As elite warriors of Daxia, tempered through countless battles, the moment they recovered from the shock of seeing a world completely different from what they had imagined, they threw themselves into combat the very next second.
Their enemies were clear: thick "seaweed heads" growing out of the tangled mass of seaweed.
Each seaweed head was as thick as a water vat and over ten meters long. They had no eyes—just a circular mouth lined with serrated teeth that floated nimbly through the water. They seemed to locate prey by sensing disturbances in the current and struck without mercy.
A single glance revealed tens, hundreds of millions of them—writhing and twisting in all directions in the pitch-black, foul-smelling depths that resembled a cavernous ocean.
Your SAN points would plummet at the sight.
Captain Xue only had time to feel a wave of nausea before a huge number of seaweed heads suddenly locked onto him as if drawn by a fatal scent. Their mouths gaped wide, revealing rows of teeth all the way down their throats, and they surged toward him in a frenzy.
"Damn it!"
Cursing, Captain Xue swung his battle axe like a madman.
He was a Sequence-5 Martial King, after all—boosted by the convoy's title rewards and equipped with several pieces of golden-grade armor. The golden-grade axe in his hands cleaved downward, and the ferocious-looking seaweed heads were effortlessly split in half lengthwise.
With a flourish of the axe, each one was quartered and severed from its stalk.
Plant life was tenacious; even as they fell, the severed sections still writhed. But before Captain Xue could finish them off, more seaweed heads lunged from the sides, blocking his path.
The moment he paused, he was completely surrounded. He had no time to root them out and plunged back into the fray.
Compared to the frantic Captain Xue, Hammer Bro remained perfectly calm.
His presence was, as always, almost nonexistent. Unless a seaweed head passed within arm's reach, anything a meter or two away completely ignored him.
He stayed on the periphery, casually smashing any seaweed head that tried to swarm Captain Xue—oneily. One hammer blow = one exploded pulp. It was as easy as stepping on bugs.
With the steady stream of other melee fighters teleporting in and the support of the undead legion, Captain Xue—the natural tank—wasn't torn to pieces.
As more warriors and undead joined the battle, the immediate threat in their area was finally neutralized.
But before anyone could take a proper look around, Wei Huan's new order came through the tactical earpiece.
"Follow that Shura Horse."
Shura Horse?
There were Shura Horses everywhere in this close-quarters battlefield—they thrived in this kind of melee chaos. Nearly every fighter had two or three of the crabs nearby.
Yet the moment Wei Huan gave the order, every single person's gaze locked onto the smallest, bounciest one.
The assault team all knew that little shura horse was a hero unit. Because it was undead, it always charged to the front lines and had saved countless melee fighters. The younger ones even called it "Brother Moji."
Moji was indeed a very special undead, and in that moment, its presence was so overwhelming it felt like the center of the universe.
Soon, someone noticed the anomaly.
"Is everything outside… fake?"
The muffled voice, filtered through their oxygen bubbles, rang in everyone's earpieces. Only then did they understand.
They were inside a dilapidated, eerie, rotting house. When they looked out through the broken windows, they saw a flourishing, beautiful garden outside.
Platinum-white buildings in neat, majestic blocks. Between towering skyscrapers, merfolk with finned feet swam leisurely, and sleek shuttle-shaped vehicles zipped through the streets.
When the "vehicles" appeared, Wei Huan—who was also seeing this—raised an eyebrow.
When he had been here alone earlier, there had been no vehicles.
Now not only were there vehicles, but the entire undersea world had become even more magnificent and fantastical, with clear high-tech elements. Even the passing merfolk had turned stunningly beautiful—each one looked like a celebrity.
By stealing more minds, "Atlantis" was regaining its splendor and becoming truer by the second.
The rust-like corruption Wei Huan had exposed earlier had long since vanished.
What terrifying mental corruption.
Thank goodness Moji existed as their "anchor point."
Only a 100-meter radius around it was absolute reality, but as long as Moji was there, no one would get lost in this mirage.
After destroying huge patches of seaweed and seaweed heads, those areas finally glitched out—even after Moji moved on, the illusion could no longer restore the Atlantis façade.
With that, everyone understood perfectly.
The undead could fight however they wanted, but the assault team had to stick close to Moji—and protect it at all costs.
Everywhere Moji passed became a whirlwind of destruction, tearing bigger and bigger holes in the illusion.
