Chapter 464: The Strange Planet

“Do you want to go to that planet?” Su Che immediately understood what the shadow meant.
The shadow nodded twice as a clear reply.
“Is it absolutely necessary?” Su Che asked again.
The shadow nodded once more.
Su Che fell silent for a moment, guessing that there must be some reason on that dark gray planet that exerted a strong attraction, prompting it to communicate with him so clearly for the first time.
Normally, Su Che really didn’t want to create extra problems—especially at this time of crisis—by exploring some strange planet. Yet, he had always been cautious around this shadow, even feeling a certain degree of fear toward it.
After all, as his own shadow, it could be by his side at all times. If it tried to harm him secretly, it would be impossible to defend against. It would be troublesome if failing to satisfy its request this time led to a complete rift between them.
Moreover, when facing the projections of the Four Heavenly Lords for the first time, things would have been unimaginable without the shadow’s help…
So, after some thought, Su Che made up his mind and said to the shadow, “Alright, since you want to go, let’s go!”
The shadow nodded vigorously, instantly returning to Su Che’s feet and returning to its normal state.
Su Che immediately informed Heng Yi to adjust the course and fly toward that dark gray planet millions of miles away.
It was clear that this planet was extremely large—roughly estimated to be more than ten times the diameter of Qi Yuan Star.
As they got closer, Su Che and the others saw that the planet’s color faded gradually, shifting from dark gray to light gray. By the time they approached its atmosphere, it had turned into a very pale silver-gray. It was evident that the light inside the planet was sufficient, not as gloomy as they had thought from afar.
Since it was his own shadow that was interested in this planet, Su Che couldn’t stay hidden in the magic artifact space anymore. He appeared in person and, accompanied by Heng Yi, descended toward the surface below.
“It’s actually a planet dominated by silver-gray!” Su Che marveled inwardly.
Most of the plants on the surface were silver-gray, with a few being slightly darker gray. They were all huge in size, resembling various fungal plants—in other words, mushrooms of different shapes.

“The types of plants seem somewhat limited, and their colors are strange. But since there are plants, it’s likely that there are animals, even advanced beings capable of building civilizations.” As he pondered this, Su Che sent a message to his subordinate: “Heng Yi, have you seen any similar planets before?”
“No,” Heng Yi replied respectfully. “Master, during my thousands of years in the Spirit Realm, I have indeed visited many planets, including some even more peculiar ones. But I have never seen anything similar to this.”
Su Che nodded silently. From this, he could infer that this planet must be extremely rare in the vast universe. It was precisely because of its uniqueness that it had piqued Shadow’s great interest.
The landing site was clearly a wilderness, with no villages or towns in sight. Even when looking far from above, no large, prominent buildings could be seen, making Su Che wonder if this planet had no intelligent civilization and was merely a primitive, desolate world.
Moreover, the gravity on this planet was much stronger than on most of the planets Su Che had visited, about ten times that of Qiyuan Planet. In other words, an object weighing 100 jin on Qiyuan Planet would weigh 1,000 jin here.
While Su Che was exploring the surroundings, Heng Yi said in a strange tone, “Master, there’s something unusual deep underground!”
Heng Yi was at the mid-stage of the Refining Void cultivation level, with his spiritual perception covering over 70,000 zhang, allowing him to penetrate more than 20,000 zhang of normal soil layers. This meant he could clearly detect the conditions deep underground.
Before Su Che could ask what Heng Yi had seen, Shadow separated from him, stepped forward, pointed at the ground, and waved at Su Che repeatedly.
It was obvious he was urging Su Che to immediately go underground.
Su Che sent a message to Heng Yi, “Do you think there’s danger down there?”
“For now, it seems safe,” Heng Yi replied briefly. “There’s a rather special world underground. It seems that the cultivators here don’t live on the surface but underground.”
“I see.”
Su Che roughly understood. This planet was also a cultivation realm, but its cultivators preferred to live in the underground world, just like the underground demon race on Qiyuan Planet.

Mentioning the underground demons of Qiyuan Star, Su Che did not include them in the great migration that took place over a decade ago. This was because the underground demons were cruel and murderous, incompatible with humans and demons, with no possibility of peaceful coexistence. Moving them to Immortal Prison would only cause trouble and bring no benefits. So, they were simply abandoned.

“Since there exists a cultivation realm deep underground, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Su Che made an immediate decision: descend!

The master and his servant immediately used the art of underground travel to plunge vertically deep into the earth.

