Alien Hotel.

Chapter 437 The End of Ascension

Knowledge seemingly not belonging to this world roared in the sea of ​​consciousness. Information, like some kind of hungry creature, instantly devoured the soul, leaving it riddled with holes. The sage's "self" collapsed in a very short time, but was captured by the "spider web" in the next instant and forcibly reassembled.

In a dark space, this trembling soul crawled on a spider web, his body withered and shrunken, his hair and beard withered and falling out. He trembled as he raised his head, his eyes, which he had gouged out with his own hands, now only two empty holes. But the enormous shadow was already irrevocably imprinted in his mind. No matter which direction he "looked" in, the other party seemed to always be standing in front of him.

He felt as if he had become the legendary blind prophet "Kondaman," whose eyes were permanently burned into the giant spider web at the end of the world due to a reckless voyeurism, and who would never be able to return to the normal world... But who is the blind prophet Kondaman?
……

Eileen watched with great interest the thing shivering in the darkness...

She could no longer make out what it was, because in the last few seconds, the tiny soul had shrunk repeatedly. At first, it was at least a large insect, but now it was almost the size of a grain of rice.

That's interesting. Will he shrink further? Will he compress himself into a speck of dust out of fear? If he were compressed into a speck of dust, could this soul still think and communicate?
Eileen had a lot of ideas pop into her head, but they quickly faded from her not-so-bright mind. She remembered that there was still a fight "outside" and that she should first find a way to help Yu Sheng get rid of the obstacles in front of the "Star Entity".

So she stretched out a spider silk from the darkness and draped it over the cowering soul.

She wanted to tie the other person up and take them back—although she didn't know how to take a soul away, in fact, she hadn't even figured out what this dark, spiderweb-covered "space" was, but she felt there was always a way.

Perhaps I could tie it into a small ball and hold it in place? That way, it shouldn't keep shrinking. Then… maybe I could put it in my pocket and take it back? My little skirt has a pocket on the side, sewn on by Yu Sheng himself. I usually use it to hold marbles and rubber bands, so it should be able to hold a soul too. If all else fails, I can just put it in my mouth and carry it back, like a silly fox…

Yu Sheng would boast about himself—"Silly Fox and C-shaped Buckle can only fight and kill, but the powerful Eileen can capture them alive on the battlefield."

The doll squinted its eyes happily.

But the next second, she saw the trembling soul shatter—the instant the spider silk wrapped around it, it vanished into thin air in the darkness.

Eileen's eyes widened in shock, and as the soul dissipated, she heard the other's voice come through the spider silk, weak yet filled with the joy of relief: "Ah, thank you for your mercy..."

Erin: "..."

For less than a second, Eileen jumped up from the spiderweb in a panic: "Hey! You fucking thank the hell! Holy crap, how can this thing be so fragile... I didn't let you die!!"

But it was all too late. The soul that had been devoured by the Star Entity was far more fragile than imagined. The doll lost her trophy, and then the space itself began to become unstable—the spiderweb between the sacrifice and her quickly crumbled.

Eileen looked up, then turned and crawled back, cursing under her breath.

She swiftly escaped the soul prison constructed of astral crystals, then traversed the "battlefield" where time was slowly returning to normal. She crawled past Luna, this time avoiding eye contact with C-shaped buckle, instead leaping like a gust of wind over the soon-to-break spiderweb, finally burying her head under Yu Sheng's arm.

The shattered crystals whistled across the sky, then fell weakly and powerlessly from the heights, as if losing all power. The storm of lightning brewing between the clouds roared, but it quickly dissipated in the wind and rain before it could strike. Then, a strange, deep rumble echoed across the wilderness.

The "Great Sages" constructed of crystal rapidly disintegrated and collapsed amidst a roar, with countless crystal fragments scattered in the mud and piles of rubble.

The crystalline fissures throughout the ground trembled, but no new "Great Sages" were reborn from within them.

Yu Sheng stared in astonishment at the scene, not understanding what had happened for a moment.

Then he felt a small head nudge under his arm. Looking down, he saw Eileen peeking out and giving him an awkward giggle.

"I... I almost caught him!" the little doll said somewhat guiltily.

Yu Sheng: "...Huh?"

"So close! I even found that guy's soul, the threads were all wrapped around it, but it shattered as soon as I pulled it. The crystal was pitch black inside, I didn't even realize it was so fragile. And for some reason, he was terrified, and had a very strong self-destructive tendency. Yes, he was definitely self-destructive. I was so careful, it really shattered with just a gentle pull..."

