Sage of Humanity-Chapter 785 - 783: Not the Nine Provinces

"What?" Fong Rulie looked confused, but in the next moment, the Void Spirit Runes had already completely descended, enveloping everyone within.

Faint cries of alarm and agonized screams could be heard, as a boundless sensation of weightlessness pervaded their entire bodies!

If the experience of the teleportation array set up by Lu Ye himself felt like stepping into a bottomless abyss, constantly falling downwards without end,

then the sensation of teleportation at this moment was on a whole other level.

Not only was it like stepping into a deep abyss, but there were also invisible forces constantly dragging from below, intensifying that sense of panic with no foothold, causing one to involuntarily feel as though they were at times being twisted into a sphere and at other times being stretched out long.

Throughout the whole process, the designation of first or second in the Cloud River Realm had no meaning.

Their spirit force was almost completely imprisoned within their bodies, unable to be activated, leaving them at the mercy of that invisible force.

What they saw was a bizarre landscape; time and space blurred their boundaries at this moment.

It was also at this moment when the massive teleportation array, covering a thousand miles in radius, was activated, that a piece of information inexplicably exploded in Lu Ye's heart...

Bright light burst forth, looking from afar like a big sun had fallen amongst these mountains.

Such an anomaly naturally drew the attention of countless cultivators.

But it only lasted for the duration of ten breaths, after which the light burst resembling the big sun disappeared, and along with it vanished the rich and pure spiritual energy of nature that had enveloped a thousand miles.

By the time cultivators arrived at the scene to investigate, there were no traces left, and the events temporarily became the stuff of legends.

...

The dim sunlight shone upon the earth, making the whole world seem like a dusty mirror covered in murky colors.

On the withered old tree, a few scrawny crows with red glints in their eyes stared down below.

Suddenly, as if sensing something, the crows startled into flight, their cawing sounds quickly receding into the distance.

The void suddenly distorted, with violent ripples surging, and as the ripples spread, a vague human silhouette emerged from within.

In just a few breaths' time, the figure went from nonexistence to reality, eventually becoming completely fixed.

The ripples suddenly converged, and the figure in midair, beyond control, fell down, flailing about, and crash-landed heavily on the ground, motionless.

Ying Wuji was somewhat dazed.

Since embarking on the path of cultivation, he had never encountered such a bizarre event.

First, he followed his own sense to that Nameless Spirit Mountaintop, and in total nine people arrived there. Before they could figure out what was going on, a huge teleportation array using the Earth Vein as its force suddenly appeared, and immediately after, the Formation activated.

He did not know how long he had been teleported, but once it ended, he found himself here.

His spirit force was scattered and could hardly be activated.

Falling from the sky, there wasn't the expected pain, as he seemed to have landed on something slightly soft.

There was no relief, only urgency filled his heart.

He did not know where he was, nor if there were any dangers around. What he needed to do now was quickly recuperate his own spirit force, so that even if he encountered any danger, he would have some ability to protect himself.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, silently running his Black Rank Skill.

After a short time, the scattered spirit force within his body slowly converged, and his chaotic senses gradually recovered.

The first thing Ying Wuji noticed was a strong stench, likely the smell of corpses that hadn't been handled in many days.

There were dead people near him!

And they had been dead for a while!

Ying Wuji immediately made this judgment. He wasn't panicked; as a Senior Cultivator of the Cloud River Realm who had personally killed many, how could he fear the dead?

"Caw, caw..." the mournful cries of birds rang out, accompanied by the fluttering of wings. The crows that had flown away earlier returned, alighting on the withered tree trunks, looking down at Ying Wuji from their high perch.

Their blood-red eyes held a yearning as they fixed intently on him.

Ying Wuji opened his eyes and saw the few emaciated crows, which made him laugh sarcastically. Did these feathery beasts really think he was about to die, waiting here to feast upon him?

He was currently recovering rapidly; the teleporting process might have scattered his spirit force and confused his senses, but it certainly did not injure him.

Moreover, even if he could not activate his spirit force, he was not something these crows could covet.

Nonetheless, he also felt some doubts rising in his heart.

There should be corpses near him; why weren't these starved beasts going to feed?

Vaguely, he felt that something was not quite right.

After a little while, Ying Wuji had almost fully recovered. He quickly got up from the ground and flicked his fingers, sending a few blasts of energy into the air, knocking the crows from the trees.

Having vented his frustration, he then took the time to survey his surroundings.

What met his eyes made his expression freeze.

Because in midair hung a murky big sun, as if covered with a thick layer of dust, the light it radiated was not the kind that could dazzle the eyes, but more like the candlelight in the wind.

This is the big sun?

