What... what's going on?!

The old gardener, who had just transformed his hands into black claws and was about to tear Zhou Huai to pieces, suddenly froze.

The alien parasite lurking inside his body instantly took over his central nervous system.

"Snap!" The old gardener's legs came together uncontrollably, his heels hitting each other heavily.

The hands, which had transformed into claws, instantly returned to their original shape, pressed tightly against the seams of the pants.

Not only him, but also the dozens of ancient clansmen around him disguised as gardeners.

"Clap! Clap! Clap!" A series of neat footsteps rang out in the back garden.

Everyone straightened up uncontrollably, quickly moved closer together, and lined up in front of Zhou Huai.

My body!

"How did my body start moving on its own?!"

The ancient races were in complete panic.

They tried desperately to move their feet or raise their arms, but their bodies wouldn't obey them. The old gardener used all his strength to try and break free from this restraint.

"Useless, they can't even move a little finger." Zhou Huai looked at the group of people standing ramrod straight and nodded in satisfaction. He was too lazy to waste words and went straight to the point.

"Tell me about it."

Zhou Huai pulled over a rattan chair next to him and sat down.

"Where is the entrance to your Dawn Guild's base?"

The old gardener couldn't move his body, but he could still speak. He stared intently at Zhou Huai.

"You despicable professional!"

"You are not Archbishop Andrew at all!"

"That good-for-nothing Andrew could never have such bizarre methods!"

The old gardener roared, "Who are you? What are you trying to do by infiltrating our Dawn Guild?!"

Zhou Huai looked at him and shook his head.

"This is a wrong answer."

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Huai had a thought.

The old gardener was horrified to find that his hands were uncontrollably rising and slowly reaching towards his neck.

"No! What are you trying to do!"

"Stop! Stop right now!"

The old gardener shouted and tried desperately to put his hand down.

But his hands were tightly gripping his own neck.

Immediately afterwards, he exerted force with both hands and twisted sharply to the right.

"Crack!" A sound of bone breaking rang out in the back garden. The old gardener's head was twisted 180 degrees, his face turned backward.

Until his last breath, he couldn't understand how he had broken his own neck.

"Thump." The old gardener's body fell to the ground.

The entire room fell silent.

The remaining dozens of ancient clan members stared in terror at the corpses on the ground.

"Gulp..." Someone swallowed hard, the sound particularly clear in the quiet environment.

Such methods were unheard of, leaving no room for resistance.

Although they were an ancient race that had died and been resurrected, they still trembled in the face of this method that completely stripped them of control over their bodies.

"Next."

Zhou Huai ignored the corpses on the ground and instead glanced at a tall, thin member of the ancient clan in the group.

"You answer," Zhou Huai said calmly.

The tall, thin man dared not hide it any longer; the old gardener's body was still lying on the ground.

"I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything!"

The tall, thin man spoke incredibly fast, as if afraid of being even a second too slow.

"The base entrance is right in the central garden!"

"Under that enormous statue of the old Holy Lord!"

"As long as we activate the mechanism under the statue, we can enter the underground base!"

After listening, Zhou Huai snapped his fingers.

"sensible."

Upon hearing those two words, the tall, thin man breathed a sigh of relief, thinking his life was saved.

The next second...

"Snap! Snap! Snap!"

A series of rapid cracking sounds rang out.

The tall, thin man was horrified to find that his hands had risen uncontrollably and were gripping his neck. The other ancient clansmen around him were doing the same thing.

"You...you're not keeping your word..."

The tall, thin man managed to squeeze out the last few words.

"Snap!"

Dozens of people moved in unison, simultaneously twisting their own necks.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

Dozens of corpses lay sprawled on the ground.

Zhou Huai stood up and clapped his hands.

There's no trust to be had with these monsters from the Dawn Guild.

These ancient remnants should have died long ago, but they were forcibly kept in the present world by Mr. Duan's methods. Their continued existence is nothing but a scourge.

After obtaining the exact coordinates, Zhou Huai did not linger in the back garden and immediately activated the spatial laws.

With a whoosh, space distorted, and his figure vanished from his spot. After several spatial jumps, Zhou Huai landed in the central garden of the Holy Palace.

This place is completely different from the back garden; there are no lush flowers and plants here.

The entire central garden is paved with pure white marble, creating a spacious and solemn atmosphere.

In the very center of the garden stands a colossal statue, tens of meters tall, depicting the previous Holy Lord Francis. The statue holds a scepter and overlooks the holy city.

Zhou Huai stood below the statue, looking up at it with a slight raised eyebrow.

Under the all-seeing vision of the void, the statue was surrounded by array patterns. A rough count revealed dozens of interwoven and nested illusion arrays, perfectly concealing the entrance to the underground base.

These illusion arrays are cleverly designed, with energy fluctuations perfectly integrated with the luminous laws of the statues themselves. No wonder the high-ranking officials of the Holy See and the Holy Knights patrolled here every day without noticing anything unusual.

Of course, Zhou Huai knew that in addition to the superior formation, the more important reason was that the Holy Lord Francis may have reached some kind of agreement with Mr. Duan before his death.

The Holy Lord deliberately ignored the Dawn Guild base beneath the statue and even secretly provided it with protection.

"What an interesting collusion."

Zhou Huai sneered.

These illusion arrays might be an insurmountable barrier for array masters in the modern world; touching the wrong one could trigger a chain of deadly arrays.

But that's nothing compared to Zhou Huai, who possesses an SS-level array master clone—Zhuge Kongming.

With a thought, Zhou Huai directly invoked Zhuge Liang's formation laws and reached out to touch his spatial ring.

With a "whoosh," dozens of exquisite carving knives appeared, hovering in mid-air, emitting a bluish light.

"go."

Zhou Huai pointed his sword at a point.

Dozens of carving knives transformed into streaks of azure light, piercing into the void surrounding the statue. "Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!" The carving knives precisely pierced the core of each illusion array. Azure array laws spread along the carving knives, peeling away and severing the intricately interwoven array patterns one by one.

The once perfect illusion array began to tremble violently. Less than half a minute later, with a "crack!", the outermost layer of the illusion array shattered.

Immediately afterwards, dozens of high-level illusion arrays collapsed one after another, turning into specks of light and dissipating.

As the illusion dissipated, the scene before them changed drastically. The empty central garden and the enormous statue of the Holy Lord were gone.

Instead, there was a vast, bottomless underground passage. The entrance to the passage emitted a dim light and exuded a chilling aura.

Zhou Huai put away his carving knife and stepped into the passage. The passage was spacious, with magic stones embedded in the walls for lighting.

He followed the passage downwards, expecting to soon reach the Dawn Guild's underground base, but upon reaching its depths, he found himself facing a thick, black stone wall. A dead end.

Zhou Huai stopped and scanned his surroundings. In the very center of the black stone wall, a complex teleportation array was inscribed.

The array patterns were dim and inactive.

Zhou Huai stepped forward to examine it. This teleportation array had no array eye or energy groove. It seemed that it could only be activated by entering a specific password to teleport to the real base.

Zhou Huai stood in front of the teleportation array, stroking his chin.

I miscalculated; there's actually a second level.

I should have kept those people alive to lead the way instead of killing them first.