Eternal Night

Chapter 538 The Image of the Heart

(PS: I didn't get back until after 4 PM, so I'm only posting two chapters today.)
Wu Pifu arrived in a bizarre and fantastical world.

The entire world was shattered, with visible signs of land collapse, suspended land, and rivers flowing backward, as if the gravity of the entire world had been completely disrupted.

And this is only a small part of this bizarre and ever-changing world.

Wu Pifu looked up at the sky, which was even more bizarre than the earth. Stars were scattered across the dome, each one appearing exceptionally large, much like those in the science fiction picture books Wu Pifu had read. It was as if the stars of the entire solar system, and even more star systems, had been gathered together, ignoring gravity and the laws of the universe. The stars were very close together, yet they did not collide, thus forming countless bizarre and terrifying stars suspended in the sky.

Behind these enormous stars, in the very place where the sun should have been, a dark red light source appeared.

The light source flickered, as if it were alive!
This was Wu Pifu's first glimpse of this bizarre world: bizarre, terrifying, unbelievable...

"Hey, is anyone there?"

Wu Pifu yelled twice, his voice carrying far and wide. Just then, a clear voice rang out from behind him: "...Brother Pifu, where is this place?"

Wu Pifu turned around in surprise and saw Huang Rong, the three small animals, and the golden tree bonsai.

"How could you...Mastermind!?"

Wu Pifu let out this cry, his voice filled with anger.

However, the mainframe naturally couldn't respond. Wu Pifu could only look helplessly at Huang Rong and said seriously, "This place is very special. You must not stray far from my side, understand? If we encounter an attack, you must immediately use the interdimensional space. Do not be stingy or take chances. Also... if you can avoid looking, don't look; if you can avoid listening, don't listen. Do not ask anything. Remember that!"

Huang Rong was also frightened at this moment. This bizarre world was so abstract that it was like a nightmare. No normal person would think that such a distorted and bizarre world could be a good place. This made Huang Rong immediately bring the three small animals and the golden tree to Wu Pifu's side.

Just as Wu Pifu was looking around and Huang Rong was obediently looking down at the ground, a sharp shriek suddenly came from the horizon.

With just a whistling sound, Wu Pifu immediately felt the negative energy in his sea of ​​consciousness begin to surge back, reaching a level close to about 10% of the negative energy in his mind. Fortunately, he had only swallowed two and a half tigers. In terms of strength, two and a half tigers were about one-fifth the level of a Golden Arhat. If it were only a 10% negative energy in his mind, he could have been consuming energy for a long time.

But that's not the key point; it's the whistling sound...

Wu Pifu's expression turned serious. He immediately looked at Huang Rong and found that she didn't seem to feel any discomfort after hearing the whistling sound. It seemed that she either didn't hear it or that hearing it had no negative impact on her. On the contrary, the three small animals were twitching slightly, and the branches of the golden tree seemed to be trembling in pain.

"Use the alternate dimension!" Wu Pifu immediately said.

Without a second thought, Huang Rong immediately carried out the order. In the blink of an eye, a hazy, opaque barrier enveloped her, the three small animals, and the golden tree bonsai.

Wu Pifu then looked toward the source of the howling sound, and saw black waves sweeping in from there, covering the sky and the earth, threatening to engulf everything.

But as these waves drew closer, Wu Pifu was astonished to discover that these so-called black waves were not liquid, but pitch-black silt. However, they were not real silt, but countless human figures composed of black mud, or rather, a mixture of human shapes. They had the general shape of humans, but their faces were terrifying and distorted. They were intertwined and merged into one, then transformed into something at least ten meters high, like a tsunami, sweeping away from the land into the distance.

"Holy indeed!"

"Gods, you promised us eternity..."

"What is in the sky will surely fall, and what is on earth will be engulfed in the flames of purgatory..."

"Be with me, be with me, God, why have you forsaken us..."

"I give you my skin, my flesh, my blood, my bones, and my soul, O God..."

These mud-human beings emitted countless sounds, incredibly sinister and shrill, which, when combined, became a deafening shriek. The closer they got, the more violently Wu Pifu's negative consciousness churned. By the time the mud tide reached within a hundred meters, his negative turmoil was roughly equivalent to a 35% backlash rate in his mind! If he hadn't suppressed enough tigers, even with Wu Pifu's current strength and mental resistance, he wouldn't have been able to maintain his human form!

Most importantly, this was not an attack, but merely the widespread impact of these mud waves. Putting everything else aside, this alone was enough to make Wu Pifu's heart tremble, and he immediately raised his fist towards the mud waves in front of him.

