Lin Mu felt the mark of the ordained thrumming on his forehead. It was as if the world itself was warning him about who had just appeared.
Lin Mu's eyes scanned the being standing on the Ancestral Bell and observed it closely. The Invader had several tentacles that appeared from its tar like glob body and also had many bones that moved around it.
Sometimes these bones would disappeared into the tar and sometimes they would appear on the surface. But they never actually fell out of its body.
A dark aura surrounded it that felt simply repulsive to Lin Mu and could be felt even from here. And when he tried to use his spirit sense to check further, it was simply repelled.
'It's defenses are too high… and this pressure too.' Lin Mu thought as he started to feel something new from the invader.
"AHAHAHA!" but just as he was analyzing the invader, a burst of laughter was heard coming from it.
"It can speak?" The people were surprised, including Lin Mu.
So far, all the avatars or fragments of the invader that Lin Mu and the others had encountered were simply acting on instinct and weren't really 'intelligent'. Of course, Lin Mu knew that these fragments weren't the true form of the invader.
The true invader had always been hiding somewhere in the void, but it was unknown where it actually was. With its spatial abilities, the Invader could easily swim around the void and hide its presence.
Besides, the Invader wasn't in the lesser void. Lin Mu didn't even know which upper layer of the void it was truly hidden in. Even Xukong couldn't really estimate it with his avatar, since its senses were limited too.
Lin Mu's main goal had always been to eliminate the invader, and the Xiaofan had given him the same duty as well. But he had not encountered any traces of the invader after getting rid of Gu Yao.
It made Lin Mu think that perhaps Gu Yao was the one who held the true access to the Invader, and with him out of the picture, the invader was also unable to appear. The lack of invader during the fight also made him think the same as the tribes should have made use of the invader if it really was within their grasp.
It simply made no sense to hold back at all.
But soon the people realized that the laughter didn't belong to the invader at all.
~SLICK~
A bulge appeared on the side of the invader and started to expand.
~POP~
Then once it reached a large enough size, it popped like a pustule.
~SPLAT~
Black tar like fluid sprayed everywhere and more dark aura appeared. But what was the most shocking was the person who had appeared out of the broken pustule.
It was a bald man with a short black beard. His skin was tanned like he had been working in the harsh desert sun for ages. His pupils were deep red and glimmered like rubies. He was wearing robes that matched his character, having red inner robes and black outer robes with black boots.
"HOW!?" Lin Mu couldn't help but exclaim.
"Gu Yao!? You're alive!?" Master Bell Mountain spoke, his voice trembling.
He had stopped bleeding from his seven orifices now, but the blood was still there on his face. While he had not died yet, it was evident that he didn't have long to live now, as his cultivation base was falling like no tomorrow.
It wouldn't be long before he became a common mortal.
"That's Gu Yao!?"
"Wasn't he killed by the Alliance Leader?"
"How's he still alive?"
A mass of confusion soon spread among the alliance, along with a hint of fear as well. After all, one of their most dreadful enemies had turned out to be alive.
"Ahh~ so you are the one who kicked my plans off course and destroyed my minor plane." Gu Yao spoke, his voice eerily deep.
"How are you alive? I'm sure the destruction of the plane killed you." Lin Mu questioned the man outright.
"Oh that? I did die." Gu Yao said, much to their shock. "But in death… I found my new master." He continued.
"That thing… the Invader." Lin Mu guessed.
"Hahaha! Indeed. I had experienced the abilities of my master several times before and had even adapted them as my own, but I never thought that they were merely a drop in the ocean.
After my death, my master found me and revived me with his powers, giving me a part of them." Gu Yao proudly said.
Lin Mu found it all to be strange, as Gu Yao's tone was a little too confident.
'Why is he not just attacking?' Lin Mu wondered.
~RUMBLE~
And just as he was thinking that, he felt the space shake once more.
"What in the…" Lin Mu quickly found the source of the disturbance, finding it to be coming from right behind the invader.
~RIP~
The tentacles of the invader moved like whips and struck the air. But they were actually aiming for something else entirely. They actually hit the fabric of the space, or the boundary of the world itself!
The tentacles had managed to poke a hole through it and were now tearing it apart even more.
"WE NEED TO STOP IT!" Jing Wei shouted, knowing what the invader was trying to do.
After years of experience, he knew how the invaders couldn't fully enter the world due to the restrictions it held. Not to mention a world would innately reject an invader that was too powerful for its residents.
Thus to overcome this, the invader had to take a different approach. It sent out weaker fragments of its avatars to taint the world's senses as well as its beings. After enough time, it grasped the restrictions of the world and figured out a way past them.
The Invader certainly had intelligence, and it was beyond what they had all thought.
