The system is four years ahead of schedule, but Weird is still a cub.

Shen Ge easily crushed the group of bizarre "seahorses" blocking his way. The viscous, bizarre blood was blocked by an invisible barrier before it could even get close.

He traversed the wide vascular passage and finally reached the end of this exploration: the final chamber containing the giant, eerie heart.

The scene before me was even more breathtaking than what I saw aboard the Jiaolong submersible.

This enormous heart, resembling a small satellite, floats in the very center of the chamber. With each beat, it unleashes terrifying, eerie energy tides that cause the surrounding seawater to boil.

Thick blood vessels, like those of a giant python, connect to the four walls of the cavity, delivering immense life energy to every inch of this enormous and bizarre body.

Shen Ge hovered at the entrance of the chamber, stepping on an invisible barrier, without daring to approach rashly. His [Strange Eye] was already activated, its vision penetrating the thick flesh and blood tissue, reaching deep into the core of the heart.

A moment later, a look of "I knew it" appeared on his face.

empty.

This giant heart, which appears to be the energy center, is also completely empty inside.

It's just a disguise.

A massive, sophisticated flesh pump and energy amplifier, a mimicry trap designed to attract and strangle any intruders who dare to enter.

"interesting."

Shen Ge was not disappointed at all; on the contrary, she became interested.

The fact that it could pull off such a trick shows that this King-level monster is not just a beast that acts on instinct. It possesses a considerable degree of intelligence, and one could even say... cunning.

He didn't rush to destroy the "fake heart," as that would only trigger a violent backlash from the entire bizarre ecosystem, which would be pointless.

He calmed himself down and raised his perception of supernatural energy to an unprecedented level, beginning to reverse-track and analyze every minute flow of supernatural energy within the cavity.

A tremendous amount of energy is pumped out from the heart and flows in all directions;
Countless faint command signals, like a spider web, converge from all directions, controlling every beat of the heart.

Soon, Shen Ge found the source.

In a corner of the cavity, in an inconspicuous area covered by layers of flesh folds, there was an ordinary sarcoma that looked no different from the surrounding flesh.

All the command signals ultimately pointed to that place.

Shen Ge's figure flashed and he instantly appeared in front of the tumor.

Seemingly sensing the threat of the powerful and strange energy, the tumor suddenly began to writhe violently, and the flesh on its surface bloomed like flower petals. A monster, not large in size but about three meters tall, and resembling a deep-sea "water bear," burst out from it!
Its body is a semi-transparent, gelatinous substance, containing a complex neural network that shimmers with an eerie light. Its eerie energy fluctuations are not particularly strong, hovering around level five or six.

Faced with Shen Ge suddenly appearing before him, this "water bear monster" did not show the slightest panic, but instead emitted a high-frequency eerie hiss.

In an instant, the entire "Crawling Nest," this massive living "ecosystem," came to life!
The digestive fluids, which were originally writhing erratically, quickly solidified and bulged under Shen Ge's feet, turning into dozens of sturdy fleshy spikes that closed in on him like a cage, attempting to pierce and imprison him.

Above and around him, the swaying nerve bundles instantly taut, weaving into a massive, chaotic web of supernatural energy that loomed overhead. The supernatural pulses emanating from the web were specifically designed to interfere with and suppress the supernatural energy activity of intruders.

What troubled Shen Ge even more was that the blood vessel he had come through was now completely sealed off, and the vessel wall was beginning to secrete a special enzyme solution with strong corrosive properties, which was gradually dissolving the [Out of the Ghost Domain] barrier he had set up.

This "water bear monster" did not choose to engage in a one-on-one battle with Shen Ge. It sensed Shen Ge's powerful strange energy fluctuations, and its fragile body could not even last a second in front of an eighth-tier monster king.

It chose to turn the entire "Crawling Nest," a living maze large enough to rival a small city, into its weapon!

Shen Ge could easily shatter these flesh and blood cages, and also easily tear apart that strange energy electric net.

But the moment he shattered a flesh spike, the surrounding flesh began to writhe and regenerate at an even faster rate, rebuilding a thicker and stronger spike.

