The Era of Gods-Chapter 586 - : Shattered and Encircled

Chapter 586: Chapter 586: Shattered and Encircled

“You!”

“Me?”

The woman being pointed at was cloaked in a black robe; she pulled down her hood to reveal a stunningly beautiful face, her expression one of surprise, which then turned into laughter:

“To think that someone would actually challenge me.”

The next second, the smile on her face vanished, and her radiant visage quickly withered into a dry, yellow pallor. Then, her flesh began to rot away, revealing small holes and the desiccated, darkened skull beneath. A mass of black mist, composed of countless tiny dots, flew out from the decaying eye sockets and surged toward Lin Xiao.

The man who was talking to Lin Xiao immediately leapt back to distance himself, whispering a warning:

“Her profession is the seventh in the sequence of disease spreaders, the Virus Emissary. Be careful.”

Lin Xiao, with sharp eyes, clearly saw that the tiny black dots were countless virus-carrying insects, a truly terrifying thing to face at close quarters.

However, he vanished in a flash and reappeared several meters away, his fist pounding down.

“Bang!”

A colossal Golden Dragon Punch created a massive, triangular soundwave cloud in the void within a few meters, dispersing the black mist into an even finer spray, obliterating all the insects within it into powder.

He spun and appeared behind the woman, landing another punch on her before she could react, blasting her to pieces.

“She’s not dead yet!”

Her shattered body swiftly decayed into a cloud of black mist that lunged at him, but he looked on coldly and roared. The deafening soundwave caused the space to sink, dissipating the black mist completely.

The scene fell deathly silent, everyone frozen in shock.

Seconds later, Lin Xiao confirmed that the Virus Emissary of the Other Races was truly dead, and slowly withdrew his hand. His ferocious Golden Dragon Claw gradually reverted to normal as he cocked his head, eyeing the remaining Alien Descenders, and asked:

“Does that count?”

“Yes!”

The dozen or so people blocking the door stepped back in unison.

He clapped his hands and walked into the gateway with ease.

Less than twenty minutes later, he exited again; he was too late, someone else had already taken the Law Fragments inside before he had fully grasped the situation.

It was a pity that those items fused directly upon discovery, preventing any possibility of theft; otherwise, he simply could have waited at the entrance to rob others.

In the following days, he visited various places one after another in search of Twisted Law Fragments. Sometimes he was quick, finding his targets as soon as he entered; other times, he had to turn the fragmented spaces inside out before locating them. By the sixth day, he had amassed a total of five Twisted Law Fragments.

Returning to the Central Camp, the hub of this Strange Fragment space, he noticed that many familiar faces from seven days ago were missing, replaced by a host of new ones—yet the total number of people was unchanged.

Once again, he endured the unpleasant experience of being engulfed by the Jelly Seal…

This time, he failed to answer correctly again.

Just like before, he witnessed a repetition of the world’s cycle. The Strange Fragment space transformed from a dingy, yellowish world to a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

According to the Descender holding the Jelly Seal, this Strange Fragment space could give rise to worlds of any type. He had gone through dozens of world resets, thus advising that no matter how bizarre the scenario, one shouldn’t be surprised.

As with the previous cycle, they had seven days to explore.

Lin Xiao continued to set out alone, venturing further into the forsaken land of the apocalypse.

In this wasteland, he witnessed cities besieged by zombies, the destruction of survivor camps, the birth of terrifying mutant creatures, and even the most perilous nuclear explosions. That was a space formed by an extra-large Law Fragment, but Lin Xiao later felt it might have been the core of the large Strange Fragment itself, simply that the power of the nuclear explosion was too terrifying to withstand, and he was unable to escape its wrath.

Afterward, he experienced the third repeat of the world’s cycle. Some people had died, and new ones had arrived, including both Descenders and natives of this world.

Upon entering a Strange Fragment space, one couldn’t leave without finding the fragment core, condemned to be trapped until death.

However, Lin Xiao was no longer keen to leave; with each repetition of the world, he observed from the perspective of his True Body and gained some benefits, however small.

Not to mention that with each cycle, he could harvest some Law Fragments—a tangible benefit.

The only downside was such gains were not limitless. After more than a dozen such cycles, the benefits from witnessing the repetition diminished to a pittance. As he progressed, the benefits diminished, and even the advantages gained from the Law Fragments lessened, because after attaining a sufficient amount, most new bits of chaotic knowledge were repetitive.

Lin Xiao knew it was time to think of a way to leave.

And his strategy for departure? It involved moving away from the hub.

During one of the seven-day world cycles, he chose not to return to the Central Camp but remained elsewhere within the space.

As the world turned into a churning, chaotic Eternal Night, aside from three golden auras at the hub resisting the erosion of the repeating rules, a small golden orb floated up and down through the darkness in other parts of the space.

One couldn’t resist the erosion of the rules with physical strength alone, but it was feasible with the help of an artifact.

Updated from freewёbnoνel.com.

He held on with the help of a Defensive Semi-Artifact granted by his True Body through the Creation Rubik’s Cube.

