Waiting.
Ming Xin was like a rock sinking into the deep sea. Every sign of life, energy fluctuation, and even ripple of thought had been compressed to the lowest possible level.
Only the most basic and concealed resonance connection with Shadow Fiend remained deep within his soul, maintaining his reception and analysis of outside information.
The concept of time became blurred here.
Only the constant hum emitted by the massive, corroded device and the monotonous, repetitive "labor" of the aberrations served as this underground space's unique measure of time.
That "humanoid" guard—Ming Xin temporarily named it the "Watcher" in his mind—had barely moved at all.
Its faceless purple vertical eye was like the most precise scanner, conducting a complete spatial scan roughly every three hundred breaths.
From the top of the device to its lowest level, from every corner to the vicinity of the pipe opening where Ming Xin hid.
During each scan, the vertical eye would shine with an even more piercing purple light, while a cold, indifferent Mental Force Field carrying an analytical quality spread out like spilled mercury.
Whenever that happened, Ming Xin would completely sink his consciousness into the shadow plane, diluting his sense of presence until it was nearly nonexistent, as though he were truly nothing more than a stain or patch of rust on the pipe wall.
The fused dual-soul state displayed an astonishing advantage at this moment.
The stability of a Dominator-level soul allowed him to endure this extreme state of "nothingness" without losing himself, while Shadow Fiend's shadow nature provided perfect concealment.
The Watcher's scans swept over the pipe opening several times without pausing.
Besides the Watcher, those "spider-flesh tumor" aberrations were not entirely harmless either.
They seemed to share some sort of primitive collective sensory network.
When one aberration carried