Dao of Money

285. Welcome to the grand library!

With how quickly the monstrous books attacked, Chen Ren and the others barely had any time to respond properly.One moment they had been sitting there, catching their breath on the lift, and the next, the books were already on top of them. They swooped down in seconds, and the barrier the twins raised around the lift shattered under the first impacts as if it were no stronger than a sheet of thin ice.

Even then, Chen Ren had still not expected what came after. When the books opened their mouths, huge tongues rolled out of them, thick and fast like those of giant lizards.

The first one struck him before he could move aside.

Fortunately, he had already wrapped [Starlight Armour] around his arms, so when the tongue slammed into him, it hit it first rather than his flesh. Even so, part of the armour cracked under the force, and Chen Ren was sent staggering backward across the lift.

He only barely managed to stop himself at the edge instead of going over it.

From behind, he heard Princess Yanyue shout his name.

Chen Ren tried to push himself upright, but before he could, another of the books was already above him, diving down with its mouth open and its whole weight aimed straight at his stomach.

Instinctively, he threw both hands up and caught the thing–or rather stopped it from crushing down fully, but only barely. He pushed as much force into his arms as he could. Still, the monstrous book kept pressing lower until he could feel it digging against his middle hard enough to draw a groan from him.

The rings on his fingers, the ones meant to strengthen his body, flared bright.

Before the book could force itself any farther, Chen Ren drove lightning through both his hands.

The reaction was immediate.

The book shrieked—an awful sound that still felt wrong coming from something that should have been nothing but paper and binding—and its whole body jerked. Chen Ren used that opening at once, heaving it sideways and sending it off the edge of the lift.

Then he got to his feet.

This time he didn’t stop with [Starlight Armour] on just his arms. He pulled it over his whole body, layering it again and again, forcing the defensive technique to thicken until he was certain that if one of the books struck him again, it wouldn’t be enough to knock him off the lift so easily.

Then he looked around, and the only word that fit was chaos.

The books were everywhere.

Some circled high above the lift, spinning through the air as if waiting for the right moment to dive, while others were already mixed into the fight itself, pressing hard against his party from every side.

Li Qingxue had her bow out, firing one shot after another at any opening she could find, while Li Qingfeng used the gauntlets on his arms to smash away whatever book tried to slip too close. Princess Yanyue had surprised Chen Ren the most.

She was not using her bow at all. Instead, she had formed a qi sword and shield and was meeting the books head-on, knocking aside their charges and cutting at them in the same motion whenever one came too near.

It worked, but only barely.

The things were slippery little bastards.

They twisted around attacks in ways that did not feel natural, folding and turning in midair like they had no real weight to them, and more than once Chen Ren saw one escape a killing blow by just spinning unnaturally.

Out of all of them, though, Yalan was doing the most damage.

Fire was exactly what these things hated, and she had realized that immediately. She kept hurling flames into their clusters, trying to catch several at once and burn them through before they could scatter. For a few breaths, Chen Ren thought she might actually be the key to breaking the whole assault, but then one of the books slipped around the edge of her flames and snapped its tongue straight toward her side.

Chen Ren moved on instinct.

Lightning flared around his legs as he lunged, catching the tongue before it could smash into her. The thing writhed in his grip, and he sent a violent surge of lightning straight through it. The book convulsed with a shriek, trying to tear free, but Chen Ren did not give it the chance. He pushed qi into one of his rings, and a burst of fire exploded outward from it, slamming the book across the space and into the far wall.

It hit hard enough to crumple.

But even with that, Chen Ren felt no relief.

That was the part that made his stomach tighten. For all the damage they were doing, the number of books around them didn’t seem to be thinning at all. If anything, it felt like every time they destroyed one, another crawled or flew out from somewhere above.

Like the walls themselves were feeding them more. When Chen Ren looked up, there was still no end to the lift in sight.

That was the part he hated most. If the ascent had only been another few breaths, they might have been able to brute-force their way through this mess. But the ceiling above them still stretched on and on, and from the pace of the lift, it felt like they still had several more minutes left to endure. Chen Ren was no longer sure they could.

Even now, the books were pressing too hard.