Moji's intelligence was limited, and it was thoroughly rebellious—it almost never obeyed Wei Huan's commands.
So it was impossible to direct where it should go.
They fought like that on the seabed for over two hours, turning the entire "Atlantis" into a chaotic wreck, yet they still hadn't located the actual body of the diamond chest monster.
Wei Huan, who knew a bit about this type of creature, understood that the exposed seaweed nest was probably nothing more than hair to this diamond-tier monster.
Its main body could be enormous, hidden deep underground.
Or it could be tiny, concealed in some inconspicuous corner.
Either way, if they failed to truly kill it, not only would they lose the diamond chest rewards, but leaving a creature with such vigorous plant vitality alive could allow it to grow into a terrifying world-level threat.
"I'm going to try leaving the area," Wei Huan said.
"Leave?"
"Use the rule that chest monsters must chase the opener. The challenge world will teleport its real body straight to us."
"That's… a little risky."
After searching fruitlessly for so long, Wei Huan made the call anyway.
It was risky. They had no idea what the monster really looked like. If the world mechanics teleported it directly beside the war vehicles, there was no guarantee the convoy could survive a direct attack from a diamond-tier monster.
But searching blindly like this wasn't sustainable either.
They had been lucky no other convoy had passed by yet, but what about later? The noise of their battle might already have attracted attention.
Wei Huan said, "We'll head deeper into the uninhabited zone. I want to see what its real body actually is."
Mu Zhong nodded. "Deploy the shields at full power. Have Dot Mom guard the outside. All other vehicles keep their distance."
That was exactly what Wei Huan had in mind.
"Also…" Mu Zhong added, "Qiang-ge's beacon still shows he's healthy, but we still haven't found any trace of him?"
At the mention, Wei Huan frowned.
The zone covered by "Atlantis"—or rather, by this diamond monster—wasn't so large that it couldn't be searched. Wei Huan's undead had swept through it and confirmed Xu Qingqiang was nowhere inside.
That meant Xu Qingqiang was likely undergoing the actual "profession training ground" trial in a separate space.
There was nothing they could do to help right now—he had to get through it on his own.
Wei Huan was worried about him, but he wouldn't halt the entire operation for one man.
They left one vehicle behind as a precaution to watch for Xu Qingqiang.
The rest of the convoy moved out first, putting a hundred li between them and the zone. Only then did Wei Huan's war vehicle start moving.
As Mu Zhong had feared, the shield was cranked to maximum. Dot Mom applied her attribute buffs, lifted the vehicle with one long leg, cradled it protectively under her belly, and began walking forward.
Dot Mom was far faster underwater than floating in the air—nearly 1,000 km/h. Her long legs spun like propellers, and they quickly left the undersea "Atlantis" far behind.
Even after they were long gone, no attack came. Everyone's nerves finally relaxed a fraction.
Liu Chengzhi stared back the way they'd come and said, "This feels like one of those Chinese horror stories—thinking you've escaped, but you're actually still inside. Are we sure we're really out of its illusion?"
Wei Huan hesitated, then summoned Moji.
Moji shrank to three meters tall, but it was still cramped inside the cockpit. The moment it appeared, it froze, looked left and right, and green flames danced excitedly in its eyes.
Like a child itching to break something.
This was the cockpit—the most critical "brain" of the entire war vehicle.
Something clicked in Wei Huan's mind. Pale hands suddenly reached out from the void and wrapped tightly around Moji's body.
These were the same "soul hands" Wei Huan used to recall his undead—pulling them back into the grand tomb.
They were also one of his necromancer class abilities, capable of restraining enemies.
Though Wei Huan preferred "Undead Catastrophe" and "Nether Flame bomb spam," he had never bothered with control-type skills in actual combat.
Not using them didn't mean he couldn't.
The pale hands emerging from the netherworld and binding Moji in place looked utterly sinister.
Some of the hands even grew new hands from their palms, or fingers that turned into more hands—deeply unsettling.
Yet everyone in the cockpit remained perfectly calm. They knew Wei Huan too well.
Liu Chengzhi even clapped. "Brilliant! That little brat bounces around all day—I've been wanting to tie him up for ages."
"Heeheehee!"
As if understanding the insult, Moji let out an angry sound that sounded suspiciously like swearing.
Liu Chengzhi grinned. "You eat Boss's food, live in Boss's tomb, you literally exist because of Boss—and you still disobey? You ungrateful little shit!"
