Chapter 1441: He, Always With Us (Extra-Long Chapter!)

Cang-Yun Domain.

"Little Chu..."

"Where... are you hiding?"

The roots of the Bitter-Flesh Turbid Forest calamity drilled out continuously from beneath the earth. Countless calamities had already attached themselves to the exterior of the Cang-Yun base; from a distance, they had turned the building into a hideous ball of flesh.

Not just the Cang-Yun base, but most of the buildings in the Cang-Yun domain were now covered in eerie plant roots... These roots greedily sucked the energy from the reinforced concrete, and thick, hard walls turned as thin and brittle as foam board under their parasitism.

The entire Cang-Yun domain had become a kingdom of plants.

And at this moment,

inside the base, sealed by a large number of roots, a tall, twisted, pseudo-human figure was walking with a limp, moving through the complex corridors of the base. Its eyes, composed of countless beast pupils, were darting around, searching for something.

"Little Chu... Little Chu~~~"

"It's me, Lu Xun..."

"It's been so many years... don't you... miss me..."

The scalp-tingling voice echoed in every corner of the base, the tone sounding like some damp, filthy beast trying to imitate human speech.

On the corridor floor it passed, several blood-drenched corpses lay in pools of blood. These were the staff members who had opened the door for it earlier. Now, each of them had wide-open eyes, their expressions frozen in infinite terror and pain, their skin stripped away, leaving only scarlet flesh exposed to the air...

In a corner of the Cang-Yun base, the few remaining staff members were hiding in a cabinet, trembling with fear at the eerie, grim voice.

As the pseudo-human's voice drew closer, the terror in their eyes grew even more intense!

"So... you're hiding here..."

The moment that sharp, sinister voice, like a wolf in grandmother's clothing, sounded, the cabinet where they were hiding was instantly ripped open. A tall, ugly human figure, as if molded from clay, was grinning down at them, its mouth full of skin folds stretched almost to its ears!

The pupils of the group contracted in terror. Before they could even scream, their bodies swayed violently, and all their skin was sucked away in one go!

At this moment, they were like peeled, ripe shrimp, bright red and smooth.

Intense pain filled their minds. Even after being instantly skinned, they did not die immediately but struggled frantically. But the next second, the skin stripped from them actually stitched itself together into several smaller "pseudo-humans," which stood up from the ground, withered and slow...

As the giant pseudo-human's pupils turned, a pair of beast pupils appeared in the eye sockets of those small "pseudo-humans"—some like deer eyes, some like bear eyes... They looked hideously at the skinned flesh, pounced forward, and with terrifying strength, instantly tore the skinned figures into pieces!

The pseudo-human turned slowly, its dense pupils constantly scanning the surroundings, as if trying hard to find something.

"Little Chu..."

"What are you doing..."

"Watching your subordinates die here, yet remaining indifferent... You... are too disappointing... too disappointing to me, Lu Xun..."

"Come out... come out... come out!!!"

Inside the base, one could not see that the sky was already occupied by the red glow, but the pseudo-human's voice was clearly anxious, and its call for Chu Changqing even began to distort and lose its voice!

Suddenly,

its beast pupils locked onto a tightly closed door.

It seemed to sense something. The countless beast pupils crowded into its eye sockets began to tremble with excitement. Its massive body limped toward the door, and its grim voice sounded again:

"So you're here... Little Chu..."

The moment its palm was about to touch the doorknob, the door exploded!

A giant shadow flew out from behind the door, crashing into the pseudo-human's body, blasting through several walls in succession, and only stopping after tearing through the plant roots entrenched on the surface of the base...

It was a giant flea with wings.

Under the terrifying impact of the giant flea, the pseudo-human figure was twisted and deformed, but there was no pain in its pupils. It waved its hand casually at the giant flea in front of it... The next second, the flea's chitinous shell was instantly stripped away!

After losing its shell, the flea's body collapsed directly, leaving only a few fragmented organs and a soul like white mist drifting in the air, soon to be extinguished in the void.

"Little Chu..."

"You finally came out..."

"How could you hurt me... I am Lu Xun! You... are too disappointing to me..."

A vortex-like hole had been punched into the center of the pseudo-human's body by the flea, but as it tugged at its "skin corners" like pulling on clothes, it soon recovered as before... It looked at the door where dust was drifting, its twisted face performing the emotion of "disappointment."

