Chapter 349: Reverse World Anomaly

Ying Ying Ming Jie, Reverse World.

Stepping again onto this world through the underground Rift of Hawkins National Laboratory, Naimi Xisi's view was vastly different from before.

Because the soul's higher‑dimensionalization brings Divine Thought, Naimi Xisi can pinpoint the truth within any deceptive illusion.

In short, he now has an enhanced, 24‑hour True Knowledge buff.

In the dim world, black vines spread across the ground like spiderwebs. Yet to Naimi Xisi they resembled the vessels of a colossal creature—running vertically, intersecting, and ultimately leading to a crucial heart.

He guessed that the location of that "heart" must be the hideout of Wei Ke Na's Crazy Face.

Thick black rain fell from the sky, and the faceless chrysanthemum monsters roared upward in excitement, reveling in the rain's nourishment. It was a gift from their deity.

Three feet above Naimi Xisi's head, an invisible force field blocked the rain; he extended his hand, caught a droplet, and tasted it at his lips.

"Shadow energy… it looks like a storm is about to break here," Naimi Xisi said, his eyes slightly lowered.

Ying Ying Ming Jie is divided into shallow and deep zones; the same region of the Prime Material Plane maps into the Underworld as two spaces: Outer World and Inner World.

The vast majority of Undead inhabit the shallow zone of Ying Ying Ming Jie—that is, the Outer World. In the darker depths, even Undead cannot survive; it is a region dense with transformed shadow beings and active shadow elements.

Shadow Storms are a relatively common natural phenomenon in the deep Ying Ying Ming Jie. Periodically, endless shadow elements in the Inner World spontaneously raise a world‑sweeping storm, and within it almost no creature can resist the assimilation of shadow.

This is also how Shadow Dragons hunt: as shadow beings dwelling in the Inner World, they possess a near‑prophetic intuition for Shadow Storms. Once they sense that the area near their lair may soon face a storm, they rush to the Prime Material Plane to capture victims, imprisoning them in the Inner World to await the storm's baptism.

Whenever they witness innocent mortals being assimilated into twisted, hideous shadow monsters, the Shadow Dragon's jealousy‑twisted heart over mortal normalcy eases just a little.

The Reverse World on the other side of Hawkins Town turned out to lie in the deep zone of Ying Ying Ming Jie, a discovery that surprised Naimi Xisi.

One must know that the deep Ying Ying Ming Jie is suffused with oppressive shadow elements; even a powerless mortal who stays here for minutes will be affected, becoming depressed, apathetic, and misanthropic.

Yet Wei Er—the child trapped in the Reverse World—has endured here for several days, and even Wei Er's mother lasted only a few hours.

By the Inner World's normal standards, their minds should already be about ninety percent assimilated.

This is abnormal.

From Naimi Xisi's current perspective, the shadow element concentration throughout the Reverse World is astonishingly low, even sparser than in the shallow Ying Ying Ming Jie.

"Something is restraining… no, absorbing the entire Reverse World's shadow elements," Naimi Xisi thought.

It's not impossible; although called a world, the Reverse World occupies only a minuscule portion of Ying Ying Ming Jie.

One should know that Ying Ying Ming Jie itself is a plane on par with the Prime Material Plane, and every plane possesses a trait— infinite area.

In essence, the Reverse World resembles the Prime Material Plane's Crystal Barrier System; each such system projects both an Outer World and an Inner World within Ying Ying Ming Jie, and when the two layers merge they form an independent world inside Ying Ying Ming Jie.

This is one distinguishing feature of Ying Ying Ming Jie from other planes: it inherits the Prime Material Plane's Crystal Barrier System concept.

Other planes are not like this; some are conceptually akin to the boundless primordial chaos of ancient Chinese myth.

For example, in Hell, a so‑called "peak" might be the hundreds‑of‑thousands‑kilometer‑tall Mount Bu Zhou, and a lava lake could span an area comparable to the Pacific Ocean.

In Hell's first layer, the demon's ultimate stronghold—Evernass's Bronze Fortress—boasts defensive installations stretching tens of millions of kilometers to repel demonic assaults.

Yet even so, demons utilize less than one‑in‑ten‑thousand of Hell's area; most regions are inhabited by wild, unorganized demons who keep to themselves in remote places, preserving ancient demonic doctrines and traditional ways with almost no external contact.

The Reverse World before us is neither huge nor tiny; its size should be comparable to the Crystal Barrier System that Earth occupies. A deity‑level being could influence the Reverse World's shadow elements.

Before leaving the library, because Ya Se Lie Ke could not step beyond the seal, he relayed all intelligence about the Reverse Eye to Naimi Xisi.

"The Reverse Eye is a monster formed by splicing a fragment of my lord's personality with his right eye; confronting it is like facing a divine heretic, and even the most mad divine heretic cannot communicate as the Reverse Eye does," Ya Se Lie Ke said.

"The Reverse Eye possesses divinity but lacks a divine rank, so it cannot convert my lord's faith into true divine power. Yet beware, the Reverse Eye, though lacking mature intellect, instinctively can wield all shadow arts, and every spell it releases becomes a Divine Spell," he continued.

Admittedly, upon hearing the news, Naimi Xisi felt a sudden clang in his heart. No one knows the power of Divine Spells better than he does. His Solar Flare Blast wields such terrifying force because it was fortified by the Sun God's divinity.

One could say that against the Reverse Eye, the Divine Spells Naimi Xisi has long relied upon are now useless. Moreover, the Reverse Eye's very nature is also divine; under Legendary spells, its Spell Slots are indistinguishable from infinity.

Naimi Xisi's ten‑fold Spell Slot advantage from the Mind Gem is also gone.

He had to begin contemplating the means he could use against the Reverse Eye.

As he pondered, the surrounding downpour grew increasingly Berserk, with shadow elements riding the ink‑black rain to the ground, thickening further, and many chrysanthemum monsters sprouting black streaks on their bodies.

A sharp, grating sound erupted at Naimi Xisi's feet; looking down, he saw the vines in distress. They bulged, claws out, moving slowly, each undulating step emitting a piercing scream as if tormented.

In the distance, the chrysanthemum monsters' bodies began to change; a faint, world‑spanning vortex appeared on the horizon, massive black mist coalescing in the sky, forming a spider‑like monster silhouette.

(End of Chapter)