Chapter 451: Disintegration and... Transformation?

Yusheng stared blankly at the puppet on his shoulder.

After two or three seconds, he furrowed his brows in confusion. "When did I call you?"

But Eileen was even more confused than he was. "Huh? You didn't call me? I clearly heard you greeting me in my consciousness just now..."

Yusheng was stunned for a moment, and then the bizarre scene he had glimpsed the instant he "established contact" with the Omen Wanderstar surfaced in his mind—

An endless, hazy veil formed a chaotic space, and behind the layered veils, a colossal phantom flickered past. There were also limbs that stirred the chaos, resembling those of some arthropod.

He had reached out toward the phantom behind the veil, and the real-world Eileen had heard a "call" from the spiritual level.

Yusheng lifted his head, looked at the Omen Wanderstar still in its "slumbering" state before him, then turned his head to look at Eileen on his shoulder. She also turned her little face, her crimson eyes staring straight at him.

Clear, bright, as pure as the day she was made.

She looked like the kind that could be tricked out of her pocket money, then conned into taking out a loan to buy eight boxes of health supplements with cash on delivery.

Eileen frowned sharply. "What are you looking at me for? Are you thinking something very rude?"

Yusheng quickly shook his head, then, with a hint of a guess he himself didn't fully believe, pointed at the stone ball beside them. "Eileen... do you recognize this thing?"

"Huh? I recognize it?" The little puppet's eyes went wide, and she put her hands on her hips, looking very unhappy. "I am a dignified Alice puppet—how could I recognize such an ugly ball? Besides, didn't you hear what Old Man Yuanling said? This ball was captured and imprisoned here three thousand years ago. Where would I have met it?"

Eileen's reply seemed to have no issues, but Yusheng's slightly furrowed brow did not relax. Many strange and even absurd conjectures still swirled in his mind.

After all, he had dealt with those "weird things" many times. If all those bizarre incidents had taught him anything, the most important lesson was definitely this: in a world where all kinds of sinister things kept popping up, any absurd event could happen. If you found some unbelievable clue in an incident, no matter how much it defied common sense, it was best to treat it as true first.

Yusheng described what he had seen.

Then Eileen continued to stare wide-eyed at him.

Yusheng suspected that the little puppet's brain had nearly crashed—if there was anything in her skull that could crash.

Hu Li looked at Yusheng and Eileen, then at the Omen Wanderstar beside them. She raised her hand and pointed at the stone ball, asking Yuanling Zhenren, "Why hasn't this ball woken up yet?"

Yuanling Zhenren stroked his beard, but before he could speak, Snake Lady not far away craned her neck and shouted over, "I reckon it fainted from the smell of its own poop..."

Yusheng finally couldn't hold it in. "Does this snake always talk so disgustingly?!"

Yuanhe Zhenren let out a long sigh. "Ah, when we first caught her, she was even more disgusting."

Snake Lady raised several of her heads (except for the dog head that was lying on the ground, apparently already heat-stupid) and glared at Yuanhe with righteous indignation. "So what?!"

Eileen seemed not to have heard the commotion beside her. At that moment, she fixed her gaze on the Omen Wanderstar again, staring at the huge stone ball for a long time. Then she suddenly jumped down from Yusheng's shoulder and ran over to the stone ball.

After hesitating for two or three seconds, the little puppet reached out and touched the ashen, rough shell of the stone ball.

*Crack.*

A faint cracking sound instantly interrupted everyone's conversation on the platform. Even Snake Lady, who was about to start bickering with Yuanhe Zhenren, tensed up and nervously looked toward the source of the sound.

A thin crack had appeared on the surface of the terrifying ashen stone ball.

Yusheng stared wide-eyed at this, about to ask Eileen what she had done, when he saw the crack rapidly expand. Then countless tortoiseshell-like cracks extended outward—accompanied by a series of cracking sounds, countless ashen fragments began to peel off from the Omen Wanderstar's surface!

Eileen was instantly scared silly by this. The little puppet jumped back two or three steps in an instant and hugged Yusheng's calf. "It's not my fault! I just touched it once and the thing shattered! Oh crap! They're not going to make us pay for it, are they?!"

Yusheng opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the "Omen Wanderstar" had already shattered into countless pieces in rapidly expanding cracks. Large and small ashen fragments and a sky full of dust collapsed from the layered chains, becoming a pile of rubble.

The three fellow disciples—Yuanhao, Yuanling, and Yuanhe—stared dumbfounded at the scene. Xuanche stood by, cold sweat streaming down. Snake Lady, who had been strutting arrogantly just a moment ago, had already curled herself into a snake ball without hesitation, leaving only a human head peeking out from between her tail coils, muttering, "...After you kill this one, don't kill me... I'm a protected animal..."