Eileen rattled off a string of words in an instant, and Yu Sheng didn't even have time to react to what she was babbling about. In the end, he only half-understood what she was saying: the Great Sage's sudden "death" seemed to be related to this little puppet. She might have developed some new technique but wasn't quite proficient at using it...

As for the specifics of her new trick, and what she did just now, I really couldn't understand.

Now is clearly not the time to delve into the details.

The strange rumbling continued to echo, not disappearing with the complete death of the "Great Sage." Something terrifying seemed to be brewing deep underground, and... it was getting closer and closer.

The distant mountains seemed to be shaking, and the crystalline forest covering the mountains and plains was undulating and writhing eerily. The crystal structures emerging from the depths of the earth seemed to come alive, restlessly stirring amidst the low rumble. Yuan Hao Zhenren descended from the sky with Xuan Che. They had already sensed the strangeness deep underground. Yuan Hao was particularly solemn: "There is an evil entity emitting malevolent intent."

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, but before he could speak, he felt a chaotic noise even louder than before. Then, his mind went blank again. In this blur, he saw endless crystals growing and piling up before him, a vast cave formed by crystal deposits. Then, he saw a figure, floating among the crystals—

Yun Qingzi stood there, raising his head from within the crystal wall, his face, formed by the fusion of flesh and crystal, smiling.

"Fellow Daoist... how have you been?"

Yu Sheng was jolted awake from this hallucination.

Hu Li was the first to notice and immediately turned around: "My benefactor, are you alright?"

"It's alright—I found that guy!" Yu Sheng waved his hand quickly, a smile appearing on his face instead. "I was originally worried about how to locate the 'core' of such a big thing, but I didn't expect it to take the initiative to 'contact' me."

Xuan Che's face lit up with joy upon hearing this, but before he could speak, an even more terrifying roar suddenly came from underground, interrupting everyone's actions.

The next second, everyone subconsciously looked up in the direction from which the roaring sound came.

A mountain at the edge of the wilderness... split open.

The mountain seemed to have a living organism inside it. The thick rock layers were squeezed and cracked like a fragile eggshell. In the cracked mountain, a crystalline structure flashed by. Then, a huge "limb" that looked like a tentacle, but was crystal clear and had a strange luster, emerged from the crack in the mountain!

That terrifying, mountain-like limb stirred blindly within the thick, silent atmosphere with a chilling presence.

The roaring sounds continued, coming from even further away.

In the endless, silent rain, another terrifying limb seemed to appear between the distant clouds, piercing the earth and penetrating the atmosphere, stirring up the thick clouds and churning up a storm.

Eileen's eyes widened: "What...what is this?!"

The raccoon tensed instantly, its fur bristling, its tail bristling like a feather in the wind and rain, as it let out a threatening growl: "Woo-hoo-hoo—"

Yu Sheng felt a deafening roar in his mind. Amidst the overwhelming and chaotic information overload, he tried desperately to grasp the current state of the Star-Evolving Body. Suddenly, a realization exploded in his consciousness, sending a chill down his spine: "...No! The Star-Evolving Body is forcibly ending its ascension...It wants to 'ascend' ahead of schedule!"

"Huh?!" Eileen was instantly shocked. "Wait, didn't Baili Qing say that even if this thing starts its ascension, it will still take several days?!"

“But the Star Manifestation now has a brain—it has realized that the cognitive barrier and its minions that it set up in Shuji are malfunctioning one after another, so it wants to leave this no longer safe ‘habitat’ ahead of time,” Yu Sheng said quickly. “Yun Qingzi is helping it weigh the pros and cons!”

Xuan Che stepped forward: "Then..."

Before Xuan Che could finish speaking, Yu Sheng waved his hand forcefully. He frowned deeply, as if listening intently to something in the wind and rain. Then he quickly said, "Go to Mo City with your senior uncle. That city is currently the biggest 'tear point' on Shuji. As long as that city still exists, the activity of the star body will be suppressed to a certain extent—this can buy some time."

Xuanche and Yuanhao Zhenren immediately nodded: "Okay!"

Hu Li turned his head: "My benefactor, what about us?"

Yu Sheng looked up into the distance, his eyes slightly narrowed.

The earth is cracking open, and terrifying crystalline limbs are emerging from the fissures, writhing and waving blindly in the atmosphere.

It was like an invitation.

But Yu Sheng's focus was not on the crystalline tentacle, but on a crack closer to him—the place where the "Great Sage" had emerged when he was first resurrected.

Through the connection established by blood, he could see the complex and deep structure beneath the fissure, as well as the cavities writhing deep underground.

"Let's go underground and say hello to the 'angels'."

(End of this chapter)