The Decaying World

Black Cloud.

Lin Hui stood at the edge of the Jade Sea, gazing down at the blue-black water below.

’The seawater... it’s fading.’

He raised his head and looked above Black Cloud City at the massive rift that was rapidly healing.

Since yesterday, this enormous rift had inexplicably begun to heal and close on its own.

There was no apparent reason, no fluctuation of energy. It was as if everything was simply falling into place, and it started closing automatically.

"Since yesterday, we’ve felt that something is wrong. Something major that we don’t know about must have happened in the royal capital..." Gongsun Xinlian said grimly from behind him.

"I don’t feel anything," Lin Hui frowned.

"But I, my second brother, and my eldest brother all feel it. The Evil Soldiers are restless, and the Evil Energy seems to be showing signs of decline," Gongsun Xinlian said with a solemn expression.

"Decline?" Lin Hui’s heart stirred. Just as he was about to ask more, he suddenly looked up into the distance.

It seemed he had sensed something.

"Xinlian, you should head back first," he transmitted his voice softly.

Gongsun Xinlian looked in that direction but saw nothing. There was only the ordinary, blue-black water of the Jade Sea.

She was puzzled but knew that the gap in power between her and Lin Hui was growing ever wider, so she didn’t press the matter.

"If anything happens, let us know immediately. I might not be much help on my own, but with my brothers, we can definitely handle any situation!"

"Okay, thank you!" Lin Hui nodded seriously.

Xie Chang’an’s Evil Energy was truly terrifying. If he wasn’t holding back, few people could have withstood him once he fully unleashed its power.

Not even him.

Seeing Lin Hui’s serious agreement, Gongsun Xinlian turned and vanished in an instant.

Lin Hui was left alone, standing at the edge of the pier.

"You know, people seem to enjoy stopping by my place lately. You’d think I was hiding some kind of miracle cure. Everyone wants to come and have a look." Lin Hui’s gaze shifted, landing on the blue-black surface of the sea directly in front of him.

There, a middle-aged man in blue robes, who looked somewhat familiar, was floating.

His hair was streaked with gray and his face was lined with wrinkles, but his eyes shone with a deep, ghostly light and a faint trace of sorrow.

This was none other than the Bright Heart Association Leader, who had sent a clone to visit not long ago.

"You’ve misunderstood..." He gave a wry, bitter smile. "I came here only because I suspected you might be able to see me."

"See you?" Only then did Lin Hui realize that the man before him didn’t seem to have a physical body, but existed in a strange, non-corporeal form.

The man’s body had no Heart and Spirit fluctuations, and his voice transmission caused no vibrations in the air.

There wasn’t even a trace of a spiritual aura.

He had previously used the Nine Eyes to absorb souls and had some understanding of spiritual fluctuations. But right now, he couldn’t sense any from this man.

"Aren’t you going to invite me in for a chat?" the Bright Heart Association Leader smiled.

"The Haiming contamination killed my master and my second mother. What gives you the nerve to say that to my face?" Lin Hui said coldly.

"My apologies... I didn’t mean it that way." The Bright Heart Association Leader gave another bitter smile. "But do you really think they would have lived any longer without the Haiming?"

"What do you mean?" Lin Hui retorted.

"The decay... is accelerating... not just for us, but for ordinary people as well..." the Bright Heart Association Leader said. "You should know this yourself. If it were truly the Sea Roaring Transformation, they wouldn’t have died. They would have become creatures of the Sea Abyss and survived."

"..." Lin Hui fell silent.

He had actually been a little suspicious before. Now, the man had simply pointed it out.

Perhaps they weren’t corrupted because of the Sea Roaring Transformation. Perhaps it was the other way around. Their bodies were weakened by the decay, which was why they were also afflicted by the Sea Roaring Transformation’s contamination...

But at this point, arguing about it was meaningless.

"Then why have you come here?" Lin Hui asked again.

The Bright Heart Association Leader gave a bitter smile and didn’t answer right away.

He turned and looked at the fog over the sea, which was much thinner than before. He fell into silence.

Lin Hui didn’t rush him. He seemed to sense something as well and waited quietly.

Several minutes passed.

Finally, the Bright Heart Association Leader spoke again.

"Actually, I knew I would lose before I set out on this trip."

"Then why did you still go?"

"Because if I didn’t go, I would never be able to let it go, never be able to forget," the Bright Heart Association Leader smiled.

"My older brother, the most powerful Fog People emperor, revered by all, is actually no longer the man he once was."

"Beneath his fully-armored imperial suit, what’s been hiding there... was already something else ten thousand years ago..."

He raised his hand and watched his fingertips slowly fade, turning transparent and disintegrating into fine, translucent grains of sand.

"He is already dead... He died ten thousand years ago, during that torrential night rain. On the night the four great contaminations attacked together, his body was seized by something even more terrifying."

"So, you did this for revenge?" Lin Hui frowned.

"Revenge? I’m not that noble." The Bright Heart Association Leader shook his head. "I was just doing it for us."

"You’re disappearing..." Lin Hui had also noticed the change in his hand, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"It doesn’t matter." The Bright Heart Association Leader smiled. "Because the me of now is probably already dead, killed in the waters at the edge of the deep core outside the royal capital. Before I left, I prepared some measures in advance, precisely to warn you, or all of you. The truth shouldn’t be erased by time. You must understand what it is you’re truly about to face."

