CH 170

Farther ahead of us, the flickering source of light swayed about in the darkness, looking exceptionally peculiar.

"Turn off your lights. We need to avoid detection," I said.

Everyone immediately turned off all lights and hid around the discarded ships. We moved forward slowly, approaching the flickering light. We couldn't see very well in the darkness, but we had to rely on our laser probes. However, the probes failed to determine the exact form of the source of light. After a more detailed observation, we noted that the light wasn't swaying about. It merely looked like it was swaying due to the flickering.

"Old Du, you guessed earlier that these dots of light were the patrols on this side of the planet. This doesn't look like it," said Zhang Bao'er.

"I agree. This light does not look like it is a regular lamp either," said Old Du doubtfully.

While everyone was confused, the light suddenly moved. The range of movement was big as it shifted several meters away in an instant.

"Watch out. Stay still!" I reminded everyone.

At this time, the light started moving rapidly, looking like it was actually patrolling in an irregular route.

"Odd. Who's walking around with this lamp? The laser probes can't even determine its actual shape," said Old Du.

"This is not a ghost, right? Is this some sort of a lantern-carrying ghost? It's scary," said Zhang Bao'er, causing all our hair to stand on end.

"Stop talking nonsense," I berated, but I still broke out in cold sweat. Things like this that we couldn't scan would never fail to plant fear in our hearts.

Suddenly, the sounds of a steel plate being broken rang out. Oddly, at that exact moment, there was a flash of light, allowing us to see a big mouth biting through a steel plate. Even the process of the steel being swallowed into the stomach of that being could be clearly seen before the white flash ended.

"Th-thi-this is a creature! That light must be its eye," said Zhang Bao'er.

I immediately signaled Bao'er to stay silent with my hands. The creature before us started madly swallowing the remains of the battleships ahead of us. It looked like a street cleaner that survived on the scrap iron all over this planet. I had no interest in provoking such a creature.

I patted Old Du's shoulder and signaled him to retreat slowly. We would pull back before taking a detour around the area. Everyone understood what I meant. As I lifted my leg and gently stepped back while turning, I saw something that stunned me.

A flickering light had appeared on the path behind us. It was less than 50 meters away from us. I started sweating from my palms as I gripped my gun tighter. I had not expected this creature to be able to noiselessly appear behind us.

A steel-devouring monster like this was probably extremely powerful. At that thought, I silently turned on my shield to the maximum. Both sides remained completely silent as we stood facing each other. We did not dare to move even an inch, and we were at a loss as to how we should escape.

The stand-off lasted almost 10 minutes when the light started slowly approaching us. The nervous atmosphere was set aflame. A powerful incorporeal pressure slowly pushing toward us could be felt. An idea appeared in my mind. I immediately slid my backpack off and opened it. Within, Bulu was still sleeping.

'Shit! Why is this little fellow still sleeping? Don't tell me it's in some sort of hibernation,' I thought anxiously. 'I need to wake it up!'

I shook the backpack, attempting to wake Bulu up. The flickering light continued to approach us slowly, followed by its oppressive presence. Forty meters, thirty meters, twenty meters, ten meters…it came nearer and nearer.

While I was trying to think of a solution, a green light suddenly shot out and struck the creature's eye. Zhang Bao'er was too nervous, and he had accidentally pulled the trigger of his gun.

'Shit, something is going to happen!' I thought.

The eye that was struck suddenly erupted in a blinding light. Like an exploding star, it radiated brightly. However, the creature remained completely silent, and amid the odd silence, the flickering eye started charging toward us.

"Watch out, everyone! Be ready for combat!" I shouted. Things were getting too dangerous for me to keep trying to avoid making noise.

A powerful pressure rampaged toward us. We were still enveloped by darkness, but the creature was near enough that I could clearly see the massive mouth descending upon us from above. Just as we were about to attack with our guns, silence returned to the world. I had an odd sensation that I had entered an illusory world.

At that moment, I understood something. Bulu had awakened. In the rippling gray world around me, everyone else was frozen in a moment in time. I was finally able to get a clear look at the creature before us. In the gray world, Zhang Bao'er, Old Du, and the others had turned somewhat translucent. Zhang Bao'er was covering both eyes with his palms, seemingly having given up on resisting.

"Did Bao'er give up?" I cursed.

Old Du and Baron Sisse, both translucent, were assuming a shooting posture. To the side, Dondon was covering Wind Spirit's eyes. Opposite them, the creature appeared in a grayish-white silhouette that looked like a massive toad. Its mouth was opened wide and was less than three meters away from us.

'What freak is this? Good thing Bulu woke up at the last second. Otherwise, that big mouth would have swallowed all of us,' I rejoiced.

At that thought, I opened my backpack again. Inside, Bulu was shining as bright as a star. I took Bulu out of the backpack and gently stroked it as my mind churned for a way to deal with this overgrown toad.

This illusory space created by Bulu looked like a four-dimensional space floating in the sky. When I observed my surroundings, I discovered something new that caused all my hair to stand on end again. About a dozen meters behind us, there was another toad with its mouth wide open. It was in the midst of launching a sneak attack on us.

