[Divine Tomb, First Floor]
After destroying all one thousand God's Apostles, the vast chamber fell into a dead, eerie silence.
And yet, in front of Zhang Yue, there was no sign of a portal like the kind that would usually appear to lead to the second floor.
So Zhang Yue asked across the video call, ["Strategist, what's going on? Help me analyze this."]
From the other side of the screen came Ouyang Ling'er's voice, ["Big bro, go walk around a bit. You're too far, I can't see clearly!"]
Zhang Yue had always been the type to think things through and work hard.
But somehow, ever since he first met Ouyang Ling'er, that had changed.
He didn't like thinking anymore.
He left everything to Ouyang Ling'er.
Because Zhang Yue knew, whatever the problem was, no matter how tricky, Ouyang Ling'er would always figure it out for him.
So Zhang Yue spread his angel wings and descended from the sky.
He landed in the graveyard below.
Then, he began moving slowly across the vast burial ground.
At the same time, he pointed his camera toward the corpses of the God's Apostles lying all over the place, scattered in every direction.
Just then, Ouyang Ling'er suddenly shouted, ["STOP!"]
["Zoom in! Zoom in!"]
Following her instructions, Zhang Yue crouched down and focused the camera closely on one Apostle's corpse, enlarging the image.
At the same time, on Ouyang Ling'er's side, the skeleton became clearly visible on the screen.
She froze the image on that frame, pulled another computer over, and quickly transferred the footage for analysis.
Instantly—
Whirr! Whirr! Whirr!
Dozens of pop-up windows burst open all over her computer screen.
Seeing that, Ning Tiantian, Liyue, and Wu Haotian, who were standing behind her, felt their scalps go numb.
"Holy crap! My eyes hurt just looking at this!"
"There's so many windows, which one are we supposed to look at?"
Ouyang Ling'er turned around and rolled her eyes at Wu Haotian, "These are all auto-decryption programs I set up in advance. They're running automatically. You don't need to look at them."
Then, she turned her attention back to the screen.
After a round of quick operations, she suddenly snapped her fingers.
"What happened?", Wu Haotian asked, staring at the skeleton that now filled the entire screen, "You find something? Is this ribcage better braised or in soup?"
Ouyang Ling'er ignored him completely and said to Zhang Yue, ["Try burning it. Let's see what happens."]
Zhang Yue didn't really understand, but he didn't question her at all. ["Alright."]
He looked at the thirty-six-winged Armageddon Black Dragon beside him, "Drogo, go."
The Armageddon Black Dragon understood instantly. It spread its wings and soared into the air, opening its massive jaws.
The next second—
ROAR!
With a thunderous roar, it unleashed a torrent of blazing fire from its mouth.
In an instant, a huge area of the ground was engulfed in dragonfire, burning the corpses of the God's Apostles.
Since they were skeletal in form even when alive, their remains were also just bones after death.
But as the flames consumed those skeletons, something strange began to happen.
Their bones gradually turned into white ash, drifting upward into the air.
The burned corpses of the Apostles transformed into pale ashes that rose and floated skyward, then began gathering together, slowly forming a circular barrier in the air.
Because the Armageddon Black Dragon had only burned a few dozen corpses with that first breath, the ashes' power of condensation was limited, forming only a small white circle in midair.
Seeing this, Zhang Yue immediately looked toward the Armageddon Black Dragon.
The dragon met his gaze and understood his intent.
It immediately ascended higher, circling around the entire tomb, continuously breathing out scorching dragonfire as it went.
The ground below was soon covered in blazing flame, burning the corpses of the Apostles into white ash that drifted upward!
As more and more bones were burned by the Armageddon Black Dragon, the white halo forming in the sky grew larger and larger.
Seeing this, Wu Haotian, Liyue, and Ning Tiantian, standing behind Ouyang Ling'er, were all dumbstruck.
"Damn! Ling'er, how did you even think of burning the Apostles' corpses?"
"Yeah! Who the hell would even think of that!", Wu Haotian said in disbelief.
Ouyang Ling'er looked very pleased with herself, "Heh! Of course I didn't just make it up. Everything in another world follows its own logic."
"By analyzing the World 57, this kind of thing becomes clear!."
"If you just ask around the temple, you'll find that in the divine realm hundreds of years ago, the first being to surpass the main god, Xingtian, once led the humans of the temple into battle against darkness and defeated the Demon Gods."
"And under him, there was a powerful army known as the God's Apostles. These Apostles were not only extremely strong, but also possessed a mysterious power, the ability to burn their own life force to open spatial arrays for Xingtian. Using these arrays, the transcendent main god Xingtian could instantly travel anywhere he wished."
"However, since this ability consumed an enormous amount of the Apostles' life energy, Xingtian would rarely use it unless absolutely necessary."
Ouyang Ling'er continued her reasoning confidently, "So, following that clue, I deduced that the Apostles' ability to burn life to open space gates didn't actually consume their life, it burned their bone marrow!"
"That means, by burning their remains, we can open a space gate!"
After hearing her explanation, even Wu Haotian, who was usually never impressed by Ouyang Ling'er, couldn't help giving her a big thumbs-up, "Damn, you're actually amazing!"
"If an old granny fell over, I wouldn't help her up, but I'd salute you!"
———
Meanwhile, inside the Divine Tomb, once the thirty-six-winged Armageddon Black Dragon had flown one full circle around the entire tomb, burning all the Apostles' corpses to ash with its flames, endless streams of white ash rose into the air, gathering until a massive white light curtain formed high above.
Then, from within that glowing curtain, a beam of white light shot down and landed right in front of Zhang Yue.
At the same moment, a system notification sounded in his ears:
["Ding~ Congratulations, the teleportation path to the Second Floor of the Divine Tomb has been opened!"]
Zhang Yue's heart jolted.
The next second, without hesitation, he stepped into the white light before him.
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