Chapter 287: Building top
"Impossible? When I discovered you were missing, I immediately entered the building to look for you without wasting a single minute. Why weren't you waiting for me downstairs?"
Lin Ye countered with his own question.
"...I waited for a while, but when you didn't come down, I decided to climb to the rooftop to check the situation. But as soon as I reached the second floor, I got sucked into the corridor. At first I didn't dare approach those suspicious-looking hanging paintings, but I couldn't leave the second floor at all, so I had no choice but to study them."
Xia La explained that she had no other options.
"Alright, wait here for me while I deal with what's inside these paintings... Actually, try going to the third floor first. If you can reach it, wait for me there. If not, you'll have to enter another painting."
Lin Ye suddenly remembered that he was the one who cleared the insect nest earlier. If that didn't count for Xia La, she might need to go through the process again.
"Okay."
Xia La walked alone toward the staircase leading to the third floor and successfully entered the building's third level.
After Xia La disappeared, Lin Ye checked the second floor again. Only after confirming she wasn't there did he randomly select a painting and enter its interior. The creature inside was quite weak, probably only around second-tier.
"This is so troublesome. They're not expecting us to deal with seventh-tier creatures, are they?" The previous insect nest was roughly fourth-tier, making Lin Ye feel tempted to abandon those two people.
After casually dispatching the second-tier creature before him, Lin Ye successfully found Xia La on the third floor... along with Richard, who was fighting inside a painting.
His painting depicted a ten-legged beast two stories tall that looked extremely difficult to handle.
Richard was being chased around by the beast, rolling across the ground in a very disheveled manner.
Lin Ye glanced at the painting a few times and, seeing that Richard still had some strength left, decided not to intervene.
"Seventh-tier creatures are too powerful. Let's focus on handling our own paintings first."
Lin Ye smoothly helped Xia La deal with the monster in her painting. The creatures in their paintings weren't high-tier, making them easy to handle.
"Should we still help him? He looks like he's about to die."
Xia La watched Richard lying half-dead on the ground in the painting and asked.
"Of course not. I didn't put him in there, and I'm not his bodyguard. Everyone has to take responsibility for their own choices. If it were lower-tier I could handle it, but seventh-tier is beyond me."
Lin Ye couldn't rely solely on mental energy to deal with seventh-tier creatures either. If he could enter the painting, he might have some ideas.
After speaking, Lin Ye headed toward the staircase leading to the fourth floor.
Xia La followed behind Lin Ye, and the two entered the fourth floor, leaving Richard struggling in the painting.
As soon as they reached the fourth floor, they encountered Ethan with his clothes in disarray.
"I knew you two would make it up. Should I wait for you?"
Ethan had already dealt with the fourth-floor paintings.
"No need. Go ahead and handle the fifth-floor paintings first. We'll catch up soon, but it's best not to go to the rooftop—there's a dangerous monster there."
Lin Ye only needed to deal with second-tier and fourth-tier creatures, which presented no difficulty for him.
"Alright, I'll wait for you on the fifth floor."
Ethan headed toward the staircase leading to the fifth floor.
After easily helping Xia La deal with the monster in her painting and handling his own painting, Lin Ye and Xia La entered the fifth floor together.
The fifth floor was similar to the lower levels, with Ethan standing before a painting and studying it.
"You're pretty fast."
Lin Ye was somewhat surprised he hadn't expected Ethan to be faster than them.
"No, the paintings here didn't transport me inside."
Ethan studied the painting before him, unsure what the problem was.
Lin Ye also walked up to a painting. It depicted the building's rooftop, where there was a white long worm over ten meters long covered with eyeballs.
All the paintings on the fifth floor showed the building's rooftop, just from different angles.
"The fifth floor might require all of us to enter the paintings together."
Lin Ye made a simple deduction.
"We're not going to have to wait for that seventh-tier guy, are you? But he's trapped in a painting downstairs... And if we go in together, what tier creature will we face?"
Xia La frowned as she asked.
"We should be able to enter after he dies. As for the tier, these paintings show the monster on the rooftop. We need to face this monster together, and its tier is probably fixed."
Whether it was fixed or not, Ethan had to say this to prevent others from getting the mistaken impression that killing the seventh-tier user would lower the difficulty. If this were all normal spiritual energy users it would be fine, but with Lin Ye here, he didn't want to confront him.
"Pretty much. I climbed to the rooftop before, and that monster is extremely dangerous. Those eyes seem to have some kind of death-inducing power."
Considering the fifth-floor situation, Lin Ye developed a theory—the fewer people encounter that monster, the more dangerous it becomes. One person alone probably can't handle it.
"Then we should prioritize destroying those eyes first... Is that friend still not dead yet?"
Xia La had no intention of going down to help him, nor did she want Lin Ye to go down.
"Unfortunately, I'm not dead yet."
Richard entered the fifth floor, covered in wounds everywhere with only a small portion of his left arm remaining, looking utterly devastated.
"That's not what I meant..."
Being caught talking behind someone's back made Xia La feel somewhat awkward.
"That's exactly what you meant, and that's what we meant too. Since you have the ability to come up here, don't waste time."
Lin Ye split the large black dog into several little black dogs. Since obtaining the Flesh and Blood Rule Fragment, his control over flesh and blood had been gradually strengthening.
"...I almost didn't make it up here."
Richard remained silent for a moment before speaking.
"If you don't want to fall into the deepest layers of the Abyss, you'd better not waste time."
Lin Ye controlled the little black dogs while standing before a painting.
The other three also each positioned themselves before a painting.
"...Why aren't we being transported?"
Xia La asked in confusion.
"I'm guessing we each need our own corridor."
Lin Ye wasn't certain either;
he just felt this made sense.
"That is indeed possible. I'll go over there."
Ethan moved to one side of the corridor, and the other two prepared to change corridors as well.
"You stay here."
Lin Ye had Xia La remain in place while he followed Richard to a different corridor.
When all four occupied separate corridors and stood before their respective paintings, the transportation finally triggered.
Lin Ye arrived at the building's rooftop again, but this time he wasn't alone.
The eyeballs covering the long worm kept rotating constantly. It wanted to focus its gaze on a single creature, but with too many creatures on the rooftop, it couldn't concentrate its visual control.
The four launched simultaneous attacks from four different directions. The long worm was busy controlling its eyeballs and made no attempt to dodge.
All attacks landed on the long worm, cutting it into pieces.
But this didn't kill the long worm—instead, it turned into multiple worms, with each segment growing its own eyeballs. Now they could finally control their gazes.