Chapter 1

March, early spring.

A corner in the east of the Southern Phoenix Continent.

A gray and black haze filled the sky, giving off a sense of heavy oppression. It was as if someone had spilled ink onto paper as darkness soaked the sky and stained the clouds.

Clouds layered on top of each other, blending together and dispersing one after another. Streaks of crimson lightning flashed between them, accompanied by rumbling thunder.

The thunder was like the roar of a god, echoing over the world.

Rain, red like blood, poured down dismally, soaking the earth.

On the dim ground below, the ruins of a city stood silent and lifeless amid the blood-red rain.

Within the broken city walls, a bleak scene lay among the rubble. Collapsed houses could be seen everywhere, as well as blue-black corpses and pieces of flesh, scattered like broken autumn leaves, quietly rotting away.

The bustling streets of the past were now empty and desolate.

The sandy paths which had been crowded with people were now silent.

All that remained was blood and mud mixed with flesh, dust, and paper in an indistinguishable mash. It was a shocking sight.

Not far away, a broken carriage was stuck deep in the mud. Long forsaken, there was only an abandoned rabbit doll left hanging on the shaft, swaying in the wind.

Rain had long soaked its white fluff red, and it seemed to be full of gloom and eeriness.

Its hazy eyes, seemingly hanging on to some lingering resentment, stared blankly at the mottled stones up ahead.

A figure was lying there.

It was a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy. He was dressed in tattered and dirty clothes, and there was a ragged leather bag tied to his waist.

The boy narrowed his eyes as he lay still. A biting cold penetrated his tattered clothes from all directions and swept through his body, gradually leeching away his body temperature.

But even if the rain fell on his face, he didn’t blink, only staring coldly into the distance like a falcon.

Following his gaze, twenty to twenty five meters in front of him, a skinny vulture was feasting on the carcass of a wild dog, occasionally glancing around vigilantly.

Apparently, it knew how dangerous this ruin was and would flee immediately at the slightest disturbance.

Like a hunter, the boy patiently waited for an opportunity.

And after a long time, his opportunity came. The greedy vulture finally plunged its head entirely into the belly of the wild dog.

Instantly, a cold glint flashed through the boy’s narrowed eyes.

He shot out like a loosed arrow, heading straight for the vulture. With a flick of his right hand, he pulled out a black iron skewer from the leather bag at his waist.

The tip of the iron skewer flashed with a sharp, cold glow.

Perhaps sensing his killing intent, the vulture immediately noticed as soon as the boy moved. Startled, it flapped its wings and was about to take off.

But it was still too late.

The skewer turned into a streak of black light as the boy flung it outwards expressionlessly.

Puff!

The sharp iron skewer immediately pierced the vulture's head, shattering its skull and killing it instantly.

Even after the vulture died, the skewer’s force was unabated. The vulture’s carcass continued to sail through the air for a distance until with a bang, it was nailed to the carriage not far away. As it struck, the impact force caused the blood-colored doll to sway even more.

The boy’s expression was calm. His speed didn’t change from beginning to end as he sped over to the carriage and retrieved the iron skewer along with the dead vulture.

As he yanked the skewer out, a part of the wooden board also cracked and rose up a bit at the spot where the skewer had pierced into the carriage.

After grabbing the carcass and iron skewer, he quickly left along the edge of the street without looking back.

The wind seemed to pick up at this moment, and the blood-colored doll on the carriage swayed more, as if watching the youth go away.

He ran farther into the distance.

The wind had indeed grown stronger. It carried cold raindrops as it blew through the boy’s thin clothes.

The boy shivered involuntarily and frowned slightly. He wrapped his clothes tighter around him and sucked in a breath.

He hated the cold.

If the boy found a place to avoid the wind and rain, he could also alleviate the cold. However, he didn’t slow down at all as he ran on the street, swiftly passing the dilapidated shops along the sides.

There wasn’t much time left.

Hunting the vulture had taken too long, so he still had one place to go today.

"It shouldn't be far." The boy whispered to himself as he sped down the street.

On the way, blue-black corpses could be seen everywhere, and their forlorn faces were full of anguish. There seemed to be an aura of despair around them that tried to invade the boy’s mind.

But the boy was used to it and didn't even look at them.

As time passed, the boy looked up at the sky from time to time with a little anxiety on his face. It seemed that to him, the darkening of the sky was more terrifying than those corpses.

Fortunately, he soon saw a pharmacy in the distance. The boy heaved a sigh of relief and rushed forward.

