Chapter 402: The Umbra Sphere

Chapter 402: The Umbra Sphere

Ji Xinghuo looked at Bifeng Yuji, "Do you mean that if we find the Umbra Sphere, we can control that Spectral Viper spirit?"

"Yes." Bifeng Yiji nodded.

He didn't hide anything, "The Umbra Sphere is a spiritual artifact and can be controlled through spiritual power. It's not difficult. I once knew a Dragon Marquis, an advanced Thermal Stringer, who possessed a two-star Apocalypse Umbra Sphere left behind by the Spectral Viper clan. It was extremely powerful."

Speaking of this, Bifeng Yiji couldn't help but envy.

"That Spectral Viper spirit from earlier, I judged it to be at least Shock-level. If we can control and cultivate it, its potential will definitely not be much worse than that of a Divine Dragon species!"

"Divine Dragon species!"

The Breidaso sisters' eyes lit up at the mention, but they also felt a sense of dread.

The pain they had just experienced was still fresh in their memories.

Ji Xinghuo was also surprised. He hadn't expected Bifeng Yiji to hold the monster in such high regard. But then again, Bifeng Yiji could have easily hidden this information. Why did he choose to share it with him?

"You didn't have to tell me," Ji Xinghuo said quietly.

"I, Bifeng Yiji, have always been forthright and honest in my words and actions. I obtain the things I want through my own efforts." His expression was sincere, and his face carried that unique pride of a True Dragon human, "Moreover, you saved Lolaning and Renee."

Ji Xinghuo nodded.

However, before he could express his appreciation, Bifeng Yiji suddenly smiled and said, "Most importantly, I'm afraid I might not be able to handle it alone. I might find it, but I won't be able to bring it back safely."

Ji Xinghuo was speechless, but his face remained expressionless.

"Thank you," he said, and then took off.

"Won't you work together with me?" Bifeng Yiji was a little taken aback and quickly added, "I've seen the Umbra Sphere before, and my armor is equipped with multiple search modes. I can help you look for it."

Ji Xinghuo turned into a lightning bolt and flew away, his voice carrying from a distance,

"May the best one win."

Bifeng Yiji stood there, dumbfounded.

"Brother Yiji, are we going to look for the Umbra Sphere?" Lolaning approached and asked, her eyes cautiously scanning the surrounding shadows.

Renee stood protectively by her side.

"Of course we are!" Bifeng Yiji gazed in the direction Ji Xinghuo had left, then shook his head and sighed, "But our chances of obtaining it are slim, and it will be dangerous."

"Why?" Renee asked.

Bifeng Yiji retracted his gaze and looked at the sisters, "That Wildlander is too strong. We can't compete with him for something he has his eyes on."

"But you said that Spectral Viper spirit is comparable to a Divine Dragon species..." Lolaning was unwilling to give up.

"Yes, a Divine Dragon species!"

Bifeng Yiji's eyes also held a hint of greed. For any True Dragon human, a Divine Dragon species was the most coveted companion. If his family had provided him with a Divine Dragon species, he would never have given up on becoming a Dragon Lord and instead chosen the path of a Star Armor Master.

But he soon regained his composure, "Our best option right now is to leave this ruins immediately."

"But he said may the best one win," Renee said.

Lolaning agreed, "Yes, and I don't think that Wildlander seems like the kind of person who would forcibly take things. If we find the Umbra Sphere first..." Her eyes shone with determination, "Brother Yiji, you're the most outstanding genius of the Bifeng family in this generation, and one of the best in the entire Electromagnetic Domain. With the two of us helping, aren't we a match for him?"

It's because of you two that I can't beat him.

Bifeng Yiji complained in his heart.

However, he didn't voice his inner thoughts. After considering for a moment, he actually found Lolaning's words somewhat reasonable.

"Then let's try to find the Umbra Sphere," Bifeng Yiji said, "But if we encounter any conflict with the Wildlander, we will immediately back down."

The sisters glanced at each other and nodded firmly.

They had followed Bifeng Yiji for many years, and this was the first time they had seen him being so cautious about a peer opponent. But they trusted his judgment deeply, as he had proven himself right on numerous occasions in the past.

On the other side.

Unaware of the conversation between Bifeng Yiji and the sisters, Ji Xinghuo landed on a broken wall within the ruins, his face thoughtful.

Over the past dozen days, he had covered most of the ruins.

His electromagnetic sensing had been active the entire time, and even though the sensing radius had been compressed to only one kilometer, he knew the ruins like the back of his hand. He had even probed some hidden areas that were out of sight.

However, he hadn't found anything unusual.

Each time the Spectral Viper spirit was killed by him or self-destructed, he couldn't pinpoint where it resurrected.

