290: Chapter 290 Void Drifting

There was no light, nor was there absolute darkness. There was only a Chaos, an ever-changing "background" of indescribable colors—dark blue, deep purple, pale white, dark red, and countless others—like low-quality paint that had been overturned, mixed haphazardly, and was constantly flowing, twisting, shattering, and reforming.

There was no sound, or rather, sound had lost its meaning here. There was only pure, incomprehensible information noise, a mixture of countless frequencies, textures, and emotions, like billions of insects simultaneously hissing, scraping, and gnawing at every corner of the Soul.

There was no direction, no gravity, not even the concept of "up, down, left, or right." The body seemed to have lost its weight, suspended within this flowing, constantly tearing and mending Void Realm of Chaos, pulled, pushed, and spun by invisible, chaotic, disorderly forces of varying strength coming from all directions.

Ling Ye's consciousness, like the last flickering candle flame in a storm, swayed and struggled tenaciously under the assault of the endless Chaos and information noise.

The last memory was that desperate punch, the collision between blinding golden light and boiling darkness, the shock of the explosion, the determination to grab Old Shi and crash into that unstable, dark blue channel filled with spatial rifts... Then came the spinning world, the sensation of body and Soul being thrown into a high-speed centrifuge, and countless broken, twisted, bizarre, and incomprehensible scenes and information fragments washing over consciousness like a tsunami, attempting to completely tear apart, dissolve, and assimilate the concept of "self."

Excruciating pain. Every inch of bone, muscle, and Meridians in his body felt as if it had been ground to dust and forcibly pieced back together, a deep-seated agony. This was the aftermath of forcibly detonating all the violent power within him, followed by the impact of traversing the spatial rift. Worse still, his body was hollow; the once-surging Fusion power was now like a completely drained dry well. Only the "the key" mark in the deepest part of him remained, emitting an extremely faint, intermittent, burning sensation that carried a Soul-deep exhaustion, along with a trace of... a strange, extremely vague pull that seemed to point toward some distant direction.

He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were as heavy as if two mountains were pressing down on them. After struggling for a long time, he managed to pry them open a crack.

What met his eyes was that ever-changing, flowing, shattering Chaos of color. They were not static, but constantly moving, mixing, and separating, forming abstract patterns that were fleeting, illogical, and yet seemed to contain some kind of insane "meaning"—sometimes like countless twisted eyes blinking simultaneously, sometimes like billions of faces screaming in agony, overlapping and melting, and sometimes like the outline of some incomprehensible, massive monster made of pure malice, constantly growing, fracturing, and consuming itself.

Merely "looking" at these scenes brought a wave of intense dizziness and nausea, along with a terrifying feeling that his Soul was about to be sucked in, "contaminated," and "reorganized."

Ling Ye immediately forced himself to look away and closed his eyes. He couldn't look anymore. He had to use his "heart" to perceive, to use the faint pull of "the key" to orient himself.

He tried to move his fingers; a numbness and stinging sensation came from his fingertips, but he could still move them. The rest of his body felt as if it didn't belong to him, a mix of heaviness, numbness, and excruciating pain. He spent a tremendous amount of willpower to barely control his neck muscles, turning his head extremely slowly and with great difficulty.

Then, he saw Old Shi.

Not far from him, also suspended in this chaotic Void Realm, Old Shi's body was curled up like a wounded, lifeless larva. Their protective suit was severely damaged, revealing pale skin beneath, covered in deeper, more numerous cracks that had turned a darker color and were almost oozing black slime. Their right arm and shoulder, in particular, were completely covered by that ominous blackness, which was even beginning to spread toward their chest and neck, seemingly faster than when they were on the periphery of the buffer zone. Their eyes were tightly shut, their face devoid of any blood, with only their brows knitted into a painful knot. Their lips parted slightly, but they could not make a sound, with only the faintest, intermittent breath proving that they were still alive—but only just.

The situation was even worse than Ling Ye had anticipated. Not only was his own strength exhausted and he severely injured, but Old Shi's contamination and erosion seemed to have accelerated and intensified in this Void Realm filled with chaotic energy and information noise.

He focused all his mental energy, ignoring the excruciating pain and exhaustion from his body and Soul, and sank his consciousness into that faint "the key" mark. The pull from the mark was weak and vague, as if it could be drowned out by the surrounding chaotic noise at any moment, but it did exist, pointing toward a certain... "direction" in this chaotic Void Realm.

