Chapter 384: Otherworldly Visitor (22)

Rainy night.

The two beastmen ran extremely fast; even on the dark, rainy night with a rough road, their running speed exceeded twenty meters per second, showing astonishing physical fitness.

Of course, thanks to their powerful divine bodies and magical assistance, Luosen and Tirralilin easily followed behind the beastmen, even having leisure to discuss the situation.

"Your Majesty, I also vaguely sensed the fine spacetime structure you mentioned. But relying only on these beastmen, the sample is still too few; it would be best to find more beastmen to observe."

"What you said is correct; I'll go look for it later."

Luosen paused, then asked: "What do you think—is the world described by the beastmen a distant sun somewhere in our overhead starry sky, or somewhere else?"

"Somewhere else?"

Tirralilin didn't quite understand.

Luosen thought for a moment and found an analogy.

"Our overhead starry sky, at least within the observable range, shares the same basic spacetime laws as us—for example, the speed of light is exactly the same."

"The 'somewhere else' I refer to is a place where the speed of light is vastly different from that of our solar star realm."

"A place with a completely different starry sky from ours, which cannot be seen through optical magical devices in the starry sky, and must be reached via a spacetime rift, not merely by traveling through the star realm."

Tirralilin somewhat understood: "You mean another starry sky?"

"Yes, and it's very likely this very starry sky that caused the downfall of the Eternal Empire and drove the nightmare tyrant Antuowanji into madness."

Tirralilin slowly nodded: "This is very possible, but regardless it's just speculation; let's first go check the cave."

The cave is also in the Howling Wilderness, not far away, just in a hillside over forty li from the camp.

Soon, the four arrived at the site.

The white-furred beastman pointed at the base of a cliff: "Look, this is the cave, which looks no different from an ordinary cave."

Luosen looked up and saw a cliff face thirty to forty meters high; at its base was an irregular indentation five to six meters wide, with many vines hanging down above the indentation, and inside the indentation it looked pitch black.

Just like an ordinary cave, there was no difference.

He even suspected the beastman was lying.

But just then, a subtle spacetime ripple appeared in the cave.

Not long after, a large group of beastmen of various sizes emerged from the indentation—over a dozen, big and small.

It seems they are a family of beastmen fleeing here.

Luosen was quite surprised; he quickly used a group sleep spell on this family of beastmen.

The result was actually ineffective!

Luosen immediately switched to the Annihilation Blade, directly performing a group beheading on these beastmen.

Gurulu~~

The beastmen's heads instantly rolled all over the ground.

Luosen picked up each head one by one, laid them in a row on the ground, and began carefully observing their soul structure.

Soon he reached a conclusion: "They all have similar spacetime structures."

Tirralilin also observed and reached a similar conclusion.

Then she carefully sensed the spacetime around the cave.

After a long while, she softly said: "This is a one-way spacetime tunnel; the other side should be the Nightmare Abyss."

Luosen's heart gave a slight start: "Can we think of a way to reverse or seal this tunnel?"

Tirralilin slightly shook her head: "I'm afraid not."

"This should be an uncontrollable spacetime convergence phenomenon produced after an abnormal spacetime folding; it might persist, but could also vanish at any moment."

"The only thing I'm certain of is that this is definitely not the only passage."

"Or more accurately, it's not the main passage, but a small fissure spawned beside the main passage."

"There definitely exist other rifts; their structures could be quite different—perhaps the same as what we see, perhaps a one-way to the abyss, or perhaps two-way traffic."

Luosen understood: "In other words, this demiplane has been heavily invaded, and the invaders' identities are very complex."

"That's right."

Tirralilin's face showed deep worry.

"The severity of the situation far exceeds everyone's expectations, and it's extremely complex; perhaps no one knows all the truth, not even His Majesty Safinuosi."

In other words, this demiplane is actually in a state of loss of control.

Luosen shrugged: "His Majesty Safinuosi surely has a headache now."

He turned his head to the two awake beastmen: "Continue telling me about your homeland, the more detail the better."

The two beastmen immediately started doing crosstalk.

Although their brains aren't very sharp, their memory is quite good.

They rambled on and on, actually providing a considerable amount of content.

One important piece of information is that when beastmen first fell into this world from their homeland, their bodies undergo excruciating pain, as terrifying as being sliced by a thousand knives.

Many beastmen cannot endure such pain, dying agonizingly alive; only those who can endure are very strong beastmen.

Speaking of beastmen's strength, Luosen already has a very clear understanding.

These beastmen are not only extremely strong in physique, but also filled with extremely vigorous vitality, tens to hundreds of times that of ordinary humans, and their resistance to injury also crushes that of humans.

Tirralilin softly said: "Obviously, the existence of the two worlds makes direct interconnection difficult; between them one must undergo a violent spacetime conversion process."

Luosen nodded: "Even we humans, perhaps, cannot withstand such conversion. These beastmen can come over thanks to good luck and also being tough."

