Traveler of the River of Time and Space-Chapter 505 - 23: The Plane of Consciousness

Qing Ji quickly cleared away the monsters near Kagoshima.

As the group was returning, Su Ziyu saw that the black-suited night patrols again. The bald man leading them was walking over from the sea with a group of men. All of them were adult males, their expressions very vacant, being escorted forward by seven or eight black suits.

"Lady Bai Ji." The bald man saw Qing Ji and respectfully approached, saying: "Thank you for your help this time."

Qing Ji nodded slightly in acknowledgment and asked, "How are the casualties?"

The bald man took out a small black leather notebook, flipped through it, and looked up, "Sixteen are dead."

"A girl was murdered in Kagoshima City."

"The rest were sailors on the ship, and there were no survivors."

"We only found eight ghosts."

He pointed behind him at the ghosts drifting over from the sea, saying, "These people have been contaminated by the Void."

"They need to be sent into reincarnation quickly."

Qing Ji slightly nodded in understanding and said, "Understood."

"You go ahead to handle it."

Contamination?

Curious, Su Ziyu activated his Spiritual Vision to look at the ghosts behind the black suits. These people had all just recently died. Under Spiritual Vision’s influence, he could see an obscure black dot on the chests of these adult males. Combined with their vacant expressions, he could roughly surmise that it was human nature that they were losing.

Ghosts also possess human nature.

Generally speaking, people who had just died retain a clear consciousness for a short period and don’t lose their sense of self, but the consciousness of these sailors was now extremely chaotic.

This is the result of human nature loss.

If one lingers in the Mortal World for too long, ordinary ghosts will slowly lose human nature and turn into evil ghosts, vengeful spirits, earth-bound spirits, and so on. Therefore, the Netherworld won’t allow ghosts to remain in the Mortal World for long. However, this process of losing human nature is not very fast, and without some special encounter, there might still be fragments of consciousness even as the soul dissipates.

But these contaminated ghosts are somewhat different. Su Ziyu could feel that the rate at which they were losing human nature was exceedingly fast.

It was from their chests that human nature was leaking away.

The Hundred Ghosts Plane definitely does not have the First Flame.

Thus, the hole in the Void chest is definitely not related to the First Flame. As Su Ziyu carefully observed these ghosts, he thought to himself, "It’s not the Dark Ring, but why is their human nature depleting so rapidly?"

"Wait a minute." He suddenly spoke.

Su Ziyu then directly walked towards one of the vacant-looking ghosts, saying solemnly, "Let me look at their condition."

With that, he reached out and touched one ghost’s chest.

In that instant!

Su Ziyu’s consciousness touched a bizarre void world—a world as if engulfed by mist, empty, without any life or material existence, with no ground below or sky above, its boundaries unfelt. It was somewhat like the source sea encountered during Spiritual Energy ascension but very different, for it consisted only of chaotic consciousness converging as Mind Energy.

"What is this place?" Su Ziyu looked around, vaguely bewildered. The gray mist there was the manifestation of Mind Energy, not tangible fog.

Suddenly.

In his Spiritual Perception emerged an enormous spiritual entity, its spiritual body resembling a planet in size. As it moved here in an instant, the Space-Time Monitor System automatically reacted.

"Detected mental fluctuations of [Ancient Abomination]!..."

"Activate self-protection mechanism."

"Cut off Spirituality connection!..."

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

Su Ziyu’s spirit seemed to be jolted, staggering back two steps, his heart pounding nonstop. He wiped the cold sweat off his forehead, patted his cheeks, thinking to himself, "Damn!"

"Almost forgot about the side effects of Spiritual Vision again!"

That was definitely an Evil God-level ghost thing!

The side effects nearly matched those when touching the Evil God statue by hand.

The hole in the Void’s chest wasn’t the Dark Ring but was a similar presence, serving the same function of human nature loss.

On the Black Soul Plane, the Dark Ring causes human nature loss, but the shed human nature dissipates, and some enemies even drop human nature.

But the Void is a bit different.

The human nature leaking from the hole in its chest directly enters that peculiar Space, rather than dissipating in the Hundred Ghosts Plane. During human nature loss, some chaotic Mind Energy also surges into them. The hole in the chest is actually a channel connecting to an unknown Space, so once ghosts become Void, they immediately possess strength not inferior to ordinary demons.

The chaotic Mind Energy rushes into the Void’s body, starting to twist their forms, transforming them into various grotesque shapes.

But those are actually projections of consciousness.

For instance, the Great Void in jester form possibly believes deep down in his consciousness that he is a jester—a being mocked and ridiculed by all.

"Husband?"

"What happened to you?" Qing Ji’s expression shifted slightly, quickly coming to support Su Ziyu.

"I’m fine." Su Ziyu gently shook his head, saying, "Spiritual Perception sensed something unpleasant."

"It’s not a big problem."

That special space form is very peculiar, belonging to a type of consciousness space, and the Ancient Abomination sensed by Spiritual Perception should not be able to escape.

The human nature leaking from the Void directly entered that Space, becoming nourishment for the Space itself.