84: ruins

Thump!

The black orb dropped onto the yellow earth beside him, and the black light points within it seemed to dissipate slightly, indicating that the number of transmissions should be limited.

Shi Yan raised his hand and collected the black orb.

He turned his head and looked around.

Surrounding him was an endless plain, entirely composed of yellow earth.

Shi Yan bent down and picked up a handful of dirt.

“The texture isn’t right.”

The moment the dirt touched his hand, Shi Yan immediately noticed something was off; ordinary dirt felt sandy to the touch.

However, this dirt had a faint chill to it and was incredibly heavy.

Just this small handful, not even as big as Shi Yan’s palm, weighed at least several hundred jin.

The yellow dirt also seemed to possess a strange corrosiveness; in just a moment on Shi Yan’s hand, it had already corroded the muscles in his palm and was now corroding the pristine white bones beneath his muscles.

Several terrifying, gaping holes instantly appeared on his hand.

Shi Yan expressionlessly poured the dirt from his hand, and his hand, now devoid of flesh and resembling white bone, quickly healed.

His feet, at this moment, appeared to be stepping on the ground, but in reality, his feet were suspended a few millimeters above the yellow earth.

The sky above was a clear blue, without a single white cloud in sight.

The oxygen content in the surrounding air was not high, but breathing posed no problem.

A stone temple, over ten meters tall, stood on the yellow earth a dozen meters away.

Shi Yan carefully observed the stone temple.

The stone temple was entirely deep black, with stone pillars encircling it, and through the pillars, one could faintly discern the tall divine statue inside the temple.

Everywhere within sight was yellow earth; only the stone temple before him was an anomaly, and it did not appear normal.

But Shi Yan had no choice.

Although he could return to his original world at any time, Shi Yan was unwilling to go back just yet, so he ultimately took steps and walked towards the interior of the stone temple.

As he approached, the decorations inside the stone temple came into Shi Yan’s view.

The main gate of the stone temple had vanished, and on both sides inside the temple were various black stone sculptures with ferocious faces, each ten meters tall, but these sculptures were missing arms and legs, and some even had their heads gone.

Shi Yan slowly stopped at the entrance of the stone temple.

At the end of his vision was an old, black stone sculpture, fifteen meters tall, with a blurred face, its entire body covered in layers of black scales.

Shi Yan stood still and observed it carefully for a while before stepping into the stone temple.

The ground inside the stone temple was composed of white square bricks, all covered with a faint layer of gray dust, as if no one had visited for a long time.

Stepping on it felt unremarkable; he walked to the deepest part and stood before the tallest sculpture.

Shi Yan’s right hand, covered in blood patterns, reached out to touch the black scales on the sculpture’s body.

The scales were icy cold to the touch and lacked the rough texture of black stone; instead, they felt like armor made of some real alloy.

Looking up, the sculpture’s face was still as if shrouded in a layer of black mist, its features indistinct, and faint waves of pressure emanated from it.

However, Shi Yan merely raised an eyebrow.

Shi Yan walked around, trying to find any unusual traces, but he searched the entire stone temple and found nothing.

However, Shi Yan was not in a hurry; in such an unknown place, it was better to be cautious and meticulous.

Several hours passed.

The sky outside was still a clear blue, but the surrounding environment seemed to have undergone some change.

The yellow earth plain, which was originally visible to the horizon, slowly began to turn strange.

Masses of black mist slowly rolled down from the distant sky, the source appearing to be a large spatial rift; Shi Yan squinted his eyes and could only vaguely see some silvery-white behemoth flashing past on the other side of the rift.

“That’s another world.”

A meaningful expression appeared on Shi Yan’s face.

Although the behemoth only flashed by, Shi Yan could still see its complex and exquisite head.

Shi Yan could confirm that it was definitely not the real world, because just the size of that head alone was several hundred meters, and its entire body would have to be over a thousand meters; however, whether it was a Magic World, he did not know.

The black gas quickly flowed out, and the spatial rift instantly closed.

The black gas did not dissipate with the breeze but instead swiftly fell onto the yellow earth plain like a black current.

As the black gas flowed over the yellow dirt, the color of the dirt seemed to become even more yellow.

Seeing this, Shi Yan also understood why the surroundings were all yellow dirt, and why that yellow earth had such strange corrosive properties.

If even slight contact with the black gas could give it such extremely strong corrosiveness, how strong must the corrosiveness of the black gas itself be?

After the black gas touched the yellow earth, its overall size seemed to decrease, but a large amount of black gas still continuously rolled and swept outwards.

Seeing this, Shi Yan’s expression darkened slightly.

Shi Yan’s heart stirred, and he quickly calculated the movement speed of the black gas.

According to the moving speed of that black gas, he probably only had half an hour before it would spread to his location, and he did not want to test whether he could withstand the corrosiveness of that black gas.

Shi Yan’s mind moved, and he found that he could still return to the Slaughter Paradise, and the gloomy expression on his face slowly dissipated.

Although the black orb could also take him away from here, he did not want to use it unless absolutely necessary, as each use permanently reduced one transmission opportunity.

“Search for another half an hour.”

Shi Yan quickened his steps and began to search and inspect the stone temple again.

After some time, Shi Yan still found nothing; he had also tried various skills, but unfortunately, none were effective.

The black gas, which was previously far away, was now very close to him; he could even hear sizzling sounds of burning and corrosion coming from outside the temple.

Shi Yan stood silently on a section of the white floor.

On both sides were various ferocious sculptures, each with soulless black eyes staring forward, their faces contorted in various grotesque and eerie smiles, as if mocking Shi Yan’s helplessness.

The tall statue at the end of the line of statues still stood quietly in place, the dust on the surrounding ground now covered with Shi Yan’s footprints.

“There’s nothing here.”

Shi Yan’s faint voice echoed in the empty stone temple.

“Then there’s no need for it to exist.”

A ferocious look suddenly flashed across Shi Yan’s expressionless face.