Ying Wuji was stunned.

The light of the setting sun, about to sink below the horizon, was surely brighter than this, wasn't it?

Yet, judging by the position of the big sun currently hanging in the sky, it should be the time when it was most intensely blazing, just after dawn. There was no reason for it to be such a dull light.

This big sun gave him the impression of a decrepit elder on the verge of demise, about to reach the end of his life.

A terrifying thought suddenly rose in his mind.

When the immense teleportation array on Nameless Peak abruptly took shape, although everyone was inevitably panicked, they were also guessing where the array would transport them to.

Ying Wuji naturally had his speculations. He believed that the teleportation array was likely to transport them all into a secret realm, which was a common method of entering secret realms. It was just that this time, the array was somewhat larger in scale and more magnificent in presence.

In his cultivation experience to date, Ying Wuji had entered numerous secret realms, and while each had its unique local customs diverse from the Nine Provinces, there was one constant.

The heavenly bodies remained the same!

Because those secret realms all existed within the grand environment of the Nine Provinces.

The place before his eyes seemed different from the secret realms he had experienced before!

Ying Wuji quickly tapped on his battlefield marking, and his complexion suddenly changed.

The battlefield marking... had no response!

This was something that had never happened before. Tracing its origins, the battlefield marking could be considered a boon from Heaven's Augury. Within the Nine Provinces, whether one was a cultivator from a sect or an independent cultivator, one's entire cultivation life was closely connected to this battlefield marking.

Cultivators could use the battlefield marking to check various personal information, communicate with friends and family, and even indirectly determine a person's life or death.

As long as one was in the Nine Provinces, there would never be a time when the battlefield marking failed to function.

And now, the battlefield marking didn't respond...

The big sun in the sky was so bizarre as well.

Then, thinking about the massive teleportation array that covered a thousand miles...

The terrifying thought in his mind gradually became clear.

Despite feeling it was unlikely, when all other possibilities had been eliminated, the one remaining, no matter how unlikely, had to be the truth. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

"This place..." Ying Wuji's mind was shaken, his thoughts in utter disarray, "is not the Nine Provinces?"

If this place was not the Nine Provinces, then where was it?

He forced himself to calm down, silently reassuring himself that perhaps his speculation was wrong.

To prevent himself from overthinking and to ascertain the environment around him, he quickly looked around.

Soon, he identified where he was.

A mass grave mound.

Scattered around were broken bodies, many of which were beyond recognition. The clothes on the bodies varied—there seemed to be wealthy merchants, beggars from the streets, and some appeared to be cultivators based on their attire.

At the tip of his nose was the intense stench of decay. The reason he didn't feel much pain when he fell from midair was not due to his strong physique or confused senses, but because he had landed on one of these corpses.

Looking up, he could see that the mass grave mound was piled with corpses—there were at least eight thousand if not ten thousand. Even someone like Ying Wuji felt a shiver down his spine.

What on earth had happened here to cause so many deaths?

And where were the others?

The nine people gathered by Heaven's Augury, if he appeared here, where were the others?

But then he thought, such a vast teleportation array, moreover transporting over a great distance, it was normal for there to be some deviation that scattered everyone.

It was certain that, even with a deviation, it would not be too far; he should be able to find traces of the others nearby.

He had to quickly regroup with them. Now was not the time to care about the Haotian Alliance or Ten Thousand Demons Ridge.

If things were as he speculated, then the situation was rather dire. Only by breaking down factional barriers and sincerely working together could they find a way out.

With this thought in mind, Ying Wuji spurred his spirit force and was about to leap into the air.

However, just then, a cold sensation suddenly came from around his ankle, followed by a tight grip!

Ying Wuji instinctively looked down and saw a rotting hand tightly clutching his ankle, and beside it was a dead head with eyes wide open, staring at him.

Their gazes met, and Ying Wuji felt his hair stand on end, as if he had fallen into an icy cellar.

"Roar!" The dead head suddenly opened its mouth and let out an angry roar, spewing a thick corpse Qi. Ying Wuji was caught off guard and was enveloped head to face.

He reacted instinctively, swinging his curved blade to decapitate the head, bursting it open.

He floated backward, his soul still trembling.

In the quiet mass grave mound, there suddenly rustled movements, and those bodies that had been lying there, dead for who knows how long, seemed to come back to life, all staring stiffly at him, each one exuding a rich scent of decay.

Even the fragmented bodies, relying only on their hands, began to slowly approach him.

"Ah!" Even someone as experienced and composed as Ying Wuji could not help but cry out in horror.

The revival of the dead, such a thing he had neither seen nor heard of, he swiftly soared into the sky, eager to flee this eerie place.