Was there a connection between the Spectral Viper spirit and the Umbra Sphere? Ji Xinghuo was certain that he hadn't noticed any such link.

Nevertheless, based on the Spectral Viper spirit's behavior, he could deduce some useful clues. It possessed a high level of intelligence.

"At the same time, it will also try to stay away from the Umbra Sphere's location."

Following this line of thought, Ji Xinghuo entered a state of hyper-frequency thinking, and a map of the city ruins appeared in his mind. He pieced together the places he had been, forming an incomplete three-dimensional image, and then carefully recalled the places where the Spectral Viper spirit had appeared.

One by one, he marked the locations on the map of the ruins, and at first, there seemed to be no pattern, the locations were very scattered.

As the marks increased, a pattern began to emerge.

The appearances of the Spectral Viper spirit were randomly distributed, but there was one area it had never visited.

To be precise, it had never launched an attack on him in that area.

"As expected..."

Ji Xinghuo smiled to himself.

This area accounted for about a quarter of the entire city ruins, located in the northern part of the center. He had hunted Dark Eaters there several times without being attacked by the Spectral Viper spirit, and he hadn't suspected anything until now.

The ruins were vast, even though most of it had been destroyed, what remained still spanned over a thousand square kilometers.

A quarter of that was nearly three hundred square kilometers.

Finding a sphere in such a large area would be like finding a needle in a haystack, and moreover, the Umbra Sphere was likely to have a shadow-blending function, making it extremely secretive.

"It doesn't matter, I have plenty of time." Ji Xinghuo wasn't in a rush, and after figuring out the direction, he took off.

Soon, he arrived at the area.

Then he began his search, spreading out his electromagnetic sensing, his mind focused as he began a carpet-style search of the ruins.

He hadn't found any trace of the Umbra Sphere, but he did come across a group of Dark Eaters.

"Might as well get rid of them."

Ji Xinghuo casually eliminated the Dark Eaters and harvested their spiritual source energy.

After the battle, he turned to look in one direction, and through his electromagnetic sensing, he discovered that Bifeng Yuji and the Breidaso sisters were also nearby. They had no interest in the Dark Eaters and were carefully navigating the ruins, apparently also searching for the Umbra Sphere.

"Still not giving up, huh?"

Ji Xinghuo muttered, but he didn't plan on forcing them to leave.

Bifeng Yuji had provided information about the Umbra Sphere, and his intentions were good. If he could find it first, then that would be his own ability.

He continued his search for another five or six hours.

Ji Xinghuo eliminated several groups of Dark Eaters but still hadn't found the Umbra Sphere. "The Spectral Viper spirit should be resurrecting soon."

He stopped hunting the Dark Eaters and flew towards the center of this area, landing in a half-destroyed building. He entered a stealth state, with his electromagnetic sensing covering a radius of one kilometer, waiting quietly.

A moment later.

In the quiet and dark ruins, a sound came from the distance.

It was Bifeng Yuji and the sisters fighting a group of Dark Eaters, they were quite far away.

Ji Xinghuo looked in their direction, a slight smile on his face, this would surely attract the attention of the Spectral Viper spirit.

Suddenly, in the periphery of his electromagnetic sensing, a patch of shadow rippled, the disturbance extremely subtle, but Ji Xinghuo, with his full concentration, noticed it immediately. He looked up, and on the ceiling over six hundred meters high, there was a large piece of building debris.

The Spectral Viper spirit appeared and hovered there.

It maintained its smallest volume, no larger than a fist, like a pool of flowing ink, completely merged with the shadow, effectively camouflaged.

Even with electromagnetic sensing, it was very vague.

If not for the Myriad Phenomenon Star Pupils, it was unlikely that he would have seen it with just electromagnetic sensing unless he was extremely close.

Ji Xinghuo remained still like a statue, without even breathing. He controlled the electromagnetic waves around him to alter the wavelength of visible light, entering the ultraviolet range, creating a visual shielding effect that was even more wondrous than stealth.

The Spectral Viper spirit did not detect him.

It paused for a few seconds, then quickly moved through the shadows, continuously leaping towards the direction of Bifeng Yuji and the others.

Ji Xinghuo watched it leave.

"Not very fast." He already knew the weaknesses of the Spectral Viper spirit. Shadow jumping was similar to teleportation, with limited displacement, and it couldn't move very quickly. Its absolute speed was much slower than his own.

The Spectral Viper spirit jumped out of the electromagnetic sensing radius and quickly disappeared.

Ji Xinghuo immediately flew up to the location where the Spectral Viper spirit had appeared, using his electromagnetic sensing to search every inch of the surrounding space.

This piece of upside-down building debris looked very ordinary, and such debris could be seen everywhere in the ruins.

However, he soon discovered something unusual.

