The Decaying World

The tavern was built directly on the clouds, with no floating islands, soil, or rock beneath it.

Nor could he feel the fluctuating aura of any active formation.

It was as if the tavern was made of the same ethereal material as the clouds, able to float steadily without any need for buoyancy.

Lin Hui narrowed his eyes, confirming the information Xie Chang’an had given him. This was indeed the place.

It would be more than two days until their next scheduled contact, so he would have to figure things out on his own.

He carefully sized up the Sky Cloud Residence tavern.

The tavern’s exterior walls were dark red, with mottled, faded patches. From a distance, it looked like a slightly crooked little box.

It had three floors in total. The second and third floors each had four windows—half open, half closed.

Peeking through the open windows, he saw that it was quiet and empty inside.

Lin Hui didn’t get any closer. Instead, he sat cross-legged in mid-air, silently restoring his depleted Heart and Spirit.

After a few minutes, once his Heart and Spirit had been restored to Perfection, he slowly approached the Sky Cloud Residence.

He approached very slowly.

This was a troublesome place that had even managed to trap and seal Xie Chang’an, so he naturally had to be extra careful.

After closing the distance by another fifty meters, he stopped again.

"Can you understand me?"

he asked, projecting his voice.

The tavern remained silent. All around, only the wind howled.

"If you can understand, give me some kind of sign," Lin Hui continued.

The Sky Cloud Residence remained motionless.

"So you don’t understand, is that it?" Lin Hui nodded slightly. Without further hesitation, he raised a hand and struck forward with his palm.

BOOM!!!

Above the tavern, a giant, translucent palm slammed down, grabbing for the entire building.

The activation symbol for the Celestial Father Seal was rapidly drawn.

A massive amount of the Eternal Life Sect Leader’s invisible Source Power was drawn from an unknown rift and enveloped the area around the tavern.

’It really is alive!’ Lin Hui’s eyes showed understanding. This was his test.

The Celestial Father Seal could only target living, moving things. This characteristic allowed him to use its aura to test if something was alive or dead.

Secondly, the Celestial Father Seal could only seal those who held malicious intent toward him. If the Sky Cloud Residence had no hostility, it naturally wouldn’t be sealed.

Thirdly, even if the Sky Cloud Residence was sealed, Xie Chang’an would have no hostility towards him, so he naturally wouldn’t be included in the seal’s range.

If the Sky Cloud Residence had trapped Big Brother Xie, this attack could easily rescue him.

So no matter what, the right move was to just smack it without a second thought and see if it could be sealed.

Thinking of this, Lin Hui suddenly had a faint realization about the deep meaning behind the Eternal Life Sect Leader’s title of Celestial Father.

Wasn’t this method of slapping first when faced with a problem the go-to tactic for many strict fathers?

When a problem arises, first give the kid a slap to test the waters. If the kid is in the wrong, it’s a fitting punishment. If the kid is innocent, the damage is negligible; it’s just helping them get used to the beatings life will deal them in the future.

In any case, the father is never wrong. With one slap, only the child who hates his father will get a beating. For one who doesn’t, it’s like a gentle breeze.

It hurts if you hate, but not if you don’t.

For the Eternal Life Sect Leader, the Celestial Father Seal was less an offensive technique and more a specialized method of discipline and identification.

Having figured this out, Lin Hui shook his head internally. His understanding of this nominal master he had never met deepened once again.

At that moment, the nearby Sky Cloud Residence was rapidly being sealed in crystal, from the outside in.

A mass of translucent crystals froze it solid.

A few seconds later, the massive crystal pillar was completely sealed.

WHOOSH.

The giant crystal pillar didn’t fall, either. It remained suspended above the clouds, completely still.

But now, Lin Hui could faintly hear a series of PUFF... PUFF... sounds, almost like farts.

He looked below the Sky Cloud Residence.

There, an invisible hole in the air was constantly spitting out disheveled figures.

