Her consciousness seemed to become a projection from reality into her dream, becoming hazy and indistinct, like moving forward in murky water, touching an unnamed object as she slowly walked, looking blankly at the direction of the next step with each step.
Xiao Rou felt a chill run down her spine. She was confident in her skills and daring, and even though the bar was fraught with danger, she would still dare to venture in, knowing she could simply run away if things went wrong. But now, the bar seemed to be an independent world or space, completely unlike any barrier she had ever seen before. This independent space even had a huge impact on her consciousness, and an unprecedented sense of crisis rose in Xiao Rou's heart.
There was no need to look back for the doorway she had come from. Even without turning back, Xiaorou knew that the doorway had disappeared. The way she came was unique and irreplaceable. Moreover, a faint thought was reminding her not to turn back, or she would definitely regret it.
She walked slowly forward. This underground bar seemed endless. Even at her slowest pace, Xiaorou silently traversed thousands of meters. Ahead lay an endless, dark space, like the shadow before dawn. For some reason, her night vision, typical of superhumans, was useless here. Her gaze couldn't penetrate the almost tangible black space. Xiaorou also discovered that she couldn't unleash her mental energy field in the darkness, unable to emit even a sliver of light. She was immediately shocked. If a superhuman couldn't activate their mental energy field, they were no different from ordinary people, and in this bizarre situation, they couldn't even protect themselves.
However, Xiao Rou immediately felt the surging telekinetic energy within her body. However, the telekinetic energy was stuck to the edge of her body and could not be released. Although she still felt strange, Xiao Rou felt relieved. As long as her superpower was not restricted, she could launch a thunderous attack or provide protection at any time.
The space wasn't completely silent because of the darkness. Far, far ahead, there were faint sounds of strong winds and crackling flames, but strangely, no firelight could be seen. There were also the sounds of countless unnamed objects being slowly dragged across the ground, making a rustling friction sound that felt indescribably strange and terrifying to the ears.
The ground beneath her feet seemed to be made of pure soil, soft and loose to the touch. However, the ground was not a smooth path; it was filled with countless miscellaneous objects, some resembling twigs or other debris, obstacles placed under her feet. Xiao Rou carefully took each step to avoid stepping on some unknown creature. In the darkness, nothing could be seen, which meant considerable danger. It was very possible that some dangerous creature that could survive in the dark would attack her.
There seemed to be a strong, hot smell of sulfur in the air.
Suddenly, a bright light appeared before Xiao Rou's eyes. Several pale flames bloomed in the darkness, illuminating a small area. Immediately afterward, countless burning campfires lit up the dark space, their light spreading to infinity in a short time. The dark space was instantly filled with a low, dim light.
This is a world of only black and white. The ground is covered with gray plants that grow close to the ground like vines. They have no leaves, and their thick roots are deeply embedded in the black soil. The plant parts above ground spread out like spider webs, with sharp and thin tips covered with disgusting and ugly bumps. They also emit a rotten smell from time to time, resembling hundreds of strangely shaped dead corpses.
Some gray plants don't grow close to the ground. Occasionally, beside towering, jagged black rocks or unnamed obstacles, the plant's vines coil around them, forming a strangely shaped black tree.
In the places where gray plants gather or in the crevices where they huddle together, clusters of pale flames burn, their tendrils extending to infinity. The flames, like stars, adorn the dark earth, illuminating the space with their faint light.
Where is this place? Xiao Rou looked around blankly. There were no paths in the space; all directions were the same, like a desolate battlefield. The aura of death was so heavy in the scorching air that even the vines growing at a visible speed gave a sense of decay and withering. Their growth was merely the growth of death, not the growth of vitality.
Behind her came the familiar yet strange rustling sound she had just heard. Xiao Rou quickly turned around and saw a hideous demon covered in thick, fishy bodily fluids leaping up and lunging at her menacingly.
Xiao Rou was slightly startled, only then realizing that the rustling sound she heard in the darkness was the sound of evil spirits crawling on the ground or vines. She didn't know when, but all around her, there were evil spirits of various shapes and sizes. Some of them had already climbed to high places, staring at this strange creature that had suddenly barged in with their fierce compound eyes.
Xiao Rou flicked her finger lightly, and the oncoming demon was struck as if by a thousand-pound club. After letting out a terrifying scream, its round head was shattered into pieces by her telekinetic power. The headless demon body then fell from mid-air.
With a series of shrill cries, numerous evil spirits pounced on Gu Xiaorou at incredible speed. Their bodies were about 1.5 meters long, with the shortest being over 1 meter. However, their agile and nimble figures and terrifying speed were completely disproportionate to their size. Some of them could even glide through the air for dozens of meters, almost in a straight line as they pounced on Xiaorou.
