The Decaying World

Heart Source Demon Palace.

Carrying a simple bundle, Lin Hui slowly walked through the palace gates. Before entering, he glanced at the various goods and materials piled up by the door.

This was the junk he had stuffed inside when he was using this place as a makeshift Spatial Storage Device.

"You’re finally back..." Fusheng, who was frozen in the crystal pillar, spoke weakly.

The Celestial Demon hopped around his feet like a sticky rice ball, clearly happy to see Lin Hui return.

"Aba, aba..." it babbled incoherently.

Lin Hui smiled and patted its head, then walked over to Fusheng and sat down cross-legged.

"Senior, I plan to leave this original world. May I speak with you for a moment?"

"Speak about what? What’s there to talk about? If you want to leave, then leave," Fusheng said helplessly.

"This junior wishes to ask, what is it truly like outside of this world?" Lin Hui had been outside the world once before, but the time was too short. He had immediately returned to his Sea of Consciousness and then followed the connection of his Celestial Father’s destiny to return to his original world. As a result, he knew very little about the outside.

"Outside the world? Ah, that’s an endless, dark place known as the Black Domain. Essentially, besides individual worlds, there are countless remnants and fragments. There are world remnants, many monsters, the remains of great masters who have fallen, and so on," Fusheng explained.

"This junior plans to travel to the source of the decay and must first pass through the void outside the world. I wonder if Senior has any advice?" Lin Hui said.

"Decay? What’s that?" Fusheng had clearly never heard of it. "Forget it, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, no matter what you’re looking for or where you’re going, if you want to move through the Black Domain, you must first establish a clear direction. That place is just too, too vast. World fragments mix with other debris and malevolent things, forming chaos storms. You never know what kind of junk the next chaos storm will carry. The danger level is extremely high."

"I see." Lin Hui understood. "In that case, will the connection established by reversing the Nether-Emptiness Point be interfered with or broken in the Black Domain?"

"It depends on the distance. If you’re very far from your destination, it will naturally be broken," Fusheng said weakly. "By the way, when can you release me? I feel like I’m not going to make it. A few more years of being sealed and I might forget who I am..."

"Whether you can be unsealed actually depends entirely on whether you, Senior, hold any hostility toward this junior, and whether you’re willing to completely reconcile. Or rather, whether you hold hostility toward the one behind this junior." Lin Hui wasn’t sure himself, because he hadn’t been the one to seal Fusheng. Rather, Fusheng had been caught in the crossfire when the Eternal Life Sect Leader personally made a move.

"Sigh..." Fusheng sighed helplessly. "Fine, fine. Just ask. I’ll help in any way I can. As long as you can find a way to free me someday, that’s all that matters."

Lin Hui nodded.

"I will, definitely."

He was now discovering that the Celestial Father Seal, while powerful, was sometimes ineffective. Against opponents with many clones, it was completely useless.

But to call it weak wasn’t right either, as it could sometimes be surprisingly effective. Like right now.

His destiny, on the other hand, was much more useful.

"Let’s continue talking about the Black Domain. Worlds come in all shapes and sizes. They are the most numerous things in the Black Domain, and most of them float around as planetary bodies. They have an outer barrier to protect themselves.

"Besides worlds, the next most common things are the various Source Calamities. Source Calamities pervade the Black Domain, occupying the vastest regions of space. Worlds are just tiny, transient particles floating between them. So you must be fast when you travel through the Black Domain, otherwise you’ll be in deep trouble if you run into a Source Calamity. Even if you don’t encounter a Source Calamity, running into a chaos storm is more than enough to deal with," Fusheng continued.

"That sounds... a bit like planets?" Lin Hui said hesitantly, then briefly described the scientific knowledge he had received in his previous life.

"You’re not wrong, but the definition of a ’planet’ is only one part of a world. In essence, a world in the Black Domain contains a planet’s past, present, and future—all of its quintessence. This quintessence is constantly exchanging and interacting with the external Black Domain. What you call a planet is merely one facet of a world’s form. Fundamentally, the perceptions of different races are different, so the forms of worlds are also different. They are bizarre and protean, polymers of quintessence that exist across different planes, different realms, and different dimensions." Fusheng was quite knowledgeable.

After this explanation, Lin Hui gradually came to understand the concept of a ’world’.

"I see. This junior would also like to ask, if I go to the Black Domain, to other worlds, will I still be able to contact and return here?" he asked again.

"Some can, some can’t. It depends on the strength of the world’s barrier," Fusheng answered.

Following that, he answered many of Lin Hui’s other questions about the Black Domain and the worlds within it.

Lin Hui only stopped when he had exhausted most of the common knowledge Fusheng possessed.

Fusheng, however, kept muttering, looking as if he hadn’t had his fill of talking. It had been too long since he’d had someone to speak with. Now that he finally had a chance to satisfy his desire to talk, he was getting a bit carried away.

Lin Hui let him be, listening to his rambling while sorting through the junk piled up in the Heart Source Demon Palace, picking out things he needed to take with him.

This time, he didn’t know what he would encounter, or how long he would be gone.

In truth, he wasn’t very hopeful about being able to restore the world to normal.

He wasn’t sure if what the Mother of Dusk had said was true. Although he had done his best to verify it, there was still a chance he had been deceived.

Therefore, this time, his departure was more for the purpose of exploring the unknown and searching for a greater meaning to his existence.

Before he left, having a chatterbox like Fusheng around to keep him company wasn’t a bad way to ward off loneliness.

After he finished packing and sorting his things, Lin Hui rubbed the Formless Celestial Demon, picked up his bundle, and walked out of the Demon Palace with his sword at his side. Finally, he glanced at the remaining evolution time on his Blood Seal.

