Chapter 190: Emptying the Magic Crystal Mountain.

The passage mentioned by Zhou Huai was naturally the one he had Shi Lei and Chen Mo dig back then.

As long as Li Gang could successfully find the entrance,

he would be able to quickly return to the surface.

By then, regardless of whether it was the Zhou Family or the Liu Family, it would not be very easy for them to catch him.

Once Li Gang returned to the military,

it would be a nightmare for both the Zhou Family and the Liu Family.

Putting the Liu Family aside,

the Zhou Family was destined to fall.

Discovering a Secret Realm and exploring it privately was a grave crime.

Moreover, he had also subjected so many Professionals to forced labor,

and illegally trafficked magic crystals.

As long as Li Gang truthfully reported everything he knew,

it wouldn't be long before the military sent troops to Donghai City.

What did it matter how many powerful experts there were?

Could they compare to the military?

Would they dare to oppose the military?

By then, the Zhou Family would face only one end: complete destruction.

Those members of the Zhou Family would also end up as prisoners.

This was Zhou Huai's plan.

Originally, he had thought about quietly developing in the Secret Realm

and plotting things out slowly.

But now Zhou Huai could no longer wait.

He might die any day now,

so the Zhou Family had to die before him!

Inside the cave, after listening to those words from the shadows, Li Gang was still filled with doubts.

Frowning, he lowered his voice once more.

"Who on earth are you?"

"Why are you helping me?"

However, this time, the shadow beneath his feet returned to calmness.

Not a single sound came out again.

Li Gang's heart suddenly sank.

Where was the person?

Where did they go?

"Hello? Hello! Are you still there? Hello?"

He called out towards his crotch in a barely audible voice.

Not far away, a Radiant Alliance member in charge of guarding saw him muttering and walked over.

The long whip in his hand snapped loudly in the air,

"Crack!"

"What are you doing?!"

That person scolded him impatiently,

"Staring at your crotch for half a day, what the hell are you daydreaming about?!"

"If you've rested enough, get back to work for me!"

Li Gang quickly reined in his thoughts, plastered a flattering smile on his face, and nodded and bowed repeatedly.

"Yes, yes, yes! Going right now! Going right now!"

He stood up, picked up the dull-edged pickaxe in the corner, and began to work with feigned diligence.

At this moment, Zhou Huai had already controlled Moria to stealthily move to the other end of the cave.

As for whether Li Gang believed his words, he couldn't be bothered to waste his breath explaining further.

He believed that with Li Gang's intelligence and situation, he should have his own judgment.

Coming to this place, he had another even more important purpose.

That was the magic crystals.

Those one hundred magic crystals last time had already been mostly eaten by the Little Black Dragon.

This time he was prepared to make a big move.

With a few shadow leaps, Moria's figure silently arrived at the storage point for the magic crystals.

The scene before him made his breathing pause slightly.

The number of magic crystals here now was many times more than when he came last time.

Countless magic crystals containing pure energy were piled together casually, forming a dazzling small mountain over a dozen meters tall.

In the dim cave, it exuded an alluring glow.

Moria carefully bypassed the two drowsy guards in the corner.

This time he wasn't in a hurry to steal the magic crystals.

Instead, he reached out and fished out a palm-sized yellow talisman seal from his storage space.

The material of the talisman seal was neither paper nor wood, and its surface was painted with intricate and profound patterns using cinnabar. It was precisely the small illusion Formation replicated by Zhuge Kongming using [Defying Convention].

Zhou Huai intended to use this illusion Formation to pull off a massive deception.

He flicked his finger.

That yellow talisman seal transformed into a stream of light, silently flying directly above the pile of magic crystals.

The talisman seal burned without fire in the air.

Specks of golden sparks, like dandelion seeds, drifted and fell in all directions.

Every single spark pulled out a thin golden thread in the air.

Countless threads intertwined and shuttled through the air, quickly outlining a huge and complex three-dimensional Formation pattern.

The Formation took shape, flashed with light, and completely concealed its traces.

Looking from the outside, everything was normal.

All the magic crystals were still piled there like a small mountain.

Touching them with your hands, you could still truly feel the hard and cold texture of the magic crystals.

However, inside the illusion Formation, it was already a completely different scene.

Zhou Huai had already begun a massive sweep.