These figures were all covered in a thick layer of slime. Some were already breathless, while others were still alive. They tumbled a few times, stabilized themselves in mid-air, then turned and fled.

Lin Hui paid them no mind. After waiting a short while, a familiar, burly figure finally flew out of the invisible hole.

His hair was disheveled, his build was tall, and he wore a set of tattered, smoking, grayish-white battle armor. His face was covered by a thick beard.

It was Xie Chang’an, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time.

"I knew it! Ah Hui, you’re the only one I can count on!" Xie Chang’an laughed heartily as he flew over.

"But to be honest, even if you hadn’t come, I was only a day or two away from digging my way out!" He flew closer and stopped, the slime on his body rapidly dispersing as he prepared to give Lin Hui a big hug.

But Lin Hui dodged him.

"What is this Sky Cloud Residence thing, anyway?" Lin Hui asked, enduring the sour stench wafting from the man.

"Still so shy." Xie Chang’an wasn’t bothered and stopped. "I’m not sure myself. I just found this weird tavern along the way. You know I have a soft spot for this kind of thing, so I figured I’d pop in for a taste since I was tired of flying."

"Wait, a tavern just randomly appears in the sky, and you dare to go inside for a drink without knowing anything about it?" Lin Hui was speechless.

"Isn’t that just how the world is? Back when I used to venture into the night fog, strange places would often pop up out of nowhere. Some of them had food and drink, and I had a great time. There are a lot of these weird places. I guess it’s my fault for being too careless," Xie Chang’an sighed.

"And then?" Lin Hui was at a loss for words with this guy. Having spent time with him, he knew this was just Xie Chang’an’s personality.

He had also heard from Zhang Yao that Xie’s abilities and strength made him extremely difficult to seriously injure or kill. Even among the Fog People, he was one of the toughest to deal with.

That’s how he was able to hold his position in Black Cloud and suppress the Federation’s border for so many years.

"Then I drank my fill and passed out. When I woke up, I was trapped," Xie Chang’an replied, stroking his stubble.

"Are you hurt?"

"My recovery speed is second to none. It makes no difference whether I’m hurt or not," Xie Chang’an said, patting his chest.

"I’m really touched that you came all this way to save me. Don’t you worry, we’ll become sworn brothers when we get back. From now on, you’ll be my fourth brother!" he said enthusiastically, slinging an arm around Lin Hui’s shoulder.

"I..."

"Fourth Brother, it’s fine. Don’t worry, from now on, your business is my business. Don’t be shy."

"..."

Smelling the strong, sour stench spreading around them, Lin Hui had the urge to just slap a seal on the man.

"I’m guessing this Sky Cloud Residence is also a ruin. There are quite a few ruins up in the sky. Some very precious, treasure-class relics in the past were discovered in sky ruins. Once we’re done with our other business, we can come back and look for that Sky Cloud Residence together. Who knows, we might find something good inside," Xie Chang’an was already making plans.

He looked back at the crystal-sealed Sky Cloud Residence and sighed wistfully. He even asked Lin Hui what kind of technique it was and wanted to stop and study it.

Lin Hui couldn’t be bothered to explain and urged him to head back.

Helpless, Xie Chang’an followed him away with some regret, memorizing the location.

The two of them headed back the way they came. On the return trip, a large number of monstrous corrupted beings appeared on their path.

This time, Lin Hui didn’t act. Instead, Xie Chang’an, wanting to prove he wasn’t weak and that getting trapped was just an accident, took the initiative to fight all the way.

His fighting style was very distinctive. No matter what monster he encountered, he would just swing his palm.

The palm-blade condensed into a massive, green-glowing blade that directly severed anything blocking their path.

After attacking five or six times in a row, Xie Chang’an looked back and saw Lin Hui’s expression was still as calm as ever, and he felt a little embarrassed.

So he took the initiative to explain.

