Chapter 616

Passing through the light gate, Wei Yuan once again felt that omnipresent distortion, as if it wanted to reshape him from the foundation and merge him into this world.

That small black bird appeared again, but it circled Wei Yuan several times before cautiously landing on his finger, clearly frightened and still harboring reservations.

Wei Yuan was extremely patient; only after the bird gripped his finger firmly did he open his mouth to ask: "Is there energy nearby?"

"No..."

The instant he heard the answer, Wei Yuan flipped his hand with lightning speed and grabbed the bird!

The bird had originally maintained a state of readiness to flee at any moment, but as it was answering the question, its reaction was inevitably a step slow; moreover, it had not expected Wei Yuan to make a move before it had even finished speaking, and thus it was caught just like that.

Wei Yuan instantly retreated from the light gate, and the Ice Glass Divine Wood immediately added a strand of cold spiritual energy, freezing the bird and preventing it from self-destructing. Wei Yuan nodded approvingly at the Ice Glass Divine Wood, then handed the bird to Yin-Yang, saying: "Another one."

"Bring a few more; after refining them, we can obtain more system fragments." The young girl Yin-Yang rarely spoke so much.

Wei Yuan nodded and entered the light gate again; a moment later he flashed back, another bird in his hand.

"It is becoming increasingly vigilant; I fear it won't be easy to catch this time. I am going to start exploring."

The young girl Yin-Yang nodded and disappeared after taking the bird. Wei Yuan felt that her spirituality seemed to have increased quite a bit recently; it seems the promotion of the earthly paradise is a boost for all living beings within.

For the young girl Yin-Yang, the promotion of the Mind-Reflection World mostly raised the ceiling that restricted her. As for the other immortal plants, apart from the Jianmu seedling, none had yet touched their ceiling for the time being.

Wei Yuan entered the light gate again. This time, three black birds appeared in the air simultaneously; they chirped and chattered, pointing and gesturing at Wei Yuan, after which two of the birds vigilantly increased the distance between themselves and Wei Yuan.

Wei Yuan knew it would be difficult to make a move this time, so he stopped paying attention to the black birds and explored deeper into the world. In any case, these black birds did not seem very intelligent; perhaps after some time, they would forget what had happened before.

This world was pitch black, and places slightly further away were completely submerged in darkness, with only some light halos of unknown origin outlining the contours of a small area. The distant horizon seemed slightly brighter, like a night without a moon but with stars, yet it appeared exceptionally striking against the darkness of other places.

Looking around, Wei Yuan chose the nearest ruin of a building and walked over unhurriedly. Choosing this direction was purely based on intuition; Wei Yuan did not know if his luck was useful in this world, so he dared not be careless and remained fully focused.

Walking forward for a short distance, Wei Yuan's speed became faster and faster; suddenly, he flashed across nearly a hundred zhang, then stopped abruptly, his spiritual sense sweeping across the surroundings.

Although he gained nothing, Wei Yuan still followed the original plan and flashed back a hundred zhang, returning to his original spot.

Just like this, Wei Yuan's forward speed was sometimes fast and sometimes slow, and occasionally he would suddenly change direction. If there were an ambush on the road, it would surely be at a loss by now.

When Wei Yuan surged forward another hundred zhang, he felt as if he had brushed past something; he instantly returned and saw a pile of trash by the roadside, emitting a strange aura.

Wei Yuan swept it with his spiritual sense, and then felt his spiritual sense weaken by an imperceptible amount, as if it had been sucked away by something. Immediately after, a beam of light suddenly descended from the sky, illuminating a child who was rummaging for things in the trash pile.

He seemed to sense something and looked up toward Wei Yuan's direction. Wei Yuan did not hide his figure, but the child looked right through him. This child looked to be seven or eight years old, with the appearance of an ordinary human, but his body was just a phantom shadow.

He had a pair of eyes larger than a normal human's, pitch black inside, with no whites. At the center of his brow, there was a third eye, which was looking around, yet it also could not see Wei Yuan.

He had no hair, and several ribbons grew from the back of his head, moving without wind.

The child continued to rummage in the trash pile and finally found a bag of things, then walked toward the ruins not far away. Wei Yuan swept the trash pile with his spiritual sense and saw that it was full of clumps of black, viscous things; he did not know what the bag of things the child had found actually was.

Wei Yuan followed him all the way to the outside of a ruin. This ruin seemed to be a village, where every household had a courtyard separated by low walls. The child walked to a house that had almost completely collapsed, pushed open a door that did not exist, and walked into the house.

