Chapter 1 .，！

After putting away the golden pearls, Fang Senyan continued onward. He now understood that the mature Infected hunted primarily by sensing ground vibrations, not through eyes, nose, or ears.

Therefore, the improved potion he had applied was of little use. However, by lightening his footsteps, he encountered fewer troubles.

Suddenly, after rounding a stone wall, Fang Senyan felt the ground disappear before him. A terrifying abyss appeared, spanned by a stone bridge that seemed to be crafted by divine hands. However, the bridge was extremely narrow, barely wide enough for one person to pass.

On either side of the bridge was nothing but a bottomless abyss. Just looking at it made one's head spin. Falling would guarantee death. This bridge seemed to be the only path connecting this side to the other.

When Fang Senyan had surveyed the area from a higher vantage point, the abyss hadn't seemed so formidable, likely due to the angle. But now, standing before it, he felt its immense width and depth intensely.

The bridge itself, along with the surrounding rocks, gleamed with a peculiar luster, as if waxed, radiating an oily sheen.

Undoubtedly, continuing forward required crossing this bridge. Needless to say, the bridge was likely riddled with perilous traps. Fang Senyan cautiously approached the bridgehead and suddenly felt the ground soften beneath his feet. Alarmed, he immediately performed a backward roll to escape, but nothing happened.

After repeated attempts, Fang Senyan discovered that no matter how he tried to evade, stepping onto the bridge would inevitably trigger the ground softening, activating a trap. This indicated that anyone passing by would trigger it.

This further suggested that the trap's activation wasn't necessarily fatal. There must be a specific way to traverse it. An incorrect step would lead to certain death.

At this moment, the setting sun blazed like blood, shining even more brilliantly on the horizon, as dark clouds churned with the approaching night.

It illuminated the eerie and blood-soaked city ruins. Faced with this situation, Fang Senyan took a deep breath and began to walk onto the bridge.

He was now extremely cautious. Concentrating his gaze, he noticed a stone platform in the distance at the far end of the bridge. The platform was at least a kilometer or two away in a straight line.

However, he could clearly see a towering statue of a snake-headed humanoid sliding out from the side of the platform. The statue's hands were raised high, holding a pa-shaped mirror with a diameter of at least three meters, pointed towards him.

Instantly, Fang Senyan felt an unbearable glare. The reflected rays of the setting sun were already intensely hot, but they seemed to be concentrated at the center of that mirror, forming a terrifyingly bright light, like an arrow or a spear, roaring and hissing, then shooting towards him along the bridge passage, undiminished by distance! The passage surface erupted in deafening dust!

Fang Senyan immediately felt an intense, overwhelming threat of death. The mirror held by the snake-headed humanoid statue was crafted from polished crystal, likely enhanced with powerful black magic. The emitted light was condensed and unwavering, focusing the western sunset into a single point!

By the time it reached Fang Senyan, the beam, the size of a flashlight lens, was incredibly sharp and blinding, like the midday sun. It was too intense to look at directly. Where it passed, it seemed to burn a vacuum path through the air, and the narrow bridge passage was seared with distinct scorch marks! Even the rocks showed signs of melting.

Fortunately, the focused sunlight swept straight from afar, giving Fang Senyan some buffer time. Before he fully stepped onto the bridge, he hastily hid behind a nearby rock. He could still feel the dazzling light roaring past, the heat wave vaporizing his face, followed by a burning, scalding sensation!

Fang Senyan was at least five or six meters away from the focused sunlight, yet he already felt such intense heat. Without a doubt, being hit directly by this mechanism would be like being struck by a laser, instantly severed in two and then burned alive!

Unable to escape a swift death!

This mechanism was too ferocious. Fang Senyan looked up at the sky. The sun would only be at its peak for another half an hour at most. Even now, a cloud could extinguish the sunlight in darkness. Without the sun, the mechanism would be useless. Although time was short, Fang Senyan could afford to waste half an hour.

But just as he was about to sit down and wait, an extremely ominous thought suddenly湧 into Fang Senyan’s mind: Obviously, the craftsman who designed this incredibly powerful sunlight mechanism was not a fool. He must know that although this mechanism was extremely powerful and unmatched in momentum, it was constrained by the weather, and the time it could function each day would probably not exceed six hours... If it encountered rainy or overcast conditions, it would be completely useless.

