Blind Box World - SSS-Rank Eye of Truth

Chapter 62: The One at the Top of the Board

Elsewhere in the trial space, in an area shaded by ancient stone pillars, the woman in black was leading seven people.

Those seven were all youths, around fifteen or sixteen years old, each wearing a black robe like hers, differing only in that they lacked the silver chains and the elaborate hairpin. They walked behind her, their bearing respectful, and each time she stopped, all seven immediately stopped too.

"City Lord Tuyết Cơ," one youth spoke up, his voice full of reverence. "Which direction should we head next?"

The woman in black, the one called Tuyết Cơ, swept her eyes around once, then leisurely spoke.

"Listen well." Her voice still carried its habitual lazy air, but this time with a bit of seriousness added in. "This trial space opens only once every few decades. It’s a rare opportunity for you to train. But I must say beforehand, in here, safety comes first."

She raised one black-gloved finger, wagging it faintly.

"First, absolutely do not underestimate the enemy. In here there are existences even I have to be wary of. Second, absolutely do not go out of your way to provoke the strong. See anything stronger than yourself and steer well clear. You came here to train and find treasure, not to make enemies and pick fights."

"Then what should we do?" a girl asked.

"Focus on finding treasure." Tuyết Cơ answered. "Especially Blind Boxes. If you find an unopened Blind Box, then this trip of yours won’t have been in vain. Besides that, you must always look out for one another, and not split off alone. Understood?"

"Understood!" The seven youths answered in unison, their voices full of excitement.

Right at that moment, a pale blue notification panel suddenly appeared in midair, before everyone.

[Congratulations to the Bone Demon Serpent for successfully eliminating the Harpy Queen, receiving 2,500 points, rising to the top of the ranking board.]

All seven youths were stunned, then immediately fell to chattering.

"The Bone Demon Serpent? That giant snake monster from before?"

"It killed the Harpy Queen? But... the Bone Demon Serpent and the Harpy Queen didn’t have any grudge with each other, did they?"

"That’s right, the two sides had nothing to do with each other. Why would the Bone Demon Serpent suddenly go kill the Harpy Queen?"

"Could it be over fighting for treasure?"

The seven youths clamored in discussion, puzzlement showing on all their faces.

Tuyết Cơ heard that chatter, and only smiled faintly.

She leisurely drew a folding fan from her sleeve, opened it, and hid half of her beautiful face behind it, revealing only her pale gray eyes curving up full of a smiling air.

"You’re young, you don’t yet understand the ways of the world." Her voice rang out from behind the fan, unhurried yet profound. "In this world, there’s nothing that can’t happen. Killing one another over seizing treasure is a matter as ordinary as ordinary can be. Today the Bone Demon Serpent can kill the Harpy Queen, and tomorrow, any one of you could become the target of another."

She closed the fan, her gaze turning serious.

"That’s why I told you to be careful. A Bone Demon Serpent has taken the top of the ranking board, which means it will only grow stronger and stronger. You must give it a very wide berth. Understood?"

"Understood!" The seven youths answered this time, their voices with less of the earlier eagerness, replaced by wariness.

Tuyết Cơ nodded, then flicked her hand in signal. The whole group quickly departed, vanishing among the ancient stone pillars.

From beginning to end, not one of them doubted the message on the ranking board.

Because in the understanding of all of them, a ranking board created by the trial space itself, how could it possibly be wrong?

...

Meanwhile, in yet another part of the trial space, the Bone Demon Serpent was indeed running into a bit of trouble.

To call it trouble, in truth it hardly amounted to anything.

It was only a small flock of Harpies, some few dozen of them, surrounding it and shrieking clamorously. The cause was that between them and the Bone Demon Serpent, on a dead branch, hung a bright red fruit, giving off a fragrant current of energy. The whole Harpy flock and the Bone Demon Serpent both wanted that fruit, so the two sides were in a standoff.

Of course, this standoff didn’t last long.

The Bone Demon Serpent only twisted its body faintly, its colossal skull head sweeping across, and a terrible pressure bore down. The small Harpies hadn’t even had time to react before more than half of them were crushed by that pressure. The rest had just meant to flee when the Bone Demon Serpent’s thousand-meter-long body coiled up, swept in a circle, and wiped out the entire remainder cleanly.

