Beyond the Timescape [Wuxiaworld]

Hold on. Something doesn’t make sense.

As Xu Qing’s dreadnaught flew into the sky over Fardark County, the smell of blood caused his eyes to narrow.

Standing next to him was the Captain, looking disheveled and messy. Eyes flickering, he muttered, “The smell of blood is strong. At the very least, a million living beings must have died to create such an odor.”

“A million?” Xu Qing felt a sense of vigilance rise up within him as he scanned the surroundings.

Two years ago, when they were traveling in Firemoon Darkheaven territory, they hadn’t ever passed through this area. In fact, it was only a few days ago that they had chosen to travel this way, thinking it was the most prudent option. And that was done after they had compared the various bits of information they had about the place. Based on their understanding, the border regions of this county were occupied by random, scattered species. Because those species lived in the small border region between two more powerful species, they were generally cautious, and also showed respect to both humans and Firemoon Darkheavens.

But now this place was full of the smell of blood, and it caused Xu Qing’s and the Captains’ hearts to sink.

“Is it blood from animals? Or from the local species?” Xu Qing exchanged a suspicious glance with the Captain.

Regardless of where the smell of blood came from, it indicated that something dramatic had taken place in Fardark County. And that meant this place wasn’t safe anymore.

“Don’t tell me some god or some old codger is planning to ambush us here?” the Captain murmured.

“If so,” Xu Qing replied grimly, “then we wouldn’t be smelling any blood. That would just beat the grass and startle the snake. Also, gods usually don’t operate like that.”

If there really was an ambush coming, it would mean there were people in hiding, or perhaps restrictive spells about to be unleashed. Except, other than the smell of blood, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

In response to Xu Qing’s assessment, the Captain nodded. “It’s also not how those old codgers operate. They don’t act so crudely.”

After some further discussion, the Captain was of the opinion that they could just keep going. Xu Qing, in contrast, wanted to skirt the area. Turning around now would result in some wasted time. What was more, every bit of time that passed increased the general danger they were in.

They were currently very close to human territory. At their current rate of travel, they would be there in seven days at the most. But upon discovering that something was amiss in this place, there was no way that someone like Xu Qing would just barrel on ahead. After reaching an agreement about what to do, they backed out of Fardark County and picked another route. It would take two to three times longer, but it would be a lot safer.

***

Some distance away from the spot where Xu Qing and the Captain had turned around, there was a small city of nonhumans. The city had been sealed tight, and was currently a scene of bitter horror. Corpses littered the ground, and blood pooled together into rivers and lakes. It was shocking to see how many people were dead.

Hovering in the air over the city were a few powerful experts from that species, and all of them had expressions of horror, anxiety, and despair on their faces.

They were currently locked in combat against clouds of bugs. Specifically, they were black centipedes as long as an arm, with ghost face markings on their backs. They were extremely ferocious, and let loose piercing howls constantly. There were no less than tens upon tens of thousands of them.

The ghost-face centipedes had surrounded the Void Returning patriarchs of the species, and it was obvious they wouldn’t be able to hold out for very long. In fact, one of the patriarchs withered up, and the venomous bugs pounced on him. As they burrowed into him, he died screaming.

Higher above them in the air were two figures. One was male and one was female. They were the very same Feng Lintao and Lan Yao who had descended from beyond the heavens earlier.

“Fellow Daoist Feng,” Lan Yao said coolly, “those ghost-spirit darkipedes are profound to say the least. Given their appearance, I’d say it won’t be long before they can evolve into heavenpedes.”

Hearing that, Feng Lintao chuckled. “Don’t be so quick to praise me, Fellow Daoist Lan. It’ll take a few hundred years before the darkipedes can evolve. In fact, even if— huh?”

Before Feng Lintao could finish speaking, his expression flickered and he looked off into the distance.

Lan Yao noticed that, and her eyes glittered. “What is it, Fellow Daoist Feng?”

“Nothing noteworthy,” he replied. “You must have noticed the same thing, Fellow Daoist Lan. Out of an abundance of caution, I set up some void eyes from the holy lands. They’re considered secret treasures, and though they’re not that amazing, they are very good at remaining invisible. Given they come from void beasts, they’re foreign to Revered Ancient and don’t conform to the local natural laws. As a result, outsiders can’t detect them. Just now, a void eye happened to spot two local cultivators.” Feng Lintao’s eyes narrowed. “However, the two of them seem to be very cautious. Instead of proceeding on their way, they backed up and chose a different route. I’m not in the mood to intercept them at the moment, and considering we have more important matters, I guess they just got lucky.”

