Volume 1, Chapter 334 – Variable

Shi Lan took Tianbai with her and, mixed in among the several hundred martial cultivators that the old Human Emperor had selected, entered the light barrier.

“Once we go in, all of you will follow my orders. Do not act rashly.”

The group stood before the vortex as a middle-aged man spoke. He had a lean, gaunt frame and wore a close-fitting green martial robe. The light of his Nascent Soul shone openly at his brow without the slightest concealment. He was clearly a great expert at the great perfection of the Nascent Soul Realm.

Nascent Soul Realm experts were not cabbages growing by the roadside. Among these several hundred martial cultivators, there were fewer than twenty at the Nascent Soul Realm. Of those at the great perfection of the Nascent Soul Realm, aside from this middle-aged man, there was only one other: a sixty-year-old elder dressed in white.

That elder did not speak, and clearly had no objection to the middle-aged man’s words. Since he remained silent, the rest of the martial cultivators naturally had even less reason to object.

The situation inside the vortex was still unknown. Under these circumstances, no one wanted to be the one who stood out first.

Among these several hundred martial cultivators, most were not young. Even if they looked youthful, they were at least over a hundred years old. Every one of them was deep and seasoned, each calculating in his own heart.

To step into the Myriad Phenomena Realm before the age of fifty was enough to earn the title of heaven-gifted talent. Cultivation of that level would count as a pillar even within a major power.

Among all these people, Shi Lan was probably the youngest.

After sweeping his gaze across the crowd, the middle-aged man did not shirk. He directly brought out a Dao weapon, his entire body wrapped in rosy light, and stepped into the vortex first.

Shi Lan reached out and tightened her grip on Tianbai’s hand, then followed the flow of people straight into the vortex.

The moment they stepped in, a familiar pressure from the power of the void pressed in from all sides. It was clearly a spatial passage.

The group did not fall into the slightest disorder. They merely drew a little farther apart from one another in silence and began to keep their guard up.

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Anyone who had stepped into the Myriad Phenomena Realm had already begun to comprehend space, so naturally no one feared a mere spatial passage.

After about half a quarter-hour, the previously stable spatial passage began to fluctuate, swept by surging undercurrents of space.

The man in front manifested his Nascent Soul true form, transforming into a golden divine statue dozens of zhang tall to clear the way, doing his utmost to stabilize the surrounding space. The elder acted as well, bringing out a blood-red long banner. Crimson flame-light seeped through the banner, and something like a ferocious beast seemed to be roaring within it. It had clearly once been soaked in the essence blood of some savage spirit.

Whoosh—

A massive undercurrent suddenly swept across from above. Nearly half of the several hundred martial cultivators were carried away without the slightest ability to resist and transmitted to unknown locations.

“It’s useless. These currents are beyond our ability to resist.”

The middle-aged man’s face darkened as he withdrew his Nascent Soul.

The elder frowned slightly, also putting away the long banner instead of continuing to waste true essence.

…

That undercurrent of space happened to pass directly over Shi Lan’s head. She failed to avoid it as well and was swept into the darkness.

After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, she once again stepped onto solid ground.

Looking around, all she saw was a desolate stretch of land. In the sky overhead hung a blood-colored full moon, and throughout the world drifted a baleful aura that made one feel inexplicably irritable.

This place gave Shi Lan a very bad feeling. Compared with the tomb of Guiyun Sword Emperor, it was like the difference between heaven and earth, steeped in a sinister aura.

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Aside from Tianbai, whom she still held tightly by the hand, there was no one else around. The other martial cultivators had clearly been transmitted elsewhere.

Recalling what had happened before, Shi Lan took out the fragment of the Three-Life Stone from her robes. At this moment, the stone showed no strange signs at all. It was no different from an ordinary rock by the roadside.

If she remembered correctly, this stone had long since vanished to who knew where. Yet today, it had suddenly been drawn out by that disturbance. It clearly concealed an immense secret.

Beside her, Tianbai’s nostrils flared, and she suddenly raised a hand to point northwest.

“There’s a smell of blood over there. Human blood.”

The situation around them was too strange for Shi Lan to lower her guard. She put away the Three-Life Stone, did not travel through space recklessly, but instead concealed every trace of her aura and headed straight northwest with Tianbai.

After traveling several hundred li, Shi Lan entered a pitch-black depression. It was filled with blackish-red sticky liquid, all of it blood on the verge of congealing, with fragments of corpses floating within.

The stench hit her head-on, making Shi Lan frown slightly.

“They died not long ago. It’s just that the baleful aura here is too heavy, so their blood and qi are being corroded too quickly.”

Tianbai gave it two glances and reached her conclusion.

Whoosh—

Shi Lan had just been about to speak when a chill wind brushed past, sending a cold shiver down her back. She turned and saw a bluish-white-faced woman in plain robes standing behind her, less than a zhang away. Though there was a smile on her face, it carried a faint twist, as if she were in extreme pain.

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“Hee hee…”

…

…

Chengtian Domain, a nameless wilderness.

Weeds grew thick here, baleful yin gathered in the surroundings, corpse qi was dense, and crooked grave markers had been jammed haphazardly into the wild ground, lying every which way.

This was a mass grave that had been established not long ago, burying nearly ten thousand people. Packs of hyenas roamed the place. Some corpses that had been buried too shallowly were clawed out one after another and devoured clean in less than the time it took an incense stick to burn, leaving behind only a field of dry bones.

“Wrru—”

A pitch-black hyena dug a thin, rough hand out of the grave earth and began excitedly calling to its companions. The surrounding hyenas gathered in groups of three and five.

Before several of them could get close, that cracked hand suddenly lifted and clamped tightly around the hyena’s throat. Its fingers tightened like blades and pierced into its neck, and blood instantly poured out.

“Whine—”

The hyena struggled weakly. The others around it recoiled in shock to a considerable distance, their fur bristling, baring sharp fangs as they paced in circles.

Rustle—

A thin figure slowly crawled to its feet as dirt scattered down all around. It was a person whose appearance could not be made out, whose age and sex were impossible to tell, like a dried corpse.

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The mummy-like figure glanced at the surrounding hyenas, then directly tore open the hyena in its hand from the throat, ripping bone from flesh, and stuffed it into its mouth, beginning to devour the hyena’s flesh and blood raw.

As the flesh and blood went down its throat, some blood and qi returned to the shriveled body, and its figure filled out a little. One could vaguely tell that it was a young boy.

“Whimper, whimper—”

The surrounding hyenas began to back away slowly, their once-raised tails drooping down.

The boy pulled several ribs from the hyena carcass in his hand and flicked them out casually. With a shrill whistling through the air, several hyenas were pinned to the ground.

The remaining hyenas that had not yet come close scattered like birds and beasts, fleeing for their lives.

The boy did not pursue. Just as before, he devoured the flesh and blood of the few hyenas completely, and his physique recovered somewhat more.

“Even with the Linglong Ancient Jade, my fleshly body still couldn’t cross over. It could only preserve a sliver of my true spirit. Just as expected, this stretch of ancient history has produced a variable. It has already deviated from its course, and the river of spacetime has been severed…”

He sat in the wilderness, holding half a piece of ancient jade like amber in his hand, muttering in a low voice.

“No…”

Suddenly, his expression changed. He clenched the ancient jade tightly, and a strange, sinister smile curled up at the corner of his mouth.

“Now I am the variable…”