The oxygen in the cave was getting thinner and thinner. His consciousness was also slipping away from his body bit by bit. His eyelids got heavier and heavier. He knew that once he closed his eyes, there was a possibility that he might never open them again. In order to continue living, he had to stay awake.
The thick smoke had already filled the cave, and an ordinary person would have long fainted. The only reason Tang Yin could still persist relied completely on his strong willpower and survival instincts.
He didn"t notice that the blood that flowed out of the wound on his shoulder didn"t disappear after landing onto the ground. Instead, it seemed as if it was carried by some force, flowing toward the ground not too far away from him and later disappeared. The blood that flowed from the hole also flowed toward that direction and disappeared without a trace.
Just when Tang Yin couldn"t maintain his sitting posture and his body was swaying, he felt a sudden tremble in the ground he was sitting on.
He wasn"t too sure as his consciousness was getting more and more blurry. It could only be his hallucination.
“Peng!“
A sudden m.u.f.fled sound came from the quiet cave. Tang Yin jumped in shock. He struggled to lift up his eyelids and look toward the direction of the sound.
After looking for a while, he started to doubt if his eyes were blinded by the thick smoke for him to see such a weird sight. He couldn"t help but raise his hands to rub his eyes forcefully. When he took another look, his eyes widened gradually and his mouth opened up subconsciously.
At a place not too far away from him, an arm was reaching out from the ground. Instead of saying that it was an arm, it would be better said as a skeleton of an arm. It could be due to the prolonged period of time that the skeleton had become dark brown, and the gap between the bones was joint by blackened and dry meat.
In a black hole that couldn"t have been discovered by people, an arm protruded the ground all of a sudden. This was strange to an extreme. Tang Yin"s scalp went numb and the roots of his hair had all erected. If he hadn"t used his clothes to cover his mouth and nose, he would"ve already screamed at this point of time.
“Ka, k“
With the sound of stones rupturing, the ground around the arm began to crack. Then, the cracks became larger and larger, and the ground undulated as if it were breathing.
Tang Yin, who was closeby looked at it blankly. He had an urge to flee immediately, but his body felt like it no longer belonged to him all of a sudden. He couldn"t move, and could only sit still in shock.
“Hu! Hulala!“
Suddenly, the gravel on the ground burst open. A skeleton that had only dry meat and no skin sat up from the ground. Although the cave was filled with thick smoke, Tang Yin could still seem to smell a rotten smell.
Ghost… This, this is a ghost, right?!
Tang Yin never believed that there were ghosts in this world. He had killed so many people and the number of souls that died under his sword was unknown, yet he was never visited by any ghost. But now, he couldn"t explain what was going on. In short, his world had changed completely on this day.
Huala, huala!
The dry skeleton stood up from the ground slowly and Tang Yin"s heartbeat kept increasing. He could hear the cracking sounds from the movements of the skeleton as he saw the skeleton"s head turn toward him little by little.
He couldn"t see the skeleton"s eyes but just two black holes that flashed a ghostly red light from within. When the two rays of red light fell onto Tang Yin"s face, he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. An invisible pressure came attacking as if it wanted to crush his body into pieces.
The skeleton that was lifeless initially now had life and was walking toward Tang Yin one step at a time.
Tang Yin couldn"t move and stared at the skeleton that was walking toward him. It bent down and its skull came close to him. The horrific face that had no flesh and blood almost seemed to stick to his face.
Without a warning, a blinding bright light shot out from the skeleton"s eyes straight into the middle of Tang Yin"s forehead. He felt his head let off a buzz, followed by complete darkness. He knew nothing else after that.
Tang Yin felt that he just had an extremely long dream. In his dreams, he became a Dark Spiritual pract.i.tioner named Yan Lie.
He deeply loved the woman, the woman whose name was Crystal.
He was willing to do everything for her, to give up everything for her. Even his own life.
For her, he and five top-level Light Spiritual pract.i.tioners started a fight in the Xianyin Valley.
That battle could be regarded as the peak battle between the light and the dark spiritual art warriors.
In the end, none of the two sides won the victory, but finally ended up with both sides losing with serious injuries.
He didn"t ask for her grat.i.tude, nor did he ask for anything in return. However, the irony was that Crystal betrayed him. She betrayed the promise they had pledged for eternity. After everything he had done for her, she summoned Xuan Zhenzi to kill him mercilessly when he had serious injuries.
He would never forget Xuan Zhenzi"s laughing madly in front of him, and his intimate gesture with Crystal.
In the dream, Tang Yin could feel Yan Lie"s pain before his death clearly. It wasn"t a physical pain, but pain that came from the heart and was imprinted onto his soul. The bitterness of betrayal was like sulfuric acid that burned and corroded his body layer by layer…
“Crystal…”
Tang Yin opened his eyes and muttered the name that was familiar yet unfamiliar to him.
