Eternal Night

Chapter 550 Breakthrough!

Although Wu Pifu was holding the so-called Vacuum Shattering Blade, he was unaware of its performance and special features. The magical girl system did not provide any hints, or rather... the intelligence and information that could have guided this thing were overwhelmed by his negativity?

In short, Wu Pifu felt that this slash should have been very powerful.

With a single slash, Wu Pifu immediately felt the vacuum shattering blade in his hand grow heavier and heavier. At first, it felt as if he were holding tens of tons of weight, then the weight began to increase rapidly. It was as if he were lifting a pile of solid steel, then a small mountain, and then a huge mountain...

As the giant blade was about to strike the wormhole region, its weight became so great that Wu Pifu could not bear it even with all his might. In his vision, something like ripples appeared at the tip of the vacuum-shattering blade, and where the ripples spread, everything seemed to vibrate and tear apart.

No sooner said than done, taking advantage of the fact that the tentacles had not yet healed after being severed, the greatsword slashed straight at the tentacle, the point where the amorphous fog and the endless spheres of light converged, and Wu Pifu's arms were shattered at the same time, with large pieces of flesh and blood broken off.

With this single cut, the wormhole was cleaved in two, and Wu Pifu then witnessed an unbelievable scene behind it.

That was a dream!

Emerging from the wormhole, a massive tentacle, as large as a mountain, had its root at the other end of the wormhole. This tentacle was merely a tiny protrusion on an even larger tentacle, perhaps less than one ten-thousandth of its size. But that wasn't all. Behind that tentacle, ten thousand times larger, lay another tentacle, another tentacle so large it filled the heavens and earth. This second tentacle, ten thousand times larger, was just a tiny protrusion on it, and behind that, yet another, even larger tentacle…

This seemingly iterative, infinite recursion made Wu Pifu dizzy. The effect of that strike wasn't over yet; the spatial ripples continued to spread downwards, transforming the wormhole into a post-apocalyptic world. Then, the post-apocalyptic world was cleaved apart, transforming into a peaceful world beyond it. Then, the peaceful world was also cleaved apart, transforming into an even more illusory world of dense fog, an even more illusory post-apocalyptic world, and an even more illusory peaceful world…

Wu Pifu saw layers upon layers of illusion, each more illusory than the last, an endless accumulation of illusions. As the illusions crumbled, the people living within them became increasingly bizarre and ethereal. Only tentacles born from chunks of flesh, amorphous fog, and endless spheres of light floated within them. They constantly drew something from the life forms living in these illusions and then gave something back to them, but Wu Pifu couldn't see it clearly for the time being.

At this moment, the aftershocks of the shattering vacuum blade had subsided, and cracks had begun to appear on the entire weapon. Finally, Wu Pifu saw it…

Numerous maggots hatched and gave birth beside a pile of rotting flesh. These maggots flickered incessantly, sometimes appearing as grotesque and illusory human figures, sometimes as normal human figures, and sometimes as maggots crawling on the rotting flesh. They came from the rotting flesh and, after their birth, crawled towards the endless sphere of light. As they crawled towards the endless sphere of light, their writhing bodies began to burn, and before they could even get close, they were burned to ashes. These ashes drifted into the air, turning into a dense fog, which was sucked into the amorphous and distorted fog, and finally turned back into ashes and fell from the fog onto the rotting flesh. The surface of the rotting flesh had countless twisted mouthparts that devoured the ashes, and from the rotting flesh, maggot eggs were born again...

A terrifying, incomprehensible, bizarre scene appeared in Wu Pifu's eyes. It was like a nightmare, a real event, or a religious metaphor. Wu Pifu was not sure; he could not understand what he was seeing.

Then, he saw the rotting flesh, the amorphous fog, and endless orbs of light suddenly appear in three directions around him. A power beyond his current understanding descended, and his body began to undergo three transformations: rotting and turning into maggots, burning and dissipating, twisting and hiding...

Just then, the Vacuum Shattering Blade finally exploded completely, and the spatial ripples from its explosion enveloped Wu Pifu, as well as Huang Rong, the three small animals, and the Golden Tree Bonsai in the other-dimensional space below.

