In the silent chasm, Jiang Yue’s breathing grew increasingly rapid.
She had her back to the mutant, clutching Thousand Threads tightly in her hands, afraid to look back.
Even without turning, the feeling of being watched grew stronger and stronger, reaching a level of psychological pressure that made her body tense even more.
She bit her lip, her heart rate continuing to climb, and the terminal on her wrist displayed her pulse, flashing a red health warning.
301 bpm.
Three hundred beats per minute, her heart was about to burst out of her chest.
Calm down! Calm down! Calm down!
If it kept going like this, she’d drop dead on the spot!
Jiang Yue reached out and clamped her own wrist tightly; the pain, almost enough to crush her bones, slowly brought her heart rate down.
The red alert on her terminal shifted to orange, and her pulse dropped to 222 bpm.
Whether she looked or didn’t, it was the same risk, but finally, Jiang Yue mustered the courage to turn her head slowly. Her spine protested, stiff like a rusty hinge, creaking with every movement.
Everything was normal.
Calm. Silent. Still.
The intense sensation vanished once again. Everything in the chasm appeared perfectly normal. The mass of psychic energy still swirled slowly like a vortex, and the countless tendrils of the mutant remained motionless.
It was so calm that Jiang Yue almost convinced herself it had been a trick of her imagination.
But Jiang Yue knew this was absolutely not a hallucination. Something was definitely watching her from behind, the overwhelming sense of pressure and fear could not have been conjured from her mind alone.
Those who constantly walk on the edge of a knife can sense danger far more easily than ordinary people, and those with strong spiritual abilities possess an even sharper sixth sense.
At moments like this, the test of one’s mindset is brutal, anyone could easily lose their composure.
If you’re going to act, act quickly. Being stuck in limbo, suspended in midair, is terrifying, the feeling is like walking a tightrope on the edge of a cliff, and it’s almost worse than death.
Jiang Yue sniffed, then reached out to stroke the golden eagle’s soft, fluffy head. Her hands trembling, she ended up wrapping Thousand Threads around her own wrist.
After testing with her toes for what felt like forever, Jiang Yue finally found a relatively stable foothold. The golden eagle on her shoulder pecked at Thousand Threads again, absorbing the glowing points inside. Jiang Yue didn’t bother stopping it, she let it peck to its heart’s content.
She quietly focused on the swirling mass of spiritual energy. Five tense minutes passed, and still, the feeling of being watched didn’t return.
Her racing heart calmed slightly as she clung to Thousand Threads and continued climbing upward.
But the moment she turned her head, the sensation came back, and this time, it was even more intense.
Jiang Yue nearly sank to her knees, this was insane! Couldn’t it just be a little simpler?!
She didn’t dare keep climbing, didn’t dare look back, and had no idea what to do. The terminal on her wrist flashed a red warning again, and her heart rate, just calmed, shot back up to 300 bpm.
Glancing down, everything below was still silent. Jiang Yue pressed a hand to her forehead and looked down at the glowing terminal. Suddenly, a light bulb went off in her mind.
The terminal had a recording function!
She shakily activated the recording function on the terminal. A three-dimensional screen appeared, and Jiang Yue slowly turned her head, her peripheral vision locked onto the display.
While she was completely facing away from the mutant below, the screen showed something that made her blood run cold: a blood-red eye opened on one of the mutant’s tendrils.
One.
Two.
Three.
Countless blood-red eyes snapped open, one after another.
Red, like blood and plasma.
On the recording, those eyes were staring at the back of Jiang Yue. Suddenly, their gaze all shifted at once. Through the screen, those eyes locked onto Jiang Yue’s own.
“Ah!!!!!!”
A piercing, heart-stopping scream echoed through the silent chasm.
Jiang Yue clung to Thousand Threads and scrambled upward with all her strength.
The mutant’s canopy shivered violently. The blood-red eyes curved slightly, revealing a twisted, greedy gleam.
Then the mass of spiritual energy exploded with a bang. The mutant’s tendrils began to writhe, intertwining like countless enormous white pythons.
In their restless thrashing, the massive branches suddenly lunged upward. The colossal canopy opened like a gigantic maw, and swallowed Jiang Yue whole.
