In an instant, the ghost-energy black mist in the space transformed into countless demonic palms, clawing at both sides of the hole Shen Ge had smashed into the giant fleshy tumor, as if trying to pry it completely open and tear it apart.
At the same time, other demonic palms condensed from the ghost-energy black mist reached toward Shen Ge’s location. Although they couldn’t see him, they tried to grab him by tracking his ghost energy.
Shen Ge, who had been planning to sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight, hadn’t expected the sixth-tier ghost to try taking him down along with the Alien Queen. Using his attribute amplification, he slid backward over a dozen meters in a single step. “Heh, quite the appetite you’ve got. One quasi-sixth-tier ghost isn’t enough for you to eat, so you set your sights on me too?”
Shen Ge had already replenished his ghost energy with mental apples. At this point, he wasn’t afraid of a war of attrition with the sixth-tier ghost—especially since the other party had to deal with him while also facing another ghost.
“Want to deal with me?” How could Shen Ge let the sixth-tier ghost have it so easy? He didn’t engage the sixth-tier ghost directly at all. Relying on the concealment of his three traits and the nearly hundred-fold speed boost from attribute amplification, he deployed his Motionless Ghost Domain and used “bullet time” to perfectly dodge the covering attack of the black mist hands.
After escaping from the attack point, it would take the sixth-tier ghost some time to lock onto Shen Ge’s position again. Shen Ge took that opportunity to spread his ghost domain and “help” it attack the giant fleshy tumor.
Originally, facing the sixth-tier ghost’s attack, the Alien Queen was doing everything it could to condense ghost energy near the blood hole for defense, locked in a stalemate with the black mist hands.
Shen Ge’s ghost domain swept from the outside in, directly scattering the black mist hands’ attack—those clawing at the blood hole were blown apart outright.
Although the collision of ghost energy produced tremendous twisting force, tearing at the fleshy tumor while also tearing at the entire “space”—which was to say, the sixth-tier ghost’s belly.
Shen Ge’s meddling made the sixth-tier ghost mistakenly believe the Alien Queen had grown to such a terrifying level. So it increased its ghost-energy expenditure to attack the giant tumor, even going so far as to divert the portion of ghost energy originally meant for locking onto Shen Ge’s position and attacking him.
The Alien Queen’s situation was similar to the sixth-tier ghost’s. Facing the assault of twisting force, it thought the sixth-tier ghost had ramped up its offensive, so it accelerated its devouring of blood eggs—replenishing ghost energy while contending with the sixth-tier ghost.
Little did either ghost know that what they were “contending” with wasn’t each other, but the twisting force generated by the collision of ghost energy—a force capable of tearing even space itself.
And Shen Ge, ever the one to enjoy watching the chaos and stir the pot, mobilized his ghost domain to cause trouble on both sides, determined to muddy the waters as much as possible.
Under Shen Ge’s stirring, the ghost energy in the entire space even formed a ghost-energy storm. The twisting force frantically tore at the whole space, and soon the “ceiling,” the “floor,” and the giant fleshy tumor were all ripped with gashes.
Facing the ghost-energy storm erupting from the “inside,” both ghosts had to expend massive amounts of ghost energy to maintain their healing power and restore their wounds.
As the instigator, Shen Ge wasn’t having an easy time either. The ghost-energy storm wasn’t his ability—it was just an indiscriminate attack triggered by his ghost domain—and he was on the storm’s attack list too.
So however fun it had been to stir things up earlier, now he had to dodge attacks from two sources of ghost energy while also splitting his focus to control his ghost domain and escape the storm.
Though Shen Ge was also in danger, at least with the ghost-energy storm’s “help,” he had successfully kept the two ghosts busy with their internal strife, leaving them no attention to spare for this outsider.
But the space-tearing force unleashed by the ghost-energy storm was too powerful. The ghost energy Shen Ge had just replenished was already down a small portion from maintaining his ghost domain’s defense.
Shen Ge knew that if this dragged on, he would probably be torn apart by the ghost-energy storm first, and only after that would it be the Alien Queen’s and sixth-tier ghost’s turn.
Shen Ge scanned his surroundings, then noticed a large crater on the floor directly ahead, torn open by the ghost-energy storm—and there seemed to be more space below.
Shen Ge obviously wasn’t willing to stay in this space and be worn down to death. Sure, getting through that crater to the lower level meant facing the wildly raging ghost-energy storm above, but that was still better than being stuck in the middle of the space, dealing with two high-tier ghosts’ ghost-energy collision while also having to handle the ghost-energy storm.