Beneath these ripples, the last image Wu Pifu saw was... three enormous humanoid skeletons sitting opposite each other. Beneath these three skeletons, each one larger than a star, were countless human remains intertwined, layer upon layer, covering the feet of the three humanoid skeletons...

The place was empty, desolate, and devoid of human life. The entire world was a void, with only the three skeletal remains of stars and countless human skeletons standing silently.

With a loud bang, Wu Pifu landed in a vast, empty, enclosed room. The alternate dimension followed closely behind. As soon as he touched the ground, Wu Pifu immediately began to retch. His flesh and blood rotted, maggots crawled, burned, and twisted, but in less than a second, these changes vanished. Then, within two or three seconds at most, not only did all the changes disappear, but the injuries caused by them also disappeared.

Aside from the constant backflow of negative energy within his consciousness, which corrupted many of the "tigers'" essences, Wu Pifu was completely unharmed, as if everything that had just happened was an illusion!
After a moment, Wu Pifu stood up, and Huang Rong was already standing beside him, looking at him with a worried expression.

“…Next time, unless I bark like a dog and spin around, don’t come out.” Wu Pifu took a deep breath and said seriously to Huang Rong.

Huang Rong's worried expression froze, and she scolded, "You're really crazy! What kind of expert is so skilled that they have to bark like a dog and spin around every time..."

At this point, Huang Rong laughed, but after laughing, her face was full of worry: "Brother Ant, what you just did..."

"No problem, I think I roughly know what's going on."

Wu Pifu shook his head and turned to look at the empty hall.

He found the hall to be very strange. It was empty, without any decorations, furniture, machinery, or other objects. In the center of the room was a thick fog. Strangely, the fog neither spread nor changed, but simply lingered in an area of ​​about thirty square meters in the center of the room.

As Wu Pifu looked towards the thick fog, Huang Rong also curiously looked over. Since there was nothing else in the room besides the fog, and Wu Pifu sensed no danger, he slowly walked towards the fog. Huang Rong followed closely behind. When the two were about ten meters away from the fog, suddenly a dark shadow lashed out from within it. Huang Rong immediately screamed and instinctively retreated, while Wu Pifu raised his fist to meet the attack.

However, the dark figure only appeared in the thick fog, appearing and disappearing in an instant. It seemed as if there was light flickering in the fog, but it was just an illusion. The fog remained the same, without any change.

Wu Pifu seemed to be deep in thought. He looked at Huang Rong and said, "Rong'er, stay with me and don't leave my side for more than five meters."

Huang Rong nodded immediately, and then she saw Wu Pifu carry the three small animals on his person, pick up the golden tree bonsai, and walk towards the only door in the hall.

The entire gate was made of an unknown alloy. The two massive gates were twenty meters high, and just by looking at their design, they appeared incredibly sturdy. Wu Pifu even suspected that the gate could withstand a nuclear explosion.

But this was no challenge for him; he was now incredibly strong.

Although the magical girl's blessing had dissipated, seemingly related to the Vacuum Shattering Blade—the magical girl system immediately vanished upon the blade's shattering, and the black, crystalline gem had dimmed, clearly entering its cooldown period and requiring 120 hours before it could be used again—even without the magical girl's blessing, his strength far surpassed that at the start of the exploration mission. The acquisition of immortal martial arts internal energy had brought about a qualitative change in him.

Wu Pifu stretched out his fist and placed it against the metal door, about to exert force. Suddenly, the door opened slowly and automatically. Wu Pifu's movements remained unchanged; he simply raised his fist forward until the door was fully open, revealing that there was no one behind it.

Wu Pifu narrowed his eyes, and without hesitation, strode out of the hall and headed towards the corridor.

There were many similar doors in the corridor, but apart from this one, none of the other doors were as huge, indicating that the rooms behind them were not as large as they were. Wu Pifu opened several doors in succession; as long as he touched them, the doors would open automatically. The rooms inside these doors were all empty; there was not even a speck of dust, let alone thick fog.

The entire corridor and all the halls were completely empty.

As Wu Pifu ventured deeper, he led Huang Rong to the very core of the building, confirming its immense size, covering at least tens of thousands of square kilometers, and even containing underground rails and similar systems.