Amidst the fragments of the door all over the floor,

a white-haired figure walked out slowly.

His withered white hair was like weeds drained of vitality, falling to the ground with each of Chu Changqing's steps. On that pale face without a trace of blood, a pair of tired but angry eyes were staring fixedly at the pseudo-human in front of him.

"With that dirty, stinking mouth of yours... you dare to call his name??"

"Do I not deserve to? Little Chu... where do I not deserve to?" The pseudo-human widened its eyes in "shock," every beast pupil in its eye sockets exaggeratedly performing the emotion. Its arms, like chopsticks, hugged its ugly head, shaking constantly,

"Little Chu, I am Lu Xun... You are too disappointing to me, you are too disappointing to me!!"

"—GET OUT!!"

Chu Changqing roared and raised his hand. One giant creature after another rushed out from the room behind him, smashing the walls of the base to pieces and charging straight at the pseudo-human!!

But before those creatures could touch the pseudo-human, a terrifying world-ending aura surged in the air. Under a conceptual-level oppression, the beasts lost their skin, the insects had their shells stripped, and even the jellyfish floating in the air disappeared in an instant, leaving only a faint soul shadow floating in the air...

This was the power of absolute [Stripping].

Amidst the surging of this extremely eerie power, the pseudo-human widened its eyes, as if trying hard to imitate something, and spoke with "regret" and "disappointment":

"Little Chu... you've become weak."

"I entrusted the human domain to you... and this is the result you give me? The Nanhai domain was destroyed because of your negligence. How can you face those millions of citizens? How can you face my expectations of you?"

"You are too disappointing to me... you are too disappointing to me!!"

Chu Changqing's chest heaved violently!

He stared fixedly at the pseudo-human "performing" in front of him, remaining silent for several seconds before speaking hoarsely:

"So that's it..."

"Did the Calamity of Thought teach you to say that?"

"Trying to use this method to destroy my mind... it thinks too highly of your 'acting skills'."

Upon hearing this, the pseudo-human immediately acted as if it had been offended. The countless beast pupils in its eye sockets were visibly angry. It widened its eyes, gesticulating wildly, and its chopstick-like arms beat its chest constantly!

"Little Chu!! You are too disappointing!!"

"I am Lu Xun! Why don't you believe me?! I am very disappointed in you!!"

The pseudo-human seemed completely enraged. As its tone grew more grim, a terrifying world-ending aura surged from its body, as if a beast were rising in the void behind it, and the ceiling of the entire Cang-Yun base exploded!!

BOOM—!!!

Fragments of the ruined building mixed with the severed limbs of plant roots flew everywhere.

Under that blood-like red glow, a meteor was approaching rapidly. From Earth's perspective, its size was now even similar to the moon!

It had already entered the Earth-Moon distance.

At its current angle, an impact on Earth was inevitable. Not to mention the Red Star's unique "civilization-erasing" ability, even a star of the same size hitting Earth would leave no living creature behind.

As it approached, the Gray Realm territory outside the human domains seemed to be ignited by some crimson power, and space began to collapse irreversibly toward a certain direction. The calamity territories that had once sat in various parts of the Gray Realm were now gathering toward that direction, as if torn apart by a black hole...

They were turning into "civilization embers."

As the Red Star approached, the Gray Realm covering the Earth's surface was dissolving at a rapid speed, and once it completely disintegrated under the pressure of the Red Star, it would be Earth's turn...

The end of the world had already arrived.

At this moment, Chu Changqing, with his white hair fluttering, was not panicked. He looked up slowly, his eyes gazing at the destructive star that was constantly approaching.

"No..."

"You are not him."

"Why?? I am Lu Xun! I am him!!" The Calamity of Delusion had gone completely insane. The skin it used to form its "human shape" began to extend in all directions, fully revealing the true appearance of the Calamity of Delusion—a hideous and terrifying beast-skin monster rose from the ground!!

It had to merge with Chu Changqing immediately, otherwise, they would both die under the Red Star sooner or later!

Chu Changqing stood on the earth, looking out at the firmament, as if searching for something in the deep space.

A moment later,

the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.

"Because..."

"He, is always with us."

While the crimson meteor was gradually approaching Earth,

among the stars in the deep universe, a brilliant comet dragging a long tail, following the predetermined trajectory of celestial motion, whistled across the boundless deep space, intercepting the crimson meteor with extreme precision!!!