Chapter 2143: Summit Battle 31

"Squeak!!"

"Squeak..!!"

Empty, dark.

The dream rat fixed in the center of the void trembled, its yellow-green eyes looking in terror at the depths of the darkness.

Although it had no brain and had never been injured in this underground space, as that aura kept approaching, the poor dream rat's head felt like it was about to explode.

That was fear from the bottom of life, from deep within the soul.

It didn't know what that thing was, but whenever it appeared, it only dared to hide in its own territory, curling up into a ball—like a mouse hiding in a kitchen drain, only daring to come out for scraps after that thing retreated.

In its simple, instinctual consciousness, that thing was this world's most terrifying nightmare, an absolute death that must not be touched!

However, facing the dream rat's miserable cries, Lin An merely condensed the psychic power binding the dream rat a bit more.

Like a patient fisherman, he held the dream rat's tail in one hand and reverse-gripped Cain's Blade in the other, silently clinging to the rock face at the limit distance.

According to the propagation time of the rumbling sound, Lin An could precisely calculate the opponent's movement speed.

The speed isn't fast; around War Star Peak, this distance gives him a buffer time of about seconds.

"There's still.."

"6 minutes.."

Breathing ceased, and the heart stopped beating as if dead.

Having nearly lowered all his bodily functions to the minimum, Lin An at this moment was like a corpse, concealed to the extreme.

Relying on the double shield of Term: Faith Power and psychic power, Lin An was confident that even if a Star-Destroying Level being passed right before him, they could not hope to detect his trace.

Although he decided to make contact early, he also realized the upcoming battle would hardly be easy.

According to the information from Number 77, Big Eyeball clearly did not want him to face that thing while it was foraging, which shows how terrifying it is.

Not impulsive, reckless.

In theory, he should indeed follow Number 77's arrangement and honestly wait for that thing to finish eating. But since entering the Starlight Battlefield until now, Lin An has had a strong premonition that he feels something has already exceeded the plan.

Moreover, as the Starlight Alliance suddenly changed the rules, he also noticed a large number of points had been wagered on all participants.

Even his own team was inexplicably deducted a hundred points.

According to the new rules, his original potion advantage was effectively canceled. Although this impact isn't big, time-wise it will inevitably become tighter.

"According to Big Eyeball's original plan, I have at most less than 12 hours to reach the summit. But if I obtain the artifact in advance, I have at least 60 hours!"

"Even if there are any mutations, I still have enough time to buffer.."

No longer thinking further, Lin An continuously adjusted all his conditions to peak.

To avoid distraction, he even actively disabled system notifications, leaving the newly added exchange options aside for now.

Time quickly passed.

As the dream rat's cries and the rumbling sounds grew more and more money ah, it seemed to occupy the entire world.

A rich, sweet-smelling bloody odor surged out from the darkness, like a tsunami raging!

It's here!

In Lin An's eyes, a flash of silver-blue supreme light suddenly filled his entire eyeball, and using the investigative effect of the Omniscient Domain, his eyes were like seeing through darkness, at the limit of his field of vision he had already seen that thing!

All that could be seen in the winding dark fissure was a blood-red tentacle extending first; at the tip of the tentacle, several corpses tangled together appeared as if melted and fused, deformed and stuck together.

With each swing and contraction of the tentacle, the corpse mass at its tip shrank a bit.

Just as Lin An had judged, this nightmare-level artifact is alive! It is constantly devouring these corpses!

One! Two! Three!

In less than half a second, more than six tentacles, like a starfish moving on the seabed, shot through the fissure at extremely high speed.

Two seconds later, as a violent burst of blood energy erupted like a storm, Lin An finally saw the true form of this nightmare-level artifact!

"This is..?"

"A heart!?"

"Thud... thud!"

From the center of the tentacle, a dark red heart continuously contracted, as if still inside a body, incessantly pumping fresh blood.

Gazing at the bizarre heart over a hundred meters in size, the Lin An hidden in the dark observing felt an absurd sensation arise inexplicably; for some reason he suddenly felt as if he were inside a corpse.

And this thing before him was precisely the heart of that body.

Those tentacles were the blood vessels, moving along with the heart inside the body.

Unlike the huge noise produced when moving, as the distance grew closer, those strong, powerful heartbeat sounds felt more like a certain sensation.

However, within just a few seconds, Lin An's forcibly stopped heart actually felt a faint sensation of being driven.

"This thing's vitality... is strong to a frightening degree.."

It's unimaginable whose heart this is, or whether it's a special product similar to a heart.

At this very moment, Lin An's mind was filled with many simulated battle scenes.

"Not counting the strangeness of this thing's main body, the corpses it carries are far fewer than I originally expected."

"1, 2, 4, 7! Seven corpses, three of which are still fairly intact, while the remaining ones are already about half-digested."

"Moreover, compared to the intact Star-Shattering Level corpses I encountered alone, these corpses it caught seem to have even their residual instincts eaten away? The threat is greatly reduced."

The situation is much better than imagined.

In Lin An's plan, if this heart grabbed a large number of intact Star-Shattering Level corpses and moved back and forth, only eating them after returning, then without a doubt he could not possibly fight many Star-Shattering Level beings at once, even if he gave his all.

But according to the feedback from the Omniscient Domain, the main threat he now needs to face is probably only three corpses.

The other four corpses have been nearly emptied out, their threat at most comparable to an early Star-Destroying Level; as for the other scattered flesh chunks, they can be directly ignored.

"Three Star-Shattering Level corpses, two on the left and right sides, one on the rearmost tentacle."

"The two in front have nothing special; although the rule fluctuations remain strong, the residual psychic power is minimal."

"The real threat is.."

"Squeak squeak!! Squeak squeak!!!"

Watching wide-eyed as the monster drew nearer, the Dream Mouse tied in the center of the hollow, as if frightened out of its wits, let out a desperate scream.

Trembling all over like sifting chaff, I didn't know whether the Dream Mouse's violent reaction had attracted the heart's attention, but within 0.01 second, the originally swiftly moving Nightmare Heart suddenly stopped, then seemed to be wondering something, hesitated for a second before continuing to move.

In Lin An's perception, the two tentacles in front of this heart, like a crab, unintentionally tightened to protect itself.

Seeing this, Lin An furrowed his brow, instantly realizing that this heart itself probably had a simple consciousness.

Hard to imagine, this thing would actually be the Divine Artifact that 77 referred to?

However, the heart's vigilance was not a bad thing; instead, it let Lin An spot its weakness.

"The upper right of the heart's center? That area is its weakness?"

"Is the Divine Artifact right at this spot? Or does it mean that killing it will cause it to drop?"

Ignored the Dream Mouse's horrific scream.

Lin An quickly made up his mind, like an assassin in the darkness, locking his target onto this vital point.

"First, deal with the two corpses in front!"

"The Rule System affects me the most; finally, that corpse that doesn't look much like a humanoid creature might be the Body System!"

"The heart itself shouldn't be hard to solve; otherwise 77 would have said so. Then, as long as we fight quickly and decisively, we can even ignore the corpses and directly destroy the vital point, and the Divine Artifact will be ours even if we just get our hands on it!"