# 166
Chapter 166: Surprise Raid
Creak—creak—creak—
The familiar sound rang out. Lin Qiye and Cao Yuan stopped at the same time as the six rooms above, below, left, right, front, and back spun rapidly, finally locking into a new configuration.
Another spatial dislocation; the surroundings changed once more.
Lin Qiye, who had kept his eyes closed to sense the shifts, slowly opened them.
“Horizontal 19, 27, 33, 20, 17… Vertical 04, 09, 37, 18, 23…” Sitting on the floor, Lin Qiye knitted his brows and muttered non-stop.
His finger traced the tiles lightly, as if calculating, as if sketching.
Cao Yuan could only hug his blade and sit on a chair, watching Lin Qiye’s mystical murmuring with the distinct feeling that he himself was the idiot here.
After more than two minutes of this, Lin Qiye exhaled, stood up, and brushed off his pants.
“Well?” Cao Yuan couldn’t help asking.
“My mental power only covers a hundred meters. During the dislocation I can’t catch all the changes, but I did spot some clues…”
Lin Qiye pondered, hands sketching in the air. “The spatial chaos looks complex, but it’s actually built from two basic moves: horizontal-slice rotation and vertical-slice rotation. Every turn is a multiple of ninety degrees, and which slice starts is random. Only one slice can rotate at a time, but it spins so fast it feels like total chaos…”
Cao Yuan’s head ached listening. “So? Did you predict the pattern?”
“…No. The information is too partial and I haven’t observed enough instances.” Lin Qiye shook his head, then added uncertainly, “But the pattern feels… familiar.”
While he was still thinking, the familiar dragging sound echoed from afar. Their expressions hardened; they glanced at each other and quietly rested hands on hilts.
Lin Qiye had said before: once they grasped this Mystery’s killing mechanism, with their combat strength clearing it wouldn’t be hard.
They roamed the chaotic space to learn its rules; if they bumped into the creature again, so much the better.
A pitch-black ripple spread out from Lin Qiye. Thermos bottles, teacups, clothes-hangers and other dorm items lifted into the air, orbiting him.
He flicked Cao Yuan a look; Cao Yuan nodded and eased toward the door behind them.
The dorm room was too cramped—dodging the headless man here would be nearly impossible. They needed a new battlefield.
Creak—
Lin Qiye pushed gently, but the door was warped; the soft groan sliced through the silence.
His pupils shrank. He sprang back without thinking; Cao Yuan did the same.
An instant later a huge shadow flashed across two rooms. The executioner’s glint appeared, and the offending door was split clean in half!
Inside the Utter Dark God’s Ruins Lin Qiye moved like a ghost, soundless. Cao Yuan, barefoot to avoid footfalls, also made almost no noise as he landed.
They now stood in a long corridor—perhaps not on the same floor, but far roomier than the dorm.
After cleaving the door, the headless man lingered, then dragged his great beheading blade forward…
He hadn’t noticed them.
Lin Qiye signalled; Cao Yuan pressed himself to the left wall, regulating his breathing to slow his heartbeat to the minimum.
Lin Qiye hugged the opposite wall, a specter in the dark, aura completely masked.
Scrape… scrape… scrape…
The headless man’s massive frame nearly filled the hallway. He dragged his blade step by step. Fortunately neither Lin Qiye nor Cao Yuan was bulky; flattened against the sides, they were perfectly hidden.
Had a certain fatty been here, the headless man would have bumped into his belly and puzzledly slashed…
As the creature lumbered past, Lin Qiye’s eyes blazed; his hand on the hilt snapped tight!
Clang—!!
Twin blades flashed out!
Simultaneously Cao Yuan ripped his own blade free. Black bale-fire gushed from the sheath and lashed out along the drawn edge!
Three blades: one aimed at the hand gripping the executioner sword, two stabbing for the chest!
The instant the ringing draw sounded, the headless man came alive, whipping his huge beheading sword at lightning speed!
Bang—!!
A heavy clash. The executioner sword met Cao Yuan’s black-flame Straight Blade. Normally Cao Yuan in mad-demon mode overpowered the headless man, but on impact the creature’s strength multiplied several-fold, smashing Cao Yuan—blade and all—into the side wall!
Boom!
Crazed Cao Yuan punched right through the wall and crashed into a dorm in a cloud of dust.
In that same split second Lin Qiye’s twin blades had pierced the headless man’s chest!
The Straight Blades sank into dense muscle; just as they neared the heart, the deafening crash of Cao Yuan smashing the wall rang out—and the headless man’s body hardened several times over, rock-like muscles clamping the blades immobile!
Lin Qiye’s pupils contracted sharply!
According to plan their ambush should have killed or at least maimed the creature. He hadn’t expected that, brainless or not, the monster possessed cunning: in a silent environment it created its own noise to boost all its attributes!
Without that wall-shattering boom, the headless man would already be a corpse.
So this was a River-realm Mystery?
Even with its mechanism fully grasped, killing it remained brutally hard!
Lin Qiye instantly released the hilts, leaving both Straight Blades stuck in the chest, and drifted back like a leaf on the wind. The headless man’s second slash followed in a lightning arc!
The beheading edge skimmed past Lin Qiye’s forehead!