NOVEL NEXT Volume 1 : Epilogue
The bodies littering the ground outside the portal were still warm, alive. The old man carefully stepped around them, carrying a large coffin on his shoulders.
The walls of the coffin were made of smooth black glass, displaying countless etched illustrations on the surface. The most conspicuous was one showing a dragon coiled around a human whose head had been blurred. If one looked closely, one could see two different faces overlapping on the blurry surface where his head was supposed to be.
The old man took one last look at the portal behind him that led to the Holy Land of Laws. A moment later, both man and coffin ceased to exist under the shroud of the darkness.
Deep inside the land of laws, everything was in a chaotic state. It appeared as if a great battle had taken place there very recently. The metal platforms at the center were cracked, nearly breaking apart. The fog that had covered the region had thinned and shrunk in volume.
The sun that had been obscured by the clouds covering the sky was finally visible, now that the fog had been lifted. The entire world fragment looked like it had been painted using dull gray ink.
From beneath the cracked slabs of the platforms, a figure crawled out in an awkward manner, his limbs flailing about oddly as if his movements were uncoordinated, like a child.
Clutching the edge of the platform, the young man in a dust-covered cyan robe stood up stubbornly despite his shaking hands and feet.
His mask had fallen off at some point. It revealed a youthful face. Leaning back against the platforms, he observed his own palms quietly.
The word [ Nightmare Knight ] had faded a lot, now nearly imperceptible if one didn't look at them closely. But he could still feel a faint resonance with the words.
Closing his eyes, Qian Yun searched for a certain feeling deep inside his consciousness.
He could feel it. The resonance...the network of minds connected to his own...he could even feel the existence of an unfathomable web of mental connections crisscrossing beyond his capacity to affect...for now. They were like lighthouses radiating a soulful emission of thoughts and emotions. Compared to those hyperactive light sources shining in the distant, illusory world, Qian Yun found the minds connected to him rather odd. These consciousnesses were not particularly active, neither did they look as large as those attractive balls of light in the horizon of his 'perception'.
The connected balls of light almost seemed injured and incomplete, having entered a state of hibernation to relive the damage and recover...And Qian Yun could guess why.
After all, he had encountered that mysterious senior as well.
The state of his own mind was no different from the rest of them, except that the soul that had possessed him intended to use his body for the more important reasons and left his mind more or less intact.
Concentrating hard, Qian Yun found several other consciousnesses that he felt close to, almost like familial bonds. As he tapped on the web that connected them together, he felt the others awaken from an inanimate state.
Slowly, Qian Yun roused more and more such minds that were within his reach. There were a dozen or so of them all around his consciousness. Awakened by his nudges, they began to show signs of activity.
[ Come to me. Wherever you are, come inside the Holy Land of Laws ]
He could feel the fascination bubbling inside himself as he got increasingly skilled in surfing the web, like a tiny spider testing its thread-bound prey.
"I have a feeling that my ability will become powerful enough one day to reach out toward those infinite number of consciousnesses if I continue to use this technique..." Qian Yun muttered thoughtfully.
The paths that led to the great dao were infinite in number. Perhaps from today forth, this would be his path.
Who knew what the future held? But one thing was certain. This land of laws...Qian Yun felt strangely familiar with each and every inch of this world fragment as if he had spent a lifetime here. He was determined to claim it in its entirety, and find out what the origin of the words on his palms.
[ End Of Volume One ]