IMC Chapter 136

When Lan Qing approached the discarded, disoriented gift, he suddenly made a sound of recognition, then quickly leaned in and sniffed it. “This smell… it’s a bit familiar.”

“Right? I thought the same,” Shu Bao replied, hopping off Yinzi’s head and circling the gift.

The gift, surrounded by two dragons and a mouse, was in a bit of a panic, keeping its posture with its body still on the ground, looking like a dead pig not afraid of boiling water.

As Shu Bao and Lan Qing discussed the familiar scent, the person on the ground seemed to undergo some kind of magical transformation due to a time limit and rapidly changed shape. However, the person kept their face down, so neither the mouse nor the dragons could see their face.

“Yinzi, flip him over. I’ll reward you with an arm and a leg,” Shu Bao called out to Yinzi, who was already playing nearby, seeing the person stuck to the ground.

At the mention of a reward, Yinzi immediately sprinted over. With a violent tremor in the ground, the person suddenly sat up, executing a fish-leap movement. Yinzi, disappointed, had to stop in his tracks.

“Ah! It’s you! After so many years, I didn’t expect you to hide so well!” Seeing the person’s face, Shu Bao immediately recognized him—it was Duan Zhuo, the one who had escaped from the Xia Wang Tribe and returned to the Chaotic World.

“You’ve been out on a bounty for so many years and still haven’t been found, but you were caught by you guys!” Lan Qing was also surprised. After establishing a foothold in the Chaotic World, Lan Qing had issued a bounty for Duan Zhuo. But since Duan Zhuo was a potion master, he had access to various disguise potions, and he was always cautious, so it was no wonder he had evaded capture for so long.

Duan Zhuo had never expected to run into Shu Bao while selling potions, and he definitely hadn’t expected that, after so many years, Shu Bao would still remember him. Realizing the danger, he decided to make a run for it but collided with a dragon as soon as he opened the door. In front of absolute strength, all his tricks were useless. He was eventually caught and carried to the imperial capital by Yinzi.

“Since you’ve caught me, just make it quick,” Duan Zhuo said, looking resigned, showing no fear of death.

“No way. How come you didn’t think of giving those cats a quick death?” Shu Bao sharply rejected Duan Zhuo’s request. “What you did to those cats, I— a mouse—can’t stand it. Your end is up to Da Bai.”

“Even if I know the exact coordinates of the Heart of Darkness?” Hearing he was about to be handed over to Da Bai, Duan Zhuo’s expression changed, and he attempted to strike a deal with Shu Bao.

“Really? That’s great! Because instead of simple torture, coercion feels more satisfying. I think Da Bai would really like that,” Shu Bao said with some surprise. “I didn’t expect you to become so considerate after all these years.”

Duan Zhuo was confused. Wait, isn’t this development a bit off? Shouldn’t he be considering making a deal with him?

Of course, Shu Bao wouldn’t make a deal with Duan Zhuo. Since there was an easier way, why take the long route?

So, while Lan Qing continued to gather information on the Heart of Darkness, Shu Bao took the opportunity to return to the real world, then handed Duan Zhuo, who was tightly bound, over to Da Bai.

Da Bai, lazily basking in the sun, immediately went into a frenzy upon seeing Duan Zhuo. The soft, fluffy cat transformed into a fierce beast once again. Shu Bao stood by and reminded, “Be careful when you take your revenge. This guy keeps trying to kill himself. He caused quite a ruckus on the way here. Oh, and he knows the coordinates of the Heart of Darkness, so don’t kill him without asking.”

Hearing Shu Bao’s words, Da Bai calmed down a little. The giant white cat took slow, deliberate steps toward Duan Zhuo, its beautiful cat eyes gleaming with a chilling light.

Duan Zhuo almost cried. He had never seen such a shameless mouse. What was even scarier was that after Shu Bao’s words, the furious white cat actually calmed down. His hopes for a quick death were dashed.

After that, Shu Bao only waited three days before receiving the coordinates of the Heart of Darkness from Da Bai. Duan Zhuo knew the exact location because the earliest chaotic place was not far from his home planet. After entering the Chaotic World, he had acquired an extraordinary ability.

When the black meteorite fell onto the planet he was on, Duan Zhuo instantly thought of the planet that was used for various experiments. Although he didn’t know what caused the chaos in the universe, he was certain that the cosmic chaos was connected to the experiments conducted by those people on the planet.

At that time, he was very close to the black meteorite. After entering the Chaotic World, Duan Zhuo’s abilities awakened quickly. His talent wasn’t the potion master ability he claimed to have, but rather a treasure-seeking ability that turned his phone into a map. As long as he entered the name of the item he was looking for, the map would show him its location.

With this ability, he obtained a potion master’s talent stone. From then on, searching for magical plants became effortless, and his potion-making skills improved rapidly. When Shu Bao first arrived and the Xia Wang Tribe entered the Chaotic World, Duan Zhuo noticed them immediately because he had searched for the real-world exit on his map.

