fantasy novels Chapter 171 The Stars Are Coming, It's Up to You
Chapter 171 The Stars Are Coming, It's Up to You
The feeling of weightlessness came the instant we passed the bottom of the vortex.
The concepts of up, down, left, and right are completely overturned here.
The front foot had just landed firmly when the back foot drifted in the completely opposite direction.
Before my eyes lay a dark red plain of flesh and blood, slowly undulating and writhing, like the slumbering stomach of some giant beast.
A thick, yellow liquid kept seeping from the walls, dripping onto the scattered metal debris and making a sizzling, corrosive sound.
The severity of the environment far exceeded my expectations.
The wreckage of a brutally dismantled Gothic building floats overhead, while deformed cars and shattered stone pillars collide with each other in zero gravity, emitting dull, mournful sounds.
The grayish-white mist wandered around the space. Only when you got closer could you see that the mist was actually composed of countless elongated human-shaped wronged souls.
They opened their mouths wide, but no sound came out; only a series of mournful, silent wails echoed in everyone's ears.
The air was filled with a strong smell of rust and the sour, putrid odor of high concentrations of stomach acid.
Just taking a breath makes my esophagus and lungs feel like they're burning and aching.
This is the sacred "stomach" that the high priests of Europe spoke of, and frankly, this cheap set isn't even as good as the ones in third-rate horror movies.
"Damn it, what kind of place is this?!"
Zhao Leiguang was thrown around by the chaotic force field and felt completely disoriented.
He tried to slam the Earth Pulse Twin Shields into the ground to stabilize his center of gravity, but an invisible repulsive force rebounded from the fleshy surface, making it impossible for the shields to gain any leverage.
His feet suddenly left the ground, and his whole body began to spin uncontrollably like a top.
"Damn it, there's no sportsmanship here!" Old Zhao pounded his shield in anger, his face turning red. "How can you use the strength of the ground when you're stepping on flesh?"
His Earth Pulse suit was completely disconnected from the earth here, and his proud elemental power was completely isolated.
The dump truck stalled, which made him furious.
An even more critical situation followed.
The surrounding walls of flesh and blood contracted violently, and terrifying spatial forces tightened around the team members' bodies from all directions.
Countless invisible hands, one grabbing their left leg and the other pulling their right arm, were about to tear them apart.
The first squad's originally tight formation was torn apart by this force, leaving several cracks.
"Captain, the spatial coordinates are shifting at high speed, we'll be separated!" Lin Chuxue gripped her staff tightly, with no room to even cast blood magic to protect herself.
Once separated by this turbulent current, the only fate for those left behind is to be dissolved into a pool of blood by the digestive fluids here.
At this critical moment, Shen Xinglin made his move.
The "ever-changing" lance in his hand suddenly burst out with a dazzling silver light.
"drink!"
This knight, who usually spoke very little, suddenly exerted force in his waist and gripped the gun barrel upside down with both hands.
Instead of resisting the repulsive force, he followed its momentum and plunged the tip of his spear deep into the writhing flesh and blood beneath his feet.
puff!
The gun blade sliced through the flesh, and dark red, foul-smelling liquid splattered high into the air.
Centered on the point where the spear tip was inserted, more than a dozen silver chains made of pure energy suddenly shot out from the spear.
With a clattering sound, the chains seemed to have eyes, tracing precise paths through the air and firmly binding the waists of each teammate who was about to lose control.
"receive!"
Shen Xinglin's arms bulged with muscles and veins. With a powerful pull, Zhao Leiguang, Lin Chuxue, and the others, who were flying in mid-air, were instantly and steadily pulled back to his side by an irresistible force.
This lance, originally used for thrusting, is now serving as a giant, stabilizing force.
No matter how much the surrounding space was squeezed and stretched, the anchor point that Shen Xinglin had created with his body and weapons remained completely still.
Lu Yan stood firmly beside Shen Xinglin. He looked up and surveyed the scene in the distance.
"Look ahead."
Following Lu Yan's direction, an extremely oppressive scene came into everyone's view.
A hundred meters away, suspended in mid-air, was a giant cage woven from thick white bones.
