Volume 4, Chapter 36 – Strange Dream

Ever since Bai Xiang left, Xiang Xian had returned to the secret chamber in the back mountain and first went to check on Hannah’s work.

“Peak Lord.” In the lab, Hannah still maintained that lizard-person form. At the sound of the door opening, she immediately turned and bowed.

There were only two people in Shenming Sword Dao who had the authority to swipe that door open without alerting her.

Bai Xiang rarely came, and as for the other one… Hannah’s body already reacted on muscle memory.

“I told you to study those corpses.” Xiang Xian looked at the dissecting table in front and saw it was already empty. “…How is your progress?”

Those corpses—referred to Ning Haiyun and her maid Cui’er.

That night’s operation had left many of the Seven Illusory Heavens Alliance dead or wounded. With Ning Haiyun and her maid’s deaths, it could basically be called a clean sweep.

She had originally thought most of them would be demons. At least someone high up like Ning Haiyun should have been demon race, or at the very least human–demon mixed blood.

What she hadn’t expected was that most of them were human.

That was very strange… If they were human, why hadn’t they used that as a starting point to build rapport? That was worse than Tianfu Mountain, who still had to act in secret.

And the fact that such a human faction could mingle inside a demon alliance like the Seven Illusory Heavens Alliance without being rejected made Xiang Xian suddenly very curious about the social structure of the Illusory Realms. She was eager to know more.

Precisely because of that, she paid great attention to studying the remaining corpses. She was very curious whether humans who had been away from the main world for a long time, living in the “Illusory Realms” and accepted by demons, would show changes and differences in bodily functions and physiology.

So far, there really were differences. Based on the dissections Xiang Xian had personally performed, she found that the respiratory system and lung function of these Illusory Realm humans were roughly thirty percent stronger, and their neural tissues all showed varying degrees of distortion.

It wasn’t to the point where she could say they weren’t human anymore, but given that each Illusory Realm’s geography was likely different, resulting evolutionary differences were inevitable. Xiang Xian felt she had to treat “more extreme evolutionary mutation” as a serious hypothesis too.

For example, abnormal strength in the respiratory system suggested they might live in an environment where it was quite difficult to draw in oxygen.

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Or if their sweat glands were highly developed, their skin and organs strongly resistant to heat, that would imply they lived in extremely hot, arid regions.

Based purely on the current dissection results, Xiang Xian felt that—at least for Ningming Heaven within the Seven Illusory Heavens Alliance, the territory occupied by that “Immortal Venerable Ningyuan,” it was likely an environment of extreme oxygen deficiency and high radiation.

And Ning Haiyun and her maid clearly held an unusual status. The results of dissecting their corpses would show whether Ningming Heaven contained any area with geography similar to the main world.

Because Ning Haiyun was that Immortal Venerable’s daughter.

No matter how little he cared, he wouldn’t go so far as to not even give her a proper place to live… If the degree of organ mutation in these two wasn’t that severe, then it would mean Ningming Heaven held another independent zone where most of the rules were the same as the main world.

This was, in fact, why Xiang Xian always thought so much. Many experiences in life, all those details in every aspect—if you investigated them thoroughly, they revealed a lot of information that might come in handy one day.

“It’s finished.” Hannah nodded, walked over to the computer, picked up the mouse, and pulled up a file on the screen.

Xiang Xian stepped up to read while Hannah explained beside her.

“The functioning efficiency of the lungs is estimated to be nearly thirty percent higher than a normal human’s. Some of the mutated neural tissues connect directly from the lungs to the brain.”

“Look here… They run and operate through the spine. The bones here have even evolved some deformation. I can assure you this doesn’t belong to ‘random mutation,’ because the same trend appears in several other corpses.”

“In short… their degree of aberration is not lighter. On the contrary, these two are even more deeply altered than the previous corpses.”

How could that be?

Xiang Xian frowned, unable to make sense of it.

