Chapter 2237 - 2230: Quantum Ghost

Zhang Menglong wasn’t exaggerating the danger; his body’s reactions were already telling him that there really was something dangerous nearby.

"You’re right, there really is something closing in on us!" Captain Eno still couldn’t see anything, but she could clearly feel something moving toward her.

"Naked eye, useless."

"Spiritual power, useless."

"Soul Power, useless!"

In an instant, Zhang Menglong unleashed every kind of Energy he could use, but the feedback from those energies told him that there was nothing around him—at least, nothing he was able to sense.

But that aggressively encroaching force was still closing in on him. Zhang Menglong was sure that this force had already come within a hundred meters. If it got within ten—then even he might be in serious danger!

"Ah!" A shrill scream came through the comms.

The four ships had kept an open communication channel, and that scream had indeed come from one of the other three ships.

"This is the Chris. All captains report status, where did that scream just come from?"

"This is the Wumo, all systems nominal."

"This is the Weizier, all systems nominal!"

"This is the Linmike. We’ve been hit by an unknown force. Two crew members on board were attacked and killed, our Soul Hunter is critically wounded and unconscious. We need assistance!"

From the Linmike came the captain’s somewhat panicked cry for help.

But in reality, the other three ships were already on the verge of barely being able to protect themselves.

"Gou Dan, can you detect that thing?" Zhang Menglong already felt that thing had come within fifty meters of him; it might even already be inside the ship.

[Dean, I can’t detect anything at all!] Even Gou Dan was stuck in a powerless predicament at this point.

"What the hell is this freaking thing?" Zhang Menglong was starting to feel seriously rattled. The danger kept approaching, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The feeling was downright awful.

The bridge was over a hundred square meters, with eighteen people present including Zhang Menglong and the captain. Suddenly, a crew member roughly forty meters away from Zhang Menglong collapsed without any warning.

He just toppled straight over onto the floor, not even having time for any expression to appear on his face, and the breath of life in him was already gone.

"His Soul Power is rapidly decaying. It’s like something is eating his Soul in pieces!" Zhang Menglong said.

But in that brief instant just now, Zhang Menglong’s Soul Power had actually sensed a flickering shadow!

It was an outline about two to three meters long, hunched over, with a thin, trailing tail behind it—just like a xenomorph from the movies.

But it was only for that split second, so short that Zhang Menglong didn’t even have time to see what exactly it was.

"Looks like this thing can only be observed at the exact moment it attacks!" Zhang Menglong formed an initial judgment.

Right then, another crew member on the other side toppled over, and this time, Zhang Menglong—who was already primed for it—clearly captured the attacker’s form!

Its whole body was pitch-black, like a clump of mist. The moment Zhang Menglong noticed it, it even met his gaze for an instant. Then its body began to collapse and it vanished without a trace.

"Captain, did you see that?" Zhang Menglong looked at Eno.

Eno hadn’t yet reached the level of a Transcender, but her Soul Power far surpassed that of ordinary people. It shouldn’t be possible for her to perceive nothing at all.

But all Zhang Menglong could see in her eyes was pure confusion.

"No... she can’t see it. And it might be that only I can."

When Zhang Menglong had been digging through intel, he’d found records of countless people having joined in on hunts for this kind of creature—even Dominators had shown up. If it were really that simple, there’s no way they’d all fail to see it.

"Try again. Sharingan!"

Zhang Menglong’s vision remained a complete void.

"Eyes of Golden Flame!"

This time, Zhang Menglong actually observed, about twenty meters in front of him, some extremely tiny particles drifting in the air. These particles were smaller than a Proton, like some free-floating micro-specks in the air that would normally be impossible to notice.

When Zhang Menglong combined his Soul Power with the Eyes of Golden Flame, he could see a faint blue glow radiating from those particles.

The particles moved very slowly, yet they constantly kept a certain spacing from one another, as if they were sensing each other—advancing and retreating in unison.

"What the hell are these things?" Zhang Menglong stared hard at the particles, but just then, a large number of them suddenly clustered together, forming a hunched, lanky monster!

"That’s the monster!" Zhang Menglong pointed ahead. "Get out of the way!"

But the monster lunged far too fast and viciously. By the time Zhang Menglong shouted, the unlucky guy had already dropped, and Zhang Menglong could even see a mocking, playful look in the monster’s eyes.

"Burn for me!" Now that Zhang Menglong knew what it was, of course he had ways to deal with it.

Yet the Strange Fire that had never failed him before suddenly couldn’t ignite those particles at all. They passed right through the flames burning in midair like it was nothing.

"How is that even possible?" Zhang Menglong was stunned; this clearly went beyond his understanding of how normal things worked.

[Dean, that seems to be quantum! It doesn’t belong to matter, and it doesn’t belong to Energy. There’s no way to burn it.]

"Quantum? You think I never studied quantum mechanics? Isn’t quantum just particles?"

[Dean, that’s just what you Earthlings call those particles. It’s not the same as the quantum I’m talking about!] Gou Dan immediately projected the concept of quantum into Zhang Menglong’s knowledge base.

"Seriously? And how the hell am I supposed to fight this?" After reading it, Zhang Menglong almost burst out swearing nonstop.

This quantum wasn’t any kind of substance at all—its existence was pure paradox!

The monster Zhang Menglong was seeing wasn’t the enemy’s true body; it was a construct of its own consciousness, projected into the real world!

The Telekinesis Zhang Menglong had seen before was Humans projecting Telekinesis as a form of offensive power.

And the monster he’d just seen was exactly that kind of Telekinesis!

But the thing using this Telekinesis was quantum itself!

Zhang Menglong had once encountered the concept of a Quantum Ghost in the novel "Spherical Lightning."

When a Quantum Ghost had no Observer, it could exist as a probability cloud, and that probability cloud might be a person, a flower, or a sheep.

But once an Observer appeared—once someone saw it—it would immediately enter a collapsed state, which was practically equivalent to no longer existing.

The thing attacking Souls before his eyes was also like a Quantum Ghost. As long as no one perceived it, it could condense into a "body" and launch attacks; but the moment it was seen, it ceased to exist.

So anyone who’d been attacked either died, or the Quantum Ghost collapsed at that instant—making it even less likely for anyone to see it.

And Zhang Menglong seemed to be the only one who could, as an Observer, actually see these Quantum Ghosts exist!