Just how tough they are naturally requires a thorough experiment.

Coincidentally, there's a whole family of beastmen right before us.

Luosen then took this unlucky bunch to conduct a simple experiment.

Using a blade to cut the skin, the blood clotted into a scab in just over ten seconds; after a few minutes, peeling off the scab, the wound actually disappeared.

Luosen also broke a bone to observe it, and the bone recovered extremely fast; a fractured femur would probably heal in under half a day. It also inflicted damage to the internal organs.

The result showed that all of its internal organs, even the brain, are regenerable.

Even if it is reduced to the most thorough mush of flesh, as long as the mush is pressed together, it can slowly recover.

Its resistance to flame is also very strong, able to endure temperatures below 2000 °C, while ordinary molten steel is only about 1500 °C.

In other words, throwing these beastmen into molten steel would cause severe injuries and they would be charred, but they would not die.

If they are retrieved, they may still recover.

He then discovered that there are differences among individual beastmen.

The older the beastman, the poorer its regenerative ability; the younger ones, especially children, have terrifying regeneration.

Luosen felt that even if a beastman child were ground into flesh mush, as long as the mush is piled together, a beastman child could grow anew from it.

It's basically the unkillable cockroach, seeming stronger than the movie's Wolverine.

No wonder it can physically resist the spacetime turbulence of traversing worlds.

Their life in the Solar Star Realm is far less tolerant than this.

This ability is hard to learn, because it is a very delicate, very subtle spacetime spell.

With Luosen's current perception ability, he can only see a rough outline.

"Lili, can you see clearly?"

Lili is about to break through the 15th ring; although her talent is not as good as Luosen's, her soul strength is far greater, and her current spacetime perception ability is stronger than Luosen's.

Tila Lili shook her head: "I can't see clearly, it's too delicate."

She paused, then softly said: "According to the Dawn Empire's spacetime theory, beneath elemental particles there still exist massive delicate, unfathomable spacetime structures."

"Their delicacy may differ by dozens of orders of magnitude."

"These structures far exceed the perception limits of temporal talent; even using various powerful artifacts, they remain beyond reach."

Luosen, of course, understood this and said softly: "It seems that the world these beastmen inhabit has a perception of the world far beyond ours."

By now, almost everything that needed to be clarified had been.

Luosen looked at the first two beastmen: "Your companions are probably not completely dead; I allow you to reattach your companions' bodies."

The two beastmen immediately showed joy on their faces.

"Oh~ you are truly merciful~"

"Thank you very much; we will keep our distance from you and your party from now on."

"Not only will we stay far away, but we'll also keep all the blind creatures on the wasteland far from you."

Luosen nodded: "Very well, let's do it."

Having said that, he and Tila Lili did not rush away, but crouched at the cave entrance to wait.

Beastmen continued to emerge from the cave at a fairly high rate, a wave every ten or so minutes.

Each wave, Luosen would knock them out, then study them carefully.

He studied over four hundred beastman samples and fully understood their condition.

It was past two o'clock in the morning when the two finally hurried back to the campsite.

On the way back, Tila Lili whispered: "Your Majesty, why do you think Antoine Ji finds everything in the world meaningless?"

Luosen shook his head: "Who knows? Perhaps he feels the gap is too great and despairs, or perhaps he's simply gone mad."

"But the specifics, I'm afraid only he himself can answer."

"Your Majesty is right."

Tila Lili sighed lightly: "The situation is getting more complicated; I truly don't know what result this adventure will yield."

Luosen had no certainty about this either, but he remained very optimistic.

"Whether it's the Abyss or another world, it's not as terrifying as imagined; otherwise we would have died long ago."

If it were a war of total annihilation, it would be a dimensional‑reduction strike, with no stalemate possible.

Now that one has arisen, it shows both sides have gaps in strength but still have room to maneuver.

As he spoke, he stretched lazily.

"It's been a busy night, I'm a bit tired; let's rest well, we have to set out again tomorrow morning."

Even so, once inside the tent, they started to fidget again.

Tila Lili was speechless: "Your Majesty, didn't you say you were tired?"

"Indeed I'm tired; what should have taken an hour now takes half an hour."

He kept his word; after half an hour of fussing he was satisfied and rested.

The night passed without a word.

The next morning at dawn, the convoy set out again; no one in the whole convoy knew they had been turned around by Death's hand the previous night.

The road ahead became much calmer; after more than half a month, the sides of the road grew lively, and the density of villages and towns clearly increased.

Blue Stone City was now in clear view.

The warriors, exhausted from the long march, finally breathed a sigh of relief; their tense nerves relaxed considerably.

They had expected a smooth passage, but as the party entered the outskirts of Blue Stone City, a huge clamor suddenly erupted ahead.

There were screams, cries of agony, and a non‑human roar.

The Baron's knight captain's face turned pale as chalk at the sound.

"It's a blood‑thirsty demon!"

"Turn around~ turn around~ leave this place immediately!"

(End of chapter)