kind of mental detection.
Lu Mingfei couldn't sense much of anything.
At the early Foundation Establishment stage, he was still too weak—nowhere near a match for a Dragon King.
Visually, all he could see were crisscrossing railways and constantly running trains.
Lu Mingfei said helplessly,
"Boss Group Leader, what do we do next?"
Ren Asakura smiled confidently and patted his chest with a reassuring thump.
"Leave it to me! I'll show you the power of charging through everything."
Lu Mingfei suddenly thought of a possibility and asked suspiciously,
"Wait... are you trying to destroy this entire Nibelungen?"
Ren Asakura waved his hand dismissively. "Why would I blow up someone's house? That's what terrorists do!"
Lu Mingfei glanced at the group.
They might actually be worse than terrorists.
Their goal was to break into someone's home and kidnap a three-year-old child.
Granted, the kid had world-ending power… and was a Dragon King.
But here, there was zero tolerance for child traffickers.
So many had lost children to traffickers, lost their families, spent half their lives searching, only to find their child no longer recognized them.
The families torn apart by traffickers were countless.
What could've been a happy life ended up shattered beyond recognition.
Such lives were like a coffee table—filled with tragedy and farce.
Ren Asakura stared at the deep subway tunnel ahead, then raised a finger at the three subway entrances.
"Eenie meenie miney mo, catch a fat sheep by the toe…"
His finger finally stopped on the central railway tunnel.
"This one is the real way through the labyrinth. Let's go."
"The fuck?" Mai blurted out instinctively.
Ren Asakura's lips curved into a smile.
"Don't worry. Any road I walk is the right road—because I'll always carve out my own path."
He strode forward with big steps.
No looking back.
---
Along the railway.
They reached a wall.
Mai's expression was numb. She had expected this outcome.
As expected, this path wasn't the right one.
Ren Asakura looked at the wall and said, "Actually, this is the labyrinth's exit. You're just being fooled by illusions due to lack of experience. This is the Nibelungen—the rules have long changed. We need to adapt to the new rules, not rely on common sense to understand this world."
Ren Asakura spoke with such seriousness, it almost sounded believable.
Then he placed his hand on the wall.
Mai didn't quite get it. She truly didn't understand the Nibelungen well.
If possible, she didn't want to enter this realm of the dead at all.
"Really?" she asked.
Ren Asakura nodded firmly.
But Lu Mingfei knew that, in truth, the group leader was just pretending to sound serious while spouting nonsense.
However, one thing was definitely correct:
Ren Asakura's path was absolutely the right one.
Next, they saw Ren Asakura place his hand on the wall, then gently give it a pat.
"Boom!!"
The wall collapsed.
A doorway appeared.
"See? This is a mechanism in the labyrinth. Some passageways only appear at critical moments. If I hadn't come here at exactly the right time, this door would've vanished."
Mai stared silently at the newly revealed passage—it was clearly just forcefully blasted open.
As expected, Ren was reckless and straightforward, ignoring all conventional methods.
And so began their journey straight through the maze.
They charged forward without hesitation. When walls blocked their path, Ren simply blasted through them.
If a train stood in their way, he slammed into it and sent it flying.
In short, anything that blocked the road ahead was violently kicked aside by Ren Asakura.
Looking back, the path behind them was riddled with hole after hole.
With enough strength, anything was possible.
As they walked along the path, countless rocks trembled in the darkness.
What would they encounter this time?
Mai shone her flashlight toward the shaking rocks in the shadows.
As the team's "nanny," she carried all kinds of essential survival and adventure tools with her—
making sure everyone had something usable in critical moments.
Having a nanny was great.
She was thoughtful, responsible, handled expenses, and occasionally rose to the occasion to deal with small emergencies.
The tunnel walls were curved, and those trembling "rocks" weren't rocks at all—they were living creatures.
As the light shone on them, the shadowy beings began to awaken.
Maiyi stared at the figures hanging along the tunnel walls and asked in confusion, "Are those… bats?"
Bats loved to hang on the walls of dark caves. They thrived in damp, shadowy environments.
Lu Mingfei looked at the dark shapes slowly stirring.
"They're not bats. They're Kamaitachi—blood-drinking Kamaitachi. There must be tens of thousands of them.
If they target us, we'll suffer a death by a thousand cuts."
Maiyi's hair stood on end.
Death by a thousand cuts—one of the ten cruelest ancient tortures.
Only those guilty of the worst crimes were sentenced to such a fate—dying in endless agony.
If given a choice, that was definitely not how she wanted to die.
The black Kamaitachi extended their blade-like claws—single-edged blades that gleamed under the flashlight.
Their golden eyes glowed like fire.
These Kamaitachi possessed dragon blood.
Then they spread their thin, bat-like wings. The delicate membranes trembled rapidly, emitting soundwaves undetectable to the human ear.
Creatures of the dark used these soundwaves for echolocation.
So did the Kamaitachi.
Ordinary people couldn't enter the Nibelungen at all, and these blood-drinking Kamaitachi were carnivorous predators.
In simple terms, they had been starving for years.
Now, the living humans here had become their prey—their feast.
The wings vibrated like birds preparing for flight.
"They're coming!"
Countless shadows dropped from the walls, glinting with cold steel as they charged toward the group.
In a blink, they crossed over a dozen meters, arriving right in front of them.
Only now did the group see the Kamaitachi's true form: part bat, part bird, adorned with beautiful markings—both mesmerizing and deadly.
As more and more Kamaitachi awakened,
this place had become their playground.
Maiyi instinctively turned to flee.
Her pistol held only nine bullets—
That was the limit, even with one in the chamber.
Nine bullets against thousands of Kamaitachi?
The outcome was obvious.
°°°
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