Upon reaching the depths, just as expected, they found a towering black altar standing alone within.
Above the altar seemed to float an enormous vortex. If black had ranks, then the darkness around it was nothing more than children playing house.
So this was the source of the calamity?
As Lin Heng drew closer, his heart jolted. Only then did he discover a blurry figure sitting cross-legged atop it.
The figure's outline kept changing, sometimes humanoid, sometimes twisting into some indescribable state.
One glance alone made one feel as if their liver and gallbladder were splitting apart, their heartbeat nearly hitting two hundred.
Lin Heng's instincts told him that this thing was trying to come out. It absolutely could not be allowed to emerge.
Just as he was about to approach, the gray-black ground beneath his feet suddenly cracked apart, as though countless black tentacles had wrapped around his ankles.
"Get the hell away from me!"
The radiance of Humanity erupted, destroying the tentacles one by one.
But immediately afterward, even more tentacles sprang forth, layer upon layer, seemingly endless.
Dugu Gui and the other two ancestors arrived, each activating their domains and forcibly suppressing those tentacles.
"My goodness, kid, what is that thing?"
Lin Heng stared at the center of the altar, his expression grave. "The source. I think those monsters were all split off from its body."
"Then what are we waiting for? Blast it apart!"
Dugu Gui let out a furious roar, gathering all his strength and striking toward the altar with his palm.
Yet when that palm strike landed on the altar's surface, it was like a stone sinking into the sea—not even a ripple arose.
On the altar, the blurry figure slowly raised its head, and an aura far surpassing that of a Great Vehicle