Chapter 562: This Isn't Good News

Why did a huge pit just appear all of a sudden?

The Church and the Dome's convoy halted again due to force majeure, because the battle that Ying Duo and Chi Jinan fought earlier also truly entered the Core area, so the conflict between them had to be completely set aside.

Qi Junyi held the map, stared at the terrain before him that clearly mismatched the records, and furrowed his brows.

This map was drawn about a month ago by the team the Supervision Bureau sent to explore the Eternal Silent Abyss; in theory its accuracy should be quite high.

"It appeared about a month ago." Fang Zhiyan this time actually got out of the vehicle to check the situation; after all, the earlier incident was an unpleasant squabble among juniors, and if Ying Duo truly couldn't win, he would also voluntarily withdraw.

Unlike the Church, the Dome has always coveted forces that should not be under their control, and with weapons developed from new energy sources, forming an exploration team of ordinary people is a piece of cake.

In terms of the cost of exploring the Eternal Silent Abyss, the Dome spends far less than the Church and does so more frequently.

"If we have to give a precise time, it'd be the week when the Undead appeared."

After all, that period coincided with a massive emergence of 'Otherworldly Undead,' so Fang Zhiyan's impression of it was especially vivid.

That week?

Although the Heresy Tribunal was busy handling many matters at that time, he shouldn't have had zero recollection…

Wait.

Qi Junyi clearly remembered; he had no lack of memory—he was even on site, and that blast almost hit him!

He might not be able to say what was happening inside the Eternal Silent Abyss then, but what about the outside?

The blast that Ying Duo fired back then was actually redirected here!

But did Ying Duo's blast really have that much power?

Qi Junyi thought of the huge pit that Tianmian City was blasted into by Ying Duo, and his doubts vanished instantly.

It's not just some potential dangerous Aberrant Species; he waved his hand, signaling the convoy to go around it.

Now that we know where the pit came from, it's easy to handle; the worry is what terrifying high‑risk Aberrant Species the Eternal Silent Abyss might have spawned.

Seeing that they were about to set off again, Fang Zhiyan calmly walked to the side of the huge pit.

In a sense, the big pit actually helped them a lot.

He shook the test tube in his hand; the Ying Guang Lu liquid quivered slightly inside, and Fang Zhiyan casually tossed the tube into the depths of the pit.

The test tube shattered against the rock wall, and the Ying Guang Lu liquid seeped down through the fissures.

—

The cave's ceiling was low; looking up, one could see stalactites in the stone cracks still dripping water.

Ying Guang Lu ore was embedded in the cave walls in patches, some bright, some dim; light overflowed from the ore's surface, tinting the moss‑covered stones with an eerie green.

The two shades of green intertwined on the walls, yet in the unseen darkness, silver‑gray mycelium spread out from deep within the cave.

It resembled tiny snakes slithering over the rock, crossing each other, coiling into small knots; faintly one could see something moving inside, flowing down along the mycelium's threads, dripping onto the ground and forming a small bubbling green puddle.

In the depths of the cave, a vague human silhouette could be seen, with mycelium sprouting from his body as if living veins were crawling out of him.

His hair was silver‑gray, hanging beside his face, even dimmer than the mycelium, and the tips were stained with the glowing, continuously flowing Ying Guang Lu liquid.

His eyes were open, pupils light gray, appearing in the Ying Guang Lu light like two glass beads about to shatter.

The cave was very quiet.

The person's head twitched suddenly, with strange green liquid still clinging to his mouth.

"Water..."

—

"Hm?"

Ying Duo seemed to sense something, lifted his head, and glanced around.

"What's wrong?"

Luo Jinyou looked up to ask about the situation; because Xiren Sheng had been exposed during the recent clash with Chi Jinan, he boarded the Dome's vehicle without any sense of incongruity.

Since Xiren Sheng usually acted in flamboyant clown outfits—he called it 'wearing a vest to cause trouble'—even when he sat in the Dome's vehicle, no one could guess that he was also a wanted man of the Dome.

But even if they guessed, probably no one would care.

Xiren Sheng was teaching Luo Jinyou a card‑drawing game; Luo Jinyou's face was already covered with many paper slips, Xie Jingyan had a few scattered on his face, while Xiren Sheng's face was spotless.

When he turned his head, Ying Duo saw Luo Jinyou's face plastered with white paper slips.

"Did any of you say you wanted water?" Ying Duo asked expressionlessly.

"Water? No," Luo Jinyou shook his head; Xiren Sheng became alert on the spot, holding the only two cards left in his hand and presenting them to Ying Duo.

"Partner, you didn't happen to hear something you shouldn't have, did you?"

Xiren Sheng's expression was unprecedentedly serious; his brows knit tightly, his gaze steadfast.

"Usually when this happens, it's either a 'Old God Whisper' or some 'Mental Contamination.'"

"Either an enemy is targeting you, or something is calling you!"

Xiren Sheng knew this trope like the back of his hand, speaking convincingly, leaving Luo Jinyou and Xie Jingyan beside him dumbfounded.

"You see, if this were ordinary, it might just be a momentary mishearing, but where are we now? No anomaly can be ignored! What if it's an enemy's trick?"

"... You're right," Ying Duo nodded slowly, and facing the Xiren Sheng drawing ever nearer, he directly took the card on his left hand and tossed it to Luo Jinyou.

Luo Jinyou caught it just in time, looked at it, and it paired perfectly with his last "A" card, so he threw it into the card pool.

In an instant, Xiren Sheng was left with only a single "JOKER" in his hand.

Xiren Sheng:!!!

"Partner! How could you do this to me!"

Ying Duo simply patted his shoulder expressionlessly, gave Luo Jinyou a look, Luo Jinyou instantly understood, glanced at Xie Jingyan, cut a paper slip, dabbed it with water, and stuck it onto Xiren Sheng's face.

Their tacit understanding grew in a strange way.

Without watching the commotion over there, Yang Yixie truly took Xiren Sheng's words to heart.

After all, both he and Luo Jinyou now have fragments of a "God," and his fragment should be larger than Luo Jinyou's.

That sound seemed to be coming from underground......

This is not good news.