There were too many of them trying to batter them off the lift, and if this kept going in the same way, one mistake would be enough to send one of them tumbling. They needed a better answer than simply fighting until their arms gave out.

And just as that thought settled, something clicked in his mind.

He turned immediately toward Princess Yanyue. “Princess, catch. I’ll cover you.”

Then, without waiting, he reached into his spatial ring and threw a bow toward her.

Yanyue was in the middle of slipping away from one of the books when it reached her. She twisted in the air, dropped her shield, caught the bow cleanly with her left hand, and the moment her fingers closed around it, Chen Ren saw understanding light up in her eyes. Her qi sword and shield vanished at once.

But before she could put the bow to use, two more books swooped at her.

Chen Ren moved before they reached her.

He closed the distance in a single rush and drove a punch straight into the first book, smashing it so hard that it flew back and crashed against the wall. The second book snapped its tongue around his arm and tried to yank him toward its open mouth, but Chen Ren only let lightning surge harder through his limbs. He seized the thing by the tongue instead, turned with the pull, and used its own momentum to swing it straight into the path of Yalan’s fire.

The book shrieked the moment the flames caught it.

Chen Ren barely spared it a glance. He was already building another attack, forcing as much qi as he could into a [Lightning Frenzy]. Bolts erupted around him, crawling over his body and lashing outward in all directions. It was not enough to kill everything around the lift, not even close, but it scorched the nearest books badly enough to buy them space.

And right now, space was all they needed.

The books farther out simply slipped away from the lightning before it could reach them, and even when a few bolts did land, they barely cared. The current only scraped their sides, and they shook it off almost instantly. But Chen Ren had never meant for the attack to kill them. It was only there to buy a clear path for Princess Yanyue.

The moment the space opened, she drew the bow and started firing in all directions. Arrows shot across the lift so quickly that for a second it looked like she was trying to simply overwhelm the books with volume, and the creatures reacted the same way, screeching and pulling away from the incoming shots. But the arrows were never meant to pierce them.

Just before impact, they broke apart and each one burst into a net.

Half a dozen books were caught in the first spread alone, their covers flapping wildly as they shrieked and twisted to tear free, but the nets held them together long enough for the others to act. Yalan’s flames followed almost immediately, and the twins struck right after her, their attacks landing hard enough to burn and rip apart whole clumps of books at once.

It was the same method Chen Ren had used against the zombies on the sixth floor.

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And now it worked here too.

More arrows burst into nets every few breaths, tangling up clusters of books and clogging the air around the lift. Once that started happening, Chen Ren finally understood the real weakness of these creatures. They were fast, yes, and they hit with enough force to throw someone clean off the platform if given the chance, but they were limited.

Their whole way of fighting depended on momentum and isolation. They wanted to rush in, strike hard, and knock someone away. Once the group secured all sides of the lift and started binding the books together, that rhythm broke.

Their strength became awkward and their speed became less useful.

And for the first time since the attack began, Chen Ren felt like they might actually get through this without losing anyone.

Then, just as that thought settled in his mind, he noticed a bright light ahead.

His body tensed at once. But the more he looked at it, the less it felt like another trap. It looked like an exit. Or precisely, their destination.

Even the lift began to slow a little as the light ahead grew brighter, but at the same time more latches opened in the walls around them and another wave of books burst out.

Chen Ren saw them and immediately shouted. “Just a little longer! We can make it!”

As he said it, he threw out more attacks at the nearest books, knowing they only needed to hold on for another minute or so. That was all. Just enough to reach whatever waited ahead. He had already begun to believe they would actually do it when one of the books in front of him went spinning down under a strike, but then disaster struck him.

One of the books on his left tore itself free from one of Princess Yanyue’s nets.

It came at him so fast he only caught the motion at the edge of his vision. Chen Ren turned instinctively, ready to grab it, but at the last instant the thing twisted and changed direction. Instead of coming straight at his chest, it slammed sideways into him with all the force in its body.

His [Starlight Armour] shattered apart. So did the reinforcement of the rings over his body.

The impact drove him straight off the lift.

He heard Yalan shout, but by then there was only one thought left in his head—hold on.

So as he went over the edge, Chen Ren grabbed at the book with everything he had. Somehow, even with one foot already slipping into empty air, he managed to latch on. For one brief second he thought that might save him.

