Shen Ge successfully landed with the cushioning of the spectral energy inflatable cushion. He got up, put the cushion away, and then looked around.
He was now in the center of a field of ruins. The scorching sun hung overhead, and the intense sunlight gave off a distinct burning sensation on his skin. After a brief moment of thought, Shen Ge condensed an invisible barrier above his head.
Logically speaking, a “transparent” defense like the invisible barrier shouldn’t have any effect on sunlight. Yet surprisingly, once the invisible barrier appeared, it successfully blocked the “sunlight.” Shen Ge could clearly feel the burning pain disappear—but it only lasted a few seconds before he heard a “crack,” and the invisible barrier shattered.
“Just as I thought… this isn’t ordinary ‘sunlight.’ It’s spectral energy corrosion.” Shen Ge spotted the problem at a glance. Combined with his earlier experience of being “spat” down from the sky by a strange entity, it was clear that this spectral energy corrosion came from a strange entity hidden in the sky.
Most of the strange entities Shen Ge had dealt with before were on the ground. He rarely even encountered ones that could fly. The few airborne strange entities he’d come across were the mysterious vanishing giant eyeball on Cherry Blossom Island, the starfish that fell from the sky, and at most the “giant whale” he’d encountered in the dream world a few days ago.
If the Red Mist Battle Armor were still with him, Shen Ge might have tried to reach toward the strange entity hidden in the sky. But now, with only invisible barriers to step on, flying up there was clearly impossible.
Moreover, the “sunlight” in the sky had a powerful spectral energy corrosion effect. Even if he kept releasing invisible barriers to withstand the spectral energy consumption, he still couldn’t block the spectral energy corrosion.
As Shen Ge continuously condensed invisible barriers to resist the spectral energy corrosion of the “sunlight,” he observed the sky and noticed something seemed off. Why did the distant sky look… tilted?
“Gurgle—”
“Gurgle—”
Just then, a thunder-like swallowing sound suddenly appeared in the sky. Before Shen Ge could activate his spectral eye to lock onto the source of the sound, he heard an explosion. The explosion was so violent that it felt like the entire world was affected by the tremor.
“What the hell, is this a sonic boom caused by the swallowing sound?” Shen Ge suddenly felt strange suction forces appearing in all directions, much like the feeling he had when he was finally spat out of the strange entity’s body.
The previously “tilted” scene in the distant sky—now that the sonic boom had dispersed the spectral black mist—was revealed to be a tilted field of ruins.
Shen Ge had seen this kind of bizarre scene before, back when the spectral disaster broke out in Seoul. At that time, only a few city blocks had shown a chaotic, distorted state. Now it was more like several worlds had been pieced together.
[Warning! Detected a spectral energy reaction from a ??-tier (Unknown) weirdo. With the host’s current strength, you are absolutely no match for this weirdo. Please cherish your life and immediately flee this area!]
“What the hell is an Unknown tier?” Shen Ge couldn’t help but complain. Whenever the dream world was involved, the system either waited until he was done fighting to give a warning, or it just played dead.
This time it actually gave a timely warning, but then it threw out a new rating like “Unknown”?
Shen Ge felt like saying to the system, “Are you f**king kidding me?” But regardless, this “Unknown” rating meant this strange entity was definitely extraordinary. Otherwise, with the system’s current capabilities, it wouldn’t have failed to detect it.
[Warning: You have been locked onto by the weirdo!]
[Crisis mission “Escape” triggered: Please escape the pursuit of the “??”-tier weirdo within ten minutes. Reward: E-tier supply item x1, system points x1000.]
“An E-tier supply item just for escaping successfully? That’s not bad.” Shen Ge put aside his complaints about the system and looked toward the direction of the warning through his spectral eye.
Boom!
With dust filling the sky, the ruined building collapsed with a thunderous crash. First, an enormous hand tore through the ground and reached up from below. Then came the arm, then the body. The gigantic figure blotted out the sky and sun—likely the largest weirdo Shen Ge had ever seen.
“Well now, a Titan has risen, huh?” Shen Ge looked at the massive creature before him and figured that the spectral king the Heavenly Stems had cultivated beneath Cherry Blossom Island probably wasn’t even this big, right?
At this moment, the giant weirdo’s crimson gaze was fixed dead on Shen Ge’s direction. It had clearly locked onto his life force.
Without the Red Mist Battle Armor, Shen Ge had lost his mobility advantage. Seeing the giant strange entity lock onto him, he immediately activated the three traits—”Invisible + Silent + Untraceable”—then condensed an invisible barrier and leaped into the air, darting into the distance.
Suddenly, the originally dim sky went dark. Then he realized—it wasn’t the sky going dark. It was the giant weirdo’s massive hand swinging toward him.