Most importantly, based on the underground research facility’s structure, this definitely wasn’t the “bottom level.” He might even stumble onto the research facility by accident.
After all, whether it was the Stick Country, Sakura, or the Great Heavenly Dynasty, underground research facilities all shared a certain unspoken “understanding”—the more important the lab, the deeper it was “buried,” for fear that spies might dig it out.
So even though he didn’t know who had built this underground research facility, following the principle that the more important something is, the deeper it’s buried, Shen Ge was determined to head all the way down and check out the bottom level.
Facing the highly destructive ghost-energy storm before him, the best plan Shen Ge could think of was “mistification” combined with an invisible barrier that didn’t deploy a ghost domain.
Sure, against a ghost-energy storm of this caliber, the invisible barrier’s strength was about as good as paper—but even if it only bought him a second, he could use mistification to quickly pass through the storm’s tearing zone and enter that “blood hole.”
“Barrier!”
Shen Ge first tried condensing several invisible barriers to try blocking the ghost-energy storm, but before they even fully touched it, he heard “crack crack” shattering sounds.
The instant the invisible barriers fully contacted the ghost-energy storm, they were instantly shredded into fragments and swept in all directions.
“An invisible barrier at 1% ghost-energy intensity shatters on contact. At this rate of shattering, I’d need at least ten times the intensity to have any effect…” Shen Ge felt a headache coming on, but now was clearly not the time to skimp on ghost energy, because as the three-way ghost-energy collision continued, the resulting storm grew stronger and stronger.
The “space” had originally been at least the size of a football field. Now the ghost-energy storm had already taken up three-fifths of it. Even though the Alien Queen was absorbing most of it, the threat to Shen Ge was still enormous.
Shen Ge didn’t waste time thinking. He immediately spent more than half his ghost energy to condense an unprecedentedly powerful barrier—but even so, it lasted less than two seconds against the ghost-energy storm before cracks appeared.
Fortunately, with attribute amplification, Shen Ge’s speed was enough to rush from the plaza to the central “blood hole” within those two seconds, then enter mistification and fly in.
Below the blood hole was a pitch-black space. Shen Ge could sense the ghost energy surging within it, as if trying to repair the wounds torn open by the ghost-energy storm.
But strangely, as the ghost energy in the space was consumed, Shen Ge could clearly feel the entire space being compressed to its limit.
The “compression” here wasn’t just a change in spatial size—the various gases and ghost energy in the space were being compressed as well.
As the ghost energy’s intensity rose, the “blood hole” healed faster and faster, but the pressure Shen Ge felt grew more and more intense.
Shen Ge knew he couldn’t just sit and wait for death. Once the sixth-tier ghost gained complete control, it would be very difficult to break free.
Ghost domain!
Shen Ge used the same trick again, spreading his ghost domain to its maximum extent. To be safe, he also mobilized dream power and injected it into the ghost energy.
The ghost domain condensed beneath his feet turned into a “sharp blade” thrusting downward. As the saying goes, once your head is out, why cower? He had made up his mind to probe the existence of the “bottom level.” Jumping into that blood hole now meant no turning back—so he might as well go all the way.
Whether it was because of the ghost-energy storm erupting inside the sixth-tier ghost’s belly, or because Shen Ge’s ghost domain was infused with dream power, the “sharp blade” pierced through the ghost-energy defense below just like it had pierced the Alien Queen’s belly—seemingly opening another gap.
Shen Ge didn’t waste time thinking. The moment he sensed the gap, he immediately “slipped” through. A dim green glow appeared around him, looking like the several firefly-bug-ghost-covered passages he had encountered before.
After steadying himself, Shen Ge shone his ghost-energy flashlight around. The spacious experiment area was completely different from before—clearly not the same region.
That put Shen Ge at ease. His biggest fear was spending enormous effort drilling down only to end up back where he started. His remaining ghost energy and mental apples weren’t enough for that kind of runaround.
Shen Ge first tried releasing “Collapse” at the floor beneath him again, but immediately felt a strong ghost-energy obstruction, so he promptly withdrew his invisible ghost domain.
For one thing, he was worried that excessively releasing ghost domain power would get him locked onto by the sixth-tier ghost again. For another, maintaining a ghost domain continuously was also a drain.
Shen Ge explored the surroundings with his ghost-energy flashlight. The first thing to confirm was whether this was the “bottom level.” If not, he’d need to find this area’s “weak point,” then use his ghost domain and ghost-energy equipment to break open a gap and continue downward.
