Chapter 1: Alive
March, early spring.
South Phoenix Continent east, a corner.
The cloudy sky, a gray-black, through the heavy depression, as if someone spilled ink on the rice paper, ink drenched the dome of the sky, haloed the clouds.
The clouds were overlapping and intermingled with each other, diffusing a scarlet red lightning, accompanied by rumbling thunder.
It was as if the gods were roaring low, echoing on earth.
Scarlet-colored rainwater, with sadness, fell down to the mortal world.
The earth was hazy, and there was a ruined city, silent and lifeless in the dim red blood rain.
Inside the city, broken walls and everything withered, collapsed houses could be seen everywhere, as well as a green and black corpse and broken flesh, as if broken autumn leaves, withering away silently.
The once bustling streets are now in a state of depression.
The sandy road where people used to come and go is no longer noisy.
Only left with the broken flesh, dust, paper mixed together with the blood mud, can not distinguish each other, shocking.
Not far away, a mutilated carriage, deep in the mud, full of grief, only a discarded rabbit doll on the carriage, hanging on it, swaying with the wind.
The white fluff had long been dipped into a wet red, full of eerie weirdness.
The cloudy pupils, which seemed to have some residual resentment, looked ahead at the mottled stones in a lonely way.
There, lying on the ground was a figure.
It was a thirteen or fourteen year old teenager, his clothes were tattered and full of dirt, and a broken leather pouch was tied around his waist.
The teenager squinted his eyes and did not move a muscle, the piercing cold from the four directions through his tattered coat, attacking his whole body, gradually taking away his body temperature.
But even when the rain fell on his face, his eyes did not blink, and he stared coldly into the distance like a falcon.
Following his gaze, seven or eight feet away from him, a withered vulture was nibbling on the rotting corpse of a wild dog, occasionally observing the surroundings in a vigilant manner.
It seemed that if half a breeze blew in this dangerous ruin, it would instantly take to the air.
And the teenager, like a hunter, patiently waited for his chance.
After a long time, the opportunity came, and the greedy vulture finally put its head, completely missing into the belly of the wild dog.
In an instant, a cold aura appeared in the teenager's narrowed eyes.
His body was like an arrow off the string, rushing out, heading straight for the vulture, and with a flick of his right hand, a black iron stick within the leather pouch at his waist was drawn out by him.
The tip of the iron stick flashed out a sharp cold aura.
Perhaps it was the perception of the killing opportunity, in the moment the teenager rushed out, the vulture immediately noticed, and under the fear, fluttered its wings to take off, and was about to fly away.
But still too late.
The black iron stick, along with the teenager's expressionless strong fling, turned into a black line, shot out.
Poof!
The sharp iron stick pierced into the vulture's head in an instant, shattering its skull and killing it instantly.
The powerful impact carried its corpse, tilted and fell, and with a bang, nailed on the carriage not far away.
The blood-colored doll on the side also shook more and more due to the turmoil of the carriage.
The young man looked calm, speed from the beginning to the end did not have the slightest pause, straight to this place, after the arrival of a hand will vulture body along with the iron stick grabbed up.
The force was so great that the part of the carriage that was nailed into the iron stick lifted up a small piece.
After doing so, he flew away along the edge of the street without looking back.
The wind, at this moment, seemed to be even greater, and the blood-colored doll on the carriage, between shaking, seemed to be watching the teenager's distant departure.
The farther they go, the further away they get.
The wind, indeed, was even greater, carrying the cold from the rain, brushing the teenager's thin clothes.
The teenager shivered involuntarily, his brows furrowed slightly, shrinking his lapel, and an intake of breath escaped his mouth.
He hated the cold.
And the way to resist the cold was to find a place to rest that was sheltered from the wind and the rain, but the teenager who was running on the streets at the moment did not pause in his speed, as a dilapidated store swept past his eyes.
He didn't have much time left.
Because hunting vultures had taken too long, today, there was still a place he hadn't gone to.
"It shouldn't be far." The teenager whispered to himself as he sped along the streets.
On the way forward, a greenish-black corpse could be seen everywhere, their lost hope faces filled with grimness, as if they had turned into an aura of despair, wanting to taint the teenager's heart and soul.
But the teenager is accustomed to, do not even look at a glance.
Until time passes a little bit, the teenager from time to time to look at the sky, face flooded with a little anxiety, seems to him, the change of the sky color, to be more horrible than those corpses.
Well soon, when he saw a medicine store in the distance, the teenager breathed a sigh of relief, a rush to go.
The medicine store was not big, with many medicine cabinets scattered on the ground, emitting a musty odor, like a tomb chamber that had been opened, full of mess.