“He can see me?” Shen Ge was startled. This was the first time he’d been locked onto by a strange entity since he started using the three traits. That alone showed just how much weight that “??” rating carried.
The giant weirdo gave Shen Ge no time to think. Only one path remained before him: use the “Silkworm” he hadn’t even had time to warm up.
The “Silkworm” was the biggest trump card in Shen Ge’s hand. He’d originally planned to save it for emergencies—at the very least, to preserve his life against a seventh or eighth-tier strange entity.
…Oh, with a “??” rating this high, it might be even higher than seventh or eighth tier.
Shen Ge had a feeling that this giant weirdo before him might just be the “finished product” spectral king cultivated by the weirdo organization—a genuine, complete-form spectral king!
A flash of insight seemed to flicker through Shen Ge’s mind. He realized he seemed to have overlooked something. He subconsciously wanted to look toward the tilted world in the distance, but just then the giant weirdo’s massive palm slammed down. The whole scene felt like Buddha’s palm catching Sun Wukong, yanking Shen Ge back to reality.
Shen Ge immediately stuffed the thumb-sized, plump “Silkworm” into his mouth. Then, once again, that spectral energy surge that nearly burst his body appeared.
For nearly ten minutes of “infinite state” spectral energy, Shen Ge continuously amplified his attributes. This time it wasn’t just strength—it also included agility and constitution.
His body’s stats rose rapidly—”whoosh whoosh whoosh.” Shen Ge’s strength suddenly swelled to an unprecedented, terrifying level. The next second, he threw a punch straight at the giant palm falling from the sky.
Bang!
Bang!
Boom!
The collision of two absolute forces produced a tremendous impact, instantly leveling the surrounding ruins and blowing sand and stone into the sky.
However, the aerial confrontation lasted only two or three seconds before a figure was knocked down from the sky with afterimages trailing behind, sinking dozens of meters into the ground.
“F**k!”
The next second, Shen Ge shot out of the hole in a blur of afterimages. He never would have dreamed that under the influence of nearly two hundred times strength amplification, he could only withstand that towering giant palm for a mere three seconds!
From this, one could see just how terrifying that giant strange entity was!
Since he still couldn’t match it in strength for now, Shen Ge could only continue amplifying his power. And before his strength grew enough to contend with the opponent, he had to rely on speed to buy time.
Shen Ge’s plan was good, but the next moment the giant weirdo taught him what “one force defeats ten techniques” really meant. One palm strike from the opponent turned the surrounding hundred miles into a giant crater. Even though Shen Ge’s agility had been amplified past a hundred times, he still couldn’t escape the giant weirdo’s “Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms.”
And so, Shen Ge was smashed into the ground again.
Yet after taking two palms in a row, Shen Ge was completely unharmed. The infinite spectral energy supply was equivalent to having infinite spectral energy defense. For these ten minutes, he was invincible. Even if the giant weirdo punched through the Earth itself, it couldn’t hurt him in the slightest. This was Shen Ge’s confidence.
Shen Ge was very glad that he hadn’t hesitated to swallow the “Silkworm” the moment the giant weirdo launched its attack. Because judging by the current intensity, even swallowing it one second later would have been enough to die ten times over.
“System, you bastard, give me a hint already! This thing isn’t the Ancestral Strange Entity, is it? What, were you afraid a ‘Tenth-Tier’ rating would show up and I’d notice?”
“It’s already come to this—what are you still hiding for?”
“System!”
However, faced with Shen Ge’s calls, the system once again used its favorite tactic—playing dead. All functions were normal, but there was no response.
The collision between Shen Ge’s infinite spectral energy and the giant strange entity even triggered spatial collapse. At this point, Shen Ge could finally see his surroundings clearly.
This place was like a world pieced together from several dream fragment worlds—sometimes tilting, sometimes overlapping. It was exactly like the dark, terrifying overlapping space of a Rubik’s Cube world.
As Shen Ge and the giant strange entity collided again and again, the surrounding collapse grew more violent. Space began to compress at extreme speed. Cracks like shattered mirror shards had already appeared in the sky.
Through the gaps in the giant strange entity’s body, Shen Ge saw the cracked sky. He suddenly noticed that something enormous seemed to be hidden within the clouds.
The giant weirdo on the ground also seemed to sense the strange entity hidden in the sky. After slapping Shen Ge away, it raised both arms and grabbed toward the sky.
This scene reminded Shen Ge of Pangu separating heaven and earth. It felt like the giant weirdo was trying to tear the sky apart. But the strange entity hidden in the air didn’t want a head-on conflict with the giant weirdo. As the giant weirdo tore through space, it immediately “swam” toward the tilted, overlapping space beside it.
