Chapter 131: The Mask Falls

Chapter 132: The Mask Falls

"Wait. How is he able to recognize me when I’m wearing the Veiled Identity Talisman?"

The thought flashed through Lothe’s mind, making him look at Situ Li with a sudden, razor-sharp intensity.

Chuckle.

Catching the subtle change in Lothe’s posture, Situ Li let out a low, mocking laugh. It was as if he could read every calculations running behind those dark, calculating eyes.

"Wondering how I managed to pierce right through that little disguise of yours?" Situ Li smiled, his gray robes rustling faintly in the static air. "It was quite the puzzle, you know."

He took a slow step forward.

"I genuinely despise Array Masters. You lot are as cunning as foxes. In the end, I had to borrow a fraction of the palace’s administrative permissions, cross-reference your energy footprint, and trace the anomalies right back to you."

Lothe maintained a mask of absolute, icy calm on the surface. But beneath his ribs, his mind raced with cold clarity.

Situ Li’s words confirm it.

Qing Lian, that Veyra Serpent Commander, and Situ Li were directly connected to the architecture of the Ancient Palace. They weren’t just intruders like them; they held a degree of operational authority over the ruins.

That realization sent a heavy, unsettling weight settling into Lothe’s —they served was an entity of apocalyptic proportions. Lothe filed the thought away into the deepeest part of his mind, locking it down with absolute priority.

Beside him, Adrian and Nyren watched the exchange with sharply contrasting expressions. Adrian’s metallic Qi hummed with sup pressed hostility, while Nyren’s gaze harbored a quiet, complicated curiosity.

"So what if you know I’m the one?" Lothe said smoothly, his voice dropping all pretense. "What can you actually do about it?"

Snap.

With a careless flick of his fingers, the pale energy of the Veiled Identity Talisman fractured and dissolved.

The ordinary, unassuming "scholar" vanished in a ripple of light, reverting instantly to Lothe’s true, striking appearance.

His long, black hair cascaded lazily down to his waist, catching the dim blue light of the corridor. His wide, deep-purple robes—trimmed with an immaculate white collar—swirled around his frame, and a faint, sardonic smirk danced at the corner of his lips.

Even Situ Li, despite his hostile intentions, paused for a fraction of a second, his pale eyes flickering with involuntary surprise. He had lived for a very long time and encountered countless young prodigies across various realms, but this level of breathtaking, ethereal presence was entirely another tier.

Adrian’s jaw dropped slightly. He had always prided himself on his own striking, noble appearance, but standing next to Lothe now, he felt like a crude pebble placed beside a polished jade sculpture. Just what kind of unnatural beauty is this guy? he muttered internally.

Nyren’s reaction was far more turbulent.

Seeing him now after weeks of forced separation since the academy border clash stirred up a storm of conflicting emotions. She tried to deny it, but during the past month of silence—not knowing whether he was dead, trapped, or wandering the ruins—a heavy, hollow ache had taken root in her chest.

She had thrown herself into non-stop, brutal cultivation day and night, desperately trying to bleed his memory out of her mind. Yet every drop of sweat had only made the image clearer.

And now, here he stood. The very person who occupied her thoughts, casually standing in the middle of a death trap while disguised as a dusty scholar.

Why did he hide his face? she wondered, her eyes narrowing slightly as the pieces clicked together. Considering how hunted he is by these gray-clad freaks... discretion makes sense.

Not caring about the heavy, suffocating tension radiating from the two heirs, Lothe casually reached up to adjust his sleeve.

"I know I’m breathtakingly handsome," Lothe drawled, his tone dripping out with casual mockery. "My girlfriend made sure I was well aware of that fact. But please, try not to stare so mindlessly. If word gets back to my love, she’ll get terribly jealous, and I’ll be the one suffering the consequences on the receiving end."

He wasn’t joking. His thoughts immediately drifted to Seana. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being separated from him in this chaotic labyrinth. His eyes flashed with a razor-thin glint of ice.

This damned palace is really testing my patience.

"Hmph," Situ Li snorted, snapping out of his brief visual shock. A dark, oily aura began leaking from his fingertips. "The Veyra Serpent Commander Qing Lian was entirely correct. If we don’t exterminate you here and now, you will grow into an insurmountable catastrophe for our grand plan."

"What an absolute honor," Lothe chuckled softly, taking a slow, mocking step forward as Situ Li began pacing in a slow circle around him. "I’m deeply flattered."

"You should be," Situ Li replied coldly. "At least it will be the last emotion you feel."

"Oh?" Lothe murmured.

Beneath his unbothered exterior, the gears in his head were spinning at maximum velocity. So Qing Lian views me as a variable.

He had become something even the palace’s automated parameters hadn’t accounted for.

And more importantly, he was a wrench thrown directly into Qing Lian’s grand strategy.