This experiment area was at least several hundred square meters. On the wall at the end of every direction were several “metal hatch doors.” And similar to the upper levels and the situation inside the Alien Queen’s belly, these metal hatches were either covered in a thick layer of ghostly flesh and blood or blanketed with fungal carpet.
Moreover, none of the doors had any distinguishing marks or numbers. If not for the differences in the thickness and size of the flesh and fungal carpet attached to them, Shen Ge wouldn’t even have been able to tell them apart.
Shen Ge opened one of the doors and walked inside. Behind the door was a passage whose flesh walls were covered with firefly-bug ghosts, filled with dense ghost-energy black mist.
After entering and walking forward for a while, Shen Ge was surprised to find that despite continuously moving forward, the passage seemed endless—he had walked for over ten minutes and still hadn’t seen an exit.
The strangest part was that he could see the “exit” at the end, yet the sense of distance between the “entrance” he had come through behind him and the “exit” ahead seemed almost identical.
For the next ten-plus minutes, whether Shen Ge walked toward the “exit” or the “entrance,” the distance seemed unchanged.
“Ghost-energy erosion?” Shen Ge quickly realized something was wrong. He had thought maintaining his three traits and mistification would avoid most attacks, but years of protection under the system had made him overlook that ghost-energy black mist also had a certain mental attack effect.
In the past, under the double protection of the Red Mist Armor and the system, Shen Ge never had to worry about mental attacks. But Fang Mingyue, Hu Tinglan, and the others trapped in the ghost space with him couldn’t withstand the ghost-energy erosion’s effects—they frequently fell into hallucinations and ultimately had to rely on Shen Ge to pull them out.
But now Shen Ge was missing a layer of defense, and on top of that, the one releasing this ghost energy was a sixth-tier ghost of the same tier as him. This meant that although mistification successfully defended against the physical damage from ghost-energy erosion, it couldn’t block the mental effects of ghost-energy erosion.
Put simply, Shen Ge was affected by ghost-energy erosion and fell into a hallucination—which was why no matter which direction he walked, the distance between the “exit” and “entrance” never changed.
Once Shen Ge realized the problem, he immediately condensed an invisible barrier to form a sealed space, then released ghost energy to neutralize the ghost-energy black mist filling the space. As the black mist inside the sealed space decreased at a visible rate, the groggy feeling in his mind immediately recovered.
When Shen Ge’s consciousness fully returned, he discovered that he was still standing at the passage entrance. In other words, he had just walked for nearly half an hour and hadn’t moved a single step?
What was even more surprising was that the passage he had seen before looked like the metal-built corridors commonly seen in sci-fi movies—just covered with a layer of flesh and fungal carpet, crawling with green firefly-bug ghosts.
But now, what appeared before Shen Ge was a flesh passage tinged with dark red, looking entirely like a “throat” and “intestines.” Arm-thick blood vessels were visible on the flesh walls, black blood flowing through them, and the walls pulsated like a heart.
Although Shen Ge was surprised by the passage’s transformation, he was already inside it. Now using the invisible barrier to isolate the ghost-energy black mist, he naturally had to go to the exit and see what was there.
Shen Ge walked forward for nearly ten minutes and finally reached the “exit” position. After using the Pig-Slaying Knife to cut away the flesh covering it, he forcibly opened the hatch.
But the “space” behind the door was identical to the experiment area Shen Ge had just fallen into—even the metal hatches on the surrounding walls, obscured by flesh and fungal carpet, hadn’t changed at all.
“Did I loop back around?” Shen Ge walked toward the right wall based on memory, then arrived at the hatch he had entered through.
“The flesh is about ten centimeters thick. The hatch next to it has fungal carpet covering it from top to bottom, about three centimeters thick, stopping at the middle of the door…” Since the doors had no marks or distinguishing symbols, Shen Ge could only “remember” them through this spot-the-difference method.
He opened the first door again. Behind it: passage, firefly-bug ghosts, flesh, dense ghost-energy black mist—identical to the door he had entered before, to say the least.
Shen Ge stood at the doorway observing for a while. With the naked eye alone, he couldn’t find any difference. So he activated his ghost eye to observe. Apart from the ghost energy being slightly stronger than the previous passage, he couldn’t see any detail differences either.
This time, Shen Ge directly maintained the sealed space formed by the invisible barrier to protect himself, then walked into the passage. Without the hallucination’s influence this time, it took him less than fifteen minutes to smoothly traverse the passage and reach the “exit.”
Cutting flesh, breaking the door—a series of operations in one fluid motion. But behind the door… was still the same empty experiment area as before.
