A group of Brilliant Sword Sect Nascent Soul Disciples battled, if it could even be called that, a Rainbow Python. The massive snake was over 30 meters in length and had a mouth that could swallow three people whole.
It shot fire and lightning at them while spitting clouds of toxic gas that lingered in the area. Its illusory white mist disrupted their sense of direction, making it nearly impossible to escape.
The beast defended itself with scales made of stone and kept the Cultivators in place with tentacles made of water.
It was a desperate situation. Two of their teammates were already at the edge of death after being struck by a single lightning bolt, and the other ten weren’t faring much better. They were still too young and inexperienced. What could they really do? They were weak Nascent Souls fighters while the beast was in the Golden Core Realm!
Even their talismans didn’t work. The beast was a master of all Elements, locking even the space around them and completely sealing their fate.
“We are all going to die!” One of the girls cried as her man was whacked by a water tentacle and crumpled to the ground like an empty sack as his bones gave out.
But then the ground shook. Harsh whispers spread through the forest, bringing with them both heat and cold. Everything came to a standstill. The ground shook again. The white illusory mist parted as a dim light made its way forward.
The ground shook again, more whispers flooding the space. A man appeared in the mist. His green robe was torn and disheveled and partially open, revealing sharp bones beneath pale white skin. He was thin with barely any meat on his body. His eyes were glazed over as his head moved side-to-side in tune with his steps.
The man took a step forward. The forest shook. He opened his mouth and moved his lips. A flood of countless whispers brought with them icy cold.
[So… hungry…]
The words became clear as he came closer, the forest shaking in sync with his footfalls. His mere presence brought heat, a scorching summer breeze on a cold autumn day.
“Who is this guy?!” One of the men shouted as he finally woke from his stupor. “Hey, you! Watch out! The Python-!”
The Rainbow Python uncoiled and launched its body at lightning speed and swallowed the man whole.
“Ah, shit!”
“He’s dead!”
The Cultivators took a fearful step back as the Python flicked out its forked tongue, tasting the air. They gripped their weapons even harder and circulated their Qi as they prepared to fight for their lives.
But then the Rainbow Python suddenly twitched and recoiled. It twisted around in what looked like agony. And then it started to glow and burn. Light pierced through its body and a hand sliced through. It then gripped one side as another came through. They grasped the wound on both sides and pulled.
With a strained hiss and a sickening crunching of bones, the massive snake was torn apart from the inside, pieces of its still living flesh roaming into the mouth of the swallowed man. His glazed-over eyes focused for a moment before they lost that spark of life again as quiet whispers escaped his lips and handfuls of meat and blood found their way down his gullet.
[So… hungry...]
The torn beast hissed and twitched in pain, gathering its energy for the counterattack.
“Ruuuuuun!”
The Cultivators cowardly ran as Lightning crackled along the Rainbow Phyton’s massive body, and after a few seconds of powering up, it discharged. The man was hit, point-blank, and his chest exploded and he was blasted into a nearby tree while spasming like mad.
Then he fall to the ground and began to smoke.
“He’s dead!” One of the galls gasped. “For real this time!”
She was wrong like always and should just shut up, but nobody had the heart to tell her that. The bony man stood up, his body on fire.
[So… hungry…] He murmured and leaned forward, seemingly a second away from falling back down. Then he disappeared, replaced by an explosion of dust and debris.
Next came the panicked hiss of the slithering beast as the man gripped its mouth, and tore it apart, all in one fluid motion. Another quick jab to the head, and the beast stopped, permanently.
His hands gripped the skull and crushed it like a salted cracker until the pink brain matter was revealed.
[So… *sounds of eating* hungry…]
Next disappeared the heart and the liver, then the rest of the organs, and the flesh and skin too. Lastly, the Golden Core of the Rainbow Python was also broken to pieces and consumed, all while the man glowed like a light bulb and produced copious amounts of black smoke.
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Of the 30-meter beast, only broken bones remained, not even the marrow inside was spared.
The man turned around and continued on his way, his eyes glazed over, his steps shaking the ground, and his sounds echoing in the ears and hearts of people. They would never forget that sad, miserable, desperate whispers, which carried the promise of death.
[So… hungry... must… survive…]
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My mind was a blur.
Light and darkness swirled around, the sun and the moons chasing each other, flickering as if someone played with the light switch. My head felt a bit heavy as I stood upright, looking at the ruins of a once magnificent structure.
I was not sure how it looked when it was complete, but at that moment it was just a pile of rubble.
I recognized the place. It was the broken remains of the Portal Nexus I destroyed. Accidentally, of course. It wasn’t my fault they didn’t have any defenses against space-time distortions.
In any case, I wasn’t that hungry anymore. I found a few tiny creatures and just barely sated my hunger. I ate a small snake, a little piggy, a squirrel, some kind of bird, and a deer. There were even some tiny insects I found and ate despite having a horrible taste. It was a spider, a centipede, some ants, and a butterfly. Oh, and let’s not forget the cat. It was the first one, after all.