After all, it was just an incomplete replication of world destruction that didn’t last long; the Semi-Artifact was more than capable of withstanding it.

In the chaotic Eternal Night, Lin Xiao protected himself with the power of the Semi-Artifact, walking through the darkness and observing the world with the Eye of Truth.

He finally discovered a surprising anomaly at the moment Eternal Night was about to end, and the world was being reborn.

As the world restarted, people walked out of the jelly, and several Human Descenders, who had lived from long ago to the present, stood in front of the eroded city wall outside the camp, which was less than two meters high, looking at the endless desert in silence. The middle-aged man holding the Jelly Seal rubbed the rough surface of the wall and sighed, saying,

“We can hold on for thirty or forty more world rebirths, but if we can’t find the core by then, we are all going to die here.”

The man who had been with him all along said,

“Search twenty more times, if we still can’t find it after twenty times, we’ll collaborate with the other two sides.”

“That’s the only way.”

“Huh? What’s that?”

Someone by the side pointed at a figure walking towards the Central Camp from the fiercely sunlit desert.

After a while, as the figure approached, those present could clearly see it was a person. They were all Professionals, some even recognized the person’s appearance. They looked at each other, and Fan Yuan said in surprise,

“Isn’t that who from before? We didn’t see him after the world restarted; we thought he was dead. Wait a minute… can he survive the world rebirth without dying?”

“Don’t make a fuss, maybe he has a Jelly Seal as well.”

“Uh, right!”

Lin Xiao returned to the Central Camp, waved to a few acquaintances by the city wall, walked up to them, and said in a deep voice,

“As a thanks for sheltering me so many times, let me give you a piece of advice, don’t compete with me later.”

Most were puzzled by his words, but the middle-aged man holding the Jelly Seal seemed to understand something and asked,

“Have you found the core of this Strange Fragment?”

He nodded,

“You could say that.”

The middle-aged man’s face changed slightly, and he quickly turned to look inside the camp, asking,

“The Fragment’s core is in the Central Camp?”

“Smart.”

Others also understood their conversation at this point and almost simultaneously turned to look at the camp, but after the recent evolution of the world, the camp was empty, and nothing was there.

A few impatient individuals rushed to the center of Central Camp and searched carefully, some even punched or stomped on spots they deemed likely.

But after a full search, they found almost nothing, which led some to doubt. A bald, hulking man shouted in suspicion,

“Are you tricking us? The camp’s barren. Where could the Fragment’s core be?”

Their antics also attracted the interest of Descenders from other camps, who watched with great interest.

Lin Xiao did not keep them in suspense; he walked straight up to the middle-aged man holding the Jelly Seal. Among the surprised, the enlightened, the incredulous faces, he raised his hand, and his claw transformed into a Golden Dragon Claw that seized the middle-aged man’s neck and pinched off his head.

“I didn’t expect you to discover it so fast!”

The middle-aged man’s face didn’t change even as his head was plucked off—he could still utter a word of admiration before his head rapidly dematerialized.

Lin Xiao snorted coldly, his palm opened to reveal a tiny black dot from which a terrifying suction force emerged. The dematerializing head was distorted by the horrific pull, sucked into the black hole, and vanished, leaving behind only a fading trace of horror.

And then, this world began to collapse.

“It’s real!”

The Alien Descenders from two nearby groups were caught off guard. On the human side, they were surprised, confused, and regretful, while the Other Races were filled with outraged fury and charged over.

But the collapse of space happened faster than expected; mid-way through, space shattered, turning into a sky full of chaotic grey mist, and everyone lost their footing and fell.

Lin Xiao heavily landed on the ground, sucked in the last of the chaotic grey mist, looked up at the dozens of Alien Descenders surrounding him, and let out a burp, followed by a deep breath. A roar that distorted even space blasted out, instantly pulverizing the insects released by several disease spreaders and an invisible, unnamed creature into a pulp.

Then his body visibly swelled at a swift pace, soon transforming into a gigantic, ten-meter-tall figure with a dragon’s head and human body, covered in thick Golden Dragon Scales. A blinding golden aura mixed with a terrifying atmosphere burst forth, stopping the many advancing Alien Descenders in their tracks.

At this moment, the power he unleashed was far greater than that of the strongest Professional on the scene.

It was well-known that the difference between Professional Levels became larger towards the end, making it nearly impossible to overcome a level gap—powerful Professionals could easily fight groups alone. The aura emanating from this giant was of such a formidable existence; they did not dare to move.

However, after retreating for a few seconds, someone seemed to realize and shouted,

“This is not inside the Strange Fragments!”

An Alien Descender had space twist behind his head, and a massive shadow of Divine Realm slowly emerged.

The onlookers came to a realization, swiftly summoning their own Divine Realms to connect with Lin Xiao’s Divine Realm, ready for a Divine Realm clash.

The many Human Descenders behind Lin Xiao had complex looks in their eyes when they saw this, all hesitating, with some even cursing in their hearts that this person was courting death. With so many of them, how could they possibly hold back?