by M. Q. Kajack
Midnight arrived, but You Ye didn’t return. It was time for me to find this self-proclaimed wife.
I decided to exit the temple. The temple was surrounded by a lake so perhaps she went somewhere else. This time, I walked on the water instead of flying. The moon was shining beautifully and if I wasn’t worried by You Ye, I would have enjoyed my moonwalk on water.
Hmm... My soul detected a slight vibration on the surface of the lake. Something moving under the water, causing the surface to break its calmness.
Under? Of course, it was underwater. I never scanned what was below.
I didn’t think about it. I just submerged myself, but it didn’t feel like that at all. Well, I did sink, or more like fell. And I was damn sure I was falling from the sky.
What the hell was going on? I submerged and I got teleported? Impossible. It didn’t feel like teleportation. An illusion, perhaps?
Ding!
This is not an illusion. The host was not teleported.
Then, I was in trouble. I was falling faster each second. I urged every Qi I had to stop the fall. I could see the land a few kilometres down. I was falling faster, my Qi barely having any effect.
Ding!
Fly +1,000 XP.
Fly +1,000 XP.
“Are you kidding me?!”
The fall was long. I really hoped that You Ye didn’t fall. I wasn’t sure if she would be able to endure this fall, despite being in the Core Foundation. To be honest, it was not the right time to start thinking about this, but I was worried.
In any case, I needed to fix this situation I was in and I needed to fix it now.
On the bright side, the new working System allowed me to disable repetitive notifications. Seeing the “Fly +1,000 XP” every time was rather annoying. As for the down side... well, nothing I tried worked. I had only two options left: either I wait and crash and hope my Death Core would survive the damage afterwards (I would just need to redo my body again), or I try to use the Home skill at the last second and see what would happen...
As much as I wanted my strong soul to be of use, it was not of any help. Besides helping me scan my surroundings and know how long it would take for me to crash to the ground, not having the right skills made my power a total waste.
It was time to crash—it was now or never. After much thought, I decided to go with option two. I immediately used the Home skill. An unbearable pain flooded every inch of my soul, caused by a huge strain as if I was doing something not meant to be done. It took me a while to recover, and I appeared where I left everyone on this so-called Home. This time, I thought it worked as I expected. My physical self got teleported inside the Death Core. I was in a huge need to hug myself. If it wasn’t for my uselessly powerful soul, I doubted the teleport would have been a success.
The four beings inside my realm looked at me with strange faces.
“What?! Never seen someone appear out of nowhere?” I said, to which they laughed at.
Of course, they would laugh. I didn’t notice it right away, but someone was hugging me... another me, my other soul. I blushed, embarrassed. What the hell was my second soul doing? Besides, shouldn’t it be inside me? This was totally messed up. I could feel its body. Wait, a physical body?!
Ding!
Host second soul is also the host, as such, it can manifest a physical body on its realm.
Oh, well, that makes sense, I guess. Thanks for the explanation.
I used the Home skill again to teleport myself back to wherever I crashed. To my surprise, I appeared unscathed on the ground as if nothing had happened. This raised me yet another question: where did the Death Core go? If it was supposed to be inside me when I physically teleported, it should have been outside or inside? It was too confusing to understand, with each question and thought throwing me into more loops.
I decided to try again. This time, once inside the Death Core realm, I found that my physical body didn’t contain the Death Core... Where did it go to?
The System didn’t reply this time. Perhaps, like me, it didn’t know the exact answer.
After teleporting out once more, I began to check my surroundings. For some reason, I expected a special ancient place but I guess I was expecting for too much. It was just a vast plain. After all, this was another sky below a lake. Should I not expect for more weird stuff to happen?
Expanding my soul was truly faster than my sight when it came to analyzing which direction to move. I picked up some footprints on the ground. At least, I didn’t appear like when I appeared first in a desert on this world without anyone. The footprints brought me to another lake. I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of countless lakes with their own worlds underneath them.
“A crazy visitor, it seems,” said a loud and sharp voice.
My senses didn’t detect the owner of the voice at all. Is that him? My eyes scanned him from head to toe several times. I forgot about scanning him with my soul which would have resulted in a 3D model inside my head.
This was clearly not human, but a humanoid. He was huge and full of muscles, and I suddenly remembered those bodybuilders on Earth. Those sharp eyes didn’t match his fangs and his weird style of hair at all. What was this creature? An orc vampire assassin berserker? I thought I went a bit overboard coming with a race for this creature in front of me.
“Sit,” commanded the creature, gesturing to a rock. What a weird chair.
I usually wouldn’t have taken him seriously, but I had a feeling that this dude wasn’t to be pissed off. I felt an overwhelming aura from him. Dangerous.
“I’m Zufan, a Bolfar. It seems this is the first time you saw one. Don’t worry, we don’t eat humans. Well, not anymore.”
Fuck, not anymore... What was that supposed to mean? If he had no food left, would he eat me? What’s wrong with this weird dude?
“I’m Ye Bai, or at least, that’s how people call me. I’m sort of lost.” I didn’t want to throw much information. For some reason, I felt it was kind of dumb. Surely, it wasn’t a type of orc? That would make this place even more strange...
