CHAPTER 437: CHAPTER 437: THE END OF FEATHER TRANSFORMATION

It was as if knowledge not belonging to this world roared in the sea of consciousness, transforming into a hunger-driven creature that instantly gnawed the soul into a thousand holes. The Great Sage’s "self" collapsed within a very short time, but was caught the next moment by the "web" and forcibly reassembled.

In a space shrouded in darkness, the shivering soul lay crouched on the web; its body was shriveled and wrinkled, hair and beard decayed and fallen away. Trembling, he raised his head, the eye sockets left behind by his own hands were empty voids, and the immense shadow had irretrievably imprinted itself into his cognition. Wherever he "looked," it seemed the figure eternally stood before him.

He felt as if he had become the legendary blind seer "Kongdaman," whose reckless peering had permanently burned his eyes onto the great web at the end, never to return to normality in life... but who was this blind seer Kongdaman?

...

Erin watched with interest the... thing, shivering in the darkness.

She could hardly make out what it was anymore, because in the past few seconds, that tiny soul kept shrinking, initially like a somewhat larger bug, but now it was almost the size of a grain of rice.

How interesting, would he continue to shrink? Would he compress himself into a speck of dust out of fear? Once compressed into a dust particle, could this soul still think and communicate?

Erin suddenly had many thoughts, but soon they faded away in her not-so-bright head. She did remember that the "outside" was still in chaos, and that she should find a way to help Yu Sheng clear the obstacles in front of the "Inference Star Body."

Thus, she extended a piece of spider silk in the darkness, draping it over the shivering soul.

She wanted to tie him up and take him back—though she didn’t know how to take a soul away, in fact, she hadn’t figured out what this dark, web-covered "space" was, but she felt there must be a way.

Maybe she could bind him into a small ball to keep him from further contracting? And then... maybe put him in a pocket to take back? Her little dress had a side pocket, sewn on by Yu Sheng himself, usually used to hold marbles and rubber bands, it should be able to store a soul as well. If that doesn’t work, she’d carry it back in her mouth like a silly fox...

Yu Sheng would praise her—the silly fox and C-clamp could only fight and slay, whereas the powerful Erin could capture prisoners on the battlefield alive.

The puppet squinted happily.

But in the next second, she saw the trembling soul suddenly shatter—in the instant the spider silk wound around, he disintegrated into ashes in the darkness.

Erin’s eyes widened in an instant, and as the soul dissipated, she heard his voice pass through the spider silk, weak and with a joyful relief: "Ah, thank you for your mercy..."

Erin: "..."

Stunned for less than a second, Erin jumped anxiously on the web, "Hey hey! What the hell are you thanking your mother for! Dammit, how can this thing be so fragile.. I didn’t mean for you to die ahhh!!"

But it was all irretrievable. A soul once devoured by the Inference Star Body was fragile beyond imagination. The puppet lost her spoils, and immediately afterward, the space also began to become unstable—the web constructed between the sacrifice and her quickly disintegrated.

Erin looked up, turned, and swore as she scrambled back.

She quickly escaped from the soul cage constructed by the Inference Star Body crystal, then traversed the "battlefield" where time flow was slowly returning to normal. She crawled past Luna, this time not daring to make eye contact with the C-clamp, but slipped like the wind past the web on the verge of breaking, finally diving headfirst under Yu Sheng’s arm.

The shattered crystals swept across the sky, then feebly, as if losing momentum, they fell from the high sky. The lightning storm brewing among the clouds roared, but before it struck, it quickly dissipated in the wind and rain. Immediately, a bizarre, low rumbling echoed across the wilderness.

The "Great Sages" built by the crystals disintegrated rapidly in the rumbling, innumerable crystalline fragments scattered into the mud and rubble.

The crystalline fissures across the ground trembled, yet no new "Great Sages" emerged from them.

Yu Sheng watched this scene in shock, momentarily unable to comprehend what had happened.

Then he felt a small head nudge under his arm. Looking down, he saw Erin sticking her head out, grinning at him sheepishly.

"I, I almost caught him!" The little puppet said, somewhat guiltily.

Yu Sheng: "...Ah?"

"Just a little more! I even found that guy’s soul, and the threads were already wrapping him. But as soon as I pulled, he shattered. It was so dark in the crystal, I didn’t realize he was so fragile. Plus, for some reason, he was terrified to death and had a severe self-destructive tendency. Yes, he must have self-destructed. I was careful, it really just took a light tug and he shattered..."