Eerily, there was always a beam of light in the sky from an unknown source, illuminating the child and a small area around him. The places touched by the light would change, and some things that did not originally exist would appear.

As the child walked, a bed appeared in the ruins, and a person was lying on the bed. Seeing the child, she feebly raised the ribbons hanging in front of her chest, as if she were greeting him.

The child held the bag of things and came to the bed, feeding it to the woman bit by bit. There was very little in the bag; the woman shook her ribbons, signaling the child to keep it for himself, but the child was exceptionally stubborn and insisted on feeding it to the woman. It was just that the woman was already too weak to move, and even eating seemed extremely difficult.

At this moment, the woman and the child looked toward one side simultaneously, as if something extremely terrifying had appeared. A monster wreathed in black energy broke through the window, poked two heads in, and then it let out a sharp screech, knocked down half the wall, and pounced toward the woman and the child!

Just as Wei Yuan was about to strike, the light in the sky suddenly extinguished, and the woman and child disappeared, but the monster still existed.

It lost its target, its two heads looked left and right, and it actually locked onto Wei Yuan, then pounced over fiercely!

Could this monster actually see him? Could it also see the woman and child that did not originally exist? This seemed somewhat contradictory.

Wei Yuan had no time to ponder; the speed at which the monster pounced was surprisingly fast, and a claw shaped like a sickle had already slashed toward Wei Yuan's neck!

Wei Yuan reached out and grabbed; a pile of various discarded items in the ruins all arrived in his hand, and with a flash of golden-red fire, they were molded into a giant sword.

A clear thunder light immediately lit up on the sword. This thunder light was bright and pure, extremely rigid and upright, taken from that patch of thunder slurry in the outer sea.

The thunder slurry was transformed from Xu Wangu's immortal thunder, an authentic immortal-rank item. Before this trip, Wei Yuan had already studied it, and among all the resources of the earthly paradise, immortal thunder was the most effective at restraining this eerie world, so he brought a little bit in.

Wei Yuan started with a circular motion of the giant sword, using the "Embers of the Previous Dynasty" from the Great Expansion Sword Art. His sword movements looked very slow, but the monster's movements also slowed down accordingly, and in the end, it seemed as if it could not help itself and crashed headlong into the blade of the giant sword.

!

A patch of snow-white thunder light illuminated the surrounding world, and for an instant, it seemed to reveal many things that did not originally exist.

Wei Yuan retreated several steps, and the temporarily assembled giant sword was shattered on the spot. Under the collision, the monster was covered in immortal thunder light, screeching miserably, and finally leaped up, exploding into flying ash in the air, after which something else fell.

On this solo expedition, close-quarters combat was inevitable, so Wei Yuan picked up the Great Expansion Sword Art that had long been unused.

Wei Yuan reached out and grabbed, taking all the fallen objects and flying ash into his hand. The flying ash was actually tiny grains of sand, and the fallen object looked like a hairpin, with a flower on it that Wei Yuan had never seen before.

The hairpin glowed faintly, as if it contained some unknown power. Its material was very ordinary, but the workmanship was exceptionally fine, comparable to the craftsmanship of a top-tier artisan. Yet for some reason, Wei Yuan always felt that the workmanship of this hairpin was somewhat stiff, devoid of any spirituality.

Wei Yuan suddenly thought, could this be what the outer world calls an industrial product? The breastplates produced by Qingming were often criticized in the outside world for being too "craftsman-like" and lacking soul because they were all identical.

At this moment, the commotion of the battle seemed to wake up the entire ruin, and many things were wriggling in the darkness, ready to move. Wei Yuan did not hesitate, turned around and left, and in the blink of an eye, he was far away from this ruin.

The monster he had just fought had the level of a Nascent Soul perfection, and Wei Yuan did not want to face a group of similar enemies. He returned directly to the light gate, prepared to take the spoils back for study, and then continue exploring.

When approaching the light gate, the flying ash in Wei Yuan's hand suddenly began to heat up, resonating with the light gate. Wei Yuan tried sprinkling the ash sand toward the light gate, and it was all absorbed, while the energy of the light gate increased, allowing it to be maintained for a longer time.

The hairpin had no reaction, so Wei Yuan passed through the light gate, handed the hairpin to the young girl Yin-Yang for study, took a bit more immortal thunder slurry, and entered the eerie world once again.

Once inside this time, Wei Yuan lived off the land, selected some suitable materials nearby, and first reshaped a giant sword.

Apart from items of the immortal thunder rank, anything else brought in would be contaminated by the distorting power of this world and would be distorted and assimilated before long. Therefore, when Wei Yuan went in and out, he did not carry anything on him.

(End of chapter)