After crushing the Annihilation Beast horde, the void temporarily returned to dead silence. The Sky Patrol Shuttle had suffered considerable damage, and Yun Yi was making emergency repairs. Meanwhile, Li Wuyang led Lei Lie and Bao Bao toward the massive spatial rift, inspecting the corpses and starship fragments floating nearby.
The rift resembled the maw of a colossal beast, constantly swallowing and spewing streams of dim Annihilation energy. Its edges were extremely unstable, emitting harsh hissing sounds as space tore apart. The closer they drew, the more clearly they could feel the terrifying tearing force and chaotic Laws within.
"These corpses... judging by their clothing, they seem to be from Starfall Pavilion." While repairing the Star Shuttle, Yun Yi sent a voice transmission. "Starfall Pavilion is a loose organization that specializes in exploring dangerous places and searching for ancient ruins. Its members are a mixed lot, with vastly differing levels of strength. It seems they discovered this rift and wanted to explore it, but then..."
Li Wuyang crouched beside a relatively intact corpse and carefully examined it with his divine sense. The body had already been eroded by Annihilation energy, with no life force remaining, but perhaps fragments of memory still lingered within its residual soul.
He activated the Soul Searching Secret Technique from the Huang Ting Jing—not an evil art, but a method for reading ownerless remnants of consciousness—and cautiously sent his divine sense into the corpse's sea of consciousness.
Boom—!
A chaotic, terrified fragment of memory flooded into Li Wuyang's mind:
...Darkness... falling... terrifying roars... companions swallowed by shadows... a flash of white light... a woman... she saved us... but she was injured... badly injured... she told us to run... she herself... was dragged deep into the rift... white light... annihilation... so cold...
The memory ended abruptly. Li