"Good lord, we're really lucky that Bulu managed to wake up in time. Otherwise, even if these two toads didn't manage to kill us, we would be half dead after facing them," I said as I sweated even more.

At that moment, the light from Bulu's body turned slightly weaker. I knew that I had to deal with the two creatures as quickly as possible. After Bulu exhausted its strength, the toads would regain their consciousness.

"Why are these freaks not visible in the real world? Are they also some sort of invisible creature? Or are they perhaps the trash cleaners produced by the empire?" I wondered.

I also observed the translucent bodies of Old Du and the others, wondering why they had turned translucent after they were frozen in time. I tried touching Old Du with my hand, and I found that I could actually feel his physical body.

"What is going on, exactly?" My brain spun rapidly for an answer.

I sank into deep thought while Bulu's radiance gradually weakened. After about 10 minutes, a thought struck my mind.

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"Bulu, oh Bulu, you must be doing your best to help me if you're forcefully bringing creatures that exist on the same timeline but different dimensions together," I said.

I had contemplated the matter based on my downloaded knowledge and reached a conclusion that the two toads were creatures from the same timeline but different dimensions. Bulu could detect them because they were still living beings with thoughts. They weren't capable of invisibility. They were merely four-dimensional existences, an existence at a level too high for our naked eyes to perceive.

Although they were four-dimensional creatures, they would temporarily reveal their physical form when consuming three-dimensional objects. That was why we were able to get a clear look at the process of the creature while it was swallowing steel.

"A low-dimensional being would not be able to see the activity range of a high-dimensional being. Thus, we probably won't be able to feel the damage done in the high-dimensional space natural to these high-dimensional beings. Bulu must have understood that when observing the creatures swallow the steel scraps. That was why it had tried its best to create a space where we could get in direct contact with four-dimensional beings," I concluded as I pulled out two nuclear warheads from my weaponry compartment.

According to my plan, the shockwaves from the nuclear warheads would not appear in our natural dimension if I attacked them in this state. I would probably only have a single shot at attacking these vicious monsters because Bulu's light was becoming weaker and weaker. Thus, I did not hesitate to pick the nuclear warheads as my attacking method.

I used a launcher to launch a warhead down each monster's throat to ensure that the warheads wouldn't fall out of their mouths. Both warheads had been timed to detonate after one minute.

I then withdrew to the others and turned my shield to maximum capacity, forming two shield layers around us. I then said to Bulu, "Bulu, I'm counting on you. Remove your mind control three seconds before the explosion."

I then hugged Bulu and crouched down, waiting for the countdown to end. Although the wait was only one minute, it felt as long as an eternity. I only gave myself a three-second opening because the two beasts were too close to us.

Seconds passed, and when there were about 10 seconds left, I saw the light on Bulu's body vanish completely. The world before us returned to normal. Zhang Bao'er's shriek rang out beside me. I knew that I had returned to the regular world.

Everything happened in an instant. Even when we were located in two different dimensions, the three-dimensional nuclear warheads were powerful enough that the two four-dimensional creatures were instantly lit up when they exploded.

We saw a yellow fireball flicker into existence for a few seconds. The very air before us shimmered into some sort of wave. I knew very well that the wave was actually the manifestation of the collision between time and the two dimensions.

Everything had happened within a span of several seconds. After a while, peace returned. In fact, everything had happened silently with the two flickering light sources simply vanishing into nothingness.

The explosions of the two nuclear warheads in the fourth dimension had not affected us. Just like that, the two monsters had been silently erased. I grew excited looking at the result of my work. After all, this was a plan I had thought up and carried out alone. It was a heroic feat that I couldn't wait to share with everyone.

What I didn't expect was that beside me, Zhang Bao'er had already started bragging about his own heroic deeds, and for some reason, his story was actually an accurate representation of what I had done. Even more terrifying was the fact that Old Du, Baron Sisse, Wind Spirit, and even Dondon were telling the same story. 

At that point, I broke out in cold sweat as I looked at Bulu, who had returned to its slumber. The four-dimensional space was not as simple as we had thought. It was a complicated world with multiple parallel dimensions existing in tandem.

"You had actually controlled so many parallel dimensions at the same time. It has been hard on you. I don't know how long this feat will force you to sleep this time," I expressed my gratitude to Bulu.

At that point, Zhang Bao'er was still suspicious that we were all messing with him. But when we all showed our weaponry compartments that were empty of nuclear warheads, we confirmed that all our versions of the story had happened.

"Why are there such complicated four-dimensional beings here? This shouldn't be something the imperial army can control," said Old Du doubtfully.

"Who knows? No wonder Emperor Fille forced us to capture Bulu's species back then. He must have known about these beings long ago," I said.

"We're in a very dangerous situation. We don't have any nuclear warheads left, but as we had seen earlier, there are more of these blinking dots of light here. Canyue, you must think of a way to get a ship and leave as soon as possible," said Baron Sisse.