Lin Gui shook his head.
“Those records... they should be true.”
He looked at the domain as it gradually returned to its “normal” state, his gaze complex.
“Because the figure just now and the ‘Soul-Devouring Sovereign’ described in the book are almost exactly the same.”
“The book says it looks like an ancient whale floating in the woods.”
“Its entire body is wrapped in translucent tentacles that hang to the ground, swaying slowly.”
“It feeds on evil thoughts and wandering souls, and dislikes slaughter.”
“Its appearance... is exactly the same as the one that just passed over our heads.”
Theia still had a look of disbelief on her face.
“So... you believed it just because it looks like the one in the book?” she asked.
“There's more to it than that,” Lin Gui said.
“During reconnaissance, I used my Eyes of the Netherworld from a great distance and managed to faintly outline its soul's silhouette.”
“It felt familiar even back then.”
“It wasn't until I ‘saw’ those tentacles up close just now that I was completely sure.”
“Its soul form perfectly matches the description of the ‘Soul-Devouring Sovereign, Apophis’ in that ancient book I saw in the City of a Thousand Towers, which was said to have been excavated from an ancient tomb.”
He paused.
“Because of that, I believe the book isn't a modern forgery.”
“And that's why I dare to believe the record describing its ‘gentle temperament’ might actually hold some truth.”
“So, I decided to formally cut through its domain to head to Avalon.”
Theia opened her mouth but didn't argue further.
Eve spoke softly from the back seat:
“The Soul-Devouring Sovereign isn't the only Epic spectral demon in the Wailing Corridor, is it?”
“Yes.”
Lin Gui nodded, his gaze turning to the map.
“From my observations, there are at least ten.”
“The side with the Soul-Devouring Sovereign is relatively ‘calm’.”
“But on the final stretch to Avalon after crossing its domain, we will be blocked by the territory of another Epic demon.”
And that particular demon was the very one that had been staring at him during his reconnaissance.
Lin Gui didn't tell Theia and Eve this.
He didn't want them to get anxious.
Taking advantage of the brief “peace” after the Soul-Devouring Sovereign departed, Lin Gui instructed in a low voice, “Alright, that's enough. Hold on tight, we're about to speed up.”
He didn't urge the flying vessel forward just yet.
Instead, he stopped it completely, hovering in place.
It was as if he were waiting for something.
Indeed.
He was waiting for “it” to arrive.
That crimson spectral demon had been staring at him the entire time.
Now that he had stepped into its territory, there was no way it wouldn't show up.
Perhaps, in some corner of the mist beyond Lin Gui's vision, it had already been lurking in silence, only holding back out of wariness toward the Soul-Devouring Sovereign.
Now, the temporary suppressor had departed.
This void was the perfect opportunity for a “contact”.
The wait did not last long.
The crimson mist ahead began to silently churn and condense.
A sharp, overwhelming killing intent erupted without warning!
All the wandering spectral demons scattered like a school of startled fish.
Lin Gui's left index finger pressed hard against the activation button of the wind pressure cannon.
He suddenly looked up and shouted:
“Hold on tight!!”
His previously lowered head snapped up.
Deep within his gray eyes, the sparks of his soul erupted with unprecedented brightness!
【Eyes of the Netherworld】 activated at full power!
The world in his vision changed completely.
It was no longer just blurry soul outlines and halos.
He “saw” clearly—
Deep within the churning crimson mist ahead, a colossal female figure woven from countless blood-red thorns slowly “stood” up.
Standing over ten meters tall, her torso of thorns was twisted and hideous.
Her head had no face, only a bottomless darkness.
Countless sharp thorns spread from her body, piercing into the surrounding space.
It was as if she had turned the entire domain into a part of her cage.
Her appearance triggered a drastic change in the environment.
The ground cracked, oozing a viscous, dark red “blood”.
The whispers in the air turned into shrill shrieks.
The moment the grayish-white mist came into contact with the domain around her, it was dyed a despairing, stagnant deep crimson.
She was the absolute ruler of this crimson domain.
With just a single glance, the attack had already arrived.
The entire dead forest seemed to come alive, transforming into countless shooting blood-red thorns!
It wasn't growth, but an explosive piercing!
They were fast enough to tear through the air, yet eerily made no sound of rushing wind.
Theia and Eve couldn't see the thorns.
But the bone-chilling killing intent, along with the surrounding trees and rocks being silently sliced, shredded, and pulverized, made them realize instantly that a monumental terror had descended before them!
Eve's face turned pale, and she gritted her teeth.
The disguised dark brown in her eyes instantly faded, revealing her original, mysterious purple.
Immediately after, a brilliant golden light shone through her chest!
The faint outline of wings made purely of light was about to unfurl on her back!
Her aura surged wildly, instantly breaking through the Transcendent boundary and rushing toward the Legendary Rank!
“Don't do it!!”
Lin Gui's roar erupted, drowning out everything else.
“You'll get us killed!!”
Eve shuddered, her rising aura coming to an abrupt stop.
The golden light and the phantom wings vanished instantly.
She let out a muffled groan, a trace of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.
In that split second!
Several blades of grass and wood chips, sliced to pieces by invisible blades, came flying toward them.
One fragment, with an edge as sharp as a knife, grazed Theia's cheek.
It left a tiny but distinct cut.
A bead of blood welled up.
His gray eyes, enhanced by his Demon Eyes, saw through all darkness, locking onto a single gap amidst the sky full of thorns!
Lin Gui hesitated no longer.
He completely released his suppression of the flying vessel's magic fluctuations.
A massive amount of magic instantly surged into the wind pressure cannon at the stern!
“BOOM!!!”
The incredibly muffled explosion was not a sound, but a pure burst of energy.
Behind the flying vessel, a visible distortion of compressed air blasted open!
A violent shockwave blasted forward in a fan shape!
The ground below collapsed instantly as if struck by an invisible giant fist, blasting open a crater over ten meters in diameter!
Dirt, gravel, and even the afterimages of those low-tier spectral demons were blown away and annihilated!
Under this terrifying recoil, the flying vessel itself transformed into a shooting star!
Instead of retreating, it charged fiercely toward the rapidly vanishing gap amidst the oncoming blood-red thorns!
In the first second, the flying vessel collided with the foremost torrent of thorns.
There was no explosion, no loud noise.
The thorns, sharp enough to cut metal and tear souls, seemed to hit a slippery, absolute barrier the moment they touched the faint light on the vessel's surface. Wrapped in the highly compressed wind pressure, the flying vessel “squeezed” into a narrow, fleeting gap at an angle and speed that nearly warped the laws of physics.
In the second second, the flying vessel swept directly over the head of the ten-meter-tall crimson female demon made of thorns!
They were so close that the moment Lin Gui looked up, he could “see” a very human-like look of astonishment appear on her faceless, dark “face”.
Her overwhelming, domain-freezing killing intent faltered for a moment.
In the third second,
Just as she recovered and transformed countless thorns into a giant hand that blotted out the sky, slamming down toward the vessel with enough force to crush space, the flying vessel had already turned into a gray streak, vanishing deep into the thick blood mist.
Within the entire crimson forest, all traces of them were completely lost.
Only the massive crater left by the wind pressure cannon and the fragments of thorns slowly drifting in the air, violently scattered, stood as proof of that desperate crossing of less than three seconds.
Rate on N.U.
