Another One

Passing through the light portal, Wei Yuan once again felt that ubiquitous distortion, as if it sought to reshape him fundamentally and assimilate him into this world. The little black bird appeared once more, circling Wei Yuan several times before landing gingerly upon his finger, clearly shaken and lingering with apprehension. Wei Yuan was exceptionally patient. Only when the little bird had a firm grip on his finger did he speak. "Is there an energy source nearby?" "No—" The instant he heard the answer, Wei Yuan's hand flipped like lightning, snatching the bird in a vice-like grip! The little bird had remained poised to flee at any moment, but while answering the question, its reaction had inevitably lagged by half a beat. Furthermore, it never expected Wei Yuan to strike before it had even finished speaking, and so it was caught. Wei Yuan instantly withdrew through the light portal. The Bingli Divine Wood immediately followed up with a burst of cold spiritual qi, encasing the little bird in ice and preventing it from self-destructing. Wei Yuan gave the Bingli Divine Wood an approving nod, then handed the bird to Yin-Yang. "Another one." "Bring more. Once refined, they will yield more system fragments," Maiden Yin-Yang said, speaking more words than usual. Wei Yuan nodded and re-entered the light portal. A moment later, he flashed back, another bird held in his hand. "They are growing more vigilant. It will be hard to catch any more this time. I am going to begin exploring." Maiden Yin-Yang nodded, took the little bird, and vanished. Wei Yuan felt that her spirituality had increased noticeably of late; it seemed the advancement of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was an elevation for all living things within. For Maiden Yin-Yang, the advancement of the mindscape world had primarily raised the ceiling constraining her. As for the other immortal plants, aside from the Jianmu sapling, none had yet reached their ceiling for the time being. Wei Yuan re-entered the light portal. This time, three black birds appeared in the air at once. Chirping noisily, they chattered and gestured at Wei Yuan, after which two of them warily pulled back to keep their distance from him. Knowing it would be difficult to make another move this time, Wei Yuan ignored the black birds and set off to explore deeper into the world. In any case, these black birds did not appear very bright; after some time, they might well forget what had happened before. This world was pitch-black. Anything even slightly distant vanished entirely into the darkness, with only halos of unknown origin outlining small patches of terrain. Far off on the horizon, it seemed slightly brighter—like a moonless, starlit night—standing out in stark contrast against the prevailing darkness elsewhere. Glancing about, Wei Yuan chose the nearest expanse of architectural ruins and walked toward it at an unhurried pace. Choosing this direction relied purely on intuition; Wei Yuan did not know whether his karmic luck would be effective in this world, so he dared not get careless, remaining fully focused. After walking forward a short distance, Wei Yuan accelerated, suddenly flashing across nearly a hundred zhang before coming to an abrupt halt, sweeping his divine sense across the surroundings. Although he turned up nothing, Wei Yuan still followed his original plan and flashed back a hundred zhang, returning to his starting spot. In this manner, Wei Yuan's pace alternated between fast and slow, occasionally shifting direction without warning. Had there been an ambush along the way, the ambuscaders would certainly have been left bewildered by now. When Wei Yuan surged forward another hundred zhang, he felt as though he had passed something by. He snapped back in an instant and saw a pile of trash by the roadside, emitting a strange aura. Wei Yuan swept his divine sense over it, only to feel his divine sense diminish by an imperceptible fraction, as if drained by something. Immediately after, a beam of light suddenly descended from the sky, illuminating a small child rummaging through the pile of refuse. The child seemed to sense something and looked up in Wei Yuan's direction. Wei Yuan had not hidden himself, yet the child looked right through him as if blind to his presence. The child appeared to be seven or eight years old, with the appearance of an ordinary human, but his body was merely a translucent phantom. He had a pair of eyes larger than those of normal humans, pitch-black with no whites. Between his brows was a third eye, which darted about in every direction, yet it too could not see Wei Yuan. He had no hair, but several ribbons trailed from the back of his head, drifting in the absence of wind. The child resumed rummaging through the refuse until he finally retrieved a small package, then walked toward the nearby ruins. Wei Yuan scanned the refuse pile with his divine sense and found it filled with clumps of viscous black matter; he had no idea what that package the child had dug up could be. Wei Yuan followed him, trailing him all the way to the outskirts of a ruined settlement. The ruins appeared to have been a village, with low walls sectioning off courtyards for each household. The child approached a nearly collapsed house, pushed open a nonexistent door, and stepped inside. Bizarrely, a beam of light