The ground shattered faster than Luo Yang could react.
In a split second, the soil and stones beneath his feet collapsed into countless fragments. Countless shards were pulled downward by gravity, dragging him along as he plummeted into an unknown abyss.
A howling wind rushed past his ears, and the temperature against his skin felt unnaturally low.
Luo Yang tried to retreat, but the direction of retreat no longer existed. He was surrounded by falling rubble and earth, all tumbling together into an endless black void.
He froze for a brief moment.
This kind of daze almost never happened when he encountered an enemy.
He turned his head to scan his surroundings. There were no blood energy fluctuations, no ripples of mental power. In his memory, he clearly recalled that the monster hadn't even raised a hand.
Yet the reality was laid bare before him: the ground had shattered, and it had shattered completely.
No, that wasn't right.
He twisted his waist violently in mid-air, turning his body downward. His gaze pierced through the falling debris and stabbed into the deepest part of that bottomless darkness.
There was clearly nothing below. It was as black as if all the nights he had seen in both his lives had been stirred together. This near-absolute darkness was extremely unsettling; staring into it, Luo Yang felt as though his very soul was about to be sucked away.
The sensation of falling was incredibly real. His eardrums were numbed by the air pressure, and the hollow feeling of weightlessness in his stomach was so genuine it made his throat tighten. Even the slight sensation of falling pebbles brushing against his sleeves was perfectly clear.
What should he do?
Should he just give up, or...
He closed his eyes.
Intuition was guiding him, like a thin thread pulling from the center of his brow. One end wanted to drag him down into the depths, while the other urged him to grasp the one irrational point within all this reality.
Luo Yang gritted his teeth. He didn't think about when he would hit the bottom and turn into a pile of mangled flesh, nor did he think about whether he had any unfinished wishes. He followed that ethereal feeling and forced his brain to start thinking.
The transcendent world was the transcendent world, but so far, the most fundamental rules of this world had never collapsed. One had to cultivate to advance; one had to gain experience to grow stronger. Even the transcendent power—the abilities—followed the most basic theorems and rules of this world.
In his perception, the moment the ground shattered, he hadn't felt any blood energy fluctuations, nor had he felt the tremors brought by a physical force striking the ground, let alone where this bottomless abyss had come from. Unless that thing possessed some mysterious method he was completely unable to perceive... there was only one other explanation.
What he saw, what he heard, what he felt—all of it was fake!
He clamped his jaw shut, forcibly stabilizing his form despite his falling posture.
The moment Night Owl was unsheathed, blood energy surged onto the blade, dyeing the ghostly blue edge into an even brighter azure. Sharpness was compressed into the blade's body. He gripped the hilt and, with all his strength, unleashed an incredibly fierce slash in front of him.
“Shatter!”
The moment the blade-light flashed out, his consciousness felt as if it had been struck by a blunt object. Black and white flickered past his vision in a cycle of light and dark, an endless reincarnation that made it impossible to tell how many seasons had passed.
When he opened his eyes again, his body was still in the posture of the slash he had just performed. His right leg was half a step forward, his blade angled to the side, and his muscles were taut.
And that monster was currently standing right in front of him.
A withered hand reached out, its palm facing the center of his brow. The crimson eyeball in the center of that palm was pierced from left to right by a wound, a cut so clean that not even blood seeped out.
The hand was withdrawn.
The monster placed its hands behind its back, folding them together. In Luo Yang’s eyes, the gesture actually possessed a bit of an immortal, transcendent air, which didn't match its grotesque appearance in the slightest.
Then, it actually nodded at him.
Like a sect elder acknowledging a new disciple, it carried the poise of an elder and the cultivation of a superior, along with the absolute pressure derived from its strength.
Luo Yang breathed heavily as he slowly straightened up. Night Owl was held horizontally before him, the veins on his arms still bulging.
Night Owl was only a fourth-tier weapon; it likely wouldn't even withstand a single blow from the creature.
Luo Yang could clearly feel the blood energy within the monster surging and rolling. Every vibration felt like a massive mountain being lifted and set down in front of him.
He had only ever felt this sensation from two people in his life.
His father and his grandfather—two Soul Kindling rank powerhouses, the supreme existences among Punishers.
