What You See Is Not What You Get

"Prepare to land."

Xu Xiao rose to his feet, and Ye Xiu and the other two followed his instructions and changed into landing packs.

Unlike the simple, brutish zombies, mutated beasts had evolved in countless bizarre directions. As a result, the environments around their gathering grounds could not be treated as ordinary places.

It could be said that within mutated beast gathering grounds, most technological products would be severely impaired or even malfunction. This was also why, without first determining the situation inside, even an official shelter like Azure Prefecture could not send in large numbers of people for development.

The helicopter circled high in the sky, while only dozens of meters below, yellow sand surged and churned like a tidal wave.

There was clearly no wind in the sky, yet the sandstorm below gave off terrifying howls. Such an abnormal sight was deeply unsettling.

Fortunately, all of them were powerful ability users. Faced with such a strange occurrence, none of them showed any panic or fear.

Su Lie took the lead, followed by Yan Weiwei. Ye Xiu was protected in the middle, while Xu Xiao stayed at the rear, keeping control of the overall situation.

As he watched the figures of the two ahead get swallowed by the yellow sand, Ye Xiu followed and jumped down as well.

Splat.

The moment he pierced through that layer of sandstorm, a crackling buzz immediately filled Ye Xiu's previously quiet ears.

Everything before his goggles was a blur. Ye Xiu simply closed his eyes and used his spiritual sense to survey the surroundings.

What puzzled him, however, was that within the range of his spiritual sense, the spiritual energy fluctuations were utterly calm, showing no changes whatsoever despite the chaotic air currents.

What was going on? They were clearly inside a hurricane; it should not have been strange for anything unexpected to happen.

Doubt arose in Ye Xiu's heart, but they were still in midair. He decided to share this information with everyone after they landed.

Just as Ye Xiu focused on sensing the distance to the ground, a scream suddenly rang out beside his ear.

"Fuck, what's going on?!"

Hearing that rough voice, Ye Xiu immediately recognized it as Su Lie's.

He instinctively opened his eyes, only to discover that the yellow sand that had filled his vision had suddenly vanished without a trace.

Yet before them was not the city buried beneath the sandstorm.

Instead, there was only a hazy expanse of emerald green.

Wait, this height?

Ye Xiu immediately noticed that something was wrong.

Based on the distance from when they had parachuted earlier, they should have been at most a few hundred meters up.

At their rate of descent, they should have landed long ago.

Yet in reality, nearly three minutes had already passed, and the four of them were still drifting through the air.

The ground before them was still so far away that they could not even see it clearly.

"What's going on? Could this area have sunk down?"

Xu Xiao's voice came from Ye Xiu's side. His expression was equally grave, but Yan Weiwei immediately denied the possibility.

"According to my perception, there is absolutely no hollow collapse underground nearby."

"But we've been floating for so long..."

Su Lie scratched his head. Standing at the front, he naturally saw things the clearest.

"This must have something to do with those mutated beasts."

Xu Xiao bit down on his lower lip. Su Lie rolled his eyes when he heard that. "Boss, isn't that obvious?"

"Everyone knows this weirdness is the mutated beasts' doing. The question is, how do we solve it now?"

"There isn't even a bird around here. Even if we wanted to kill that mutated beast, we wouldn't know where to start."

Xu Xiao looked at Yan Weiwei. "Weiwei, can you detect anything?"

Yan Weiwei shook her head. "No. In my ability's perception, there is nothing wrong with everything happening before us. We really are floating in midair right now."

As Ye Xiu looked at everything before him, an idea suddenly rose in his mind.

An illusion realm.

There had long been a saying among cultivators: what one sees is not what one gets; what one thinks is the truth.

It was a summary of illusion arts. The five senses of the human body were, in theory, merely tools for communicating with the world.

And since they were tools, there was naturally the possibility of error.

As long as one found the right method and fed them false information, what one saw, heard, and even felt could all be fake.

It seemed that the mutated beasts living here possessed abilities related to illusion arts.

Blocking perception? No, his own perception had not gone wrong.

They must have forged false information instead.

Ye Xiu calculated rapidly in his heart, but he was not nervous.

The other side had used illusions to deceive them, yet they had not been injured for so long. In a sense, this was also proof that those mutated beasts were not particularly strong.

As long as they did not panic, their safety was at least temporarily assured.

But just as he thought that, the scene before them suddenly changed again.

"Hiss..."

A hiss drew the gazes of all four of them.

They saw a massive python suddenly appear in the empty air where they floated.

The python coiling through the air was nearly a hundred meters long. Its scales gleamed with a chilling light, and its dark golden eyes brimmed with surging malice.

"A seventh-tier mutated beast, the Sky-Piercing Python!"

Yan Weiwei cried out, "Wasn't this monster already exterminated by Xuzhou? How could it possibly appear here?"

"No need to think about it. Those mutated beasts have definitely started making their move."

Xu Xiao clenched his teeth. "Su Lie, put up the shield. Better safe than sorry!"

Su Lie answered, and Ye Xiu saw a huge golden barrier appear around the four of them.

Su Lie himself thrust both fists forward side by side. Accompanied by a series of cracking sounds, the skeletal frame extending from his hands actually formed a massive shield out of thin air, as large as a door panel.

Xu Xiao at the back also pulled out a huge rocket launcher with one hand. Ye Xiu had no idea how this guy carried such a massive thing on him without a storage bag.

The enormous seventh-tier mutated beast stared coldly at the four of them, yet it simply floated in midair without attacking.

Could this thing merely be putting on a show?

As time passed, suspicion rose in the hearts of all four.

But in the very instant they thought that, as if it had foreseen their thoughts, the giant python suddenly lashed its tail.

Whoosh.

Ye Xiu heard the air tear as that enormous tail came crashing straight toward Su Lie, who stood at the very front.

"Putting on a show? Today, your grandpa will show you what's what!"

Su Lie's face flushed red. Facing that tail as large as a small mountain, he charged forward without the slightest hesitation.

Looking at his height after activating his ability, now as massive as Tyrant, even Ye Xiu, who was unfamiliar with him, felt somewhat reassured.

"Ah!"

But in the next moment, Ye Xiu heard a miserable scream. Then he saw Su Lie's body fly backward like a kite with its string cut.

Blood sprayed from his mouth as if it cost nothing, and the enormous shield instantly shattered into fragments.

Defeated in a single blow. As the person with the strongest defense in the team, Su Lie had not even managed to withstand one attack from this mutated beast!