Chapter 216 (Part 1): The Complete Experience

“What are you…”

Watching Hua Jian run back and forth, disappearing for a while before returning to fiddle with something on the spot, Linglong had a thousand questions piling up in her throat.

She couldn’t decide which one to ask first.

“What did you go out to do? Why did a fight break out outside after you left? And what in the world are you tinkering with now?”

Too many questions. She didn’t know which one deserved priority.

Every one of them felt important, yet none of them felt all that critical.

“Shh… I’m calculating the time.” Hua Jian was still wearing that blood-stained black robe.

She never expected that the ruined outfit she couldn’t bear to throw away—planning to wash it later and wear it again—would come in handy like this.

Indeed, the black-clad girl was naturally none other than their Wanhua Saintess.

That tragic scene of a severed arm and heavy injuries that others could hardly pull off? For her, it was effortless.

All she had to do was temporarily detach her arm from her body, play her part, and reattach it afterward.

No other cultivator could replicate that trick.

Who would have thought that the pitiful girl with the missing arm was actually putting on an act?

In the mindset of a normal demonic cultivator, the option of ripping off your own arm for a performance simply didn’t exist.

An arm wasn’t something you could casually remove from your body.

Even if you reattached it in time, you’d need a lengthy recovery period and a massive infusion of life force to restore it to its original state.

For a cultivator, that was an absolutely massive expenditure.

Who could imagine that someone in this world could take apart their own body like building blocks?

While being bombarded by the demonic cultivators on the city wall, Hua Jian had gone out of her way to send a few of them behind the wall.

After confirming they should be able to escape the pursuing cultivators on the wall, she quietly slipped back using the smoke and her Feihua Dun (Flower Escape Technique).

At the time, the demonic cultivators on the wall were completely focused on the few who had successfully escaped.

The Spirit Light Mirror wasn’t pointed at the smoke, so naturally, they couldn’t see her in her stealth state.

And now, all Hua Jian had to do was give those little darlings at the resource point a few surprises.

“Getting ambushed and blown up—it’s all part of the secret realm exploration experience.” Hua Jian gave a thumbs-up toward the sky, her voice brimming with delight.

Those three unlucky bastards weren’t just getting ambushed at the exit point—they were also going to get blasted by her at the very last moment.

Only then would this secret realm exploration experience be truly complete.

This was the ultimate black-house punishment match.

Of course, it needed all the classics: people camping the gate, blocking the bridge, waiting at the exit, and bombing the exit.

Miss one element and it couldn’t count as a black-house round.

To that end, Hua Jian had specially converted her little darlings into cannon mode, ensuring that those poor souls at the extraction point got the most authentic blown-up-at-extraction experience.

Hehe, what a generous, kind person Hua Jian was, even offering up such a treasured experience.

Surely those demonic cultivators who got blasted at the final moment would be weeping with gratitude toward her.

“I think you could just say it plainly.” Veins bulged on Linglong’s forehead.

She couldn’t take Hua Jian’s cryptic way of speaking anymore.

Dear little sister, say something your elder sister can understand!

“To put it simply, there are six people fighting at the extraction point right now. Based on my estimates, they won’t be able to finish their fight before the extraction point activates, so they’ll get teleported out of the secret realm.”

“And what I’m doing right now is calculating the timing and trajectory so that, the moment before they get teleported out, I can deliver a gift right on top of their heads.”

Of course, the secret realm’s teleportation array was different from an extraction point in a game.

In games, extraction points didn’t teleport out dead players, but the secret realm’s array would teleport everything within its range.

In other words, even if Hua Jian blew up the demonic cultivators at the very last second, their corpses would still be sent out.

Sure, what got sent out might be a few dead or half-dead people, but at least they got out, right?

That way, Wanhuagu would have a reason to explain why the secret realm’s survival rate was so low.

If you people loved raising gu and fighting among yourselves, how could the survival rate possibly be high?

Look, the ones who got out were dead (or half-crippled), proving that intense combat continued in the secret realm until the very last moment.

You brought it on yourselves—how could that be Wanhuagu’s fault?

If no one made it out, others might think the secret realm was a scam. But if a few half-dead or dead people made it out, that would shut those people up.

I don’t really care about making Wanhuagu’s reputation worse, but since they’ve pushed this matter onto me, I should pay a bit of attention to my name.

Hua Jian spread her hands helplessly. She didn’t want to be seen as some mass-murdering demon lord.

So she had to shift the blame. These demonic cultivators she’d deliberately lured toward the teleportation array were part of her blame-shifting plan.

They were evidence—proof that her design for the secret realm was fine, and the problem was with the players inside.