The pharmacy wasn’t large, and there were many medicine cabinets scattered around on the ground. The floor was cluttered, and it exuded a musty smell, like an opened tomb.

There was also the blue-black corpse of an old man in the corner, leaning against the wall.

The boy stepped in and glanced at the corpse, then immediately began to rummage around.

Most of the herbs here were the same as those corpses, blue-black, with only a few normal ones.

The boy carefully studied these untainted herbs for a long time.

As if recalling past experiences, he finally picked up a common golden sore grass and took off the thin shirt on his body, revealing a huge wound on his chest.

This wound hadn’t fully healed yet. The edge of the wound was turning black, and there was even some blood oozing out.

The boy looked down and crushed the grass into paste. Taking a deep breath and gritting his teeth, he raised his hand and smeared the paste over the wound.

In an instant, severe pain came rushing from the wound like a surging tide, striking suddenly and causing the boy's body to tremble uncontrollably. He forcibly endured the pain, but the sweat on his forehead could not be suppressed. It dripped down his face onto the dark ground, staining it like blots of ink.

The whole process lasted for more than ten breaths. After he finished smearing the paste on his wound, the boy seemed to suddenly lose all his strength and held onto a nearby medicine cabinet for support for a while. Finally, with a deep breath, he slowly put his shirt back on.

The boy looked at the sky outside again. With a pondering gaze, he took out a tattered map from the leather bag at his waist and carefully spread it out.

It was a simple map that depicted this city.

The location of this pharmacy was marked, and in the northeast direction, there were many areas that had been crossed out. Only two areas were left without crosses.

"After searching around in the past few days, it should be in one of these two areas." The boy muttered in a hoarse voice. After putting away the map, he was about to leave.

But before leaving, he looked back at the old man's corpse and his eyes fell on the corpse's clothes.

It was a light coat made from animal hide. It hadn’t been corroded very much, so perhaps it was made of special material.

The boy thought about it and walked over. He took the hide coat off the old man's body and put it on himself.

The coat was a bit big, but after wrapping up his thin body, the boy finally felt a hint of warmth. He looked down at the old man's open eyes and gently raised his hand to close them.

"Rest in peace." As the boy spoke, he tore off the curtain at the entrance to the shop and covered the old man's body before leaving.

When he walked out, a faint light reflected from the ground at his feet. The boy looked down, and there was a mirror fragment the size of a palm in the bloody mud.

In the mirror, he saw his own face.

Although the face reflected in the broken mirror was full of dirt, it could still be vaguely seen that it was an extremely beautiful one.

It was just that the immaturity that a 13- or 14-year-old should have was replaced by indifference.

The boy silently looked at himself in the mirror on the ground, and after a while he raised his foot and stomped down lightly.

Crunch.

Cracks spread one after another.

After stomping the mirror with one foot, the boy sped into the distance.

On the ground, although the broken mirror was filled with cracks, it still reflected the sky. In the sky, there was the fragmented face of a vast, god-like being. It seemed to loom over the world and all living things.

The fragmented face’s eyes were closed, and its expression was indifferent and aloof. Only strands of messy and disheveled hair dangled down.

In this world, that face was a natural existence, no different from the sun and moon.

Beneath that face, all living beings were no different from ants. Like insects awakening from winter hibernation into an unfamiliar spring, the world had no choice but to grow and change under its influence.

At that moment, the sky beneath that god’s face was gradually losing its light.

The shadow of the setting sun was like a black haze, flooding the ruins of the city and shrouding the earth, as if trying to engulf everything.

The blood rain grew even heavier.

As night gradually covered the land, the wind carried the sound of sharp whimpers.

The howling sounds were like the calls of ferocious ghosts, awakening all the eerie existences in the city. All kinds of bizarre noises began to respond to each other one after another.

The boy’s footsteps became faster and faster. He ran nimbly through the streets as night closed in on him.

However, when he passed a collapsed house and was about to leap over the rubble, the boy’s pupils suddenly contracted.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that not far away, there seemed to be a person among the ruins.

From a distance, this person was neatly dressed, and there seemed to be no injuries on their body. They sat there, leaning against the wall, completely motionless.

But the most important thing was that the exposed skin of this person's body was actually a normal color, not blue-black!

In this city, it was impossible to see such a color, unless it was a living person!

And as for the living... these days, apart from himself, the boy hadn't met anyone else.

This scene shocked him. He seemed to think of something, and his breathing quickened.

He wanted to go, but the dark night was already upon him.

The boy hesitated for a moment. He memorized the location and left quickly.

