Without warning, Han Feiyu's body suddenly turned hazy and transparent.
Then, like a collapsing sandcastle, it silently broke apart.
It became a gray mist with a faint metallic sheen and spread in every direction.
This gray mist was not water vapor.
It was made of countless trillions of microscopic Von Neumann Automata, built from vital energy.
(In simple terms, they were lifelike machines capable of limitless reproduction, iteration, and evolution.)
The Gray Grub Storm had arrived.
The moment the mist appeared, it moved like a living thing with a collective will.
It began to engulf everything around it at an astonishing speed.
First came the ground below.
The instant the soil and stone touched the gray mist, they were broken down into the most basic vital energy, becoming raw material for countless new Gray Grub automata.
Crack, crack, crack, crack!
Amid the sharp cracking, vast stretches of hard ground sank and vanished before the eye, leaving deep pits behind.
Next came the plants in the garden.
Common weeds and precious medicinal plants alike withered and disintegrated as the gray mist swept past. Not a trace remained; all had been consumed.
Then came the little wooden house.
Its thick timbers seemed to be ground down by invisible files. Their structure failed, and they vanished inch by inch.
Within a few breaths, the house had disappeared completely into the boundless gray mist.
Fed by all that material, the Gray Grubs' reach began to expand exponentially.
One became two, two became four, four became eight—the number of automata exploded, and they devoured everything around them faster and faster.
At last, they spread beyond the Medicine Garden, consuming everything in every direction.
Somewhere in the Seven Wonders Sect's inner grounds.
The Gray Doctor reclined in a chair, leisurely turning the pages of an old