The wind in Taoyuan remained cold and thin, continuously slapping against Zhang Rongfang’s face as it rushed by.
He flapped his wings, diving downward rapidly, constantly piercing through layers of invisible obstructions.
Before long, he returned once more to the junction of the ninth layer leading to the forgotten realms.
Di Pa was still in the same spot, eating and drinking happily.
"You’re back again? What is it? You seem to be in a hurry?"
Slowly, Zhang Rongfang decelerated, hovering not far in front of him, quietly gazing at the other.
"Who exactly are you? This isn’t the Taoyuan of the Interactive Area I came from. Yet... I can still find you in the same spot.
You are in every ninth layer of different Taoyuans...
"Me in every one? How is that possible? What nonsense are you talking?" Di Pa was puzzled. "I haven’t moved from here, I’ve been here for countless years."
"You can’t go up, nor do you want to go down, so you’ve never been anywhere beyond here, right?" Zhang Rongfang said.
"You mean? You encountered me in other Taoyuan Interactive Areas as well?" Di Pa began to understand this time, his voice turning solemn.
"I need to verify something. I’ll come back for you later."
Zhang Rongfang closed his eyes, flapping his wings to hover, and counted silently in his heart.
Before long, he opened his eyes again, the view before him no longer Taoyuan, but a blurry chaos, a world of grey fragmentation.
The borders between sky and earth were indistinguishable, with broken stones and soil floating everywhere.
Here, it seemed there was no air, only some gelatinous substance flowing.
Breathing was impossible.
’Indeed, this isn’t the Great Spirit Interactive Area.’ A glint of understanding flickered in Zhang Rongfang’s eyes.
He vibrated his wings, shooting upward.
Here one could barely differentiate up from down; the density of broken fragments and their floating speed indicated the difference.
BAM! BAM! BAM!!
Huge fragments of stone were shattered by Zhang Rongfang’s collision, scattering apart.
His speed increased, almost turning into a red meteor.
Before long, he dashed over ten thousand meters.
PHISH!
An invisible membrane was pierced through by his headlong rush, and the surroundings suddenly opened up.
He entered the intermediate layer.
Above was a pitch-black sky curtain.
However, the sky curtain here was motionless, lifelessly still.
Zhang Rongfang flew closer, approaching the sky curtain, then looked around.
Soon, he found a massive breach, several tens of meters in diameter, on the sky curtain a few kilometers away.
At the breach, the black Spiritual Line swayed with the wind, but had long lost activity.
"A destroyed interactive area...." Zhang Rongfang concluded in his heart.
With a flap of his wings, he quickly flew out through the breach.
The thickness of this interactive area’s sky curtain was far less than that of the Great Spirit Interactive Area, just a few dozen meters before he burst through into the outside.
Outside was a limitless sky of grey clouds.
The air was filled with the sulfurous scent emitted by magma.
Zhang Rongfang flew up into the sky, looking back down.
Below was a similarly vertical pupil-shaped chasm, surrounded by wandering Evil Spirits.
There were Evil Spirit Vehicles, horse-shaped Evil Spirit Horses, and even a few two-headed Evil Spirit Elephants.
Upon apparently noticing his movements, these creatures, billowing with black smoke, raised their heads and howled angrily at him.
On the grey-black earth, dozens to hundreds of black smoke Evil Spirits roared at the sky.
Such a scene involuntarily reminded Zhang Rongfang of the apocalyptic movies and games from his past life.
He quickly surveyed his surroundings, trying to determine his location, but unfortunately, all around was the same grey-black earth, with occasional dark red magma flowing slowly through ground cracks.
Those were scars on the earth left by the light of heaven.
Unable to ascertain his direction, nor his exact location, a faint frustration rose within Zhang Rongfang.
Along with the chaotic noise of the roaring beneath.
"You... are too noisy!"
He suddenly lowered his head, extending his hand toward the Evil Spirit Bodies below.
SHH!!!
In an instant, his palm split, deformed, becoming a mass of blood-colored tentacles, rapidly lengthening, extending, shooting toward the Evil Spirit Bodies.
Each of these blood-colored tentacles resembled a sharp spike, an arrow, moving unbelievably fast.
In just a blink, they crossed hundreds of meters.
Puff puff puff puff.....
Amid the dense sound of flesh being pierced.
The Evil Spirit Bodies let out wails of pain, most of them having tentacles pierce through their foreheads and hearts.
All resistance was utterly meaningless, their blocking arms forcibly penetrated, continuing to pierce their vital parts.
Only two Evil Spirit Elephants, using agility that belied their size, skillfully avoided two tentacles, even swatting them to break them on the spot.
But aside from them, all other Evil Spirit Bodies were pierced, collapsing to the ground, unable to move.
A massive amount of Zhang Rongfang’s essence blood continuously poured into them, quickly eroding and assimilating them.
The Evil Spirit Bodies gradually turned dark red, the black smoke on their bodies ceasing to billow, replaced by red blood coursing through cracks beneath their skin.
Soon, after three seconds.
One by one, the Evil Spirit Bodies began to shrivel up and collapse to the ground.
They were like deflated balloons, leaving only a thin layer of skin drifting to the floor.