"But you just said no one could see you but me," Lin Hui said.

"Yes. So I miscalculated." The Bright Heart Association Leader nodded. "If—and I mean if—I’m not mistaken about what happens next, they will set a ’limit’ again, just like last time. After that, the entire order of the world will be reforged. And just like last time, many, many people will die..."

"What is a ’limit’?" Lin Hui pressed.

"Don’t be impatient. Soon, you will know very soon. Just as my brother had no choice but to escape into the night fog back then, many, many people will have to do the same..."

By now, his legs and arms had mostly disappeared, leaving only his torso floating in mid-air.

"One last thing..." He turned his head. "Can you let me see Fei Shi again?"

Lin Hui didn’t reply. His expression remained cold as a thought crossed his mind.

A fierce wind erupted around them, and in the next second, they appeared inside the underground Wind Prison of Qingfei Mountain.

In the gloomy cell.

Song Fei Shi sat at the dinner table, dressed in a white gown, her long hair tied back with a white silk ribbon. She was quietly eating her dinner.

Dinner was a large piece of white fish, some green cauliflower, and diced tomatoes, along with a small portion of dark-colored rice.

"I took something from her..." The Bright Heart Association Leader went unnoticed, as the Wind Prison was one-way; those inside couldn’t perceive anyone observing from the outside.

"She will lose much, but she will also gain much..."

"So you dumped her on me as a roundabout way of seeking refuge for her here?" Lin Hui realized.

"Actually, it wasn’t just you. I placed people in many different locations. But from the looks of it now, only three places are still safe. Yours is one of them," the Bright Heart Association Leader said with an apologetic smile.

His body had now disintegrated up to his chest.

"If, one day, you truly decide to rise up against everything," he said, turning back around. "I will lend you a hand."

Looking at Song Fei Shi, a peaceful smile touched his lips.

"Having come this far, I can finally stand tall and tell my brother that I did not fail his expectations."

SHHH.

In that final moment, his entire body completely disintegrated, turning into transparent motes of light that vanished into thin air.

Lin Hui narrowed his eyes, staring at the spot where he had vanished. There was nothing there, as if nothing had ever existed in the first place.

He shifted his gaze to the oblivious Song Fei Shi, then turned and his figure disappeared.

He guessed that the Bright Heart Association Leader had left something on Song Fei Shi. That must be what he meant when he said he would lend him a hand in the future.

But...

What did that have to do with him?

With the Tai Chi Divine Sword, he had the means to suppress the decay. All he needed to do now was live his life well and cultivate the earth qi beneath Qingfei Mountain.

Everything else in the outside world had nothing to do with him...

Suppressing the thought, Lin Hui walked out of the Wind Prison.

*

*

*

「September.」

The Federation’s largest rebellion was completely quelled. All the Haiming rifts closed on their own and disappeared.

All the contaminated monsters devolved and vanished.

Everything seemed to have returned to how it was at the very beginning.

Aside from the many who were long dead, all the city districts began to rebuild. New Fogman City Lords were selected and dispatched to various locations.

The great Haiming turmoil seemed like a reflection of the moon in the water—nothing more than a dream.

Meanwhile, Lin Hui used the Blood Seal to evolve some relics that would help Qingfei Mountain become self-sufficient, while also exploring the subterranean environment and monitoring the state of the earth qi.

The Blood Seal first addressed the water source.

From a large pile of relics, Lin Hui selected a medium-to-large one called the Primal Water Column.

This relic’s ability was to draw moisture from the surrounding environment and convert it into pure water, which would then seep out from the column’s surface.

Its ability to absorb environmental moisture was quite fast. It drew water from all non-living things. It was a core component in the water filtration relic systems commonly used by Black Cloud.

But Lin Hui took one and directly evolved it with the Blood Seal.

He evolved it in the direction of a Divine Celestial Spring Column.

’Divine Celestial Spring Column—Absorbs basic material particles from the surroundings, freely synthesizes water molecules, and converts them into a fundamental water source. Extremely fast.’

This had a much wider range of applications. After all, most organic and inorganic substances contained the basic atoms that make up water molecules.

The most abundant of these was the air itself.

Besides this, the Blood Seal also evolved an Endless Flame Column that could connect to the hell world, providing an infinite source of fire for Qingfei Mountain.

At this point, the medicinal supplies he had accumulated were almost depleted.

What he was currently evolving was the mobile formation for all of Qingfei Mountain, intending to further enhance its travel speed for a quick getaway.

But just as Lin Hui was focused on his cultivation, living a quiet, simple life with Liu Xiao...

A sudden, drastic change shattered the peace.

Xie Chang’an, Zhang Yao, and Gongsun Xinlian all gathered at the First Floating Mountain at the same time.

Not only them, but the other active Fog People who had joined Black Cloud City had all gathered there as well.

When Lin Hui arrived, all the Fog People wore grim, ugly expressions, clearly trapped in a situation with no solution.

"Ah Hui... all of our Evil Energy... is fading!" Seeing Lin Hui enter, Xie Chang’an was the first to speak, his voice grave.

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