If the players wanted to raise gu and play battle royale, they couldn’t blame the map designer, right?

Sure, the final extraction point was blown up by the designer, but they’d never know that secret. Who knows who dropped that big gift from the sky?

“High yield?”

“If hit directly, with the state those people are in, they definitely won’t survive.” Hua Jian nodded.

The eyes she’d placed at the extraction point were closely monitoring the battle situation there.

The team ambushing the exit wasn’t actually that strong—otherwise, they wouldn’t have resorted to such underhanded tactics.

Facing three half-crippled demonic cultivators who only wanted to defend and stall for time, they couldn’t even break through their defenses directly.

After all, a one-time spiritual artifact at Spirit King Peak power was still quite precious. For these weaker demonic cultivators, it was their ultimate trump card, something they’d avoid using unless absolutely necessary.

If they had to use a one-time spiritual artifact just to deal with these ragged-looking guys, what would they do when they met real enemies later?

Such precious treasures—they only had one or two on them. Using them here would be an absolute waste.

And without using weapons of that caliber, relying purely on ordinary combat, taking down these three enemies quickly was genuinely difficult.

The opponents had no intention of counterattacking. All their methods were devoted to defense.

That was certainly a choice that led to slow death, but slow death presupposed that combat time was unlimited.

But now, the battle had a very clear time limit.

As long as those three demonic cultivators stalled until the teleportation array activated, the fight would end, and they’d be able to leave this secret realm.

Judging by the current situation, that wasn’t too hard for the three defending cultivators.

That was just how battles between cultivators worked. To decide a victor in a short time required far too many conditions.

More often than not, two cultivators of similar strength would drag things out endlessly—and the stronger they were, the more drawn-out it became.

At lower ranks, everyone had limited spiritual power. Once it ran out, they’d resort to brawling, and close combat decided the victor quickly.

But at higher ranks, cultivators’ spiritual reserves grew, and combat gradually became you launch a wave, I launch a wave—whoever’s wave is stronger wins.

Even jianxiu (sword cultivators), who favored close combat, often had to learn sword qi as a ranged form.

After all, if the enemy knew you were a sword cultivator, they definitely wouldn’t fight you up close.

If you charged at them, wouldn’t they just run?

With all that chasing and fleeing, wouldn’t a sword cultivator without ranged abilities get kited to death?

So as strength increased, the time-to-kill between cultivators grew longer and longer.

If one side didn’t make mistakes and focused purely on defense, they basically couldn’t be quickly broken through and killed.

Of course, if you turtled up purely in defense, you’d eventually lose—but those three defenders didn’t need to win right now.

All they had to do was stall.

Stall long enough and it was victory. And from the looks of it, their chances of winning were pretty high.

Provided they excluded that big gift Hua Jian was about to send over.

“Time’s about up. I hope they enjoy this farewell present.” Hua Jian synchronized the time and raised her hand to snap her fingers.

The cannon she’d pulled out let out a dull thump, launching a massive shell into the sky.

That shell would cross an enormous distance high above, arriving at the exact moment before the teleportation array activated—when everyone had let their guard down, thinking everything was already decided—appearing above their heads like a phantom, delivering a salute of thunderous farewell.

Or perhaps, it would bring them death.

……

“He’s about to collapse!”

“Don’t worry about him! Just hold out a little longer and we’ll get out!”

The male and female demonic cultivators surrounded in the teleportation array, brutally beaten as they were, watched the cracks that kept appearing and vanishing on their spiritual tool barrier, their faces full of anxiety.

Beside them, another unfortunate demonic cultivator was on the verge of death.

Though he’d barely managed to make it this far, reacting at the last critical moment to dodge the sneak attack on his vitals, his condition was far from peak form.

His dodge hadn’t been clean, and a blade had sliced across his body.

At first it was manageable, but when the three ambushing demonic cultivators stopped hiding and launched a full assault openly, the injured cultivator ran into trouble.

The knife used for the sneak attack was coated with an insidiously crafty poison.

Normally, its toxicity didn’t show, but the moment a cultivator channeled spiritual power, the poison would immediately activate and corrode their internal organs.

This poison wasn’t something ordinary antidote pills could neutralize.

Its damage seemed low, but in truth, it was no less lethal than the deadliest venoms.

It was essentially an unremovable bleed effect—the more spiritual power the cultivator used, the more damage they took.

The injured demonic cultivator was already in bad shape. Now tortured by this poison, he quickly reached a state beyond saving.

Before losing his strength, he pulled out his last remaining defensive spiritual artifact as a final barrier of protection.

That barrier was quickly shattered by a barrage of attacks.