212: Chapter 211 One sword shatters the aggregate! A strange gray mist counterattacks; has Lin Feng been possessed?
The Giant of Light raised its right hand, and the dragon slaying sword transformed along with it into a massive light sword over a hundred meters long.
The golden patterns on the blade shone to the extreme, with the faint phantom of a Flood Dragon swimming within the blade; the dragon's roar was low and long, making the surrounding energy turbulence tremble slightly.
Lin Feng did not charge up, nor did he shout any Move names—every second of the Law of Heaven and Earth was bought at the cost of cracks in his Meridians, and he could not afford to waste any time.
He gripped the sword with both hands and swung it down from above.
The movement was concise to the extreme, without any unnecessary flourishes; it was simply raising the sword and cleaving down.
The Aggregate looked up as the golden sword light, which blotted out the sky, pressed down toward it, and the three mouths formed from Single-Horned Dog skulls let out a piercing screech simultaneously.
It did not dodge—not because it didn't want to, but because it couldn't.
The sword speed of the Giant of Light was too fast, so fast that before the Void Core in its chest could even accelerate its pulse, the blade had already sliced into the top of its head.
The golden sword light entered from the top of its head, cleaving through the Single-Horned Dog skulls, the Shadow Leopard spine, the Stone Scorpion carapace, and the chest cavity pieced together from countless fragments, finally exiting from between its legs.
The Aggregate's several-hundred-meter-tall body was sliced neatly into two halves down the middle by this single strike.
Dark purple Void energy liquid gushed out from both sides of the cut like a waterfall, scorched into a large cloud of gray mist by the light element remaining on the sword light.
The two halves of the body wobbled individually and then collapsed to either side like knocked-over building blocks—the right half slammed into a half-collapsed office building, smashing a large hole through the structure, the dull thud of snapping reinforced concrete mixing with the clattering sound of glass shards pouring down.
The left half fell onto a patch of ruins, kicking up a sky full of dust.
Lin Feng hovered in mid-air, looking down at the two halves of the disintegrating wreckage; there was no expression of victory on his face flowing with golden light, only a calm scrutiny.
He did not deactivate the Law of Heaven and Earth—not because he didn't want to, but because he didn't dare.
His two previous experiences of being ambushed had made him cautious: last time at the Zhou Family, after Zhou Tiannan's Heaven-Burning Purple Flame was dispersed, Sato Ichiro had emerged from a void fissure and dealt him a lethal blow.
The time before that at the TV Tower, after that small fused monster was crippled, it immediately summoned a swarm of Stone Scorpions from underground.
As the dust cleared, the two halves of the Aggregate's body had already disintegrated into piles of grayish-white wreckage covering the entire street.
The Void Core in its chest had also been sliced in two; the two halves lay in the wreckage piles, pulsing slightly, the rhythm of the pulses getting slower and slower, and the dark purple light becoming increasingly dim, like two dying fireflies flickering in the ruins.
The surrounding energy turbulence gradually returned to calm, and those small Void Creatures that had been desperately trying to find a way around had all fled at some unknown point.
"Is it dead?"
Xiao Guang controlled the mecha to descend from mid-air; the Dark Energy Cannon on the mecha's right arm was still emitting blue smoke, and the alloy combat blade on its left arm was covered in grayish-white debris.
It didn't dare get too close, stopping some distance away from the wreckage piles, the mecha's V-shaped visor scanning the remains on the ground.
"The core pulse has stopped, and the Void energy concentration is also dropping. It should be dead—this time for real, not faking it."
Lin Feng did not answer.
His perception was still locked onto the dissipating Void energy deep within the wreckage—something was missing.
He had seen the residual energy spectrum of a Void Aggregate after being killed in the Illustrated Handbook; normally, after the core stops pulsing, the residual energy would disperse in a uniform radial pattern.
But the residual energy dispersal trajectory of this wreckage pile was heavily skewed; an extremely fine wisp of dark purple energy had been intercepted by something during the dispersal process.
Just as he was preparing to confirm this feeling, a wisp of grayish-white mist suddenly shot out from the wreckage pile.
It wasn't the grayish-white empty shell powder from when Void energy dissipated earlier, but something more viscous and more eerie—it had no color, it wasn't spiritual power, and it wasn't Void energy; it was more like a mass of "will" compressed to the extreme.
It wriggled twice above the wreckage and then suddenly shot toward Lin Feng.
The speed was astonishingly fast; even Xiao Jin's antennae had only just stood up when it had already passed through the Giant of Light's golden protective light and drilled directly into his chest.
Xiao Guang's pupils shrank, and he controlled the mecha to rush toward Lin Feng, but the mecha's hand was bounced away by that layer of golden protective light before it was even halfway there.
The defensive instincts of the Incarnation of Light were still operating automatically, but this layer of golden light, which could block a Domain Lord Level Void Breath, was useless against that mass of gray mist—it wasn't energy, it wasn't a physical attack, and it wasn't a spiritual shock; it was something pure and extremely close to the essence of the Soul, which was outside the defensive range of the protective light.
The moment Lin Feng felt that mass of gray mist drill into his body, it felt as if an extremely fine ice needle had pierced into his Sea of Consciousness.
