182: Chapter 182 Strange Energy

This fatal malice was fleeting, but the bone-chilling cold, as if being watched by some evil god, refused to dissipate. It felt as though this location had already been targeted by that unknown existence.

Ding!

The threat level of the Extraterritorial Evil Clan Deviants has decreased by 0.1%, currently at 0.2%...

Decreasing instead of increasing?

In the vast and bitterly cold starry sky, Xiao Yan, dressed in plain white robes, floated in the zero-gravity Void Realm, his brow furrowed.

Looking at the plane embryo in his hand, countless thoughts flashed through his mind.

The malice just now was fleeting, but Xiao Yan already understood that the plane where the Fighting Qi Continent was located had been quietly infected!

"Damn it, even a plane embryo can be infected!"

A plane embryo is also a living being. Since the Extraterritorial Evil Clan could be infected, it was not impossible for the plane embryo to be infected as well.

However, wasn't this plane under a Seal?

Could it be that this mysterious power of infection is immune to the obstruction of a Formation?

Xiao Yan's expression turned grim. Since the plane embryo itself was infected, why did the prompt indicate that the threat level had decreased instead of increased?

The prompts aren't even clear; this Golden Finger is simply too useless!

Gazing at the seemingly endless starry sky, a deep sense of bewilderment appeared in Xiao Yan's heart for the first time.

Closing his eyes, his chest heaving, Xiao Yan suppressed this feeling of bewilderment and began to think anew.

Is it because the prompt sound considers this plane embryo as part of my own strength?

But the plane embryo has already been infected. According to previous prompts, it should be telling me to eliminate these infected existences.

While pondering, he discarded the plane embryo from his hand and waited quietly for something.

Seeing that there was no prompt in his mind, he frowned slightly and reached into the Void Realm to pull the plane embryo back.

He could sense the astonishing energy contained within the plane embryo, but since it already showed symptoms of infection, Xiao Yan did not dare to absorb or refine it at will.

"Sigh..."

Xiao Yan was reluctant to destroy the plane embryo directly, but he didn't dare to absorb and refine it if he kept it.

Caught in a dilemma, Xiao Yan eventually decided to head toward the end of the starry sky first and see what the situation was.

Chaos light suddenly flared. With the help of the plane embryo's power, nearly a thousand Clones returned one after another, leaping through the Void Realm.

After the Fusion with his Clones, Xiao Yan did not hesitate. He once again drove the plane embryo, crossing the endless starry sky to arrive at a pitch-black region.

Looking back, the path he came from was filled with a brilliant galaxy, while before him lay a pitch-black unknown area.

Standing before this region, Xiao Yan frowned slightly. He could sense traces of malice seeping from it—a malice that was like a miniature version of what he had sensed within the plane embryo.

The Chaos light flared once more, and the darkness in front of him slowly receded, revealing the scene beyond the plane.

It was linked to a massive spatial passage. The space within the passage was extremely unstable, as if it had been forcibly destroyed.

Looking at the plane embryo in his hand, Xiao Yan felt somewhat confident. A Clone split from his body, passed through this Seal, and slowly stepped into the spatial passage leading to the unknown land.

Meanwhile, Xiao Yan's main body closed its eyes, its mind connected to the Clone to perceive everything it experienced.

The space contained strange energy. The slowly floating Clone reached out to gather it, and a wisp of pale grey energy manifested before him.

This energy was incredibly eerie. As if sensing Xiao Yan's presence, it actually possessed a sort of sentience and charged directly at the Clone, attempting to burrow into its body!

Seeing this, Xiao Yan reached out to pinch the energy, and a brilliant flame ignited out of thin air, setting it ablaze.

Screech!

A piercing scream echoed through his Soul, causing Xiao Yan to frown slightly.

Incredible, this energy actually wanted to fuse with the Heavenly Flame?

However, how could a single wisp of energy shake a terrifying flame born from the Fusion of twenty-two types of Heavenly Flames?

Yet this strange scene served as a reminder to Xiao Yan that he needed to act with caution and could not afford to be careless.

As he continued forward, the energy became increasingly dense, even trying to burrow directly into the Clone's body. However, this energy still amounted to nothing; he didn't even need to project the flames outside his body, as the energy was unable to get close and was isolated on the outside.

Continuing onward, the pale grey energy finally reached a state of equilibrium, uniformly distributed at the end of the passage.

The end, much like the entrance, was sealed by incredibly powerful means and was also pitch black.

Slowly merging into this darkness, when a glimmer of light appeared before his eyes, he instantly withdrew his aura. Under Xiao Yan's conscious control, the Clone hid within the space and quietly observed everything ahead.

Before him was a grey, hazy void world. Even with the Clone's strength, he could only see through a few thousand kilometers.

"The grey energy here is more than a hundred times denser..."

Turning his gaze within a thousand kilometers, he saw nothing but exposed black earth. Upon closer inspection, these layers of black seemed to be the solidified blood of some kind of creature, emitting a nauseating stench.

With his figure hidden in the Void Realm, without disturbing a single wisp of the grey mist, the Clone thus traveled stealthily through this grey world.

There was no movement and no sign of life. In this grey world, there seemed to be only this endless black earth.

After traversing for an unknown amount of time, the scene before him finally changed, revealing a vast starry sky.

It was as if the entire world had turned grey; even the starry sky was hazy, emitting an incredibly eerie aura of deathly stillness.

Glancing back at the Black Continent floating in the void, Xiao Yan did not hesitate to continue his stealthy journey through the Void Realm.

This stealthy travel lasted for a full three days before the Clone finally revealed its form.

Since he was already far from that sealed land, there was no longer any need to remain hidden. After all, wandering aimlessly like this would never achieve the goal of obtaining information.

The moment the grey mist detected Xiao Yan, it immediately began to fluctuate, actually condensing into one strange humanoid creature after another, which then launched a frenzied assault toward Xiao Yan!

Boom!

Brilliant flames erupted instantly. The scorching temperature and violent energy incinerated and shattered the space, turning everything in the vicinity into nothingness without leaving a single trace!

In that instant, everything within a million-kilometer radius became empty and pitch black. In this world where everywhere else was grey and hazy, it appeared exceptionally conspicuous.

"What kind of things are you?"

Xiao Yan issued a question that vibrated through space, transmitting this information from the very essence of his Soul, spreading outward continuously.

No wonder he hadn't been able to discover any anomalies before; it turned out that this grey mist was the anomaly itself.

However, Xiao Yan's question received no reply. A million kilometers away, one grotesque figure after another condensed, emitting Soul-piercing fluctuations as they charged madly toward Xiao Yan in the center.

"Do they have no intelligence?"

Xiao Yan quietly watched the endless monsters rapidly approaching. For the moment, he ignored them; these were clearly not the so-called Extraterritorial Evil Clan Deviants.

These should be the energy that infects the Extraterritorial Evil Clan. However, this energy was truly bizarre, actually capable of actively condensing into physical forms to attack any sentient existence.

If this energy were allowed to invade, the Fighting Qi Continent would likely be mostly destroyed in an instant. Only those factions with powerhouses at the Dou Zong level and above could barely resist for a moment.

However, this energy clearly assimilates other energies. The energy of the Fighting Qi Continent would also be fused, making it impossible to use as a supplement for cultivation or combat...

At this moment, the horror of this thing caused Xiao Yan's vigilance to spike, and a dangerous light appeared in his eyes.

He must never let this strange energy break through the Seal!