Moria's fingers were like phantoms. Wherever they passed, patches of magic crystals were gathered into his pockets and disappeared.

Half an hour later,

tens of thousands of magic crystals were thoroughly looted by Zhou Huai.

Not a single one was left behind.

That dazzling small mountain was now completely gone, becoming empty.

Yet from the perspective of everyone outside, that Magic Crystal Mountain still stood majestically, exuding an alluring glow.

The Professionals transporting the magic crystals also did not discover the slightest abnormality.

They still threw the newly mined magic crystals one by one into that Void Realm.

The moment the magic crystals passed through the illusion Formation, they were taken away by Zhou Huai.

But in their eyes, that magic crystal merely landed on the pile of magic crystals, making a crisp collision sound.

This was the power of the illusion Formation.

It could not only deceive your vision, but also deceive all your perceptions.

Of course, being discovered was only a matter of time.

An illusion Formation was fake after all.

Once the people from the Radiant Alliance tried to transport magic crystals out from inside, they would find that not a single magic crystal here could be taken out.

By then, the shocking case of the stolen magic crystals would completely explode.

This was the big matter Zhou Huai had told Li Gang about.

One could imagine how much chaos would erupt in the entire underground cave when the people of the Radiant Alliance discovered that tens of thousands of magic crystals had vanished into thin air.

That would be the best opportunity for Li Gang to escape this place.

After finishing all this, Zhou Huai did not linger any longer.

Controlling Moria, he quietly returned along the original path.

Everything he should do had been done.

Next, it depended on Li Gang's own performance.

…

Moria's figure reappeared beside the lake where the Eternal Night Guild members were leveling up.

He casually fished out three basketball-sized magic crystals from his storage space and tossed them to the Little Black Dragon, which was rolling and frolicking on the shore.

Upon seeing the magic crystals, the Little Black Dragon's eyes instantly lit up.

It let out a joyful dragon roar, bit onto one of them in a single gulp, and chewed with a crunching sound, just like eating a delicious candy bean.

Just at this moment,

Moli walked over quickly and bowed respectfully.

"Master."

She reported,

"The aberrant beasts on the shores of the lake seem to have been almost cleared out by us."

"In the past two days, no other aberrant beasts have crawled out from the lake."

Zhou Huai nodded, indicating that he knew.

It seemed it was time to continue exploring outward to find new leveling spots.

However, Moli did not withdraw.

Hesitating for a moment, she continued, "Master, what I want to report is not this matter."

"What else is there?"

Moria's voice was calm.

Moli's expression became somewhat strange.

"Not long after we cleared out all the aberrant beasts,"

"at the bottom of that lake, suddenly… suddenly a bridge rose up."

"I just discovered it as well, so I immediately came to ask for your instructions."

"Should we send people onto the bridge to explore?"

Oh?

Hearing this, Zhou Huai instantly became interested.

Controlling Moria, he arrived at the lake shore in a few flickers.

Sure enough, an enormous stone bridge had appeared on the calm lake surface at some point.

That stone bridge was entirely built from a kind of cyan-grey giant stone, and the bridge body was wide enough to accommodate a dozen or so people walking side by side.

The surface of the bridge was covered with mottled moss marks eroded by time, making it look rustic and weathered.

It spanned across the entire lake, with one end connected to the shore where everyone was, and the other end extending deep into that thick fog shrouded year-round.

And that direction was precisely the location that had previously emitted golden light.

"How could there be a bridge here?"

Zhou Huai controlled Moria and slowly walked up to the bridgehead.

He reached out and gently touched the railing of the bridge body.

It felt hard and bone-chillingly cold to the touch.

Just at this moment, Zhou Huai's gaze was attracted by the patterns carved on the bridge railing.

Those were not ordinary decorative patterns,

but rows of neatly arranged, unfamiliar characters he had never seen before.

The strokes of those characters were complex and their structures bizarre, as if they contained some kind of mysterious power. Just taking a glance made one feel a wave of dizziness.

Zhou Huai could not help taking a deep breath.

A startling thought abruptly sprang from his mind.

He remembered what Nakamura Shinichiro had said before:

The biggest difference between Secret Realms and ruins was that

within ruins, there were traces of ancient civilizations having existed.

And these profound runes before him…

Could they be characters once used by some ancient civilization?

In other words…

The Secret Realm beneath Donghai City most likely…

was also a ruin?!