Sprinting all the way, the boy returned to his temporary residence in the city before the night caught up to him.

This residence was a small cave in the ground. There wasn’t much space inside, and it was full of bird feathers.

The entrance to the cave wasn’t large. An adult wouldn’t be able to enter, and the boy could only barely squeeze himself through.

After entering, he swiftly blocked the entrance with books, stones, and other junk from the burrow.

The moment the entrance was completely covered, the dark night fully descended.

Vigilance filled the boy’s eyes. He grasped the iron skewer in his hand tightly, held his breath, and squatted by the entrance to listen for a long time.

Gradually, the roars and shrieks of mutated beasts came, occasionally mixed with bizarre laughter.

Finally, a clearer roar echoed past. The boy remained nervous until it completely passed by, and as it gradually faded, he breathed a sigh of relief. His butt finally touched the floor as he relaxed and sat to the side.

As he sat silently in the dark cave, it was as if time had stopped.

For a while, the boy remained in a daze as the nerves that had been tense all day slowly relaxed. Ignoring the sounds outside, the boy grabbed a flask of water on the side and took a few sips before taking the dead vulture out of his bag.

He brought the carcass to his mouth and ate it bite by bite in the dark.

The vulture had a fishy stench and pungent taste, but he swallowed it calmly and slowly, forcing the food down his throat into his stomach.

His stomach churned madly, trying its best to digest the food and relieve his hunger.

Soon, he finished eating the whole vulture. Taking a deep breath, the boy felt exhaustion flood his body. He slowly closed his eyes.

However, he still grasped the black iron skewer tightly in his hands.

Like a solitary wolf dozing off, he would instantly awaken the moment there was an anomaly.

Outside, a curtain of darkness covered the world. The city, the earth, and the sky were all enveloped in it.

The world under the sky was extremely vast, and the South Phoenix Continent, located on a remote sea, was only one of many.

Few people knew exactly how big the world was, but looking up into the sky, anyone could see the majestic fragmented face looming there.

Nobody knew exactly when the face had appeared.

People only knew from the descriptions in some ancient books that a long, long time ago, this world was full of immortal spirituality, vibrant and prosperous, until… that huge fragmented face appeared from the depths of the void and brought devastation to the land.

As it closed in, the beings of the world tried every means to stop it, but they all failed. Finally, a few ancient sovereigns and overlords abandoned the world, taking their subordinates and choosing to leave.

Soon, the fragmented face arrived and loomed over the sky. The nightmare began from then on.

Its aura permeated the entire world. The mountains and seas, all things, all living beings – even the spiritual energy that cultivators relied on to practice cultivation was infected.

All things withered, all beings perished, and not even one in a hundred survived.

From then on, those who barely survived the disaster called this fragmented human face... God.

This world was dubbed the Endlands, and the place where the ancient sovereigns and overlords fled to was called the Holy Land.

These names were passed down from generation to generation through many eras.

But this wasn’t the only disaster brought by God. Under his majesty, all living things continued to be suppressed, because…

Every few years, decades, or even centuries, He would open His eyes for a few short breaths.

Every time He opened His eyes and looked at an area, it would instantly be polluted by His mighty aura.

The people there would die, and those places became eternal forbidden areas.

Over the many eras, there were more and more forbidden areas in this world, and fewer and fewer places remained habitable.

Nine days ago, God once again opened His eyes, and the place He had looked at was the area where the boy lived.

Over a dozen human cities were in that area, and they were all polluted instantly. Whether inside the cities or in the slums on the outskirts, whether human or animal, it was impossible to escape.

Under the strong pollution, some instantly turned into blood mist, some transformed into mutated beasts with no intelligence, and some lost their souls, leaving behind the polluted blue-black corpses.

Only an extremely small number of people and animals barely survived.

This boy was one of them.

At that moment, the sleeping boy quickly opened his eyes to the sound of a screech from outside the burrow.

He instinctively lifted the iron skewer in his hand and glared vigilantly at the blocked entrance gap.

It wasn't until the screeching voice circled around and gradually moved away that the boy breathed a sigh of relief.

Now wide awake, he touched his leather bag and took out a bamboo slip.

Despite the darkness inside the cave, there seemed to be a light in the boy’s eyes as he touched the writing on the slip. Sitting upright, he closed his eyes and began to meditate.

The boy’s name was Xu Qing. He had lived alone in a slum outside this city since he was a child.

