Chapter 454: Return to the Laboratory

Return to the Laboratory.

Staring at the metallic tunnel beneath his feet, Yenir quickly extended his mental power inward to sense its depths.

Within seconds of continuous probing, he sensed that the tunnel was bottomless, spanning over a hundred meters.

It twisted and turned like the winding trail of a snake.

According to the deceased Otherworldly Ghost Researcher, this passage should lead directly to the final safe zone. Once out there, one could head straight for the weakest point guarded by the Otherworldly Ghosts.

“I didn’t sense any danger,” he noted.

“As Blood Nightingale mentioned, Yinglong has taken some kind of tool. Without it, you can’t access the final stage of the dungeon.”

“It looks like that stone on the altar functions like an ID card. But it’s probably a trap; otherwise, the Otherworldly Ghost Researcher wouldn’t have told us to grab it.”

“So, once it’s in our hands, we can ditch the stone after entering…”

After quickly scanning the message from Blood Nightingale, Yenir confirmed that Yinglong was still on his way. Without hesitation, he dove into the passage.

Yinglong was tasked with handling the Otherworldly Ghosts, so his progress was a bit slower.

Even if he wasted some time, Yenir could still reach the final level quicker than Yinglong—or better yet, he never needed to follow any orders from the Otherworldly Ghosts.

…………

Whoosh—

Whoosh—

Two soft, sliding sounds echoed in quick succession.

After jumping into the tunnel, Yenir carefully extended his mental power to scan his surroundings in real time.

The corridor wasn’t particularly short or long.

In his eyes, the all-metal tunnel resembled an intestine. He and Liang Lie were moving as though inside a snake’s belly. It was pitch black, and the air felt thin.

As they plunged downward,

with no obstructions, in under a minute a faint beam of light illuminated the tunnel.

Approximately 1.7 kilometers…

“Vertical distance? Roughly one kilometer, perhaps?”

After silently gauging his descent and directing his mental energy toward what looked like an exit, Yenir decisively drew his dagger. With a solid bang, he stabbed it into the tunnel wall to steadily slow his rapid fall.

Sensing beyond the portal, everything seemed perfectly normal.

Soon, accompanied by a continuous scraping of metal, he and Liang Lie arrived at the tunnel’s exit.

At the exit of the final level—one kilometer down—a surge of a smell like machine oil and plastic instantly filled his nostrils.

Huh?

The final level… why does it smell like a factory?

Without further hesitation,

Yenir sprang to his feet and surveyed the final level. His eyes widened momentarily before focusing on a colossal metal structure in the distance.

That was…

To him, the entire final level appeared to be constructed from pure silvery-gray metal. From the ground to the ceiling, rough metal filled his entire field of vision.

The exit opened into a network of metallic mountains, with uneven mine shafts scattered around.

In the distance, a sprawling metallic city emerged, with several round structures—reminiscent of nuclear power plant chimneys—standing out. Further inside, details were obscured by towering defensive walls.

“Is this the final level of the Ghost Battlefield?”

“Metal veins… a metal city…”

“Could this be the realm of the Otherworldly Ghosts?”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

Yenir strove to see further into the distance, hoping to gather more details.

From the Otherworldly Ghost Researcher’s words, was the location of the item they needed to seize within the city?

Surveying his bleak surroundings, Yenir could tell this mine had been abandoned long ago; there were no signs of any activity.

But gazing at the distant, lifeless, steel jungle of a city, a twinge of wariness crept over him.

“This architectural style couldn’t have been crafted by mere humans. There’s no record of anything like it.”

“Surely the interior isn’t teeming entirely with Otherworldly Ghosts, right? Given their previous numbers, could there really be hundreds of thousands?”

Frowning, Yenir felt goosebumps at the mere thought that the whole city might be crawling with Otherworldly Ghosts.

“Infiltrate?”

The Otherworldly Ghosts had no special method for recognizing humans; it’s just that many human quirks tend to betray them.

No other identification methods existed anyway.

After all, if something looked human, they’d simply devour it—if it turned out to be the wrong target, it would soon start talking.

“Let’s blend in first. Surely there won’t be that many Otherworldly Ghosts, right?”

“If the whole city were swarming with Otherworldly Ghosts, who could possibly infiltrate…”

“Not to mention, how could one slay an Otherworldly Ghost Monarch under those conditions…”

Confirming that no life was within sight, Yenir took a deep breath and sprinted straight for the city.

Flying wasn’t an option; it would attract too much attention.

He had to find a way to beat Yinglong inside and then lay low.