The flying vessel slowly penetrated deeper.
The oppressive feeling around them suddenly warped.
Even the 【Clarity】 spell Lin Gui had cast on them couldn't completely drown out the creeping sensation of mental derangement.
Chaotic whispers began to fester directly inside their minds.
“So cold...”
“Stay here...”
“With us...”
As far as the eye could see, the fog was stained a dark, blood-thick crimson.
Unlike the outer perimeter, the number of spectral demons in this territory was far greater.
They drifted aimlessly like floating wisps of wildfire.
They seemed to thoroughly “enjoy” this domain where minds were twisted at will.
Lin Gui did not look up from beginning to end.
His 【Eyes of the Netherworld】 remained locked onto the ground just inches below the flying vessel.
He deliberately restricted his field of vision to an extremely narrow range.
He didn't dare to “look” at them.
Eye contact might draw unwanted “interest.”
However, precisely because of his lowered gaze and completely concealed presence,
some of the drifting specters in the area began to slowly close in on the flying vessel.
They kept their distance, watching it like some novel but harmless dead object.
Theia's breathing became shallow and rapid.
She heard countless overlapping sighs and whispers pressing in from all directions.
“Look... a living thing...”
“Hehe... such tender skin... giggle...”
“Wooo... hungry... so hungry...”
The greasy, damp voices wormed straight into her brain, sending a shiver down her spine.
Eve's arms wrapped around Theia's waist tightened slightly.
Her eyes were closed, her lips trembled, and her face was pale.
She was silently fighting against the bizarre echoes encroaching on her mind.
Strangely, despite the eerie sounds drawing closer and closer,
not a single specter actually stepped forward to attack.
Within the absolute domain of this Epic lord,
all the demons maintained a fragile, unspoken “peace.”
Despite being in the center of the most dangerous nest,
the atmosphere presented a bizarre, fragile “dead silence.”
It was as if mortal enemies were sitting together on a powder keg.
None of them dared, nor wanted, to be the first to strike a spark.
Right at that moment!
Suddenly!
The pervasive, eerie sighs and whispers instantly vanished.
It was as if they had been cleanly severed by a blade.
Dead silence.
Absolute silence descended.
At the edge of the limited field of vision provided by his 【Eyes of the Netherworld】, Lin Gui could “see” them.
The surrounding spectral demons that had been drifting about—whether Low-tier Hero Rank, Mid-tier Hero Rank, or even Low-tier Legendary—
were now all prostrating themselves on the ground in a near-servile manner.
Some, resembling multi-legged giant lizards, buried their heads deep into the rocky crevices.
Others, looking like distorted human figures, curled into balls and shivered violently.
Still others were merely blobs of dense black shadow, hugging the ground, not even daring to maintain a clear outline.
Lin Gui stopped the flying vessel immediately.
He maneuvered it to silently touch down, hovering less than a foot off the ground.
Squinting his eyes into a tiny slit, he cautiously and extremely slowly shifted his gaze upward.
Then, he saw it.
Several colossal, translucent, dark purple tentacles
were descending from the thick fog high above, swaying slowly.
They drew closer from the distance.
The diameter of each tentacle exceeded the width of the flying vessel, and their surfaces flowed with a viscous, soul-like shimmer.
Lin Gui did not dare to look up to see the full body of the tentacles' master.
At the very last moment, he silently closed his eyes.
At the same time, he completely relaxed his body, suppressing all magic fluctuations to their absolute minimum.
Reaching his right hand backward, he accurately grabbed Theia's hand, which was trembling as she reached for the dagger at her waist.
He pressed it down firmly with force.
Meanwhile, the index finger of his left hand was already lightly resting on the activation button of the wind pressure cannon.
Every muscle in his body was tensed like a fully drawn bowstring,
ready to react to even the slightest mishap.
At this moment, time seemed to stretch on infinitely.
Lin Gui could even clearly hear the violent, drum-like beating of Theia's heart behind him.
“Thump... Thump... Thump...”
Slow, heavy, and resonating with terror.
The surrounding fog instantly grew as thick as blood.
A viscous dark crimson filled every inch of space.
An indescribable, eerie sound—as if rubbing directly against their souls—approached from the distance.
“Hummmmm...”
It wasn't a sound, but rather a low-frequency vibration that set the very space itself trembling.
Accompanied by an absolute pressure capable of crushing an ordinary person's mind, it slowly ground across the territory.
All the prostrate spectral demons trembled even more violently.
Even the pale blue or grayish-white soul light radiating from them flickered unsteadily under this pressure, as if on the verge of being extinguished.
That terrifying entity was...
slowly passing directly above them.
Then...
the suffocating pressure and the soul-grating hum gradually faded.
Ultimately, they vanished completely.
It was as if a leviathan of the deep ocean had slowly glided past beneath a tiny boat.
It didn't stop, nor did it cast even a single glance in their direction.
The dense red fog began to fade, returning to its original grayish-white.
The silent domain once again became permeated with those faint, chaotic whispers.
The prostrate spectral demons, like creatures left on a beach after the tide recedes,
slowly and tentatively unfurled their bodies.
They resumed their aimless drifting, but their movements seemed stiffer and more frightened than before.
On the flying vessel, Lin Gui kept his eyes closed. Only after several seconds did he slowly exhale a hot breath.
His grip on Theia's hand loosened slightly.
“It's gone...” his voice was raspy, barely audible.
Theia felt almost entirely drained, her back drenched in cold sweat.
“What... what on earth was that?” she asked with a trembling voice, her heart still pounding wildly.
Lin Gui fell silent for a moment, a complex shimmer flashing in his gray eyes.
A name, along with yellowed illustrations and scribbled notes from a certain tattered book, surfaced in his mind.
“If the records in the surviving fragments of the 《Chronicles of Annihilation》 are correct...”
he whispered, his tone carrying an almost absurd gravity.
“The thing we just crossed paths with...”
“...is the 'Soul-Devouring Sovereign, Apophis.'”
“A spectral demon that exists only in ancient legends.”
“One of the few confirmed entities born directly from pure 'grudge' and 'death'...”
“...an innate spectral demon lord.”
“It possessed the strength of a Mid-tier Epic from the moment of its birth.”
...
Lin Gui fell silent for a moment, a strange expression on his face.
He whispered, as if recalling something:
“The fragment dug up from the ancient tomb... it says...”
Both Theia and Eve looked at him.
“The Soul-Devouring Sovereign, Apophis...”
Lin Gui paused, his tone laced with unbelievable absurdity.
“...is actually of a very gentle temperament.”
“In a distant era, it was once the 'guardian' of a certain village.”
“It fed by devouring the evil spirits and grudges that wandered around the village.”
“It protected the living of that land, allowing them to sleep in peace for hundreds of years.”
Upon hearing this, Theia's eyes widened instantly, her mouth slightly agape.
“A... guardian?”
She turned her head to look back at the silent domain where the red fog had not yet fully dispersed.
Then she looked back at Lin Gui, her face practically screaming, “Are you kidding me?”
“You're telling me... that monster that almost crushed our minds just now...”
“...was once a 'gentle village guardian'?!”
Her voice rose slightly, completely filled with disbelief.
“That book... it must be a fake, right?”
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