Chapter 160: The Truth
"This substance seems capable of annihilating and counteracting various forms of energy." In his perception, Bai Mo noticed that the boundaries of this substance on the Ghost King's body were constantly annihilating, then slowly regenerating.
The high-energy radiation generated by the nuclear explosion was also being rapidly consumed; only a minuscule fraction, less than one percent, could break through the layers of containment and reach Bai Mo's location.
"Could it be that to reach the level beyond the Unmelting Realm, the key lies in creating this special substance?" He couldn't help but ponder this question.
"The sublimation of the Life Field... immense spiritual power... the creation of a special substance..." Various clues interwove in his mind, and finding the answer felt like untangling a complex ball of yarn.
"Reporting to Command, the target has not sustained a fatal blow. Its mass loss is approximately fifty percent, but it is rapidly recovering. Requesting the next round of attack!"
To observe the effect of nuclear bombs against this invisible spirit body, the military had dispatched two soldiers with the ability to perceive spirit bodies to act as observers. They were on helicopters, providing real-time reports on the strike's effectiveness.
"Received. The next batch of nuclear warheads will be loaded in half a minute. All units, attention."
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Another ten nuclear warheads detonated on the Ghost King's body. Its form further shrank under the impact, and it began emitting high-frequency electromagnetic waves, akin to a shriek. All electronic equipment on the observation helicopter was instantly destroyed, forcing an emergency landing in a safe zone.
"It's only feeling pain now? Does that mean the first round of nuclear attacks didn't even hit its main body?!" Bai Mo quickly realized this. "Could my previous guess be wrong, that the unknown substance isn't actually part of its body?"
"The observation helicopter is damaged; a replacement will take at least fifteen minutes. There shouldn won't be any nuclear attacks during this time, and the Ghost King here seems to be severely injured. It's time for the avatar to go in."
Because the Ghost King, which had sprawled across the entire urban area, absorbed most of the impact, the ruins of Tianzhou remained miraculously largely unchanged.
Soon after the avatar entered the barrier, it was discovered by the Ghost King, which was recovering in the city center. What was originally a colossal entity spanning the entire city, measured in kilometers, now occupied less than a square kilometer of ground, over eighty percent of its volume having been vaporized by the nuclear bombs.
But even so, for a Spirit Energy avatar the size of an ordinary person, it was still a behemoth. It had merely shrunk from being utterly boundless to now having discernible borders.
"What kind of barrier could so firmly trap such a monster?" Bai Mo suddenly thought of this question.
"Die!" "Let us become one!" "It hurts so much!" "Me too!"... As the Ghost King approached the avatar, countless mental fluctuations transmitted into the avatar.
It was like countless individuals chattering incessantly. If an ordinary person faced this situation, the information overload alone would be enough to drive them mad. However, for Bai Mo, whose brain had undergone Spirit Energy assimilation, this information flow was merely a bit faster than his usual speed of absorbing knowledge during study.
"Its schizophrenia hasn't improved at all. Does that mean the wills within it don't devour each other?" The more he interacted with this monster, the more questions Bai Mo had.
He decided to have the avatar employ the same trick again, to cut off another piece of the unknown substance for research.
"It's far less intelligent than the fellow I encountered in Tianhai before," Bai Mo mused, playing with the substance he'd acquired by repeating the same trick. "The exact same move actually worked twice."
"A strange state of matter, but clearly not air," he thought, exerting a little force with his right hand, finding he could crush it.
Then, after a few seconds, this piece of unknown substance, pilfered by the avatar, turned into air just like before. Even crushing it didn't change this property.
"Reporting to Command, the target has roughly lost eighty percent of its volume. Requesting the third round of attack." More than ten minutes later, another helicopter carrying an observer flew over Tianzhou to report.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
...
"Boom!"
The third round of bombardment arrived swiftly. Guided by the observer and assisted by the laser guidance system, ten nuclear bombs accurately struck the drastically shrunken Ghost King.
After completing the guidance work, the helicopter carrying the observer immediately sped away in the opposite direction of the explosion. Through the previous two tests, they understood that the Ghost King certainly wouldn't be able to block all the power this time, and most of the energy would leak outwards. If they didn't want to get hurt, they had to leave quickly.
This time, the nuclear bombs truly revealed their ferocity.
"Ah~"
"Ah~"
Only this single signal emanated from the city center.
From the fourth nuclear bomb's explosion onwards, the power leaked externally without any obstruction. The helicopter, which had fled nearly a thousand meters, swayed precariously in the violent air currents.
Meanwhile, Bai Mo, only a few hundred meters from the explosion's center, worked with his avatar to release a streamlined psionic shield, stubbornly holding firm like a tenacious reef in the vast ocean of air impact.
The energy-absorbing skin, part of his Dong Tian Kong Xuan, also operated at full capacity, like an energy black hole, absorbing the rolling heat waves rushing in their direction.
"Something's not right. The radiation feels even weaker than it was in Rome back then. Could it be that in the subsequent nuclear explosions, most of the high-energy radiation was also consumed by the Ghost King's main body?
After the shockwave passed, Bai Mo had his avatar begin probing the central area.
The later nuclear bombs directly scorched the ground at the explosion's center into something resembling glass, while the Ghost King's mountain-like body, composed of the unknown substance, had completely vanished.
Suddenly, the avatar discovered a light sphere in a secluded corner. The blue substance swirling within the sphere seemed somewhat familiar.
"It seems to be the same kind of blue substance left behind after the Spirit Gathering Flower burned in Tianhai. I'll take it for now; they'll be leading a team over soon, accompanied by two high-level Spirit Animation Stage individuals who won't feel anything from this intensity of nuclear radiation."
The avatar snatched the light sphere and began to leave Tianzhou at full speed, but when it reached the boundary, it was violently slammed. Faint cracks were visible in the air.
"Could this thing be specifically designed to prevent this blue substance from leaving? My body can enter and exit freely, but the avatar carrying the light sphere was blocked. Such a barrier, capable of firmly trapping even the Ghost King in its prime, is clearly not something I can break now."
"No, I seemed to have just seen visible cracks. There might be hope of breaking it."
So the avatar, holding the light sphere, began to impact the barrier repeatedly. As Bai Mo continued to strike, he keenly noticed that the light sphere he was carrying was also constantly dimming.
"I understand now. The energy source of the array trapping the Ghost King is itself! The blue substance must be acting to extract its power and form the array! This way, it truly can never escape. What a clever design. Who could be the mastermind behind all this?"
"The Ghost King's origin is the countless dead brought by the nuclear bombs, and the nuclear bombs... the Sea Race!" He quickly made the connection.
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