There is also an old man's body in the corner, the whole body is green and black, leaning against the wall, seems to be too late to close his eyes, and look at the outside world in a godless manner.
The teenager stepped in and swept a glance, immediately starting to rummage.
The vast majority of the herbs here were the same as those corpses, turning greenish-black, with only a few still normal.
Among these normal herbs, the teenager carefully recognized them for a long time.
Seemingly recalling his past experiences, he finally picked up a common Golden Strike Herb and took off the thin shirt on his body, revealing a huge wound on his chest.
The wound hadn't completely healed yet, and one could see that the edges of the wound had begun to turn black, and there was even some blood oozing out.
The teenager looked down and crushed the herbs before taking a deep breath and gritting his teeth, lifting his hand and applying a little bit on the wound.
In an instant, the intense pain of the wound was like a raging tide, suddenly attacking, causing the teenager's body to tremble uncontrollably, but he forcibly endured it, but the sweat on his forehead, which could not be suppressed, fell drop by drop down his cheeks onto the dark-colored ground.
It became blotting ink.
The whole process lasted for more than ten breaths, until after he had completely applied the herbs to the wound, the teenager seemed to have lost his strength all of a sudden, holding onto the medicine cabinet on the side, and slowed down for quite a while before he exhaled deeply and slowly put on his clothes.
Looking at the sky outside again, he pondered and then took out a tattered map from the leather pouch on his waist and carefully spread it out.
The map was simple and depicted the city.
The locations of the pharmacies inside were all marked, and on it, in the northeast, many areas had been crossed with fingernails, leaving only two areas without a cross.
"After searching for these days, it should be in these two areas." The teenager's voice was hoarse, murmuring in a low voice, and was about to leave after putting the map away.
But before leaving, he turned back to look at the corpse of the old man on the side, his gaze falling on the corpse's clothes.
It was a leather jacket, perhaps due to the special nature of the leather, the leather jacket was not corroded much.
After thinking about it, the teenager walked over, took the leather jacket off the old man's corpse, and put it on his own body.
The leather jacket was a bit big, but after wrapping his skinny body, the teenager finally felt a trace of warmth, so he looked down to the old man's open eyes and raised his hand to gently cover them in peace.
"Rest in peace." The teenager said softly, tearing off the curtain inside the store and covering the old man's body as he turned to leave the medicine store.
As he walked out, a shimmering light reflected from in front of his feet, and the teenager looked down to see a palm-sized fragment of a mirror in the bloody mud.
In the mirror, he saw his own face.
The face reflected within the broken mirror was full of dirt, but vaguely could still be seen, it was an extremely clean face.
It was just that there was no more childishness that a thirteen or fourteen year old teenager should have, and it was replaced by indifference.
The teenager silently looked at himself in the mirror on the ground, raised his foot after a long time and stepped on it.
There was a click.
A crack appeared.
After crushing the mirror with one foot, his body shook and sped away.
On the ground, although the broken mirror was filled with cracks, it still refracted the sky, seeming to cover the world and all living beings, as if it was half of the vast human face of the deity's Remnant Face.
Remnant face closed eyes cold, high above, only a strand of withered curved hair hanging down.
It was a natural existence of this world on par with the sun and moon.
It was as if under Him, all beings were ants, and as if the phenomenon of the hibernation, where everything grows, was affected by it and had to change.
And at this moment, the sky also gradually lost its light under the remnants of this deity's face.
The shadow of the setting sun was like a black haze, filling the ruins of the city and covering the earth, as if it was going to swallow everything.
The rain got heavier.
As the darkness gradually engulfed the night, the wind did the same, emitting gusts of shrill whimpering sounds.
It was as if the hissing of the severe ghosts began to awaken the eerie existence within this city, causing all sorts of creepy voices to respond one after another as if they were regaling one's heart and soul.
Running teenager, footsteps faster, movement more hasty, in this and the descent of the darkness of the night between you catch up with me, he nimbly shuttled a street.
Until, when he passed a collapsed house, want to use the power far jump, the teenager's pupils suddenly shrunk.
His afterglow saw that not far away, in a piece of debris, there seemed to be a person.
From afar, the person was neatly dressed, as if he did not have any injuries, and was sitting against the wall.
Most importantly, the skin exposed on the other person's body was actually normal in color, not greenish-black!
Such a figure, in this city, unless it is a living person, otherwise, then it is impossible to appear!
And living people ...... teenagers these days, in addition to himself, did not encounter a second.
This scene, so that his heart and soul was shocked, quickly seemed to think of something, breathing slightly sharper.
Have the intention to go, just behind them, such as the foggy black night has engulfed and come.
The teenager hesitated, memorized the location, and left in a hurry.
