The thick black fog slowly rolled around, and even the defense built with three Red Tear Stones couldn't stop the erosion of the black fog.

At least five stones are needed for Rod to ensure his humanity doesn't degrade.

And they must be replaced every half clock hour; otherwise, the Red Tear Stones will be eroded and their protective effect will be greatly diminished.

Liszt sighed, "No wonder it's Your Excellency No. 0; the acuity of your soul is so strong that we can't precisely determine the number of Red Tear Stones needed and the time involved, even without knowing we've been polluted."

No. 7 said, "Yes, one of the main reasons for returning to the Royal City is because the soul has unknowingly accumulated too much pollution, forcing us to purify at the Soul Church."

Rod gazed around, and under such thick black fog, the range of vision through the Eye of the Soul compressed to about 600 yards.

This is the result of his greatly strengthened soul.

If it were before, the range would definitely be below 100 yards.

Looking around, the surroundings are a barren surface filled with rubble, the most common terrain beneath the black fog.

Any terrain beyond the wasteland indicates some special situation exists here.

Not far ahead is a barren mountain, roughly 1,000 yards high.

The barren mountain has nothing beside huge stones.

"Li... No. 1, is that the location you found the flag?"

Liszt glanced at the star disk in his hand, the star map indicated the barren mountain was just ahead, and he asked in surprise, "Your Excellency No. 0, can you see it?"

"I can see it."

Liszt was amazed, "No wonder you are the legendary absolute Spiritual Visionary; my own spiritual vision is rarely touched by others, yet still far inferior to yours."

No. 9 shook his head and said, "No, I'm also an absolute Spiritual Visionary, but I can't see the barren mountain. Your Excellency No. 0's spiritual vision definitely exceeds the limits of current measurement, the spiritual vision tests in the Royal City need reform."

Soon, the team returned to where they discovered the flag, amidst large stones.

Of course, the flag had been taken, but in less than two days, there were no traces on the ground of anyone having moved things.

Liszt said, "Under the coverage of the black fog, the passage of time is incredibly hard to judge; many items left in the black fog for one or two days, when found again, seem like they've been placed for thousands of years. Even the most professional researchers in the Mechanical Research Institute can only make rough judgments."

No. 7 stated, "To determine the age of an item requires extremely rich knowledge of history."

Rod looked around again, suddenly discovering a splash of blue in this world dominated by gray and black.

"I see something over there."

Before he finished speaking, Liszt and the high-rank investigators almost jumped up.

"What? Quickly, let's go!"

Rod led them over, discovering it was a slender strip of cloth, with blue base and white patterns, a strange semicircle at the center, like a hooked ring.

"This is the flag we saw."

Liszt said excitedly:

"I never expected to find another; no wonder it's you, Your Excellency No. 0; you are simply born to explore the Dark World."

No. 19 eagerly said, "Let's search more, perhaps there are more flags nearby."

Indeed, Rod found several more flags.

They were unevenly distributed at the foot of the barren mountain, but only in the southwest direction.

Liszt excitedly said, "This might be an exploration team from an unknown human civilization; they must have come from this direction. Once we cross the isolation zone, we might find a new human civilization; they must still be alive, we are definitely not the sole survivors in the Dark World! Absolutely not!"

Rod was excited too; he had shown the flags to the Book of Knowledge earlier.

The Book of Knowledge indicated that this symbol wasn't within its memory.

This increased the possibility of a new Human Kingdom's existence.

"Maybe this time we really can find another Fire King City beyond us." Rod thought to himself.

The team embarked on their journey again, soon arriving at the front of the "isolation zone."

Liszt and the three high-rank investigators all wore a piece of the red lenses.

"This is the latest creation from the Mechanical Research Institute, capturing the most subtle spiritual energy waves, detecting monster soul activity, and rapidly distinguishing its soul strength and soul perception distance."

Liszt introduced.

"Its biggest feature is that the sharper a monster's senses, the earlier we can detect it; most monsters lack the instinct to hide their aura and spiritual energy, so, in most situations, we can always see them earlier."

No. 19 said, "It's thanks to this that we avoided most dangers, planned relatively safe routes, and discovered the isolation zone rather than being wiped out by those monsters."

No. 7 shook his big beard and regretfully said, "Unfortunately, it isn't in mass production, and we only have four pieces."

No. 9 laughed, "Your Excellency No. 0 is an absolute Spiritual Visionary and doesn't need this thing."

Liszt rang the Silence Bell, and the silent aura enveloped the area, isolating their voices, body temperature, and biological aura, along with the slight disturbance of Red Tear Stones against the black fog.

Rod gazed forward; the so-called "isolation zone" was actually a mountain range, filled with sharp stones standing like sword edges, inverted into the earth.