Then, if the efficiency of this mechanism, which consumed the painstaking efforts of the Dubaiya craftsmen, was so low, why design it? These designers wouldn't waste effort and resources to do such stupid things!

At this thought, cold sweat poured down Fang Senyan's back! He suddenly realized the most crucial point: what was the most sacred core relic of the Dubaiya people? Without a doubt, it was the hua (flower) "Stairway to the Sun," said to possess the power to grant immortality!

Then, logically speaking, to obtain the power of this sacred Stairway to the Sun, passing the test of the sun god would be a matter of course!

This also likely meant that the only way to the Stairway to the Sun's planting ground might only open when the sun was out. Once the sun set, the powerful sunlight focusing trap in front of him would definitely fail, but it would also mean that this road was impassable, and the path to the Stairway to the Sun would be cut off. To enter, one would have to wait for the next sunrise.

The more Fang Senyan thought about it, the more frightened he became! Heaven knows when the next sunrise would be. At the very least, he would have to wait twelve hours, which meant losing 120,000 universal points! If there were two or three consecutive days of yin (overcast) or rainy weather... Oh!! No!

With this in mind, Fang Senyan could only take another step onto the bridgehead, which again triggered the mechanism. The dazzling light roared and struck again, seemingly igniting the surrounding air.

This time, Fang Senyan had already chosen a hiding spot. He suddenly dove towards the abyss beside the bridge, and just before falling, he plunged his knife into the rock on the side of the bridge, suspending himself in mid-air. The sunlight swept past, only passing over the bridge surface. Even so, Fang Senyan's hair was scorched and curled by the heat.

But he had managed to dodge the light attack.

This leap, stab, and dodge was extremely dangerous, but he had gambled correctly!

As soon as the focused sunlight swept past, Fang Senyan exerted all his strength and swung himself upwards, relying entirely on his arm strength. He ran for two or three seconds on the stone bridge before flipping back down to hide again. Repeating this process, he quickly reached the middle of the bridge. Here, it was no longer a narrow bridge passage, but a wider area resembling a viewing platform. This was obviously a human-xing (nature) design, allowing brave warriors who dared to challenge the bridge to rest and catch their breath.

Even with Fang Senyan's current strength, forcing his way by chopping stone and climbing, he was drenched in sweat and breathing heavily when he reached this point. His arm, in particular, was incredibly sore and numb, feeling as if it was about to break. Even so, Fang Senyan's breathing time on this stone platform could only be calculated in seconds. After a brief rest, he had to set off again.

Looking at the sky that seemed to be burning, covered in彤 clouds, perhaps in the next second, a dark cloud would cover the sunlight, and darkness would rule the earth, completely cutting off Fang Senyan's hope of continuing the exploration.

But at this moment, just as Fang Senyan took a few steps forward, the ground under his feet softened slightly again, triggering the inevitable mechanism. He immediately saw, on the stone platform in the distance, another rumbling sound, and a huge stone statue slid out from the side at high speed, also with a snake head and a human body, extremely hideous. This time, the shape was directly carrying a giant mirror on its shoulders, and again reflected an extremely hot focused sunlight!

In this way, it became two focused sunlights alternately划…dong (劃動, moving) and掠 (掠, sweeping) past,显耀 (xiǎnyào, dazzling) and 煊赫 (xuānhè, grand),凄厉 (qīlì, shrill) 划 (huá, cutting)…over! Previously, Fang Senyan could use the gap after the first condensed sunlight swept past to flip onto the bridge surface, run a few steps, and then jump off the bridge surface to stab the rock with his long knife, but now, the appearance of this second statue almost completely filled the previous gap.

Just as Fang Senyan was racking his brains to find a way to continue moving forward, he suddenly noticed something was wrong behind him!

Looking back, he saw Mpenga running towards him like a whirlwind, as if something was chasing him behind his ass. This guy ran to the side of the long bridge and rolled on the ground. He didn't know what mechanism he pressed during the rolling process, but a stone wall next to him rumbled open, and inside were all the spears that the Dubaiya people were good at using!!