The reason he visited the potion shop that day was because his phone had been damaged recently and was malfunctioning from time to time. He urgently wanted to find another treasure-seeking tool as a backup. Following the map’s directions, he entered the shop, but instead of finding a treasure, he found Shu Bao, whom he had been avoiding.

Even when he was handed over to Da Bai, Duan Zhuo didn’t know what treasures Shu Bao was hiding. He only thought he was incredibly unlucky. After being cautious for so many years, he had ended up walking right into their hands.

Shu Bao didn’t know what happened to Duan Zhuo in the end, but seeing Da Bai getting revenge, he could tell his fate wasn’t going to be good.

After the revenge was completed, the cat spirits around Da Bai were no longer incomplete in form. They had all transformed into fluffy cat spirits, no longer constantly circling around Da Bai. Instead, they began to explore the outer world.

Following the rise of high-level magical beasts, cat spirits quickly became popular in Xia Wang City again. After all, who could resist the touch of something soft and furry when there was a fluffy divine being around?

After observing for two days without any sign of Da Bai disappearing, Shu Bao finally relaxed. Da Bai’s existence had originally been born from the resentment of the cat spirits and Duan Zhuo’s fear. It seemed now that Da Bai had found other tasks to focus on.

Just then, Fu Qing also finished dealing with the situation at the base and came to reunite with Shu Bao. The two of them headed to the Chaotic World. When they arrived at the Imperial Capital, Lan Qing was organizing the latest information they had gathered. With the coordinates of the Heart of Darkness that Shu Bao brought, the three of them decided to study it together.

“According to Duan Zhuo, he once searched for the location of the Heart of Darkness, but it consumed too much energy, and his phone shut down for several months. This is the screenshot of the coordinates he took. It looks like it’s very far from here,” Shu Bao projected the image he had obtained from Duan Zhuo.

“Can we analyze the corresponding location in the real world?” Fu Qing thought the best route would be to fly there from the real world and then find a way to enter the Chaotic World from a nearby loophole.

“Tesla has analyzed it. It’s not possible to go through the real world. That area no longer exists in the real world; it’s just void. For safety reasons, there are no jump points or teleportation points set up in that area, and the real world also has a live-streaming system,” Shu Bao explained. He had also considered traveling through the real world but had ultimately given up.

The other two quickly understood Shu Bao’s concerns. The mechanisms of the Chaotic World were too strange, and the consciousness of live-streaming viewers could likely affect the Chaotic World. To avoid any trouble, it would be safer to enter the Heart of Darkness from within the Chaotic World.

“Then we’ll set off tomorrow. I’ve almost prepared all the supplies. We’ll divide them up shortly,” Lan Qing thought for a moment and added, “One more thing, the Heart of Darkness is a bit like a black hole. The closer we get to it, the slower time flows. So, we may be gone for a long time this time.”

Lan Qing went on to share some of the information he had gathered about the Heart of Darkness. None of the data came from anyone who had truly been to the Heart of Darkness. Most of it was based on various rumors.

After sorting through it, Lan Qing recorded the more repetitive content. The most consistent theory was that the Heart of Darkness was a planet. This planet wasn’t suitable for biological life, but due to its sparse population, it had become a haven for various experiments.

“There are so many planets with sparse populations. Why this one in particular?” Shu Bao found it odd that people would choose this planet for experiments.

“It’s said that there are ancient ruins hidden in the planet’s core, but this rumor has never been verified, not even after the cosmic chaos. I actually think there might be something to it. After all, looking at Duan Zhuo’s phone, it wasn’t that advanced, so how could the nearby planets observe dark matter?” Lan Qing wasn’t belittling the technology of Duan Zhuo’s home planet; he just thought there was a significant technological gap between the experimental planet and Duan Zhuo’s home planet.

At the mention of ancient ruins, Shu Bao and Fu Qing became more interested. According to the records of the Mechanoids, the chaos in this universe began when the descendants of this universe discovered the ancient ruins. Through their observations, they caused dark matter to collapse, which formed the Chaotic World.

However, in the Mechanoids’ records, they had already destroyed those ruins. Could it be that the ruins on the Heart of Darkness planet were some that slipped through the cracks?

The three of them then discussed the powerful creatures they knew might exist in the Heart of Darkness and the ecological environments they needed to avoid. After going over the supplies they would be taking, they decided to rest and prepare to set off for the Heart of Darkness the next day.

This time, they chose to travel by dragon again, but not with Jinzi, Yinzi, or Lai Fu—rather, it was Lan Qing who would take them. Since they couldn’t be sure what the Heart of Darkness looked like, they didn’t want to risk taking the dragons with them.

The three dragons were quite dissatisfied, and Yinzi even stubbornly followed them for a while. However, they quickly realized that Lan Qing was too fast, and before long, they couldn’t see them anymore. Reluctantly, they returned to the Imperial Capital.

The Heart of Darkness was located beyond the areas already explored by Shu Bao and the others, in the Endless Black Domain. The light there was even rarer and some areas didn’t have land at all—just an expanse of void. It was very easy to lose one’s way in such an environment.

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