Chapter 656: Chapter 263: Power of the Progenitor, World Quest

His tone suggested he was open to discussion, but his eyes held a trace of unyielding command.

The hooded figure remained silent for a moment.

"Move."

A raspy voice, as if it hadn’t been used in a long time, spoke.

The newcomer clearly had no intention of cooperating. They didn’t even deign to waste another word, simply trying to sidestep Xiao Lingchen and press onward.

The smile on Xiao Lingchen’s face remained, but his right hand shot out like lightning and clamped down on the other person’s shoulder.

"Friend, we could have worked together..."

His voice grew colder.

"But if you’re not willing, then we’ll have to... resort to less conventional means."

The instant he finished speaking, his teammates back at the camp rose to their feet. Weapons were drawn, and waves of powerful energy instantly locked onto the slender figure.

In an instant, the air crackled with tension.

But in the next moment, the smile on Xiao Lingchen’s face froze solid.

WHOOSH!

Without any warning!

A massive drill, seemingly capable of devouring all light and condensed from pure darkness, erupted from behind the plainly dressed figure.

It then moved faster than the eye could follow, piercing straight through Xiao Lingchen’s waist.

Bizarrely, however, when Xiao Lingchen’s body was run through, there was no blood, no scream. Instead, he shattered like an illusion, dissolving into motes of light.

A short distance away, Xiao Lingchen reappeared, completely unharmed. The smile was gone from his face, replaced by a grave expression.

Back in the conference room, the onlookers erupted into a commotion as they watched the scene unfold.

"What a bizarre method of attack!"

"But... how was Xiao Lingchen defeated?"

Zhu Mingyi stared at the screen, utterly baffled. "Isn’t his Spirit supposed to be the most unbeatable ability? Physical attacks shouldn’t have any effect on him."

Sun Lie pulled a file from a stack of documents on the table. "Xiao Lingchen. Spirit: Two-Realm Traveler... What kind of effect does this Spirit have to warrant an SS-class rating!"

Yi Jiugao explained in a solemn voice, "Legend has it that the universe we inhabit is the material realm, one part of a vast, multidimensional cosmic sea."

"And beneath our world, there is a corresponding ’inverse world,’ one composed entirely of metaphysical concepts, Spirit, and information."

"Xiao Lingchen’s Spirit is simple. It allows his body—or rather, his very ’existence’—to freely traverse between the material realm and the conceptual realm."

"That’s why almost no attack originating in the material realm can ever truly harm him."

Back on screen, Xiao Lingchen seemed to have realized something. He looked at the silent figure opposite him and began to smile again, but this time, it was a cruel smile.

"Do you believe... that another world exists?"

From beneath the hood, Yui Hanyi’s raspy voice drifted out. "I do."

Xiao Lingchen’s smile widened. "Then do you know what happens... when two worlds collide?"

SNAP!

He snapped his fingers softly.

THUD!

Following a bizarrely muffled sound,

Yui Hanyi’s right shoulder... vanished without a trace.

There was no flash of an explosion, no shockwave. The sound was so faint it was barely audible.

The matter in that area was simply gone, as if erased from existence itself, annihilated into nothingness.

In the conference room, Yi Jiugao watched the scene, a glint in his eyes.

"Many people believe Xiao Lingchen’s Spirit is purely defensive, that it merely makes him invincible but lacks any offensive capability. They are completely and utterly mistaken."

"When he forces two realms from different dimensions to merge and collide... the result is annihilation."

However, Hou Guanghe, who had been silent until now, slowly shook his head. His aged voice carried a trace of a sigh.

"What a pity... that he ran into Yui Hanyi."

The moment he spoke,

On the screen, everything changed in an instant!

Great plumes of a bizarre substance suddenly poured from the black void where Yui Hanyi’s right shoulder had been. It resembled thick smoke, yet also seemed to be night itself given form.

The substance spread and expanded with incomprehensible speed!

In an instant, the endless darkness completely devoured the entire screen, leaving not a single speck of light behind.

"You..."

"This is impossible..."

"AHHHHH—!"

"What the hell is this stuff! Get away! Stay back!"

From the pitch-black screen, Xiao Lingchen’s cry of disbelief came first, followed by the terrified screams of his teammates.

The screams lasted only a few seconds before cutting off abruptly.

Then, a series of faint, hair-raising sounds echoed from the darkness.

It sounded like innumerable sticky bubbles popping, or perhaps... like some creature faintly chewing on something in the dark.

Accompanying these sounds were countless fragmented, incomprehensible whispers that seemed to originate from another dimension, sending a chill down the spine.

An unknown amount of time passed. After the gruesome sounds finally subsided, Xiao Lingchen’s voice was heard once more.

This time, however, the words that came from his mouth were no longer human.

"Consciousness is a conduit of reverse-fed energy... an inverted root system... The earth swallows the conduit to birth the complete void... We are in the afterbirth, the conduits binding a liquid clock..."

"The neck of the hourglass glows, pulsating as it sucks... Beneath the layers of sand, a connection to nature’s fragrance... walls of clotted blood walk toward the light."

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