Chapter 289: Climbing the Black Sun
Lin Ye ran quickly, but those things weren't slow either. As he got closer, he discovered they were some bizarrely shaped humanoid internal organs.
"What the hell are these things?"
Lin Ye swung his fishhook and hooked a humanoid heart blocking their path. The heart emitted intense beating sounds, causing the nearby skin to vibrate along with it.
The surrounding humanoid lungs began absorbing the surrounding air. Lin Ye focused his mental energy to perceive the lungs' movements, only to discover they were injecting all the gas inside them into the skin beneath their feet.
Lin Ye's mental energy couldn't penetrate deep into the skin, but he could guess where those gases were going.
Suddenly, violent tremors came from beneath his feet. Lin Ye activated the runes on his Nightfall Formalwear to instantly accelerate. Compressed gas continuously erupted from beneath the skin, the gas eruptions chasing relentlessly behind Lin Ye.
Throughout this process, the humanoid lungs kept absorbing surrounding gases. Gas eruptions began appearing in front, behind, left, and right of Lin Ye, forcing him to constantly change his movement direction.
Lin Ye controlled a compressed spiritual energy blade to backstab the humanoid lungs, but the compressed spiritual energy blade failed to penetrate the humanoid lungs' body, leaving only a small wound on it.
At that moment, a humanoid large intestine emerged from beneath the skin. Only part of it came out of the body, spraying thick, dark green pus from its opening in all directions.
Lin Ye threw the humanoid heart to block the humanoid large intestine's opening, then swung his fishing rod to hook the humanoid lungs. "Up!"
Activating the power runes, Lin Ye violently ripped the humanoid lungs out of the ground. The surrounding gas eruptions finally stopped.
After pulling out the lungs, Lin Ye swung the fishing rod, pulling the humanoid lungs in front of him.
Lin Ye threw down Xia La, took out the Cross Scepter, and stabbed it into the humanoid lungs' body. Then he used his mental energy to perceive and attempt to control its internal structure.
Large amounts of blood sprayed from the Bloody Ring, flooding into the humanoid lungs' body.
At this close distance, with its body pierced and mixed with large amounts of blood, the humanoid lungs had no way to escape Lin Ye's control.
This was the power of the Flesh and Blood Rule Fragment.
The humanoid large intestine spat out the humanoid heart and continued spraying pus. The humanoid heart vibrated the skin, and this vibration gradually intensified, even beginning to cause the surrounding spiritual energy to vibrate along with it.
More and more humanoid organs gathered toward them from all directions, each type of humanoid organ possessing its unique ability.
Ethan and Richard were surrounded by numerous humanoid organs, and their condition was very poor.
"Grab on yourselves!"
Lin Ye clamped onto Xia La, holding the Cross Scepter with one hand while swinging the fishing rod with the other. The fishhook flew backward.
Ethan and Richard hurriedly grabbed the fishing line. Even when attacked by humanoid organs, they didn't let go, because this fishing line was their only lifeline.
Lin Ye stepped on the humanoid lungs and pulled the Cross Scepter. The humanoid lungs inhaled large amounts of gas, compressed it inside their body, and then sprayed it out from the rear.
The compressed gas sprayed diagonally backward, and the humanoid lungs carried them into flight.
Lin Ye used the Cross Scepter to control the humanoid lungs to change direction, avoiding attacks from the ground.
This kind of control could only avoid attacks aimed at the humanoid lungs. As for the passengers in the back, they had to rely on their own abilities. Lin Ye had provided them with a fishing line—whether they could survive wasn't his concern anymore.
Driving the humanoid lungs, Lin Ye successfully reached the Floating Island above the giant corpse's right thigh. The humanoid lungs skidded to a landing. After moving away from the giant corpse, its condition worsened increasingly, and it was nearly dead even before landing.
After safely landing, Lin Ye stored the humanoid lungs' corpse and released Xia La, whom he had carried up.
Both Ethan and Richard were severely injured, but at least they hadn't died down below.
Both of them had brought recovery medicines. After taking the drugs, they quickly returned to normal condition, at least on the surface.
"Continue?"
There were many Floating Islands above the giant corpse. While resting, Lin Ye had already planned their action route.
"Continue, we're almost there."
Ethan raised his head. The Black Sun was right above them, not far away.
"Hey, you said some people escaped from here. Did they also pass by that corpse just now?"
Richard couldn't help asking.
"...Maybe there are other paths. Maybe that corpse wasn't there before."
Ethan didn't think those people could have survived passing by that corpse.
"Then our luck is really terrible."
Xia La climbed up from the ground. Although she hadn't fought much earlier, she was still very exhausted.
The four continued climbing upward. Lin Ye pulled Xia La along as he walked in front, climbing onto Floating Islands first before pulling Ethan and Richard up.
They kept climbing upward like this. The Black Sun was right before their eyes, but no matter how much they climbed upward, they couldn't approach that Black Sun.
"Something's wrong! We can't keep climbing up! The falling speed is accelerating. If we keep climbing like this, when our climbing speed becomes less than the falling speed, we're finished!"
Ethan stopped and shouted loudly.
"Then what should we do!? You said the exit was on that sun, but now we can't even get close to the sun!"
Richard roared irritably.
"There must be some method to get up there! It's just that those people didn't tell me. Help me think—have we missed anything?"
Ethan covered his head as he spoke.
"After passing through only so few Floating Islands, you're already wavering? Then stay here. I'm going to keep climbing upward."
Lin Ye looked at the unchanging Floating Islands above his head and continued climbing upward.
This wasn't the first time he had experienced this situation. To be precise, this kind of endless climbing was the norm for him.
Effort without reward.
Hard work without results.
The end of the road was just the next road, as if there was never any destination.
No surprises, no accidents, only unchanging daily routine.
Lin Ye threw silk strands downward, no longer caring about his employers below. This path could only be walked upward by oneself—there was no way to help each other.
He repeated the actions of climbing and throwing silk strands like this. He didn't know how long he had been climbing when he finally reached beneath the Black Sun.
The so-called Black Sun was a circular black platform, with a layer of translucent red seawater blocking the space between him and the Black Sun.
The seawater was less than two meters deep, with some blood-red creatures swimming inside.
But the seawater depth wasn't the main point—the important thing was the source of this seawater.
"...This couldn't be seawater from the Red Sea, could it?"
Lin Ye took out the Pure White Handkerchief from his loot space. This was loot he had obtained earlier. This handkerchief could produce different effects based on the special liquid it absorbed.
Lin Ye hadn't been to the red maze during this period, so he hadn't used this handkerchief.
This time was perfect for using this handkerchief to test this seawater.
Lin Ye tied the Pure White Handkerchief to the fishing line, then swung the handkerchief into the red seawater. The moment it contacted the seawater, the handkerchief was completely dyed red, and as the contact time increased, the handkerchief's color gradually deepened.