Problems

After breaking through his seventeenth barrier, Kong Xiang finally broke into the last maze. From his deductions, he determined that this was the inheritance hub, the very core of the sub space.

When he entered, he saw that there were already four people there.He noticed that rather than the cutthroat fight-till-I'm-the-only-inheritor-left attitude he was expecting, they were all strangely...calm?

The more Kong Xiang thought about it, the weirder he thought it was. Looking at the segmented runic patterns inscribed on the floor and noticing the others occupying one of the segments each, he walked up to one of the eighty-one patterns, occupying it. He sat down cross-legged and adjusted his breathing, joining the calm harmonious atmosphere.

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The group where Li Luo and Cui Chen were in had long succumbed to internal conflict and fighting. Thanks to Li Luo's strength, she and Cui Chen were not embroiled into the situation. When one member of the group tried to make a dash in their direction to extort them of spirit stones, she gave a straightforward punch that blasted him into bloody bits. Nobody bothered them afterwards.

When the bloodbath died down, the survivors continued breaking through the barriers. Li Luo contributed some effort in doing so too, and she and Cui Chen successfully made it to the end.

**********

After Kong Xiang, three more people he arrived at the final hub and took over three runic segments. Kong Xiang was in no hurry and guessed that all eighty hubs had to be filled first before the inheritance would show itself, so he just waited calmly.

Three hours later, a large number of people simultaneously appeared before the segments. Kong Xiang was relieved to see Li Luo among them. Li Luo instantly sent a voice transmission to him, but Kong Xiang noticed something strange.

Since Kong Xiang had arrived, he just kept his body still and continuously breathed rhythmically. Just now, he had wanted to shift his leg a bit when he noticed he couldn't move.

From where he sat cross-legged, he could see all other seven people sited. Looking more carefully now, he noticed that the calm expression they wore was frozen, and they were all most likely paralyzed, just like him.

Although his body was unable to move, he was still breathing and his eyes could blink. Hoping she would notice something was amiss when he didn't send back a voice transmission, he started blinking in code.

Having stayed together for a while, they had picked up quite a number of non-verbal communication, so Li Luo instantly received the message Kong Xiang was trying to pass through to her; TRAP.

By now, the others had figured out that the segments were the final requirements, so all eighty-five cultivators started fighting to get to the hubs. Li Luo just stood there, confused about Kong Xiang's message and wondering how to get him out of there.

A light bulb lit up in her mind. Since it required eighty-one hubs to be occupied for fully activated, she could stop whatever it was by stopping people from occupying them.

"STOP" Her voice wasn't loud enough to pierce through the noisy battlefield. She grabbed her longsword and shot an AOC attack all around her.

"STOP" This time, everybody noticed the crazy black haired girl.

"It's a trap. The hubs, they're traps"

Everyone turned silent. Beside her, Cui Chen asked.

"How do you know?"

"My...Kong Xiang blinked to me in our special code" She pointed at him. Noticing all attention on him, he started blinking rapidly at everyone. "He's saying that all of them in the hub are paralyzed and unable to move."

Some girl in the crowd yelled, "Could it be that they can't move because they are already receiving the inheritances, and your plan is to get all of us to give up so you can take it all?"The crowd's greed was stirred by the comment, and they all started to inch closer, ignoring her words.

Li Luo's eyes flashed, and she unleashed her full aura. "I will kill anyone who tries to occupy a runic hub."

Somebody laughed, "With just you alone?"

Even Cui Chen said, "Maybe you should step down. You can't greedily take all of this."

Her cold eyes didn't as much as blink. Around her, her Intents permeated around her and her aura fluctuated intensely, indicating she was on the verge of attack.

Cui Chen took advantage of the chaos to 'accidentally' fall into a hub, successfully occupying a spot. This caused a chain reaction among others, and as she withdrew her sword to attack, everybody else launched attacks at her.

Stuck in the hub, Kong Xiang's eyes widened.