Li Yang and the two others inspected the house-sized sign and the words engraved into them. Just looking at the words caused a feeling of despair and hopelessness to well up in them, it was as if the words were imbued with the emotions of the one that carved them. Li Yang tried to trace the words with his finger, but an invisible force repelled his hand before he could touch them. He pulled back his hand and inspected his finger, which was now covered in several thin cuts that ran all the way to the bone."Minor Universe Ruler Dong Ren, huh? Guess that means this is a minor universe, it would at least explain why both s.p.a.ce and Qi here felt so thin and weak. This Bloodwind Emperor, I imagine none of you have heard anything about him?"
Due to the height he had reached in his previous life, Li Yang knew that they lived in an utterly ma.s.sive multiverse consisting of 51 major universes and countless billions of minor ones. Each major universe was not only hundreds of times larger than a minor one, but the laws and energy within them were also far stronger and oppressive, they were the very pillars that supported the multiverse. The universe they came from was one of the major ones, but not even when he was at his peak did he hear about any single person ruling it.
Fang Ying shook her head while Zhao Feng shrugged his shoulders in response to Li Yang"s question, even with the vast amount of information they had at their disposal thanks to their positions, neither of them had heard about anyone known as the Bloodwind Emperor. But that was only to be expected, there were too many minor universes for every powerful person to be well-known everywhere. Li Yang shook his hand a little, splashing away a few drops of blood from the wound that had already healed, his gaze peering past the sign and further into the city.
"Well, whoever it is he"s definetly someone we wanna get involved with right now. We oughta see if we can find any information on which minor universe this is, maybe we"re lucky and it"s one we know. I also wanna find out whether or nor Little Red and Little Blue have been sent here, preferribly I"d find that out before we return to our own universe."
There was little they could do without knowing where they were, any plan they tried to come up with could easily collapse if they made a mistake because they didn"t understand where they were. Fang Ying and Zhao Feng had the exact same idea as Li Yang so they simply nodded their heads, the three people and one wolf heading deeper into the destroyed city while vigilantly inspecting their surroundings. As they made their way through the ruins, they couldn"t help but be somewhat taken aback by the architecture and material used to build the city, Fang Ying running her hand over the wall of a house next to her.
"This pattern, doesn"t it seem familiar to you? Since he was the one who sent us away, it would make a bit of sense for him to send us to a place like this."
The architecture of the city consisted almost solely of spirals twisting towards the sky, but the material used to make the buildings also resembled small spirals. Now that they were observing it from a closer distance, it resembled tentacles twisting around each other, looking almost identical to the Void Born they had fought not long ago. The person who sent them away was Lin Qiu, who seemed to hold a very high position within the Void Born hierachy, so it wouldn"t be out of the question for him to send them to a place controlled by his race.
But if this city really belonged to the Void Born, did that mean that the Minor Universe Ruler Dong Ren was also a Void Born? The thought made their expressions change a little, ending up in a universe filled with Void Born did not seem like an ideal situation for them, it would be like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Luckily this place was already dead so it didn"t seem like they had to worry about any Void Born here.
The group of four wandered through the city but were unable to find anything, the houses were completely devoid of even the slightest sign of life. Some of the houses contained piles of dust that Li Yang and the others guessed might have once been furniture long since corroded by the pa.s.sage of time, it seemed like this city had already died countless years ago. Yet the tallest buildings still stood, still reached for the sky above them as a sign of their creator"s will.
The four slowly went deeper into the ruins, a dry wind kicking up some dust and sand that littered the roads that were now a faded yellow due to the pa.s.sage of time. After walking for over three hours, the group discovered something they hadn"t expected considering the state of the city, signs of people. There were several groups of footprints visible in the dust, all of them heading down a somewhat narrow alley that went on for a few tens of meters before curving deeper into the city. There were some strange triangular markings on the wall right by the alley, the paint used had already dried up but not yet faded, it didn"t seem more than a few days old.
The group locked eyes and nodded their heads, carefully following the footprints while raising their vigilance. The footprints headed deeper into the city, but they moved in a rather roundabout path that made it seem like they were trying to avoid a certain area. The four of them were evidently moving faster than the people that left the footprints, the occasional marking on the walls getting fresher and fresher.
The group followed the footprints, occasionally having to search around for a bit before they managed to pick up the trail again, for half a day before the scenery around them changed. No longer were they surrounded by tall buildings and moving through narrow alleys, the city around them had been completely devastated, everything that was higher than five meters off the ground completely gone. The buildings and occasional statue simply stopped when they reached five meters, the smooth surface that they ended in implying that it was all decimated by a single slash from some sharp weapon.
Li Yang and the others hid at the edge of a building that was located at the very edge of this decimated area, their gazes focused on a building a few hundred meters ahead of them. The building was covered in several large windows that made it so that it was easy to inspect the surroundings when you were resting within the buildings.
And currently sitting around a campfire within the building was a group of about 20 people, ranging from their early twenties to middle-aged, clad in earthen brown robes that had hoods you could pull over your head to cover everything except your eyes. Some of the people were covered in smaller wounds while others had large stains of blood on their clothing, likely from some beast they fought a while ago. There were several tents set up around the group and large bags that were likely filled with supplies were stacked close to the campfire, it seemed like this group had either been here for a while or intended to stay here for a while.
