Chapter 260: Eden

The world stretched infinitely, surrounded by endless light and gray mist, as all of them walked toward its center.

At that moment, in the room that had sensed something, the door was gently pushed open a crack, and everyone on their journey through the dream world noticed this change.

Without any thought, a tiny girl, finely sculpted like powdered jade, timidly poked her head out to observe the scene inside.

"Bad! Xiao Nannan wants to find her brother!" Gu Yue Fang Yuan's voice trembled with panic, his pace quickening slightly: "No time to explain—let's go!"

The Dream Butterfly Charm took on a tinge of bloodred, frantically flapping its wings and leaving behind an eerie yet beautiful trail in the radiant light, carving a path ahead for them to follow the crimson ribbon-like afterimage.

"Hurry!" Gu Yue Fang Yuan urged again.

There was no time to ask what had happened; at this moment, they could only drive their dream bodies to move faster, yet their current dream bodies were as sluggish as mortal flesh—they could only keep running.

During this process, the temporal dissonance between the dream world and the real world gradually diminished; Qu Yanping saw the little girl named Xiao Nannan walking step by step toward the group.

She climbed onto the pure white bed, sat cross-legged, glanced at the four surrounding them, then softly said:

"Xiao Nannan still wants to find her brother. I'm sorry, big brothers."

No unusual phenomena occurred, and Xiao Nannan made no extra movements, yet at this moment, each of them saw a portion of their own dream bodies shatter into particles and converge forward; ahead of their running path, Xiao Nannan's dream body coalesced into form.

"Xiao Nannan!" Gu Yue Fang Yuan cried anxiously: "Stop! Go back right now!"

Gu Yue Fang Yuan's shout seemed to startle the little girl; she darted off in one direction and vanished within moments, while the group, having lost parts of their dream bodies, began to slow down.

"Hurry! We can't miss this chance!" Gu Yue Fang Yuan shouted to the others.

But as his words faded, a tremendous boom echoed, like heaven collapsing and earth splitting—the massive bronze gate began to shake violently.

"The talisman's time is up!" Li Feiyu's eyes trembled, his expression shifting noticeably: "Something's wrong—my body?!"

Qu Yanping's heart had already been taut from the talisman's time limit; now hearing Li Feiyu's words, he instantly sensed something amiss.

Real-world perception was rapidly merging with dream-body perception; two entirely different fields of vision were overlapping.

'Wrong! It's not just perception merging!'

The moment Qu Yanping thought this, it was as if a bubble had been punctured—

A surge of spiritual power erupted from him: the power of late-stage Golden Core, a body forged by countless rare treasures, and a soul force far exceeding that of a normal Nascent Soul.

He awakened the talent known as 【Dream Walker】, a new divine ability granted by the Yellow Liang Vine; normally, he would have been overjoyed—this was another stroke of fortune.

But now, the arrival of these powers brought no joy to Qu Yanping; instead, he nearly collapsed from weakness. The three ahead also emitted spiritual fluctuations—meaning their physical bodies and dream bodies had fully fused!

As the bronze gate behind them slowly closed, bronze carvings of heavenly palaces and mountain ranges fell from the gap, their dull thud echoing exactly the weight in Qu Yanping's heart.

Boom—

Before one wave subsided, another rose: as the bronze gate sealed, black spots appeared within the surrounding light. At first small, they swelled to dozens of meters in size within one or two seconds.

Space was being eroded; the spots multiplied from a few to countless, until they replaced the original light in vast swathes.

"Don't hold back—we haven't reached our destination!" Gu Yue Fang Yuan finished speaking and transformed into a streak of light, shooting forward, while the blood-red butterfly left behind a phantom crimson ribbon in its wake.

The three followed closely, fearing they would lose their way at any moment—but as Qu Yanping pushed his spiritual power to its limit, the crimson streak vanished without warning, along with Gu Yue Fang Yuan ahead, for a vast black spot had suddenly appeared before them.

"Qu Brother! Watch out!" Gao Sheng tore through the void and appeared beside Qu Yanping, shoving him aside.

As Qu Yanping turned his head, he saw a massive black spot where he had just stood; Gao Sheng's arm had fallen off, its crimson blood spilling onto the path.

"Gao—" Qu Yanping froze, then saw Li Feiyu beside him pulling out that celestial artifact from his hand.

But before the man could act, Qu Yanping saw a tiny black spot appear above his head.

Shhh—

Li Feiyu vanished.

"Damn brat!!!" Qu Yanping had never felt such intense murderous intent toward a child—could he really fall victim to such a ridiculous thing?!