Ling Ye tried to mobilize the last trace of Qi remaining in his body, along with the faint, almost negligible, pale golden energy light emitted by "the key" mark itself, to wrap around himself. He also separated a wisp, like the thinnest thread, to entwine around the unconscious Old Shi not far away.

Then, following the faint pull of "the key" mark, he began to try to "move" through this chaotic Void Realm, which had no direction and no points to leverage.

It was difficult. It was like swimming in thick, constantly shifting glue. Every "stroke" took immense mental effort, and the results were minimal. The surrounding chaotic colors and broken scenes seemed to have a life of their own, sometimes blocking him, sometimes pushing him, and sometimes trying to "pull" him toward some unknown area filled with even stronger, malicious fluctuations.

Several times, he "sensed" the sudden appearance of massive, unstable spatial rifts nearby that flashed with dangerous purple-black light and seemed capable of devouring everything, or clusters of semi-transparent, dark green "clouds" that drifted by like living things, exuding intense psychic pollution and composed of countless wailing Soul fragments. He had to forcibly change his "swimming" direction to avoid these dangers, making his already slow "movement" even more difficult and draining.

Time, too, had lost its meaning here. Perhaps it had been only a few minutes, or perhaps a long time had already passed. Ling Ye only felt his consciousness becoming increasingly blurred and his body heavier. The faint pale golden light wrapping around the two of them was like a candle in the wind, flickering unsteadily and likely to extinguish at any moment. Old Shi's breath was also growing weaker and weaker.

Just as he was about to give up and his consciousness was on the verge of sinking completely into the abyss of darkness—

The faint pull from "the key" mark suddenly became clear and stable for a brief moment! At the same time, he "sensed" that deep within the constantly flowing and shattering chaotic colors ahead, there appeared a relatively "calm," "stable" area, about the size of a house, irregular in shape, like a "bubble" or an "isolated island," with a color that appeared a much deeper, more "pure" dark blue!

That area seemed to be separated from the constantly changing, malicious chaotic scenes around it by an invisible film, and the scene inside seemed relatively "fixed"—one could vaguely see some broken outlines of wreckage, seemingly of some building or machine, flickering with a faint metallic luster, quietly suspended in the dark blue "background."

More importantly, the energy fluctuations emitted by that area, while still carrying an aura of Chaos and contamination, were far more "gentle" and "orderly" than the endless information noise and malicious tides surrounding them that sought to assimilate everything! It was like a temporarily calm, small eye of a vortex in a raging sea.

It was a "foothold"! A rare place in this chaotic Void Realm where they could temporarily catch their breath and recover!

Hope was like an adrenaline shot injected into a dying person. Ling Ye's spirit rallied; using his last ounce of strength, he squeezed out the final trace of energy from "the key" mark, pushing himself and Old Shi toward that dark blue, relatively calm "bubble" area, "swimming" toward it with difficulty, yet unswervingly.

The distance was closing. Ten meters, five meters, three meters...

Finally, at the moment before the pale golden light was about to extinguish completely, they "pierced through" that invisible "film" that seemed not to exist yet was tangibly there, and crashed into that dark blue, relatively calm area.

Instantly, the endless information noise and malicious tides that sought to tear apart their Souls, as if hit by a mute button, suddenly weakened and receded. Although not completely gone, it had at least dropped to a tolerable level. Their bodies also seemed to feel "gravity" again—a weak but definitely existing downward pull pointing toward somewhere in the "center" of this area, causing them to slowly "drift" downward.

Beneath their feet was not solid ground, but a strange "surface" that existed somewhere between energy and matter—cold to the touch, slightly elastic, with a faint dark blue halo flowing across its surface. Scattered around were several pieces of metal wreckage of varying sizes, dark silver in color, covered with ancient and intricate patterns, but mostly broken, twisted, and dusty, along with some semi-transparent, broken crystal fragments that seemed to have some kind of energy flow or data frozen inside. Above their heads and all around them was that dark blue, semi-transparent "barrier" that rippled slightly like water, isolating this relatively calm space inside from the endless, insane Void Realm of Chaos outside.

This place seemed like the remains of an abandoned, damaged, small-scale "The Shelter" or "outpost" floating in the Void Realm of Chaos.

Ling Ye (barely) stepped onto the cold, slightly elastic "ground," his body swaying, nearly falling over. He forced himself to hold on, first carefully placing the unconscious Old Shi next to a relatively flat piece of metal wreckage, letting them lean against it. Then, unable to support himself any longer, his legs gave out, and he collapsed directly onto the ground, his back against another piece of cold metal wreckage, gasping for air, his vision swimming with black spots.