Chapter 450: A Baleful Omen...?

Hearing his disciple's report, Yuanhe Zhenren's eyes went wide in an instant. "What?!"

At that moment, Yusheng was still puzzling over what "a snake monster" meant—it took him two seconds to connect the term to that neurotic snake in his mind...

Then, the disciple who had come to report quickly explained the situation at the bottom of the Demon Suppression Tower. Before he even finished, Yuanling, who was nearby, could no longer hold back. "The Omen Wanderstar suddenly went berserk? Let's hurry over!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he remembered something, swiftly turned to Yusheng and cupped his hands. "Ahem, an unexpected incident has occurred in the Demon Suppression Tower. I must go and see to it, so I'm afraid—"

"No problem, no problem—I'll go with you and take a look," Yusheng interrupted with a wave of his hand. "There are actually a few things I'd like to discuss with that 'Omen Wanderstar' anyway."

Yuanling nodded, said nothing more, and raised his hand to form a hand seal, preparing to soar into the clouds on a breeze.

But the moment his hand came up, he saw Yusheng casually open a door on the other side. On the other side of the door was the Demon Suppression Tower...

"...I keep forgetting that trick of yours," Yuanling said, startled, then clapped his hands. "Fine. This is faster anyway. Let's go!"

At the bottom of the Demon Suppression Tower, in the vast underground cavern that led directly to the terrestrial vein geyser, multicolored light swirled everywhere. The crimson glow emitted by the subterranean magma intertwined with the faint spiritual light radiating from the flowing terrestrial veins around them. Above the enormous platform at the center of the vein currents, remnants of restless thunder still lingered in the air, but the demon-suppressing stone pillars around the platform had already fallen silent. Between the pillars, crisscrossing runic chains tightly bound the massive stone ball with its terrifying face. The latter showed no movement, as if it had sunk into slumber.

As soon as he arrived, Yusheng noticed the faint electric sparks still lingering in the air. Turning his head, he saw Huli looking completely fluffed up—the fox-girl's tail and ears had puffed up due to static electricity. She curiously pulled a tail around from behind her and rubbed it in her hands, which immediately produced a crackling sound.

The electric sparks illuminated the shimmering eyes of the fox-girl. Happily, she rubbed her tail against Yusheng's arm. "Benefactor! There's static!"

Yusheng twitched instantly from the shock and quickly stepped back. "Stop, stop, stop! Stay away from me—you go walk with Luna."

Luna tilted her head in confusion.

Yusheng explained casually, "You're a metal shell, grounded all over..."

Luna nodded. "Mm, correct."

Huli, looking a bit dejected, put her tail away, then let one tail droop to the ground to act as a ground wire. She sniffed the air. "What's that smell?"

"The smell of something burning." Yusheng sighed, pointing toward the edge of the platform.

A large snake lay stiffly unconscious between two demon-suppressing stone pillars. Several tower-guarding disciples stood nearby with tense, anxious expressions. That giant snake was Snake Lady, knocked out by lightning—now, occasional sparks of electricity still flickered between a few of her heads, and her body twitched now and then, her charred scales giving off the aroma of roasted meat.

Fortunately, she was a great demon; even in such a wretched state, she had only passed out.

Yuanhe Zhenren walked forward with a subtle expression, motioned for the disciples to withdraw, then bent down to check on Snake Lady's condition. He finally let out a slight sigh of relief. "Good, just superficial injuries. It's just that a few lightning strikes hit her heads, which is why she fainted."

Eileen, sitting on Yusheng's shoulder, asked, "Which head?"

"The human head," Yuanhe Zhenren replied casually. "She mainly uses that head for thinking... though her thinking is usually a mess anyway."

No sooner had he said this than the Snake Lady lying on the ground seemed to hear his voice. Her body twitched slightly, and the great demon struggled to open her eyes, her voice faint. "Yuanhe, you old bastard... you motherf—"

Yuanhe Zhenren quickly stepped back two paces. Yuanling, standing beside him, could only steel himself and step forward. "Snake Lady, what exactly happened?"

"What happened... you pack of meddling old farts still have the nerve to ask!" The human head of the Snake Lady widened her eyes, but her body remained stiff and rigid from the convulsions, her tone sounding as if she was about to cry. "You motherf— fed that ball sh*t! As soon as you fed it, it had a stress reaction, and I got struck by lightning! As soon as I got struck, I started cursing, and as soon as I cursed, it cursed me back, and as soon as it cursed me, I got sh*t in the mouth, and as soon as I got sh*t, it had a stress reaction, and as soon as it—"

Snake Lady was clearly deeply wronged. Once she started, the words poured out like a waterfall. Yuanling had to quickly interrupt: "Stop, stop, stop! Alright, I already understand perfectly. You don't need to describe it in such detail."

Eileen poked Yusheng's head. "Hey, hey, Yusheng, this elder sister talks even more crudely than I do."

Yusheng opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but it got stuck in his trachea. He had a belly full of complaints but couldn't spit them out—on the bright side, he had roughly understood what was going on...

Meanwhile, Yuanhao had turned his attention to the enormous stone ball at the center of the platform, which remained motionless.

