After Lin Xian’s consciousness link slowly faded away, Chu Yan leaned back against the corner of the wall, her face pale. She took deep breaths repeatedly, then looked at her own physical condition HUD, which showed her heart rate and spiritual fluctuations were in a state of critical crisis.

"Hope you’re okay..."

Chu Yan muttered softly to the air, then looked at her uncontrollably trembling hand and slowly clenched her fist.

As a Spiritual Ability User, she should have been the best candidate to explore the scarlet mystery, but even with the combined effects of her superpower and the Dark Energy Synchronization Device, Chu Yan still felt an immense invasive pressure. And this was indoors; if she were outside, she estimated she wouldn’t last more than 30 minutes.

She had to find a way to return quickly; with the Starfire Plan failing, she would need to meet Lin on the South American Continent. The Star Abyss here was roaring, the world was burning, and perhaps there wasn’t much time left for humanity.

Chu Yan thought of Lin Xian’s words just now, her eyes flickering, but she did not contact Grace. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

The South Heavenly Gate was Lin Xian’s trump card. In her and Professor Ye’s view, this trump card might be the reason Lin Xian could survive under the Foundation’s watchful eyes. For this reason, she would definitely not use it lightly, especially since the scarlet scene was full of unknown strangeness, and whether the energy beam weapon of the South Heavenly Gate could achieve the same destructive power as in Dawn City was still unknown.

Sigh~

"Zzz..."

Chu Yan took a deep breath, and at this moment, a burst of intermittent electrical noise suddenly sounded in her communication channel. She looked at the interface and found it was emitted from the frequency of one team of her teammates.

"Cyclone, Black Bee, report your status!"

"Zzz..."

No one responded.

Creak...

An abrupt strange noise suddenly came, interrupting Chu Yan’s train of thought.

The scarlet outside the window carried with it a vague aura, causing the window frames to groan creakily.

Chu Yan frowned coldly. Her whole body was covered in an energy field generated by the Power Armor, a thin glow coursing over its curves. She stealthily stood up, ejecting two Silver Sharp Blades from under her arms. Diffraction Particles gradually heated up; these swords had immense power in close combat, capable of slicing through even S-Class flesh.

Chu Yan gradually approached the window, her fingertips shooting out a high-temperature beam to cut a slit. She then looked out the window, where the scarlet storm visibly invaded the world. The world was not completely dark; instead, the scarlet seemed to carry a certain visible light, turning everything in sight into a bizarre scarlet negative.

The earth was stained with a layer of blood red, soil as crimson as blood, emitting visible red vapor into the air, which quickly evaporated into a crimson blood mist, merging with the air so seamlessly that it was impossible to distinguish where the sky ended and the earth began.

Creak...

The sound came again, and this time Chu Yan was certain it was coming from outside the door!

She immediately turned around, looking at the sealed iron door of the distant apartment. The cold electrical noise continued to hiss intermittently in the communication channel, but outside, the silence was suddenly broken.

It was not the howl of a Zombie, nor the movement of an Abnormal Body, but a sticky, heavy, crawling sound akin to a wet, thick piece of leather being dragged roughly across a surface. Step by step, the sound ground over the cold concrete floor, seemingly just a step away, carrying an indescribable malice, determinedly approaching the sealed, rusted iron door.

At that moment, the sound outside disappeared after nearing the door, replaced by an extremely cold aura quickly spreading into the room. Chu Yan could see the temperature visibly drop on the temperature detector of her Power Armor, with frost forming on the protective skin of the Nanometer Armor.

Simultaneously, the walls emitted a teeth-gritting moan, the rough wall skin soaked with what seemed like strong acid, with large chunks crumbling and rotting away, exposing the more decayed underlying layer. Those fallen wall skins, halfway through their fall, melted into a thick, dark red liquid like a sponge soaked in foul blood, trickling to the ground with an overwhelming stench.

The deep brown rust stains on the already corroded iron door spread rapidly as if it were alive, seemingly corroding and aging quickly. Along with this, the whole room’s "field of view" was collapsing faster, with the scarlet fog rolling like ink, devouring sight, with light suppressed to only illuminate a fuzzy, twisted outline within half a meter around Chu Yan, the cold light lamp on the ground reduced to just a grain-sized point of light.

Then, the heavy iron door, sealed by Chu Yan and completely covered in layers of scarlet rust, appearing fused with the wall, silently opened inward without any external force touching it.

No sound came from beyond the doorframe—pure darkness without sight of the corridor or walls—as if it were an abyss where even darkness lost its meaning, an abyss that swallowed all light and hope, making mere observation induce a bone-chilling fear of the soul being stripped from the body.

Chu Yan’s muscles instantly tensed, pupils contracted sharply, and the cold killing intent replaced the fatigue in her eyes as she slowly gripped the blade in her hand tighter.

"Rose."

[I’m here.] The AI unique to Chu Yan’s Power Armor responded.

"My spiritual power senses that some kind of cross-dimensional entity is standing right in front of me."

[Is it similar to the situation inside Star Abyss No. 3?]