Seeing this scene, Fang Senyan finally let out a long sigh of relief; he knew his gamble had paid off. At this point, Fang Senyan was actually in no hurry to leave. He found a place on the cliff face where he could barely sit down and began to rest. This abyss below could be fraught with hidden dangers and utter mystery. Believing that legendary creatures possessed the characteristic of demarcating territory, he reasoned that staying on the land claimed by Death’s Breath effectively placed him under its protection, so he absolutely needed to recover to peak condition before proceeding further.

Death’s Breath appeared to have an excellent appetite. After consuming the vast majority of the blood bats, it even crawled over to the remnants of the spider shattered by the statue knight. It meticulously licked up the broken strands of silk, then secreted new thread to weave anew. After finishing this task, seeing that Fang Senyan had not left, it surprisingly leaped and bounded over to him. A blood bat, injected with digestive enzymes, was still dangling from its toxic fang. It dropped the offering before Fang Senyan, seemingly presenting him with a meal.

Fang Senyan looked at the blood bat, bloated like a leather ball, its eyes, ears, and nostrils continuously oozing pale yellow, viscous fluid. An immediate, profound sense of powerlessness washed over him. Looking at this thing, any appetite he might have had flew to the highest heavens.

However, heaven knew what consequences would result from slighting the great spider’s generosity. Thus, Fang Senyan could only force a strained smile, reaching out to lift the bat. Unexpectedly, the Nightmare Imprint immediately transmitted information:

“Notice: Unknown strange artifact discovered.”

“Notice: This artifact can be submitted upon returning to the Nightmare Space in exchange for a reward.”

“Huh?” Fang Senyan hadn't expected such a bonus. He immediately stopped finding the bat disgusting and quickly took it, storing it within the Nightmare Imprint. At this moment, he keenly felt the inadequacy of his storage space being too confined. But this was not the time to dwell on such matters. Death’s Breath tilted its head, scrutinizing Fang Senyan for a moment, perhaps wondering why he was so greedy as to consume not only the prey’s juices but also its shell… After a while, it simply stopped puzzling over the issue, slowly and lazily crawling down the rock face, soon vanishing into the swirling mist.

Fang Senyan continued to rest there for nearly four hours. After a good sleep, he had basically recovered. The stone walls here still emitted a faint glow, so it was not completely dark. He took out some food from his storage space, ate, and then began to climb down along the cracks in the mountain wall. As his altitude gradually decreased, plants like moss began to appear on the rock face. Whether it was due to carrying the Finger Key with him, Fang Senyan proceeded without incident. Moreover, he started to notice that the intensity of the key’s stable warmth increased the further down he climbed.

Finally, after a long period of climbing, the ground became visible below. If the Contractors did not possess digitized bodies, even the world’s top rock climber would never have sustained such an effort continuously.

Fang Senyan dropped from the stone wall, rolling as he landed. Although his chest still ached faintly, it did not impede his movement. The ground here was divided by countless towering stalagmites. Grayish-white fungi grew in the damp cracks along the edges, while some semi-dry moss covered the floor. This place seemed to be a massive labyrinth constructed entirely of white stalactites.

As Fang Senyan moved, he even encountered some Mandrakes. These dangerous plants were considered creatures of evil life, their seeds supposedly formed from underground deceased people. Their roots exhibited bizarre male and female shapes. Once pulled from the soil, they would emit a fatal shriek. Fang Senyan personally witnessed these Mandrakes actively uprooting themselves and using their screams to hunt. Even though he fled quickly at the time, he still lost nearly a third of his health.

Fortunately, Fang Senyan now had the broken Finger Key as a guide. It seemed to miraculously point toward a certain direction; once he veered off that path, the warmth level rapidly decreased. After bumping and stumbling for over ten kilometers, Fang Senyan began to see traces of artificial modification ahead. He also clearly sensed that numerous dangers had lurked in the darkness along the way, yet for some unknown reason, they had all chosen silence and restraint. After walking for another ten minutes, Fang Senyan ascended an underground hill, and his vision suddenly cleared!

Ahead lay an expanse so open it could almost be called a plain. Scattered haphazardly across this plain were a large number of low-slung structures and rudimentary shacks. This area, spanning at least several dozen square kilometers, could no longer be described as a town or a settlement—it was an underground city, or perhaps a refugee camp… though it could only be described as filthy, chaotic, and derelict—the architectural style, while casual and simple, still faintly suggested the unique, askew and staggered aesthetic of Gringotts.

