When he appeared in the palace though, Lin Mu felt an uncomfortable aura.

"This… can't be… are they really hiding one here?" Lin Mu was surprised.

The aura he had felt was of the Invader no doubt. Lin Mu went to the source right away and found it to be hidden below the stables of the palace at the side. 

'Huh… this is a rather open area… is the invader even restricted?' Lin Mu wondered.

The entrance to the underground area was hidden under hay and opening the hatch would allow one access to the short tunnel that led to there. Of course, Lin Mu had no need for this but still kept it in mind for reference.

His spirit sense spread around and quickly found the source of that uncomfortable aura.

"There it is…" Lin Mu muttered as he saw the being corrupted by the invader.

The being this time was also a beast, but it was far weaker than the ones he had seen before.

"Barely at the Infant soul stage of the Nascent Soul realm?" Lin Mu assessed the sleeping beast.

The beast looked to be about the size of a cow, but looked like a malformed dog. It had two heads and six tails. It didn't look like any beast that Lin Mu had seen before, but he guessed that it must have mutated.

"No use letting this thing continue to live…" Lin Mu muttered as he extended his hand.

'Meld'

The infected beast didn't even realize that there was someone attacking it right now. It was split apart into several segments which Lin Mu stored away into the ring before they could even touch the ground after the deactivation of meld.

~shua~

Lin Mu peered into the ring and saw the severed body of the beast writhing in the ring. The flesh and blood trembled as the invader tried to leave the body. Lin Mu decided to continue watching and saw a dark brown and grey colored Nascent soul flying out of a segment of the corpse.

~swish~

The nascent soul tried to look around for a suitable vessel to rest in, but couldn't do so. It was fully disorientated and confused at this.

'The invader took the nascent soul as a vessel? It can do this too?' Lin Mu was surprised.

So far, the invader had only lived in the body and this was the first time he was seeing it merging with a Nascent soul. 

The Nascent soul tried to fly up a little to get a better view, but that turned out to be a mistake.

~SKREEEEEEEE~

The Nascent soul couldn't even let out a cry before it was torn apart by a stray streak of spatial energy. One must know that the skies of the ring were filled with terrifying streaks of spatial energy that even Lin Mu would get injured by if not for the protection of the ring.

Even the spirit plants like the Wood spirit tulip and the Purple Sickle Amaranth didn't dare to go up high, as their instincts told them it would kill them. Though there was also the fact that Xukong was also there to prevent that.

"That's terrifying…" Lin Mu muttered, seeing the scene.

It was the first time he had seen the streaks of spatial energy actually harming something, and it showed him just how dangerous they truly were.

"This is why you need to always be careful when dealing with space." Xukong reminded.

"I know se—" But before Lin Mu could complete his words, he saw something happening.

From the remnants of Nascent soul, a dark energy came out. The energy looked like smoke and gathered up into a small cloud that was barely the size of a palm.

"The invader survived that?!" Lin Mu was shocked.

The cloud of smoke then did something surprising. It tried to pull a streak of spatial energy towards it. Xukong too watched it curiously.

The streak of spatial energy rushed towards the dark cloud and it then tried to absorb it into it. 

"Huh?" Lin Mu was shocked again.

"Foolish." Xukong scoffed.

The cloud was torn apart by the spatial energy streak and was torn once more. This kept on repeating until the entire cloud was eliminated. No trace of it was left and Lin Mu's spirit sense didn't detect any change there either.

"What… why?" Lin Mu was confused as to why the cloud did that.

He could tell that it was the invader, but doing something like this was nothing but suicidal.

"The invader likely has some proficiency in space, as we know. It probably felt the spatial energy and tried to absorb it so that it could leave the world like it had in the past. But this time, it was confused.

This is no spatial spirit Qi that can be absorbed… this spatial energy is on a completely different level. Trying to absorb is a futile effort." Xukong explained.

"If… I attempt that, will it be the same?" Lin Mu asked.

"At your current level? Yes." Xukong replied. "In the future, maybe. Far into the future, no." He added.

'If I consider senior Xukong's standards of time, then… far into the future… just how many thousand years is even that?' 

Lin Mu understood that a long lived being like senior Xukong perceived time differently. For him, the ten years he had spent with Lin Mu could be considered a drop in the life he had lived.

It also gave Lin Mu an idea into just how much he would have to cultivate to be able to absorb such spatial energy directly. 

'It also shows the difference in starting points… Senior Xukong can do it even though this is just an avatar that doesn't have the same cultivation base as his main body.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

He withdrew his senses from the ring and left the underground area. There were no traces of him or even the invader being there and it looked like this area had been empty since the start.

Done with this little detour, Lin Mu entered the main building of the royal palace.

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