Chapter 192 – Calls From Beyond (II)

Chapter 192

Calls From Beyond (II)

I couldn’t even really celebrate the windows and notifications popping around me as I was being dragged out through the dark tunnel and out into the light.

… except there was no light.

With us emerging from the cave, I realized that the mix of rain and snow had turned into a straight-up snow.

Rather, it was a blizzard.

Winds quickly cut through and nearly made me yelp out in shock–they were so harsh and forceful that I saw a thick, dying log that once used to be a thriving tree bend, its roots momentarily jutting out of the ground.

Holy shit.

As far as I know, we literally had specialized machines back on Earth specifically made for root extraction? Or, at least, specialized tools?

Or maybe those were for teeth root extractions? Heh. It’s good to have a sense of humor when you’re being buried by the weather that seems borderline apocalyptic.

Within moments, we all retreated back into the cave’s maw; even if it was still extremely cold in here, too, at the very least it offered a shelter from the wind.

“Uh, was, was it really okay to leave that boy behind?” Lilia asked as we settled, with her starting a small fire that remained suspended between us all, actually kind of managing to warm up the air.

“Who? Ah, Long Tao?” I said. “Yeah, it’s fine. He’s preparing for a major breakthrough, so he needs to challenge himself…” I threw out a random lie, taking out a few more blankets from the spatial ring and tossing them over Light, as other kids refused them.

“… I still can’t really believe it. Any of it,” she chuckled in that ‘Hah, did that really just happen?’ sort of way. “The Blood Fiend wasn’t who we thought he was but rather his older brother. And this whole time, he was trying to prepare a vessel for his spirit or soul to inhabit? How is… any of that possible?”

Frankly? I’ve got no idea.

I’m not even sure what constitutes a ‘soul’ or a ‘spirit’ here, as they aren’t just concepts people made up to grapple with the fact we don’t really know what ‘thoughts’ or ‘consciousness’ even are but seem to be very much tangible things. Or… maybe they’re not. Maybe it wasn’t so much spirit that got trapped in that body, but whatever caused the ‘entrapment’ simply fused two brains together and created two personalities, and one happened to be more dominant than the other.

… nah.

I don’t think me trying to logic away the magic out of this situation will work.

“Everything feels so… fruitless,” Zhu added. “All our struggles. All the years wasted.”

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“You got to the truth,” I said. “That’s, at least partially, worth it.”

“Thanks to you. That umbrella… it must have been one of the rarest artifacts,” Lilia said, her expression turning strangely pained. “I… I don’t think three Inscriptions are nowhere near enough to pay for it…”

I mean, yeah. Though, to me, the umbrella was just an item that was given to me by the system, so I didn’t really have a frame of reference to match, it probably was something of a rare artifact.

“It’s fine,” I shrugged. “I can always find more artifacts; life, though, is just one.”

“Ha ha. I hope you don’t take offense,” she said. “But… you are a rather strange man, Mister Lu. I’ve met a few cultivators before, and though they never harmed me directly… I did not get the impression of humility and humbleness from them.”

“I can be a rowdy, cold, proud egomaniac if it’d make you feel better. Demand you kiss the ground I walk on for saving your non-cultivating asses.”

“Ha ha ha,” she laughed somewhat liberally at a bad joke, prompting me to look over at her once more; though I was seldom a good judge of attraction, there’s a chance–

“Bad Master, bad!!” Dai Xiu voiced from the side, suddenly pinching me. “Don’t fall for her witchy powers! Master, please wake up! Don’t be fooled and become a beast!!”

“…”