There were still over sixteen hundred years to go. He had used all sorts of medicines, but the evolution of his Destruction Eye was still nowhere in sight. He could only wait for an opportunity to accelerate it in the future...

In reality, without his Second Brother Zhang Yao’s Evil Energy to purge the medicinal toxins, some ordinary medicines were no longer very effective for Lin Hui.

He had consumed too many medicines, and in too great a quantity. At this point, only rare Treasure Medicines would have any effect on him.

But how could it be so easy to obtain so many Treasure Medicines?

Reining in his thoughts, Lin Hui stood outside the Demon Palace and gazed at the purple, mist-filled sky.

"It’s time to go." He let out a breath and glanced back at Fusheng and the Formless Celestial Demon.

In the next instant, he drew Ruyi with a backhand grip. He unleashed his Typhoon Swordsmanship, reversing it to drive his Heart and Spirit deep into the Nether-Emptiness Point in his chest.

His Heart and Spirit delved deeper, quickly being stretched into a long thread. Then, once it was stretched to its limit, it began to pull out the deeper essence of his soul from within his body, like a tug-of-war.

Lin Hui swung his sword, using the power of Wind Disaster Energy to assist himself, breaking down all the matter in his body from his original world that could be decomposed.

Then, he used Star Power to forge a new body for himself, one made of his abilities.

He precisely divided the labor between the two powers.

Soon...

His body began to dissolve like windblown sand, transparent particles flying off of him.

These were the flesh, bones, and organs he was born with in this world.

Once they had almost completely decomposed and vanished, the power of his Immortal Sacred Eye, which Lin Hui had been suppressing, began to activate, absorbing surrounding matter to reconstruct a new body.

"Wait, don’t rush to reconstruct yourself. Go directly to the world you want to reach first. Otherwise, transporting pure matter is far slower than transporting energy. It will waste too much time," Fusheng’s voice suddenly transmitted from behind him.

"Understood. Thank you for the guidance, Senior." Lin Hui, now a translucent body, turned and cupped his fist toward Fusheng.

"Go on. Remember to come back and see me when you have time," Fusheng sighed.

Lin Hui smiled. Following the connection his Heart and Spirit had made deep within the Nether-Emptiness Point, his body leaped suddenly. It was as if he were being absorbed by a tiny, invisible point in the air.

In the blink of an eye, he vanished.

With his physical body gone, the Nether-Emptiness Point naturally reverted to its true form: an invisible aperture.

But now, he had used his Heart and Spirit to lock onto the Nether-Emptiness Point beforehand, preventing it from disappearing. Then, using that spiritual connection, he leaped inside...

Inside the Nether-Emptiness Point.

Lin Hui felt like an impurity flushed down a sewer, winding through a long, dark pipe, constantly accelerating.

There was no light, no wind, only the cold, smooth inner wall of the pipe rushing past him.

Time lost all meaning here.

An unknown amount of time passed. To Lin Hui’s senses, it felt as if several years had gone by.

Finally...

A dot of white light suddenly appeared ahead.

He followed the pipe, accelerating toward the white light.

POP!

The next instant, he flew into a field of pure white light...

The light quickly dimmed and extinguished, turning to blackness.

When he came to his senses, Lin Hui spread out his Heart and Spirit and found himself floating in a vast, starry expanse.

Below him was an immense, earth-yellow planet, slowly rotating and encircled by a ring of grayish-white asteroids.

From this planet, he felt waves of incredibly familiar power.

’This is... my original world that I left?’ he quickly realized.

Through the now much thinner atmosphere, he could see the vast, emerald-green ocean below. That was the Jade Sea.

In some places, there were also the astonishingly tall, white, spike-like Moon Towers.

Those were the ruins left over from the era of the Fog People.

From this altitude, however, the Moon Towers were no different from thin threads.

Lin Hui retracted his gaze, feeling himself being pulled rapidly in another direction by the connection to the Nether-Emptiness Point.

He watched helplessly as the giant, earth-yellow planet receded from him.

Soon after, not much time had passed. The planet grew smaller and dimmer, until it was completely swallowed by the profound darkness...

Pop.

The next moment, a faint, soft sound rippled through his Heart and Spirit.

At the same time, he briefly lost consciousness.

*

*

*

"Waaaaah~~~"

Amidst the clear sound of crying, Lin Hui felt his hazy consciousness awaken from a stupor.

He struggled to open his eyes, but could only manage a thin slit.

Through the slit, he saw the gentle, sweat-drenched face of a woman gazing at him with a mixture of worry and joy.

"#@#@*&fdaj." The moment the woman spoke, it was in a language he couldn’t understand at all.

Then, a man’s face leaned in, full of affection, as he gently reached for him.

Only then did he realize that, compared to him, these two people seemed exceptionally large.

He, on the other hand, was completely weak. His limbs were extremely clumsy, and he couldn’t even move them freely. Many of his joints were inflexible.

’Have I been reborn again?’ Lin Hui understood.

Unlike last time, when he didn’t awaken his memories until he was much older, this time... he was conscious right from infancy.

’A world reached by following the Nether-Emptiness Point... I hope I can find the source I’m looking for...’

With this thought, Lin Hui felt waves of exhaustion coming from his body, so he simply closed his eyes and drifted into a drowsy sleep.

"Oh, look, the baby’s fallen asleep. Why did he stop moving after just a few cries? Is he sick? Quick, quick, spank his bottom!"

"It’s fine, it’s fine, he’s just tired. Didn’t he just cry out? He’s fine. As long as there’s nothing blocking his throat, it’s okay!"

After Lin Hui fell asleep, the two first-time parents were still discussing whether there was something wrong with their child.

A nearby doctor and nurse helplessly stepped forward, took the baby from their arms, and began to explain the necessary precautions.

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