The people looked to be human but Li Yang found himself unable to discern just what sort of cultivation system they used. But judging from the energy they radiated, the strongest person in the group was equal to someone who was between the late stage of the Immortal Rebirth realm and the early stage of the Primordial Rune realm. As for the rest of the people in the group, they were all between the early and late stages of the Immortal Rebirth realm, it was a rather sizeable group with good strength. While the four of them were observing the group of people, wondering what would be the best way to proceed, a somewhat lanky man with ruffled brown hair suddenly shouted out without warning.
"FIRE!"
All the people that had just been sitting around the campfire suddenly sprang up, metallic crossbows appearing in their grasps, bolts already loaded into the weapons. Like a well-oiled machine, they turned to face Li Yang and the others, some crouching to give those behind them better sight. All at once they fired their weapons, the bolts whizzing through the open windows and heading directly for Li Yang and the others. The group immediately started reloading after firing their weapons, clearly very proficient in the process.
Fang Ying was the one closest to the edge of the building so most of the bolts were heading directly for her, the air whistling slightly as the bolts cut through it. But despite the fact that most of the bolts were heading for Fang Ying, it was Zhao Feng that let out a small curse.
"Ah f.u.c.k, of course they went and did it."
Zhao Feng felt something brush past him before he even managed to finish half his sentence, a few arcs of lightning crackling through the air. Li Yang appeared in front of Fang Ying almost instantly, an icy mist so dense that it almost resembled fire stretching out behind him like a cape.
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Li Yang stomped the ground once and then almost vanished from sight, the only sign of his movement being drops of frozen Qi that fell to the ground in his wake. The bolts froze solid the moment he pa.s.sed by them, freezing so thoroughly that they fell apart into icy dust that stuck to the drops of frozen Qi. He arrived in front of the lanky middle-aged man almost instantly, his eyes flickering with fire and lightning. There was one thing Li Yang would never allow, and that was for anyone to attack Fang Ying, she was his reverse scale.
The man didn"t even have the time to react to Li Yang"s moves, Li Yang had lower cultivation but their strength was worlds apart. Li Yang"s left arm shot out and grabbed onto the opposite side of the man"s neck, a jerk of his arm bending the entire man"s body to the side as if he was trying to fold him sideways. Li Yang"s left knee shot up at the same time, the man"s waist colliding with Li Yang"s knee, his spine fragmenting from the fierce power contained within the knee.
Blood shot out from the man"s mouth as the organs in his abdomen ruptured, his injuries ensured that he would die even if he somehow managed to escape. But with Li Yang intent on killing, how could the man possibly have the chance to escape? The hand that was grabbing onto the man"s neck clenched, a terrible chill spreading through his flesh and completely freezing his neck.
His neck ended up shattering due to the force of Li Yang"s grasp, his body collapsing to the ground while his head remained in Li Yang"s grasp. Li Yang casually tossed the head aside and set his eyes on the remaining 19 people, the icy mist that flickered like a flame fluttering behind him like the reaper"s cape. But before he could launch his next attack, a hand landed on his shoulder.
"Yang"er, stop."
Li Yang gazed at the 19 people with narrowed eyes but eventually raised his hands and shrugged his shoulders, the words of Fang Ying causing him to dispel the icy mist around him. The reason that Fang Ying spoke up only now was simple, she knew that there was no saving the lanky middle-aged man. She and Li Yang were extremely close and loving, but that didn"t mean that they did everything that the other said, they were still their own individuals after all.
If someone attacked her, Li Yang would kill them even if Fang Ying told him not to. If an army attacked her, the general that gave the order had to die no matter what, the rest of the soldiers could be spared if she spoke up. Due to this, the two had even fought a few times in the past, Fang Ying insisting on protecting someone while Li Yang insisted on killing them.
Zhao Feng casually sauntered in after Fang Ying stopped Li Yang, shaking his head slightly. The moment he saw them unleash their bolts he knew that things would be unable to end peacefully, that was just how Li Yang was. A somewhat chubby person took a slightly trembling step forward after Li Yang was stopped, placing his fists together in what seemed to be a salute as he gave a fractional bow.
"We are the 71st Scouting Legion of the Silver Army working for the Earth-Rendering Deity. We mistook you for Deathcloud Warriors and mistakenly attacked, and we do apologize for that. But I hope you understand that we are forced to report this to our superiors, so I hope that you can give us your names."
The man spoke politely, but it wasn"t hard to see that he was trying to use the name of their organization to intimidate Li Yang and the others. Sadly, he never imagined that Li Yang and the others wouldn"t know who he was talking about, neither would he ever expect Li Yang to be the type of person that he was. The moment the chubby man spoke, Li Yang"s hand flashed forward and heavily slapped his face, knocking out almost half of his teeth.
"I don"t like being threatened, so I suggest you watch your words real carefully. This"ll be simple, we ask, you answer, nothing more. Every useless word you spot will result in another slap, I"d like to see your teeth handle another slap."