It wasn't pain, but cold.
A bone-chilling cold that seeped out from the depths of his Soul.
His vision went black, and the perspective of the Giant of Light was instantly stripped away, replaced by a completely unfamiliar scene.
What he saw was not the ruins of the Void Corridor, nor was it his own body.
What he saw was a city.
Not this dead city swallowed by the Void Realm, but a living city.
High-rise buildings stood tall, glass curtain walls sparkled in the sunlight, the streets were filled with heavy traffic, and the crowds at the intersections were bustling.
The air smelled of a mixture of coffee and car exhaust, and the subway passing in the distance made its characteristic humming sound as it rubbed against the rails.
This city was right in this location, on this very land, in the world before he was pulled into the Void Realm.
Then the sky split open.
A massive void fissure tore open above the city, and countless Void Creatures surged out from the fissure, flooding the streets like a gray tide.
The screams of the crowd and the buzzing of car alarms mixed together, quickly drowned out by the roars of the Void Creatures.
He saw a young woman holding a child being pounced upon by a Void Unicorn Hound in front of a convenience store, the glass door of the store shattering all over the ground.
He saw several Explorers fighting desperately in front of a police station; one of them was holding a newly activated Defense Formation Plate, but before the formation could even unfold, it was torn apart along with the person by the claws of a Void Shadow Leopard.
He saw a researcher in a white lab coat rushing out of an underground laboratory, clutching a thick stack of experimental records, only to be hit head-on by a Void Shockwave, his entire being instantly turning into a grayish-white empty shell.
The scene shifted, and he saw the moment the stitched monster codenamed "Eris" was created.
The white light of the surgical lamp was blinding; a man in a hazmat suit stood beside the operating table, personally implanting a Seven-colored energy source into the stitched monster's chest.
On the nearby instrument screen, a line of text flickered—"Experimental Subject S-000, codename Eris, space-system energy affinity 99.7%, objective: to withstand and stabilize the Seven-colored energy source."
The stitched monster on the operating table opened its eyes; those eyes held a pure confusion, uncontaminated by any directives, like a newborn baby opening its eyes to the world for the first time.
Then it saw the man in the hazmat suit, its lips moved, and it let out an extremely faint syllable similar to "Father."
The man took a step back; through the transparent face shield of the hazmat suit, one could see there was not a trace of pity on his face, only cold scrutiny.
He looked down and recorded a line on his tablet: "S-000 is showing unexpected emotional responses; suggest immediate clearing of the memory area and re-implanting combat directives."
The scene shifted again.
Eris had already lost control.
It was no longer that baby who had just opened its eyes on the operating table; its body had expanded countless times, covered in bone armor like the arm-blade spikes of the Iron Bone Clan, and a pair of massive wing membranes, torn and reconstructed from Void Shadow Leopard wings, unfolded behind its back.
It stood above the city, roaring at the sky, as seven-colored energy surged frantically from the energy source in its chest, tearing open a massive void fissure in the air.
Every stitched monster in the city lost control at the same time; those tissue sections soaking in glass jars in the laboratories opened their eyes, those human experimental subjects strapped to operating tables stood up and snapped their restraints, and those Fusion monsters being tested as weapons on the training grounds turned around and rushed toward the laboratories.
The entire city became a slaughterhouse—and Eris was the blade.
Lin Feng watched these scenes flash by frame by frame, his mind feeling as if a long horror movie had been forcibly stuffed into it.
He tried to break free from these images, but that eerie gray mist firmly locked his Sea of Consciousness, not letting him exit.
The scenes continued to play: the survivors of the city were evacuated to the outskirts by the military, the scope of the Void Realm's devouring grew larger and larger, and the entire City ED-003 was sealed off by a dark purple energy barrier, with everything inside declared a loss.
Those Explorers who were still holding out deep in the city—including his parents—never sent out another signal from then on.
Then he heard a voice.
It wasn't a voice from the scenes—the scenes had frozen on the final frame of the city's panorama before being swallowed by the Void Realm—but a whisper that appeared directly in the depths of his consciousness.
It was very light and soft, like a mother's murmur, or a lover speaking into his ear.
That voice said, "Look, this is their end."
"Your parents are here too; they are also in these ruins."
"They are dead—or rather, they are about to die."
"Just like this city, just like those dead Explorers."
"Do you think you can save them? Do you think you can get out? You will die here too, just like your parents."
"Your corpse will also become a part of these ruins, and no one will ever find you."
Then there was another voice—deeper and colder, like someone who had sat alone in the darkness for countless years speaking for the first time.
It said, "Stay."
"Stay here."
"Become a part of us."
"You are very strong; your body, your Talent, and your Soul are the best containers we have ever seen."
"Give up your resistance and hand your body over to us; we can let you see your parents—their Souls are still wandering here, and as long as you integrate with us, you can see them."
"Forever."
"Forever."
Lin Feng stood in the middle of those scenes, the two voices whispering in his ear alternately.
One was gentle, one was cold; one eroded him with fear, and the other enticed him with promises.
An ordinary person ensnared by either of these voices would likely collapse on the spot—the deaths in those scenes just now were too real, and those screams still lingered in the depths of his consciousness.