Chapter 383: Soul of the Temporal Void (12)

【Whoosh~ whoosh~~】

The howling rain in the wilderness kept falling, the wind kept blowing, yet not a trace of lightning could be seen.

It was again a pitch‑black night where one could not see one's hand in front of one's face.

After leaving the tent, Luosen first took out the magical implement 'Great Strength' and cast the spell 'Weight of Ten Thousand Jun' on the weighting stones around the tent.

Thus, although the stones appeared to weigh only a dozen kilograms on the surface, they would actually exhibit a mass of over two hundred tons.

Then he cast a 5th‑ring steel‑hardening spell on the tent's hide, temporarily raising the strength of the roughly half‑centimeter‑thick old cowhide to the level of high‑strength steel plate.

Thus, this small tent instantly became an inconspicuous yet extremely sturdy makeshift fort.

After ensuring Tiralilin's safety, Luosen cast an ordinary 'Dark Insight' on himself.

Under the spell's effect, his vision flickered slightly bright, revealing a dim, pallid world, much like the night‑vision mode of electronic surveillance.

Immediately afterward, he cast various 5th‑ring combat‑assistance spells, and after confirming everything was ready, he prowled the temporary camp built on the high ground like a cat, silent and unseen.

The wind and rain were so fierce that everyone in the camp huddled inside their tents, and not a single silhouette could be seen outside.

No one worried about an ambush in such dreadful weather, so the camp's alert level was low; the night‑watch soldiers were all lax, many of them dozing off.

After making a round, he found nothing abnormal in the camp for the time being.

He therefore kept expanding his patrol range.

One circuit, two circuits, three circuits—when the range expanded to 300 meters, Luosen finally sensed something amiss.

Behind the waist‑high weeds, he saw many faint, flickering silhouettes.

The silhouettes were very tall, about two meters, extremely sturdy, humanoid but not human, human‑shaped with beast ears, faces resembling gorillas, covered in thick fur—half‑plane folk legends of beastmen.

Their number was not small, estimated at over forty, and they were staring covetously at the camp on the high ground.

Merely being beastmen, though very strong, Luosen gave them no thought at all.

What truly baffled him was that, although these beastmen showed great hostility toward the camp, his and Tiralilin's temporal‑crisis premonition elicited no response whatsoever.

Even now, having detected the ambushers, Luosen's temporal‑crisis sense remained untriggered, as if these beastmen were mere illusions that did not exist in this spacetime.

【Could someone have secretly cast a spell similar to 'Undercurrent Surge'?】

【No, that doesn't make sense either—if they really had such power, why sneak‑attack instead of just crushing us outright?】

Unable to figure it out, he continued his investigation.

The beastmen numbered only over forty, and their perception was not keen either; they had yet to notice Luosen's presence.

Before long, Luosen had successfully circled behind the beastmen ambushers and began searching everywhere for any possible temporal experts.

While searching, he diverted all of Laifu's computing power to the task; upon spotting an opponent, he would strike without hesitation or mercy, unleashing his strongest attack.

But after searching a large area, he found nothing.

He once suspected that Antuowanji's elemental projection Gaomile'er had come in person, so he did not intend to spot the enemy first, but rather to adopt a defensive‑counter stance.

【What's going on?】

If there were a powerful figure behind the beastmen, given the means they displayed, they would likely have already detected him and attacked by now, yet the enemy had not moved a muscle.

This was probably not out of the enemy's mercy, but because such a powerful figure simply did not exist.

【But why can't my temporal magic sense these beastmen?】

Luosen stood fifty to sixty meters behind the beastmen, focused his mind, and began observing the temporal phantasms on their bodies.

After a few glances, he gasped in surprise: 【Huh~ no temporal phantasm at all?】

Temporal magic targets the most fundamental existence of spacetime. Logically, any creature existing in spacetime must bear overlapping temporal phantasms that reveal its past and future forms.

Yet the beastmen before him showed nothing at all—only a void.

"They are breathing constantly and have obvious heartbeats, proving they are living beings interacting with this spacetime at every moment, so their temporal phantasms must exist. Why then can't I see them?"

After thinking it over, he came up with two possibilities.

Either his temporal talent is still insufficient, and these beastmen possess some ability to hide their phantasms—in earthly terms, his cultivation is not high enough.

Or there exists some temporal‑spell principle he does not yet understand, and it is precisely this principle that causes the current anomaly.

Exactly what the situation is, he does not know for now; he must study it carefully to clarify.

Naturally, the research target is these beastmen before him.