Jiang Yue was entangled in countless tendrils, surrounded on all sides by eyes.
Greedy eyes, curious eyes, innocent eyes, and completely emotionless eyes, all were fixed on her.
Clutching the golden eagle, she felt like a piece of laundry being tossed violently in a spinning drum. Amid the intense jolting, she could only shield her head with her arms and curl her body into a ball to lessen the impact.
As she was being thrown around, a massive silver vortex appeared before her eyes. She didn’t have time to dodge and was suddenly flung by the tendrils straight into the swirling whirlpool.
Oh no! It’s that mass of spiritual energy!
The immensely powerful energy radiated a forceful wave. Her brain rang under the unbearable pressure, and amid the searing pain, Jiang Yue lost consciousness.
When she woke again, her body was suspended in midair, bound by a tremendous spiritual force.
The golden eagle spread its wings in front of her, the spiritual energy it emitted enveloping Jiang Yue at the core, shielding her from being drained by the surrounding energy.
This was a relatively calm area of spiritual energy. Around her, ripples of spiritual waves lapped like water, and the density of the energy gave the sensation of floating in a liquid.
Jiang Yue rubbed her throbbing head in pain and lifted her eyes to survey her surroundings.
As she turned, she immediately saw dozens of teammates clad in nanosuits, all suspended within the spiritual energy.
There were nineteen of them, twenty including Jiang Yue. All of them, except for Jiang Yue, were unconscious. Their spiritual bodies radiated spiritual power, wrapping themselves within it to resist the corrosive effects of the surrounding energy.
Jiang Yue had once thought her own spiritual body was large. Many people had said she was exceptionally gifted, a rare prodigy.
Although she didn’t care much about it, she couldn’t help feeling a bit proud deep down.
Now, seeing the spiritual bodies of these experts, she realized just how modest they had been.
Each person here possessed an enormous spiritual body. Even the smallest was the size of a leaf, and that “leaf” was still five meters long.
Some of the spiritual bodies had already fallen into slumber, their outlines growing increasingly vague. Even as a rookie, Jiang Yue knew this was a very bad sign.
Among the spiritual bodies, one tiger stood out. Its body remained solid and powerful, fiercely enveloping two people within its form.
Xiang Siu had once said that everyone in their family’s spiritual bodies were tigers. Jiang Yue felt a surge of excitement in her mind and guided the golden eagle to fly toward that tiger.
The resistance here was immense; it was a difficult process, like a landlubber flailing helplessly while trying to swim.
After much struggle, the two spiritual bodies finally met. The tiger poked out its massive head, tilting it in puzzlement as it looked at Jiang Yue, showing no sign of aggression.
Jiang Yue had read books on spiritual body communication back at the base. Carefully, she extended a hand, inching it closer, reaching toward the tip of the tiger’s nose.
The tiger lowered its head and gently sniffed her hand. The scent from the base felt familiar and comforting, and it immediately rubbed its broad forehead against Jiang Yue’s fingers in a gesture of friendliness.
The texture of spiritual bodies varied. Thousand Threads had felt silky to the touch, but this tiger was soft and fluffy, extremely satisfying to stroke.
Jiang Yue glanced at the two Xiang brothers; seeing that their vital signs were stable, she relaxed slightly and continued moving forward.
The spiritual body closest to Xiang Liu was a stunningly beautiful butterfly. Jiang Yue recognized from the number on her protective suit that it was Major Ye Xi.
Beside Ye Xi was Lu Xiu, whose astral form was a Taipan snake. The Taipan’s venom was incredibly potent, yet its temperament was remarkably gentle. As Jiang Yue approached, it lightly tapped the back of her hand with the tip of its tail.
Five of the team members’ spiritual bodies had already vanished. There was no need to check their pulses, Jiang Yue’s keen ears could no longer detect their heartbeats.
At this moment, Jiang Yue felt no fear. For these fallen heroes, all she felt was a deep, heavy sorrow.
Their spiritual energy had been drained by the mutant. Without the protection of a spiritual body, the brain would be utterly destroyed by the waves of energy emitted.
Jiang Yue was a bit puzzled. With spiritual bodies this powerful, these experts should have been able to hold out much longer.
An hour later, she finally understood why they hadn’t lasted.