Then the book changed direction.

It shot hard into the wall.

Chen Ren’s back smashed against it, and even with what little armour remained to soften the blow, pain tore through him hard enough to loosen his grip. Before he could recover, he saw more books charging at him from the side.

And at once he understood.

They were not trying to throw him away now. They were going to pin him to the wall and keep slamming into him until nothing recognizable remained of his flesh.

With only seconds left and no good options at all, Chen Ren let out a breath and did the only thing that might still save him.

He let go of the book.

At once, he dropped through the open shaft of the lift.

Above him, he caught a glimpse of Princess Yanyue and Yalan looking down, but Chen Ren had not let go because he had given up. He never did things like that without a plan. The moment he started falling, he pushed qi into the gloves on his hands, and a shield of compressed air formed beneath him. He landed on it hard enough that for a second he genuinely wondered whether it would collapse under his weight.

It held and that was enough.

Chen Ren didn’t waste even a breath. He formed another one farther up in the air, then another after that, and began moving between them, using each shield as a platform to climb back toward the lift. That was the one reason he had liked the gloves so much from the start. The technique built into them was not only useful for defense. It also let him arrest his fall and create footing where there should have been none.

He had been saving it, and it came in use now.

As he rose, the books noticed him almost immediately. They peeled away from the lift and rushed at him again, shrieking as they came, and Chen Ren frowned, already preparing to knock them back himself, when arrows suddenly streaked down from above. They struck the books mid-flight, some bursting into bindings, others exploding hard enough to throw the creatures off course. Chen Ren looked up and saw Princess Yanyue and Li Qingfeng leaning over the edge, both of them focused on clearing a path for him.

That was enough to pull a brief smile from him.

So he left the books to them and focused on climbing.

The technique in the gloves was good, but it was not endless. He only had so many uses before it would need time to recover, so he could not afford to waste them. Because of that, Chen Ren spread the air shields farther apart and relied on bursts of lightning through his legs to bridge the larger gaps. It made the climb rougher and far more awkward, especially with books still swarming through the shaft, but it saved the gloves from burning out too early.

And Chen ren somehow managed it. Only once did a book get close enough to slam into him, but he caught it with both hands just before it could crash into his chest and twisted, throwing it straight into the path of one of Princess Yanyue’s arrows. The arrow hit it a second later, wrapped around it in a net and dragged it away from him.

After that, he just kept moving; one jump after another.

The lift kept drawing closer until, at last, he reached the final shield he could still make. From there, he pushed off hard and caught the ledge of the lift with both hands.

As he pulled himself over it, Yalan’s flames washed overhead while Qingxue’s arrows flashed past, striking the books that were still trying to dive at them. By the time Chen Ren got both feet back onto the platform, he was finally out of danger of falling to his death.

He took one breath and saw the doorway at the edge of the lift as it finally stopped.

Princess Yanyue turned towards him. “Let’s go,” she said immediately.

Chen Ren only nodded, and all of them rushed toward it. The books kept shrieking behind them, but he hardly cared anymore. That part was done. Whatever test this had been, they had endured it. A moment later, his hand found the latch of the massive double doors, and when he pushed, they opened with a long creak.

Then he stepped through and stopped. His eyes widened before he could help it.

The others stilled with him as they looked into the chamber beyond.

The library stretched out before them like an entire world made of shelves and silence. Towering rows of books rose so high that they seemed to disappear into the ceiling, and even that ceiling felt impossibly far away.

Stairs curved upward along the sides of the chamber, linking one level to another, while broad balconies and upper floors wrapped around the walls in layers. Tables lay arranged across the lower floor, some small and simple, others large enough to hold dozens of people at once. And everywhere, there were more books—resting on shelves, stacked on desks, or drifting softly through the air as though they had a life of their own.

None of it felt hostile—it only felt old and ordered in a way that made Chen Ren think this place had existed long enough to outlive dynasties. And that was true too.

Then, as he stood there staring, words began to form in the air before them.

Welcome to the Grand Library.

We hope you find the book you are looking for.

***

A/N - You can read 30 chapters (15 Magus Reborn and 15 Dao of money) on my patreon. Annual subscription is now on too. Also this is Volume 2 last chapter.

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