Arrogant Outlanders!

There is not just one key, but a total of four. Four people must work together in complete synchronization, inserting their keys into the keyholes of the third mechanism without the slightest margin of error.

Only by doing so can this so-called Four Symbols Array mechanism be completely unlocked.

It requires a total of four living entities and three concerted efforts.

As for this Four Symbols Array, that was simply the name given to the overarching mechanism as a whole.

In Lin Yi's view, the name of this so-called Four Symbols Array sounded quite intimidating, but upon examining its layout—consisting essentially of a stone door, albeit one in a perilous location—it looked like nothing more than child's play.

However, after finishing his inspection, Lin Yi understood the situation clearly. Trash or not, he really did need to keep these three monsters alive for the time being.

Continuing to skim through the bamboo slip, Lin Yi's mind began to process information at a rapid pace.

Gaining the memories of numerous monsters was indeed a good thing, as it allowed Lin Yi to see right through the course of their monstrous lives.

Although the memories were sometimes incomplete, Lin Yi still gained a diverse range of insights.

Having obtained the memories of the Lesser Nightmare Demon Liu He, Lin Yi came to understand how the Nine Nether Magic Array truly operated. At the same time, Liu He's memories also contained knowledge of various other special arrays, along with its experiences and comprehension of them.

Lin Yi could be said to have developed a profound and unique understanding of his own.

"Well? Can you make any sense of it? Given your intelligence, it must take you a long time just to figure it out, right? Stop staring at it now and come with the three of us. Just do whatever we do when the time comes, understand?"

The Black Bear Demon watched Lin Yi studying the slip and could not help mocking him.

The next second, Lin Yi raised his head and smiled slightly at the Black Bear Demon.

"Of course I can understand it. I've already figured it out. Only a clumsy bear like you would need a long time to look at something like this, wouldn't you?"

They say the sharpest weapon strikes the heart. Lin Yi's words sent the Black Bear Demon into a fit of rage, panting heavily with anger, yet utterly helpless as it could not beat Lin Yi to death.

The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King had already made a deal with Lin Yi. If it wanted to bash Lin Yi to death, the Black Bear Demon had no choice but to endure it for now.

Moreover, Lin Yi had hit right on the Black Bear Demon's sore spot. Back then, the bear had looked at this bamboo slip over a hundred times before finally grasping what to do in a short span, and that was only with the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King helping by its side.

"You, you, you, you..."

Stuttering for a long time, the Black Bear Demon could not spit out a single coherent sentence.

So furious was it that its entire monstrous body began to tremble incessantly.

Gritting its teeth, the Black Bear Demon let out a few muffled hums before its eyes suddenly rolled. It scampered over to the small half-section of the corpse that the Tiger Demon had finished chewing on earlier and began to crunch down on it.

As it ate, the Black Bear Demon suddenly stood up and shouted at Lin Yi, "Wait! My armor is still with you. You'd better return it to me later..."

Reminded by the Black Bear Demon, the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King and the Tiger Demon finally noticed that the bear was stark naked, wearing absolutely nothing at all.

The two major demons held back their laughter until the Tiger Demon finally failed to contain itself and chuckled, "Don't listen to this young fellow's nonsense. Based on his strength, he's merely on par with me—just a martial arts genius. How could he possibly have any research into array formations? Let's get moving already, lest we waste too much time because of him."

"Big Black, I think you're far too easily provoked. You really need to temper that bearish temper of yours. You believe whatever anyone says—he's just a human spouting nonsense."

The Tiger Demon scoffed at Lin Yi's words, believing that Lin Yi was merely trying to provoke the Black Bear Demon and was therefore pretending with feigned confidence that he understood the text.

It did not believe a single word Lin Yi uttered.

The Tiger Demon thought this fellow was nothing more than a slick trickster. Being a genius at such a young age probably meant he had taken some crooked shortcuts to get there.

Such slick individuals were the most irritating kind of creatures to a monster like the Tiger Demon, which despised using its brain. Right now, all the Tiger Demon could think about was how to devour Lin Yi.

The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King sat with its eyes closed in deep contemplation, its gaze never leaving the Tiger Demon's ghostly-headed blade.

***

Soon enough, the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King directed the three demons and one human to take action.

Unlike the Tiger Demon and the Black Bear Demon, who continually mocked Lin Yi throughout the process, the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King kept explaining the taboos surrounding the three mechanisms of the Four Symbols Array to Lin Yi.

Lin Yi and the others arrived at a nearby deep pool.

Under the starlight, the water of the deep pool rippled with shimmering specks of light, making it look all the more fathomless.

The deep pool covered an area of about two hundred square meters. At a glance, white water churned; the water at the top of the waterfall was exceptionally clear, but as it flowed into the deep pool, it began to take on a greenish tint.

"Splash."

As soon as they reached the lake shore, the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King plunged straight into the water.

Its body soared into the air, leaping a full dozen meters high. When it dropped back down to the surface, it produced only a tiny ripple.

That was true mastery.

It could win a medal in a diving competition.

Once inside, it seemed completely at home, churning the water into a frenzy.

Measuring three meters in length, it swam back and forth through the water until, through some unknown manipulation, a deep rumbling sound echoed through the area and a whirlpool formed in the water.

