"Damn! You guys left me here!" the bandit sobbed.

Mei was speechless as she saw the haggard bandit, his hand covered in scrapes and bruises from bashing hard rock.

"I'm starving... and really parched..." the bandit mused.

Mei and the two spirits had entirely forgotten about the bandit after he was shoved into a stone cage. Somehow, Detian had missed him as well, so the poor fellow had been stuck there the whole time.

If not for them coming back to cause more trouble, he might even have starved to death.

Mei and her friends had gotten past the barrier undetected by teleporting inside directly with the help of the Myriad Realms Array.

"You guys... seriously forgot about someone you imprisoned? I know he's a bandit, but still..." Xiuying trailed off. "No one deserves that."

"It's only been a single day, don't be a wuss." Hong Ling finally said, dispelling the cage.

Naturally, he neglected to say he really had forgotten.

Liu Qiang handed the bandit a mantou, which he began to devour like a wolf, then a bottle of water.

"So what do we do with him?" Mei asked.

The group was silent for a bit.

Then Hong Ling conjured a stone cage yet again.

"Hey!" the bandit cried.

"We'll figure out what to do with him afterwards." Hong Ling said. "You guys watch over him. If you forget, it's not on me this time. Dian Ying, create a projection so they can see what we're doing."

Sneakily, he snatched his jade token from Mei's bag without her noticing.

"Yeah, whatever." the yellow spirit behind Wang Wei grumbled.

----------------------------------------

Feng Shen distorted space to reduce himself to fit into the narrow stairway, Hong Ling and Shi Xin following closely. Wang Wei, Liu Qiang and Yingyi's guardians had stayed behind, to keep the disciples safe.

"Whoa..." Wang Wei said as he stared at the floating projection before him. "This is so cool!"

"How does it work?" Liu Qiang asked.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Dian Ying ignored him.

Despite being quite the distance away, they could see all that was happening with the vivid image of the ruins before their very eyes. Hong Ling turned around with a sly grin, waving to the "camera".

The chamber was fairly dark despite the glowing pillars, so the spirits had conjured massive balls of light to illuminate the entire chamber.

"So where's this pesky guardian?" Feng Shen said, returning to his old size and hopping around arrogantly.

Even with his bulk, his landings were surprisingly soft.

With a wave of his wing, he sent out a razor-sharp projection, tearing through the metal ground as if it were butter.

"Hm? There's a room underneath." the bird mused.

Sending out a few more slashes, he cut out a hole in the ground, a massive bang echoing through the chamber out as the newly carved block of metal slammed onto the floor of the room below.

Finally, the guardian responded. Followed by loud whirling, a massive trapdoor opened in the distance, a colossal metal guardian rising out. Under the bright light the spirits conjured, its glowing eyes were no longer as prominent, but the body of the guardian was now fully visible.

A massive suit of armour towering 10 metres stood, its head nearly touching the ceiling. Its forearms were awfully disproportionate, with gauntlets huge enough to easily cover the entirety of its head with ease. Between its back, two strange cubic constructs jutted out, each with 9 circular openings.

It raised one of its arms and pointed its hand at the intruders, revealing the mouth of a cannon.

In the next moment, with a loud bang, a massive cannonball shot towards Feng Shen.

The bird, however, had already hopped out of the way.

Bang!

The cannonball crashed into the ground, lodging in the metal and leaving a glowing red crater. Feng Shen stared at it with a look of disdain.

"Weak."

The bird didn't even bother to dodge the next one as he flew forward, simply shrugging the metal ball aside.

...wasn't that kind of risky? Mei thought to herself that if a stronger blast had been launched, Feng Shen could have gotten hurt pretty bad.

The guardian, however, did not share her train of thought, seemingly visibly alarmed as it stood a step back. It launched a wave of red-hot projectiles next, which did just as little damage.

In the next instant, Feng Shen was before the metal colossal. He kicked it to the ground with the impact of his momentum, before sending a razor-sharp projection at it.

BANG!

Mei had no idea if the sound came from such a massive being hitting the ground or the attack.

On the armour of the guardian, a cut roughly half a metre deep was left.

"Ho. You're tough." Feng Shen snorted.

The bird proceeded to launch slash after slash endlessly. Slowly but surely, even as the guardian tried to run, it was chopped into pieces by hundreds of attacks, chunks of damaged formation plates and spell circuits falling out.

...just like that?

Well... not that she was going to complain. It would have sucked if Feng Shen lost. But she was hoping for a more spectacular fight regardless.

"That guardian doesn't look all that strong..." Wang Wei commented.

"Some sect elders were scared of that thing?" Liu Qiang added. "His cannons couldn't even hurt a bird?"

"A house-sized bird." Yingyi corrected.

"Yeah, but even so, don't birds have hollow bones or something?" Liu Qiang said.

Maybe it was just that Feng Shen was too strong, Mei thought to herself, as the two friends began to debate.

"Nicely done." Hong Ling said.

He sauntered over to the remains of the guardian and began absorbing the qi.

Shi Xin floated over and began peeking at the fragmented bits that had fallen out.

"Hmm... fascinating..." the grey spirit mused.

At that moment, the guardian's dimmed eyes shone once more. Raising its massive arm abruptly, it swung its hand down upon the redheaded spirit, no smaller than a bug in its eyes.

The sound of the Hong Ling's jade shattering could be faintly heard.