Lan Yao smiled faintly. “You always act so cautiously, Fellow Daoist Feng. Apparently, the words you spoke earlier to drive away Yue Dong were not exactly accurate. You do take this place seriously.”

When Feng Lintao declined to respond to Lan Yao, her eyes glittered, but she didn’t press for further information.

***

Xu Qing and the Captain had already left Fardark County. At a certain point, Xu Qing performed an incantation gesture to transform the dreadnaught so that it no longer looked like an old woman. Instead, it became invisible, and at the same time, sped up by several times over.[1]

Leaving no sign of their passing, they sped along.

Although they no longer smelled blood, both were still on high alert. After a few days passed in which nothing happened, the two of them reached a point about three days from the border of human territory. That was when they saw something like a red mist on the horizon, and once again smelled blood. It obviously had formed recently, and was still spreading.

Xu Qing’s expression turned grim, and the Captain’s eyes glittered menacingly. The two of them rotated their cultivation bases as they looked at the blood mist.

Blue light spread from the Captain’s eyes, while Xu Qing’s eyes turned pitch black. Both used their respective vision methods to pierce through the mist. What they saw was a scene from hell.

“That—” the Captain said, cutting himself off in surprise. Xu Qing was frowning. Both could see the source of the mist.

It was a small city belonging to a minor species. The city had been overrun by the blood mist. Not a sound could be heard inside, and there were no signs of life. Shockingly, massive amounts of corpses had been piled together to create ninety-nine towers. Every single tower seemed to be made from nearly 10,000 corpses.

The minor species had been slaughtered to make those towers. At the same time, the third eye that every member of the species had in their forehead had been dug out. The smell of blood was coming from the corpses of this three-eyed species. And when it got strong enough, it turned into a blood mist.

“A blood sacrifice!” the Captain murmured. “Their souls have been extracted already. This isn’t the type of blood sacrifice offered to a god. No, this looks like something used to create some sort of unique treasure.”

Looking at the city, Xu Qing said, “Presumably the smell of blood from earlier was caused by something similar.”

The Captain nodded. Looking closely at the blood mist, he suddenly said, “Except this blood mist hasn’t been taken away. Whoever made it isn’t finished yet.... This has nothing to do with us. We should just keep going and worry about it after we get back to human territory. There’s no need for us to meddle in affairs here.”

Xu Qing didn’t feel some sort of overwhelming compassion for nonhumans, so he nodded in agreement. The two of them then put away the dreadnaught, tapped into their cultivation bases, and became two shadowy figures that shot forward.

***

A short distance away, the two cultivators surnamed Feng and Lan, who were responsible for the blood sacrifice, were piercing through the air.

“Most of the blood sacrifices are finished,” Feng Lintao said. “All the requirements are met. Anyone who enters those areas won’t be able to cause any trouble now.” In his hand was a blood-red pendant that he looked at, his eyes flickering with excitement.

“20,000,000 souls,” Lan Yao said coolly, “including those of mortals and cultivators, used to summon a sea of blood and corpses. In the holy lands, methods like that are major taboos. If you got caught, you’d have your soul extracted and your mind destroyed. Fellow Daoist Feng, you’re really being reckless in your attempt to acquire that thing.”

“Hmph. There’s no need for mockery, Fellow Daoist Lan. I’m not just doing this for myself. When I get that thing, you’ll benefit a lot as well. I wouldn’t dare to do something like this in the holy lands. But things are different here. And don’t forget the agreement we made, Fellow Daoist Lan. If you suddenly feel regret and fail to live up to your word, well....” Feng Lintao’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her.

She smiled faintly. “You’re overthinking things, Fellow Daoist Feng. If everything plays out as you said it would, then I won’t have any need to back out of our agreement.”

Feng Lintao nodded and was about to say something further when his expression darkened, and he turned to look off into the difference. “They’re back. When it happened a few days ago, I assumed they were just passing by. Contrary to expectation, they picked another route leading right to us.

“Despite their probing, they’re not choosing to leave. Maybe they are just passersby, or maybe… they have ulterior motives! Furthermore, now that they’ve detected the blood sacrifice, we can’t risk them leaving and spreading word.”

Feng Lintao frowned. He was suspicious and even paranoid by nature, and this plan of his was extremely important to him. To see people suddenly showing up and acting like this was just too unusual. Ultimately, killing intent rose up within him.

“Better to play it safe than sorry. These two Void Returning cultivators need to be exterminated!”

Having reached the conclusion that this was definitely the best idea, Feng Lintao blurred into motion, rocketing off into the distance at incredible speed. Eyes glittered, Lan Yao followed. In the briefest of moments, the two of them vanished.

