"Hm?"

Seeing an open area up ahead, Long Hua hastens his footsteps, and upon emerging from the cavernous pathway—

"Surnamed Long."

Seeing Long Hua, Shao Tianming's expression immediately turns sour, as he pulls his can of beer away from his lips.

"Oh?"

Emerging from the pathway as well, Ye Chen takes a look around the vicinity.

Other than Shao Tianming and Wang Yongning, it seems like his office is the only group to have come down here, assuming the others—who decided to take a chance, didn't get killed off.

"So, what exactly is happening here? Are you all taking five, or something?"

Asking this, Ye Chen walks over to where Li Xue and the others are.

For some reason, every person in this area had a fatigue-ridden expression on their faces, as they sat on the ground with the air of a defeatist.

"Something like that. Try heading into one of those pathways without turning back."

As Wang Yongning points to the five pathways that are to the front, Ye Chen looks over with a quizzical expression on his face.

Picking a pathway at random, Ye Chen enters it.

Gradually, the figure of Ye Chen's back vanishes into the darkness.

Sometime later—

"..."

Long Hua turns his head to the side, and—

"The hell happened?"

Finding himself behind Long Hua, and remerging from the pathway that they had traveled through, Ye Chen frowns.

Raising a sigh, Yu Ji says—

"We've been trying to figure out which pathway is the correct one to take—only to keep ending up at where we started."

Twitching his lips, Ye Chen mutters—

"...Well, that explains those look on your faces."

Turning towards Long Hua, Shao Tianming, who seems thoroughly fed up with the situation, says—

"We tried heading back the way we came as well, but still ended up here."

(Surnamed Long, you're an Immortal, you must know something about this odd place...)

Thinking of this, there is a slight flicker of hope in Qing Yue's eyes.

"Hmm."

Deciding to try this out for himself, Long Hua turns back the way he came—with Tian Cheng following after him.

"..."

Continuing to move straight without turning, Long Hua keeps his divine senses active, to look for anything unusual.

(...I do sense something, or someone staring at me. But... Not sure where its coming from. Also...)

Taking another step forward, Long Hua feels as if an invisible set of hands had just touched him—causing him to turn his head to the side, and look to Tian Cheng, who is an arm's length away from him.

This isn't the first time he's felt this odd sensation, and—

"..."

Receiving a nod from Tian Cheng, Long Hua confirms that he isn't imagining it.

(This weird sensation of being pushed around while moving... Is it from a teleportation magic array? If it is, it's quite well-hidden. Tch, even my divine senses... They're not able to cover as much distance here...)

Eventually, an exit appears in the far distance, but through his limited divine senses, Long Hua could already tell that it only leads to the area that the others are currently in.

"..."

Emerging from the pathway with a contemplating expression on his face, Long Hua picks up a stone, and ties it to his fishing rod—prior to embedding it into a wall, and heading back into the pathway.

To feel for further hints of abnormalities, he has shrouded the fishing line with his sword Qi.

Upon being far enough away from the others, to not be able to see the area that they are in—

"..."

Once more, the odd sensation of being displaced is felt by Long Hua through his next step, and—

"..."

Detecting something attempting to bend the sword Qi-reinforced fishing line, Long Hua frowns.

"Qie, about those dynamites..."

(Hm?)

Halting his footsteps, Long Hua confirms a few things with the Tai Xuan Emperor, while pressing a hand against the walls, as if to look for any hidden pathways, or unusual markers.

Similarly, the Tai Xuan Emperor has her vessel do the same.

"..."

Waiting for Long Hua to finish his inspection of the pathway, Shao Tianming returns to sipping on his can of beer.

If he has to be honest, Shao Tianming has started to regret coming down here ever since he encountered those odd pathways.

Due to the number of abnormalities that this ruin had already demonstrated, the only other person to have accompanied him was Wang Yongning alone.

At some point—

"..."

Finding nothing unusual, Long Hua returns to the others, with Ye Chen asking—

"Well?"

"I hate this sort of bullshit the most."

Saying this, Long Hua takes out a stack of timed dynamite—that he had acquired from his gacha rolls.

"...!"

"...!"

Almost immediately, the complexion of the others turned pale.

"Surnamed Long, calm down, and put those away."

Towards Wang Yongning's plead, Long Hua answers—

"Sometimes, violence and brute force is the answer to all your problems. I'm personally too lazy to sit down, and use my brain to figure this nonsense out."

"What if you cause a cave-in?"

"Then we all die, I guess?"

Before Shao Tianming can say anything else, Li Xue asks—

"The fact that you can say that without a care, means you have confidence it won't happen, right?"

Despite being somewhat out of it, Li Xue isn't too keen on an early death just yet.

Shrugging a shoulder, Long Hua replies—

"I've already experienced something akin to a dynamite going off when I first arrived here, and as far as I can tell, it didn't cause anything but a tremor."

Recalling the state of the area that he had found Long Hua and Tian Cheng in, Ye Chen feels like it's worth a try, as he says—

"Do it then. Beats starving to death, or going insane."

With everyone looking so fed-up, Ye Chen feels like being overcome by insanity would only be a matter of time. When that happens, bloodshed is all but inevitable.

"...Ai."

Heaving a sigh, and tossing his beer aside, Shao Tianming stands up from the ground, and takes out a tower shield from his storage pouch—showing his consent with using this method.

"Right then, get into position."

As Long Hua gestures to his back, everyone gets up, and moves over—prior to positioning the tower shield directly in front of the group.

"Actually, would one even be enough?"

Towards Shao Tianming's concern, Long Hua chuckles, while starting the timer, and replies—

"Don't underestimate this one stack. It's far more powerful than your standard explosive. In any case, if you don't want to get blown backwards—lean against the shield."

Having confirmed with the Tai Xuan Emperor that these dynamites are also a form of Spirit Armaments, Long Hua is rather excited to see how much damage they'd be able to do.

*Beep. Beep. Beep.* as the timer on the dynamite ticks down, Long Hua tosses it over the tower shield with five seconds remaining, and shouts—

"Happy new year!"