He was trapped in a quagmire, an endless war of attrition made up of endless flesh and blood and bizarre energy. Even if he could kill that "water bear monster" a hundred times in an instant, as long as that huge "body" was still there, that fragile "brain" could regenerate infinitely with the help of this ecosystem.

Unless... he can wipe this living labyrinth, comparable to a mountain range, completely from this world in a single strike.

But in that case, the core samples he needed would also be lost.

“Heh,” Shen Ge laughed instead of getting angry, “You have some brains, but not many.”

Shen Ge stopped all pointless acts of destruction.

He stood in mid-air, letting the surrounding walls of flesh and blood squeeze and contract like the esophagus of a giant beast, and letting the net of eerie energy, flickering with chaotic arcs of electricity, slowly descend. The invisible barrier of [Without Leaving the Ghost Domain] kept all physical attacks at bay.

The strange tardigrade hiding in the shadows seemed to have sensed the difficulty of its prey and its attack became even more frantic.

The entire chamber was trembling violently, and a vast amount of strange energy was being mobilized, attempting to completely crush and digest Shen Ge, this stubborn "stone".

Shen Ge ignored this.

He slowly closed his eyes, raising his perception of supernatural abilities to an unprecedented level.

He stopped "seeing" the flesh and lightning, stopped "hearing" the irritating roar. He began to "listen" and "analyze".

Listen to every command issued by that "mysterious tardigrade," analyze the core of its control over this vast ecosystem, and the unique "mysterious energy resonance frequency" that is as rhythmic as a heartbeat.

It's like trying to catch the faint sound of a particular butterfly flapping its wings in a storm that sweeps across the land.

For others, this is an impossible task.

But for Shen Ge, it's only a matter of time.

……

Meanwhile, inside the Jiaolong submersible, tens of thousands of meters above sea level.

Yoona and Yu Tiexiong stared at the area on the main screen that was completely covered by blood-red energy and where the signal was completely cut off, their faces filled with worry.

"Is the captain... alright?" Yu Tiexiong asked in a muffled voice, feeling uncertain about Shen Ge's situation for the first time.

"No." Yoona's answer was simple and firm, but her clenched fists betrayed her nervousness.

They were not idle.

Following the instructions Shen Ge left before entering, several top researchers from Rong City aboard the ship were conducting intensive, urgent analysis of tissue samples from the "psychic barnacles" and "ghost ships" collected during the previous battle. "Got it!"

A young researcher suddenly looked up, his voice trembling with excitement. Pointing to a set of data that had just been analyzed on the screen, he reported to Yoon-ah, "We've discovered these symbiotic and parasitic anomalies. Their anomaly frequencies all have a fixed 'harmonic relationship' with the anomaly fluctuations of the 'Wriggling Nest' main body that we recorded earlier. Their frequencies are like accompaniment to the main frequency!"

Another researcher said, "Harmonic relationships... I understand. These parasitic anomalies are like 'receivers' in this ecosystem. If we can decipher this 'dominant frequency,' we might be able to interfere with its signal!"

He immediately transformed this major discovery into an ultra-long wave communication signal containing complex frequency data and interference theory, and transmitted it at maximum power toward the bottom of the "nest".

……

Inside the "Crawling Nest".

Shen Ge opened her eyes.

He slowly raised his right hand, and an "invisible" transparent giant hand condensed in the air.

Next, the [Silent Ghost Realm] unfolds!

The silent domain completely blocked out the surrounding "signals," preventing the "water bear monster" from changing its "nest" through sound.

In an instant, the entire living maze "crashed".

The "water bear monster" was horrified to discover that all the commands it issued suddenly disappeared the moment they came into contact with the silent, eerie domain.

Its "link" to the massive body of the "nest" has been forcibly severed!

The digestive fluids beneath their feet stopped wriggling, the electrical arcs in the nerve bundles above their heads went out, and the accompanying anomalies surging from all directions lost their unified command, beginning to follow their most primal instincts, attacking and tearing at each other frantically.

The entire ecosystem of the "nest" was plunged into a self-destructive crisis!

Shen Ge's figure appeared in front of the "water bear monster" that had become stiff due to losing control, and now it no longer had the protection of its huge body.