Yan Lie was dead, but before he died, he had used the of dark spiritual arts. could be regarded as the only dedication-type skill in dark spiritual arts. He would be reborn with blood and combine with the life closest to him so that the other person could inherit his memory, as well as his ability.
Five hundred years later, this fierce battle that took place in the valley of Xianyin Mountain had caused more than three thousand Feng state soldiers to die at the bottom of this valley. The blood of these soldiers had awaken Yan Lie, and Tang Yin, who was the only survivor and the closest person to him became his transfer body. It was just a pity that his aura had been exhausted and Tang Yin didn"t manage to inherit much Reiki [1].
When Tang Yin awaken, Yan Lie"s skeleton had long disappeared. He had turned into Reiki and was absorbed by Tang Yin when he was unconscious.
Although the Reiki received wasn"t much, Yan Lie"s memory had benefited Tang Yin greatly. At the very least, he had already understood the world that he was in.
The name of the country he was in was Haotian, founded by Yin Zhun with Shangjing as its capital. The Haotian empire consisted of nine va.s.sal states, namely, Zhen, Yu, Mo, Feng, Ning, An, Chuan, Huan, and Shenchi. Two hundred years after Yin Zhun founded this empire, the central imperial power weakened gradually and the power of the local princes increased greatly. Gradually, the local forces had reached the point of acting independently and defiantly from the central royal family. However, during Yan Lie"s time, there were often contradictions and frictions between the various va.s.sal states. Yet they would still consider the forces of the royal family in Shangjing and dared not create conflict easily. Yet the war that Tang Yin had just experienced couldn"t be explained clearly by Yan Lie"s memory. He only knew that the soldiers in black armor was from the Feng state, which was also Yan Lie"s hometown.
However, this area of Xianyin Mountain was not of Feng state"s territory. It was unclear why the Feng state soldiers would appear here.
With Yan Lie"s memory, it was tantamount to having two unrelated men, Tang Yin and Yan Lie, merged into one. However, this didn"t make Tang Yin feel relaxed, instead it made him feel even more heavy hearted.
First, he understood why he had experienced these various inexplicable things. It was because for some reason, he came to this strange and magical world from the world where he lived out of the blue. What"s worse was that he couldn"t find a way to go back. Second, he inherited Yan Lie"s grief and sorrow before his death. He hated Crystal"s betrayal, yet at the same time involuntarily loved this woman deeply even though she had given him a shame he could never wash away.
I must find Crystal!
Tang Yin sat up from on the ground in a hurry. His mind was filled with Crystal"s figure. As he thought, he shook his head forcefully, trying to rid Crystal"s figure from his mind. Crystal was Yan Lie"s problem and not his, but no matter how hard he tried, Crystal"s eyes and smile would keep appearing in his mind unconsciously.
In the end, he could only give up and understood one thing. Yan Lie"s soul had merged completely with his own soul. The people and things Yang Lie cared about, had become the people and things he cared about. In other words, he was Tang Yin, as well as Yan Lie.
It seems that I have to go look for Crystal first to solve this problem… Tang Yin recited silently in his heart.
As for how he would solve the problem after finding Crystal, Tang Yin was unclear. Yan Lie"s feelings toward Crystal was a mixture of love and hatred. He hated her to his core, yet loved her to the point where he couldn"t bare to hurt her. Tang Yin had never experienced such a contrast in feeling for another person. This feeling was extremely unfamiliar to him.
With a long sigh, he recovered from his deep thought. It was only then did he realise that the fire in the valley had extinguished and the thick smoke in the valley had long disappeared. He stood up slowly and felt that his body was extremely light. Not only did he not feel injured, he even felt stronger than before. Even the injuries on his body had all healed completely.
This should be the result of absorbing Reiki. Tang Yin stood still, held his breath, and felt the Reiki circulating in his body quietly. Although it was not as strong as the original aura of Yan Lie, it had at least laid the foundation. It was necessary to know that the most difficult thing for the dark spiritual arts was the entry. This was also the reason why there were far less people who practiced the dark spiritual arts compared to the light spiritual arts.
There was not much Reiki in Tang Yin"s body, and it was impossible for him to remove the boulder from the hole. However, it wasn"t a problem for him to enlarge the entrance of the dog hole. He climbed out of the cave and looked around. In the vast valley, wherever you looked, burnt and twisted bodies were everywhere. The air was also filled with a thick and disgusting burnt smell.
These corpses were all Feng state soldiers who died in a foreign land. He clenched his fists slowly and he bit his lips tightly. The grief in his heart didn"t come from Tang Yin, but it was from Yan Lie instead.
Fallen leaves were meant to return to the roots, but he was unfortunately incapable of transporting so many bodies back to the Feng state. He also didn"t have the energy to bury them here. He could only watch them rot in the wilderness.
Ai! He gave a long sigh. He calmed his heart and strode out of the valley. He felt that he would go crazy if he were to stay here for just another second.
[1] Reiki: j.a.panese, a universal life energy