The Decaying World
Chapter 263 - 250: Anomaly (2)
Soon, the Black Army Moth Car convoy began to accelerate.
All eleven giant moths began to beat their wings with increasing speed.
After Ouyang Yining took out a colorful, egg-shaped relic and rubbed it ten times,
the wings of every moth in the entire convoy ignited, bursting into bright red flames.
In response, the Moth Cars flew faster and faster.
In just one minute, they accelerated to such an absurd speed that even Lin Hui couldn’t make out his surroundings.
The powerful high-altitude currents were completely blocked by the strange flames, and for a moment, the world around them seemed to fall into absolute silence.
Lin Hui stood at the head of the Moth Car, watching the scenery on both sides blur into streaks of white, blue, and gold.
Only a small area directly ahead still showed a clear view of the sea of fog and the sky.
POP!
Suddenly, a fist-sized black hole appeared right in front of the lead moth’s head.
The hole gradually solidified, darkened, and stabilized.
Then, with a WHOOSH,
the entire Moth Car shrank and dove headfirst into the hole, carrying everyone with it.
Everything went black for an instant. The darkness lasted only a second before vanishing.
By the time Lin Hui could react, the sky around them had grown much darker.
The sun was still there, as were the sky and the sea of fog, but the overall brightness was much dimmer than before.
"If we fly a bit further from here, we’ll reach the Unstable Sea Region. We have about an hour left to travel," Ouyang Yining’s voice explained from the side.
"Mm, you handle the arrangements. I just need to know when I’m needed," Lin Hui nodded. He didn’t know anything about leading troops; it was best to leave professional matters to the professionals. ’Amateurs giving reckless commands is a cardinal sin.’
"Thank you for your understanding, my lord." Ouyang Yining sighed in relief. This Deputy City Lord Lin Hui was even easier to get along with than she had expected. It seemed her hard-won effort to secure this opportunity had not been in vain.
However, the "easygoing" Lin Hui she was thinking of was, at this moment, harboring a hidden worry.
’He was worried. This sea region is shrouded by the black mist’s disturbance, so the danger must be immense. The Jade Sea is home to many dangerous monsters. If I eliminate this black mist, will that count as saving a large number of monsters within the Jade Sea? And if so, will I obtain a massive amount of the Pulse of Life, completing the accumulation for the first level of comprehension all at once? It’s hard to say. But I feel the possibility is extremely high.’
He was worried that the source of the Pulse of Life might also affect the efficiency of his final comprehension.
Moreover, recently—ever since his great battle with Tuyue, it seemed—he had a nagging feeling that something was wrong with his body.
The power of the Wind Calamity seemed to be further and more deeply transforming his body.
It felt... as if he wasn’t the one actively guiding and absorbing the Wind Calamity’s power. Instead, it was the Wind Calamity, impatiently forcing more and more power into his body.
And because his body wasn’t strong enough, the Wind Calamity had thoughtfully included a complimentary body-strengthening package.
This inexplicable, bizarre acceleration offered none of the feedback that came from diligent cultivation. It felt like lying on the ground and being dragged forward by the earth itself.
A sense of panic began to rise in Lin Hui’s heart.
He was getting stronger at a rapid pace even when lying still and not cultivating, yet the easier it was, the more panicked he felt.
’There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world. If a gain truly required no price, or a very small one, then it would be something everyone possessed, something commonplace and unremarkable. But if you’re the only one with this gain, and the difficulty of obtaining it is zero, then you need to ask yourself what makes you so special. Or rather, you need to ask yourself why something so easy is only available to you. Is everyone else an idiot?’
The only thing he felt fortunate about was that cultivating the Star Breath Sword Manual seemed to suppress the strange changes brought on by the Wind Calamity.
The Star Breath Sword Manual seemed to channel a different kind of power—vast, immense, and ancient. This boundless power, which seemed to originate from the world itself, could, to some extent, resist the corrosive infusion of the Wind Calamity.
This was one of the core motivations behind his frantic cultivation of the Star Breath Sword Manual.
After all, compared to when he fought Tuyue, he felt his physical strength had increased by about thirty percent... Now, any power he used casually would carry the natural Wind Disaster Power. He had to consciously control it, to detach the Wind Disaster Power from its fused state, just to appear normal.
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「Over the Jade Sea.」
Although it was daytime, the sea was tumultuous, its once-emerald waters dyed black.
A thick black mist shrouded the sea region for thousands of miles, turning the area into a gigantic black sphere of fog.
The wind howled like the wails of ghosts and gods.
Countless skeletal remains floated on the sea’s surface at the edge of the black mist, and the unbearable stench of rot and acid filled the air.
At this moment, black merchant ships passing by were swaying precariously in the massive waves, struggling to move forward.
These ships were all enclosed. Not a single person was on deck; everyone was hiding within the hulls.
Inside one of the ships, Weiwei, Mingde, Mingxiu, and Mingchen—all four dressed in the simple black tunics of slave laborers—gazed out the window at the churning, blackish-green waves, silent for a long moment.
They were surrounded by other Human Race slave laborers just like them.
The completely stagnant air was filled with a foul stench—a mix of vomit, excrement, and sweat.
Some people had even died in the corners. No one had dealt with the bodies, and they were already teeming with maggots.
The slave laborers here wouldn’t live long enough to rot; they would die within a decade.
Because the four of them were from the same sect, they helped each other out, managing to maintain a basic quality of life.
"This weather again... We’ve been sailing for three days and still haven’t left this black mist region... I don’t remember it being this large last time, do you?" Mingde sighed.
"It wasn’t... Something bad might really happen this time..." Mingxiu sighed, tugging at his long-untrimmed beard.
The last of them, Mingchen, was huddled to the side, hugging his knees without a word.
The three men had been tricked one after another and sold into slavery by so-called "friends" from the Python Race.
The last to arrive was Mingde’s daughter, Weiwei. The moment she realized she had been deceived, she tried to run, but she was beaten, dragged back, and had her leg broken. She had only recently recovered from her injuries.
She had thought she had found the true love of her life, never imagining that he was actually a Python Race slaver who specialized in deceiving naive young women.
It was only by a stroke of luck that the aesthetic standards of the Python Race and the Human Race were so drastically different; they had no interest in them. Otherwise, someone like Weiwei would have been devoured on the spot and used as a breeding vessel.
From then on, the four of them had been shuttling back and forth across the vast Jade Sea between Tianchong City and Black Cloud City. As the ship owner’s private property, they managed cargo, cleaned the cabins, and were also responsible for most of the other servants’ work.
They had thought about escaping, but on this ship, every crew member was at least at the level of an Upper-Rank Summoning.
A ship capable of traversing the Jade Sea wouldn’t be able to transport cargo safely without sufficient strength.
The ship they were on was a pirate ship disguised as a merchant vessel. The ship’s owner was unfathomably powerful; they’d heard he might even be a Palace Master-level expert.
But even in such a desperate situation, the four had not given up hope. They were still waiting for a chance to escape.
But before their plan could come to fruition, they had run into this perilous, black-mist-shrouded sea....