Chapter 1440: He Has Always Been With Us (Extended Chapter!)

Cloud Hiding Domain.

“Little Chu…”“Where…are you hiding…?”

The roots of the Calamity of the Corrupt Flesh Forest continuously drilled out from beneath the earth. Countless calamities had already latched onto the exterior of the Cloud Hiding Base, transforming the building into a grotesque ball of flesh when viewed from afar. Not only the Cloud Hiding Base, but most of the buildings in the Cloud Hiding Domain were now covered in eerie plant roots. These roots greedily siphoned energy from steel and concrete, silently turning thick, hard walls into brittle, lightweight foam boards through their parasitic growth.

The entire Cloud Hiding Domain had been transformed into a botanical kingdom.

Meanwhile, inside the base, which was sealed off by countless roots, a tall, distorted pseudo-human figure shambled through the complex corridors, its eyes—a grotesque cluster of animal pupils—darting around, searching for something.

“Little Chu… Little Chu…”“It’s Lu Xun…”“After all these years… don’t you… miss me…?”

A spine-chilling voice echoed through every corner of the base, sounding like some damp, predatory beast attempting to mimic human speech. Along the corridors it traversed, several bloody corpses lay in pools of blood. These were the staff members who had opened the door for it. Their eyes were wide, expressions frozen in limitless terror and agony, their skin stripped away, leaving only raw, crimson flesh exposed to the air.

In a corner of the Cloud Hiding Base, the few remaining staff members huddled inside cabinets, trembling with fear at the eerie, chilling voice. As the pseudo-human’s voice drew nearer, their terror intensified.

“So… you were hiding here…”

The moment that sharp, sinister voice—like a wicked grandmother—rang out, the cabinets where they hid burst open. A tall, hideous figure, as if molded from clay, leered down at them, its mouth, full of folds of skin, stretched almost to its ears in a grotesque grin.

Their pupils contracted in terror. Before they could scream, their bodies jolted violently, and their skin was instantly ripped away. In that instant, they resembled peeled, cooked shrimp, red and smooth. Intense pain flooded their minds. Even with their skin instantly stripped, they didn't die immediately; instead, they thrashed wildly. But in the next second, the very skins peeled from their bodies began to stitch themselves together, forming several smaller “pseudo-humans” that slowly and witheredly rose from the ground.

As the large pseudo-human’s eyes shifted, each of the smaller “pseudo-humans” developed a pair of animal pupils—some like deer eyes, others like bear eyes. They gazed monstrously at the flayed flesh, then lunged, their terrifying strength instantly tearing the skinned bodies to shreds.

The pseudo-human slowly turned, its multi-faceted eyes ceaselessly scanning the surroundings, as if intensely searching for something.

“Little Chu…”“What are you doing…?”“Watching your subordinates die here, yet doing nothing… You… you disappoint me so much… you disappoint Lu Xun so much…”“Come out… come out… come out!!!”

Inside the base, the sky, now consumed by a pervasive crimson glow, was unseen, but the pseudo-human’s voice grew visibly anxious, its calls for Chu Changqing even beginning to warp and crack.

Suddenly, its animal eyes fixed on a tightly closed door. As if sensing something, the myriad animal pupils crowded in its eye sockets began to tremble with excitement. Its massive body shambled towards the door, and its chilling voice rang out again:

“So you were here… Little Chu…”

Just as its hand was about to touch the doorknob, the door exploded inward! A massive shadow shot out from behind the door, colliding directly with the pseudo-human’s body, smashing through several walls in succession and tearing apart the plant roots clinging to the base’s exterior before finally stopping.

It was a gigantic winged flea.

Under the flea’s terrifying impact, the pseudo-human’s form was grotesquely distorted, yet no pain registered in its eyes. Instead, it casually waved a hand at the gigantic flea before it. In the next second, the flea’s chitinous exoskeleton was instantly peeled away! Bereft of its shell, the flea’s body disintegrated, leaving only a few scattered organs and a cloud-like soul dissipating into the air, quickly vanishing into nothingness.

“Little Chu…”“You finally came out…”“How could you hurt me…? I am Lu Xun! You… you disappoint me so much…”

The pseudo-human’s body had a large, swirling hole where the flea had struck it, but it swiftly regenerated as it tugged at a ‘flap of skin’ as if adjusting clothing. It gazed at the dust-filled doorway, its contorted face conveying an expression of ‘disappointment’.

