The Sun-Herders aboard the Solar Ark were on high alert. One after another, Sun-Herders leapt into the air, patrolling nervously around the barrier that enveloped the Sunwell.
The Sunwell’s barrier was formed from the radiance erupting up from the well itself, shaping a hemispherical dome of light that inverted downward to shield the Sunwell. Within its bounds, hundreds of li around, the space became a world unto itself.
Qin Mu had never been to the Sunwell before, but he guessed that outside the dome of light there must be other forms of concealment, making the dome far less conspicuous and eye-catching than it appeared from within.
Otherwise, if a massive golden sphere hundreds of li wide suddenly appeared in the Great Ruins, word would have spread long ago—not just throughout the Ruins, but all the way to the outside world.
Take Nether City, for example: it only appears when darkness falls, and even then it’s invisible to the naked eye—only those with fate or luck can stumble into it.
The Sunwell was likely similar—though located within the Great Ruins, it might be completely invisible to anyone nearby.
So finding the Sunwell wasn’t easy. The extra-dimensional demon gods must have paid a steep price and gone to great lengths to locate it.
The Sunwell’s canopy gleamed like hammered gold. Suddenly, a gigantic face appeared on the sky-dome—nose and eye pressed against it, trying to shove through, as if to break the barrier and force its way into the Sunwell.
Its chin was absurdly long, almost like a handle, but its mouth grew at the very tip of that chin. The eye was enormous—and there was only one, set squarely in the center of its face, making it look as if a huge ball were perched atop its nose. The effect was grotesque.
“What world’s demon god is that?”
Qin Mu was stunned—he had never seen a demon god shaped like that before.
Just then, a chorus of wet smacking sounds echoed from all directions. One after another, grotesque faces pressed up against the Sunwell’s canopy. In a blink, the sky-dome covering hundreds of li was plastered with faces!
These faces varied in size and shape, but they all shared the same structure: a single, enormous eye in the center, a long chin, and a mouth growing right on that chin!
In the blink of an eye, the sky was covered with these faces. Their huge eyeballs rolled around, peering curiously at everything inside the barrier, grinning eerily and sending chills down everyone’s spine.
Suddenly, all those enormous eyes swung to stare at the chained artificial sun hanging in midair. Every face showed a look of shock at once.
“That’s the Heavy-Body Race.”
The old clan chief’s face was grim. “A kind of demon race. The Heavy-Body Race is different from other demonfolk—they’re masters of assimilation. When they encounter another lifeform, they assimilate it, transform it completely, and make it one of their own—or rather, make it a part of themselves.”
Qin Mu was taken aback. Assimilate others and turn them into your own people, a part of yourself?
A race that strange actually exists?
“The strangest thing about the Heavy-Body Race is that they share a single mind.”
The old clan chief’s face flickered with fear, but he quickly hid it and continued, “If you’re caught by them, their collective mind will assimilate you. A single Heavy-Body Demon God may command millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of bodies. Their shared consciousness is unimaginably strong. If they catch you, they can overwhelm your mind and remake you as a part of themselves!”
Lynn Ling, Serena Yunxiang, and the others shuddered. If such a demon god ever broke out of the Great Ruins and invaded the Everpeace Empire, the entire nation would be turned into Heavy-Body demons within days!
With hundreds of millions of minds fused together, who could possibly resist?
It truly was just as the Sun-Herder Clan Chief had warned: if the Sun-Herders were ever wiped out and the demon gods of the Great Ruins broke free, the world outside would be doomed as well!
Suddenly, all the faces in the sky vanished. The old clan chief urgently called out, “Your Highness, please take command of the Solar Ark and lend your aid!”
Qin Mu rushed to the great pillars, reaching out to touch one. The instant his palm met the column, a torrent of power surged through the Solar Ark, swelling his flesh, driving his aura higher and higher—he soared past the Seven Stars, Heaven-Man, Life-and-Death, and Divine Bridge realms, stepping straight into the unknown!
Boom—
Inside him, explosions rang out in rapid succession—the sound of his divine treasuries bursting open one after another. The process was so fast it seemed like just a single thunderous boom!
Divine might erupted from his body in every direction, distorting space itself. Ripples of power shook the air as the unleashed force warped the world around him.
“So powerful!”
Thunderous sounds erupted from Qin Mu’s mouth. At this moment, he and the Solar Ark had become one. The power surging into him from the Solar Ark was far greater than what he had felt from the Lunar Ark—the Lunar Ark’s moon had gone dark and nearly shattered, but Qin Mu had reignited the Solar Ark’s sun, vastly boosting the ship’s hidden energy!
This power was pure yang energy—wild and fierce, filling his heart with a craving for destruction.
Two more arms sprouted from beneath his armpits, clutching additional pillars. Qin Mu felt his strength surging even higher. Then, with a soft squelch, he turned in surprise to look at his backside—another thick leg had grown from his tailbone!
“Uh… does Crystal Blaze also grow a third leg?” he wondered to himself.
Standing on three legs, he felt rock-steady. Confidence flooded Qin Mu as he looked up at the sky-dome.
The sky-dome was eerily calm, until—bang! A massive chin punctured the Sunwell’s barrier, its mouth gaping wide. Countless strange Heavy-Body demons spewed out from that enormous maw.
The Heavy-Body demons pouring from that great mouth resembled swarms of insects—dense as a black tide. They quickly grew as large as clouds, then multiplied into a surging black sea.
The black sea billowed, crashing down toward the Solar Ark. Lynn Ling, Serena Yunxiang, and the others looked up, their scalps crawling. The number of Heavy-Body demons surged like waves, enough to drown the Solar Ark in an instant!
And that enormous mouth jutting through the sky-dome kept spitting out more Heavy-Body demons. Lynn Ling and Serena Yunxiang had both seen battle before, surviving the campaign against the Wolf Juxu Kingdom. That war had been grand—tens of thousands of troops clashing on the wild plains, divine warriors, giant beasts, warships, all colliding in a single bloody instant.
(This chapter isn’t over yet~.~ Please click next page to continue reading!)