Unable to speak, Dao Lao hurriedly asked Haoyun through the system channel, "What the hell is going on? Why are you wearing a wild horse costume? And why am I wearing a cow costume? What's happening here?"

"First, check your level of bad luck," Haoyun nervously asked Dao Lao instead of directly answering his question.

"My level of bad luck? It's reached three stars?" Dao Lao first checked his bad luck level with a puzzled expression.

Then, after looking at the personal information shared by Haoyun and listening to his speculation, Dao Lao frowned and said, "Indeed, it's possible that, as you guessed, my bad luck level has reached three stars. But why would I also have a bad luck level? Could it be that my divine body has also been affected by the malicious spirit energy?"

After saying this, Dao Lao wanted to inspect his divine body. However, to his dismay, his malicious spirit energy detection function also completely malfunctioned after completing the last detection. Therefore, Dao Lao couldn't use the system to find out the reason for the three-star bad luck level appearing on him.

Dao Lao quickly realized that the situation seemed to be much more serious than he had imagined. However, as a seasoned warrior, he managed to calm down quickly and hurriedly asked Haoyun, "Where's Dream Jia? Have you seen her?"

"If I'm guessing correctly, Dream Jia should be in that cage over there," Haoyun pointed to the third iron cage shrouded in darkness inside the tent.

Upon hearing this, Dao Lao immediately yelled Dream Jia's name at the third iron cage. However, as soon as he opened his mouth, he found that, apart from being able to make a series of "moo" cow sounds, he couldn't make any other sounds, let alone speak normally.

Although this scene looked strange and somewhat terrifying, seeing Dao Lao, with his white beard, stretching his neck and mooing like a cow, Haoyun couldn't help but find it amusing and accidentally laughed out loud. Dao Lao, feeling very displeased, made a "please" gesture, indicating that Haoyun shouldn't laugh at him and suggesting that Haoyun should try it himself.

Haoyun gave Dao Lao a smug look, indicating that even though he couldn't speak now, his neighing was much livelier and more vibrant than Dao Lao's mooing, which sounded old-fashioned and lifeless. Irritated by this, Dao Lao immediately retorted with a louder, albeit somewhat dull, moo. Thus, in this precarious situation, Haoyun and Dao Lao ended up bickering with each other, with Haoyun neighing and Dao Lao mooing.

"Gobble, gobble! Gobble, gobble, gobble!" Just as Haoyun and Dao Lao were engaged in this cow-horse squabble, a voice full of indignation suddenly came from another iron cage. Then, in the gradually brightening light of the third iron cage, Haoyun and Dao Lao saw Dream Jia lazily sitting up, rubbing her eyes, stretching, and muttering curses.

"Gobble, gobble, gobble! Gobble? Gobble, gobble, gobble!" After muttering a few incomprehensible words and curses, Dream Jia noticed the abnormality of being unable to speak. Then, pointing at her mouth, she screamed in horror with "gobble, gobble, gobble" sounds.

"Dream Jia! Don't panic, calm down! Listen to me, we've all lost our ability to speak and can only make the sounds of the animals we're dressed as. So now, we can only communicate through the system's private chat channel!" Haoyun quickly messaged through the system upon seeing Dream Jia's reaction.

Upon receiving Haoyun's message, Dream Jia took a deep breath to calm herself and quickly went to the side of the iron cage, checking Haoyun's and Dao Lao's positions while surveying the surroundings. It was at this moment that Haoyun finally noticed that Dream Jia was dressed as a white bunny in a sexy outfit.

"Gobble," seeing Dream Jia's stunning figure in this white bunny outfit, Haoyun couldn't help but swallow a mouthful of saliva and focus all his attention on Dream Jia.

Upon seeing Dream Jia's outfit, Dao Lao immediately expressed his indignation at the allocation of their roles. Regardless of who the bastard was who dressed them like this, why did Dream Jia get such a high-quality and exquisite costume while his cow costume was so bulky and of such cheap material?

Dream Jia first gave Haoyun a disdainful look, then, while expressing her dissatisfaction with Dao Lao, she indicated that, because of her high appearance and good figure, it was only natural that she received better treatment than them. There was no need to make a fuss about it. However, while satisfied with her bunny outfit, Dream Jia quickly noticed a problem. That was, like Haoyun and Dao Lao, the bunny costume seemed to be tightly adhered to her body, no matter how she pulled and tugged, she couldn't get rid of it.

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"It's useless, I've tried several times to take off this outfit. But it seems that some mysterious force is at work, causing these costumes to stick to our bodies as if they were grown on us and impossible to remove," seeing Dream Jia's futile attempts to remove her clothes, Haoyun swallowed another mouthful of saliva and cautioned himself to stay calm. Now was not the time to appreciate a beauty.