“I know you are lost. We usually don’t receive visitors. You got bad luck. You got chained.”
“Chained? Sorry, I’m no beast. No one puts a chain on me,” I said confidently. What chain was he talking about?
Zufan laughed as if I was the dumb one in the conversation. His laugh started to get on my nerves. Out of nowhere, Zufan released a roar that shook the whole place. One hundred eight chains appeared, surrounding him.
With a big smile, he said, “The Chains.”
Those chains were no joke at all. Standing in front of me, this strange humanoid surrounded by chains looked extremely fearsome. Its chains seemed to hold down a world because everything around it trembled.
What the fuck is this man?
Zufan smiled, flashing his sharp teeth. “Understand now?”
What the hell was I supposed to understand here? This guy was strong—the strongest being I have ever faced. The strength emanating from him was real and on top of that, he was not even serious at all. Just his spit could probably erase me. I really hoped he was an easy-going guy.
With care, I watched the surroundings trying to detect something out of normal or something that could give me a clue. The chains disappeared and I remained seated on that weird stone. Zufan was still watching and laughing. He seemed to be having fun at my confused face, making me wonder why.
“You see, Ye Bai, you will be here for a long time.” With that, he started laughing again. Seriously... what was so fun with being chained?
“Zufan, you seem to know where we are. Also, I really don’t understand this chain stuff,” I said, scratching my head.
Zufan grew quiet, observing me. His eyes started to turn yellowish, taking on some kind of a weird golden colour. His stare was piercing, penetrating, and I felt like I had nothing I could hide from him.
“Well, well, well. A newcomer, huh?”
Turning my head around, I saw a small bein
g that seemed to be a human cloaked with a pink cape. Its features weren’t clear and the voice resembled that of a man. But after the incident with Shallow, I couldn’t exactly trust my senses.
Zufan’s eyes returned to normal as he watched the man who appeared out of nowhere.
“Zufan, what’s gotten into you? You suddenly released a roar. We thought you finally managed to escape from here,” said the small being.
“Indeed, I found a way.” His long and strong fingers pointed at me. “He’s unchained, plus he’s not on that stage yet. He barely started.”
The small creature next to me jumped out and released another roar strong enough to deter anyone in the world. I could swear that my soul almost stopped existing. Even the Death Core trembled.
Where the fuck did I end up?
Eighty-one chains surrounded the small creature.
“Are you serious? This is no joke, Zufan. All of us have been chained here for god knows how long. The oldest one of us lost count at few billions of years.”
A crushing statement. Few billions of years? Were they kidding me? This was not a good sign. I sensed trouble coming. My seventh or eighth sense, whatever it was, told me to run. Indeed, it was too late.
My fair and peerless white skin felt a cold metal on my neck, the smell of metal entering through my nose. I carefully sensed what was on my neck, and the result was dangerously surprising. What was on my neck was the tip of a nail, a nail that belonged to a huge giant, something close to one hundred meters.
A third new being had appeared out of nowhere. I wasn’t sure if I was dumbfounded by everything that had been happening or by discovering that this new being was a female. Those huge boobs were bigger than mountains. The sight of them amazed me. I didn’t dare scan her with my soul, so I just scanned her with my sight. Her features were on par with my lovely twins. Gorgeous, big, and a dangerous woman. That was the first impression she gave me, unlike the small weird being.
A soft and melodious voice came out of the giant woman, much to my surprise.
“Indeed, this being whose race is unknown holds some key needed to exit here. Forgive my manners, young man. I was too excited and couldn’t control myself,” said this giant woman whose body was moving to sit somehow. Its features were now clearer to me. Its eyes, purple mixed with black, got through me, and I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if she was blind or something. Otherwise, why she would touch me?
What followed next proved me right.
“You are quite an intelligent young man. Indeed, I’m blind. Or more accurately, my race was blinded. Since then, every descendant of our forefathers are born with these accursed eyes which don’t allow us to see anything in the world besides the only thing that can kill us...”
“Wait, what? Your eyes only let you see the only thing that will kill you?” How weird could these eyes be? An entire race with this kind of set-up... Honestly, it sounded too weird.
“Yes, our entire race was born like this. That’s why I had to touch you to sense what Zufan with his eyes could see about you. And I have to say that he was right and wrong at the same time, or at least for me.”
“That’s odd, Zamina, why would you say that?” Concern was all over Zufan’s face. Zamina couldn’t keep her face straight and sighed.
“When I touched the kid, I could see and understand what you saw but at the same time, I could see him...” Zamina slightly paused, looking at me with a smile. “You hold my life and my death, or to be more precise, something inside you does.”
“Zamina, are you sure? How’s that even possible? Not even we can kill you, nor can time, but this kid can?” said Zufan, frowning. Clearly, he didn’t believe it was possible for me to kill her, and to be honest, neither did I. How could I kill her? From my point of view, I was foolishly weak compared to these beings. Hell, even that Nascent Soul old man wrecked me until I ended in that lamentable crippled state. The thought of revenge started to fill up my mind but I got distracted by their conversation.