Having lost control of its "nest," the tardigrade instantly transformed from a formidable "environmental manipulator" back into a "vulnerable" monster.

Its translucent gelatinous body trembled violently, emitting eerie energy fluctuations as it instinctively tried to shrink back into the tumor that served as its shelter.

But Shen Ge didn't give it that chance.

An invisible, condensed hand seized it, and no matter how it "resurrected," it could no longer obtain the eerie energy support of the "nest."

"puff."

A soft sound, like popping a bubble, rang out.

The hand, imbued with the terrifying power of an eighth-tier Ghost King, easily pierced through the defensive field and gelatinous body of the "Water Bear Ghost," precisely crushing the constantly flickering, core ganglion within its body.

"The water bear is strange," it died.

As its consciousness completely dissipated, the chaos of the entire "wriggling nest" gradually subsided. Without the command of the "brain," this vast ecosystem was essentially paralyzed.

The viscous digestive juices stopped flowing, the swaying nerve bundles lost their light, and the accompanying parasitic monsters burrowed back into the flesh, plunging the entire living labyrinth into a deathly silence.

This provided Shen Ge with an excellent opportunity to "take a sample".

He was no longer hindered and, in a flash, arrived in front of the "fake heart" that was still beating slowly.

With the "Heart-Piercing" ability of the [Invisible] characteristic, Shen Ge's palm seemed to pass through a phantom, ignoring the thick flesh and blood tissue, and directly probed into the heart.

Without damaging its overall structure, he precisely peeled off a small, fist-sized piece of core tissue located at the root of the aorta, containing the purest "regeneration" supernatural power.

Shen Ge quickly stored it in a portable sealed container specially made by Li Xiang that could temporarily isolate all strange energy fluctuations.

The first core raw material for the "Sequence-X" project has been successfully acquired.

Having achieved his main objective, Shen Ge was not in a hurry to leave.

He hovered before the enormous heart, activating his [Eerie Eye] to its maximum, and began a thorough scan of this disguised central organ.

He wanted to know what it was that could make a monster of the King-level caliber willingly become a "puppet," using its massive body to construct such an intricate trap.

The scan continued to penetrate deeper, passing through layers of muscle fibers, vascular networks, and ganglia... Finally, deep within the heart, an object, completely out of place in its surrounding flesh and blood environment, appeared in his field of vision. It was enveloped by countless thick aortic vessels and energy-conducting nerve bundles.

It was a "sphere" with a diameter of over fifty meters.

It is not made of flesh and blood, but of some unknown alloy that shimmers with a dark golden luster.

The surface of the sphere is engraved with countless intricate, twisted, yet mysteriously regular energy veins in a non-human style.

A… “man-made object”?
Shen Ge's heart skipped a beat.

This enormous "artificial object" is the true core of the existence of this "heart," and even the entire "wriggling nest."

This colossal anomaly, which appears terrifying to outsiders and is classified as a King-level monster, does not seem to have been formed naturally. It is more like a man-made anomaly that has been carefully "cultivated" or "modified" by some unknown force.

Its sole purpose seems to be to provide this mysterious metal sphere with a continuous source of eerie energy.

What exactly is this thing?
Who put it here?
Is the door to the "Fragmented World" that the madmen of the New God Cult tried so hard to open related to it?
After losing the Red Mist Armor, Shen Ge lost his storage space for objects. Otherwise, he would have stuffed the metal ball into his storage space and taken it back for the Special Operations Department to study.

However, compared to continuing to investigate this "nest" or study this metal sphere, the most important thing right now is to bring the "sample" back and solve the "dead strain" before discussing other issues.

Shen Ge quickly left the heart chamber with the core sample.

Without the "mysterious" manipulation of the tardigrade, the return journey was smooth sailing.

Soon, he returned to the outside of the stomach wall where the "Jiaolong" was docked.

When the captain and crew of the "Jiaolong" saw Shen Ge emerge unharmed from the writhing flesh, they all breathed a sigh of relief, and their eyes were filled with even deeper awe as they looked at him.

The submarine's engines restarted, and with Shen Ge's assistance in [Leaving the Ghost Domain], it successfully detached from the dormant "Crawling Nest" and began its return voyage towards the surface of the sea. (End of Chapter)