These evil spirits looked terrifying, but they had no fighting ability. Apart from speed and agility, their strength was even less than that of an ordinary person, so they posed no threat to Xiaorou. However, the sticky fluid secreted by the evil spirits was corrosive. Even in the dim light, Xiaorou could clearly see that when the fluid dripped onto the gray plant, the plant twisted its vines unnaturally, and countless pinhole-sized gaps appeared where the fluid dripped, from which gray mist kept escaping.
She conjured an invisible silver circle of mental energy two meters in front of her, enveloping her like a balloon. The outside of the balloon was covered with invisible barbs, far sharper than any blade forged from steel. The evil spirits didn't even need to pounce; a mere scrape from the barbs was enough to sever their heads or cut them into several pieces.
Xiao Rou was not afraid of the strange, rotting ghosts that resembled corpses. She was even oblivious to the pungent, foul-smelling fluids and putrid odor emanating from them. Her brutal training from childhood had exposed her to many bizarre sights, and she could patiently wait through even the most unbearable environments. This hellish space, though strange, was nothing special. The appearance of the ghosts was clearly caused by some kind of force, but the supporting force behind them was not strong; otherwise, the ghosts would have been much stronger.
The demons lack human intelligence; in other words, they are merely a group of disgusting creatures not of reality. They may be highly lethal to animals and ordinary humans, but against those with supernatural abilities, they are nothing more than cannon fodder. Even as the demons in front shattered into pieces upon impacting the barbs of the psychic field, the demons behind still recklessly charged forward.
One after another, evil spirits rushed in from all directions, advancing towards the intruders from the other world in a fan-shaped pattern. Hissing sounds and the howls of the evil spirits echoed through the dim sky. The pale flames dimmed again because the sky was covered by countless gliding evil spirits, a dark mass like locusts.
The speed at which the mental field protection crushed the evil spirits quickly slowed down. One after another, the evil spirits piled up on the spherical mental field protection, densely packed and layered. Because the evil spirit corpses inside, which had been cut by barbs, were caught by the evil spirits outside and could not fall out, they mixed with disgusting slime and quickly stuck together, forming a fleshy ball tens of meters high entirely made of evil spirits at a terrifying speed.
From the air, the ground appears as a rapidly rolling ball of flesh. Every moment, demons scream as they are torn into countless bloody pieces on the barbs. But more demons pounce on them, trapping the remains inside. Because there are so many demons, even just due to its own weight, the rolling ball crushes and kills a large number of them.
Xiao Rou finally felt a bit of pressure; a sense of urgency emanated from her mental field. This wasn't an obstacle caused by the power of the evil spirits, but rather by the sheer weight of nearly tens of thousands of them. If she continued at her current speed, she could maintain the same pace, but it would undoubtedly consume a huge amount of her supernatural energy, which was unnecessary.
A beam of silver light, as thick as a bucket, suddenly shot out from the center of the sphere, instantly transforming into a ten-meter-diameter, destructive silver pillar of light. Countless evil spirits didn't even have time to utter a scream before being reduced to ashes within the pillar. All the remains and fragments vanished in an instant, and even the ground was shattered into a ten-meter-circle by the destructive power of the silver pillar. The gray plants fared no better; all their vines twisted and turned at top speed, rapidly moving away from the outer edge of the circle. The soft soil, faced with such immense power, crystallized, transforming into a surface as hard as steel.
The silver beam of light slowly thinned and then returned to Xiaorou's body. The almost tangible silver light shone faintly around her body. Under the pale white flames of hell, the thin mask on her face had disappeared, revealing her peerless beauty, which contrasted sharply with the hellish environment. It was as if an angel had fallen into the abyss, yet she possessed a breathtaking charm.
Destruction beam!
This is a supernatural technique that Xiaorou learned in the fourth simulation, and it is also one of the most powerful supernatural techniques. Of course, the girl did not use her full strength. The power of the pillar of destruction she saw in the fourth simulation far exceeded that of now. It was a supernatural technique that could destroy the world, and no life could survive in it.
The dark world fell silent once more. The hordes of evil spirits seemed to have been wiped out all at once. After the pillar of destruction was unleashed, no living being dared to approach Xiao Rou, who resembled a fairy descended from heaven. Even the vines that exuded an aura of death quietly retracted all their ugly branches to their roots, exposing large swaths of bare black earth to avoid provoking this powerful being.
Without further hesitation, Xiao Rou's light body touched the ground as if it were weightless, and in the blink of an eye, she had already covered a distance of thousands of meters. In the far distance where she was heading, an equally huge, world-destroying silver beam of light had already pierced through the black sky and the earth.
A perfectly slender, dark figure silently gazed at her from in front of the beam of light.
Chapter 219 Baiyun Hospital
Ling Yun accepted the SIM card and new Nokia phone handed to him by the polite waiter, and asked in confusion, "What's this? I only need a SIM card that works in Hong Kong, I don't need a phone?"
