Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chapter 918 - 267: Totem Pole

As Chen Ming held the Obsession Spiritual Stone, he initially felt somewhat relaxed since his target had been dealt with.

But suddenly, he remembered something.

Just two hours ago, the metal liquid that he released in advance to follow Zuo Jing’s spaceship to the planet had sensed a presence in the laboratory that could threaten this pseudo-body, An Wuping.

Since he descended from the sky, that sense of danger he felt before hadn’t reappeared.

Even as he stood before the Spirit Beast, a mountain of flesh, it still hadn’t surfaced.

Not even after extracting the core of the Spirit Beast, that Spiritual Stone, did he feel any danger.

It was as if the sense of danger he felt earlier had nothing to do with the Spirit Beast.

Or perhaps, his abilities in his insectification form had surged, and now he couldn’t perceive danger from the Spirit Beast he had initially detected?

Chen Ming felt that was unlikely.

This pseudo-body of An Wuping, whether in its normal state or insectification form, was unified, so it couldn’t have been a false perception.

The fact remained that the Spirit Beast he just faced posed no threat to him.

The nauseating feeling from the things on this mountain of meat was ironically of no real significance to him.

With the protection of the Stone of Chaotic Words, impressions belonging to another type of Spiritual Stone were determined early on to pose no threat to him.

So what was the real threat?

Chen Ming stowed away the Spiritual Stone and glanced over the dissolving chunks of flesh nearby.

Yet, he made no discovery, and the sense of danger he had perceived before had vanished without a trace.

Chen Ming didn’t even notice when it disappeared.

Clearly, his metal liquid constantly lingered in the laboratory; although it didn’t penetrate the innermost part of the lab, it should have been able to sense danger afterward too.

But the sense of danger had simply vanished, making the situation quite eerie.

The more Chen Ming thought about it, the more off it seemed.

He was sure it wasn’t the Spirit Beast that posed a threat to him, but something else.

There had to be something else in the laboratory.

Yet it hadn’t emerged at this moment.

Chen Ming, taking control of the now functioning monitoring system via the metal liquid, didn’t find anything amiss anywhere.

The only activity was near the laboratory and the main door at its deepest part, where some Zuo Jing members were struggling to reseal the opened doors with the support of a Psychic, clearing away all the dispersed Spirit Beast tissues.

Moments ago, because of Chen Ming’s dramatic descent and direct dash into the lab’s deepest part, Zuo Jing finally realized something was off in the deepest part of the lab, receiving no responses.

So they indeed opened the door.

The result was that the Spiritual Energy Fluctuations from the Spirit Beast dispersed, and the previously inert tissue near the door suddenly began to proliferate.

Although the tissue derived from the Spirit Beast doesn’t spread like the nauseating, monstrous Dimensional Infection turning humans into grotesque creatures, it was still aggressive.

Additionally, unlike Dimensional Infection, even if a Spirit Beast’s core is destroyed, other derived tissues will retain activity for some time.

So even though Chen Ming had eradicated the source and taken the Obsession Spiritual Stone.

The entire laboratory still had a lot of active Spiritual Energy Fluctuations, with plenty of mutated tissue surviving.

Once the door opened, those Spiritual Energy Fluctuations affected the brains of ordinary Zuo Jing members, drawing them to rush toward the heart-shaped distorted flesh.

Those "obsessed" who were influenced and jumped onto it would be devoured by the flesh used to sustain its survival.

And those areas not yet devoured grew twisted, heart-shaped tissues, gradually merging with other flesh.

Dragging the bodies away in advance might barely keep some human form intact.

This was the origin of those corpses dumped into the deep pit earlier.

The Spirit Beast in the lab’s safety measures was manageable, but once leaked, it wasn’t as easy to handle.

Even with a Psychic’s support, Zuo Jing could only hastily close the door and rest at its entrance.

Speaking of which, the single-molecule-sized hole Chen Ming left hadn’t affected the Spirit Beast’s leakage.

It wasn’t patched by Chen Ming, but due to the Silent Alloy Membrane’s nature.

The Silent Alloy Membrane is constructed of multiple layers of Silent Alloy molecules stacked together.

There’s a special link between different molecules, similar to the molecular bonds maintaining molecular structure, only larger.

Its properties precisely block Spiritual Energy Fluctuations from penetrating, isolating them.

Looking purely at the material properties of Silent Alloy, it can’t block Spiritual Energy Fluctuation penetration.

So within the single-molecule gap Chen Ming left, this special link persists, obstructing the passage of Spiritual Energy Fluctuations.

That’s why when Chen Ming’s metal liquid came through, the Spirit Beast’s Spiritual Energy Fluctuations didn’t leak out.