These beastmen looked foolish, but their strength was still unclear; to avoid mishaps, Luosen quietly retreated over a hundred meters, then picked up a stone and hurled it at one beastman with a throwing technique.

【Puff~~】

The stone struck the beastman's back with moderate force.

The beastman turned its head as if to look, then scratched its back vigorously, and that was it.

Despite such an obvious anomaly, he acted as if nothing had happened.

He looked like a fool with a broken brain.

【Then I'll go all out.】

Luosen sneaked in to about 50 meters from them, aimed at the densest cluster of beastmen, focused his mind, and unleashed a newly developed elemental spell, 'Annihilation Blade'.

【Hum~~~】

A faint, almost inaudible sound, easily drowned by the wind and rain.

A barely visible fan‑shaped ripple shot forward at high speed, slicing through the chests of over thirty beastmen in the blink of an eye.

【Thud‑thud‑thud‑thud~~~】

Out of the 43 beastmen, 33 suffered a sudden severing of upper and lower body; the upper half above the chest dropped straight off, blood spurting skyward, but the storm instantly diluted and washed it away.

Suddenly subjected to a terrifying attack, the remaining beastmen were startled.

They rose to their feet, looking left and right, seeking the hidden enemy.

Luosen gave them no chance to react.

【Hum~~ hum~~~】

He quickly changed his position, at a rate of once every half second, continuously unleashing two Extinction Blades, and also killed eight beastmen.

In the blink of an eye, only two beastmen remained alive.

More precisely, these two beastmen were unharmed.

Because Luosen discovered that those beastmen whose bodies were split apart, although in great agony and on the brink of death, had not yet died completely, and even their souls in their heads remained condensed and did not disperse.

Luosen secretly wondered: "Are these beastmen's vitality this strong?"

The remaining two beastmen were frightened stupid, just standing frozen in place.

Luosen walked over leisurely and asked the two beastmen: "Can you understand human speech?"

The two beastmen were startled awake, went "plop~~ plop~~" and knelt on the ground, speaking to Luosen in "gee gurgling" sounds.

It was a strange language; he couldn't understand the meaning, but from the tone it sounded like they were begging for mercy.

Judging by the pronunciation, it should be a variant of the common language of the Frost Pride Kingdom.

With Laifu's help, Luosen quickly mastered this beastman language.

He asked: "Where do you come from?"

"The Pitch-black Wilderness."

Luosen had never heard of this place name within the Frost Pride Kingdom, so he asked: "Which kingdom? Kolun or Lind?"

The two beastmen shook their heads repeatedly. The one with a patch of white fur on his head said: "Not in this world, nor in the previous world, but in a very faraway place."

The other beastman with big buck teeth said: "The earth of our homeland suddenly cracked open, forming a huge hole. We fell into it, kept falling and falling, and arrived in a new world."

The white-furred beastman continued: "The new world is terrifying—if they tried to capture us all, we would flee, keep fleeing, many of our kin died, but we were lucky to discover a cave, crawled through it, and ended up here."

The big-toothed beastman continued: "This world is also terrifying, but somewhat better than the previous one."

The white-furred beastman immediately added: "We really want to return to our homeland, but no matter what we try, we can't go back."

"Actually, our homeland isn't that great either; the hairless humans are vicious, keeping us penned like beasts and not letting us roam freely."

The two beastmen spoke back and forth, like a crosstalk act, gradually outlining the events.

Luosen listened half-believing, half-doubting: "Where did you learn to speak like that?"

The big-toothed beastman said: "We learned it from adventurers of the past wilderness. We've been in this world for many years."

The white-furred beastman said: "We can live a very long time; I've already lived over 300 years."

Luosen then asked: "What were you originally planning to do to the camp ahead?"

The big-toothed beastman swallowed saliva, stammering: "I daren't— I daren't deal with them."

"Speak quickly!"

On the big-toothed beastman's rugged face showed clear fear and helplessness as he stammered: "We didn't intend to kill you all; we just wanted to capture a group of people to take back and eat as food."

The white-furred beastman added: "We have no choice but to do this; actually, human meat isn't tasty at all, but we are now severely lacking food, and without anything to eat we would starve to death."

"We also wouldn't let them suffer; we have no hobby of torturing people, we would kill them with a single blow of a stone."

Upon hearing these words, Luosen immediately sensed many lies, because these beastmen were tall and strong, nothing like starving.

But that had nothing to do with him.

He then asked: "You just said you crawled through a cave and got here. Have you ever thought of crawling back?"