Deep inside the building, presumably in its central control room, Wu Pifu saw a collection of technological creations and a central control console.

When he walked to the central control console, a screen of light appeared directly in front of him, and Huang Rong immediately pressed herself against his back.

A human figure appeared on the screen whose appearance, height, and gender were indistinct. The voice it emitted was also a processed and synthesized electronic voice.

"Hey, representatives of the new era civilization. No need to look around anymore, we've all moved. According to SP-03's prediction, except for SP-02, which you've arrived in, we can't move... What a pity, SP-02 is extremely valuable for research. This thing can only be created with truly creative thinking and logic..."

Wu Pifu stared silently at the light screen. The human who left the message seemed to have sensed something, or perhaps knew something beforehand. His eloquent words paused, and then he seemed to bow deeply, saying, "Thank you, powerful stranger, thank you for freeing my ancestors... The reason I didn't meet you wasn't out of disdain or malice, but simply because plans can't always keep up with changes..."

"The time when the current era's true civilization left its message was nine hundred years ago, when your civilization had just been observed by the source of pollution. Now, your civilization has been observed for fourteen hundred years. Five hundred years have passed, and far too many things have changed..."

"Of the entire contained civilization, I am now the last individual. There are too many sources, ancient overlord civilizations, or things from the corrupt side, that are pursuing me. Therefore, the initial premise of ten or less people being watched must now be corrected... After all, as the last individual of the contained civilization, I cannot have any dangerous contact with any contained object."

"By the way, containment objects are a special and extraordinary means of our civilization. They can transform and classify abstract, conceptual, polluting, or any other danger that could cause casualties into five levels through containment procedures. The containment objects I can access now are Level 1 harmless containment objects."

Upon hearing this, Wu Pifu, though knowing the light screen in front of him was a message, still said speechlessly, "So... I'm a containment object too??"

The person inside the light screen seemed to have truly heard Wu Pifu's voice. He nodded earnestly and said, "Yes, you, Your Excellency, are indeed a containment object. According to my standards for containing civilizations, although Your Excellency is not yet an Ascended Being, you are indeed a Level 5 Endless Terror-level containment object, whose danger level surpasses many Origins... After all, within Your Excellency's sea of ​​consciousness, there exists an indescribable great terror!"

Wu Pifu felt a chill run down his spine. He knew that the endless negativity within his consciousness was a secret known only to a few, and he never expected that the person who left this message would also know it.

The person inside the light screen continued, "Due to the changes over the past five hundred years, it is necessary to revise the terms of contact with your civilization..."

"Please send an envoy who is powerful enough to survive a weakening attack from the source, who has the strength and ability, and who is not even a source-level observer. Only then will I show myself! Then I will share the vast amount of information that my contained civilization knows with your civilization, and with your civilization's sufficient promise and protection, I will be able to share with your civilization the special extraordinary pathway of the contained civilization. This is a civilization-level extraordinary power that is sufficient to deal with almost all contamination!"

"Of course, it's impossible for your civilization and your envoy to have made a wasted trip. SP-02, Containment Item: The Spiral Prelude to Nothingness and Dimensional Reduction. This is my way of expressing my apology to your civilization and your envoy."

"Finally... Your Excellency, I think you've gone a bit too far..."

As they spoke, the human figure on the light screen vanished, and Wu Pifu, with an indifferent expression, said, "If you're so capable, stand in front of me and say those words. What's the point of saying them from the internet?"

There was naturally no response. Instead, Huang Rong, standing behind Wu Pifu, whispered, "Brother Pifu, I also think you're being a bit too extreme..."

Wu Pifu ignored it and was about to look at the various buttons on the control panel when suddenly, the entire light screen changed again.

"SP-02, the prelude to nothingness and dimensional reduction."

"Containment procedures..."

Before Wu Pifu could even look at the text on the screen, the mainframe's voice rang out.

"Exploration mission complete, rewards being distributed..."

"Judgment in progress... Judgment complete. Lost World exploration progress reached 99%, 15 million points awarded..."

"Should we return to Gaia?"

(End of this chapter)