“Where shall I stab?”

Bai Youwei gripped the sword and tapped it against Vilrad’s chest.

“A fatal blow?” Her smile carried a wicked edge, cold and vicious. “The most important shield can’t be wasted so easily, can it? You looked completely shocked just now — you clearly never expected me to get my hands on a sword. So the shield’s position, in all likelihood, wasn’t placed there out of cunning calculation. You put it at your chest to protect your heart. So then… what if I aim for your abdomen instead?”

The gleaming blade shifted to Vilrad’s midsection.

Vilrad glared at her with venom in his eyes.

“Hmm… but you know the human body well. The shield might be covering your abdomen too.” Bai Youwei mused slowly. “If I stab and hit the shield, you’ll gain another one, simultaneously protecting both your abdomen and your heart. Wouldn’t that make you completely invincible?”

Bai Youwei tilted her head and looked toward the nearby referee. “So what do we do? If those two critical areas are always protected, how does the game proceed?”

Tu Shenshi replied politely: “Each attack counts as one round, and each shield has an effective protection duration of three rounds.”

Bai Youwei: “Oh… so regardless of whether I hit a shield or not, I can still exhaust one of the shield’s uses?”

Tu Shenshi nodded. “You could think of it that way.”

Vilrad let out a scornful laugh. “After all that talk, where exactly are you planning to stab?”

Bai Youwei’s eyes turned ice-cold. She raised her arm and drove the blade through his right arm!

A suppressed cry of pain escaped Vilrad’s throat, and his breath seized instantly!

“How’s that for a choice?” Bai Youwei smiled. “Once I’ve crippled both your arms, I’d like to see what you’ll use to draw a sword!”

Vilrad recovered after a long moment, slowly lifting his head and sneering at her with a twisted grin. “Maybe you won’t live long enough to see that. You’ll have already… bled to death…”

Bai Youwei leaned back, her gaze drifting slowly to the now-empty scabbard at her side.

“Then let us… wait and see…”

—

— The season appeared to be summer.

On a barren stretch of land, a pyramid rose straight up from the earth.

Pan Xiaoxin gripped the straps of his backpack, nervously watching three men not far away.

After entering the game, two pieces of information had surfaced in his mind:

【Mission: Retrieve the King’s sword.】

【Rule: You may not kill anyone.】

Pan Xiaoxin knew exactly what this meant — this rule worked heavily in his favor. Otherwise, those three men could have simply eliminated him at the start and monopolized the chance to claim the King’s sword.

But now, with the rule in place, they’d at least have reason to hesitate before moving against him.

Still, he couldn’t let his guard down…

Pan Xiaoxin carefully sidled a few steps away, keeping a cautious distance from the adults.

The men seemed to have no interest in dealing with him. One by one, they began scaling the pyramid, climbing upward.

Calling it a pyramid was not quite accurate — it had the rough silhouette of one, but the top was flat and square. Midway up, you could faintly make out patches of green shadow that looked like trees.

Since when did trees grow on pyramids?

In truth, the structure resembled both a mountain and a tower, difficult to describe precisely. Most striking of all was a long staircase running straight up the center to the summit.

The steps were enormous, as though built for giants — each one over a meter high.

Pan Xiaoxin touched the “lucky stone” hanging around his neck, slung on his small backpack, pressed both hands to a step, and hauled himself up.

At his current level of fitness, he could climb quickly — but given the sheer scale of this “pyramid,” it was wiser to conserve energy and take it slow.

He noticed words carved into the stone steps:

【How many tiers of heaven’s stair must you climb before you behold the divine?】

Pan Xiaoxin looked up. The three men ahead had already climbed at least twenty steps.

That distance was safe enough, he thought — and continued climbing in silence, one step at a time.

“Hey, there’s writing over here!”

The man in the black tank top called to his companions to stop. Carved into the step before them were the words:

【A stairway to heaven has been built for him, so that he may ascend to the sky above.】

“What does that mean?”

“Who cares… let’s keep climbing. The sword has to be at the top.”

—