138: Chapter 138: Star Spirit Stele

Darkness shrouded the surroundings.

High-density dead water squeezed the surrounding mud layer.

Morgan opened his eyes, turned his neck bones, and looked to his side.

Gangku's body lay horizontally in front.

This Body Cultivator's Physical Body was extremely strong, currently in a defensive posture.

His arms were crossed, shielding Morgan and Ayla.

The muscles on his back were corroded by the dead water, leaving large charred marks.

Ayla was curled up in the crook of Gangku's arm.

Her mage robe was severely damaged.

A layer of blue water screen clung around the three of them, blocking the further intrusion of the dead water.

"Speak up when you wake up." Morgan said.

Gangku coughed twice and spat out black blood mixed with mud and sand.

"Not dead yet." Gangku released his arms and stretched his stiff joints.

Ayla also opened her eyes.

She gasped for air and dispelled the water screen.

"We survived." Ayla's voice was filled with lingering fear.

Morgan checked his own condition.

Magic power was bottomed out, bones had multiple cracks, but there were no fatal injuries.

The moment the big explosion happened, Gangku forcibly grabbed the two of them and used his Body Cultivator Physical Body to withstand the first wave of impact.

Morgan released all his Death Qi shields, and Ayla drained her magic power to condense a water defense.

The three of them combined their powers, barely saving their lives.

"What about Captain Ryan and the others?" Ayla looked around.

"Not sure." Morgan shook his head. "The power of the explosion was too great; the water flow washed us all away."

The three fell into silence.

Ayla looked at Gangku, her eyes filled with resentment.

Morgan also stared at Gangku.

Gangku felt annoyed by the two staring at him.

He grabbed a handful of mud from the bottom and crushed it with force.

"Why are you looking at me? I admit I was impulsive." Gangku said gruffly.

"That crab ambushed me; I couldn't just stand there and take the beating."

"That punch of yours directly detonated the entire underwater battlefield." Morgan said coldly: "We were almost wiped out."

"I just risked my life to protect you too! We're even!" Gangku raised his voice.

Morgan did not continue to argue; he knew that blaming each other now was meaningless.

"Staying here is a dead end." Morgan stood up. "We must go up, confirm our location, and find the captain and the others."

Ayla nodded, and Gangku had no objections.

The three mobilized the remaining energy in their bodies and swam upwards.

They swam for a full half hour.

Splash!

The three broke through the water.

A purple-red wasteland came into view.

They crawled ashore and collapsed on the soil.

"Mimicry." Morgan gave the order. "The environment here is extremely unfriendly to us. We must camouflage."

The three simultaneously activated their Time Demon Source.

Bones reorganized, flesh mutated.

A few seconds later, three Mad Sickle Shadow Blade Beetles several meters long appeared on the wasteland.

Dark purple carapaces covered their entire bodies, and their forelimbs turned into sharp bone sickles.

"Let's go. Go find the traces of the explosion." Morgan walked at the front.

Gangku and Ayla followed behind.

The three blade beetles crawled quickly across the wasteland.

The wasteland was vast and boundless.

They searched for a full three hours.

No craters, no wreckage.

Even the flow of the Underworld River had changed.

"Can't find it." Gangku stopped.

His six compound eyes revealed a sense of irritation: "We can't even tell the direction. Ryan and the others are likely already dead."

"The captain isn't that easy to kill." Morgan retorted.

"Then where do you suggest we look?" Gangku asked back.

Morgan was silent.

He indeed had no direction; they were like three headless flies right now.

Just then, Ayla suddenly stopped.

The antennae on her head twitched rapidly.

"Wait a moment." Ayla emitted a mental wave. "I sensed energy fluctuations."

Morgan and Gangku looked at her simultaneously.

"What direction? What level of energy?" Morgan asked.

"Straight ahead." Ayla turned to the northwest. "The energy level is extremely high, very stable, without any violent destructive aura."

Gangku's compound eyes lit up.

"An Opportunity?" Gangku asked.

"It could also be a trap." Morgan poured cold water on the idea in time.

"Since we landed in this world, have we encountered a single good thing? Everything here carries deadly danger."

"But we have no clue right now." Ayla said hesitantly. "If we continue to walk aimlessly, our Time Demon Source will eventually be exhausted, and by then, we won't even be able to maintain our mimicry."

Morgan looked to the northwest, gray mist obscuring his vision.

Gangku swung his bone sickle forcefully, cutting off a rock nearby.

"Let's go check it out." Gangku decided: "Don't be a wanderer if you're afraid of death. Why did we come here? To get rich!"

