Chapter 123: Standing Tall and Gazing Ahead
This was truly bad news.
Xu Zhi had never thought there would be an aberration in Cloud City that surpassed her by an entire rank. After all, based on past federal news reports, while newborn aberrations were far stronger than humans, they were still considered “newborn.” They needed to eat to absorb energy and grow.
But the aberrations in Cloud City had headed straight to the city center after their birth. Xu Zhi had seen them several times through her spirit form—they never fought amongst themselves, instead silently standing guard in the center. They didn’t seem particularly aggressive. Even with the black mist, there was no way they could have grown fast enough to suddenly spawn an Archbishop-level entity.
Yet, the scene before her gave rise to a troubling suspicion.
Still, no matter what, she had come too far to turn back just because of a hunch.
And most importantly, the game console hadn’t stopped her.
That was the key reason Xu Zhi dared to keep going.
Conveniently, an aberration was nearby. Xu Zhi decided to test how effective the cloak’s concealment was.
She deliberately walked toward the aberration, but kept her footsteps light and controlled. Under the cloak’s effect, she silently approached it.
The aberration, which was eating, completely ignored her presence. It wasn’t fully focused on its meal and even glanced around occasionally as if being cautious. But even as Xu Zhi reached its back, it still didn’t notice her.
To its eyes, Xu Zhi was merely a dense patch of black mist.
Something that was completely common in the city center.
Xu Zhi was amazed at how absurdly effective the cloak was.
Of course, she understood that this environment—thick fog, pitch-dark night—was ideal for the Ghost Cloak to shine.
Once she confirmed it worked, Xu Zhi didn’t linger and continued toward the city center.
As she crossed the bridge into the center, the architecture suddenly turned luxurious and cramped.
This had once been the liveliest part of Cloud City, but now it was the quietest.
After crossing the bridge, she noticed more and more aberrations—gathered in small groups, silently standing along the streets, like statues. But all of them were staring in the same direction.
Toward the very center.
The ground was littered with disordered piles of aberration bones. It seemed these creatures would rather eat the corpses of their kind than leave this place to hunt the far more delicious humans.
This eerie silence made the hairs on Xu Zhi’s arms stand up. She didn’t understand how these aberrations could remain so quiet and still. But she could tell: their hearts were far from calm. Quite the opposite.
They were eager, restless, even desperate. Their hunger and craving, their urgency and savagery, all screamed from those glowing crimson eyes.
Xu Zhi believed that if whatever they were waiting for appeared the next second, then the entire city center would erupt into chaos.
In fact, that might not even be necessary. If a single human appeared right now, they’d immediately be seen as food and torn to shreds—just like what had happened to her spirit form.
After all, it would be like rain after a long drought.
And the way these aberrations quietly coexisted indicated that unless starving, they weren’t particularly hostile to their own kind. After all, even with something precious waiting to be born, if they were truly aggressive, they wouldn’t stand this close to each other when the area was still relatively spacious.
Moreover, as she walked deeper into the city, she noticed something else—the closer to the center, the more aberrations there were, yet in-fighting remained rare. They barely fought. In fact, when Xu Zhi observed closely, she noticed that if an aberration got hungry, it would pick a clearly weaker one to eat—likely to fulfill a need quickly and efficiently.
Other than that, they hardly moved, fixated on a single direction.
That treasure—something that made the aberrations prefer starving and eating corpses just to stand guard—what exactly was it?
As she moved deeper in, her field of vision grew narrower. The thick fog condensed into a chilly mist, dampening her hair.
Xu Zhi found a corner without any aberrations and opened her game console to check on Zhen. As expected, its view had also narrowed.
Seeing that, Xu Zhi abandoned the idea of having Zhen accompany her and used the console to instruct it to stay and wait outside the center.
Now, the only aberrations accompanying her were: the black cat drifting like smoke through the mist, Yi on her wrist, and the small aberration in her pocket.
Since entering the city center, that Little Aberrant had stopped staying quietly in her pocket. It squirmed restlessly, clearly wanting to come out, but was smacked lightly on the head by Xu Zhi and suppressed.
Compared to before, the Little Aberrant was now more obedient and had better self-control. Still, even it was getting restless now—if it had been the old version, it probably would’ve run off already.
After entering the city center, Xu Zhi’s midnight aftereffects had nearly disappeared. Even surrounded by heavy fog, her mind felt clearer than it had in ages.
She felt great—except, the closer she got, the more densely packed the aberrations became. Now she had to carefully squeeze between them.
And judging by their size and appearance, the closer to the center, the stronger they were.
They had seized the best positions nearest to “that thing” by sheer power—likely to be the first to fight for it when the time came.
But the weaker ones still didn’t want to leave. They hoped for a chance to snatch a piece of the prize if the strong ones destroyed each other. As long as there was hope, they wouldn’t go.
It was strange. The deeper into the center, the more the fog condensed into something tangible—and Xu Zhi felt even better.
Yes. Not just mentally clear—her whole body felt like it was in peak condition.
She took a deep breath. The air felt sticky, like she was inhaling thickened black mist.
But that didn’t matter. What mattered was—She finally felt a trace of transcendental energy entering her body!
For the first time, something every transcendent had experienced—natural power absorption from the mist—was happening to her!
Now, in this ultra-dense black mist that had literally solidified, she finally felt the faintest trickle.
It was as if her body had a natural barrier blocking the black mist’s energy. But now, with the mist so dense, a tiny bit of energy had finally squeezed through.