Buried under the rubble was a collapsed space that seemed to be a biological laboratory, with several passages leading upwards. It was quite large, and even though the entire city had been nuked and flipped underground, the alloy-cast structure was not completely damaged.

He teleported inside.

His electromagnetic sensing had located the deepest part of the laboratory, where there was a sealed room with walls and floors made of alloy, completely shut off.

Aside from that, the laboratory was devoid of life.

Ji Xinghuo transformed into a bolt of electricity, zipping through the corridors of the laboratory, teleporting past any collapsed sections that blocked his path.

Soon, he arrived at the entrance to the sealed room. There was a metal door that was over ten meters thick, the password system long damaged and without power. If it were anyone else facing this door, they might have had to fiddle with it for a long time.

But to Ji Xinghuo, it was mere decoration. He teleported, reappearing in the room behind the door.

His vision was met with complete darkness.

Ji Xinghuo hovered in mid-air, scanning the area. The huge room was empty and upside-down, devoid of air and dust. After a thousand years of silence, he was probably the first person to enter.

"Nothing here?"

Ji Xinghuo frowned slightly after his initial sweep of the room.

His intuition told him that this place had to be hiding something, and it was highly likely to be the Spectral Viper spirit's lair.

The pupil of his right eye began to glow.

The world around him seemed to slow down.

Streams of light appeared before Ji Xinghuo's eyes, and as he scanned every corner of the room once more, he finally noticed something at the base of the wall beneath him. It was slightly darker than its surroundings, and the subtle difference in brightness outlined a vague, spherical shape about the size of a tennis ball.

His electromagnetic sensing had not detected anything unusual when he scanned the area earlier.

Ji Xinghuo did not rashly approach it. Instead, he took out a spear from his dimensional space and gently poked at the spot.

Ding!

The spear made contact with something solid, emitting a crisp sound. It seemed to be an extremely hard object, and he slightly adjusted the spear's position.

In Ji Xinghuo's eyes, the outline of the sphere shifted along with the movement of the spear.

Aside from that, there were no other anomalies.

"There shouldn't be any traps," Ji Xinghuo thought to himself. The Umbra Viper clan had been destroyed for a thousand and five hundred years. Even if there were any issues, the passage of time would have rendered them ineffective by now. He paused for a moment, then took out Qinghong from his pocket.

Ji Xinghuo instructed, "Go pick that up."

Qinghong tilted her head, confusion evident in her eyes as she couldn't see anything there.

"Never mind, I'll do it myself," Ji Xinghuo thought of a new idea. He created a shadow clone that walked over and reached out to touch something icy cold. The clone's fingertip was tinged with black light, and its finger stiffened.

Aside from the low temperature, there was no other harm.

"It's about the same temperature as liquid nitrogen, around negative 200 degrees, but it's no threat to me," Ji Xinghuo assured himself.

The shadow clone handed the invisible sphere to him.

As Ji Xinghuo took it, a chilling sensation spread from his fingertips along his hand. Most of the cold damage was blocked by the flux barrier, and the sacred scales rose from beneath his skin, easily grasping the sphere.

Finally, a pitch-black sphere appeared before his eyes. It had a diameter of about 7 centimeters, its surface bumpy and engraved with lifelike patterns.

It depicted a viper-like creature.

It resembled the viper race commonly found in the Star Realm, with a human-like upper body and a snake-like lower body, complete with arms and a head. Its scales were pitch-black, and its entire body was covered in a layer of ethereal, shadowy light to distinguish it from ordinary viper races.

The Umbra Sphere!

Although Yu Ji Qingfeng had not described what the Umbra Sphere looked like, Ji Xinghuo was certain this was it.

Within the sphere was a black vortex, and at its center stood a shadowy figure.

It was the form of the Spectral Viper spirit.

The usually quiet Spectral Viper spirit seemed to sense something amiss when Ji Xinghuo touched the sphere, and it began to thrash about, letting out a silent shriek, but it was bound within the sphere and unable to attack.

"It's coming back!"

Ji Xinghuo sensed that the Spectral Viper spirit was rushing back and immediately followed Yu Ji Qingfeng's instructions, infusing spiritual energy into the sphere in his hand.

Boom!

It was as if a loud blast rang in his mind, causing his head to throb painfully.

If it were anyone else, their spirit might have been blown apart by that impact, but Ji Xinghuo had the protection of the Myriad Phenomenon Star Pupils, and he only staggered for half a second before recovering.

Immediately, he received a surge of information.

"This..." Ji Xinghuo was astonished and delighted as he understood the information, "This Umbra Sphere is actually one of the Five Stars of Apocalypse!"

What shocked him even more was that a second small interface appeared within the Myriad Phenomenon Star Pupils interface, located below the one displaying Qinghong's ability information. It showed brand new content—the ability information of the Spectral Viper spirit.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end