Sprinting all the way, finally before the black night caught up with him, the teenager returned to his temporary residence in this city.
It was a hole in the ground that was small and full of bird feathers.
The gap at the entrance was not big enough for an adult to burrow into, the only place where the teenager could barely get in.
After entering, he skillfully blocked the entrance with books, stones, and other debris inside the hole in the ground.
The moment he filled it up completely, the darkness outside, the moment covered it.
The teenager didn't let his guard down, gripping the iron stick hard in his hand, holding his breath, and squatting there for a long time to listen.
Gradually the hissing and mournful sound of the beast came, occasionally mixed with weird laughter.
Until there was a clearer hissing echo, in the teenager's nervousness, the sound as if passing by far away, gradually light before he sighed in relief and sat aside.
The hole in the ground was pitch black, and the teen sat in silence, time seeming to stop in the moment.
He fumed for a while, calming his nerves after a long day of tightening them, grabbing a canteen from his side and taking a few sips, ignoring the voices outside and removing the vulture from his pocket.
In the darkness, placed it to his mouth and tore into it one bite at a time.
A fishy taste came down his throat, but he calmly swallowed it slowly, squeezing the food down his throat and into his stomach.
And the stomach was writhing hard at the moment, trying to digest and ease the hunger.
Soon an entire vulture was consumed by him, and the teenager took a deep breath as a gust of exhaustion surged through his body, and his eyes slowly closed.
However, in his hands, he always had a death grip on the ebony black iron stick, like a lone wolf in a false sleep.
It seemed that if there was any abnormality, he would instantly open his eyes.
At this moment in the outside world, the night was as dark as a curtain, covering the city, the earth, and also this dome of heaven.
The world under the dome of the sky was extremely vast in scope, and the Southern Phoenix Continent, which was overseas, was only one of them.
The whole world specifically how big, few people know, only that the dome of the majestic remnants of the face, with a strong deterrent, all people look up.
The specific time of the arrival of the remnants of the face is no longer available.
People just in some canonical books only words in the description know, in a long time ago, this world full of immortal spirit gas, prosperity, vitality, until ...... this huge residual surface, from the distant depths of the void, with destruction, attracted.
In the process of arrival, the beings of this world used all methods to stop, but all failed, and eventually only a few ancient emperor masters, with some of their clansmen abandoned the beings, chose to migrate.
Soon after, the Remnant Face arrived, hanging in the sky, and from then on, nightmares descended.
The aura from Him permeated the entire world, infesting the mountains, the sea, all things, and all beings, even the spiritual energy that cultivators relied on for cultivation.
All things withered, all beings perished, and not a single one of them survived.
Since then, the people who survived this disaster with great difficulty call this half human face ...... deity.
This world, called the end of the earth, and the ancient emperor master to go to the place, called the holy land.
This kind of name, through many epochs, has been passed down from generation to generation.
And the disasters brought by the gods are not only these, His majesty suppresses all beings all the time, because ......
Every few years or decades or even hundreds of years, He would open His eyes once at irregular intervals for a few breaths.
Every time He opened His eyes to look at the area, it would be instantly polluted by the intensity of His breath.
The living beings would be coated and turned into an eternal forbidden zone.
Over many epochs, the number of forbidden zones in this world increased, and the areas that could be inhabited, became fewer and fewer.
And nine days ago, the deity opened its eyes once more, looking towards the very area where the teenager was.
All the species in that region, as well as a dozen or so human cities, wherever they existed, whether inside the city or in the slums outside, were instantly and intensely polluted, turning them into forbidden zones of life.
Under this horrible pollution, some of all living things directly decomposed into blood mist, some produced mutations to become unintelligent beasts, and some were souls flying away leaving behind contaminated green and black corpses.
Only an extremely small number of people and beasts could survive.
The teenager was one of them.
At this moment, outside the pitch-black hole in the ground, with a mournful sound from far and near, the sleeping teenager quickly opened his eyes.
The iron sign in his hand was instinctively raised, and he looked vigilantly at the entrance gap that was blocked.
It was only after the mournful sound circled around the neighborhood and faded away that the teenager breathed a sigh of relief.
Without any more sleepiness, he touched his leather pouch and took out a bamboo slip from inside.
In the darkness, he touched the handwriting on the bamboo slip, and his eyes seemed to have some light in them, then he sat upright, closed his eyes, and adjusted his breathing.
The young man's name was Xu Qing, and he had been living alone and hard since he was a child in the slums outside this city.
Nine days ago in the sudden havoc, he hid within the stone cracks, unlike the other frightened and crazy people, he calmly looked at the sky on the dome of the gods who opened their eyes, looked at the sky in the eyes of the gods, the special cross pupil, seemed to have lost the emotion of fear.
