The flying vessel turned into a silver streak, tearing through the gray fog.
It wasn't a detour, nor was it stealth.
It was a straight, brutal breakthrough at terminal velocity!
A violent breakthrough of pure, unadulterated speed.
【Eyes of the Netherworld】 was pushed to its absolute limit.
The wind pressure cannon roared at maximum output!
In Lin Gui's vision, colossal soul outlines loomed like mountain ranges.
To his left, a constantly shifting mass of countless wailing faces—the "Shadow Weaver Siren"—loomed.
Sensing the approach of the flying vessel, its countless faces turned in unison and unleashed a silent shriek.
Several massive whips of condensed shadow and resentment suddenly lashed out from the fog, striking directly in front of the vessel's path!
"BOOM—!!"
Below them, an entire stretch of land instantly shattered and disintegrated.
But the flying vessel was simply too fast!
By the time the giant shadow whips struck, the vessel had already shot past.
It left behind only a violent, churning slipstream and the shrill screeches of spirits.
The vessel's speed was simply too terrifying—one second it was still in the Shadow Weaver's territory,
and the next, it had plunged into the domain of another Epic demon.
Directly ahead, the dense fog suddenly grew thick and murky.
A massive sphere resembling a rotting star, "Moros, the Thousand-Faced Nightmare," revolved slowly.
Countless eyes on its surface snapped open one after another.
A dense, crisscrossing network of "gaze" beams—each capable of freezing the soul of a Legendary expert—shot toward them!
It was a direct mental assault, completely unavoidable.
“Hold on tight!!!”
"BZZZZ—!"
Everyone's mind shuddered violently, as if their souls had been struck by a sledgehammer.
The attack was formless, originating a full kilometer away from the vessel, yet it still made the souls of everyone on board tremble!
Eve let out a muffled groan, her arms trembling slightly as she clung tightly to Lin Gui's waist.
Lin Gui roared, channeling 【Levitation】 with all his might to steer the runaway vessel, forcibly grazing past the edge of the intersecting net of gazes!
Then, one High-tier Legendary demon after another responded to their lord's command, unleashing a barrage of attacks at the flying vessel.
Massive tentacles of blood and rusted metal erupted from the ground below.
Colossal black trees ripped their towering roots from the earth, whipping them toward the vessel.
The vessel decelerated, veered sharply, and accelerated once more.
The Legendaries strapped to the exterior of the vessel had completely lost all semblance of dignity.
“Aaaaaah—!!”
“Slow down! It's going to fall apart! It's going to fall apart!”
Their terrified, hysterical, and somewhat comical screams were torn to shreds by the howling wind.
Under Lin Gui's steering, the flying vessel was like a leaf tossed about in a raging storm, yet with incredible precision and determination, it repeatedly slipped through the jaws of death, breaking through the shackles of the fog.
Finally, two minutes later, the flying vessel reached the familiar purple fog—the territory of the Soul-Devouring Sovereign, Apophis.
It was a slowly writhing "forest abyss" composed of countless spectral blue tentacles and colossal skeletal remains.
During his last trip, fearing he would disturb Apophis, Lin Gui had not dared to activate the Eyes of the Netherworld to look upon its full form.
But this time, through the Eyes of the Netherworld, Apophis's true form was clearly revealed for the first time.
It was as massive as a mountain, its spectral blue tentacles resembling an underwater forest, with the tip of each tentacle shimmering with a soul-devouring light.
It slowly "turned," its hollow "gaze" seemingly "looking" toward the flying vessel.
No, it was looking behind the vessel—at the several "Apex" auras that had been disturbed, now radiating terrifying fury and greed as they rapidly pursued them!
In the next instant, a scene that left Lin Gui thoroughly shocked unfolded.
Apophis's massive soul body did not attack the flying vessel.
Instead, it suddenly "surged" to one side, its countless spectral blue tentacles stretching and intertwining.
It actually constructed a massive soul barrier that spanned their entire field of vision, right between the flying vessel and the pursuers behind!
It blocked the shadows cast by the "Shadow Weaver," the gazes of the "Nightmare," and the bloody tide swept up by the "Crimson Calamity"!
A soul whisper, seemingly traveling across thousands of years and filled with exhaustion and obsession, echoed faintly across space:
“Pro... tect...”
“The... village...”
“Do... not...”
“Harm... them...”
“I... won't... allow...”
Lin Gui shuddered.
Right at that moment, Eve, who was behind him, suddenly snapped her eyes open.
A sudden surge of divine power flooded her mind.
In her purple eyes, starlight swirled violently, as if reflecting shattered fragments of time.
Fragmented memories forced their way into her brain.
In the visions:
The terrifying, mountain-like tentacled beast quietly crouched beside a human village.
A child curiously touched the tip of its translucent, ethereal tentacle, and it pulled back slightly, showing no malice whatsoever.
The villagers and this colossal spectral demon lived in a bizarre yet harmonious coexistence.
...
Doom descended.
The sky was torn open, and an indescribable Demigod shadow covered everything.
Tides of demons surged forward, destroying everything in their path.
Apophis let out an earth-shaking roar, its spectral blue tentacles shooting into the sky, tightly binding the sky-covering shadow to buy time for the village.
However...
More indescribable things reached out from the shadow.
The tentacles were ripped apart and devoured one by one.
Finally, amid desperate wails and the blinding light of the village's total annihilation, the memory fragments abruptly cut off.
Eve's face was pale, beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
“This... this is unbelievable...”
“A demon protected humans.”
“The legend in that storybook was actually true.”
She murmured softly, her voice filled with complex, indescribable emotions.
By the time she looked back, the massive entity that had once silently protected them, only to be twisted into a soul-devouring lord, had already vanished behind the thick layers of fog.
The flying vessel had completely broken out of the most densely populated spectral zone of the Wailing Corridor!
In their ears, it was no longer the roars of High Rank demons.
Instead, they heard the terrified, shrill shrieks of countless Mid and Low-tier spectral demons fleeing in panic.
As if they had encountered their natural predator, they desperately fled from the flying vessel's path.
“We... we're out?” Kilian's voice trembled with disbelief.
The flying vessel did not slow down in the slightest; in fact, it continued to accelerate, riding its own momentum.
Faster and faster!
Four minutes later, the fog ahead suddenly thinned and dispersed.
A massive, deathly silent ruined city with crumbling structures came clearly into view.
Broken city walls, empty streets, and an atmosphere thick with decay and silence.
They had arrived at Blackwater City.
Piercing sunlight poured down, illuminating the flying vessel and its disheveled passengers.
Seeing this, Lin Gui steered the runaway vessel to decelerate.
It wasn't until they had almost crossed the massive city that the vessel finally slowed down to a relatively stable speed.
Once the flying vessel stabilized, several passengers could no longer hold it in.
“Ugh... blech!”
Morpheus couldn't help but dry-heave.
His face was pale as death, and his knuckles were white from gripping the handrail so tightly.
He snapped his head up, staring at the gray-robed mage ahead who was still sitting perfectly upright, though his forehead was beaded with sweat.
His voice cracked, rising in pitch from sheer shock and the mental breakdown of having been deceived:
“You... you don't have any concealment artifact at all!!”
“You just forced your way through... using raw speed!!!”
Lin Gui slowly lowered the vessel's altitude, steering it toward a relatively flat plaza within the ruins of Blackwater City.
Hearing Morpheus's words, he turned his head, his lips curling into a tired but unmistakable smile.
“I told you...”
“I'm just an insignificant wandering mage.”
“How could I possibly be qualified to own an 'artifact'?”
“You gentlemen... think too highly of me.”
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