"Now that an Opportunity is right in front of us, I won't be able to die in peace if I don't go take a look."

Morgan weighed the options for a moment.

Gangku was right; they had no way out.

"Stay vigilant. If something feels wrong, withdraw immediately." Morgan agreed.

The three blade beetles changed direction and advanced at full speed toward the northwest.

Along the way, the landscape began to change.

The purple-red soil gradually turned into dark black rock.

The heavy metal miasma in the air thinned, replaced by an unusually pure high-level energy.

As they inhaled this energy, the injuries in their bodies actually began to heal slowly.

Gangku's crawling speed became faster and faster.

"There must be treasure in this place." Gangku's mental wave was filled with excitement.

"This level of energy concentration is even stronger than the top-grade Spiritual Veins we snatched in the Immortal Realm."

Morgan didn't respond.

The unease in his heart grew stronger.

The purer the energy, the more terrifying the creatures guarding it usually were.

A few hours later.

The mist in front gradually dissipated.

The three blade beetles stopped at the same time.

They were shocked by the scene before them.

At the end of the wasteland, a magnificent stone stele hundreds of meters tall appeared.

The stele was deep starry-sky colored, and its surface was engraved with complex gene maps.

Light flowed along the lines of the maps.

A vast, ancient aura radiated from the stele, acting directly on the depths of the Soul.

Morgan felt his Time Demon Source trembling.

But that was not what shocked them the most.

What made them feel incredible was the scene below the stele.

On the plain surrounding the stele, hundreds of thousands of creatures from the Divine Domain were lying densely.

Demon Vultures and bats circled in the sky.

Groups of Nether-Uranium Heavy Armor Beetles and corrosive poison bursting bugs were on the ground.

There were even Bone Fish and Liquid Metal Crabs that had crawled out from the tributaries of the Underworld River.

These creatures they had encountered before would usually fight to the death as soon as they met in the outside world.

Fighting until brains splattered just to compete for a corpse or a piece of territory.

But here, they were all quietly staying in their own spots.

No fighting, no killing.

Bone Fish and Nether-Uranium Heavy Armor Beetles lay side by side.

Demon Vultures folded their wings, stopping beside the back shell of Liquid Metal Crabs.

They all raised their heads, gazing at the gene maps on the stele.

On the surface of these creatures' bodies, only two different colors of energy were moving.

Some creatures had dark golden power surging on them.

Some creatures had dark purple light flowing on them.

Peace.

In this Wasteland Divine Domain filled with death and slaughter, such a peaceful area actually existed.

Morgan's compound eyes contracted rapidly.

He understood.

"Rules." Morgan said in the mental channel. "There are rules here."

Gangku and Ayla looked at him.

"The aura radiated by that stele belongs to the Dominator rank of this Divine Domain." Morgan analyzed.

"This kind of aura forms an absolute Bloodline suppression on these lower-level dependents."

"Starting a fight here is a provocation to the owner of the stele, and will result in being attacked by all the creatures together."

Gangku didn't listen to Morgan's analysis at all.

His gaze remained fixed on the stele.

Gangku recognized the thing on the stele.

"Titan gene map." Gangku's body trembled with excitement.

"It's a complete Titan power path, without any Impurities!"

As a Body Cultivator, Gangku's pursuit of physical power had reached the point of Qi Deviation.

He had once seen the remains of a Divine-Grade Titan in the starry sky.

That power to blow up a planet with one punch was his lifelong dream.

Now, a complete Titan evolution path was displayed right before his eyes. How could he not be excited?

What made Gangku even more crazy was that he saw some creatures below the stele.

A massive Nether-Uranium Heavy Armor Beetle had not only a thick Titan armor covering its back, but its edges were also surrounded by fluctuations of the Void Realm Shadow Lurker.

"Dual path." Gangku's voice was distorted, "They actually comprehended two ultimate powers at the same time!"

Gangku could no longer control himself.

He moved his articulated limbs, about to rush towards the stele.

Bang!

Morgan swung his bone sickle, blocking his path.

"Are you crazy!" Morgan roared.

Gangku stopped.

He turned his head and stared coldly at Morgan.

"Move." Gangku's voice was extremely cold.

"You brainless idiot, what are you going to do!" Morgan did not back down. "Did you forget the mission we came out for!"

"We are here to find the antidote! There are over a thousand brothers in the camp waiting to die!"

"Captain Ryan's whereabouts are unknown. Our primary task now is to rendezvous, and then take the antidote back!"

Morgan pointed at the distant stele.

"That is an Opportunity, but it is even more of an abyss! Do you think you can snatch that stele?"