from an unknown source continuously illuminated the child and a small patch of ground around him. Wherever the light fell, changes occurred, conjuring things that had not previously existed. As the child walked, a bed manifested within the rubble, upon which lay a person. Seeing the child, the ribbons draped over her chest lifted weakly, as if offering a greeting. Cradling the package, the child went to the bedside and fed the woman bite by bite. There was very little inside. The woman waved her ribbons, gesturing for the child to keep it for himself, but the child was obstinately stubborn and insisted on feeding her. The woman, however, was already too weak to move, and even swallowing seemed an ordeal. Just then, the woman and child turned toward one side simultaneously, as though something dreadful had occurred. A monster swirling with black qi smashed through the window, thrusting two heads inside. It then let out a piercing screech, collapsed half the wall, and lunged toward the woman and child! Just as Wei Yuan was about to intervene, the light in the sky abruptly went out. The woman and child vanished on the spot, but the monster remained. Having lost its target, its two heads glanced left and right, then locked onto Wei Yuan and lunged furiously at him! The monster could actually see him? And it could see the woman and child who hadn't truly existed? That seemed somewhat contradictory. Wei Yuan had no time to ponder. The monster surged forward with shocking speed, a scythe-like talon already slashing toward his neck! Wei Yuan reached out and caught a heap of assorted debris from the ruins in his grasp. With a flash of gold-red firelight, he shaped it into a greatsword. A clear, brilliant thunderlight immediately flared upon the blade. Bright and pure, unyielding and righteous, this thunder was drawn from that pool of lightning slurry in the Outer Sea. The slurry was transmuted from Xu Fanggu's immortal thunder, a genuine Immortal Tier element. Prior to this trip, Wei Yuan had studied the options and found that among all the resources of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, immortal thunder proved most effective at countering this eerie realm; thus, he had brought a small amount inside. Wei Yuan raised the greatsword in an opening circle, unleashing Embers of the Fallen Dynasty from the Sword of Ten Thousand Generations and Autumns. His sword movements appeared exceedingly slow, yet the monster's motion slowed along with them. In the end, as if compelled against its will, the beast threw itself directly into the edge of the greatsword. A wash of snow-white thunderlight illuminated the surrounding world, momentarily bringing to light countless things that had not previously existed. Wei Yuan stumbled back several paces, and the makeshift greatsword shattered on the spot. In the clash, the monster was plastered in radiant immortal thunder. Howling shrilly, it leaped into the air and detonated into an expanse of flying ash, followed by something clattering down. Venturing into the unknown alone naturally entailed close-quarters melee, so Wei Yuan had once again picked up the Sword of Ten Thousand Generations and Autumns, which had gone unused for so long. Wei Yuan reached out, drawing both the fallen object and the ash into his hand. The ash was actually tiny, microscopic grains of sand, while the dropped item resembled a hairpin adorned with a flower Wei Yuan had never seen before. The hairpin faintly glowed, seemingly harboring an unknown power. Its material was completely ordinary, yet the craftsmanship was exceptionally precise, rivaling the handiwork of master artisans. Yet for some reason, Wei Yuan felt its manufacture was rigid and entirely devoid of spirit. Wei Yuan suddenly thought: could this be what the world beyond the heavens called an industrial product? The breastplates produced in Qingming, being so uniform, were often criticized in the outside world as too mechanical and lacking a soul. By now, the commotion of the battle seemed to have awakened the entire ruins. Many things were writhing in the dark, stirring with sinister intent. Without hesitation, Wei Yuan turned and left, putting the ruins far behind him in the blink of an eye. The monster he had just fought had been at the pinnacle of the Dharma Idol realm; Wei Yuan had no desire to face a whole swarm of similar foes. He returned straight to the light portal, intending to take his spoils back for study before resuming his exploration. As he drew near the portal of light, the ash in Wei Yuan's hand suddenly grew warm, resonating with the portal. Wei Yuan tried scattering the gray sand toward the light portal; to his surprise, it was completely absorbed, and the portal's energy increased, allowing it to remain open longer. The hairpin showed no reaction, so Wei Yuan stepped through the light portal, handed the hairpin over to Maiden Yin-Yang for study, collected another bit of immortal thunder slurry, and entered the eerie world once more. Upon entering this time, Wei Yuan procured materials on the spot, picking suitable debris nearby to reshape into a greatsword first. Except for items on par with immortal thunder, anything brought inside would be tainted by the distorting power of this world and assimilated before long. Thus, whenever Wei Yuan went in and out, he carried nothing upon his person.