Standing in front of the door, Zhang Rongfang looked around, trying to find something that could give him a clue.
But unfortunately, the surroundings were a mess, with only scattered broken pipes.
He took two steps forward, squatted down, and discovered two heavy drag marks on the floor in front of the door.
It seemed that something very heavy had been dragged inside.
To enter, or not to enter.
That was the question.
He didn’t know what was inside, but the clue was right in front of him.
Poof!
Suddenly, Zhang Rongfang grabbed his left arm and gave it a hard pull.
With his blood control in cooperation and his deliberate relaxation of muscles, his left arm was forcibly pulled off.
A layer of blood membrane quickly covered the wound, stopping the bleeding.
He tossed the arm onto the ground and then tidied up the various items on his body.
Hmm!?
Suddenly, Zhang Rongfang was stunned. He looked at the place where his left arm was severed, and somehow a new arm had already grown out.
And it hadn’t consumed any blood essence.
He knew that the recovery power of his Blood Race ancestor was strong, but it also required a lot of blood essence to regenerate the body.
After all, his body’s strength was extremely high, and the density was great, requiring a substantial consumption to fully recover.
But now....
’Is this super self-healing??’ He previously couldn’t understand what greatly enhanced self-healing ability meant.
Now it seemed....this ability was truly perverse.
Looking at the severed arm lying on the ground, the feeling was very peculiar; he could transfer his consciousness to that arm at any time and quickly regenerate using that arm.
"Now it’s fine." Zhang Rongfang looked up at the black vortex door.
And then stepped inside without hesitation.
Hiss!
His vision suddenly turned black, and an intense pain surged through his entire body.
He fell to his knees with a thump, and all his muscles seemed to twitch, constantly contracting.
The pain was so excruciating that even Zhang Rongfang couldn’t react for a while.
His eyes darkened as he lay on the ground, breathing heavily, and only after a long time did he gradually recover.
Once his vision returned a bit, he looked around.
This was a circular hall.
The floor, walls, and ceiling were all covered in a layer of dark red blood membrane, looking extremely strange.
These blood membranes were constantly wriggling, excreting a fine, viscous liquid on the surface.
Zhang Rongfang stood up and looked at his own skin.
His skin had been cut full of bloody wounds by the door just now.
Considering his body strength, he still couldn’t withstand the damage from that door.
He suspected that to enter this door, one must wear substantial protective gear.
Otherwise, anyone entering would have to shed a layer of skin; of course, it was possible that those who used to work here had some sort of qualification that exempted them from this damage.
After all, he had forcibly squeezed through the door.
As he lifted his foot, he felt that the space here was filled with a force stronger than outside.
It seemed that the air was filled with an invisible glue, requiring more strength for every move.
Fortunately, this influence wasn’t much to him.
Step by step, Zhang Rongfang carefully observed the surrounding dynamics and walked towards what looked very much like a control platform ahead.
Arriving at the control platform, it was completely different from the scene he imagined.
Not a pile of buttons and levers, but a heart-like object, and it kept pulsating.
The thing was about the size of a human head, surrounded by numerous blood vessels, cartilage, and blood membrane.
The entire control platform was occupied by it.
’What... is this?’ Zhang Rongfang was completely unsure of where to start.
He glanced left and right. Soon, he found a simple diagram at the corner of the control platform on the right.
However, the diagram was somewhat....
He was momentarily silent, and then, following the diagram, found a round hole on the heart of the control platform.
After hesitating, he decided to try it; he had come this far, and not understanding the whole truth wouldn’t sit well with him.
Reaching out, he suddenly dug into his own eye.
With a popping sound, his left eye was forcibly gouged out and then inserted into the small black round hole on the control platform.
Crunch.
Immediately, amidst a faint sound, the heart on the control platform started to accelerate its beats rapidly.
The pounding echoed throughout the circular hall.
The beating sound grew increasingly urgent, increasingly fast.
Poof!
Suddenly, the beating came to a complete halt.
On the right side of the control platform, a black-red pustule slowly bulged on the wall.
With a whoosh, the pustule burst, spilling out various mucus and blood everywhere.
But in the pus-filled node, a bracelet-like ring emerged, hanging on the wall.
Zhang Rongfang touched his newly grown eye, walked over, grabbed the ring, and pulled it out.
He effortlessly removed it.
Holding the ring in his hand, all the bloody pus and mucus that had fallen to the ground suddenly converged into an oval puddle.
The puddle then began to reveal rows of cryptic text.
’Inspection complete, contact 235, 772 interaction area. Other areas no response.’
Zhang Rongfang held the ring and examined its material.
This thing seems to be made with some kind of bone wrapped in skin, looking less like a tool and more like a section of cut-out animal flesh.
’So, how should one contact other zones?’ He stared at the displayed words on the ground, momentarily lost as to how to proceed.
He reached out his hand and tried to touch the words in the puddle with the ring.