And so, this Pangu-separating-heaven-and-earth scene inexplicably turned into a child trying to catch a loach. The strange entity hidden in the sky was the slippery, uncatchable loach.
Ridiculous as it was, as space collapsed and the ground shattered, everything turned to dust—and suddenly it all felt grand and imposing.
Although Shen Ge had near-infinite spectral energy, his own base power was too low-frequency—put plainly, his foundation was too weak. To reach this level of attribute amplification through charging alone, ten minutes was clearly not enough.
At first, Shen Ge suspected this giant weirdo was the complete-form spectral king cultivated by the weirdo organization—perhaps even this world’s Ancestral Strange Entity.
But with the appearance of the hidden strange entity in the sky, he felt things weren’t so simple. First of all, he had come to this world through that strange entity in the sky. In other words, besides dream power, there were other ways to enter the dream world.
And that hidden strange entity in the sky was likely the “bridge” connecting reality and dreams. Some country called this kind of thing a “Rainbow Bridge.”
Whether it was a Rainbow Bridge or not could be studied later. What Shen Ge couldn’t figure out was this: according to Zhang Hu, the weirdo who looked exactly like him had come to “reality” through the vortex channel at the bottom of East Ring Lake. Didn’t that mean the weirdo already possessed a means to travel between reality and the dream world?
If so, why was the weirdo organization still fixated on him, calling him the “key” to opening the dream world?
Or was it that the “weirdo” Zhang Hu mentioned and the weirdo organizations Shen Ge had encountered so far weren’t the same group?
Shen Ge had also considered that this weirdo might be himself from another timeline. But when he thought about how this guy brought a few strange entities into reality and still got beaten away by Lin Yin and her team, it seemed unlikely.
For one thing, even for him—Shen Ge on this “reality” timeline that hadn’t been destroyed yet—someone with Lin Yin’s combat power… he could take on at least ten of them.
So rather than that weirdo being himself from another timeline, Shen Ge felt it was more like a Mirror Weirdo or something similar.
The giant weirdo couldn’t catch the “big fish” darting around in the air. At this point, it noticed Shen Ge had returned to the ground, so it reached out a hand to grab him.
By now, through spectral energy infusion for attribute amplification, Shen Ge’s strength had been amplified to over 500 times, and his constitution and agility were approaching 300 times. He could cosplay as Superman for real just by wearing a pair of briefs. But to be safe, he didn’t choose to clash head-on with the giant weirdo. Instead, he first condensed invisible barriers to dissolve the opponent’s attacks.
“Such a big fish you won’t chase, but you go after a little ant like me?” Shen Ge couldn’t help but complain. After all, judging by size alone—if the giant weirdo was an elephant, then the hidden fish shadow in the sky looked like at most a hundred-pound big carp.
As for Shen Ge, “ant” was the perfect description. But this elephant was clearly greedy. It wanted the fish, and it wasn’t about to let the ant go either.
Crack!
Crack!
As the sound of glass shattering rang out again and again, the invisible barriers Shen Ge condensed were broken through by the opponent. But for every layer broken, Shen Ge immediately added another. Then, while blocking the opponent’s attacks, he used his extraordinary speed to relocate.
Now the fish swam fast in the water, the ant became the Flash, and the giant weirdo could do nothing about either target for the time being.
Then, it got angry.
This was arguably the first time Shen Ge had ever seen a strange entity get angry. The surging spectral energy swept outward like a storm. This impact was far more terrifying than the shockwave from when he’d first clashed head-on with the opponent. Not to mention the ruins being flattened—even the ground itself was blown away layer by layer.
The giant weirdo stood at the center of the storm. In an instant, the surroundings were swept into a prehistoric giant crater by the spectral energy storm. Even the thick clouds in the sky were blown apart.
This was also the first time Shen Ge saw the appearance of that strange entity in the sky. It wasn’t a giant whale at all—it was a massive skeleton.
Overall, it looked somewhat like a “fish,” but it was too big and too long—he couldn’t see its head at all. And the part revealed when the clouds were blown away seemed to be only the tail section.
Facing the spectral energy shockwave released by the giant weirdo, the “giant fish skeleton” immediately counterattacked. The tail section suddenly grew flesh and blood at a visible rate. Strands of blood vessels converged together, forming a giant vortex.
They were called “blood vessels,” but given the “giant fish skeleton’s” size, each one was actually as thick and long as a great river.
So after that giant vortex condensed, it was like a black hole had appeared in the sky. And this “vortex” was precisely the vortex channel at the bottom of East Ring Lake.
“Heh, everyone’s showing their cards now, huh? Then it seems I can’t hold back either. Take a moon from me!”