"Heeheehee!"
"I'm calling you a rebellious son, a total traitor! I seem to remember you once tried to bite Boss, right? That's how your little dick got chomped off last time?"
"Heeheehee!"
"Yeah, it grew back, but want to bet it disappears again right now?"
"Heeheehee!"
"Don't believe me? Fine! Grandpa's got a dragon-slaying blade—let's see how I castrate you!"
'Cough!' Mu Tang, listening from the side, cleared his throat pointedly.
Calling Moji a "rebellious son" and then calling yourself "grandpa"—who exactly was this fat guy taking advantage of?
Liu Chengzhi caught on instantly and was about to backpedal, but Wei Huan clearly didn't care about such trivial jokes.
This wasn't the time for banter anyway.
Wei Huan raised his hand. The cockpit fell silent. Even Moji, still swearing up a storm with its "heeheehee," shut up.
It knew perfectly well who the real boss was.
The farther they got from the chest-opening location, the stronger the sensation of being chased by something utterly terrifying became.
A blade hung over their heads, its sharp tip pointed straight at them, ready to fall at any moment.
When that dread reached its peak—
A black shadow suddenly smashed down from ahead.
It was impossible to describe how massive it was. It was as if the sky itself had collapsed, plunging downward and blotting out the world.
The radar flickered wildly, like a heart being squeezed.
Wei Huan sat in the driver's seat, gripping his staff so hard his knuckles went white, eyes focused.
What he had been waiting for had finally arrived.
Fortunately, just as he predicted, the challenge world's rules had teleported the diamond chest monster's true body directly to them.
But…it was diamond-tier, after all!
The moment it appeared, it brought world-ending pressure. Could they really handle this?
Was this even real?
For a split second, Wei Huan doubted—but his gaze quickly hardened.
"Attack!!"
He gave the order.
Real or illusion, they had to fight. Did anyone think illusions couldn't kill?
If he gave up now, the illusion would only evolve into something even more unpredictable after he stopped resisting.
Only by fighting with everything they had was there any chance of survival.
At his command, the Sequence-5s waiting on the war platforms unleashed their strongest, fully charged attacks.
A crescent wind blade sliced through the water first, carving a deep gash into the shadow but failing to break through.
Then boulders rained down like a meteor shower, smashing into the shadow.
An arrow struck precisely where the wind blade had cut, its concentrated penetration vanishing in a flash—followed by a thin beam of light piercing through.
They had opened a hole!!
But the shadow was already upon them, about to crush the vehicle.
Dot Mom, the vehicle's first line of defense, charged forward and slammed her round carapace into the shadow.
The apocalyptic shadow paused for a fraction of a second.
The AI butler seized that opening, shifted the vehicle sideways, and rammed straight into the hole.
The combined force of external weapons, the vehicle's impact, and the rebound damage from the shield tore the shadow apart.
Light flooded back in!
They had broken through the sky-collapsing assault.
Only when they looked back did they see what had tried to smash them: an incomprehensibly massive, tender kelp-like leaf.
Flat, enormous, over ten meters thick and impossibly wide, it had grown from the dark, icy abyss and attacked the moment it appeared.
Before Wei Huan could fully process it, another vast leaf swept in from a different direction.
Without waiting for orders, the butler tilted the nose upward and rocketed toward the surface.
Whoosh—the next second, they burst out of the sea.
The sight was breathtaking.
As far as the eye could see, the entire ocean surface was covered in yellowish-green kelp shoots.
But these "shoots" were absurdly huge. The parts above water stabbed into the sky; the submerged portions were probably over five kilometers long.
If a single leaf was that long… how big was the monster's main body?
Only now did Wei Huan truly understand the caliber of a diamond-tier monster in a Tier-5 world.
Even a plant-type monster specializing in mental attacks simply existing made you feel helpless.
And then…
"Colonel Wei, look—this is what our vehicle is seeing."
Captain Wang sent over footage from his war vehicle.
In the video, a breathtaking Atlantis city floated on the surface—beautiful enough to make you doubt everything was fake.
Then they looked at the chaotic, flailing kelp shoots around them.
Even Wei Huan felt a chill down his spine.
Everyone else was shocked speechless, then turned to look at Moji.
Moji: "Heeheehee!"
Liu Chengzhi sidled over. "Bro, you're seriously impressive."
Moji: "Heeheehee!"