After a ripple, the words slowly blurred and disappeared.
Suddenly, the ceiling of the entire hall lit up with a soft red glow.
’Attempting link...’
A line of encrypted text appeared once again in the puddle.
’Link successful.’
Soon, new words displayed.
’Zone 235 has been successfully linked. Voice communication is now possible.’
Voice communication?
Zhang Rongfang frowned slightly.
Everything here exhibited a high level of technological prowess, yet at this level, they could only achieve voice contact?
Soon, a faint hissing sound came through.
Then a violent coughing sound followed.
"This is Zone 235’s message, we apologize, our god has gone mad. The frequent outings, the frequent revivals of the god, can inflict permanent damage to consciousness and spirit.
Next, if nothing unexpected occurs, we plan to establish a fully autonomous internal circulation system for gods and buddhas. If successful, all will be well, and you won’t hear this recording. If it fails, the message will proceed as usual."
Outings?
Revival of god and buddha?
Zhang Rongfang keenly grabbed the key words.
Long, long ago, he had sensed that the existence of gods and buddhas’ spiritual lines had a similar principle to the nano robots he heard about in his past life.
Now it appears... the existence of gods and buddhas seems to have a profound premise.
He tried to touch another interaction zone number 772 with his ring.
Soon, another flash of red light flickered.
A new voice sounded again.
"This is Zone 772’s message, glad you can contact us, last week we held a special testing event. We’ve made brand new revisions to a few newly simulated martial arts. If your interaction zone also has new inspiration ideas, feel free to exchange them with us anytime."
The voice suddenly stopped.
This passage contained a wealth of information.
’Martial arts....? These people are actually researching martial arts too?’
The martial arts appeared as translated text in the encrypted character, but in reality, Zhang Rongfang didn’t know its exact meaning within the encrypted text.
Yet from these two messages, and numerous exploration clues from before.
A somewhat peculiar and bizarre civilization outline began to emerge in his mind.
Next, he wandered around the hall with the ring for several laps.
No more clues were found.
Then he returned to the black whirlpool doorfront, stepping out once again.
This time, the black door was as gentle as a breeze, not causing any harm to him.
’Interesting, it seems this thing acts as an identification?’ Zhang Rongfang picked up the ring and simply wore it on his wrist.
Retracting the severed arm, stepping out of the interaction zone door, he returned to the passage similar to the Divine Buddha Platform.
The Moon God was still nowhere to be seen, it was evident that here, Taoyuan was so vast that it was impossible for him to monitor movement at every moment.
Exiting the passage, standing at the exit, Zhang Rongfang looked at the surrounding dilapidated platforms.
An inexplicable strange feeling suddenly arose in his heart.
’According to current information, the outside world is extremely dangerous, as the Moon God mentioned, the Celestial Lighter are the few survivors among many that had died.
So to evade the outside celestial glare, these people created various interaction zones. Between interaction zones, certain measures allow for intercommunication.
Within the interaction zones, gods and buddhas seem to be entities they created for external exploration.
Moreover, they seem to popularize various martial arts, which was unnoticed before.’"
"It seems, concerning these mysterious individuals above the fifth layer, further intelligence needs to be accumulated."
He did not linger, spreading bat wings, diving down, closing his eyes.
Soon his entire body blurred in midair, swiftly becoming transparent, vanishing into the air.
Shortly after his departure.
The whole fourth layer slowly diffused more white mist.
A rustling sound emerged from the various abandoned interaction zone platforms.
*
*
*
March.
The worship across major sects was largely annihilated under the pursuit of Human Immortal Temple and Reverse Time Society.
Especially with Human Immortal Temple naturally inhibiting the worship’s spiritual veins, a single careless mistake led to an instant kill.
The number of worshippers in Great Spirit is rapidly decreasing.
The gods and buddhas in Taoyuan were unwilling to retreat, organizing rebel forces everywhere, attempting to fend off Blood Rainbow Pavilion and Human Immortal Temple.
But all efforts ended in failure.
With a few top experts from Reverse Time Society wielding enchanted arms present, these inadequately prepared Descents of the God couldn’t sway the current situation at all.
This was the scenario Zhang Rongfang resolved after dealing with all sect spirit generals.
After disposing of the spirit generals, he returned to Human Immortal Temple, continuing to immerse in the Blood Pool, expediting the acquisition of attribute points.
In fact, Blood Pool immersion required a full day of doing nothing else, although attribute point accumulation was fast, it was extremely boring.
Simply Zhang Rongfang began attempting communication with the Blood God, Wish Girl.
Meanwhile, he instructed Golden Wing Pavilion to constantly monitor the situation from the Moon God’s Sensing Sect side.
Though there was assurance of mutual non-interference, since he ventured into the fourth layer of Taoyuan, he has grown deeply intrigued with these gods and buddhas, and the outside world.
And whether the contraction of the celestial screen is real still needs verification.