73: Chapter 73 The Mysterious Room, Entering the Etheric Layer

The Aberrant Giant, with a blood-stained sack covering its head, suddenly swung its giant axe and brought it down on Qin Feng.

A fishy wind rushed forth.

The air shrieked as it was crushed.

The power of this axe strike was evident.

"Hide."

Qin Feng, however, remained calm.

In an instant.

The Perfection-level 'Hide' skill was activated.

Suddenly.

He completely vanished from thin air right in front of the Aberrant Giant.

Not a trace of him remained.

Seeing this.

The Aberrant Giant couldn't help but be startled.

Its movements stopped.

It turned its neck, swaying left and right, appearing very confused.

Little did it know.

At this very moment, Qin Feng stood before it, leisurely stepping to its side, raising the magic blade in his hand, which resembled a praying mantis's scythe-like arm.

His internal Qi and blood surged, a wisp of Qi permeated the blade, and he suddenly stabbed it right into its kidney!

"Oww!"

The Aberrant Giant immediately let out a howl.

It began.

Wildly swinging its giant axe around.

But not a single axe strike landed on Qin Feng.

"Tsk tsk, the 'Hide' skill after Perfection is truly satisfying."

Qin Feng watched the Aberrant Giant chopping wildly like a headless fly.

A smile played on his lips.

Whispering Syndrome Aberrants do not observe people visually, nor are they affected by psychological paralysis, because, strictly speaking, they are already dead.

Within their corrupted and aberrant flesh, only a residual spiritual body remains.

The spiritual body and the astral body are closely related.

Therefore.

The existence of a spiritual body.

Can directly observe the Astral Layer of the world.

It can also observe the astral bodies and spiritual bodies of others.

Qin Feng's previous 'Hide' skill could not conceal his own astral body and spiritual body, which is why the skill's stealth effect would fail.

But that was then, this is now.

Now.

As long as he activates the 'Hide' skill.

From his external 'material body' all the way to his innermost 'spiritual body,' everything can be completely concealed. In short, the coverage of the Hide effect has become much wider.

Qin Feng took a step.

And began to walk through the corridor on the twentieth floor.

"Speaking of which, there are no lights, so why is there light wandering in the air?"

This doubt arose in Qin Feng's mind again.

There were no lights in the apartment corridor.

Even if there were, the landlord would have deliberately broken them. After all, electricity was scarce in the Lower City, and the landlord would certainly not waste electricity in such a place.

As for inconvenience?

If you have the guts, don't rent!

On the previous floors.

Qin Feng had illuminated his way by opening the doors of various tenants' rooms and turning on the lights inside.

He didn't expect that on this twentieth floor.

The air itself would emit light.

Where did these lights come from?

"When I came to this twentieth floor before, there didn't seem to be this kind of light. Did some special change suddenly occur?"

The light was cold and clear.

Like moonlight.

And also like wisps of icy wind.

Stinging his skin.

Causing goosebumps to rise on Qin Feng's skin in waves.

He continued deeper into the twentieth floor.

The further he went.

The light seemed to grow brighter.

Scattered light threads were like wandering, irregular light maggots, darting about without any pattern, making it impossible to discern the specific direction of the light source.

However.

Fortunately, the corridor was straight.

As long as he kept walking forward, he should theoretically be able to trace the source of the light.

"Indeed, the deeper I go into the corridor, these wandering, irregular lights, like scattered sparks, become more concentrated."

Chaotic light flooded his eyes.

But Qin Feng didn't find it dazzling.

He suddenly stopped.

At this moment.

He had reached the end of the corridor.

And at this end, there was a room.

The room door was open.

It was slightly ajar.

The scattered, irregular light, in Qin Feng's eyes, poured out wildly from the crack in the half-open door, like the 'Fairy Stick Fireworks' he used to play with as a child, also known as 'Handheld Fountains'.

"Is the light source in this room?"

Qin Feng did not enter immediately.

With a thought.

Swish!

In an instant, a thick, sticky, almost solid shadow floated out from him.

As this shadow twisted and changed.

Soon.

It became identical to Qin Feng.

"This 'Hidden Body' truly feels wondrous. It's not just a material projection that can deceive the outside world. To some extent, I can also control this 'Hidden Body' to move, and even fight. Switching between it and my true body makes it difficult for others to distinguish between real and fake."

As he activated 'Hidden Body'.

Qin Feng's main body.

Immediately became ethereal and indistinct.

He was in a special 'hidden state'.

He felt as if he had entered another space, a strange mirror world.

Here.

He was still standing on the twentieth floor of the Raccoon Apartments.

But the entire twentieth floor looked exceptionally eerie and terrifying. The entire corridor was crimson, covered with flesh walls, from which blood seeped and dripped, as if it were constantly raining blood.

"Is this the Ether Layer?"

"It's like the Inner World beneath the Outer World."

"Here, things that were originally abstract concepts become materialized, such as various negative energies, malicious emotions, curses, insults, despair, and so on."

Qin Feng looked out the window of the apartment corridor.

There.

It was still wrapped in thick flesh, and from that flesh, not only did tentacles spread, but also huge eyeballs grew.

The eyeballs stared intently at the corridor.

The pupils kept rotating.

But they didn't seem to notice Qin Feng.

"I didn't expect the strange flesh wrapped around the Raccoon Apartments to extend into the Ether Layer as well?"

"Fortunately, I am currently in a hidden state, and the scope of my concealment covers the spiritual body level, so it can still be effective even in this Ether Layer."

The Material Plane and the Ether Layer are two sides of the same coin.

They can.

Actually influence each other.

For example, if Qin Feng opened a door in the Ether Layer, the door in the Material Plane would also open.

At the same time, his vision could penetrate both layers, allowing him to observe changes in both the Material Plane and the Ether Layer simultaneously.

However.

If he went deeper into the Ether Layer.

The influence he could exert would gradually diminish.

His vision would also gradually become restricted.

He would no longer be able to observe the Material Plane.

Moreover, the depths of the Ether Layer harbor extremely terrifying dangers. These dangers are not necessarily less than those in the Astral Layer, and sometimes they are even more terrifying and indescribable than those in the Astral Layer.

Of course, Qin Feng currently had no interest in exploring the depths of the Ether Layer.

"Creak..."

The room's door.

Was slowly pushed open by Qin Feng.

In the Material Plane, the door seemed to be pushed by a ghost, suddenly opening inward, as if a supernatural event had occurred.

In the Ether Layer, Qin Feng's hand touched the door, pushing inward slightly. The creaking sound grated on his eardrums. This door was extremely difficult to push and was badly decayed, as if it had been sealed for a hundred years, seemingly on the verge of collapsing at any moment.

"Hmm?"

Soon.

Qin Feng saw the scene inside the room behind the door.

But this scene...

In the Material Plane and the Ether Layer, it was not the same.

In the Material Plane, a figure, a woman's figure, was sitting against the wall in the room. It was the mysterious woman seen in the memory fragments previously extracted through Anatomy, but she... had now become a badly decayed corpse.

In the Ether Layer, however, there was no figure or corpse in the room. Instead... a ball lay quietly, a ball of flesh and blood nearly half a person's height.

Thump-thump! Thump-thump!

This ball of flesh and blood emitted a dazzling light.

It kept pulsating.

Just like...

A living fetus, currently nurturing life!