Every ten minutes, a tsunami-like shockwave of energy swept through, capable of leveling everything in its path!
The sensation of being slammed by one of these energy tsunamis was agonizingly intense.
Imagine a colossal wave hundreds of meters high crashing down on you, your very soul feels like it’s being shattered into pieces.
Jiang Yue and her golden eagle were nearly crushed by it!
The seventh energy shockwave surged. The spiritual energy boiled like scalding water, and the towering silver wave, hundreds of meters high, barreled toward Jiang Yue, carrying a piercing energy blast.
Jiang Yue squeezed her eyes shut. This time… it was over.
With a hum, her vision was flooded with dazzling white light, the area was once again engulfed by the energy tsunami.
At the brink of life and death, the world fell eerily silent. A terrifying force seemed to take hold of her body.
Something indescribable awoke within Jiang Yue.
Ripples spread endlessly through the darkness, twisting it as they moved. From these ripples, a massive, translucent wing unfurled. Its sky-shading feathers flapped gently, blocking the terrifying force that was rushing toward her.
Everything fell silent.
It was as if she had been trapped in an endless dream.
Jiang Yue never imagined she would wake up.
The spiritual energy that had bound her vanished, and her blasted golden eagle had somehow flown off somewhere.
The mutant’s eyes had closed as well. Focusing carefully, Jiang Yue noticed, this thing actually had white eyelashes.
“These eyelashes are actually pretty long.”
Jiang Yue stepped onto the mutant. She felt awful, her mind felt as if heavy lead blocks had been placed inside, pressing down on her until she was dizzy.
The resistance from the spiritual energy had vanished, and the spiritual bodies protecting their owners all visibly relaxed. Xiang Liu’s mighty tiger now lay listlessly beside Xiang Siu and Xiang Liu himself.
Another expert’s spiritual body, a large dog, was sprawled at its owner’s feet, exhausted and panting.
Jiang Yue looked up, her mouth dropping open in shock.
What the hell! What just happened?!
How did that massive mass of spiritual energy just vanish?
How could such an enormous force disappear without a trace, completely inexplicably?!
The absurd, dramatically surreal turn of events left Jiang Yue stunned for a long moment. With the spiritual energy’s attacks gone, she was free and tried to summon her eagle.
At her call, a round, ball-like shape tumbled out of the ripples.
It was so plump and spherical that Jiang Yue couldn’t even recognize what it was at first.
Not until it flapped its wings twice and affectionately pecked at her ankle did she realize.
Oh my god!
This… this is her eagle?!
This round, plump thing was supposed to be her golden eagle?
Where was the sleek, well-proportioned, perfectly built bird she knew?!
Jiang Yue grabbed the eagle by its neck, her eyes wide with disbelief. She patted its round, squishy belly, and suddenly, a wave of sadness washed over her.
“What… why are you expanding sideways?”
“Weren’t you supposed to turn into a colossal, sky-covering eagle?”
Jiang Yue, who had never weighed more than 90 kilograms, couldn’t quite process this.
But what choice was there but to accept reality? Looking at her golden eagle all bloated like this, it was clear that most of that spiritual energy had ended up inside its belly.
Surviving, that was what really mattered.
Even though it had turned into a ball, the golden eagle was still a full meter long.
Jiang Yue recalled its entrance and vaguely remembered that one of its wings had been bigger than an entire room.
She wasn’t sure whether it was just her imagination, scared out of her mind by the blue-eyed millipede, or if she had unconsciously added a heroic filter to the eagle while her mind was fuzzy.
Jiang Yue sighed. “Alright… I guess this will have to do.”
She reached out a hand, signaling the golden eagle to fly onto her shoulder.
The round, plump eagle folded its wings and lowered its head slightly, looking a bit hesitant.
Normally, she and the eagle were perfectly in sync, so Jiang Yue patted her shoulder in puzzlement and called out, “Come on, fly up here!”
After several urgings, the eagle awkwardly spread its wings, managed to lift itself half a meter off the ground… and then crash-landed.
Jiang Yue stared at it with deadpan eyes, expressionless.
She should have known.
At this size…
It simply couldn’t fly.
Support me on ko-fi for more additional updates~ ʚ(´꒳`)ɞ
Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152