Wasteland Border Inspector

Spiritual contamination, cognitive barriers.

Up until this moment, Cheng Ye finally realized how exaggerated the difficulty of containing Immortal Objects was.

Only ordinary people who have been polluted can see the traces of Immortal Objects, have a chance to approach them, and attempt to contain them.

But the process of completing containment requires strength several times or even dozens of times greater than that of ordinary people.

These two are inherently contradictory.

Therefore, human containment of Immortal Objects has always relied on manpower, and they must exhaust the object’s energy and wait for its spiritual contamination effect to start disappearing before they can act.

Otherwise, as is the case now, even if they see the main form of the Ten Thousand Orders Land Conch, there is still no way to approach, to... contain it!

Two gazes met, and Cheng Ye’s face showed a slight twitch.

Luokuke was stunned at first, then pointed at the conch in the middle of the lake and said in disbelief, "You... can’t see it?"

"I... can see it."

Cheng Ye gritted his teeth, a hint of bitterness rising in his throat, as he finally experienced the pain Huang Liang and his group endured when they were polluted.

At this moment, countless flying insects seemed to surround his ears, all whispering fragmented and meaningless things.

The originally clear cognition was being forcibly distorted by a force, and the colors before his eyes were jumbled up.

The red grass and trees turned green, the green moss became purple, the brown earth was dyed blue, and contrary to expectation, the faraway fluorescing lake water turned into an eerie black.

Is this spiritual contamination?

For others, this process might be occurring slowly and unconsciously.

But for him, just after unloading the Heart-Protecting Fire and getting so close to the conch, the impact of contamination was dozens of times clearer.

It felt like an invisible giant hand was forcibly reshaping his cognition, repeatedly "telling" him:

The world is truly like this, your previous understanding was all wrong, this is how the world should run, your past cognitive perception was false.

"Yes, that’s right, just like this..."

Cheng Ye was well aware that resisting this twisted cognition would likely trigger a more intense wave of contamination.

He silently recited for a few seconds in his heart, forcing himself to follow the "logic" of contamination, to accept the scene before him.

Once the chaotic impact gradually faded, he suddenly opened his eyes, the chaotic colors instantly returned, the swaying vision stabilized, and the dizzy feeling in his head completely disappeared, as if the previous chaos was just an illusion.

"Are you okay? What’s going on?" Luokuke asked tensely.

"It’s nothing, just like you, now I can fully see." Cheng Ye didn’t mention the word ’contamination’, his gaze quietly swept to the back.

Thankfully, the purple light gate used for entry and exit was still visible, and the world hadn’t undergone any eerie changes.

This spiritual contamination should be a way for the Ten Thousand Orders Land Conch to screen, filtering out harmful elements to it and releasing harmless ones into its domain.

"Like me?"

Luokuke’s expression changed slightly, then he lightly nodded, wisely refraining from mentioning this topic.

Inside the Demon Eye Sponge, what they needed to do most now was to quickly ascertain the status of the Ten Thousand Orders Land Conch.

As long as the contamination tide isn’t triggered, purely the first stage of spiritual contamination is still safe, and even the second stage can be suppressed by one’s own beliefs.

"This conch is so large, direct containment is definitely impossible, we need to figure out a way to reduce its energy first. Otherwise, even if we can approach, it simply won’t fit into the containment box." Luokuke, looking at the tens-of-meters tall conch in the center of the lake, furrowed his brows deeply.

The containment box can isolate the infection source, the influence of Immortal Objects on the outside world, but the premise is to be able to get it inside.

Moreover, the stronger the containment box, the smaller the box itself.

Like the three destruction-level containment boxes brought in, each was only shoe-box sized, quite insignificant compared to the conch in front.

"Reduce energy..."

Cheng Ye paused, his gaze sweeping over the dense masses of crab-men, suddenly realizing and somewhat understanding why the Ten Thousand Orders Land Conch was so enormous in size.

When the Ghost Water Cave Crab was captured, its size was at most as large as an adult’s fist.

The destruction-level containment box brought along completely fit, but the current scale was far beyond a hundredfold increase compared to the information provided.

An analysis of variables: Either a new powerful infection source appeared subsequently, providing energy to the conch.

Or it’s the dense infection and fusion bodies of Ghost Water Cave Crabs that became the energy source for the conch.

Yet with such vast swarms of infection bodies, how could it possibly be cleaned up with the strength of just two people?

Cheng Ye contemplated silently, signaling Luokuke not to approach just yet.

He then stepped aside, opened his personal panel, and first checked the specific cost of unloading the Heart-Protecting Fire.

[Extraordinary Talent ’Heart-Protecting Fire’ successfully unloaded]

[Detected that Extraordinary Creature (Scorching Eagle) greatly differs from talent progress, the unloading operation will not reduce its growth rate]

[Extraordinary Creature (Scorching Eagle) temporarily blocked, re-equipping ’Heart-Protecting Fire’ skill will automatically reconstruct spiritual connection]

...

"Huh, it actually didn’t decrease?"

The undiminished growth rate alleviated much of Cheng Ye’s inner unease.

With a shift in consciousness, he entered the Spiritual Body Space.

Thanks to the nourishing of Living Water Essence earlier, the Shrinking Earth Giant Louse has actively shrunk itself again, now only about two meters tall, appearing more condensed, and upon noticing its gaze aimed at him, it unexpectedly released a faint but fierce yearning, seemingly urging him to find more essence, more Life Energy.

On the other side of the space, although the flame area could not be pierced by consciousness, the little one could be seen still sleeping soundly on the ground, without any abnormal reactions.