Volume 3, Chapter 126 – Heavenly Change

The interference field blocking the way between Longchuan in Maozhou and Luohou still existed, but its effect was much weaker than before. After Bai Xiang tried several more times, she finally managed to reach the blond girl in the wheelchair.

“Honored Dao Lord Bai, I’m so happy to see that you’re safe!”

On the screen, Aurora looked extremely excited when she saw Bai Xiang. There was even a faint, sickly flush on her face.

The “Illusory God” was acting up again.

Bai Xiang’s brows twitched slightly, but she did not make much of it. She went straight to ask, “You’ve been keeping an eye on Jingwu Village this whole time. Has anything changed there since I left?”

Jingwu Village was the entrance to the Blackrock Demon Kingdom, and at the very bottom of the Blackrock Abyss lay the entrance to the Ranyan Demon Kingdom. When she left that place, she had smashed apart the unstable spatial passage with a single sword. Naturally, she was very curious what had become of the two Demon Kingdoms now.

“How should I put it…” Once she entered work mode, Aurora gradually calmed down. Supporting her forehead, she thought while reporting to Bai Xiang, “Based on what we’ve investigated and summarized so far, there should have been a tearing phenomenon there.”

“Tearing?”

“Yes.” Aurora nodded. “Overlapping spaces were torn apart there. The original area of Jingwu Village underwent a massive explosion, but after the blast, some strange phenomena appeared in the surroundings, including but not limited to ‘spatial extension’ and ‘spatial fusion.’”

After a round of questioning, Bai Xiang finally understood what had happened.

The explosion should have been caused by her sword shredding the spatial passage. The terrifying tearing phenomenon had directly swallowed a large tract of land around Jingwu Village. But after that, both Demon Kingdoms broke through their barriers and descended, instantly merging with the surrounding terrain.

What did that mean in concrete terms… Aurora explained it to Bai Xiang: “Roughly, it’s like this. First, there was a bedsheet here.”

“The bedsheet is our current world, our planet.”

“The Illusory Realms and Demon Kingdoms you mentioned are wads of cloth placed on top of the bedsheet, separate from one another.”

I see.

Rеaԁ οո ΚatRеаⅾiոɡCafе

Bai Xiang immediately grasped her meaning.

The passage was like a thread connecting these bits of cloth, large and small. Her sword blow had not only torn the thread but also blasted a hole through the bedsheet and the wad of cloth representing the Blackrock Demon Kingdom.

Then the remaining cloth of the Blackrock Demon Kingdom unfurled and fell, landing exactly over the hole blasted in the bedsheet. Its edges matched up and fused with the sheet.

At that point, they became a single piece of cloth.

If you pulled this sheet taut and flat, it might stretch out more cloth—that was basically what Aurora called “spatial extension.”

So Illusory Realm spaces can actually return to the primary world plane.

Bai Xiang pondered.

When Monk Xuanyi had described the Void Tribulation, he had used the word “scrape,” saying the surface of the earth had been scraped off into fragments. It really had been a vivid choice of word.

“We found a huge abyss nearby, and the soil around it is clearly different from normal.” Aurora began flipping through log reports. “The exploration team hasn’t done anything inside the abyss yet, because we detected intense radiation in the area. Anything that approaches the mouth of the abyss, no matter what it is, undergoes crystallization under radiation contamination.”

“Also…” She looked up at Bai Xiang again. “I have to ask a brazen question. Do you actually have… is your homeland still alright?”

Bai Xiang stared at her for a moment, and Aurora hurried to explain, “It’s really my father who wants to know. You understand, the situation outside is changing very quickly. Star Tower Group has to consider… um… whether it’s necessary to establish a new ‘stronghold.’”

So they were thinking of coming to Maozhou.

Bai Xiang saw straight through her intention and was not surprised.

