The Decaying World

In a daze, Lin Hui saw the young man’s soul ablaze, releasing a dazzlingly brilliant light.

Though such a burning should have consumed an immense amount of power, for some reason, the young man named Zhang Yi’an was not incinerated. Instead, his soul grew ever more robust and powerful.

He also saw the great number of Cultivators participating in the uprising.

Many of them were not from major sects or schools, yet the same intangible fire burned in their eyes.

There were also some disciples from major sects who concealed their identities with masks, hiding silently in the corners and occasionally helping the revolutionary army eliminate pockets of resistance.

At that moment, Lin Hui narrowed his eyes. The Great Yin Yang Time Reversal Sword Technique, which had long been dormant within him, seemed to have touched a brand-new Time String.

This Time String was a profound and mysterious thing.

It didn’t exist in inanimate objects but was related to living beings.

After many years of Cultivation, Lin Hui had discovered that when living beings whose fates were undergoing massive changes appeared around him, he could more easily sense the presence of the Time String.

The world was like a rigid harp. Only when the fire of living beings burned brightly enough could it pluck the long string of destiny that belonged to the era.

One of the cultivation conditions for the Great Yin Yang Time Reversal Sword Technique was to comprehend the Time String, but until now, he had no idea where to find it.

After all, people who could change the era and have a massive impact on destiny weren’t someone you could just casually run into.

And now, he had originally only come to get some Treasure Medicine to consume, but he had unexpectedly witnessed this country’s first uprising—one that ignited the flame of the people.

Aided by this flame, the Cultivators of the warlords and the foreign Holy Spirit Mage Association were being steadily beaten back and killed.

The flame clearly enhanced the Cultivators’ strength to a great degree, causing immense shock to their opponents’ Heart and Spirit with every attack.

"I see... Time String... the string of the times?" Lin Hui finally understood why his Sword technique’s progress had been so slow.

"If it’s the string of the times, then what scale of societal change is needed to make it manifest?"

With this question in mind, he slowly walked into the women’s sports university.

Students and teachers were all rushing about, constantly passing him by.

Many of them were also revolutionaries in hiding. They constantly communicated with each other, quickly tying white silk ribbons around their arms, and transformed into logistics personnel helping the rebel army pacify the masses the moment they stepped outside.

In the so-called women’s university, the ban on men entering was gone. Lin Hui didn’t seem out of place at all and easily reached his destination—the school’s storeroom where medicine was kept.

The place was deserted, without even a single guard.

The storeroom was a separate, cylindrical building resembling a granary. Its main door was half-open, and the ground was covered in footprints. Clearly, many people had already been here.

Lin Hui pushed the door open and slowly entered.

The inside was a mess. The vast majority of the medicine had already been moved, leaving only a very small portion behind. This included the energy-boosting medicine he was looking for.

He methodically reached out, placing the medicines one by one into his Heart Source Demon Palace, all while carefully sensing every vibration of the massive Time String.

Within his body, the Cultivation of his Great Yin Yang Time Reversal Sword Technique was soaring rapidly from its previous introductory level.

This Sword technique was essentially an evolved version of the Star Breath Sword Manual, using Star Power and the Time String as its foundation for Cultivation.

The Star Power requirement had long been met. What he lacked was simply the comprehension of the Time String.

Now that this piece was filled in, his Cultivation, which had stagnated for a long time, finally began to advance at a tremendous pace.

After quickly gathering the medicine, Lin Hui was enveloped in a current of air, just about to lightly fly away from the university.

"Who’s there!?" a sharp cry suddenly came from behind.

Immediately after, a red figure rushed over at extreme speed, stopping at the storeroom entrance.

It was a black-haired young woman in a short, red, one-piece dress. The antique-style, turquoise short sword in her hand seemed quite out of place with her formal attire.

Lin Hui halted. His intention wasn’t just to steal once and leave; he needed to establish a long-term cooperative agreement with the people here.

No one had paid him any mind before. Now that he had finally run into a Cultivator, he could try to make contact.

After discovering the trigger for the Time String, he found himself becoming vaguely interested in those who had the potential to change the era.

’If what those two Westerners said is true, then the Celestial Realm of the Western Continent is likely facing a great threat. If even the Celestial Realm is wiped out, will such a disaster extend to the mortal world?’

Thinking of this, Lin Hui suddenly had a strange premonition.

At his current level of Cultivation, many of his perceptions had reached a profound and mysterious state, allowing him to easily detect certain subtle external changes.

"Just a passerby. I stopped by the storeroom to borrow some medicine. This is payment." Lin Hui casually tossed out a gold bar as compensation for the medicine he’d taken.

The woman glanced at the gold bar on the ground, and her expression softened slightly.

"Friend, it’s best not to wander around at a time like this. This is a women’s university, not a place you can just walk through freely. The students are quite casual in many areas because they’re all female, so it’s inconvenient for a man to be here."

"I need more medicine like this. If you can provide it, I can trade more gold. How about it?" Lin Hui was blunt and made his request directly.

