The bodies littering across the ground outside the portal were still warm and breathing. The old man carefully stepped around them, carrying a large coffin like object on his shoulders.
The the walls of the coffin was made of smooth black glass, with countless graffiti drawn on the material. The most conspicuous was one showing a dragon coiling around a human, whose head had been blurred. If one looked closely, they could see two different faces overlapping on the blurry surface above its neck.
The old man took one last look at the portal behind him that led to the land of laws and vanished off into the darkness.
Deep inside the land of laws, everything was in a chaotic state. It seemed as if a great battle had taken place there very recently. The platforms were cracked, nearly breaking apart. The fog that covered the land was almost gone.
The sun was hiding, with the clouds covering the sky, finally visible now that the fog had been lifted. The entire world fragment looked like it had been painted using dull white ink.
From beneath the cracked slabs of the platforms, a figure crawled out in an awkward gait, his limbs flailing about oddly as if his movements were uncoordinated.
Clutching the edge of the platform, the young man in dust covered cyan robed stood up stubbornly despite his shaking hands and feet.
His mask had fallen off at some point. It revealed a youthful face. Leaning back against the platforms, he observed his own palms quietly.
The word [ NIGHT ] had faded a lot, now nearly imperceptible if one didn't look at them closely. But he could still feel a faint resonance with the words.
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Closing his eyes, Qian Yun searched for a certain feeling deep inside his consciousness.
He could feel it. The resonance...the network of minds connected to his own...he could even feel the existence of an unfathomable web of mental connections crisscrossing beyond his capacity to affect...for now. They were like lighthouses radiating a soulful emission of thoughts and emotions. Compared to those hyperactive light sources shining in the distant, illusory world, Qian Yun found the minds connected to him rather odd. These consciousnesses were not particularly active, neither did they look as large as those attractive balls of light in the horizon of his 'sight'.
They almost felt injured and incomplete, having entered a state of hibernation to relive the damage and recover...And Qian Yun could guess why. After all, he had encountered that mysterious senior as well. The state of his own mind was no different from the rest of them, except that the soul that had possessed him intended to use his body for the more important reasons and left his mind more or less intact.
Concentrating hard, Qian Yun found several other consciousnesses that he felt close to, almost like familial bonds. As he tapped on the web that connected them together, he felt the other party awaken from an inanimate state. Was the other person unconscious this whole time?
Slowly, Qian Yun roused more and more such minds that were within his reach. There were a dozen or so of them all around his consciousness. Awakened by his nudges, they became active and followed his commands obediently.
[ Come to me. Wherever you are, come inside the land of laws ]
He could feel the fascination bubbling inside himself as he got increasingly skilled in surfing the web like a tiny spider.
" I have a feeling that my ability will become powerful enough one day to reach out toward those infinite number of consciousnesses if I continue to use this technique..." Qian Yun muttered thoughtfully.
The paths that led to the great dao were infinte in number. Perhaps from today forth, this would be his path.
Who knew what the future held? But one thing was certain. This land of laws...Qian Yun felt strangely familiar with each and every inch of this world fragment as if he had spent a lifetime here. He was determined to claim it in its entirety, and find out what the origin of the words on his palms.
....... ......... .......
[ End Of Volume One ]