“Oh…?” Qi Xia’s expression also turned cold. “Is that even possible?”

Earth-Horse nodded. “In my game, I am the sole rule. Unless something is explicitly ‘permitted,’ everything is ‘forbidden.'”

After hearing this, Qi Xia once again stared into Earth-Horse’s eyes, beginning to probe the motivations deep within her heart.

“Earth-Horse…” Qi Xia called out. “You just said you don’t want to face us… so have you seen us before?”

Seeing Earth-Horse’s expression slightly change, Qi Xia probed tentatively, “Where…?”

He stared at Earth-Horse’s expression and found that these two words completely failed to shake her, so he changed tack: “How long ago…?”

Earth-Horse furrowed her brow, feeling that although she hadn’t said anything, she was about to be seen through by the man before her.

“Ten years… more than ten years…?” Qi Xia stared into Earth-Horse’s eyes, continuously stimulating her with short phrases. “Twenty years? Could it be even longer?”

“You…” Earth-Horse simply stopped looking at Qi Xia’s eyes and turned her head to the side. “There’s no need to ask anymore. We’re not on the same side now. Why would I need to reveal intelligence to you?”

“That’s right…” After hearing this, Qi Xia narrowed his eyes and took a step forward, saying softly, “If you haven’t made it out in over twenty years… why would you turn yourself into this ghostly appearance?”

This sentence clearly struck a painful chord in Earth-Horse’s heart. What woman would willingly replace her own face with a monster’s? And who would want to be covered in animal skin that reeked of body odor and was covered in short fur?

Qi Xia stared at Earth-Horse’s bizarre lipstick-smeared lips, and the corners of his mouth rose again. “Even a white horse has black lips… How pitiful. How much lipstick do you have to apply to dye your lips back to red?”

Earth-Horse’s eyes looked obviously sorrowful to the extreme. She had once picked up this lipstick from a dead participant’s body and instantly treasured it.

She had thought that applying lipstick to her mouth could help her recover what little humanity she had left.

But no matter how much she applied it, the black horse lips showed no trace of color. She could only continuously expand the application area, so that the white fur around her mouth was also completely stained red.

Yes… only when her mouth could show red would it be considered an improvement to her complexion.

But doing this… would she look more like a person?

No, she only felt more like a monster.

A white horse-headed monster with bright red lips… as if she had just eaten a person.

Seeing the obvious loss in Earth-Horse’s eyes, Qi Xia softened his tone somewhat and said, “Together with us… destroy this place.”

“Destroy…” Earth-Horse was startled. All the loss in her eyes completely disappeared, replaced by panic. “What nonsense are you talking about?! You’re clearly a ‘participant’!”

Seeing Earth-Horse’s reaction, Qi Xia felt that the “Zodiacs'” attitudes toward this matter should all be roughly the same.

“I’m just making a suggestion… you don’t have to accept it…” Qi Xia said. “But I also want to know, under what circumstances would you consider the feasibility of this matter?”

“You!” A stream of hot air shot out from Earth-Horse’s pitch-black nostrils. “I… would never consider it…”

“Best if that’s the case,” Qi Xia said.

The conversation between the two practically ended on a sour note, and Qi Xia’s expression wasn’t much better than Earth-Horse’s.

Just how bizarre were the words Earth-Horse had just spoken?

More than twenty years…?

He was only twenty-six years old this year, yet he had been in the “Land of the End” for over twenty years?

What an absurdly laughable life this was.

The time he had spent here already exceeded that in the real world? Or could it be that all the memories of his life were fake?

No one was in the mood to care about the feelings of these two, because a more difficult matter was now at hand—

Now that Earth-Horse had expressly forbidden two people riding at once… didn’t that mean she would definitely throw balls in the seventh round?

“Liar Boy…” Qiao Jiajin turned to look at Qi Xia. “Do you have any countermeasures?”

After hearing this, Qi Xia came back to his senses, touched his chin, and said, “I haven’t thought of anything for now.”

However, after hearing this, Qiao Jiajin slowly broke into a grin. “But I have a way.”

“You have…?” Qi Xia felt something was amiss. “What way do you have?”

Qiao Jiajin walked to the side and picked up that metal baseball bat, smiling at Qi Xia as he said, “Liar Boy, this is my way.”

“This…?” Qi Xia frowned, as if thinking of something. “Your method seems…”

“Even if that big horse woman throws balls herself, I’ll use this bat to block them all.”

Qiao Jiajin’s short sentence made all the people beside him show worried expressions.

Holding a metal baseball bat to block “balls” thrown by an Earth-level Zodiac… what difference was there between this and an ordinary “participant” fighting a “Zodiac” one-on-one?

“Are you serious…?” Qi Xia felt this was improper. “We have no idea where the upper limit of ‘Earth-level’ is. Can you catch the ‘balls’ she throws?”

“It’s precisely because we don’t know where the upper limit of ‘Earth-level’ is that we need to try. Once we’ve tried it once, it’ll be much easier in the future.” Qiao Jiajin unconcernedly swung the iron bat in his hand. “Let’s proceed normally this round… next round, everyone wait for me at the starting point… I’ll stake my life on batting those ‘balls’ away.”

Qi Xia knew that in this type of non-strategy game, the decisive factors he could contribute weren’t great. What was more important was the physical qualities of the team’s strongest participant.

But even if that female Earth-Horse had never undergone fighting or pitching training, the balls she threw would certainly not be at an ordinary level. How much confidence did Qiao Jiajin have that he could catch them?

Everyone immediately decided on their tactics. They rearranged the cart and had the still somewhat frail Yun Shijiu get on first.

“Ready?” Qiao Jiajin asked.

“Ready!”

Following Qiao Jiajin’s rhythm, everyone gathered their strength and suddenly pushed the cart forward. Due to the unstable force, the cart spun while flying forward.

This time, the “Giant Gate” star’s attribute was still “Earth,” but it was clearly worlds apart from the last time.

What flew out from the mechanism were wet mud balls, emitting strange smoke and flying wildly left and right through the air.

Yun Shijiu considered his psychological fortitude to be quite strong, but sitting in a cart without any safety measures, sliding at high speed on an ice surface, with countless mud balls flying chaotically behind him, made him feel like his heartbeat stopped for several seconds.

He had ridden roller coasters before, but a roller coaster without safety belts plus flying projectiles that could take your life at any moment—how many people had tried that?

Fortunately, Qi Xia’s tactics had no problems so far. The mechanism’s launch and the projectiles’ flight both required time, and the rapidly sliding cart could leave its original position in an instant, making it extremely difficult for the mechanisms to lock onto.

When everyone saw the cart stop steadily at the finish line and was about to quickly come to the cart’s side to turn it around, they discovered that the mud balls that had fallen on the ground were emitting billowing smoke, instantly shrouding the entire track.