This was absolute power. Even sealed down to Gold Tier 9 by the ruin’s law, the Bone Demon Serpent was at heart still an existence standing at the top of the food chain.

The moment it swept the Harpy flock clean, a notification panel appeared before it.

[Congratulations to the Bone Demon Serpent for eliminating a group of Harpies, including one Harpy Queen, receiving bonus points.]

The Bone Demon Serpent stopped short.

Its colossal skull head tilted to one side, the yellow symbol on its forehead faintly flashing, as if in confusion.

A Harpy Queen?

It lowered its colossal head, looking closely at the Harpy corpses strewn across the ground. These were all small, weak Harpies, without a trace of any Harpy Queen at all.

It lifted its head again to look at the notification panel, its deep hollow eye sockets showing a look of puzzlement.

After a spell of confusion, it simply stopped caring.

In any case, getting points added was a good thing.

It opened its colossal mouth, swallowing the entire batch of Harpy corpses on the ground into its belly, then scooped up the red fruit on the dead branch as well. Then it went on slithering, leaving behind an empty patch of ground.

It had no idea at all that, in a place very far from there, someone had just borrowed its name as a screen, pushing all the attention of this entire trial space onto its head.

...

Back to where Ethan was.

After completing the alteration of the ranking board, Ethan withdrew his eye and let out a long breath. Interfering with the law just now had eaten up no small amount of energy, leaving him feeling a bit dizzy.

But looking at the final line appearing on the notification panel, he felt all that consumption had been worth it.

[Your identity has been concealed. The feat of eliminating the Harpy Queen has been transferred to: the Bone Demon Serpent.]

Perfect.

From now on, every creature in this trial space would believe that it was the Bone Demon Serpent that had killed the Harpy Queen. No one would know of Ethan’s existence. No one would know that a Bronze-tier Awakened was quietly concealing himself in the shadows.

And that Bone Demon Serpent, the terrifying existence everyone had to be wary of, would inadvertently become the perfect screen for him. Every strong one would pour their attention and vigilance onto it, while he could act freely in the shadows.

This was precisely the advantage of borrowing a knife to kill. Or more accurately, borrowing a monster’s name to conceal oneself.

"Done." Ethan turned to Laira, a smile still lingering at the corner of his mouth. "From now on, we’re the invisible ones in this place."

Laira nodded, her gaze flashing with approval. She didn’t understand how Ethan had done it, but she knew, his plan had succeeded.

As for Lěng Ruò Yān, she was still standing there frozen, looking at the notification panel then at the two of them, her head a tangled mess.

She had heard the message on the ranking board. The Bone Demon Serpent eliminated the Harpy Queen. But clearly, the Harpy Queen had been killed by Laira right before her eyes, hadn’t it?

So why did the ranking board say it was the Bone Demon Serpent?

She turned dazedly to look at Ethan, stammering: "You... how did you..."

"Don’t ask." Ethan smiled, raising one finger before his lips. "Some things, not knowing is better for you."

Lěng Ruò Yān looked at that mysterious smile of his, and swallowed the question back down into her belly.

By this point, she had completely abandoned any notion of looking down on this Awakened.

Someone who could both command a dragon to bring down a Gold-tier in the blink of an eye, and decompose a corpse into a lump of crystallized flesh, and also quietly alter the entire ranking board of the trial space to pin the feat on another monster...

This person, how many more secrets was he actually hiding?

Lěng Ruò Yān suddenly felt that her decision to follow the two of them in here might be both the most fortunate, and also the most frightening, thing in her life.

Ethan paid no attention to Lěng Ruò Yān’s tangled thoughts.

He lifted his head, looking toward the faint purple halo in the distance, where Laira’s Solar Flame Seal was still faintly resonating, urging.

Now, with the perfect screen of the Bone Demon Serpent in place, having become the invisible ones, he could act with peace of mind.

"Let’s go," he said, stepping toward the purple halo. "I want to see what treasure is actually calling to your Solar Flame Seal."

Laira and Lěng Ruò Yān immediately followed behind him.

The three of them advanced deep into that world of bone pyramids, beneath the hazy green light cast down from the ocean hanging upside down overhead, heading toward the mysterious purple halo waiting in the distance.

And not one of them realized that the purple halo, besides calling to Laira’s Solar Flame Seal, was also quietly calling to something else.

Something hidden deep within Ethan’s left arm.