Constrained by the ancient demons hidden behind the Great Yu court, the upper-realm forces had been relatively restrained in their invasion of Great Yu so far. At least things like divine-vein demons didn’t dare directly infiltrate the upper ranks.

Rеаԁ оn КatRеаԁіnɡСαfe

That was how it was in Great Yu, but no other country enjoyed that kind of protection.

Barring surprises, the intensity of the invasion outside would be even greater than within the country. Even though the power structure of Star Tower Group differed from most multinational conglomerates—being absolutely controlled by the Aurora family—just thinking about the chaos and conflict divine-vein demons could cause made it clear they wouldn’t be purging their internal ranks any time soon.

In such circumstances, the top priority for a smart helmsman—or simply put, any smart person—was no longer how to make a profit or cut losses. It was how to stay alive.

Stick around and play Werewolf with your relatives and senior executives?

He would need to have that kind of leisure first.

The biggest issue Lori Aurora faced was precisely that he had no idea when disaster might strike him. He had to factor in that unknown—when would this vast, unseen catastrophe that had already reached the federal government come knocking on his door?

If the rumors were true and this was caused by aliens, extra-dimensional intelligent life descending into this world, or the revival of some ancient mystic, would they really give him time to clean up the company and politely allow him to pull out of their control?

He definitely wouldn’t dare bet on that.

Bai Xiang suspected Lori Aurora might well have already flown personally to the Luohou region, and that this very conversation with his daughter was being monitored.

“The trouble on my side is resolved.”

After thinking it over, Bai Xiang decided she could afford to make her stance somewhat clear.

“At least in Maozhou and the southern Qi region, I can guarantee those things won’t dare act recklessly.”

After they chatted a bit more about scattered details, Bai Xiang hung up, then remembered that she had left Master Hua’an at the bottom of the pit and not brought him out.

She had told that giant meteorite not to claim any more lives before she left… Master Hua’an should be able to withstand the “unconscious” radiation it emitted, right?

She shook her head.

Rеαⅾ оո КаtReadinɡCαfe

She sent Aurora another message, asking that Star Tower Group dispatch a search-and-rescue team to go down and look for someone. Only then did she completely end the call.

On the other side, after hanging up, Aurora turned her wheelchair and saw a stern-faced man in a suit walking in from outside.

“Dad.” She looked at him. “Are we really going to Maozhou?”

“That’s not something we get to decide.”

The man gave her a slight shake of the head.

“You’d best hurry and pack up too.”

“We said we’d be the first. We leave tonight.”

……

At the same time, in the northern border.

A boundless sea of blood blotted out everything. Even sun and sky were nowhere to be found. In the thick, bloody haze, one could hear nothing but the wailing of souls. Compared to the once-desolate plain, it was now utterly unrecognizable.

Suddenly— a strip of snow-white sword light slashed up from the ground, gathering in midair into the outline of a giant sword and cleaving the obstructing sea of blood entirely apart, forcing open a clean passage.

Sha…

Footsteps fell.

An elderly man with graying temples but smooth, delicate skin walked slowly along the path, holding a Great Yu-manufactured longsword in his hand.

Reаd οո ΚаtRеаdіngCаfе

His gaze shifted, and he saw that all around him piled heaps of half-dissolved bones.

Heaps and heaps of skeletons, skulls stacked together like the tall mounds erected after ancient massacres of cities. Just looking at them exuded boundless bloodshed.

But there was no change on the old man’s face, as if he had lost human emotion itself and could not be stirred by anything he saw.

Continuing forward, he saw a few deeply carved lines of writing on a high slope ahead.

[I got out!]

[I got out, Chu Weiping!]

[Just you wait!]

[Just you wait, hahaha!]

The gigantic characters, though crooked, were each dozens of meters across. It was impossible to tell what had been used to carve them.

“Wait?”

Looking at the words, the old man’s face remained expressionless.

He lifted his head to look toward the blood clouds covering the sky. Without a word, his figure slowly blurred and faded away.

（End of Volume 3）