Despite going through the details repeatedly, Han Xuhan couldn’t tell where or how he had gone wrong. What did this system an by ’lacking performance’?
Perhaps he would need to see the contents of the original plotline to understand how his performance was flawed. It was true that the system had warned him earlier that planning for only survival would not be adequate. But he wasn’t really strong enough to plan for much more.
"So what’s the plan for now? And where is this place anyway?" He asked, having finished his al.
His inquisitive gaze was received with silence, Mu Ran and Xuanyuan Zhou still scanning him with blank, unreadable looks.
Mu Ran stood up after a mont, gesturing at him to follow.
"We’re near Pine town, just by the riverside where it’s hard to track people and offers easy escape routes. Initially, martial sister Zhou and I decided to not imdiately go seek shelter inside the town.
"If more demonic cultivators like Shen Kai were hiding inside the town, it would have spelled a disaster for us in our current condition. The town chief himself was cooperating with the demonic cultivators, intentionally or not. I didn’t want to take the risk."
"Really? Wise decision, Boss!"
Han Xuhan slowly tried to get up, holding onto the tree behind him. His muscles protested quite horribly, but after the protein-heavy al, movents didn’t seem as difficult as before.
"But do you rember that we had a mission to accomplish? Now that we know what the reason behind the disappearances of the denizens of the town is, we will need to give them an explanation, at least..."
Han Xuhan trailed off, suddenly feeling that the way Mu Ran had worded things was off. Why did he say that their current position was sothing they had planned initially? What happened afterwards?
Mu Ran noticed his concerned gaze, and smiled thinly.
"Co with . I’ve got sothing to show you."
Turning around, Mu Ran strolled away into a dark patch of woods. Looking at his back, an ominous feeling enveloped Xuhan’s heart. He looked down at Xuanyuan Zhou, whose complexion was rather unsightly as she gazed at the small fire dancing in the dark in front of her. Noticing his indecisiveness, she cocked her head lightly.
"Can you walk?"
Han Xuhan tested his footing and nodded.
"Then go follow him. You’ll want to see it with your own eyes," she muttered and went back to observing the fire with an empty expression.
Han Xuhan slowly stepped forward, following Mu Ran’s silhouette in the dark. What greeted his sight beyond the dark woods was a huge, unusually plain field. Mu Ran was standing at its periphery, waiting for him to reach his side.
"Boss, What is it ?"
"Look at this particular area ahead and tell if you find sothing odd."
Han Xuhan vigilantly observed the field. There wasn’t much he could make out in the moonlight. But it looked oddly familiar for so reason. Looking back at Mu Ran, he saw the grave expression on his face.
"Yes, I know you find this area familiar. As for the answer to the question in your heart, it’s because this is where Pine Town used to be."
"...What?" Xuhan asked, unable to comprehend the aning of his words.
"The entire Pine town has disappeared. Gone with each and every single particle in it that ever existed. The only sign that sothing was here is the area that it occupied. Even the buildings in it and the roads that led to it are gone. There are no signs of life within miles. In one night, the entire town has evaporated into nothingness."
"...What the fuck?"
.
.................................
.
The bodies littering the ground outside the portal were still warm, alive. An old man carefully stepped around them, carrying a large coffin on his shoulders.
The walls of the coffin were made of smooth black glass, displaying countless etched illustrations on the surface. The most conspicuous was one showing a dragon coiled around a human, whose head had been blurred.
If one looked closely, they’d see two different faces overlapping on the blurry surface where his head was supposed to be.
The old man took one last look at the portal behind him that led to the Holy Land of Laws. A mont later, both the man and the coffin disappeared under the shroud of darkness.
Deep inside the Holy Land of Laws, things were chaotic, to say the least. The long-forgotten ruins had been desolated further, and the casual brutality and power behind the destruction could rival a pillaging army.
The poisonous gray fog has thinned until one could barely see it. The sun which was obscured for decades by the fog covering the sky was finally visible.
From underneath so gigantic obsidian slabs, a human figure crawled out in an awkward manner, his limbs flailing about oddly. His movents seed uncoordinated, almost like a child learning how to walk.
Clutching the edge of a slab, the young man in dust-covered cyan robe stood up stubbornly despite his shivering arms and legs.
His mask had fallen off at so point. It revealed a face that could have been called young and handso, if not for the bone-deep cuts marring almost every inch of skin.
Leaning back against the platforms, he observed his own palms quietly. The words [ Nightmare Knight ] burnt on the skin there had faded a lot, now nearly imperceptible if one didn’t look at them closely. But he could still feel a faint resonance with the words.
Closing his eyes, he searched for a certain feeling deep inside his spiritual world.
He could feel it. The resonance, the network of minds connected to his own... He could even feel the existence of an unfathomable web of ntal links crisscrossing beyond his capacity to affect...for now.
They were like lighthouses radiating a soulful emission of thoughts and emotions. Compared to those hyperactive light sources shining in the distant, illusory spiritual world, he found the minds connected to him rather odd.
These consciousnesses nearby were not particularly active, neither did they look as large as those attractive balls of light in the horizon of his ’perception’.
These balls of spiritual light almost seed injured and incomplete, having entered a state of hibernation to perhaps survive the recently inflicted damage and recover. And he could guess why.
After all, he was in the sa situation as them. If that mysterious old man had not taken pity on them, their spirits would have scattered away, and their bodies would beco truly empty shells.
Without Zhao Weiqing’s influence, their ownership over their bodies was uncontested. As long as these damaged spiritual worlds could recover, they’d be back in control.
Concentrating hard, the youth found several other consciousnesses that he felt close to, almost like familial bonds. As he tapped on the web that connected them together, he felt the others awaken from the dormant state.
Slowly, Qian Yun roused more and more such minds that were within his reach. There were at least a dozen of them close to his consciousness. Awakened by his nudges, they began to show signs of activity.
[ Co to . Wherever you are, co inside the Holy Land of Laws ]
He could feel the fascination bubbling inside himself as he beca increasingly skilled in surfing the web, like a tiny spider testing its thread-bound prey.
"I have a feeling that my ability will beco powerful enough one day to reach out toward those infinite number of consciousnesses if I continue to use this technique..." He muttered thoughtfully.
The paths that led to the great dao were infinite in number. Perhaps from today forth, this would be his path.
Who knew what the future held? But one thing was certain. Qian Yun was hungry. And he had discovered a path to sate his hunger.
[ End Of Volu One ]
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