The Energy Core Point
Xu Lingqu climbed a few stone steps and stood before the Pyramid's entrance, glancing up at the sky.
The energy core point allowed only one gun and one blade. The moment she stepped into the Pyramid's perimeter, her equipment automatically stripped down to just those two items.
Gripping the blade in her right hand with the gun tucked at her waist, she stepped into the narrow passage.
This Pyramid was smaller than the famous ones back on Earth in Egypt, and its internal structure was nothing like a typical pyramid. The Sky Network designer who created it seemed to have only known the outer shell, with no real understanding of what went on inside.
The entrance should have led to a descending tomb passage, but the designer had made it an ascending path instead. Visibility here was so poor that Xu Lingqu was basically moving through darkness. Midway through, she suddenly halted, then took a step back.
A "mummy" dropped down from above. If Xu Lingqu hadn't retreated, it would have landed squarely on her. It was as if it had precisely predicted her position.
The mummy was wrapped in bandages that looked badly frayed, exposing its desiccated, corpse-like skin covered in green powder — clearly toxic. A single touch would be unpleasant. Its eyes were fixed on Xu Lingqu, as if waiting to see her panic.
Xu Lingqu just raised her gun expressionlessly and fired a shot at its head. The already fragile dried corpse couldn't withstand that — its head flew clean off. She stepped over the headless mummy and continued on.
The so-called mysterious creatures in the rules were probably some of the beings from Egyptian mythology. They would attack her inside the Pyramid, and Xu Lingqu felt like she was playing a full-holographic desert adventure game.
After a while, a faint, dim yellow light finally appeared ahead. She arrived at a spacious area with sandy ground beneath her feet. It seemed empty, as if nothing was there at all.
Xu Lingqu scanned her surroundings, then looked up at the ceiling, meeting a pair of yellow serpent eyes the size of lightbulbs.
It emerged from the darkness, revealing its true form — a dark green serpent body with red feathers growing from its scales, and below its head, a pair of bird wings. That was why it could look down at Xu Lingqu from the ceiling.
The Feathered Serpent — a deity from the Mayan mythology of Earth — had been stuffed by the designer into an Egyptian pyramid.
It let out a shrill cry, then dove straight at Xu Lingqu from the air.
Xu Lingqu calmly fired several shots, each one precisely hitting those yellow serpent eyes. Blinded and in pain, the Feathered Serpent grew even more enraged. It opened its massive jaws wide, clearly intending to swallow Xu Lingqu whole.
But it missed.
Xu Lingqu moved quickly, dodging out of the way along the wall and grabbing one of the feathers growing from its scales with her right hand.
After its failed strike, the Feathered Serpent reared its body upright, lifting Xu Lingqu completely off the ground. It meant to throw her from a great height, letting her fall to her death. Xu Lingqu gripped the military blade in her left hand and plunged it hard into the serpent's body.
Feeling the pain, the Feathered Serpent began to thrash violently. Xu Lingqu, with one hand gripping its feather and the other holding the knife embedded in its scales, used the momentum to flip herself onto the serpent's back. Standing atop this deity, she found its vital spot — the seventh segment — and fired multiple shots from her gun.
Amid the gunfire, the Feathered Serpent's body stiffened for a moment, then crashed straight to the ground. The heavy thud sent a cloud of sand and dust billowing into the air.
Xu Lingqu stared at the serpent corpse for over ten seconds, confirming it was truly dead, before withdrawing her blade.
It was covered in the Feathered Serpent's blue blood. Aside from being a little dirty, Xu Lingqu had eliminated it without a single injury.
Standing on the serpent's corpse now free of its body blocking the view, she spotted an exit passage opening in mid-air. Looking around, she found an automatic grappling hook in a corner. She tossed it up, hooking it onto the edge of the opening.
Just as she was about to press the retract button and be pulled up, she paused. She returned to the Feathered Serpent's body and fired one more shot at its seventh segment, making sure it was genuinely dead rather than playing dead. Only then did she climb up and enter another narrow passage.
This time, the passage sloped downward, and no mummies jumped out along the way. She quickly walked out of the narrow tunnel and arrived at a new place.
It looked like an altar.
A pile of bones was heaped in one corner, a mix of human and animal remains. In the center, a platform was built on the sandy ground, seemingly crafted from something like gold, with a small hourglass resting on top.
Just as Xu Lingqu finished observing, two monsters over two meters tall walked out from either side of the altar.
One had the head of a hawk, the other the head of a jackal — the forms of Set and Horus from Egyptian mythology. They clutched their weapons and charged at Xu Lingqu without hesitation.
Xu Lingqu fired her gun at Set with her left hand while charging at Horus on the other side, blade in her right hand.
Horus wielded a spear with far greater reach than Xu Lingqu's arms. As it swept horizontally, she ducked just in time to avoid it, then grabbed the spear shaft in reverse, using the momentum to launch herself at Horus. The military blade pierced straight through its throat.
On the other side, Set seemed to have anticipated this, dodging several of Xu Lingqu's gunshots. Gripping a long saber with both hands, it swung down hard at her.
She barely sidestepped. These two monsters were immensely strong but slow in their movements. Even with its throat pierced, Horus picked itself up as if completely uninjured and charged at her again, brandishing its spear.
Xu Lingqu shifted positions, luring the two monsters to attack her from each side. Then she dropped low and dodged, making them strike at each other.
She had to find a way to actually kill them.
Her gaze locked onto the hourglass again. It was sitting there almost too conspicuously, like a "key item" in a game. There was no way around it — Xu Lingqu, while dodging Set and Horus's attacks, raised her gun and fired at the hourglass.
The shot was blocked, however, by Set, who pounced in front of it and took the bullet. It fell to the ground, then slowly rose again, looking as determined as ever not to let Xu Lingqu touch the hourglass.
Xu Lingqu narrowed her eyes. Fine — that just confirmed it for her.
What wasn't fine was that she was out of bullets.
She tossed the gun aside and charged forward without hesitation. Horus blocked her path, thrusting its spear at her once more. Xu Lingqu grabbed the spear shaft again. Expecting her to stab at its neck again, Horus instinctively covered its throat with one hand.
But this time, Xu Lingqu instead flung out the grappling hook she'd carried from the earlier climb. She hadn't discarded it — and now, she hurled it forward, hooking onto the edge of the platform while pressing the retract button. She flew forward, grabbing the hourglass from the platform.
She slammed the hourglass onto the ground, sand spilling out. In an instant, the massive bodies of Horus and Set dissolved into white sand, scattering over the altar as if the two monsters had merely been a hallucination.
Xu Lingqu stood up, brushed the dust off herself, and continued forward.
Beyond the altar stretched a dense flight of steps. Clutching her blade, she climbed roughly five hundred steps before spotting a palace made of white jade and gold. She stepped inside, and there in the center of the hall stood a coffin.
A man wearing a pharaoh's crown walked out, a smile on his face. "Brave warrior, please open it. What you seek is inside."
Xu Lingqu answered with action instead of words. She approached the pharaoh, watching his smile slowly stiffen.
The blade rested against his neck.
"Go on, tell me," she said. "How many times have I killed you all now?"