The Liquid Metal Blade instantly extended to over a meter in length, slicing from top to bottom through the bed-bound, constantly writhing cocoon.

A naked body appeared in Sun Hang's sight. Many parts of this body showed signs of dissolution, adhering to the inner wall of the cocoon. At first glance, it looked like a mutated human embryo, and the outer cocoon was much like the maternal womb...

But none of this mattered... Sun Hang's gaze was completely drawn to something else.

On the head of this curled-up body was a mane of snow-white, silky long hair... This hair was extraordinarily beautiful and smooth, even though it was covered with revolting mucus, it did not evoke a shred of disgust, and even made one want to reach out and touch it...

The last time Sun Hang saw such white long hair... it was on Anna's head.

"Damn, could it be this guy causing trouble again?"

With this thought in mind, Sun Hang stepped forward, grabbed the body's shoulder, and flipped it over.

Sure enough, that familiar, flawless face appeared before Sun Hang once again.

At this moment, the face was covered with translucent mucus, in a complete mess... Yet this very mess created a peculiar beauty, a beauty capable of directly arousing the violent desire within human nature.

Unfortunately, Sun Hang felt none of that.

"Son of a bitch," Sun Hang cursed calmly.

"Anna" smiled at him, and the next second, that perfect face began to dissolve, transforming rapidly into a bare white skull.

Immediately, the surrounding scenery began to change... The originally real scene suddenly felt like one of those distorted old photographs, filled with a grainy blur. Sun Hang turned his head and saw Xu Dasheng and Mr. Chen standing outside, maintaining their previous posture, frozen as if time had stopped.

"What the hell?"

A strong sense of disorientation rushed over him, and Sun Hang suddenly found himself sitting in the driver's seat of an off-road vehicle, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel.

All around was a vast wilderness, with nothing to see except some dry, low bushes.

"Where the hell did this bring me? Is this still home?"

Sun Hang glanced at the navigation system, only to find the signal had interrupted, the last recorded position being the toll station at Celestial City's south gate.

He pulled out his phone, discovering over forty missed calls, nearly thirty of which were from Yang Qi.

Besides missed calls, there was a heap of unread messages.

His phone similarly had no signal, but fortunately, he could still view the previously received messages.

Sun Hang tapped on those unread messages one by one.

"Yang Qi: Sun Hang are you insane? Driving through twenty-eight roadblocks? Not answering calls? Call me back when you see these messages!"

"Yang Qi: What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Yang Qi: Can you see the messages I'm sending you?"

"Yang Qi: What's wrong with you? Reply soon!"

"Yang Qi: You better not be in trouble, don't scare me!"

"Yang Qi: The monitoring bracelet shows everything is fine, what's happening, can you tell me, I won't stop you."

"Yang Qi: Are you in danger?"

"Yang Qi: How's the situation now? You're driving south, almost out of Celestial City's range, what's over there?"

"Yang Qi: Sun Hang can you reply to me? I've contacted everyone I can, we'll set up a checkpoint on your route, if you don't tell me why, we'll have to use force to stop you."

"Wang Xiyi: Sun Hang, why aren't you replying to Yang Qi?"

"Wang Xiyi: I'm heading to your location, will be there soon, no mishaps, hear me?"

"Wang Xiyi: Where are you? Where?"

With the unread messages read, Sun Hang raised his left hand... The monitoring bracelet originally on his wrist had vanished.

According to the texts, it seemed he had lost consciousness while driving and fell into that illusion, while in reality, he had driven through dozens of roadblocks under some unknown force, and exited Celestial City from the south.

Obviously, Yang Qi's so-called "forceful measures" didn't manage to stop him... Wang Xiyi didn't even see a shadow of him.

"So... where the hell am I now?"

Sun Hang looked at the time displayed on his phone—assuming there were no issues with the time, it had been fourteen hours since he left the Celestial City Mysterious Creature Research Institute.

At the speed of this off-road vehicle, fourteen hours, heading south all the way...

Was enough to drive out of the Xiazhou Federation's control zone... into the unknown and dangerous "Surrendered Area."

"I couldn't be in the Surrendered Area, could I?"

Sun Hang's nose twitched slightly, but he didn't smell any eerie scents.

It was 9 AM now, under normal circumstances it should be daylight, but outside the car window it remained pitch black, indicating Sun Hang was still within the range shrouded by Eternal Night.

He had seen Eternal Night's satellite images on Yang Qi's computer, besides Shuzhou, a considerable portion of the Surrendered Area in the Yundian Region was also under Eternal Night.