"What should we do now? Can we still go back?"

Xivia sighed. She disliked this kind of unstable change, even though this body made her feel very secure.

"Hard to say. Before the change occurred, did you discover anything?"

Lin Ye looked thoughtfully at this world shrouded in gray-white mist.

"Nothing at all. It suddenly became like this."

Xivia abruptly turned to look behind her. She sensed a certain gaze that was watching her.

But behind her was only a wasteland, with nothing that could be watching her.

"...You felt it too?"

Lin Ye lowered his voice and said.

"It seems like there's something nearby..."

Mia returned control of the body to Lin Ye. Xivia leaned against Lin Ye's back, carefully observing their surroundings.

Lin Ye used that special perception ability to check the situation around them, but within the range of his perception, this area only had the three of them.

"...It's the ground! The ground is watching us!"

Mia suddenly let out a frightened voice.

Lin Ye immediately realized their predicament, but he didn't know how to create distance from the ground. He instinctively wanted to jump up, never expecting his body to actually detach from the ground and hover in mid-air.

Xivia, utilizing the body's power, hovered beside Lin Ye. Her control over the body was stronger than Lin Ye's.

"What did you discover? Are enemies hiding beneath the ground?"

Several compressed spiritual energy piercing weapons appeared around Xivia. She merely had the thought of attacking, and the body automatically completed all steps except the final one.

"Not beneath the ground. It's the ground itself watching us. I don't know how to describe it either."

Mia swung her tail, seriously pondering the description.

"...Forget it. We'll know if we try attacking."

Xivia launched those piercing weapons towards the ground surface.

Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom!

The ground was blasted with several deep craters by the compressed spiritual energy. However, this attack not only failed to make the feeling of being watched disappear, it instead made that feeling even stronger. Now, without Mia needing to remind them, they could clearly feel that gaze coming from the ground, as tangible as a physical thing.

"Stop. Don't attack the ground anymore. Let's leave here first."

Lin Ye was gradually adapting to this flight state triggered by instinct. He tried changing the direction of the energy emission and began accelerating his flight towards a certain direction.

"Where are we going?"

Xivia's flight speed was extremely fast. She quickly overtook Lin Ye and could only slow down to wait for him to catch up. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Since this was the body's instinctive state, she couldn't help Lin Ye accelerate either.

"Anywhere, as long as it gets us away from here."

Lin Ye had a very ominous premonition.

"But it's still watching us from below. We can't escape the ground no matter where we fly. Flying forward like this is completely meaningless!"

Mia said with great nervousness.

"No. As long as we can fly out of this area, we can escape the thing below... I'll lead the way in front. You follow behind me."

Lin Ye turned his head and said to Xivia.

"You know how to get out?"

Xivia flew to Lin Ye's rear. She didn't know the significance of doing this, but since Lin Ye specifically told her to follow behind, it meant this was a necessary step.

"I don't know either. I just feel like I should do this... It seems only I can leave this place."

Lin Ye disliked this feeling of uncertainty, but in this situation, all he could rely on was this body and the sensations originating from it.

The three of them began flying forward. Below them remained the gray wasteland. With no reference points, it was as if they were running in place.

"...I seem to be undergoing some kind of change. I don't know either... Can we go faster?"

Xivia's tone became a bit more indifferent, just like this gray world.

"I have that feeling too. I feel like I'm about to disappear... Maybe merging into this world. Lin Ye, if I disappear, will you remember me?"

Mia became very calm, as if she had become a different person.

"Hang on a little longer. We're almost out!"

Lin Ye disliked lying, but on this endless wasteland where no end was in sight, he could only use this placebo-like method to boost their spirits.

Truthfully, he also didn't know how to escape this area. The body only provided him with a direction. Whether they could actually fly out was another matter.

Neither of them answered Lin Ye. Lin Ye could only struggle to control the dinosaur body, flying forward with all his might.

In the gray world, the flow of time became ambiguous. It was unclear how long had passed when Xivia's flight altitude began to decrease. Like a bird that must eventually land, she began to fall towards the ground, as if about to merge into that gray wasteland.

Lin Ye wanted to grab Xivia and continue flying forward with her, but the body's instinct reminded him that this behavior was wrong.

"Instinct, huh..."

Lin Ye ignored the body's warning. He forcibly resisted the body's instinct, turned around, and grabbed Xivia just as she was about to touch the ground.

"You can't keep holding her and move forward. As long as you let her go, you can leave this place anytime."

A voice somewhat similar to Mia's sounded beside Lin Ye's ear.

"So you don't have the confidence to stop me."

Lin Ye looked at the ground and said with abnormal calmness.

"I am not the ground at all, but this space itself. Making you feel the gaze from the ground was only to drain your spirit and stamina. And now, it's no longer necessary."

That voice spoke again.

"So as long as we don't land, nothing will happen?"

Lin Ye held Xivia and took deep breaths of the surrounding mist.

"...Even if you know, so what? She has already lost consciousness. As long as you don't abandon her, you can't leave here either. In the end, all three of you will become part of here.

Part of me."

The voice said again.

"As long as I can restore her consciousness, it's fine."

Lin Ye continued to forcefully breathe in the gray-white mist, like someone who had just finished intense exercise.

"That's impossible. No one can escape the Gray World's influence in this state, unless she can leave the Gray World. But only by shaking off the Gray World's influence does she have the possibility of leaving the Gray World. It's a paradox."

The other party let out a mocking sound.

"Paradox? It's just insufficient understanding."

Lin Ye forcefully inhaled the last mouthful of gray-white mist. A hard concrete ground appeared beneath his feet. Mia stood beside him. Xivia was cradled in his human arms.

A pale purple suitcase appeared in his hand. That voice had already disappeared. They had returned to the city.