***

The next day, Xu Qing and the Captain were only two days away from the border of human territory. That was when the sky suddenly turned dark and a host of lightning bolts descended, accompanied by a shocking tempest that roared in all directions.

A cold voice rang out.

“Halt, you two!”

A hand composed of wind and lightning stretched out of the tempest toward Xu Qing and the Captain. It was so big it filled half the sky, and seemed capable of crushing anything in its path. The infinite lightning dancing within it was shocking to the extreme.

Stunned, Xu Qing and the Captain stopped in place then fell back. Unfortunately, they reacted too slowly. The huge hand dropped down, grabbed Xu Qing and the Captain, and then squeezed down violently. A rumbling boom rang out as Xu Qing and the Captain exploded.

“Hmm?”

Almost as soon as they exploded, an expression of surprise could be heard from the tempest. Then two people emerged. They were none other than Feng Lintao and Lan Yao.

Looking at the flesh and blood in the huge hand, Feng Lintao’s expression turned grim. “Blood puppets. Not true bodies. But do they really think methods like this will enable them to escape me?”

Feng Lintao snorted coldly, then performed a single-handed incantation gesture. He blurred, then reappeared and began to give chase.

About half a day away, Xu Qing and the Captain were speeding along.

The Captain’s eyes glittered coldly. “Those two blood clones I left behind to cover our tracks were destroyed. Someone has a whole lot of killing intent directed at us. We’re still two days away from the border. I’m afraid we aren’t going to make it in time.”

Xu Qing didn’t respond. Looking around, he spotted a low-lying mountain off in the distance. Flying over, he landed on it and then waved his hand to send soul threads flying out in all directions. In the blink of an eye, warding spells popped up, creating a cloak of concealment.

The Grand Darkheaven Armor appeared to cover him, and he flicked his wrist to summon a blood-red dagger. The dagger was covered with mysterious designs that formed a vicious face, the mouth of which opened and bit into Xu Qing’s palm. Xu Qing’s expression was the same as ever as he allowed the vicious face to drink a mouthful of his blood. That caused the face’s expression to turn fanatical before it sank down into the dagger. Then the dagger disappeared into his palm. The only thing that remained was a sound like that of breathing, coming from his hand. Hoarse and filled with longing, it was extremely gruish. This was the Spirit-Devouring Dagger that Xu Qing had acquired after becoming the Grand Darkheaven.

With those things accomplished, he looked up, his eyes pulsing with killing intent. “I guess this means we’re going to have a little fight.”

Grinning viciously, the Captain dropped down next to Xu Qing, sat cross-legged, and began to glow with blue light. After it spread out about 50 kilometers, it flickered and vanished. Then, gruish faces appeared in his eyes. This time, though, they didn’t stay inside, but appeared outside of his eyes, turning into over a hundred illusory faces that circled around him, and concealed him in invisibility.

Next, he struck himself in the chest, whereupon a mind-shaking roar echoed out from behind him as an enormous tumor rose up, then burst open, allowing a blue, skeletal hand to emerge. That hand shook even Xu Qing and filled him with a sense of danger. The moment the hand flew up into the air, it disappeared into invisibility.

And yet, the Captain still wasn’t done. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed his spine at the neck and twisted it, ripping out his own backbone. His body immediately went limp, but then quickly straightened up. He grinned maliciously.

“There’s something I didn’t mention before, little Junior Brother. I smell the aroma of a treasure! A very delicious treasure!” The Captain licked his lips as a crazy look gleamed in his eyes.

Xu Qing, meanwhile, felt moved. After a bit of thought, he performed an incantation gesture, causing his shadow to blur and spread out. At the same time, seven lamps appeared behind Xu Qing, which merged into him. Then he closed his eyes and sat there silently.

About two hours later, Xu Qing opened his eyes. The crazy look in the Captain’s eyes looked even stronger. The two of them peered up into the dome of heaven. Up above, a blood cloud appeared, which spread out amidst thunderous rumbling sounds. Then a man and a woman appeared.

1. This appears to be an author mistake. Xu Qing's dreadnaught never looked like "an old woman," in other words, Joine. That was actually his spirit cruiser (reference chapter 555.1). That said, I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that Xu Qing could make it look however he wanted. Except it was never mentioned that he had changed it from being a sun to an old woman. Many chapters from now, the "old woman" version of the dreadnaught gets mentioned again, so whether it's a mistake or not, that is how the author wants it going forward apparently. ☜

Deathblade's Thoughts

Author note translated from Chinese

This chapter is 4,000 Chinese characters. I’m working hard to recover from illness.