It felt like a lovers’ quarrel at some point.
“Zufan, don’t worry. Him being able to kill me doesn’t mean he will do so.”
“Alright, alright, I will drop this matter for the time being. Kid, if you harm her in any way, you will wish you were dead—what’s so funny?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle there. I was already dead... Hell, I was supposed to be Death itself or something like that—not that I had figured it out. Surprisingly, Zamina also started laughing and without me knowing, I appeared sitting on her shoulder.
Zufan blushed, pointing at her and complaining in a strange language.
“You are quite funny, young man. I find you rather interesting. What race do you belong to and from which era?” asked Zamina with her soft voice. It was truly alluring. Zufan noticed my mood and glared fiercely at me. I stared at him, getting his message. Okay, no touching other women. Got it. I guess he understood me and his mood relaxed.
The other being, the small creature, was just observing us. It didn’t seem like the type to be very talkative.
“I’m human, and as for what era you are talking about, I don’t really know. I came from the Seeking Continent—”
The small being interrupted me. “Do you think we are stupid? You are no human at all.”
This time, it was a female voice that sounded which confused me for I initially thought it to be a male voice. Maybe, I got it wrong.
“I’m not fully human,” I repeated her words, “but I have a human body. Sure, I have a special bloodline and special conditions but—”
And yet again I got interrupted again. What is wrong with this being?
“Beast kind are beasts, yet they take a human form, but they are not humans. Your pet on your arm. Clearly, it’s a baby, yet it remains as an Ancient Void Snake, something that should have long been extinguished. Even in my era, there were really few of them and you wouldn’t want one near you. Once it reaches maturity, it can transform and if it’s a female, she will get a snake humanoid form of a woman. Based on her blood purity, it would be bound to be alluring and gorgeous...”
Her voice now sounded like a man’s voice; it kept confusing me. He or she whatever it was made me remember the beautiful figure the snake transformed into when I first appeared on my first realm. Truly, if it grows to be like her, this being really fell short with a description as alluring and gorgeous it was way more than just that.
“Oh, interesting. It seems you already saw her,” said Zamina, smiling.
“Mind reading?” I probed. She did the same before, saying what my thoughts held.
“Sort of.” Zamina remained smiling. “Since I cannot see, I have other senses, but currently, I’m feeling your soul. Perhaps, it’s more accurate to call it perception. Of course, unless you have my millions of years of age, it’s impossible to be that accurate.”
I gulped, watching her again.
“What, young man, fallen in love with me? I’m too old for you.” She chuckled. “Besides, someone would be unhappy.”
Indeed, a piercing glare struck my neck again. Zufan. I laughed happily, my body on her shoulders as I was carried towards an unknown destination.
“You are not too old, but I wouldn’t like to fight a friend over a woman,” I said, dispelling any doubts Zufan might have in his head. The least I wanted was to have such an ancient being annoyed at me.
Zamina went in again. “You know, I’m quite open and bold. Perhaps, I could take you on both. After all, I’m the last of my kind. I should reproduce, right? A young boy—”
Ding!
Detected a charming attack. Check successfully passed.
“Zamina, stop with the teasing.” Zufan wasn’t pleased and I was dumbstruck. She was trying to charm me, this amazon of a giant woman?
Zamina apologized to Zufan. It seemed indeed there was something between them but it hadn’t fully blossomed to that stage yet.
“You are wrong again, Ye Bai. We are indeed at that stage. It’s jus
t that there is something more pressing going on. I’m too big and he’s too small. So, tell me, how do you want us to copulate?”
Indeed, that’s the kind of thought passing through my mind right now. Scary perception she had.
“These chains are not just for show, Ye Bai. If we didn’t have them, I could enlarge myself to her size or she could decrease her form to match my size. With our powers, it’s easy to have a big or small body. Well, except for this being next to us,” Zufan said, pointing to the small being who was following us.
“Tell us what kind of a race you are. We haven’t seen anything like you before.”
It was obvious that the three of them were curious. I watched my System and it said that I was from an unknown race, so I was no longer human. Not once did I notice this. True, my soul was that of a human’s and so was my body, but was I really that? A human?
“I honestly don’t know,” I replied.
“Don’t worry, Zamina will figure out what you are. After all, she’s the first. She will give you all the answers you wanted.”
I really doubted anyone could tell me what was going on but well, it was never too late or too bad to get new intel.
“You guys are from the same era?” I asked. It was my turn to question them.
“Now, you are starting to make the right questions, boy.” Zufan smiled before replying to my question, “No, we aren’t. Each of us came from different eras and each of us are the last remaining being alive from our era. We are also the last of our kind.”
I was left speechless for a moment. Before I could voice out my next question, the small being also added more information.
“Each of us pursued power and immortality above anything else. We don’t follow the same path and we don’t have the same energy or abilities. Each of our eras were too different. Zufan was at the Lord Stage when his era ended. I was a Celestial Being, and Zamina was a Demi-God. Our eras had nothing in common except for one thing: everything was destroyed. Only the top peak existence of the era survived and ended up trapped here and chained. The chains show us the power we hold. The more chains, the more power...”
