Atlas of Heaven and Man

Chen Chuan's footsteps were very clear in the empty underground passage. Each step echoed back, his pace steady and rhythmic.

However, as he approached Meng Huang, the Second Self above him also showed strong signs of fading, and this intensified as he got closer.

Aunt Yu followed behind. She had sharp metal claws on her hands, but after a few steps, she seemed to sense something. She raised her wrist, and the edges of the bracelet she wore were gradually turning black. She also touched her earring, feeling it was slightly hot.

She made a judgment in her mind, thinking, "Five minutes at most..."

She glanced at the jade bracelet on Chen Chuan's wrist and the accessories hanging from his waist. These items should have been issued by the Bureau, slightly better than hers, but only to a limited extent. They wouldn't last more than seven minutes.

She solemnly reminded him, "Executive Chen, be careful of 'Contamination'."

Chen Chuan glanced at his bracelet and nodded slightly.

The information the Bureau gave him mentioned that the longer one was in contact with such entities, the more likely they were to be affected. Besides mental intrusion, uncontrolled changes could also occur in the alienated tissue, which was what Aunt Yu called 'Contamination'.

The jade ring and ornaments were meant to prevent problems with the alienated tissue for a period of time. If these items lost their effect, then one had to rely on their own vital essence to maintain and suppress it. As for the mental pressure, it could only be resisted by consuming the Resident God.

Therefore, only fighters of the Third Threshold could deal with such things. Ordinary fighters probably couldn't even get close.

At this moment, he tapped the Realm Beacon, trying to contact the outside. Even the specially designed enhanced signal seemed to become very difficult to use here. The information was slowly being transmitted, and it seemed it would take at least a few minutes to finish sending the message.

However, he couldn't wait any longer. He didn't know what Meng Huang's purpose was in coming here, but it was very likely related to his own existence and strength, so he absolutely couldn't let him succeed.

He stared at the huge body wriggling on the door. After a few more steps, he slightly lowered his center of gravity and leaped forward. He raised the long saber that had been placed aside and, after quickly approaching, slashed down fiercely!

With such a large body, there shouldn't have been any chance of missing, but after the saber swept through, it felt like it had struck a wisp of illusory smoke that scattered away. The feeling on the blade was also empty, as if it had not caused any damage.

He lightly tapped the ground with his toes and landed. At this moment, a shadow flickered across the ground where Meng Huang was, and a limb that had been clinging to the ceiling slammed down towards him.

He dodged to the side, avoiding it, but the limb chased after him. He intended to use the saber to cut it open, but encountered the same scene as before, as if he had only cut through a wisp of intangible smoke.

Even so, he didn't want to be struck by it, so he continued to retreat. Once he was beyond a certain range, the limb retracted again.

Chen Chuan looked up. The reason he couldn't touch it might be that Meng Huang had been bound by the secret ritual before, and his strength couldn't be unleashed. Now that he was free, he could make such changes, just like he could directly pass through the ground.

According to the information the Bureau gave him, these entities from the other side were all different. Most of these things that fell into this world could be attacked and touched as long as they possessed enough alienated tissue in their bodies.

Only some special ones needed to be contacted through a mental connection. Although their strength wasn't necessarily higher than the former, they were the most troublesome and difficult to deal with.

It seemed that this one was very likely to be one of those.

If that was the case, then...

He closed his eyes, and his brow twitched slightly. At this moment, a reddish mark appeared on his brow.

After removing ordinary sensory input and sensing purely with his mind, he felt as if a huge, indescribable monster had appeared before him. Its body almost covered the entire area, accompanied by shadows on the ground and walls. It wasn't far away, but was moving and sliding around him.

The scattered parts were countless tentacles floating in space, densely surrounding him. Several of them brushed past his cheeks.

Each time these things approached or touched him, the color of the jade ring would dim a little.

He closed his eyes and slowly raised the saber with both hands. Then, with a sudden burst of strength, he spun around and slashed in place. This time, it felt like he was cutting through many tough objects.

Within a radius of nearly three meters around him, all the tentacles in this circle were cut off and fell to the ground like cut grass, then turned into wisps of smoke and dissipated.

At the same time, he seemed to sense something and looked at the Snow Sovereign Saber in his hand.

At the moment he struck, it seemed that he had brought something down from that entity and it had been absorbed by the blade.