He activated his Heavenly Eye to its full power, desperately searching the space for a way out—but within this realm, there was nothing but chaotic, unordered black and white.

And without realizing it, he was surrounded by countless tiny black dots—front, back, left, right, as numerous as grains of sand.

"Heh." Qu Yanping gave a bitter laugh.

Darkness descended.

"Brother! Xiao Nannan memorized all the lines!" Xiao Nannan raised both hands and ran happily to Ye Fan's side.

"Xiao Nannan, you're amazing," Ye Fan picked her up, "Your acting is better than everyone else's."

On the Shuijing Peak set, rows of chairs held numerous cultivators, most holding popcorn and fruit drinks, watching the projected images above with great interest.

"What's for lunch?" Su Lin stepped out of the spatial rift second.

"The last wine-soaked immortality brew and dragon-blood wheat cake," Lu Mingfei raised his hand and suggested.

"Fine," Su Lin nodded, drawing the Azure Jade Void Sword and walking toward Lu Mingfei; in keeping with a thrifty spirit, he planned to harvest some ready-made dragon-blood wheat.

Soon after, Han Li and Song Shuhang stepped out, seeing Lu Mingfei lying on a chair frantically blocking swords thrust at him with his bare hands.

King Dou Dou hurried over, circling Song Shuhang, puzzled: "Woof! Shuhang, what happened to your hand?"

"Heh, I used some Cthulhu effects to grow a fleshy arm," Song Shuhang rolled up his sleeve to reveal his pale, muscular forearm.

"The protagonist has entered Eden. Three ordinary adventurers and a team of European government agents are nearby," Beihe Sanren, the temporary supervisor, said in the monitoring room: "The special instance Sword Tomb is ready! Fellow Daoists, esteemed elders—you may enter for internal testing!"

As Beihe Sanren finished speaking, a vortex-shaped portal glowed to life, and countless cultivators who had been waiting impatiently rushed inside.

"I was going to treat them to a meal—they've spent quite a bit lately," Su Lin retracted the Azure Jade Void Sword from Lu Mingfei's ear, "Maybe I'll turn my divine realm into a simulation universe—after some modifications, it could serve as a Mystical Realm."

"Can you be a little more ambitious?" Lu Mingfei, sweating, instinctively shrank back: "You're using a billion-dollar venue to run a five-yuan street stall selling fried rice, and your fridge doesn't hold Lafite—it holds five-yuan NutriBoost."

"You don't get it," Su Lin casually pulled out a bottle of NutriBoost, twisted off the cap, and said: "Experts say renting out spare rooms is called asset utilization."

"I've only been transmigrated for a decade—is reality already this surreal?" Xiao Yan asked Ye Fan beside him: "These evil capitalist ideas."

"..." What could Ye Fan say? Before leaving for the stars, his family did have a spare house.

He'd just bought a Sihe Academy for his parents' retirement.

The preliminary preparations for creating the Soul Puppet Town were extremely tedious and laborious—but not if you had help.

The artificial intelligence acquired from Old Lu was now assigning names, ages, and fates to each Soul Puppet, saving Kleine considerable effort.

He especially thanked it for its life experience in female makeup and feminine aesthetics—damn it, just thinking about it made all his Spirit Worms curl into tight balls.

Why is this guy so skilled? Does living longer really make you more twisted?

In Kleine's silent sigh, the surrounding "spirit worms" were learning knowledge of fantasy magic towns while trying to make the scene below more realistic.

"Already here so soon? I could've used more time to prepare." Kleine rose from beneath an apple tree, brushed dirt off his pants, and stood on this small hill, watching a black hole suddenly appear in the sky nearby—a figure was falling freely through it.

"Though some parts aren't quite perfect."

Kleine snapped his fingers, and the gray-mist-shrouded town below, rivaling the foggy capital of old, revealed its true appearance.

Gold, pearls, and red agates littered the ground, embedded with soil and rock; trees sprouted from the earth, their fruits edible, their enticing fragrance filling every corner; low two-story wooden houses, simple yet uniquely styled, bloomed with strange flowers and exotic plants, beautifully ornate.

All manner of animals—rabbits, deer, horses, lions, tigers—walked harmoniously along the streets, while plain-dressed men, women, and children coexisted peacefully with them.

To the east of town, a river flowed gently, nourishing the land; its waters, originating from the north, split into four branches that wound through forests, the town, mountains, and farmland, stretching beyond sight to distant horizons.

"Welcome to Eden, lucky one."