’Gold!?’

The woman’s expression flickered. At a time like this, gold was the ultimate hard currency, far more useful than printed money.

’If I could really get my hands on that much gold...’

"How much do you need? What’s the price?" As soon as these words were spoken, both sides knew that finalizing the deal was just a matter of time and price.

A simple exchange, a chance encounter. Lin Hui hadn’t even found the upper echelons of the Slender Cloud Pavilion. To him, it didn’t matter who he dealt with, as long as he could achieve his goal.

As for the woman, the university’s vice-principal, she was now caught in the vortex of the revolutionary uprising with no way to escape. If she fled back to her sect in disgrace, she would surely be punished in the future. If she could make up for it in some other way, it might offset some of the blame.

After the two sides quickly reached a simple agreement, the woman immediately asked for Lin Hui’s help. She needed him to assist in evacuating some of her sect’s higher-ups from the university and to protect two commissioners from the Witch Council.

At this moment, she no longer cared about his background or identity. She wouldn’t let go of any power she could use, seeking only to protect them so they could safely escape this Purgatory of a city.

"Me, protect you?" Lin Hui chuckled after hearing the terms of the agreement.

’Does she really think I’m some good samaritan?’

However, he didn’t refuse. If he played his cards right with this group, he might be able to trade with the Slender Cloud Pavilion and the Witch Council for a large batch of Treasure Medicine.

The amount in the storeroom alone was far from enough for his needs.

"What’s your name?" he asked casually.

"Yao Ying!"

The two quickly exchanged plans. The escape party organized by the university would depart soon, and they would need protection along the way. Lin Hui was just one of the protectors she had hastily recruited.

In reality, another large group of the university’s teachers and students had already joined the uprising and were currently hunting them down.

Lin Hui kept his word and followed Yao Ying, watching as she quickly joined a special group of about a hundred people. Almost ninety percent of its members were women, from the old to the young, with only a few men among them.

Furthermore, most of them were Cultivators. They were young and beautiful, and their attire was increasingly revealing, making it obvious they were not from an orthodox path.

On the way out of the city, Lin Hui also discovered seven or eight other people secretly guarding the group, just like him.

Judging by their Body Technique speed and concealed auras, they were all powerful Cultivators.

He wasn’t sure of their exact level, but several of them gave him a similar feeling to the old Daoist Tian Long.

Along the way, the group took various detours, avoiding the main forces of the rebel army. After countless difficulties, they finally managed to reach the city gate.

BOOM!

Following the massive sound from behind them, a wave of continuous cheers rose amidst the huge explosion.

"It’s the armory...!" Yao Ying turned back, her face filled with bewilderment as she stared at the burning city.

She had sensed long ago that the city was gradually turning into a powder keg, but she never expected this day to come so soon.

In fact, she herself had been secretly providing aid to the rebels, but she just hadn’t made up her mind to join them completely.

"Let’s go. There’s no longer a place for us here." The principal, Tang Shiling, who was also the Vice Pavilion Master of the Slender Cloud Pavilion, spoke. This once intelligent, gentle, and sensual beauty was now disheveled and dirty, with lingering injuries on her face and body. It was clear she had fought someone on her way out, and more than once.

"Zhang Yi’an and his people have always been targeting Jiu’an Commander Yang Chengde. It seems they’ve won now," Tang Shiling sighed. She had been on good personal terms with Yang Chengde, and he had been a connection for her sect in this area. But now, that connection was severed.

At this very moment, Lin Hui, who was following in the shadows, was also gazing at the fiery glow above the Jiu’an urban area.

Amidst the firelight, he suddenly pointed a finger.

Instantly, a golden-red string reappeared, stretching across the sky above the entire city.

In that instant, dense, golden-red patterns suddenly appeared all over Lin Hui’s skin.

The color of the patterns was almost identical to the color of the Time String in the sky.

At this moment, the First Layer of his Great Yin Yang Time Reversal Sword Technique reached complete Perfection.

To be precise, his Star Power and Swordsmanship were already at the level of Perfection; all he lacked was this one crucial element.

The core of the First Layer—or rather, the core of every layer—was actually a Sword Technique.

Nine layers meant nine techniques, and each technique could reverse his own Tense once.

This was the most terrifying aspect of this Sword technique: reversing one’s own time, even if only for a single day.

But nine techniques could reverse nine days, refreshing all the Secret Techniques and Treasure Medicines he had just used.

But at this moment, as Lin Hui gazed at the Time String suspended in the sky, he felt an inexplicable emotion in his heart.

It wasn’t his own feeling, but a powerful emotion he sensed from the Time String itself.

After reaching an agreement with Yao Ying, she urgently needed a large amount of funds to cover her losses, so she sold a large quantity of various energy-boosting Treasure Medicines. Lin Hui, in turn, emptied a good portion of the gold and silver stored in his Heart Source Demon Palace.

Both sides took what they needed, each getting what they wanted.

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