"Fourth Brother, you probably don’t know what my real Evil Energy is, do you?"

"What? Isn’t it Nourishment?" Lin Hui said.

"That’s a secondary ability of my Evil Energy. I actually have two real ones. One is Nourishment, and the other is my nickname: Infinite Blade." Xie Chang’an decided to give Old Si the lowdown, lest he lose face as the big brother by being looked down upon.

"How does that work?" Lin Hui asked casually as he flew forward.

"To put it simply, it’s the Nine Slashes," Xie Chang’an said, a little smugly.

"Nine Slashes?"

"That’s right. Once I use my Evil Energy, starting from the first slash, if it doesn’t kill the enemy, the speed and power of the second slash will double. Then the third slash will double on top of the second. This repeats all the way to the ninth slash."

Lin Hui froze in mid-air and narrowed his eyes.

"Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration? By that math, the second slash is double, the third is four times, the fourth is sixteen times, and the fifth is a direct jump to 256 times. How is that possible?"

A direct jump of over two hundred times... an ability like that is too overpowered. What kind of Evil Energy could possibly support such an outrageous slash?

Not to mention the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth slashes still to come.

If it were really that ridiculous, how could Xie Chang’an have been trapped in that Sky Cloud Residence for so long?

"That’s where you’re wrong." Seeing Lin Hui’s shock, Xie Chang’an’s mood instantly improved. He said, a bit smugly, "Just as you said, unleashing the fifth slash basically requires me to drain everything I have just to push out a sliver of blade energy. As for the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth... in theory, my Evil Energy can produce them, but my body can’t withstand that kind of consumption. So, this is really my desperate trump card. But it’s precisely because of this trump card that no one in the entire Federation dares to act arrogant in front of me."

Seeing Lin Hui’s expression remain calm, he quickly added another sentence.

"Because my recovery speed is extremely fast. Even if I use the fifth slash, I can recover completely after just a few days of rest."

"As for why I was trapped for so long just now, I was worried that if I used the fifth slash, I’d enter a weakened state and be taken advantage of. I used the fourth slash several times, but it still wasn’t enough to break out of that damn place," Xie Chang’an explained.

"If the fifth slash completely drains you, then what’s the difference between having the subsequent slashes and not having them?" Lin Hui asked.

"Ah, that’s what you don’t know." Xie Chang’an immediately became smug again. "That’s because I can’t use them alone, but by combining my Evil Energy with my second brother’s and third sister’s, I can unleash the sixth and seventh slashes. The three of our Evil Energies complement each other, greatly reducing the cost of consumption. If we combine it with the Black Cloud’s grand formation, I can even desperately unleash the eighth slash. As for the final ninth slash... I have a feeling it’s a strike of certain death. To unleash it would require the three of us to give everything—our lives and souls, our absolute all."

"..." Lin Hui was speechless.

Honestly, he didn’t quite believe it. But seeing Xie Chang’an’s dead-serious expression, he felt there might be some credibility to it.

"By the way, Fourth Brother, why don’t you also find an Evil Soldier Insect Scripture and get an Evil Energy to synergize with us? With the four of us siblings together, we could sweep across the world, completely invincible! It’s a perfect time, too. A lot of Fog People have died, so many Evil Soldier Insect Scriptures have been freed up and are looking for new masters," Xie Chang’an suggested.

The speaker may have been casual, but the listener paid close attention.

Lin Hui’s eyes suddenly lit up.

’If even relic abilities can’t solve the decay, what about Evil Energy?’

’If I could find a suitable Evil Energy and then evolve it with the Blood Seal...’

’However, Evil Energy locks one’s cultivation growth. That’s a huge problem. Look at Xie Chang’an and the others. After several thousand years, their strength is still at the same level, with little change. It just shows how low the potential is.’

’Still, it’s worth a try. I could find one, evolve it with the Blood Seal, and ultimately enslave and control the Evil Soldier Insect Scripture...’

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