Judging purely from this report, she would draw one conclusion: the two dissected corpses had, in life, lived in an environment far harsher than that of the other servants.

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Thinner oxygen, stronger radiation—only those elements could explain their organ-level mutations.

But how? Those Illusory Realm people had their own hierarchies, which meant they had a social system, and that system should have guaranteed these two better treatment, not worse.

Unless, to the residents of Ningming Heaven, thinner oxygen and stronger radiation actually meant better treatment.

The moment that line flashed through her mind, Xiang Xian got goosebumps.

She suddenly realized she’d made a basic assumption error—she’d still been habitually seeing Illusory Realm humans from the standpoint of main-world people, constantly comparing their likes and dislikes to the same yardstick.

But was that actually the case?

For me, I would never see living in a thin-oxygen, high-exposure, high-radiation zone as something good.

But what about them? Might they have long since adapted to such environments, even turned those harmful factors into cultivation aids—resources to train with?

Staring at the screen, Xiang Xian frowned in deep thought.

Humans living in Ningming Heaven had been found to show varying degrees of physical mutation… Could that mutation be the reason they were accepted into a demon alliance?

If only Sun Yaoming could be brought in for dissection too.

She felt a twinge of regret.

If they could dissect Sun Yaoming as well, they could compare the differences in Illusory Realm humans.

Unfortunately, he was an ally and couldn’t be opened up.

Maybe I should suggest Xiang’er talk him into some physical examinations…

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And then there was Cui Yuanhao. He’d revived so many times with that ice–fire alternation. There was no way all his flesh had been vaporized by the lightning, right?

If I went down there now, I might still find some residual tissue.

“Continue dissecting the remaining corpses.” With that thought, Xiang Xian straightened up at once and gave Hannah her latest order.

“Peak Lord…” Hannah seemed to want to speak but held back.

“What is it?” Xiang Xian’s tone was rather impatient.

She really was pressed for time.

The sooner she finished up here, the sooner she could go back into seclusion to cultivate.

“I…” Hannah stammered. “I’ve been taking ‘Inhibitor Prime’ lately, and it feels like the effects are starting to weaken.”

It took Xiang Xian a moment to realize what she meant.

Hannah’s ability to maintain this lizard-woman appearance depended entirely on taking the Inhibitor Prime serum at regular intervals.

The serum’s function was to suppress the genetic collapse in her body, keeping her mind clear so she could hold down that other will inside her—the primal will of the fused demon beast “Samsis X.”

“…What’s causing it?” Xiang Xian asked.

That was something she really had to take seriously.

If Inhibitor Prime started being rejected, she could very well lose a capable assistant in Hannah, and that was not an outcome she wanted.

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Whether in open-minded thinking or hands-on ability, Hannah was far better than that slacker Han Yuanfeng. She had to care about Hannah’s safety.

“I don’t know.” Hannah shook her head. “But there is something… Every time I let it out—when I fall into a dream state—I hear strange mutterings in the dream.”

“You’re sure it’s not your imagination?”

“I’m sure.”

“Why?”

“Because this is the fourth time I’ve had the exact same dream,” Hannah said. “…That’s a bit much to call coincidence.”

Xiang Xian nodded. “Describe the dream for me.”

Hannah gestured as she spoke. “I see huge rocks… they fall from the sky… a lot of rocks crash into the ground, kicking up dust… then the dust clears, and in the middle the boulders are piled into a statue of a monster…”

Xiang Xian asked again, “What kind of monster?”

“Dark green armor, holding a long-hafted weapon, with a huge, long snout and tail, four thick powerful limbs, long hind legs strong enough to hold it upright, and its back covered in rows of upturned flesh-tubes.” Hannah described it in very fine detail.

What the hell is that supposed to be?

Xiang Xian couldn’t help looking up at her.

“Yes,” Hannah stressed.

“I think that thing… looks exactly like ‘Samsis’—the world-cleansing god from Western myth.”