The mountain range wasn't high but was massive.

Liszt took out the star disk and said, "According to our preliminary reconnaissance, the front section of Sword Edge Mountain Range should follow this route."

"On this route, there are several powerful monsters that pose a deadly threat to us, we must kill them."

Rod nodded, flexing his shoulders: "Leave it to me."

The team's speed slowed down here, with four high-ranking investigators spreading out cautiously moving forward.

Just a few seconds passed before Liszt shouted: "It's coming!"

Immediately, the Silence Bell was rung.

No. 9 shouted urgently: "3 o'clock direction, 900 yards away, a powerful monster is approaching, its perception is very strong, it's about to discover us!"

Just one second later, No. 7 shouted: "Too close, the Silence Bell's effect has been seen through, it's found us! It's charging at us! Speed 800 yards per second!"

Bang!

The next second, Rod collided with the monster.

No. 19 shouted: "Level 13 Spiritual Power Strength! Absolute value exceeded 100,000 kilojoules, this is a Dusk Demon, it has extremely high spiritual defense, reaching a permanent level of 100 tracks, with an extreme defense that can exceed 200 tracks, and a total spiritual energy that's an astonishing 5000 tracks, Sir Zero, you might not be its match, its soul strength... huh? How is it zero? Dead?"

No. 19 could hardly believe his eyes, taking off his goggles, only to hear a muffled sound as if from the void.

Poom!

Rod withdrew his right hand, his entire body entwined with star lines, shimmering with a silvery white light, the white light on his two fists particularly solid.

In front of him, the Dusk Demon, with a body as large as twisted, entwined deadwood, fell like garbage, quickly turning to ashes.

[Soul of the Dusk Demon]

Rod clapped his hands: "Let's go."

No. 19 opened his mouth but made no sound, paired with his caved-in half head, looking almost like an imbecile.

No. 7 patted him on the shoulder and laughed: "No. 19, I remember that Soul Master Priscilla and the Archbishop both said your brain had recovered, and it's unaffected, huh."

No. 9 gave him a somewhat disdainful look: "Do you have any misunderstanding about the combat strength of Special Level Combatants?"

Rod shook his head: "I'm not yet a Special Level Combatant..."

"At least a quasi-Special Level Combatant."

Liszt said with a smile.

"The King told me that when facing non-King Level monsters, you're almost on par with Special Level Combatants, and even have more means and wider adaptability."

Rod said with some embarrassment: "Ah, the King was right."

No. 19 touched the caved-in part of his head, shaking his head: "This is just an appetizer, the monsters ahead are much harder to deal with."

No. 7 shook his big beard: "I'll bet you a pile of shit that Sir Zero doesn't need more than a clock hour to kill one monster, whoever loses gets it stuffed in their mouth. Will you bet?"

Rod was disgusted by No. 7's words, and just as he was about to stop them, Asa suddenly opened his eyes in his mind: "Shit? Who's talking about shit? Without my permission, who dares to eat shit?"

"Go back to sleep!"

Rod said irritably.

Just in that moment of distraction, No. 19 loudly said: "I'll bet!"

"It's a deal!"

Rod looked at them in shock, then at Liszt.

The latter smiled and quietly explained: "Under the condition of not affecting the mission, this helps in keeping the soul active, avoiding falling into slumber in the Black Fog and getting more polluted... Of course, you don't really have to...."

"Alright!" Rod immediately stopped his next words; he didn't want to hear that word.

The team continued advancing.

As No. 7 had bet, with the monsters they encountered, Rod basically dealt with them quickly, not exceeding a clock hour.

In fact, most were resolved within tens of seconds.

After igniting a new Great Star and regaining the lost power of the Dark Devourer, his soul strength had exceeded 49,970,000, and his Spiritual Power Strength was definitely over 100,000 kilojoules.

With super high Spiritual Power Strength, every strike Rod made was far more powerful than before.

Moreover, he mastered transcendent hand-to-hand combat techniques, entwining the star lines of the [Star Shuttle] around his fists.

With such a punch, monsters below King Level couldn't withstand it.

Coupled with the "Divine Strike" from [Truth], monsters below Level 13 Spiritual Power didn't stand a chance against him; they couldn't withstand even one face-off, being knocked down in two hits, their souls either broke apart, or Rod delivered a finishing blow.

Moves like [Sin's Touch] and [Giant God Power] weren't needed at all.

Soon, they crossed over half of the Sword Edge Mountain Range.

Along the way, they basically weren't hindered much.

The Silence Bell concealed most of the waves triggered by battles, making the whole process quite smooth.

No. 7 and No. 19 were both laughing happily, seemingly forgetting the matter of eating shit.

However, when they crossed the mountain range, things suddenly changed.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

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