Everything was ready.
Lin Gui took a deep breath and gripped the flying vessel's control lever.
He didn't accelerate immediately; instead, he pressed the speed to its minimum.
The flying vessel was like a drifting leaf, skimming along the ground as it silently slipped into the Wailing Corridor.
The advancing speed was agonizingly slow.
Almost at a walking pace, they nudged toward the center of the basin bit by bit.
To lower the field of vision of his Eyes of the Netherworld and prevent the panic of too many spectral demons from attracting attention—
Lin Gui intentionally kept his head down, staring at the ground. He relied entirely on the memories in his mind to guide the flying vessel along the route.
Theia's face was filled with confusion.
She thought Lin Gui would simply charge through with a "whoosh" as he usually did.
Instead, he was now moving as slowly as a snail.
She pursed her lips, not daring to speak and disturb him.
However, her gaze couldn't help but wander downward.
The environment of the Wailing Corridor was fundamentally different from the areas they had crossed before.
The thick fog seemed even more viscous, and the air was permeated with a stale scent of "death."
It wasn't the stench of corpses, but a deeper, more stagnant aura of the soul.
Barely any soil or vegetation could be seen on the ground.
Only grayish-white rocky bones, appearing as if they had been repeatedly crushed, lay exposed.
Occasionally, massive, bottomless rifts could be seen.
They spanned the earth like scars torn open by invisible claws.
What made Theia's heart palpitate most was that omnipresent sense of being "watched."
Even if she couldn't see them, she could clearly feel them.
And this invisible sense of being watched grew stronger as they went deeper.
Just as Theia's nerves were stretched to their limit—
A faint, drawn-out wail sounded.
"Wooo... hmmm..."
The sound was elusive, appearing almost non-existent, like a sigh seeping from deep underground.
Theia shuddered, and her hand instantly moved toward the dagger at her waist.
At the very moment she was about to draw the blade.
In front of her, Lin Gui's head, which had been looking down, tilted almost imperceptibly.
Those gray eyes cast an inconspicuous glance toward a certain direction.
His gaze was icy, carrying a silent "warning."
In the next second.
That elusive wailing sound...
Stopped abruptly.
Theia focused her gaze in the direction Lin Gui had looked.
There was nothing there.
But in Lin Gui's vision, a spectral demon was revealed where there had originally been nothing.
That Hero Rank spectral demon retreated in utter panic.
It collapsed into several wisps of pale blue smoke, twisting as it burrowed into the depths of a rock crevice.
Lin Gui's gaze remained lowered, his gray eyes inconspicuously scanning the ground around them.
On the left rock wall, the limbs of a multi-legged centipede-like specter suddenly curled inward.
In the rift on the right, a monster composed of countless pale arms probing outward violently yanked them back into the darkness.
On the ground ahead, a black shadow flowing slowly like pitch instantly solidified before seeping into the earth.
Every hideous existence touched by this gaze retreated or dissipated as if scorched.
The piercing wails in their ears vanished completely.
There was total silence.
Only from a vast distance did intermittent moans still faintly echo.
Those sounds were so ethereal they seemed like hallucinations, yet they made the atmosphere even more oppressive.
After dispelling the spectral demons that were following them, Lin Gui lowered his head and continued to guide the flying vessel slowly deeper.
As the flying vessel ventured further into the heart of the corridor.
The surrounding sense of oppression intensified at a rate visible to the naked eye.
The temperature was dropping sharply.
It wasn't a normal cold, but a bone-chilling frigidity that could freeze one's blood.
At the same time, an invisible pressure that seemed to originate from the level of the soul—
Like a tide, it crashed against the consciousness of the three in wave after wave.
Lin Gui knew they had entered the domain of an Epic spectral demon.
The real danger was about to arrive.
The thin moonlight overhead pierced through the strangely shifting thick fog.
It actually dyed the mist with layer upon layer of ominous colors.
Dull crimson, viscous dark purple, and dismal ghostly green.
Various colors intertwined and writhed as if the fog itself had life.
Theia's face turned somewhat pale, her emerald eyes reflecting her tension.
She could feel her heartbeat intensifying, and her breathing unconsciously became shallow.
Those colors and the whisper-like moans were constantly picking at her nerves.
Eve was behind her.
Fine beads of cold sweat broke out on her fair forehead, and her lips were tightly pursed.
Her hands, clasped together across her chest, had knuckles that were slightly white from the force.
Clearly, this mental pressure affected her even more deeply.
Lin Gui sensed the state of the two behind him.
He maintained his head-down posture, focused on observing what lay below.
His right hand simply reached back quietly, fumbling until he gently grasped Theia's hand as it rested at his waist.
Then, he pulled her hand over and gently pressed it against his abdomen.
Theia was momentarily dazed before she immediately understood.
She no longer hesitated, using her strength to wrap her arms tightly around Lin Gui's waist.
She pressed her entire upper body firmly against his back.
Immediately after, she also reached back, fumbling around.
Soon, a cool and soft hand grasped hers.
It was Eve.
Theia gently squeezed Eve's hand, conveying a silent "hold on tight."
Eve didn't make a sound, merely moving forward obediently.
Then, a pair of slender but steady arms reached out, gently wrapping around Theia's waist from behind.
The embrace was firm yet light, carrying an indisputable sense of support.
The body temperatures and heartbeats of the three people, through their clothing, in this cold and silent deadland—
Faintly, yet persistently, they were linked together.
Lin Gui took a deep breath.
Subsequently, he refocused his mind and controlled the flying vessel.
He continued to slowly approach that unknown "blank zone" surrounded by powerful demons.
According to what Blackbeard said, the only person to successfully cross the Wailing Corridor was Shadow Blade Lynn.
In this deadland, she had encountered an ambush by at least ten Epic spectral demons.
She had charged into the corridor almost recklessly, relying on the extreme speed of an Apex assassin.
She had threaded perilously through the gaps of countless invisible, fatal attacks.
Even so.
When she finally crossed this forbidden zone, not a single patch of her skin was intact.
She couldn't see those terrifying attacks.
Just as in the Withered Rift, Gorn couldn't see Theia's arrows protected by the Shroud of the Gloomy Night.
Furthermore, the number and strength of the spectral demons here far exceeded the scope of what Shadow Blade Lynn could resist.
Relying on the speed and powerful physique of a High-tier Epic, she could cross once.
However, it was absolutely impossible for her to cross a second time.
Lin Gui was fundamentally different from Shadow Blade Lynn.
He could clearly see those existences that ordinary people couldn't glimpse.
After an entire night of reconnaissance, he was already intimately familiar with every gathering point of powerful demons within a thirty-kilometer radius of the corridor.
But his own strength was far too weak.
So weak that he couldn't even withstand the random aftershocks of any attack.
For a High-tier Epic like Shadow Blade Lynn, a robust physical constitution was the ultimate safeguard.
But Lin Gui didn't have that safeguard.
Therefore, he had to be even more careful than Shadow Blade Lynn.
He had to disguise himself as a...
Slow, dull "mouse" that had accidentally wandered into the forbidden zone.
He had to completely reveal his harmless and useless side to those—
Terrifying entities that had already cast a glance toward him the moment he entered.
Lin Gui's current slow infiltration was partly an act for those demons who didn't care about him.
More importantly, it was an act for the one...
Who had been following the movement of his gaze almost non-existently since the reconnaissance began...
The Low-tier Epic crimson spectral demon.
That "gatekeeper" who had carved out a blank zone for Avalon.
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