After descending about eight thousand zhang, Su Che finally saw an extremely extraordinary underground world.

“There’s actually such a planet in the world!”

The spectacular scene before him left Su Che in awe.

Inside the planet, there was even a smaller planet!

To be precise, the eight-thousand-zhang-thick layer of soil they had descended through was merely an outer shell of this underground world, similar to an eggshell. The interior was completely hollow, and at its center floated another planet, like the yolk of an egg.

The size of this “yolk” was roughly comparable to that of Qiyuan Star.

Clearly, it was this “yolk” that served as a complete world nurturing countless living beings.

Above this eggshell-like layer were countless stars embedded densely. Su Che realized that these stars were the roots of those silver-gray giant mushrooms growing on the surface of the eggshell. These roots continuously glowed, gathering light to provide sufficient illumination for the “sub-planet” at the core. Though not as bright as sunlight, it had a unique, hazy charm.

“It wasn’t a waste of coming!” Su Che murmured. “Just this planet within a planet is enough to broaden my horizons and increase my knowledge.”

“Yes, master,” Heng Yi also said with deep emotion. “I feel the same way.”

“Let’s go there.”

Su Che pointed at the “sub-planet” and raised his eyebrows slightly. “As soon as I saw it, I had an intuition that this trip wouldn’t be in vain. I expect to reap a great harvest…”

Whoosh whoosh whoosh…

Heng Yi carried Su Che flying at high speed, crossing about a million li of “void” in the blink of an eye. Of course, the so-called void here could be considered the egg white.

The central sub-planet was the “yolk,” the middle void was the “egg white,” and the eight-thousand-zhang-thick layer of soil was the “eggshell.” These three parts made up this uniquely strange planet.

A planet within a planet!

Before landing on the sub-planet, Heng Yi took out two extremely loose black cloaks that could cover the entire body. Not only would one’s hands and feet be hidden, but even facial features would become blurred, making it impossible to tell whether the person wearing the cloak was human, demon, or monster.

Heng Yi, with his rich experience, explained via telepathy, “Master, when traveling to other planets, it’s inevitable to encounter races that are extremely hostile to humans. By wearing these cloaks that can block divine senses, even if the natives find us strange and mysterious, they won’t be able to determine our true identities, so they won’t resort to force right away.”

“Makes sense!”

Su Che took the cloaks and immediately put them on.

According to the norms of the cultivation world, even if someone appeared in a cultivation market on Qi Yuan Planet wearing such a cloak, others would merely think they were trying to hide their identity and be wary of them. But they wouldn’t go out of their way to cause trouble or force them to reveal their true face.

Thus, the two mysterious figures wrapped in cloaks slowly landed outside a large town on the sub-planet.

The architectural style of this town was vastly different from that of Qi Yuan Planet. Not to mention the shape, even the color of all the buildings was pure black, with not a hint of any other color on their surfaces.

“Adoring pure black—just based on that, I can guess that the natives here must have a gloomy, cruel, and aggressive personality,” Su Che speculated.

“Makes sense,” agreed Lao Hei from the Immortal Prison. “Though I’m called Lao Hei, I couldn’t live in such an environment day and night. Over time, my personality and state of mind would definitely become abnormal.”

As they spoke, they noticed a dark figure flying rapidly toward them from thousands of feet away.

The person was dressed in black, with a pure black hood covering their face, making it impossible to see their eyes. With such attire, they resembled Su Che and the other person in their black cloaks, who also tried to hide their identities.

However, judging from their body proportions and limb features, they seemed to be ordinary humans, without the tail of a demon or the sharp claws and horns of a monster.

Moreover, their flying technique was quite distinctive—they floated silently just an inch above the ground, without touching it, moving swiftly like ghosts in the night.

Beyond that, Su Che keenly noticed another extremely unusual thing: this person had no shadow!

The faint “starlight” from above was dim, but it still cast soft shadows on the ground from the surrounding plants and boulders; Hengyi beside him also had a shadow. Yet that person had no shadow at all beneath his feet. Noticing this, Su Che naturally looked at his own shadow and realized that it had once again separated from his feet, silently and uprightly floating behind him at some point. From that moment on, it was no longer a flat shadow but a three-dimensional figure with height, width, and depth, resembling a person dressed entirely in black standing there. “Master, your shadow…” Hengyi, who claimed to be well-informed, was stunned by this sight. Although he had long known his master’s shadow was peculiar, he never expected it to transform into a nearly tangible, fully formed shape. It truly looked like a real person!