Time seemed to stand still at this moment.

Everyone turned to look at Xu Guang with a strange look in their eyes.

Xu Guang’s face flushed violently.

“I’ll kill you!” he howled as he attacked furiously.

Fist wind billowed out violently, ripping the underwear to shreds. An instant later, however, it reformed and let out a disdainful chuckle at Xu Guang.

Zhu Xianyao’s face was also scarlet.

She wanted to say something, but Su Chen grabbed her hand. “Forget him. Admiring someone isn’t a crime.”

Zhu Xianyao glanced at him, somewhat dazed. She felt like Su Chen’s words were extremely logical.

She nodded. “Then I’ll spare him this once.”

She gave Xu Guang a hard glare and said, “Stop arguing about such pointless things. What we need to do now is to continue advancing and look for the remains that Kapius left behind.”

“Kapius? You’re talking about Kapius?” the old man asked in shock as he continued to smoke his pipe.

“What? Do you know something about him?”

“Of course! These past few years, there have only been two groups of guests from the real world that have visited this void projection castle. You are the second group, and Kapius was the first. He had a youthful spirit body full of vitality at the time, and I could sense the strong ambition that he carried with him.

“You’re just a painting. You don’t know anything, old man,” one of the people in a nearby painting butted in.

“Then do you know what Kapius left behind here?” Zhu Xianyao hurriedly asked.

“How would I know?” The old man rolled his eyes in response. “I’m just a painting. Apart from here, I cannot go anywhere else.”

Everyone sighed.

There were never any shortcuts to finding treasure. They would have to look for it themselves.

“You might be able to ask that broom over there. Its name is Mair and it has the greatest mobility of all the items in the castle because it needs to clean this entire castle every morning, even though I don’t think there’s anything to clean here, hahahaha,” the old man chuckled at his own tepid joke.

The broom poked its head out from a corner, its single eye darting back and forth incessantly.

Zhu Xianyao walked over and was just about to speak when that broom suddenly shot through the air as it yelled, “I won’t tell you anything!”

“Trying to run?” Zhu Baiyu harrumphed. He raised his hand and motioned at the broom. Mair flew backwards into Zhu Baiyu’s firm grasp and was unable to escape.

“You’d better tell me what you know. Otherwise……” Zhu Baiyu said bluntly.

“Otherwise, what? You’ll kill me? I’m not afraid of death,” Mair replied.

“No, but I can lock you up so that you have no way of moving for all of eternity,” Zhu Xianyao said as she pulled out a rope, seemingly about to tie it up.

That move was quite effective, and Mair began to yell, “Okay, okay, I’ll talk! There’s a room near the top of the castle that’s locked. The things you want might be in there.”

“You should have just said so in the first place,” Zhu Baiyu said as he let him go.

Because they were very familiar with West Laina Castle, everyone knew where to go without Mair’s assistance.

As it watched them leave, Mair harrumphed angrily, “You dare threaten me? You’ll suffer for it.”

“What’s in that room?” the old man in the painting asked.

“A nightmare!” Mair replied.

——————————————

They walked past the long hallway and easily arrived at the castle’s upper room.

They had finally reached the room that Mair was talking about.

The room was all the way at the end of the hallway. The door to the room was large and white and even had a beast head formed from bronze on it.

“Strange,” Su Chen muttered when he saw this door.

“What is it?” Zhu Xianyao asked.

“I don’t remember a room like this in West Laina Castle,” Su Chen replied.

Once Su Chen pointed it out, everyone came to the same realization.

In West Laina Castle, there was only a wall here and no door.

But this void-projected castle actually contained a door to a room that didn’t exist in the real world.

Ba Lieyuan laughed, “Then doesn’t this mean that the broom told us the truth? This should be the place where Kapius’s secret stash is. The hidden treasures aren’t a projection, so there isn’t an equivalent model in the real world.”

This seemed quite logical to everyone, who nodded in agreement.

However, Zhu Xianyao still forced one of the Sand Race’s individuals to open the door.

That Sand Race individual walked up and pushed the door but found that he couldn’t open. He was just feeling at a loss when the bronze beast head slowly began to open its eyes.

It boomed resoundingly, “The door will not open without a sacrifice.”

Zhu Xianyao stepped forward. “What kind of sacrifice are you looking for?”

“Fresh blood and a person’s soul.”

Zhu Xianyao nodded. “The person right in front of you is the sacrifice.”

That Sand Race individual was so frightened that his soul almost left his body. He wanted to run, but with Zhu Baiyu holding him firmly in place, how could he possibly escape?

The bronze beast head let out a metallic howl and slowly opened its mouth before biting down on the Sand Race member’s arm.

Fresh blood flowed into the beast’s mouth, and blood began to creep along the along the surface of the door. Eventually, the door was covered in a bloody engraving.

“Not enough!” the bronze beast head yelled after draining that Sand Race captive dry.

“Then have another one!” Zhao Jingwen grabbed another Sand Race captive and tossed him over.

Even more fresh blood flowed into the beast’s mouth. The bloody engravings grew thicker and expanded, forming a pattern filled with profound mysteries.

This pattern was actually an extremely complicated Origin Formation that had finally activated at this moment.

After sucking the second Sand Race captive dry, the bronze beast head spoke. “Since you have brought forth the sacrifices, then the ancient ritual has been established. I will respond to your request and open up this passageway!”

“What?” Zhu Xianyao was stunned.

What ancient ritual?

The bronze beast tilted its head back and howled. The door finally opened, revealing a pitch-black space.

Then, out of this pitch-black space, a dark energy began to surge out like a raging flood, releasing a terrifying aura.

“What is that?” Zhu Xianyao began to scream.

“Hurry and retreat!” Su Chen grabbed Zhu Xianyao and jumped backwards.

The wave of darkness had already swallowed up an unfortunate Sand Race captive. That captive cried out before disappearing without a trace.

Everyone was badly startled and began to retreat at full-speed. The darkness continued to advance unyieldingly, only stopping once it had claimed the majority of the hallway.

Then, the darkness turned into a massive giant and boomed, “Death, destruction, extinction! I smell things decaying again, hahahaha!

“Damn! This isn’t Kapius’s secret stash, it’s an evil summoning ritual!” Zhu Xianyao yelled.

No one had expected that this door would lead to a strange space, and that frightening existences would pour out of the door as soon as it was opened.

This evil summoning ritual required the use of very specific methods to summon extremely wicked creatures. No one knew what these creatures would be, as different worlds would give these creatures different attributes.

The evil summoning ritual set up here in this void projection was obviously aimed towards darkness-type substance, which was appropriate for the unique nature of a Projection Void.

That damned broom had lied to them.

Only Su Chen’s eyes began to glitter faintly.

That was because he sensed a very familiar aura on the body of this summoned darkness beast.