In the sudden catastrophe nine days ago, he hid in the crevices between rocks. Unlike the others, who had gone mad with fear, he looked calmly into the opened eyes of God in the sky. Staring at God’s peculiar cross-shaped pupils, the boy had seemed to lose his fear.

Then, he saw a purple light fall from the sky into the northeast section of the city.

The next moment, Xu Qing had passed out in a coma, and after waking up, he had become the only survivor of the city.

But he didn't leave immediately.

He knew that whenever God opened His eyes and created a forbidden area, a blood rain would form a barrier around the place for a while.

Before the forbidden area was fully formed, people inside couldn’t get out, and people outside couldn’t step in.

Once it formed completely, the blood rain would stop.

This calamity was like nothing to Xu Qing, who grew up in the slums.

Because in the slums, whether because of other vagrants, wild dogs, disease, or even a cold night, anything could make you lose your life. Just surviving was extremely difficult.

And as long as you were alive, nothing else mattered.

Of course, even amid the cruelty of the slums, there was occasionally a trace of warmth.

For example, some destitute scholars would teach groups of children how to read in order to make a living. Moreover, there were still memories of family.

It was just that Xu Qing’s memories of his family were gradually blurring with the passage of time, no matter how hard he tried to remember and feared forgetting.

But he knew that he was not an orphan, and that he still had family out there. It was just that they had long since been separated.

Thus, his ideal was to continue living.

If he could live a little better, if he could have the opportunity to see his family, it would be even better.

Fortunately, he did not die, and he chose to enter the city.

He went to the residences of the wealthy, looking for the way to become stronger that had been rumored in the slums, and even more to find the purple light that had fallen into the city.

Rumors of the way to become stronger had long circulated in the slums, and it was desired by everyone. They called it cultivation, and those who mastered the methods of cultivation were called cultivators.

So becoming a cultivator was Xu Qing's greatest wish besides meeting his family.

Cultivators weren’t uncommon. When he was living in the slums, Xu Qing had seen such people from a distance as they entered the city.

The notable characteristic of a cultivator was that, when he looked at one, his body would instinctively tremble.

Xu Qing had even heard people say that the city lord and his guards were all cultivators.

After searching the city for a long time, he finally found the bamboo slip in his hand on a corpse in the city lord's mansion five days ago.

That was a place of extreme danger, and it was also then that he received the wound on his chest.

What the bamboo slip recorded was the cultivation method that he was longing for.

All the content on it was long familiar to him, and in the past few days, he had even begun to try to cultivate.

Xu Qing had never seen other cultivation techniques. This bamboo slip was the only one he had ever obtained, and he didn’t know how to practice it correctly.

Fortunately, most of the descriptions were simple and straightforward, focusing on visualization and breathing.

Thus, after practicing it step by step, he had achieved some gains.

This method was called the Sea and Mountain Art.

The way to cultivate it was to visualize the totem carved on the bamboo slip and breathe in and out in a specific pattern.

The totem was very strange. It was misshapen, with a big head and a small body, and only one leg. Its whole body was black, and its face was like some ferocious demon.

Xu Qing had never seen this kind of creature. The bamboo slip called it an Imp.

As he cultivated, not long after the totem appeared in his mind, Xu Qing's breathing gradually changed. The air around him became filled with undercurrents.

Spiritual energy poured in from the surroundings, slowly penetrating into his body. Bursts of bone-piercing cold appeared wherever it passed.

Xu Qing was afraid of the cold, but he resisted and didn't give up, continuing to persist in his cultivation.

A long time passed, and when he finally ended his cultivation session according to the requirements of the bamboo slip, his body was already soaked in cold sweat.

Moreover, even though he had just eaten the vulture, he was already hungry again.

Xu Qing wiped away his cold sweat and touched his stomach, determination filling his eyes.

Ever since he began cultivating this technique, his appetite had increased significantly, and his body had become more nimble than ever.

All of this made him more tolerant of the cold he felt during cultivation.

At that moment, Xu Qing looked up through the entrance to peek outside.

The outside world was pitch black. Terrifying roars, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, echoed in his ears.

He didn't know the real reason why he survived the disaster. Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe it was because... he saw that purple light.

Thus, other than looking for a cultivation method, he had also constantly gone to the northeast region to find the place the purple light fell. Unfortunately, he hadn’t found it yet.

Xu Qing listened to the roars outside. He thought about the body leaning against the wall that he saw when he was coming back and couldn’t help but narrow his eyes.

That place was in the northeast region, and… there seemed to be a living person.

"Could it be related to the purple light?"

Previous Chapter

Table of Contents

Next Chapter