The whirlpool grew increasingly violent, and in the blink of an eye, the deep pool drained completely dry, leaving it looking like a foul muddy puddle.

"Plop, plop, plop, plop..."

Countless fish and shrimp flopped and struggled frantically.

It was only then that Lin Yi saw clearly why the water in the deep pool had drained away so rapidly: right where the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King had been standing moments before, a large hole had appeared in the bottom of the pool.

The abyss was pitch black, exuding an unusual aura, with remaining puddles of water continuously trickling down into the cavernous opening.

At the very center of the deep pool, the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King's two python heads looked upward, fixing their gaze primarily on Lin Yi. Almost simultaneously, both python heads broke into identical grins, their forked tongues darting in and out.

Then, the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King's body snapped forward.

Its massive tail whipped directly against a spot right beside the large pit.

With a succession of thunderous booms, the sound of rotating gears echoed from beneath the great hole. Following that, a stone platform abruptly rose from within the abyss.

The stone platform was about ten square meters in surface area, still slick with water stains, and appeared to be constructed from assembled blocks of dressed stone.

Resembling a slab of bluestone, the platform kept rising until it came to a complete halt, sealing the opening of the great hole entirely.

"Come, come, come, fellow Daoist and my two brothers, step down quickly. We shall take this stone platform to descend and reach the vicinity of the cavern."

The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King spoke in human language. Without a doubt, this stone platform must have been designed by the entity that possessed the fragment of the alchemy manual.

Lin Yi thought that the creator of this mechanism was truly a brilliant mind. Wasn't this essentially an elevator or hoist?

Using mechanical arts to replace electrical power and ropes to construct this descending platform capable of carrying people down—it was absolute perfection.

***

"Hahaha... Not bad, truly not bad! As expected, there are plenty of monsters in this country. I can smell the scent of demons, reeking of blood. Oh? It seems those monsters have been eating people."

"I smell it too... How wonderful. They say the alien races of this country are somewhat different from the rest of the world. The language spoken in these nations is really quite difficult to learn; I've studied it for several full years and am still only conversational. Moreover, their cultivation system differs from ours, but the demons are almost identical to ours, relying entirely on ominous energy. However, I can sense they are even more troublesome. Today is a great day to warm up our hands."

"The people of this race are truly bizarre. That cultivator and alien practitioner we hunted earlier—Wang刚 [Wang Gang], right? Who would have thought that someone so weak in strength would actually have the audacity to try and eliminate three entities close to the S-rank demon level? I really don't know what to say about him. Is an S-rank demon something he could possibly destroy? It's fortunate we took over; we can just capture those three demons and sell them for a tidy profit."

"Indeed, that fellow named Wang Gang was simply courting death. When he saw us, he actually dared to look down his nose at us. Just because he beat a few forest animals to death, he dared to scold us and threatened to arrest us? Heh, utterly ridiculous—he deserved to die! Extracting the intelligence regarding these three great demons from him right before he died has saved us the trouble of searching elsewhere!"

A troop of riders had arrived above the Four Symbols Reservoir.

These people were indeed riding horses.

Their attire varied greatly.

What stood out the most was that their facial features were completely different from Lin Yi's.

These people belonged to alien races.

Some of them had golden hair, while others had brown hair.

Their skin tones also differed; some had fair skin, though their pores were exceptionally large and coarse.

Others possessed pitch-black skin that, in the dark of night without the glow of the moon or stars, made them look like chunks of charcoal.

In this world, besides the country where Lin Yi resided, there existed various other nations.

Sometimes, even their races were entirely different.

Their eyes were sometimes azure blue, sometimes yellowish—just like their skin tones, setting them apart from Lin Yi's race.

At this moment, they had come here precisely because... they had killed a cultivator named Wang Gang.

From their conversation, it was clear that Wang Gang was an upright practitioner who, upon learning of the existence of powerful demons at the Four Symbols Reservoir, had resolved to purge the area completely.

Unfortunately, because these alien interlopers had been hunting ordinary animals and he had scolded them for it, he had been slain by these foreigners.

And it was by relying on the notebook obtained from Wang Gang that these foreigners had learned of everything, prompting them to eagerly gallop over to the Four Symbols Reservoir, intending to capture the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King and the other two major demons alive.

As they spoke, an aura radiated continuously from their bodies.

That presence was undeniably powerful.

Even the horses they rode trembled all over whenever their masters inadvertently let slip a burst of pressure.

However, these horses were forcibly held in check by tightly reined bits.

Furthermore, whenever a horse appeared disobedient, its legs weak and trembling with fear rather than moving forward, these men would drive their fingers or various weapons into the beasts' flesh.

Many horses were bleeding, covered in wounds all over.

Yet these men paid it no mind whatsoever.

The leader of the group appeared fair-skinned, with yellowish downy hair that looked particularly coarse against his pale skin.

This man was about one hundred and ninety centimeters tall, with a lean build, a hooked nose, and azure blue pupils as he stared fixedly at the distant deep pool.

"Not only must we capture those major demons alive, but we must also take the treasures there for ourselves. The notebook in Wang Gang's possession clearly noted that there are treasures within that deep pool."

Hearing his words, a brown-skinned woman with naturally curly hair and black pupils let out a chuckle from the rear.