That was the pressure belonging only to the absolute strongest.
No matter how firm his will, the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up.
Fear, even terror.
This was a biological instinct; when facing an enemy whose strength far exceeded one's own, a living being would naturally develop a desire to retreat.
But he stood his ground, not taking even a single step back.
He didn't know what kind of method that fellow had used just now. He didn't know what it meant by standing with its hands behind its back and nodding in greeting.
But he knew that the wall behind him was too fragile, and the strength of the people on that wall was too weak. The delay they could provide against this thing was practically zero.
He, Luo Yang, was standing here now. Even if he had to leave his life behind, he had to turn that zero into a one.
A phrase he remembered vividly from his past life surfaced in his mind:
A hero cannot run away from the battlefield.
He adjusted his grip on the blade, pouring all his blood energy into it. Just as he was about to launch an attack, a sharp shout suddenly exploded from the sky.
“Kid! Get back!”
The moment he heard those two voices, he didn't even think; his body was already retreating.
Two blinding lights—one bright yellow and one deep blue—erupted beside the black figure, crashing down from the night sky so fast that even the sound of the wind was left trailing behind them.
The pillars of light slammed into that fellow’s body, causing the ground to sink significantly. Rubble shot out in all directions; the furthest piece grazed Luo Yang’s ear, nearly shearing off several strands of hair.
The moment the shockwave rose, he dropped to one knee, stabbing the tip of his blade into the wasteland to steady himself.
“...Tsk.”
He squeezed out a half-sentence of complaint through his teeth.
The one in bright yellow landed first, his boot soles hitting the edge of the newly formed crater and kicking up a cloud of dust. Zhang Xian was still wearing his gray Zhongshan suit, which was neatly arranged. His hair and beard were mostly white, and his beard was trimmed perfectly.
The one in blue was half a beat slower, but his posture was far more refined than the first. He wore a finely tailored dark service uniform with sharp creases in his trousers and a wide-brimmed hat. The hair beneath the brim was also mostly white, and his face looked much older than Zhang Xian’s, yet his stature was incredibly upright. He didn't even bend his waist upon landing.
The two stood one in front of the other, both less than ten paces from Luo Yang.
Zhang Xian turned his head to look at him first. Without even lifting his eyelids, his voice came out as coarse as sandpaper.
“You little brat.”
“...Old Zhang.”
The man in the dark uniform let out a laugh.
“Kid, is this how you usually talk to your principal?”
Zhang Xian gave him a nudge. “Is it your turn to speak?”
The elderly man turned his head and looked at Luo Yang, his eyes full of warmth.
“As the director, I can't always let my subordinates rush to the front while I hide in the back giving orders, can I?”
“Old Director... Your body...”
“Ugh—”
An eerie, piercing sound rang out without warning. It sounded like the wind, but also like a human's mournful wail. The monster that had been slammed into the pit was crawling out. A faint fluorescence shimmered on its blank face, and its limbs moved at angles that a human simply could not achieve.
“I know my own body well enough,” Li Jinqi said, a smile remaining on his face. “This old man won't be dying anytime soon.”
“Since I haven't reached the point of being completely spent, I must still do some things for the country and the people.”
Li Jinqi pressed his hat brim down slightly and drew an extremely slender blade from the sheath at his waist. The energy circuits on the blade lit up one after another.
Zhang Xian, meanwhile, pulled a brass-colored long ruler from behind him. The body of the ruler was covered in fine, dense markings. With a flick of his hand, the ruler extended to over three feet long.
Luo Yang stared at the two for a moment. He couldn't quite sort out the warmth rising from his chest.
“...Then I ask you two seniors to join me in this battle.”
He gripped Night Owl tightly and took two steps back behind them.
Across the ruins, the monster climbed out of the pit. It no longer displayed the distorted limb movements it had when first emerging; it stood on the flat ground with its hands behind its back, its scorched black Daoist robe fluttering in the wind. Facing the three of them, there was only void on that unsettling face.
“According to convention, every time such a unique individual appears, the Ability Bureau gives it a code name.” Li Jinqi gripped his long blade, his voice calm and powerful.
“In my opinion, let's call this fellow—the ‘Eerie Immortal.’”
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