Shadow Hack
chapter-403

None of the people who belonged to either Zhang Yuan or Zheng Quan's side had sensed that each and every movement they made was being monitored by Li Yunmu. It wasn't much different from him being present on the scene.

Whatever they did or said, all of it was sent by the eleventh shadow to Li Yunmu. He knew everything that happened even if he was in the cave.

Li Yunmu was quite concerned about Wang Yan's reaction to news about him. Before, he had planned to make sure that the other planer descenders, like Zheng Quan, would remain on the island forever. But now wasn't certain about what to do with Wang Yan.

Should he kill her?!

Although he was ruthless, he wasn't a completely malicious person. He found it quite difficult to raise his hand against a woman who was genuinely concerned for him. But if he didn't do that, her status of a descender from another palne coupled with the secret of the island would make things difficult for him.

Li Yunmu was in a daze for a moment, then decided to stop thinking about Wang Yan for the time being and focus his attention on Zheng Quan and the others once again.

By then, they had also lighted a fire and were preparing food. Although flux experts didn't need to eat food after consuming power grain, the people in the group were clearly not as luxurious as Li Yunmu.

Power grain could offer energy for cultivation and were considered a luxury for many flux experts.

While the people of both groups were eating food, Zheng Quan kept pondering on the issue of dealing with the threat posed by Zhang Yuan, Lei Jun, and Liu Yangwei.

Zhang Yuan had been extremely cautious and made sure that before he understood the situation of the jungle, he didn't personally enter it. Moreover, he also didn't allow Zheng Quan's group of three to leave his vision.

As Li Yunmu was paying attention to the group's next movement while waiting for the pathfinder wasp to send information about the depths of cave, a major transformation happened before his eyes. The passage filled with purple mist, which was the only thing connecting everyone to the outer world, suddenly began to sway as if it had used up its energy and couldn't maintain the form of passage, collapsing and disappearing.

This sudden change scared the people barbecuing on the beach. However, before they could manage to respond, another transformation happened after the collapse of the passage.

The grains of sand on the beach began to shake. Following it, giant black scorpions began to drill out of the ground one after another. Each of them was two-to-three meters long while some were even larger, crossing three meters in length.

With just one look at their outer shell which was shiny black, Li Yunmu could tell that they possessed extremely strong defense. His scalp went numb as he looked at them through the eleventh shadow.

The individual strength of the giant black scorpions far surpassed that of the giant ants!

If an ordinary giant ant had the strength comparable to initial stage flux experts or even lower, than the strength of a giant scorpion was equal to mid stage flux experts. They were even stronger compared to the formidable ant which had killed Li Ju.

What did this mean?

It meant that even Zhang Yuan, Lei Jun, Liu Yangwei, Zheng Quan, Luo Honghua, Wang Yan as well as Lu Zhong would barely possess the strength to battle one on one with a black scorpion.

As for the other people in the group, there wasn't much difference between them and food in the eyes of giant black scorpions.

However, there were twenty-six giant scorpions on the beach, far surpassing the seven people in their numbers.

Even if Li Yunmu fought them together with his eight shadows, the outcome would still be tragic. Compared to that, the fate of the weaker group would be even worse. The level of danger on the island was extremely fatal for flux experts.

Even if a group of high level flux experts, even those who were close to the great circle joined them, then would still definitely die—that was Li Yunmu's judgment regarding the attack prowess of the giant scorpions.

God only knew how many more terrifying insects the island hid.

By then, Li Yunmu had already disposed of all the thoughts of forcefully charging toward the center by relying on his personal strength and trump cards. It wasn't that he was too terrified, but that he had already come to a realization that the island's resistance was far more frightening than what he could have possibly imagined.

The system's fourth possibility was verified.

As the system had concluded, all the life-forms on the island were cooperating to deal with outsiders like Li Yunmu. Because of that, the island was filled with enemies for him.

If that wasn't enough, his only path of retreat to the Origin World had also disappeared. That did not only affect Zhang Yuan, Zheng Quan, and their groups who were facing a crisis right now, but also involved Li Yunmu.

That scene had caused his heart to sink into the depths of despair. After descending to the Origin World, he had barely found a foothold as he searched for ways to return to Earth, and he had already gotten trapped in a dimensional space without any way out.

The disappearance of the purple space signified that neither he nor the others would be able to return to the Origin World.

Just the thought of being eternally trapped on this island, whether alone or with the others, caused his heart to turn cold.

"System, why did the purple mist passage suddenly collapse, and was it man-made or naturally formed?"

After pondering for a long while, the system finally replied with a heavy tone, [According to the analysis, it appears to be subnaturally formed.]

"What does subnaturally formed mean?" Li Yunmu was stupefied.

[A mechanism had been created by a human, but it has a natural trigger; therefore, it is subnatural,] the system explained.

"Could you explain it in human language?"

Li Yunmu felt helpless. There had been many similar situations during his conversations with the system in the past as well. It seemed like the main problem which obstructed the communication between humans and the system.

[In simple terms, the defense mechanism of the island has been triggered. According to the analysis, if outsiders hadn't entered, the purple mist passage would have automatically disappeared after a period of time instead of suddenly collapsing like this.

[Following the law of conservation of energy, when we entered the island through the purple mist passage, the passage consumed a larger amount of energy compared to usual to maintain itself. Because of that, it lost the energy to continue existing.

[The person who had provided the energy to the purple mist passage had to have thought of this issue beforehand, yet they had still provided it with only a certain amount of energy to maintain itself. From that, it can be concluded that the collapse of the purple mist passage was part of the their plan,] the system explained again, this time as simply as it could.