The beastmen shook their heads repeatedly: "We can't crawl back; if we did, the situation would be completely different, very strange."

Another beastman also nodded repeatedly.

"Exactly, exactly, it's weird—clearly beastmen keep crawling out of it nonstop, yet we can't crawl back."

"Everyone also says we fell from one hell into another hell, forever spinning in hell, not knowing what misfortune we've encountered."

Luosen gave a light chuckle, then his expression turned solemn: "Lie down!"

"What?"

"All lie on the ground! Don't move!"

The two beastmen immediately complied.

Luosen walked over, first erected a barrier to block wind and rain, then began carefully observing their soul structure.

Why observe the soul?

Because the Time Illusion locates via the soul; he couldn't see the beastmen's Time Illusion, so the problem likely lies in their souls.

He quickly discovered that the soul structure of these two beastmen was completely different from that of humans in this Solar Star Realm, differing from the most basic structure up; not only is there no similarity whatsoever at present, but also in their biological evolution path there is none.

Even more bizarre, their souls and the Threads of Time produce no reaction at all.

Luosen secretly wondered: "It seems these beastmen's homeland is probably not a plane of this Solar Star Realm, but another Solar Star Realm."

Where is this Solar Star Realm?

Whether it's in the same universe as them or some other place, we have no idea.

While studying their soul structure, Luosen also said: "Tell me in detail what your homeland is like."

The two beastmen immediately spoke up eagerly, fearing that if they were slow Luosen would dissect them.

"There are two suns, one blue and one yellow."

"There are four moons, plus countless stars, the sky is extremely lively."

"There is also magic, but magic is especially difficult; we can't learn it."

Luosen immediately asked: "What does it look like?"

"It's the kind of magic that lets people fly in the sky."

"It can even lift cities into the sky!"

"It can create moons in the sky!"

"It can even tie the moons in the sky together with ropes!"

"Those hairless humans are incredibly powerful, far more powerful than us furry ones."

Luosen again asked: "Did those hairless ones also come to this world?"

"I don't know, they probably came too. They look about the same as you guys; anyway, I can't see any big difference."

Luosen finished observing the soul structure of one beastman, then proceeded to observe another beastman's soul.

He quickly discovered a common point.

"It seems there exists a fine spatiotemporal structure on the soul; this should be the reason why temporal magic is ineffective against it."

This structure is at the subatomic level, extremely subtle, extremely hard to perceive; even with Luosen's temporal talent and the soul strength of the 13 Rings, he can only vaguely sense its existence, but cannot explore its specific fine structure.

He then examined the remaining 41 beastmen whose souls remained constantly condensed, and found similar spatiotemporal structures in all of them.

During the examination, he also discovered that although these beastmen had been split in half by him from the chest, even their hearts cut open, leaving them too weak to move, the vitality of their body cells remained extremely strong; it felt as if reattaching their bodies would restore them to life.

He immediately tried it.

The result was that as soon as he joined their bodies, the wound began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye; at this rate, they could be fully healed within at most three hours.

During the healing process, Luosen felt no interference from ordinary magical power, only vaguely sensing a very obscure fine spatiotemporal fluctuation.

"What is this? A spatiotemporal life magic?"

Regardless, this situation far exceeds Luosen's current understanding of spatiotemporal magic, giving him a sense of a higher-dimensional power's aura.

He drew a conclusion.

"It seems the Eternal Empire's ultra-high-energy spatiotemporal experiment likely opened a passage to the distant Solar Star Realm."

"The mainstream race of the Solar Star Realm across also possesses immensely powerful strength, even greater than the Eternal Empire's, and thus the Eternal Empire suffered an invasion."

"Since these beastmen can come over, the mainstream race surely can as well, and the number coming is likely greater and stronger."

While speculating, Luosen carefully recorded the special spatiotemporal structure he sensed into Laifu's database.

"The spatiotemporal power of the current Solar Star Realm has an extremely weak effect on the souls of another Solar Star Realm, almost negligible."

"In other words, this half-plane, or even within the Abyss, likely exists a large number of otherworldly temporal void souls."

Thinking of this, Luosen again asked: "Which cave did you come out of?"

"I'll lead the way~"

"Let me, let me! I remember the way better than you!"

The two beastmen then began to speak over each other, eager to go first.

Luosen immediately said: "Let's lead the way together."

Originally planning to go alone, but considering his knowledge and experience in spatiotemporal magic were far inferior to Tirallilin's, he returned to the tent, brought her along, and set out.

(End of chapter)