Therefore, to divert his attention, Haoyun quickly recounted what he had discovered to Dao Lao and Dream Jia. Then, the three of them carefully checked their malicious spirit energy tracking systems again, and while confirming that most of the functions in their systems had failed, they also found a three-star level of bad luck on Dream Jia.

Seeing that Dao Lao and Dream Jia also had bad luck levels, Haoyun couldn't decide whether to breathe a sigh of relief or to be more nervous. Haoyun wanted to breathe a sigh of relief because the fact that both Dao Lao and Dream Jia had bad luck levels meant that his own bad luck level wasn't caused by the lingering malicious spirit energy from Elina. However, the reason Haoyun dared not to breathe a sigh of relief was that, since the malicious spirit energy detection functions of the three of them had all failed, he couldn't determine whether the appearance of the bad luck level on Dao Lao and Dream Jia was related to the intrusion of malicious spirit energy into their bodies as well.

"It seems that the black mist attack we just encountered is most likely related to the malicious spirit energy. We probably fell into an ambush by the malicious spirit energy as soon as we entered this black hole and were imprisoned here. At the same time, that malicious spirit energy somehow disabled many functions in our system," Dao Lao analyzed.

"Could it be Elina who attacked us?" Dream Jia asked.

"It's very possible. However, I've never heard of anyone having the ability to disable our malicious spirit energy tracking system. If this is indeed Elina's doing, then she must have gained some unique ability, and it would be an extremely powerful one," Dao Lao replied solemnly, worrying about the consequences. If Elina were to widely use this ability within the realms of the spirits, countless auxiliary systems carried by the god officials would malfunction. The consequences were unimaginable.

"But if it's Elina's doing, why didn't she choose to kill us to prevent future troubles? Why imprison us here? And how did Elina, whose strength was greatly diminished due to her injuries, gain such powerful abilities in such a short time? Could it be that there is something even more powerful hidden in the black hole VOID-5173? Did Elina come here to gain that power?" Haoyun offered a different perspective.

"We can't rule out that possibility either. Perhaps Elina imprisoned us to buy herself more time to better comprehend that powerful force. After all, once we are killed, the realms of the spirits will immediately know that a god official has fallen, and they will dispatch more powerful divine troops here. I guess Elina doesn't want to cause too much trouble until her strength has made another leap, just like what she did on the planet Alf," Dao Lao speculated.

Haoyun and Dream Jia nodded in agreement with Dao Lao's analysis. Then, Haoyun speculated again, "So, she just wants to temporarily neutralize our weapons and imprison us here to prevent us from disrupting her plans? What's the situation with Judge Yan and the others now? Have they already found out about our situation? Or does everything still seem normal on their end?"

Dao Lao shook his head, indicating that he didn't know. However, he was very clear that whatever caused the nearly complete failure of their malicious spirit energy tracking system and the stripping of their weapons, and even the powers they obtained under the protection of the gods in the realms of the spirits, was definitely not just a six-star level of power. Elina's current power was probably at the level of seven stars or even far beyond that.

Dream Jia naturally agreed with Dao Lao's concerns. At the same time, she emphasized again, "Regardless of the current situation, we must find a way to leave here, inform the realms of the spirits of the strange events we encountered here as soon as possible, and have them dispatch more experts to capture Elina."

At this point, Dream Jia again sneered at her clothes and cursed, "Humph! That damn Elina not only imprisoned us but also insulted us by dressing us up as animals! I can't believe that lunatic has such a perverse taste!"

Haoyun, sensing Dream Jia's death stare, quickly shifted his gaze from Dream Jia's bosom to the surrounding environment and pretended to speculate seriously, "Huh? Although this tent is simple, why does it look so familiar? Right! It's a circus! This tent looks like the kind of tent used by circuses! Could it be that we are imprisoned in a circus?"

At this point, both Dao Lao and Dream Jia could see that Haoyun was making random guesses to change the subject. However, what neither of them expected was that just after Haoyun finished guessing wrong, a side of the tent suddenly revealed a curtain door. As the curtain door was lifted by someone, Haoyun and the others saw several burly men dressed as clowns, one after another, bending over and entering from outside the tent.

The clown costumes of these men were very common in circuses, but combined with their burly stature and the whips with spikes hanging from their waists, it made people involuntarily shudder. After entering the tent, the clowns didn't say anything. They just went straight to the iron cage where Haoyun and the others were, casually pulled on the railing of the cage, and instantly turned the iron cage railing into a railing door.

As Haoyun and his companions stepped out of the tent and onto the T-shaped platform, a cheerful circus march filled the air. The audience, fueled by the music, rhythmically cheered and waved colorful flags and ribbons as if celebrating a grand festival. The atmosphere was incredibly lively. After the audience's continuous cheers, three dazzling spotlights descended from above, enveloping Haoyun and his companions, immediately making them the center of attention. The audience enthusiastically cheered for their arrival, prompting Haoyun to momentarily entertain the strange idea of raising his hand to acknowledge the audience all around him.