Liu Chengzhi nodded. "Yeah, no more insults. You've got real skill. We really couldn't do this Tier-5 world without you."
Moji: "Heeheehee!"
Wei Huan thought the same: Moji was about to become their greatest treasure here.
In two lifetimes, he had never imagined anyone could see through these fraudulent Relics so completely.
"No more running. We fight it right here. Take it down."
Wei Huan made the call immediately.
Keeping Moji bound beside him turned out to be far more useful than letting it run wild on the front lines.
His eyes were the eyes of the undead army. As long as he saw the truth, the undead would too.
The other melee fighters on board didn't need to fight if the battlefield didn't suit them—this was the ranged attackers' time to shine!
As he spoke, the cannons roared again.
The undead legion crawled down the kelp stalks like ants, searching for the root system.
This round of attacks clearly struck a nerve. Kelp leaves from all directions converged, trying to smash the vehicle flat.
The butler nimbly weaved the vehicle through the gaps between leaves.
When evasion failed, vehicle weapons and ranged attacks combined into concentrated barrages, blasting the obstructing kelp into pieces.
The sea boiled. Hundred-meter waves crashed down. The sky turned dark—it was the apocalypse.
But Wei Huan paid no attention to the surface battle.
He left driving to the butler and ranged command to the captains, focusing entirely on the undead deep below. Little by little, they reached the diamond monster's vital point.
A cluster of what looked like plant roots—but writhed like living earthworms.
They had been forcibly dragged up from the seabed sediment by the challenge world's rules. Even as they attacked Wei Huan, the roots tried to burrow back into the mud.
The tangled, fleshy red roots were just as disgusting as the seaweed nest they wove.
It was simply unappealing to human aesthetics.
Yet this civilization had dominated Tier-5 and Tier-6 worlds, proving their evolutionary path was far from wrong—even if they hadn't reached the absolute peak, they had surpassed more than half the civilizations in this war.
When the "earthworm" roots realized the undead were closing in, they unleashed another wave of psychic attacks.
Even while possessing a Demon Eye Lord, Wei Huan felt dizzy and nauseous.
He simply withdrew his vision and used Moji as his anchor to recover.
Meanwhile, the undead—immune to mental attacks—engaged the "earthworms" in brutal close combat.
Wei Huan's favorite delivery arrived right on cue: Nether Flame bombs.
Ghost crows dove into the root mass carrying the bombs. Green flames bloomed deep underwater, followed by more and more.
The explosions were silent.
But the shockwaves surging up from the depths whipped the surface into even greater frenzy.
Fleshy red "giant earthworms" floated to the surface like corpses.
The explosions continued. Wei Huan didn't dare let up—this was diamond-tier. He held nothing back.
To ensure victory, Mu Zhong even applied Bloodlust to a fresh batch of revived Shura Horses.
Ten-times strength gave them power far beyond ordinary Sequence-5s, and there were thousands of them.
They inflicted massive damage.
Footage from Captain Wang's vehicle showed the Atlantis mirage finally fading.
They could now see the towering kelp for what it really was.
But those kelp leaves were just minor appendages of this colossal diamond monster.
After quickly clearing a ring of kelp, the other war vehicles dove underwater and began attacking the truly vulnerable parts.
They pushed inward from the edges while Wei Huan's undead held the core, drawing attention and dealing huge damage.
After another two hours of coordinated assault, the two forces finally linked up.
But the battle was far from over.
It was simply too big.
The root system stretched nearly thirty kilometers. Both the kelp leaves and roots could attack. Progress was slow, and they had only carved out one narrow path.
Wei Huan had fought long battles before, but never against the same monster for this long.
Undead that had received buffs earlier were forced to return to the grand tomb to rest.
For him, a war of attrition lasting more than two hours exposed his greatest weakness.
Even Nether Flame bombs were running dangerously low.
He stashed the remaining few for emergencies.
All that was left now was endless killing!
From day into night, nonstop combat. His vision filled with nothing but red earthworm-roots.
All the way until dawn, the thing Wei Huan feared finally happened.
A war vehicle not belonging to Daxia—perhaps drawn by the unnatural turbulence in the water—finally tracked them down.
Mu Zhong asked, "Pull out? The monster will follow us anyway."
Wei Huan closed his eyes, thought for a few seconds, then opened them again.
"No. We're not leaving. In fact, the moment we get the diamond chest rewards, we broadcast them on the world channel."