"...The Omen Wanderstar has been well-behaved all these years. Why would it suddenly become agitated today? And even trigger the suppression of the grand demon-suppression formation," the handsome old man furrowed his brows slightly, turning to look at the great snake. "Snake Lady, what did the Omen Wanderstar say before it went berserk? Has it shown any abnormalities in the past few days?"

"It's always been muttering nonsense, how would I know?" Snake Lady immediately retorted stiffly, but then saw Yuanhao pull a brick out of his sleeve. Instantly, she displayed the serpent's ability to bend and stretch. "I, I just heard it keep saying that the Taixu Spirit Pivot was about to face catastrophic destruction. Then, just now, it suddenly lost it emotionally, saying that the baleful omen had vanished, that it was impossible, blah blah blah, and... oh, and 'only the Omen Goddess is qualified' or something. It also said it had been abandoned—I really couldn't understand!"

Listening nearby, Yusheng muttered to himself, "Catastrophic destruction... Omen Goddess?"

He looked up and met Yuanling Zhenren's solemn gaze.

"The Omen Wanderstar has some ability to predict disaster. That 'catastrophic destruction' it mentioned is not hard to imagine—it most likely refers to this current 'Astralborn' calamity," Yuanling Zhenren said in a deep voice. "But... the meaning of 'Omen Goddess' is unknown to me. I've never heard it mention that title before."

Yusheng then turned to the knowledgeable Yuanhao Zhenren, but the latter also shook his head. "I've never heard of it either."

"Well, it sounds like no good kind of bird," Eileen said, sitting on Yusheng's shoulder and swinging her body back and forth while muttering. "Calling itself a 'goddess,' it's definitely an evil god."

"Stop moving. If you keep shaking, you'll fall off again." Yusheng reached out to steady the swaying little puppet, while his gaze rested on Yuanling, his expression thoughtful. "Putting aside the title 'Omen Goddess' for now, the key point is... the Omen Wanderstar is a 'ball.' How could it have 'faith'?!"

"...That is indeed suspicious." Yuanling frowned deeply, muttering as he walked to the center of the platform and looked up at the terrifying stone ball.

The stone ball with its ghastly face was tightly bound to the ground by chains. It seemed to have fallen into slumber after the backlash from the grand demon-suppressing formation. Red burn marks from the immortal lightning strikes still lingered on its grayish-white shell.

It did not react at all to Yuanling Zhenren's approach.

Yusheng also carried Eileen over to the stone ball, and the two of them looked up at the thing together.

The little puppet rubbed her chin, thought for a long time, and blurted out, "I can't imagine what a 'goddess' would look like from the perspective of a ball like this... Could she also be a ball?"

"Maybe pink," Huli sauntered over and analyzed with a serious face.

"I like black," Eileen said, hands on her hips. "Black looks mysterious!"

Yusheng didn't participate in this pointless discussion. Instead, after silently pondering for a moment, he suddenly stepped forward and raised his hand.

Eileen was instantly shocked. "Ah, Yusheng, what are you going to do?!"

"Just using my old tricks," Yusheng said without looking up.

The next second, a black shadow flashed over in a blur. A blade dropped, and a hand was cut.

Yusheng froze for a moment, then turned his head to look at the Saintess, who was gracefully retracting her fingertip blade and standing elegantly beside him. "...I haven't even said anything yet."

Luna said slowly, "A knight, should be, in sync with her lord."

Yusheng wanted to remind the Saintess that the phrase "in sync" wasn't used that way, but before he could say anything, he noticed the wound on his hand was already starting to heal. He had to swallow his words and hurriedly press his hand onto the Omen Wanderstar's outer shell, focusing his mind to control the seepage and connection of his blood.

—He wasn't sure if this would actually do anything, after all, the Omen Wanderstar looked extremely sinister, neither human nor solid nor even angelic. Heaven knew what would happen if he smeared some blood on it. But Yusheng had one good quality: when he decided to "give it a try," he never bothered with all the what-ifs. To put it bluntly, if the thing hadn't looked like stone, he'd have scraped some of its debris off to taste just for curiosity's sake...

Earlier, when the Omen Wanderstar was active, it clearly wouldn't have cooperated, so Yusheng hadn't felt comfortable making a move. Now that it was unconscious, of course he wouldn't miss this chance to "give it a try."

The blood was almost instantly absorbed into the stone ball.

Yusheng's expression froze slightly, and he blinked.

The absorption was extremely fast—it didn't even give him time to react. It felt less like the blood was "seeping" or "staining" the monster, and more like the Omen Wanderstar was actively sucking the blood in.

"...What the hell," Eileen was startled, blinking and muttering. "Normally, when you make first contact with a target, it seeps in slowly, right?"

Yusheng also frowned. After a moment's hesitation, he pressed his palm against the Omen Wanderstar's shell again and closed his eyes slightly.

He didn't feel the connection of the blood being established—but he directly "saw" a chaotic veil.

That veil seemed to be composed of countless fine meshes layered upon each other. It was very close, yet unreachable; very far, yet seeming to hang right before his eyes. Deep within the veil, something immense was slowly moving. Terrifying phantoms appeared in the distance, dragging long limbs across the sky, stirring the edges of the chaos.

He tried to reach out his hand—but the next second, Eileen's voice directly "pulled" him out.

"What did you call me for?" The little puppet on his shoulder glared with crimson eyes, looking at him in confusion.

Yusheng: "...Huh?"