A bizarre and perilous place! A shadow that devours light! Lin Yuan ventures alone into a den of dragons and tigers!

The Whispering Wasteland.

Outside the Demon Suppressing Pass, there was another forbidden zone that made all soldiers turn pale at the mere mention of its name.

Unlike the Scar of Rot, which was filled with toxic mist,

here, there was no poison gas, no swamps, and even vegetation was extremely scarce.

There were only vast stretches of jagged, blackish-gray strange rocks,

and eternal gloom.

The light here seemed to be filtered through an invisible layer of gauze, forever presenting a depressing, twilight-like hue.

The strangest part was the shadows cast by those bizarre rocks.

They seemed to defy the Laws of physics, slowly squirming and deforming on their own as time passed,

as if something living was hidden beneath those shadows.

Faint, indistinct sounds, like countless people whispering simultaneously in one's ear, echoed across this wasteland year-round.

That sound could easily penetrate the soundproofing System of Power Armor, reaching deep into the human mind.

Those with weak wills would be driven mad by these eerie whispers within half an hour.

At this moment,

a figure was walking step by step across this deathly silent wasteland.

Lin Yuan.

After receiving intelligence that the Cherry Blossom Country team had lost contact, he did not hesitate for a moment and chose to act alone once again.

Qin Pojun originally wanted to send an elite squad that had just completed special training to accompany him,

but Lin Yuan refused.

"The enemy is different."

He left only those four words.

Qin Pojun did not insist further.

He knew that Lin Yuan never did anything he wasn't certain of.

If he said the enemy was different, then they must be an unprecedented, more bizarre, and more dangerous enemy!

Sha... Sha...

Lin Yuan's footsteps made a slight sound as he stepped on the blackish-gray gravel.

He did not release his protective Sword Qi.

He even restrained his own aura to the extreme.

He looked like an ordinary traveler walking across this strange land.

But his Divine Thought had already spread out like an invisible spider web, covering a radius of several thousand meters.

"Hmm?"

He stopped walking.

His gaze fell behind a pile of scattered rocks not far away.

There were traces of residual energy there,

as well as a faint aura of human life.

Lin Yuan's figure vanished from the spot.

In the next second, he appeared behind the pile of rocks.

The scene before him made his brow furrow almost imperceptibly.

Twelve corpses wearing black Power Armor lay scattered across the ground.

It was indeed the missing Onitoru Squad.

The strange thing was that there were no obvious wounds on their bodies.

No claw marks, no corrosion, not even a trace of blood.

Their Power Armor was intact,

but the people inside were dead.

Lin Yuan reached out a finger and lightly touched the largest piece of Power Armor, which likely belonged to the captain.

It was cold to the touch.

Moreover, it had a strange, rough texture, as if the metal had been weathered for thousands of years.

His fingertip twitched, and a faint strand of Sword Qi probed inside.

Crack.

The Power Armor, made of a special alloy and capable of withstanding artillery fire, actually developed a crack in the chest plate like a brittle biscuit.

Then, it turned into a handful of black powder and rustled down.

Underneath the Power Armor,

there was no corpse.

There was only an empty combat uniform that had also lost all its color and become gray and dilapidated.

It was as if the flesh, bones, and all life energy inside had been drained out of thin air by something.

"As I thought, it's them."

Lin Yuan withdrew his hand, a look of realization flashing in his eyes.

Void Light Devourer.

An extremely rare creature, considered legendary even among the myriad races of the Void Realm.

They have no physical form.

Or rather, they themselves are an aggregation of 'anti-energy.'

They feed on all forms of 'energy.'

Light, heat, electricity, life essence, blood vitality, and even Souls.

They are the natural enemies of all energy-based lifeforms!

Conventional physical attacks are almost useless against them,

while energy attacks are equivalent to feeding them.

The Power Armor just now was because its internal energy core had been completely 'eaten' at its source by them.

Losing its energy support, the basic particle structure of the metal forming the armor was destroyed, which is why it became so fragile.

This was an energy plunder nearly on the level of Law!

"Troublesome fellows."

Lin Yuan looked around.

He could feel it.

The slowly squirming shadows and the omnipresent whispers had become much more active than before.

They had discovered him.

Or rather, they 'smelled' the massive, pure Sword Essence on him, which to them was like an exquisite delicacy!

It was like sharks smelling blood.

Siss...

Eerie sounds, like the flicking of snake tongues, rose from all directions.

The surrounding gloom seemed to become even denser.

The shadows cast by the strange rocks began to converge and fuse at a speed visible to the naked eye!

They were no longer mere shadows,

but had transformed into pools of flowing darkness, as viscous as oil!

This darkness slowly but resolutely surrounded Lin Yuan from all sides.

There was no Killing Intent.

There was no hostility.

There was only a most primitive, most pure... hunger!

Lin Yuan stood quietly in place.

He did not move.

He knew that against this kind of enemy, any rash action could lead him into their trap.

The Sword Intent within him circulated slowly, and his golden Sword Essence was like a crouching dragon, ready to strike.

Finally,

when the flowing darkness had sealed off all his paths of retreat,

they stopped.

And then,

the largest pool of darkness suddenly bulged upward!

It transformed into a humanoid silhouette with no facial features and no fixed form, composed purely of darkness.

It 'looked' at Lin Yuan.

A cold thought, not belonging to any known language, echoed directly in Lin Yuan's mind.

[Light... delicious...]

[Offer up... your... everything...]

The moment the words fell,

the humanoid darkness suddenly opened its 'arms'!

It didn't rush over.

Instead, in an incomprehensible way, it suddenly expanded!

It turned into a black canopy that blotted out the sky, descending toward Lin Yuan!

That was not an attack.

It was an attempt to drag this space, along with Lin Yuan, into an absolute void where no energy existed!

Lin Yuan's pupils shrank suddenly.

He could feel the space around his body being assimilated and devoured by an irresistible force!

The invisible glow naturally emitted by the Sword Intent on his body was fading at an alarming rate under the shroud of this darkness!

It was being 'eaten'!

His power was being plundered!

For the first time, a solemn expression appeared on Lin Yuan's face.

He slowly raised his right hand.

A golden longsword, as solid as reality, appeared in his hand.

"Want to eat?"

The corners of his mouth curled into a cold arc.

"I'm afraid you don't have such a good appetite!"

Buzz—

A sword cry resounded through heaven and earth!

A golden sword light, so brilliant it seemed it could illuminate the entire Universe, soared into the sky!

It forcibly tore a huge opening in the descending canopy of darkness!