Inside the cage, Chinese soldiers were imprisoned in dense crowds.
The second squad's "Heart of Molten Core" heavy armor lost its former scorching luster and became dull and lifeless.
The members of the fourth detachment were tightly bound by countless fleshy tentacles and could not move.
Those tentacles, like greedy leeches, were relentlessly draining the life energy from their bodies. The warriors' vital signs were weakening at a visible rate.
Outside the bone cell stood a guard who was two sizes taller than the previous Saint Laurent.
The man was carrying a giant bone scythe that was over ten meters long, with bits of meat, whose name was unknown and which hadn't dried properly, still clinging to its blade.
Su Yunqing stared at her trapped comrade, her brows furrowed in worry. The Gift of Yaoguang in her hand emitted a rapid buzzing sound, its light flickering erratically.
"Captain, their rate of life loss is abnormal; it's not just a simple blood draw."
She quickly brought up the feedback data from the treatment interface, her voice tinged with anxiety, "Those tentacles are injecting some kind of gibberish into the depths of their souls."
This is the same virus as the Holy Maiden's Prayer you analyzed before!
They are attempting to assimilate these thousands of elite Chinese soldiers. Once successfully assimilated, these top warriors will become super batteries for the arrival of a false god.
Lu Yan did not rush to issue the attack order.
The disk of nothingness spun smoothly in his palm, and the data streams that returned were frantically scrolling across his retina.
In his mind, the essence of this chaotic space before him was being deconstructed and reorganized layer by layer.
Space distortion, soul extraction, the construction of bone prisons... Beneath these appearances lies a hidden, extremely crude, and violent encryption mechanism.
At first glance, it's easy to mistake this for some kind of advanced magic circle, but further analysis reveals that it's clearly an extremely rudimentary botnet infection program.
These higher-dimensional beings claim to be gods, but in reality, they are nothing more than low-level hackers. They use religious fanaticism as a Trojan horse, turning believers into human nodes, and then using these nodes to forcibly tamper with the local rules of Earth.
Interestingly, the vulnerability in this firewall is surprisingly large.
They lack the ability to construct sophisticated rules and rely entirely on piling up living materials to make up the numbers. As long as the physical impact exceeds its threshold, the wall will be as dilapidated as if it were made of paper.
From a system architecture perspective, using believers as computing power nodes is a disaster.
If redundant data is forcibly injected into a node by external forces, the entire network will experience a chain reaction of collapse.
Lu Yan didn't even need to defeat him head-on.
All you need to do is stuff the assimilated redundant code back into its core, and this broken server will crash on its own.
In this so-called "stomach" space, all energy flows are highly purposeful.
The life force being extracted is flowing along the veins of flesh and blood underground, converging entirely at the feet of the guard wielding the giant scythe.
That huge thing is not only the guardian, but also the energy hub of this space, a giant router.
Once we eliminate him and cut off the power supply, the Bone Cage will naturally crumble.
"We have to get there."
Lu Yan reported the tactics in the team channel, "The distance is too far, Wen Yue can't reach his weakness, and Chu Xue's spells will be mostly absorbed by the spatial distortion."
Someone has to break the deadlock in close combat and forcefully smash a path through.
In the past, Zhao Lei would be the one to do this kind of work, shield in hand, acting as a bulldozer. But now that the earth element is ineffective, the protection paladin's charging ability is greatly reduced.
"I'll go."
A deep, steady baritone voice broke in.
Everyone turned their heads away.
Shen Xinglin pulled the lance out of the bloody ground with one hand, flicked his wrist to shake off the disgusting slime. He volunteered and took a step forward.
"I'll go and break through the defenses."
He patted the "Ever-Changing" gun in his hand, and the gun emitted a soft ringing sound.
"My weapons can withstand the repulsion here. I'll carve out a passage for you."
This guardian knight, who always stood at the back of the team and was only responsible for blocking the fatal blow at the critical moment, showed a completely different side at this moment.
He wants to be the sharpest spear.
Xiao Qianyu gripped the Dragon King Halberd tightly and turned her gaze to Lu Yan.
Lu Yan nodded without hesitation.
"Xinglin, it's up to you now."