"I still don’t understand why you insisted on hiding your face from us," Adrian muttered, breaking his stunned silence now that he finally recognized the man who had guided them through the earlier trials.

Nyren remained dead silent, her face a mask of carved ice, though her fingers twitched near her sword hilt.

"I simply didn’t see the necessity," Lothe answered bluntly, refusing to sugarcoat it. He owed these nobles no loyalty or emotional explanations.

Adrian choked back a retort, completely exasperated by Lothe’s unapologetic directness.

"And who in the world is this guy?" Adrian shifted his glare toward Situ Li, his skin crawling from the oppressive, necrotic aura radiating from the gray-robed man.

"Someone who desperately wants me dead," Lothe replied smoothly. Then, his smirk sharpened into a blade.

"Actually, scratch that—someone who wants everyone in this palace dead."

He tilted his head, locking eyes with Situ Li. "We crossed paths before we even set foot in these ruins. Turns out Seana and I bruised his and his masters’ fragile pride, and they took it rather personally."

"Don’t flatter yourself, human," Situ Li snapped, fighting to maintain his composure.

The veins in his temples bulged. The sheer audacity of this teenager was enough to curdle his blood. Thick, oily black Qi rippled violently within the sleeves of his wide robes as he clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white.

Taking a slow, shuddering breath, Situ Li forced the dark energy back down. I cannot afford to lose my temper in front of a lowly ant. It is beneath me.

His cold gaze drifted past Lothe to inspect the shattered, basalt-strewn remains of the Adaptive Combat Guardian. A sharp pang of internal coldness hit him. The resources, rare minerals, and blood-essence required to refine that guardian had cost their faction a fortune—not to mention the other automated assets that had been obliterated across the sectors.

Yet these miserable human variables had smashed them to pieces like fragile clay toys.

Situ Li closed his eyes for a heartbeat. It doesn’t matter. The grand ritual is nearing completion. They are merely walking corpses fattening themselves for the harvest.

He reopened his eyes, a twisted, condescending smile stretching across his pale lips.

"Human, you are genuinely fascinating," Situ Li said, his voice dripping with synthetic warmth. "You are fundamentally different from the rest of these cattle. You don’t blindly follow the trial’s expected path."

Lothe didn’t blink.

"You systematically sabotage formations instead of brute-forcing them. You manage to conceal your true cultivation realm from the palace’s scan-grids, and you even weaponized its own adaptive mechanisms against the guardian."

Lothe’s face remained a blank slate, but inside, his analytical centers flared. He knows too much.

"It seems you’ve been watching us very closely," Lothe remarked. It wasn’t a question; it was a cold deduction.

"Naturally," Situ Li’s smile widened, revealing teeth that looked entirely too sharp. "That is standard procedure when you are hunting a apex predator."

Situ Li let out a soft, dry sigh.

"It’s a true pity you’ll be dying down here," Situ Li murmured theatrically. "Before I send you into the void... is there any last question you wish answered?"

"Actually, yes," Lothe replied, his tone conversational. "Tell me about Sector Three."

Situ Li’s eyebrows arched in genuine amusement. "Oh? Based on your expression, I assume you’ve already pieced it together."

"I just want official confirmation," Lothe countered.

Situ Li let out a low chuckle that echoed off the stone walls. "Fine. Since conversing with someone who actually possesses a brain is a refreshing change of pace... I’ll indulge you."

He pointed a pale finger toward the descending staircase.

"You already understand what Sectors One and Two accomplish. One acts as the extraction valve; Two acts as the elemental refinery. Therefore, Sector Three’s core function is blindingly simple..."

Situ Li paused, letting the dark significance hang in the air.

"Integration."

The word hit Lothe like a physical blow.

Integration.

It all locked into place.

Sector Three wasn’t just storing energy. It wasn’t just grinding down Qi.

Lothe’s gaze slid slowly toward the ancient stone walls, where invisible energy conduits pulsed beneath the surface.

Combat data.

Technique frameworks.

Movement geometries.

Cultivation traits.

Specialized abilities.

The Ancient Palace wasn’t merely studying how they fought. It was harvesting their biological, metaphysical, and tactical signatures—blending them into a singular, homogenized pool of data to feed whatever entity slumbered at the absolute bottom of the ruins.

Lothe’s expression set into stone. "So Sector Three is where the palace processes everything it has harvested... and converts it into a weapon."

Situ Li’s smile thinned into a razor-like line. "I genuinely hate admitting it, but speaking with intelligent prey makes the execution slightly less tedious."

Adrian frowned, stepping forward. "Converting it into what? What is waiting down there?"

Situ Li refused to answer. He simply turned his back on them, gesturing toward the dark, descending staircase.

"That," Situ Li whispered, his voice echoing into the abyss, "is a destination you haven’t earned the right to see yet."​