But just then, Luna, who had been standing on standby at the edge of the group, suddenly stepped forward. She positioned herself in front of Yusheng, her gaze fixed on the dust-filled, collapsed haze. After a brief delay, she said, "There's something."

Yuanling Zhenren frowned slightly and raised a hand.

A gust of wind rose abruptly, blowing away the drifting dust in the blink of an eye. After the dust cleared, what remained was a pile of tangled, thick chains, a ground full of ashen stones of various sizes, and a small ball floating in the middle of the wreckage, about a few dozen centimeters off the ground...

A little ball.

Yusheng blinked, looking at the floating object above the Omen Wanderstar's remains—it was only about the size of an apple, with a bumpy surface and an ashen, stone-like texture. It looked exactly like a miniature planet model. Apart from lacking the terrifying hollow face on its surface, it appeared to be a... "Omen Wanderstar" shrunk countless times.

The platform fell silent. Not only was Yusheng dumbfounded, but even the three experienced old immortals were also stunned. After holding it in for a long time, Yuanling Zhenren turned to Yuanhao. "Senior Brother, you've traveled for many years..."

"Don't ask me," the handsome old man shook his head. "This one, I've really never seen before."

Then several gazes naturally fell on the instigator. Eileen hugged Yusheng's calf, nearly crying. "I really don't know what happened! I just touched it once!"

And just as the little puppet's words fell, Yusheng saw the "miniature Wanderstar" floating among the wreckage suddenly shake!

The next second, the apple-sized stone ball drifted and wafted toward Eileen.

The little puppet turned and saw this, jumped in fright, let out a yelp, and scrambled up onto Yusheng's shoulder in two moves. But the stone ball actually floated up as well, continuing to chase after her.

"Ah crap! Why is this thing chasing me!"

Eileen let out a shriek, then zipped from Yusheng's shoulder into Hu Li's arms, then from Hu Li's arms to the ground, and finally started running around the demon-sealing platform in circles—but the ashen stone ball stayed right behind her. Its speed was unhurried, but the little puppet's short legs weren't exactly fast either, so she couldn't shake off the stone ball chasing after her.

Thus, a bizarre sight appeared on the platform: a 66.6-centimeter puppet running in front, an apple-sized "Omen Wanderstar" chasing behind, interspersed with Eileen's shrieks and strange noises, and the occasional cheer from Snake Lady on the side.

Hu Li lashed out two tails to help intercept the stone ball for Eileen, but the ball moved with a strange "body technique"—it looked slow, yet seemed to predict the future, dodging the obstructing fox tails. Yuanhao Zhenren pulled out a brick, but seeing Eileen so close to the stone ball, he put the brick back. Xuanche charged in, trying to knock the ball down with fists and feet, but his every move, even every step, was preemptively avoided by the stone ball. In the end, he couldn't even touch it.

The scene was chaotic.

But in this sudden "commotion," Yusheng seemed to notice something. When Eileen ran past him for the third time, he suddenly reached out and grabbed the little puppet.

The little puppet didn't react at first. Even as she was lifted into the air by the collar, she kept running in place, flailing her limbs. It took her two seconds to belatedly turn her head. "Yusheng, what are you—"

Yusheng raised his chin, signaling for Eileen to look to the side.

Eileen turned her head and saw the small ashen stone ball floating beside her shoulder.

"Ah—"

Yusheng shook Eileen. "Stop screaming. It's not moving."

Eileen was stunned for a moment, then turned to look at the stone ball again. Indeed, it hadn't "closed in" any further. It just floated at a distance of about a few dozen centimeters from her, occasionally swaying slowly. It even looked... kind of harmless.

"It seems to just want to float around you," Yusheng said, holding the puppet with one hand and stroking his chin with the other, deep in thought. "It had caught up to you a couple of times, but you were too busy running to notice."

Eileen was on the verge of tears. "Why is it chasing me... It broke on its own..."

But Yusheng didn't speak. He just stared straight at her.

"What are you looking at me for?" the little puppet immediately shrank back. "I, I really don't know it..."

"I know, 'you' don't know it," Yusheng let out a soft breath, then placed the little puppet back on his shoulder. As if muttering to himself, he murmured, "It's okay. We'll figure out what's going on."

Eileen blinked in confusion. She couldn't understand what Yusheng meant, nor what was happening now. She turned to look at the "miniature Omen Wanderstar" floating beside her, still felt a bit creeped out, so she reached out and hugged Yusheng's head—as if that would somehow make her feel more at ease.

Yusheng then turned his gaze to Yuanling and the others.

"Now we need to discuss the follow-up for this 'ball.'"