Until he saw a purple light fall from the sky, landing in the northeast direction within the city.
In the next instant, his entire body passed out.
Upon awakening, he became the only survivor, inside and outside the city.
However, he didn't leave at the first opportunity.
This was because he knew that the forbidden area formed by the gods opening their eyes would be shrouded by a rain of blood and transformed into a boundary at the initial moment.
Those inside couldn't get out, and those outside couldn't step in unless the forbidden zone was completely formed.
And the sign of formation was the stopping of the blood rain.
This havoc, for Xu Qing who grew up in the slums, seemed like nothing.
Because in the slums, whether it's all kinds of vagrants, wild dogs, or a disease, or even a cold night, people can lose their lives at any time, and it takes a lot of hard work to survive.
And as long as one lives, nothing else counts.
Of course there were still occasional glimpses of warmth amidst the brutality of the slums.
For example, some downtrodden scholars would teach a group of their children to become literate for a living, and other than that, it was all about the memories of their loved ones.
It was just that in Xu Qing's mind, the memories of his loved ones were gradually blurring with the passage of time, even though he was trying very hard to recall them, fearing that he would forget.
But he knew that he wasn't an orphan, he still had loved ones, they were just long lost.
So his ideal, was to live.
If he could live a little better, if he could have the opportunity to see his relatives, it would be better.
So by a fluke he didn't die, he chose to enter the city.
He wanted to go to the residence of the upper class lords in the city, to look for the way to make himself stronger, which was rumored in the slums, and even more so, to look for the purple light that fell into the city.
And the way to become strong on one's own had been circulating in the slums, and was desired by all, they called it cultivation, and those who mastered the method of cultivation were called cultivators.
And so becoming a cultivator was Xu Qing's greatest wish, apart from the memories of his loved ones.
Cultivators were not uncommon, and Xu Qing had seen this type of people enter the city from afar in the slums over the past few years.
Their typical characteristic was that their bodies would instinctively produce a shudder when gazing at them.
Even Xu Qing had heard it said that the city lord was a cultivator, and the guards by his side, also had cultivators.
So after searching for a long time within this city, five days ago, he finally found this bamboo slip in his hand on a corpse within the City Lord's mansion.
It was dangerous there, and the wound on his chest was left behind at that time.
What the bamboo slip recorded was exactly the cultivation method he craved.
All the contents on it had long been familiarized by him, and he had even begun to try practicing it in the past few days.
Xu Qing had never seen any other cultivation techniques, this bamboo slip was the only one he had acquired, and he had no idea how to properly cultivate it.
Luckily, most of the descriptions on it were simple and easy to understand words, focusing on visualization and breathing.
So by following the steps, he had more or less gained something.
This method, was called the Hai Shan Technique.
The method of practicing it was to visualize the totem carved on the bamboo slips in his mind and exhale with specific breathing.
The pattern was bizarre, an alien being with a large head and small body, only one leg, all black in color, and a hideous face like a stern ghost.
Xu Qing had never seen this kind of creature before, the bamboo slips referred to it as a mandrill.
At this moment, with the cultivation, shortly after this pattern surfaced in his mind, Xu Qing's breathing gradually changed, and a dark current gradually filled the air nearby.
The silk of the surrounding spiritual energy poured in, slowly drilling into his body, flowing all over his body, flooding his body with a burst of piercing cold, and the parts he passed through were like being in ice water.
Xu Qing was afraid of the cold, but he forced himself not to give up, still persisting.
Until a long time later, when he finally ended this cultivation according to the bamboo slip's requirements, his body was already drenched in cold sweat.
And his stomach, which had just eaten the vulture, was sending out another burst of hunger.
Xu Qing wiped away the cold sweat and touched his stomach again, his eyes revealing determination.
Since practicing this technique, his food intake had obviously increased too much, and his body was more flexible than ever.
All of this had given him a stronger tolerance for the icy cold during his cultivation.
Raising his head at this moment, Xu Qing followed the gap at the entrance and looked outside.
Outside, it was pitch black, and the only thing that echoed in his ears was the hissing of terror, sometimes strong and sometimes weak.
He didn t know the real reason why he became a survivor, maybe it was a fluke, or maybe ...... he saw that purple light.
So these days while looking for feats, he was also constantly going to the northeastern region, looking for the fall point of the purple light, but unfortunately never found it.
In his thoughts, Xu Qing listened to the hissing outside. His mind couldn't help but recall the corpse he saw leaning against the wall when he returned at sunset, so his eyes slowly narrowed.
The place where the other party was, was the northeast region, and ...... seemed to be a living person.
"Could it be related to the purple light?"