Fang Senyan slowly walked into the area. He estimated he was the first moving creature to enter this city in nearly ten thousand years. The traces of time seemed to have paused here. Fang Senyan stepped onto the ground, and the fine dust almost covered the top of his boot. To his left was a general store called “Half a Copper Coin,” where the chaos from the time of evacuation was still faintly visible. To his right was a grocery store named “The Giant Diamond,” where stools were stacked haphazardly, as if it had been robbed.

Fang Senyan coughed lightly. The houses within a twenty-meter radius centered on him simultaneously collapsed with a roar, stirring up clouds of dust! All signs of life instantly reverted to their origin, turning to ash! At that moment, Fang Senyan experienced the exhilarating pleasure of unrestrained destruction from a superior being. However, this collapse triggered a terrifying chain reaction; collapses began frantically all around. In just a few minutes, a huge, flattened dust cloud billowed up from the plain!

“Cough! Cough! Cough!” Five minutes later, Fang Senyan, who had turned into a pile of white powder, charged out wildly, burying his head and sprinting nearly a hundred meters before looking back. He then knelt on the ground, pinching his nose and gagging a few times until he finally regained his breath. He wasn't sure if, given a few more minutes, he might have been the first Contractor to be choked to death by the dust.

When he looked up, he froze.

Before him stretched a perfectly straight, massive road, paved with crystal, one hundred meters wide. Clear streams gurgled on either side, and towering over them stood more than a dozen immense pyramids. The architectural design of these pyramids varied, some being square like Mayan temples, others triangular like Egyptian pyramids. Beside each pyramid stood guardian statues hundreds of meters tall: on one side, the graceful yet fierce feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl from Maya lore, and on the other, the mysterious and majestic Sphinx from Egypt! What secret was hidden at the end of this passage that required burial tombs built to the standard of emperors for its protection!!!

Fang Senyan looked back, but his path seemed lost in a dense fog, indistinct and unclear. Clearly, there must be a magical barrier here blocking the line of sight. Otherwise, he should have noticed such a magnificent complex of architecture from the hills. He tried to walk back, but after walking for a long time, it felt as if he were treading water in the same spot.

With no other option, Fang Senyan washed himself clean in the clear stream beside him and continued forward. Before he had walked a hundred meters, the intensely familiar feeling that had previously surfaced reappeared in his heart, exactly the same as what he had experienced outside the gates of Gringotts! The difference was that the feeling outside Gringotts had been a surge of momentary excitement that arrived and departed quickly; the current sensation, however, was like a drop of water—faint yet continuous!

“Damn it,” a chill suddenly ran through Fang Senyan’s heart. “Is my perception too low, causing me to be misled? Is this actually a trap designed to kill me?”

But he had recently been misled by the highly perceptive hunting spider, Death’s Breath. Thinking back carefully, he realized that the feeling in his heart now was genuinely different from the previous sensation. Furthermore, having endured such hardships to arrive here, it would be unconscionable not to investigate what lay ahead. Taking a deep breath, he could only step forward again.

The road beneath Fang Senyan’s feet now appeared profoundly solemn, constructed from deep black jade—profound and weighty, walking upon it felt like treading across the night sky. Something seemed to have appeared on the road’s surface. Upon closer inspection, it was covered in huge and exquisite bas-relief carvings. To gather more data about this mysterious place, Fang Senyan examined them carefully. He discovered that the carvings depicted a massive, ferocious humanoid monster, possessing three heads and eight arms, looking robust and corpulent. Its eight hands held various weapons that clearly looked immensely powerful, as it fought its way through numerous terrifying creatures as if unhindered.

Walking further ahead, for some inexplicable reason, the corpulent monster in the ground mural seemed to have fallen into a dormant state, lying on the ground snoring loudly. Sitting astride its belly, arms and legs splayed, was a towering and majestic figure. This person was entirely shrouded in a layer of mysterious mist. Numerous powerful monsters surged in from all directions, yet this mysterious figure waved a hand, causing the monsters to vanish into thin air—testament to his immense power.

The only perplexing element was that the mysterious figure had a seemingly tattered and wide sack strapped to his back, bulging as if full. This sack completely shattered the overall aura of majesty and mystery.

Fang Senyan was quite perplexed by the reasoning behind this. Logically, the artisans capable of constructing such a massive project would never make such an error. Therefore, the only explanation was that the builders themselves required it to be this way… Upon this realization, Fang Senyan suddenly grew curious about the entity slumbering ahead: what kind of transcendent, ultimate taste would orchestrate such an elaborate spectacle?