He pulled out a wooden plaque and inserted it into the soil, on which was written:

【Yanan】 (struck through)

【Gotham】 (struck through)

【Eden ()】

After finishing this, Kleine began manipulating his puppets to act more lively throughout the city, though he deliberately ignored some puppets wearing monocles.

"If this were the past, I'd never have believed Amun would help conduct the Ascension Ritual."

"Even if this is just an independent offshoot, and even if he seems to be enjoying this experience more, I must be cautious—it could be deception. With Amun's methods, he might interact with his original self in ways completely unrelated to me, and I'm merely the medium."

"Forget it, no use thinking about this now—let's go see how that demonic cultivator is doing."

Kleine changed into the attire of an ancient missionary—a traditional outfit he'd spent much time researching in texts.

"Oh, my God, the lost traveler was picked up by the kind Mr. Amun—what luck he has."

Kleine, fully immersed in his role, made the sign of the cross over his chest.

"Amen."

Qu Yanping opened his eyes. Above him was a ceiling webbed with spider silk; in the dim room, the faint glow of candlelight reflected in his pupils.

He wriggled using the strength of his back, attempting to shift from lying down to sitting up; after several minutes, he finally adjusted his posture enough to gaze out the window at the street below—even at this late hour, numerous animals and pedestrians still moved about.

Half a month had passed; though his displaced bones had been realigned, some internal injuries had yet to heal.

Fortunately, he was still alive.

After being swallowed by the black hole, he arrived here—a place dominated by fair-skinned, blond-haired people who spoke a language he couldn't understand. Fortunately, a kind-hearted woman had rescued him and bandaged and treated his wounds.

His soul was damaged; his cultivation level—he could no longer sense his cultivation level, to the point he couldn't even open his storage bag or retrieve healing pills.

Here, his spiritual abilities had no effect; though he could still activate them, he could perceive nothing.

The Light Resurrection Coin inside him had vanished—proof he had already been resurrected once.

Four more resurrection chances remained.

A few sparrows flew in through the window. Seeing Qu Yanping, they weren't frightened—they flew forward, landing on his body, perching on his bandaged hand, their tiny heads curiously staring at him.

Qu Yanping tried— even the Heavenly Demon Blood Mirror couldn't be used; otherwise, he might have considered turning these creatures into blood food to accelerate his recovery.

Still, even if he could use it, he had no intention of acting rashly.

Knock knock!

A knock sounded. A golden-haired woman, with delicate features and dressed in a simple white classical short skirt, entered carrying a wooden tray.

"@%—"

He didn't understand her language, so Qu Yanping merely smiled.

This was clearly not the mortal society he knew—since waking, he had seen seven unicorns, twenty-three fairies, and fifty-four giant serpents walk the streets below, and three dragons fly overhead.

"Could I have ended up in some Western occult world?"

Qu Yanping had heard Gao Sheng and others mention the Western occult realm—Yuzhe Sect itself was originally from the West—but he knew little beyond names like Hogwarts Academy, Nidhogg Group, and the Cross Church; the only one he'd encountered somewhat more was Yuzhe Sect.

"..."

Qu Yanping snapped back to attention. The woman held out a bright green fruit before him. Unlike previous meals, today she seemed to have another intention.

He took the green fruit and ate it without hesitation—why would she have saved him if she meant to harm him?

Tart-sweet juice spread across his tongue, mingled with the scent of fresh grass—uniquely distinctive.

"Can you understand me now?" the golden-haired woman spoke.

Qu Yanping froze, then looked at the fruit in his hand and nodded. "Thank you, Young Lady, for saving my life. I am Qu Lianyu, an Eastern cultivator."

The golden-haired woman tilted her head slightly in confusion, tapping her chin with a finger. "Your way of speaking is strange. What's an 'Eastern cultivator'? I'm Tracy."

"Young Lady Tracy, haven't you heard of the Eastern Cultivation Realm?" Qu Yanping smiled warmly. "I've heard rumors of your Western Cultivation Realm."

"No." Tracy shook her head. "Rest well and heal. When the next Holy Fruit ripens, I'll pick some for you."

With that, she set down her tray and turned to leave.

"Wait, please," Qu Yanping said. "Young Lady Tracy, where exactly are we?"

Though he was alone in this world with no one to contact, he needed to understand his current situation.

"Country?" Tracy blinked. "Other outsiders have used that word before." She smiled. "We're in Eden. We've never heard of 'countries.'"

"Eden?" Qu Yanping felt he'd heard the name before. Suddenly, his breath caught. "Eden?!"

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(End of Chapter)