He could feel that the thing originally immersed in the Snow Sovereign Saber seemed particularly excited at this moment and was conveying an urgent desire to him.

He didn't care what it was for now. As long as it could help him eliminate this thing, that was good. He immediately swung the saber and cut off a large number of tentacles surrounding him again. He strode forward firmly, gradually approaching the location of Meng Huang like he was hacking through thorns.

Aunt Yu also rushed up to help at this moment. At first, she also found that she couldn't attack Meng Huang's physical body, but although she didn't have Chen Chuan's special mental senses, she could do the same by consuming the God Constant to sublimate her spirit.

However, this method was difficult to sustain for long, so she was very cautious. She avoided those vague things that surrounded her as much as possible. If she couldn't avoid them, she would directly slap them away or cut them off with her metal claws. Purely in terms of attack efficiency, it wasn't high, but it did reduce some of the burden on Chen Chuan from the side.

The two of them, one in front and one behind, quickly approached the place where Meng Huang's main body was. At this moment, the latter seemed to sense the threat, and a thick limb retracted in front of him quickly swept over.

Aunt Yu leaped forward at this time, her hands like rings, and pushed outwards. With a bang, she firmly resisted it, creating space for Chen Chuan to move forward.

Chen Chuan didn't miss this opportunity. In a flash, he had already rushed out. Another limb attacked from above, but it only struck behind him.

A round of saber light instantly crossed more than ten meters of space and slammed into Meng Huang's huge body, which was facing away from them!

This saber strike cut a deep, long crack in his body, and countless black mist and tiny things scattered from it.

Meng Huang, or rather, that thing, twitched violently at this moment.

It seemed that it had initially been single-mindedly focused on breaking through the door in front of it that was blocking its way, or that it thought it could withstand greater damage, so it had only casually driven the two of them away.

However, Chen Chuan's slash seemed to have caused it serious damage, and it finally couldn't bear it anymore.

Suddenly, one bulge after another rose on the surface of its body. After they burst, more limbs sprang out from inside, waving in the air and slamming down on the two of them.

After discovering this, Aunt Yu immediately used her flexible steps to retreat. While retreating, she quickly slapped away two limbs attacking from the left and right.

However, upon contact, her arms felt numb, and a large circle on her bracelet turned black, and she couldn't help but be shocked.

She took the time to glance at Chen Chuan, but couldn't see anything because her line of sight was blocked by the swaying limbs.

At this moment, another limb silently wrapped around him, but in the next moment, a flash of saber light cut it off on the ground. Without stopping, he quickly left the spot. In the next moment, a large pit was smashed out in the place where he had just left by several limbs slamming down.

He dodged and weaved through the gaps in the interlacing limbs, occasionally using the saber to cut open a path, constantly moving. But he wasn't just dodging; he was calmly observing.

He found that although the number of these limbs had increased and they were much thicker than before, and the strength had also greatly increased, the speed of the swings had actually decreased.

According to the information, Meng Huang's body, which was symbiotic with the entity from the other side, might possess some incredible power due to the entity's parasitism, but as long as it was still in the material world, there was a certain insurmountable limit, part of which was determined by the upper limit of the parasitized body.

If it was originally just an ordinary person, then without the help of anything special, its performance would at most reach the level that a Third Threshold fighter could achieve, which was the limit that mortals could touch.

Unless the entity on the other side didn't care about the attached body at all, but if that were the case, once the material body collapsed, it would no longer be able to continue to exist.

Of course, even if it was the same Third Threshold, the difference caused by the size was also huge. Meng Huang, who was now six or seven meters tall, would be able to exert considerable power.

However, he had the Second Self, which could withstand a certain amount of damage, and had a certain advantage in speed. As long as the attack method didn't exceed his understanding, he would have a chance to eliminate and drive it away.

Just then, there was a soft sound from the Realm Beacon. The message he had sent earlier had finally been sent out completely. In this way, if everything went smoothly, he believed that the people from the Bureau would arrive soon.

However, since Meng Huang dared to come today, he might have made some preparations, so he didn't completely rely on it.

As for the current situation...

He glanced at the bracelet on his wrist, which was mostly black, and the limbs and tentacles that almost filled the entire space, and gripped the saber slightly. His skin suddenly became hot, and wisps of white smoke rose from his body.

It wasn't like he didn't have a way to solve it alone.

...