Amidst the scattered fragments of the door, a figure with flowing white hair slowly emerged. His withered white hair, like weeds drained of vitality, fell to the ground with each step Chu Changqing took. On his pale, bloodless face, a pair of weary but enraged eyes stared fixedly at the pseudo-human before him.

“How dare your filthy, reeking mouth utter his name?!”

“I don’t deserve to? Little Chu… how am I undeserving?” The pseudo-human’s eyes widened in ‘shock’, each animal pupil in its sockets exaggeratedly conveying emotion. Its arms, like chopsticks, clutched its hideous head, shaking it incessantly.

“Little Chu, I am Lu Xun… You disappoint me so much, you disappoint me so much!!”

“—Get out!!”

Chu Changqing roared, raising a hand. One colossal creature after another surged from the room behind him, smashing through the base’s walls and charging directly at the pseudo-human! Yet, before these creatures could even touch the pseudo-human, a terrifying aura of world-ending destruction surged through the air. Under a conceptual level of suppression, beasts lost their skin, insects were stripped of their exoskeletons, and even jellyfish drifting in the air vanished instantly, leaving only faint spiritual afterimages floating in the air…

This was the power of Absolute Stripping.

Amidst the surge of this utterly bizarre power, the pseudo-human's eyes widened, as if trying to mimic something, and it spoke with a tone of ‘regret’ and ‘disappointment’:

“Little Chu… you’ve grown weaker.”“I entrusted the Human Domain to you… and this is the result you gave me? The South Sea Domain was destroyed due to your negligence. How can you face the millions of people? How can you live up to my expectations?”“You disappoint me so much… you disappoint me so much!!”

Chu Changqing’s chest heaved violently! He stared intently at the pseudo-human, which was ‘performing’ emotions, remaining silent for several seconds before speaking in a hoarse voice:

“So that’s it…”“Did Calamity of Thought teach you to say that?”“Trying to use such tactics to break my will… It vastly overestimates your ‘acting skills’.”

Upon hearing this, the pseudo-human immediately seemed offended. The myriad animal pupils in its eyes visibly raged. It bared its teeth and clawed, eyes wide, its chopstick-like arms repeatedly pounding its chest!

“Little Chu!! You disappoint me so much!!”“I am Lu Xun! Why don’t you believe me?! I am so disappointed in you!!”

The pseudo-human seemed completely enraged. As its tone grew increasingly sinister, a terrifying aura of world-ending destruction surged from within its body, as if a beast had erupted from the void behind it, blasting open the entire ceiling of the Cloud Hiding Base!

BOOM—!!!

Broken architectural fragments mingled with severed plant roots, swirling through the air.

Beneath the blood-red twilight, a meteor rapidly approached. From Earth’s perspective, its silhouette was already comparable in size to the moon! It had already entered the Earth-Moon distance. Given its current trajectory, an impact with Earth was inevitable. Even without considering the Crimson Star’s unique ‘civilization annihilation’ ability, a celestial body of comparable size striking Earth would leave no living creature capable of survival.

As it drew nearer, the Grey Realm territory outside the Human Domain seemed ignited by a crimson force. Space began to irreversibly collapse towards a certain direction, and the calamity territories once scattered across the Grey Realm were now being pulled together, as if torn apart by a black hole, moving towards that same direction… They were transforming into ‘civilization’s embers’. As the Crimson Star approached, the Grey Realm, which intersected and covered Earth’s surface, was rapidly dissolving. Once it completely disintegrated under the Crimson Star’s might, Earth would be next…

The end of the world had arrived.

At this moment, Chu Changqing, his white hair billowing, showed no panic. He slowly raised his head, his eyes fixed on the approaching star of destruction.

“No…”“You are not him.”

“Why?! I am Lu Xun! I am him!!” The Calamity of Delusion was now completely insane. The skin forming its ‘human’ guise stretched outwards in all directions, revealing the full, terrifying form of the Calamity of Delusion: a monstrous, grotesque beast of hide and flesh erupted from the ground! It had to fuse with Chu Changqing immediately, otherwise, they would all eventually perish under the Crimson Star!

Chu Changqing stood on the ground, gazing at the sky, as if searching for something in the depths of space. A moment later, a faint smile touched his lips.

“Because…”“He is always with us.”

As the crimson meteor drew closer to Earth, among the stars in deep space, a brilliant comet, trailing a long tail, whistled through the boundless cosmos along its predetermined celestial trajectory, heading with pinpoint precision to intercept the crimson meteor!!!