"As long as you reveal a trace of an outsider's aura, these hundreds of thousands of monsters will tear you into pieces!"

Gangku let out a disdainful snort.

"What are you pretending to be a Saint for?" Gangku's tone was full of mockery, "Do you really think of yourself as a savior?"

Gangku took a step forward.

The massive body of the blade beetle exuded a strong sense of oppression.

"We are starry sky wanderers, we are robbers."

"We came here to plunder resources, to get rich!"

Gangku raised his forelimb, pointing at the stele.

"A massive Opportunity is right before our eyes."

"With that set of Titan gene maps, I can break through the Bottleneck of the Diamond Rank. I can step into the Transcendent, or even higher!"

"You want me to give up this chance now to care about the life and death of those trash?"

Morgan was stunned.

He looked at Gangku, unable to refute for a moment.

"They are our clansmen." Morgan gritted his teeth. "Colin sought death so as not to drag everyone down."

"Bart killed his own brother with his own hands; they are struggling to hold on in the camp."

"You want to abandon them now?"

"That's their bad luck!" Gangku interrupted mercilessly.

"The rule of wanderers is survival of the fittest. If they can't withstand the erosion of the environment, then they are trash."

Gangku turned to look at Ayla.

"Ayla, you say it. Do we want this Opportunity or not?"

Morgan also looked at Ayla.

"Ayla, don't listen to his crazy talk, we must go back." Morgan said.

Ayla lowered her head.

The antennae on her head drooped slightly.

A few seconds later, Ayla raised her head, avoiding Morgan's gaze.

"Morgan... we don't know how long we were unconscious." Ayla's voice was low, but very clear.

"Maybe a day, maybe three days."

"Those clansmen who inhaled Spiritual Qi simply couldn't last that long. They have most likely mutated and exploded."

Morgan's body shook.

"What do you mean?" Morgan asked in disbelief.

"I mean, if we go back now, we might only see a pile of corpses."

Ayla continued: "Besides, we haven't even seen a shadow of the antidote."

Ayla looked at the distant stele.

"Gangku is right, the power here is too tempting."

"As long as we can comprehend the mysteries within, our strength can make a qualitative leap."

"We are just maximizing our benefits."

Ayla found an excuse for her betrayal.

"You... you..." Morgan pointed at the two, retreating repeatedly.

Anger, disappointment, sadness...

Various emotions intertwined in Morgan's heart.

He never expected that after experiencing life and death together,

these two people would abandon all bottom lines because of the benefits in front of them.

"You are not worthy of being Time Demons." Morgan said through gritted teeth.

Gangku sneered.

"Say whatever you want. If you want to be a Saint, go find the antidote yourself, don't stop me from getting rich."

Gangku ignored Morgan anymore.

He turned, moved his articulated limbs, and crawled towards the direction of the stele.

He restrained all his aura, trying to disguise himself as an ordinary bug, blending into the huge group of comprehenders.

Ayla looked at Morgan.

"Sorry." Ayla dropped this sentence and turned to follow Gangku's pace.

Morgan stood in place.

The wind on the wasteland blew by, rolling up a burst of purple-red dust.

He watched the backs of the two moving away.

These two people had already been blinded by greed.

Sneak in?

Do they really think a perfect mimicry can deceive that stele?

Morgan withdrew his gaze.

He turned and walked in the direction they came from.

He didn't know where Ryan was, and he didn't know where the antidote was.

But he had to look.

Even if he could only bring back a corpse in the end.

He would never be like these two, becoming a monster dominated by greed.

Morgan's figure disappeared into the gray mist.

Gangku and Ayla walked closer and closer.

The pressure radiated by the stele became stronger and stronger.

Gangku felt his internal organs enduring huge gravitational pressure.

But the fanaticism in his eyes became more and more intense.

He could already see the complex lines on the stele.

It was the muscle fiber arrangement of the Titan race, the most intuitive embodiment of the Law of power.

"Too perfect." Gangku admired in his heart.

He chose a position on the edge.

Next to him lay a few Nether-Uranium Heavy Armor Beetles resting with their eyes closed.

Gangku followed their example and lay on the ground.

He released his Mental Energy, trying to connect to the Titan map on the stele.

Ayla lay not far from Gangku.

She had no interest in Titan power; she had her eyes on the Shadow Lurker map on the other side of the stele.

The moment their Mental Energy touched the light of the stele.

Hum!

The surface of the stele suddenly erupted with a burst of intense starry sky ripples.

This ripple swept across Gangku and Ayla's bodies.

The judgment mechanism of the stele was triggered.

[Non-Divine Domain dependent gene sequence detected]

[Judged as: Foreign Invader]