I Am Your Natural Enemy-Chapter 436 - 182: Reverse Descent, an Earth City (6k)

Wen Yan carried his backpack and set off along the road. His speed wasn’t particularly fast—at most a hundred kilometers a day. The hardest part was the silence, the dead stillness, the dimness, and the endless wilderness of the Netherworld, walking for hundreds of kilometers without feeling any change at all.

The outline of the mountains to the north of the manor had long disappeared. He was heading west, because he’d once seen fiery clouds in the west—something was definitely there.

Though, most likely, it was where the Flame-Worshipping Cult and the Demon Kingdom had fallen.

He wasn’t really afraid of danger—he was more afraid there’d be nothing there.

An empty wilderness meant he’d find nothing—and naturally, there’d be no way to find a way back.

He relied on the Button Locator to determine subtle directions, and the talismans from Mount Mao to sense and guide his general path.

Every once in a while, he would use the talisman to sense the main direction and make sure he hadn’t gone wildly off course.

Otherwise, in a world without any points of reference, it truly was difficult to avoid getting lost.

So he kept moving forward. On the second day, his Fourth Great-uncle Master sent another message through a Long Talisman.

Said the Netherworld had changed. All the descended players now had bodies, could get hurt, felt pain, got tired—the sense of reality had dramatically increased.

Also, people from the Scorching Sun Department had found a city. In the center of the city was an extremely tall tower, and there, flames burned.

According to the records from Fuyu Mountain, that ought to be the capital city of the Demon Kingdom.

It was estimated there were many ghosts there. A field agent from Scorching Sun Department hadn’t managed to escape and didn’t make it back—he was killed by someone with ghostly blue flames burning in his eyes.

They warned Wen Yan to be careful and not to get discovered.

On the fifth day, Wen Yan estimated he’d already walked at least five hundred kilometers and still hadn’t encountered anything. The locator and talismans were still working fine.

The high-grade goods from Mount Mao were indeed extremely useful.

In the wilderness, he set up his tent. Wen Yan sat on the ground, performing a ritual of transcendence facing the Stone Mountain sculpture—this had become a daily routine. Every day, he would transcend quite a few of the lost souls from Black Mountain.

If the purification and transcendence could be completed, he’d earn a new title. Wen Yan figured it’d take a long time; there were just too many lost souls collected at Stone Mountain.

But it didn’t matter—gaining some Mountain Essence would also do.

With the Mountain Essence, he continued practicing—Tiger Subduing Three Styles combined with Scorching Sun Fist.

Today, Wen Yan felt he’d pretty much perfected the second stage; plus, his tendons and bones were far sturdier than most martial artists who’d finished the first two stages.

As he practiced the Scorching Sun Fist, using the method to fuse power and Yang Energy, after more than a dozen repetitions, he stood still and suddenly felt all his muscles tense; the flow of Yang Energy inside his body sped up, branching into more streams.

Every time he channeled power, it would directly summon Yang Energy; a warm sensation welled up in his internal organs, and he could almost clearly hear the sound of his blood rushing.

Each heartbeat felt like a drumbeat, the blood surging in rhythm, roaring ceaselessly, the Yang Energy flowing, the two slowly intertwining and merging.

He shook his arms, his feet unmoved, yet dust rose up at his feet.

After a long time sensing with his eyes closed, Wen Yan slowly opened them.

He finally understood why the gap between him and Qin Kun was so large—it was the way power and Yang Energy were used and integrated.

Once Yang Energy flowed as smoothly as moving an arm, it almost completely fused with the whole body—with no distinction between the two—whether it was reaction speed or raw power, everything rose by a great margin.

And at the moment of eruption, the body’s limits became less restrictive—unlike before, when he either had to force things with excessive Yang Energy or with brute force alone.

Now he understood why this was the dividing line between the second and third stages—because the difference was indeed massive, a true marker of progress.

He also more or less understood why some thought the Tuoba Martial God was a bit arrogant.

According to experts, the stronger you are, the better you control your own power—that’s what advancement is about, not just increasing strength.

Every time Tuoba appeared, he would recklessly unleash Yang Energy. Honestly, it did seem arrogant—but everyone just felt he had the right to be.

After resting for a day and quietly experiencing the changes of the new stage, Wen Yan tried the second style of the Tiger Subduing move again.

If the second style was used as a combat technique, it wasn’t hard at all. But using it to train, holding the stance, Wen Yan could feel the pressure—in addition to training tendons and bones, there was considerable strain on his muscles.

It definitely trained him, but he couldn’t hold it long—at most twenty minutes before he couldn’t go on.

Combined with the effects of the Strengthening Bone Pill, though, it worked just as well as always.

The next day, Wen Yan continued forward. His plan was to spend a month investigating one direction—a thousand kilometers. Any farther, and the locator might not hold up.

...

Outside a gloomy city, a man in a cloak gazed into the distance at the city center’s flames, joy on his face.

"At last... I’ve found it."

After the man came within a certain distance of the city, he noticed someone atop the city wall—a person whose eyes burned with eerie blue fire, staring at him. Instantly, he knelt and saluted in the standard Sacred Fire Sect fashion.

In that moment, the overwhelming sense of crisis completely vanished.