The waiter bowed respectfully and replied, "Sir, this is an extra service offered by our hotel. As long as it is within the permitted scope, we can appropriately meet the requests of our guests. We hope that you will stay at our Royal Hotel again next time you visit Hong Kong. That would be the greatest reward for us."
Ling Yun smiled and nodded: "Thank you. If there's a next time, I will. Your service was excellent and very attentive." As he spoke, he took out a hundred-yuan bill from his pocket and handed it to the waiter, "This is a tip for you, to express my gratitude once again."
The waiter's eyes lit up, and he took the money with both hands: "Thank you, sir, have a pleasant evening." He then backed up to the corner of the stairs before turning and entering the newly opened elevator.
Ling Yun watched his figure disappear at the end of the corridor, smiled calmly, and casually tossed the new Nokia phone into the trash can on the other side. An ordinary person might not notice, but as a superhuman, he could easily detect the trickery stored in the phone. Obviously, whether from the perspective of radiation or electronic pulses, the power of this new phone was far too great. Although Ling Yun did not understand these high-tech gadgets, it did not prevent him from detecting the unusual energy reaction with his powerful senses.
He wondered who was trying to eavesdrop on his secrets, but Ling Yun couldn't be bothered with it. It seemed that ever since he and Xiao Rou entered Hong Kong, trouble had been constant, and they were always in a state of continuous accidents...
An accident? Wait... Suddenly, a flash of light appeared in Ling Yun's mind. A familiar fragment was urgently retrieved from the permanent memory area of his brain and played repeatedly in Ling Yun's current sea of consciousness. It was the process of a mysterious force that could transmit over extremely long distances without any physical or mental contact.
Recalling the two mentally disturbed final messages that Xiaorou had received in succession, Ling Yun felt a chill run down his spine. Did he seem to have missed something? Perhaps he should have had some doubts when he saw the apocalyptic scene on the plane. In this world, not many people understand him, but there must be someone who understands Xiaorou. Could the mentally disturbed final messages from her mother's deathbed really be true?
He stood at the doorway of his and Xiaorou's room, pondered for a moment, and when he looked up again, the Eye of Illusion was already superimposed on his pupils. Everything in the world, tangible and intangible, was exposed under the Eye of Illusion.
Under the Eye of Illusion, Ling Yun's body had become transparent. The blazing silver light was clearly the source of the spiritual force field. Apart from that, there seemed to be nothing unusual. However, Ling Yun did not let it go. Instead, he carefully examined it with the Eye of Illusion. Finally, in the center of his chest, a nearly transparent, extremely thin gray line was extending out from it. It split into two branches at his chest, and the front ends of the two branches disappeared into the void.
The Eye of Illusion and perception leaped over countless obstacles in space, extending along the gray lines to infinity. At the end of one of the gray lines came a familiar and incredibly comforting feeling, accompanied by a faint, delicate fragrance of orchids—it was Gu Xiaorou. The end of the other gray line connected to the void at the infinite end, where an unnamed and strange power surged along the dotted line like a speeding train, flowing into his body, and then through him along another dotted line to Gu Xiaorou.
This force cannot cause any direct harm, but it subtly influences the normal patterns of change around Lingyun. It's as if Lingyun is walking in the right direction, but this force deliberately erects another signpost next to the correct direction, leading people astray. Clearly, the force that influences the patterns of change is powerful and terrifying, and this change is not moving in a good direction, but getting worse and worse.
The function of the gray lines was already quite obvious. Ling Yun immediately understood the reason for his experiences over the past few days. Perhaps other superhumans would not understand it, or even notice the gray lines. But for Ling Yun, who had already grasped the essence of witchcraft, discovering the trajectory of the gray lines was only a matter of time.
Ling Yun couldn't help but smile bitterly. He didn't know when he had been cursed by the Witch Clan again. If it weren't for his experience of contacting the Great Wizard within the Heavenly Net Barrier, he would have had no idea what the root cause of his continuous bad luck was. If he and Xiao Rou were just ordinary people, they would probably have died tragically in the plane crash the first time. Fortunately, they were superhumans, and their powerful abilities could avoid the negative effects of the curse.
But the misfortune will not end there. The power of the curse is permeated into the blood and is unavoidable. If it comes one after another, things will become more and more bizarre. It is like the arrival of death. All those caught in the Grim Reaper's circle are cursed. No matter how they try to escape, they will die in various accidents and unexpected events, and it will look very natural, just like a normal person's birth, aging, sickness and death.
This is the power of curses, and one of the most terrifying aspects of witchcraft. What's even more terrifying is that witchcraft has the power to persist depending on the caster's abilities. A great witch like Old Black can even extend the process of a person being cursed for generations.
Ling Yun had no idea when he had provoked the Witch Clan. Judging from the power of the curse, it was clearly far inferior to Lao Hei's power, but this was enough to alert Ling Yun. At least for now, the enemy was hiding in the shadows, and he couldn't find any clues. He could only take it one step at a time.