They all tasted awful. Well, to be fair, the deer wasn’t much better either. All skin and bones, with way too many teeth and tentacles. Poor creature, it was probably starving like me.
I took a bite out of the basketball-sized core of a bear cub. I was getting used to the taste. It wasn’t even all that bad, really. I could barely taste the bitterness anymore, and the sand-like texture wasn’t too bad either. The feeling of having small stones scraping against my teeth and giving me goosebumps didn’t even bother me, not at all...
That was all I had. I had eaten everything I could find and I felt better. It was enough to keep me going for a few days, hopefully.
[Well…]
I looked at the morning sun above the ruins. For a moment I dove into my memories until I found the one I was looking for.
[So, if I remember correctly, it should be… that way.] I really had too many unorganized memories in my mind. I had some serious cleaning to do.
Anyway, I cautiously looked around in case any BS Sect members were around. I didn’t see or detect any, so I quickly rose to the sky and flew to where my memory led me. It wasn’t too far away anyway. A few minutes of flight and I was there. It was so much easier to notice the devastated area from the sky.
Some little sky snakes attacked me while I flew there and tried to bite a chunk out of me. They couldn’t, of course, and I welcomed the snack. They had an interesting transparent and crunchy shell, almost like a shrimp, only they were bigger, about 20 centimeters in diameter, and a few meters long. I slurped them down and patted my stomach in satisfaction.
It wasn’t much, but it was tasty. I believe they were called Wraiths or something.
Anyway, I landed on the ground of what I thought should be the clearing where I resurrected, but it just didn’t look right. I dug through the soil and found a lot of charcoal and partially burned wood, but…
The place was green. Way too green. It was a black wasteland only 3 or 4 months ago, yet now the place appeared like 5 years have passed. Small trees covered the land, some of them already way above my height.
[Is this really the right place?] I scratched my head. It looked nothing like what I expected. Qi really did wonders for the vitality of plant life. Or maybe the Ancient Ironbark Timberland was just special, as Long Dong once told me.
But now another problem remained. I opened my Arcane Eyes and quickly found what I was looking for. Remnants of my storage ring. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, it would appear like any other random piece of metal. But I knew. Unfortunately, it was no longer a treasure, more like a tiny piece of scrap.
However, at least I knew where the pocket of space was and where my items were stored. But then I realized another problem. I didn’t know how to open it. The ring was the anchor for the pocket of space, as well as the key. And both were destroyed. That was an issue.
[Space-Locking Formation? No… that wouldn’t work…] I rubbed my head, going over the stolen memories.
[Spatial Displacement? No… Void Channel perhaps? But that’s for portals… Hmm… Spatial Compression? No, I need the opposite of that, damn it!]
I searched and tried to remember, but I couldn’t come up with a technique or Formation that would split open a hidden pocket of space.
That was annoying. I really wanted to get back my stuff. I had mountains of gold and silver in there, though that didn’t matter at all. It was basically trash. But I did have an entire vial of genuine Phoenix blood, as well as a dozen Memory Orbs! Memories from the previous era! Who knew what secrets they held?!
Eh… Well, speaking of Memory Orbs…
I took the one I got from that girl, Mia. It was a sizable sphere of white crystal. It contained a Martial Art if I remembered correctly. What was it called again? Did I even know the name?
Eh, whatever… If I didn’t remember it probably wasn’t important.
I brought the crystal sphere to my forehead and touched it. My Soul reacted as a connection was established and I felt a memory worm its way into my mind. I accepted it with no problem and almost immediately I knew everything there was to know.
[Thousand Blades of Grass… So that’s what it’s called.] It was a sword… No, it was a blade technique that focused on the attack with speed and precision. It created those flying swords made of Golden Qi that the two guys used to shoot me with, though this one was more for quantity over quality kind of thing. Death by a thousand cuts, unlike the Canyon Carving Sword that focused all power into one attack or whatever.
I suddenly knew all about the technique and could probably use it too. Though, with how much proficiency, that was another question entirely.
I took out my glaive, surprisingly I still had all my storage pouches, and tried it out. I moved my Qi along it as I knew I should, but it went way too slowly and created only five subpar, meter-long blades.
[Yup… A lot of training is required.] Not to mention that I needed at least Golden Qi to bring out the full potential of the technique.
I then looked at the Memory Orb and brought it to my forehead again.
[Hmm… It’s empty.] So I could store a memory inside there? But I didn’t know how. It probably had something to do with Soul Essence and being able to copy memories, but the exact technique was not among those in my knowledge library.
I had to visit a real library. If nothing else, I needed to find a way to access my lost storage space that was somewhere in the area. But to get back home… I needed to go over a thousand kilometers to the west. And with those monsters battling in the sky, flying would be... difficult.
The other option was to slowly make my way there on foot. Oh, well… It wasn’t that far if I went straight, anyway.