Lily Anne was not in a great mood. She had noticed that a few of the corpses that they had run into had died from strange circumstances. Their bodies had no signs of injuries, but when she relayed this situation to Northgate Lie, he hadn’t paid much attention to her.
“Miss Anna, there are too many odd techniques in the universe. Some can leave no external wounds since they actually target the internal organs. So it’s not that there are no injuries, but rather that we just can’t see them. It’s quite normal, and all it means is that there’s an expert ahead of us.”
She frowned; could it really be that simple? This wasn’t her first time roaming the universe, so it was unlikely that she would miss even an internal injury on a corpse. But since Northgate Lie did not care, she had no choice in the matter.
There was a rumbling off in the distance as a tower collapsed into dust.
The crowd was already accustomed to such things, as these buildings were just too ancient and they were no longer able to be preserved. It was to the extent that any trace of writing had disappeared from the buildings.
Northgate Lie casually scanned the area, but just when he was about to leave, his eyes suddenly focused onto a stone slab that had not been completely obliterated. It was impossible to tell which part of the tower the slab had fallen from, but there were obvious traces of carvings upon its surface.
His breathing became ragged as he suddenly charged forward. Lily Anne and the rest saw his abnormal behavior and rushed in after him.
Northgate Lie tore through the void and appeared next to the stone slab. He closely studied the pattern of the carving, trying to imprint it into his memory. As soon as Lily Anne and the others arrived, his eyes flashed, and he sent out some star energy through his feet, reducing the slab to dust.
His actions were all done surreptitiously, and Lily Anne’s group did not notice anything. By the time they arrived beside him, all they saw was a pile of dust.
“Brother Lie, what did you see?” someone enquired as everyone directed expectant faces to Northgate Lie.
Northgate Lie sighed. “I saw a pattern, but before I could get a good look, the stone turned to dust.”
“What pattern?” another person impatiently asked.
Northgate Lie thought for a moment and then used his star energy to draw a rough pattern before everyone. Rather than a proper drawing, it seemed more like a bunch of random squiggles with nine circular images that were surrounding an unknown object in the middle. The crowd was lost, and no one could discern any meaning from the drawing at all.
Northgate Lie grudgingly said, “It’s been too long, so the finer details and even the type of diagram had all faded away. These lines were all that I could see.”
The crowd felt it was a pity, but of course, not everyone believed Northgate Lie, though they could not continue to question him. Even if they neglected Northgate Lie’s strength, Northgate Taisui was still watching from outside as well.
Lily Anne stared intently at Northgate Lie, but then he soon focused on other places.
The crowd did not spend any further time dwelling on the matter, and everyone split up to explore different areas. They all wanted to find some preserved ancient records or carvings. Since a diagram had been left behind, it was proof that not everything had been destroyed.
Northgate Lie also put an act on and continued to search around, but his mind was preoccupied with that pattern. It had not been completely destroyed, and there was a certain shape and charm to it. Although he didn’t know exactly what it meant, he was positive that there had been nine circular objects surrounding a flower in the center of the diagram.
He had to share this pattern with his elders after he left this place, since they might be able to recognize it given their extensive knowledge and experience.
In another place, not far from Northgate Lie, a few people from the Tempest Flowzone were making their way through. The man with the facial scorpion tattoo was leading them. He seemed slightly different than before; his face contained a certain level of excitement, and he even seemed a bit unhinged. The man was called He Zhong, and he was a senior disciple from the Fire Scorpion Sect.
“Senior, could this place possibly be related to that place that our sect has always been searching for?” A female walked up and furtively whispered her question in a voice that was similarly excited.
He Zhong looked at her coldly. “Shut up! I’ve warned you not to speak of that so many times! In the entire younger generation, only you and I know of this. If anything is leaked, then we’ll die without a doubt.”
“Yes, senior, but someone really wants to know.” The girl then wrapped herself around He Zhong’s shoulders and exhaled, her body releasing an alluring fragrance.
He Zhong’s breathing quickened, and he glanced at the other disciples before quietly saying, “Just hold on and let me confirm some things.”
“Thank you, senior.” The girl smiled coyly before squeezing He Zhong’s shoulders even more tightly, completely burying him in her bosom.
Outside of the centipede’s body, powerhouse after powerhouse appeared with the intention of entering the centipede’s body to change their destiny, but all of them were stopped by Northgate Taisui. An old monster with a power level in the hundreds of thousands stood in their way, causing some Hunters who had previously felt self-important to reconsider their beliefs. They could only sullenly join the group who were holding the centipede up while dejectedly looking at the out of reach structures within the centipede’s leg.
One after another, spacecraft dashed into the centipede’s body, as if it were a giant treasure trove.
No one knew if there was actually anything of value within the body, but at this moment, Lu Yin and the rest of the cultivators were in a bad mood. An Explorer had inexplicably fallen dead while in the sky from right above the gathering, his corpse crashing right into the crowd. His manner of death seemed to be exactly the same as the other strange corpses that Lu Yin had run into: frightened to death.
Everyone was stunned, and their blood turned cold. No one knew how the man had died, which made it even more horrifying.
Lu Yin retrieved the Giant Emperor’s third eye and unleashed his domain while also activating his Cosmic Art. He vigilantly looked around, suspecting that the man had been struck by an invisible attack, similar to the dangers that came with unlocking sourceboxes. It was possible that there were sourceboxes within the centipede’s body, or perhaps the entire corpse was a sourcebox and everyone had already stepped into its danger zone.
“Seventh Bro, things are getting spooky. It’s time to take off,” the monkey said nervously, now afraid as well.
Lu Yin squinted and looked around.
