This scoundrel is a bit of a swordsman.

The two looked towards the library at the same time. A sound of breaking window rang out, and they saw a dark figure being thrown out, then crashing into the courtyard with a thud, immediately leaving a large pool of blood beneath him.

"who?"

Exclamations rang out, and all the men in black rushed towards them. But Xiao Xingchen could clearly see that there was no one else in the house besides this man in black.

He had just gone in; the other man in black went up to a higher floor, so this floor only contained the man named Baku.

The noise quickly drowned out the silence of the library. Ruoxue stared at the dark figure behind the window, her face full of disbelief. She couldn't believe that someone could remain silent right under her nose.

"Haunted?"

Even Xiao Xingchen couldn't help but mutter to himself, otherwise how did this black-clad man, covered in blood, manage to fall in the yard?

Moreover, they were close enough to clearly see the terror on Baku's face, as if he had encountered something extremely frightening.

Even after losing consciousness, a look of horror remained on his face.

“This place is strange, let’s go up to the roof.”

Ruoxue grabbed him and leaped up, but then, something terrifying happened again. What should have been a simple jump to the roof turned into a jump that sent them crashing back to the ground.

"This?" The two looked at each other, both seeing the shock in each other's eyes. Their power had vanished.

Ruoxue smiled wryly and couldn't help but complain.

"Xiao Xingchen, it seems you really brought me to an extraordinary place tonight. It can even trap my power. Unbelievable."

Xiao Xingchen clenched his fist tightly, trying to exert force again. Unfortunately, this time, he felt as if his body was empty, without any of that feeling of being able to fly or escape into the earth. Just then, the divine embryo trembled again, as if giving a warning.

"careful,"

His expression changed drastically. From the trembling of the divine embryo, he sensed an emotion urging him to escape immediately.

Because of the abnormality of the divine embryo, he pushed Ruoxue away and quickly took a step back.

A shadowy beast claw appeared out of thin air after they dodged, crashing down with immense force.

With a loud "boom," the beast's claws missed their target and slammed into the ground, causing the red light that had just disappeared to reappear.

"What is that? Ruoxue, hide quickly!"

Caught off guard, Xiao Xingchen felt as if something had grabbed his ankle, causing him to lose his balance. In the brief moment of his fall, he witnessed a horrifying scene.

Ruoxue staggered and fell to the side. Above her head, a ghostly figure appeared, its gaping maw poised to swallow her whole.

Ruoxue was also taken aback. Although her power was suppressed, her years of combat experience allowed her to roll to the side in a single movement. Seeing that the initiative had been lost, the ghostly figure vanished without a trace.

In just a moment, both of them broke out in a cold sweat. Humans are naturally afraid of the unknown.

Whether it was the ghostly beast claws just now, or someone grabbing his ankle, they all made his back feel cold, and he even began to wonder if there really were ghosts here.

Otherwise, how could he explain all this? The chill on his ankles hadn't yet dissipated; he was absolutely certain that someone had scratched him while he was dodging the beast's claws.

"Be careful. I never realized this ancestral temple was so strange before. Did you see that thing clearly just now? Was it a person or something else?"

Ruoxue hurriedly came to join him, their backs pressed together as they cautiously scanned their surroundings. For some reason, she hadn't noticed Xiaoxingchen's warning at all, and even after moving away, she hadn't noticed anything above her.

But she sensed that sense of crisis, so she chose to trust Xiao Xingchen.

"A beast's claw, a ghostly shadow, and a hand that emerged from the ground and grabbed my ankle—that's it. Do you know what these things are?"

Xiao Xingchen quickly described what he saw and felt. Even he didn't realize that the pupils in his eyes had disappeared, replaced by two stars that began to rotate, even tinged with red. As he turned, a red light flickered at the corner of his eye.

That's why the two were facing away from each other; otherwise, Ruoxue would definitely have noticed the difference in him at that moment.

As the stars in his eyes turned completely red, Xiao Xingchen trembled violently in the blink of an eye, for everything before his eyes vanished, replaced by spiderwebs.

"Ruoxue, are you still there?"

He asked incredulously,

"I'm here, and what do you see now?"

Hearing Ruoxue's words, he calmed down slightly, but everything before him had changed. The library was gone, the mountains had vanished, and everything had been replaced by red grids.

Like a fishing net being cast, the entire space was entangled in it. As the net shimmered, streaks of red appeared beneath his feet, as if a net had enveloped this entire world. The red lines undulated constantly, as if something was trying to break free of the net's constraints.

Ruoxue's answer made him realize that perhaps what he was seeing was only visible to him; whether it was what had just happened or what was happening now, Ruoxue was completely unaware.

Was it because of the divine embryo? He couldn't help but wonder.

But he had no time to think. Suddenly, a pair of snow-white hands reached out from under his feet and grabbed his ankles.

"I wipe."

This time he finally saw clearly what was beneath his feet: a deathly white hand, small like an infant's. But as soon as it grabbed his ankle, Xiao Xingchen felt his entire body begin to fall.

Are these hands dragging me?

The hard ground began to churn, seemingly transforming into a sea, and Xiao Xingchen was now like a drowning person, constantly being pulled downwards by small hands.

"What on earth is it?"

He roared, no longer caring about hiding; he hoped his shouts would attract more people, but he was ultimately disappointed.

Ruoxue remained silent for a long time. At the last moment before he was dragged to the ground, he turned his head and glanced back, only to witness a jaw-dropping scene: a gigantic mouth was swallowing Ruoxue whole.

Ruoxue seemed to have lost her mind, offering no resistance whatsoever to the gigantic maw, even uttering a nonchalant "Come and eat me!"

Was he going to die here? Without the slightest resistance, his small hand exerted its strength again, and like falling into the sea, he began to disappear from the ground. With his last glance, his vision returned to normal.

He saw the men in black, and he saw the library, but the men in black were currently killing each other. The books in the library were actually flashing and emitting light, and countless incense sticks were being lit in the air above their heads, the smoke from which clung to the men in black.

Like controlling a puppet, the incense smoke manipulated the black-clad man's body, causing him to perform all sorts of bizarre movements.

In the eyes of those men in black, it was utter terror. They weren't out of their minds; they watched rationally as their bodies were twisted and contorted. Some had their feet bent to their heads, some had their thighs broken backward, and one man was even staring in disbelief as he gouged out his own eyes.

Even more extreme, a burly, untamed man was licking his own heart.

Everything Xiao Xingchen saw shattered his entire worldview; he felt that either he himself had gone mad, or the world had gone mad.

Otherwise, why would anyone dig out their own heart and then eat it?