The howling sounds quickly quieted down, becoming fewer and fainter.
The dense blood and flesh tendrils continuously transferred the nourishment obtained from the corrosion back to Zhang Rongfang in mid-air.
Before long, only two Evil Spirit Elephants remained on the surrounding land, angrily roaring up at him.
Puff!
In an instant, countless blood and flesh tendrils transformed into spikes, densely surrounding the two Evil Spirit Elephants from all directions.
In the blink of an eye, the two monsters were pierced like porcupines, frozen in place.
Accompanied by a spine-chilling sucking sound, the two ten-meter-tall Evil Spirit Elephants were quickly drained, reduced to two sheets of skin collapsing to the ground.
Everything quieted down.
Zhang Rongfang raised his hand, retracting all tendrils, transforming them back into a palm.
After devouring these creatures, the blood and flesh obtained were enough for his ultimate original body’s abilities to take effect.
The ability of the ultimate original body is to plunder everything from the killed target.
Be it abilities, talents, internal resources, or energy.
Everything is completely taken over.
Although in the end there is transmission and conversion, which results in some loss, if the energy conversion is not done too often, the loss is minimal.
At this moment, after devouring these Evil Spirit Bodies, a large amount of chaotic memories and malicious aura was stacked into Zhang Rongfang’s body.
The essence of these Evil Spirit Bodies were parasitic Spiritual Line powerhouses that had been polluted.
Essentially, most were Spiritual Lines, with a small portion being their own flesh and blood.
Now that Zhang Rongfang had devoured and absorbed them, his body also gradually began transforming towards the direction of an Evil Spirit Body.
Strands of black smoky malicious aura unintentionally emanated from him.
He let out a cold snort, covering his body with blood, rapidly enveloping himself to erode the black smoke.
Before long, all the black smoke disappeared completely.
Zhang Rongfang’s body returned to its original state, albeit with slight changes.
Faint black patterns appeared on the bat wings on his back.
His physical attributes seemed to have slightly improved as well.
After clearing away all the obstacles, he finally felt much quieter, glancing once more at the attribute panel.
In the attribute panel, forty more attribute points had accumulated, these gained by soaking in the Blood Pool simultaneously to accelerate the process.
’It won’t be long before I can acquire a new ability... I hope a new bloodline talent combination will emerge.’
Right now, his physical strength has reached its peak, and he can only train his mind and consciousness using the Five Heart Qi Collection Skill.
However, his mind and consciousness cannot display much power in the external world.
To be prudent, while making contact with the Chana Tower, he requires more, stronger power to ensure he can control the situation.
Zhang Rongfang hovered in mid-air, feeling his newly strengthened body.
Devouring those Evil Spirit Bodies had increased his physical strength by at least twenty percent.
These methods appear to be quite effective.
’Regarding the task at Bay Crawl, I must first return to the Great Spirit Interactive Area to proceed with verification.’
Zhang Rongfang sensed the direction of the Great Spirit Interactive Area; the distance was too far to sense anything.
’Rather than wasting time here, it’s better to sweep all the way through, devour all evil life forms encountered, use their memories to direct the way, using their flesh bodies as propulsion.’
Thinking of this, he flapped his wings, finding a direction according to his memories, and with a single flight, disappeared beyond the horizon.
*
*
*
Chana Tower.
In the broad, straight passageway within the tower.
Long quietly watched the roaming Evil Spirit Elephants outside, observing them as if they were animals, despite having no eyes, seemingly able to see everything clearly.
"Lord, why cooperate with such weak creatures? Let me devour him instead; I can acquire all his abilities likewise." Ming inquired in a deep voice from behind.
He represented absolute adaptability; no matter what kind of creature, once devoured, he would acquire all of its abilities.
"Abilities are not important, what matters is memory, consciousness, spirit. The body can be replaced, but what is hidden in consciousness is hard to determine accurately."
Long gently replied.
"We need him to help locate the opening of the portal."
"Does that portal really lead to Qiankun’s homeland?" Ming asked with a bit of curiosity.
"Of course..." Long smiled and replied, "It’s fake."
He smiled and turned around.
"What’s the point of opening his homeland to us? Only by unlocking the final secret lock leading to White Eyes and opening the path to White Eyes can we complete all the arrangements. We can truly welcome the original homeland..."
"Our homeland..." Ming suddenly realized, indeed, without bait to lure the other side, how would Qiankun with his strength and speed be willing to cooperate with all his might?
"That scene of the city you had Ladi Lan release earlier...?"
"It was a scene captured incidentally when the portal opened last time, just an image of his homeland. A portal so random; how could we simply reopen it?" Long said softly.
"Then why still ask for his cooperation? Does he contribute significantly to opening the portal?"
"You’re right. His mental consciousness is very unique, different from all of ours...capable of not being restricted by many of the Spirit Eye Race’s targeted layouts," Long answered. "You can think of it as looking similar to ours, but essentially different."
"I’m curious... exactly what are the differences." Ming wondered.
"If you’re curious," Long revealed a smile, "you can handle him after the portal is opened."
"Thank you, Lord!" Ming immediately showed a hint of anticipation.