Bit by bit, the others started gathering in groups and walking with familiar faces as everyone looked around apprehensively. No one dared to speak, and it felt as if an unseen blade were hanging over everyone’s heads.
At this point, a wretched cry jolted the crowd, and everyone looked into the distance to see a white wave sweeping towards them. Lu Yin’s expression changed, and a chill ran down his spine. What was approaching them wasn’t actually a white wave, but rather a countless number of those white parasites. They were frantically wriggling their way towards the crowd of cultivators.
Everyone hurriedly retreated even as countless attacks landed on the flood of the parasites, but only a small percentage of the attacks were effective while the large majority were not.
The parasites’ defenses were shocking.
“Only the attacks of Explorers are effective against them. Everyone else, get away!” someone shouted.
Many of the cultivators who were not Explorers yet turned deathly white, and they all ran.
Lu Yin used his Skybeast Claw as a test and directly tore through one of the parasites, and he was stupefied to discover that these parasites had no organs. Instead, they were filled with a milky-white fat substance that was rather disgusting.
“Seventh Bro, let’s go! There’s too many of them. Look up!” the monkey shrieked.
Lu Yin raised his head to see that some powerhouses had flown into the air to assault the wave of parasites, but they were knocked down by even more parasites that leapt up to grab them. Some of the people even fell inside the flood and vanished in the blink of an eye.
The white parasites covered the entire area, and the ground turned entirely white.
Lu Yin never stopped retreating. He could kill the creatures, but there were far too many of them for him to wipe out. Attacking a larger area meant a weaker attack, and it would also place a heavier burden on his body. He was not so selfless as to help the others out like that.
Numerous spatial cracks shattered the void as many tried to push the parasites into the fissures. Even so, the endless flood of parasites continued spilling forward, and the number of the creatures didn’t seem to drop by any noticeable amount.
Someone shouted, and multiple Explorers united to tear open a giant spatial crack that landed directly within the wave of parasites. Many of them were sucked within the crack and never seen again.
As soon as the crowd saw that the method was effective, many more cultivators joined in, and the number of parasites was soon visibly reduced.
The situation appeared to be turning for the better, but the monkey’s next comment caused Lu Yin’s improving mood to plummet once again. “How many parasites are there in a living being? It should at least be in the range of hundreds of millions, and it might even be incalculable. And to this centipede, these parasites must really be parasites. So, Seventh Bro, how many do you think there are?”
Lu Yin felt his scalp turn numb. He suddenly imagined what hundreds of millions of parasites covering the entire space would look like. Even if more spatial cracks were opened up, they would never be able to eliminate them all. In fact, the cultivators would end up dying from exhaustion.
Currently, there were at most a few hundred thousand parasites making their way forward, but if their numbers increased by a hundredfold, then no one would continue trying to fight them.
The most worrying issue was that the appearance of these parasites meant that any buildings they ran into would be completely destroyed along with anything that they might possibly hold.
Many started considering leaving.
Lu Yin retreated again and again, only attacking occasionally. Although his attacks were not frequent, they were effective and much stronger than the attacks of the nearby Explorers. Every one of his attacks eradicated a significant portion of the parasites.
Suddenly, in the distance, a phantom image appeared that pierced through the void and streaked across the area. An Explorer immediately fell into the flood of parasites below.
Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed, since this time, he had finally seen the attack; it was a pike. A phantom image of a pike had stabbed the Explorer and instantly killed him. So it turned out that those frightened-to-death corpses had all been victims of this pike’s attack.
The pike was a phantom image that a normal person could not see. Lu Yin had to rely on his Cosmic Art, domain, and his lockbreaking tool to just barely make it out.
Although the scene of the pike killing someone was horrifying, Lu Yin actually relaxed when he saw it. At least he now knew how those people had died. The most visceral fear that all humans held was the fear of the unknown. If Lu Yin had not been able to determine the cause of those strange deaths, then even he would not have had the courage to continue forward.
Still, where had the phantom pike come from? A new question had suddenly arose since there were definitely no living people inside the centipede. Could it be from the parasites?
Lu Yin retreated as he carefully stared deeper into the centipede’s leg. Before long, another phantom pike appeared. It streaked through the area and disappeared.
Lu Yin’s eyes flickered. This second phantom pike had not attacked anyone; could the attacks possibly be at random?
In order to test his conjecture, Lu Yin greatly increased his efforts in attacking the parasites, and he also teamed up with the other powerhouses to shatter the void. The wave of parasites reduced visibly, their numbers clearly diminished compared to before.
The crowd had barely taken control of the flood of worms’ progress.
Another phantom pike shot out. This time, it streaked past an Explorer’s shoulder, who didn’t notice anything at all as he continued to attack the flood of worms.
After that, every so often, the pike would shoot out in various directions, but there was only one other time that it shot towards someone. Fortunately for them, Lu Yin secretly pushed them out of the way. Otherwise, there would have been one more bizarre corpse upon the ground.
He was now sure that these phantom pikes were not targeting anybody, but were instead randomly shot out. If so, then what was launching them? All of the attacks were phantom pikes, so could there be a unique, original pike somewhere? Lu Yin was getting a little excited, and he hoped to retrieve such a thing.
Some of the cultivators stayed behind to hold back the flood of worms since they wanted to continue exploring further while others simply left the centipede.
The mercenary group that Lu Yin had encountered before was one of the groups that left.
“Captain, you’re still the only sensible one. We definitely won’t be able to kill so many worms, and who knows how many more there are further in. A timely retreat is the correct decision,” someone said, flattering their leader, and the people around him echoed similar sentiments.
