Chapter 54 This Makes Complete Sense

At this moment, a fleeting intuition led the female hunter to guess that the ash-blue giant was chewing on something!

She could not help but tightly cover her mouth with her palm, holding her breath, wanting to quietly slip away from this place.

She now completely understood why her companion, who possessed witchcraft and the Eye of Prying Secrets, had been in such a terrified, voiceless state.

The concealment powder works... The concealment powder works...

Constantly comforting herself internally, the two of them wanted to break into a sprint, but could only restrain themselves to moving in shuffling steps, not daring to make a sound.

Fortunately, the giant did not notice them.

Even though they had moved out from the earthen mound that shielded their figures, the mountain-like giant did not turn its head to look at them.

It was as if they were completely invisible.

"The concealment powder really works!"

A flicker of joy and excitement flashed through the female hunter's panicked heart.

Yet the next moment, the giant turned its head.

A massive, vertical single eye stared straight at them.

In its mouth, it was still biting a bloody human leg.

...

Crossing the world of overlapping color blocks, Hermione, holding Amanises's hand, experienced the magical mode of travel that was spirit world traversal for the very first time.

However, during the traversal of the spirit world, she inexplicably felt a faint sense of threat.

"A sense of threat?" Listening to Hermione's description of her maiden voyage through traversal, Amanises frowned in confusion:

"There are indeed quite a few spirit world creatures wandering about in the spirit world, but there are not many that can pose a threat to me or to you. Moreover... what kind of sense of threat could bypass my perception and only affect you?"

"Could it be that king of the Phoenixes?"

Hermione shook her head. Her hidden connection with "Error" made her certain that this danger did not originate from the "Phoenix Ancestor" Grekeria.

"Error" was constantly sensing the threat of the "Phoenix Ancestor" at every waking moment, which felt completely different from this sensation just experienced in the spirit world.

Hermione actually had a suspicion, though it was merely a guess, so she brushed the topic aside and said, "Is this the northern territory of the Giant Kingdom? It's far enough. Let's first find that Phoenix that's been wreaking havoc here, along with that human tribe..."

From Hermione's perspective, spreading faith was a technical craft. Simply finding that Phoenix and slaughtering it would not achieve the ideal missionary effect.

Of course, Hermione could not bring herself to lure the Phoenix into ravaging a human tribe just to stage a hero's rescue of the humans afterward.

Even if she possessed the ability to rationalize such an event.

Braving the cold wind of the northern lands, Amanises, clad in a black dress unaffected by the chill, asked, "It is not easy to find a Phoenix with teleportation abilities out in the wilderness. What are your plans?"

"Naturally, relying on the collective unconscious." Hermione was well prepared for this:

"A Phoenix endowed with divinity is active in this region, which is enough to cause some subtle changes in the collective unconscious ocean of this area... From these changes, we can obtain clues to track down the Phoenix."

"Of course, finding it this way still requires a little bit of good luck." Hermione smiled faintly at Amanises, baring her teeth.

Blessed by the authority of "Misfortune," Hermione skillfully yet cautiously released her mental body, her awareness merging into a gray, dusk-drenched world.

Beneath the twilight lay pools of rotting giant remains, alternating between old and young like a surrounding wall enclosing some vague, minuscule humanoid figures.

The ocean of consciousness in this region was dominated by giants?

Hermione was somewhat surprised. She had initially thought that this place was remote and would be dominated by the spiritual imprints of tribal humans and wilderness monsters.

It seemed this place was still within the sphere of activity of the giants... But if so, why hadn't the giants cleared out or driven away that Phoenix?

Hermione reined in her emotions, adjusting herself to an extremely calm state using her mental domain abilities.

Her dark, deep eyes were overlaid with golden vertical pupils, her hair gradually turning grayish-white, and two faces that looked identical to hers faintly emerged on both sides of her cheeks.

One side was so holy it inspired yearning.

The other side was so gloomy it seemed burdened by something heavy.

She slowly lifted her foot and stepped forward.

Those ash-blue half-bodies, limp like mud, let out beast-like gasps as pairs of rotting arms reached toward Hermione, who was continuously infiltrating this ocean of the collective unconscious.

However, the moment these rotting palms touched Hermione's toes, they all abruptly reverted to thick negative emotions, decadent and crazed spirits, and other more fundamental forms.

These negative emotions and decadent spirits, capable of polluting spirituality and driving one mad, converged like a deep, inky river and draped themselves across Hermione's back.

Yet they did not harm Hermione's spirit.

Only Hermione's straight posture became slightly hunched.

The gloomy profile on her cheek grew even more sorrowful.

An ocean of the collective unconscious branded with the giant race was indeed more perilous and terrifying than that of humans, a consequence of the giants' extraordinary power and the mad undertones deep within their spirituality.

Nevertheless, this heavy imprint manifested as an ink-colored cloak was still within the range that Hermione, of the "Three-Headed Sanctuary," could bear.

Wandering thus in the collective unconscious ocean of this region, bolstered by good luck, Hermione caught sight of a faint pale flame flickering on a certain "isolated island."

"Found it."

The golden vertical pupils in Hermione's eyes fully materialized. Her form occasionally maintained a human shape and occasionally blurred into the phantom of a three-headed grayish-white dragon. Amidst these shifting forms, she seized the momentary opportunity of locating this "isolated island" and silently stepped onto the spiritual island belonging to that Phoenix.

Subconscious imagery belonging to the Phoenix surfaced before Hermione's eyes.

She saw the Phoenix flashing in pursuit of living creatures, saw the Phoenix toying with souls using its abilities, and saw the Phoenix devouring all sorts of spirituality...

She also vaguely caught sight of towering pale stone pillars and an upside-down inverted bone structure of a building.

However, "good luck" and a spiritual warning caused her "vision" to blur at that moment, as if she were about to be disconnected from this spiritual island.

Even her memories at that moment were faintly blurring, as though they might dissipate at any second.

Yet right then, an anomaly originating from the "Chaos Sea" made her vision clear again, while the scene of deathly stillness and desolation she had just witnessed vanished.

However, under the influence of the "Chaos Sea," the memory of that scene was preserved.

Knowing full well that the scene within the Phoenix's consciousness just now was problematic, Hermione consciously reined in her thoughts, refusing to dwell on the massive mausoleum-like city.

She reached out, and fragments of paper materialized in her hand.

The paper fragments drifted down one by one, merging into the Phoenix's subconscious, tampering with its thoughts and ideas.

Amidst the falling paper scraps, lines of text vaguely emerged:

"A sense of hunger woke me from my dream; I sense the presence of a female human in the wilderness."

"That is a pure, sweet human female devoid of any extraordinary characteristics."

"Humans are a weak yet spiritually rich creature, very suitable as today's meal."

"I want to open the 'door' immediately and toy with my prey as usual."

"I look forward to savoring her at the moment her emotions are most intense."

"Oh, praise the Ancestor, I am looking forward to this so much, I must take action immediately. This..."

"This is very reasonable."