Erin babbled in a string at once, Yu Sheng even had no time to react to what she was babbling about. In the end, he half-understood that the Great Sage’s sudden "death" seemed to have something to do with this little puppet. She might have developed some new trick but wasn’t skilled with it yet...

As for exactly what new trick it was and what she had done before, he really couldn’t comprehend.

Clearly, now was not the time to delve into details.

The strange rumble continued to echo and did not disappear with the complete death of the "Great Sage." It seemed that something terrifying was brewing deep underground and... it was getting closer.

The distant mountains seemed to be shaking. The Crystal Jungle, covering the mountains and plains, was undulating and writhing peculiarly. The crystal structures emerging from the depths of the earth appeared to have come alive, restlessly stirring amid the low rumble.

Master Yuan Hao descended from the sky with Xuan Che. They had already sensed something amiss deep underground, and Yuan Hao, particularly, wore a solemn expression: "There is a demonic entity spreading malevolence."

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, but before he could speak, a more intense chaotic noise than before roared in his ears. Immediately afterward, his mind was in a trance. In that trance, he saw endless crystals growing and piling up in front of him, forming an enormous cave made of crystal, and then he saw a figure floating among the crystals—

Yun Qingzi stood there, his head raised within the crystal wall, and his face, fused with flesh and crystal, was smiling.

"Fellow Daoist... long time no see."

Yu Sheng jolted awake from the illusion.

Hu Li was the first to notice and immediately turned her head: "Savior, are you alright?"

"I’m fine—I found that guy!" Yu Sheng quickly waved his hand, a slight smile appearing on his face. "Originally, I was fretting over how to locate the ’core’ of such a large thing. I didn’t expect He would contact me voluntarily."

Xuan Che beamed at the news, but before he could speak, an even more dreadful rumble suddenly came from underground, abruptly interrupting everyone.

The next second, everyone instinctively looked up towards the source of the rumble.

The mountain at the end of the wilderness... split open.

The mountain seemed to have a living creature parasitized inside, and the thick rock layers were forcibly fractured like a fragile eggshell. In the broken mountain, hidden crystal structures flashed by, followed by enormous "limbs," as translucent as crystal, with a strange sheen, extending out of the mountain’s fissures!

That fearsome limb, like a mountain range, blindly stirred within Shuji’s thick atmosphere in a terrifying manner.

Rumbles sounded successively, originating from an even farther place.

In Shuji’s boundless rain curtains, another terrible limb seemed to appear among the distant clouds. It pierced the earth, infiltrated the atmosphere, turning over thick clouds, stirring fierce winds and torrential rain.

Erin stared wide-eyed, "What... what is that?!?"

Hu Li’s body instantly tensed, her fur puffed up, and her tail bristled like a peacock opening its tail in the wind and rain, emitting a threatening sound: "Woooworrr—"

Yu Sheng felt a cacophony of noise screaming in his mind. Amidst the tremendous, chaotic information assault, he desperately tried to "grasp" the current state of the Inference Star Body. Suddenly, a realization exploded in his consciousness, making him break out in cold sweat: "...No! The Inference Star Body is forcibly ending Feather Transformation... He wants to ’ascend’ early!"

"What?!" Erin was instantly shocked. "But Baili Qing said that even if this thing starts ascending, it would take several days?!"

"But the Inference Star Body now has intelligence—He sensed his Cognitive Barrier and minions set in Shuji were having successive problems, so He needs to leave this now unsafe ’habitat’ in advance," Yu Sheng quickly said. "Yun Qingzi is helping Him weigh the pros and cons!"

Xuan Che stepped forward: "Then..."

Yu Sheng interrupted Xuan Che before he could finish, forcefully gesturing with his hand. He frowned tightly as if listening intently amidst the wind and rain, quickly speaking afterward: "You and your Master Uncle go to Mo City. That city is currently Shuji’s largest ’Tearing Point.’ As long as that city remains, the Inference Star Body’s activity will be somewhat suppressed—this will buy us some time."

Xuan Che and Master Yuan Hao immediately nodded: "Understood!"

Hu Li turned her head: "Savior, what about us?"

Yu Sheng looked towards the distance, squinting slightly.

The earth was cracking, the dreadful crystalline limbs emerging from fissures and blindly writhing in the atmosphere.

As if an invitation.

But Yu Sheng’s focus wasn’t on the crystalline tentacle but on a closer fissure—that was where the "Great Sage" emerged during the first resurrection.

In the connection established by blood, he could see the intricate, profound structures beneath that fissure and the cavities pulsating deep underground.

"We’ll head underground and greet the ’Angel.’"