However, these mud-like humanoids did not attack him. They split off when they were a hundred meters away from him, leaving him and the other-dimensional space empty, and then continued to surge forward from a hundred meters away.

Then, at that moment, from the front of the surging mud tide, a white light suddenly appeared in the dark red sky. The white light fell from the sky and illuminated a circular area of ​​land below. All the mud figures cheered and rushed into the circle of light. All the mud figures that rushed into the circle of light began to smoke and burn. Their faces showed great pain, but in this pain, they showed a kind of indescribable ecstasy.

Wu Pifu turned his head to look at the halo, and he saw a writhing mass of flesh and blood descend from the halo. The surface of the flesh and blood was irregularly covered with a large number of feathers, some white and some black, some long and some short. The flesh and blood and feathers were mixed together into a bizarre and twisted thing.

The moment Wu Pifu saw this thing, the negative emotions in his mind surged even more intensely, rising rapidly from a 35% negative backflow rate to 40%, 41%, 42%... and finally reaching 45%!
What baffled Wu Pifu was that a very few negative thoughts suddenly sharpened in his mind, like drops of water falling into a pot of boiling oil, and burst out of his mind, actually penetrating the "tiger layer"...

Wu Pifu was slightly taken aback. He plucked a feather from his face, and this feather was not an illusion, but a real thing that grew from his flesh and blood.

The few wisps of negativity that had just erupted from his sea of ​​consciousness, once they broke through the "tiger layer," immediately triggered changes in his physical body, rather than just affecting his mental consciousness. In that instant, the negativity in his sea of ​​consciousness manifested in his physical body.

Negative, negative, although it is called negative, it is actually an infinitely chaotic sediment of mental consciousness, and it is also pure mental consciousness, but mental consciousness has actually turned into real matter?
"...Is it a spiritual civilization?"

Wu Pifu murmured as he continued to look at the fleshy, feathered monster, when the main AI's voice rang in his mind.

"Discovered a derivative of lost pollution, target confirmed... A lost and sublimated entity of spiritual civilization, an existential form of lost pollution..."

"Annotation in progress... Annotation complete, target risk level... low."

"Lost, potion gatherer, light chaser."

As the mainframe marked it, something similar to a title appeared above the flesh and feather monster. However, compared to the golden skeleton that Wu Pifu had fought, it had very few titles. Moreover, the golden skeleton was in the process of being lost, while this flesh and feather monster was already lost. At the same time, the title "Potion Collector" seemed illusory and unreal, appearing and disappearing, with only the three words "Light Chaser" shining brightly.

Wu Pifu immediately raised his fist. Although the mainframe didn't say anything about killing, there was no doubt that being marked by the mainframe made its attitude very clear: this thing was an enemy, and a lost special entity like the golden skeleton. No matter what, if it didn't have intelligence, then this thing was definitely not human. Wu Pifu had absolutely no patience for things that weren't human.

"Hey, can we talk? I'm an outsider here to find out why you died. Can we chat?" Wu Pifu shouted at the bloody, feathered monster.

At this moment, Huang Rong, who was in another dimension, could inexplicably hear the voices from the outside world. When she heard Wu Pifu speaking, she rolled her big eyes repeatedly, revealing the whites of her eyes.

No, Ant Brother, you're clearly saying, "Hey, talk to me, how did you die?"
As Wu Pifu shouted, the fleshy, feathered monster suddenly expanded violently, all its feathers flying off and transforming into clumps of plasma that rained down on Wu Pifu. Each plasma clump was like a ball of lightning, with at least hundreds falling from the sky, creating craters hundreds of meters in diameter when they hit the ground. Any mud grazed by the plasma was instantly reduced to ashes, and Wu Pifu was immediately and completely hit by this boundless explosion...

With a deafening roar, the entire earth trembled, and the spot where Wu Pifu stood was completely transformed into a sea of ​​energy and fire. The dazzling light was as hot and intense as the core of the sun, and the intense light even pierced through the starry sky.

This power even surpasses that of nuclear weapons!
However, from within that terrifying sea of ​​energy and fire, a figure burst forth. Just as the feathers on the flesh and feather monster began to regrow, a fist struck its flesh and blood. With a loud bang, half of its body exploded, and the shattered flesh and blood instantly turned to ashes.

The next instant, familiar memories of fighting the golden skeleton flashed back...

"...Master, is this really a magic potion?"

"Of course, this is the most authentic and purest magic potion!"

"...But, Master...these potions seeped out from the spiritual consciousness of sentient beings..."

"...The essence of life!!"

(End of this chapter)