The Decaying World

The two children fell silent at the same time...

This final choice meant accepting Lin Hui’s protection and living a safe and peaceful life—a short life, less than a hundred years long.

"Think about it carefully. Combat and killing are cruel. The victor lives, the vanquished dies—there are no exceptions. Perhaps living out one’s life as an ordinary, peaceful person is also a good thing."

Lin Hui said seriously.

Leaving the courtyard, he saw a figure eavesdropping outside.

It was Weiwei.

She rarely came here, perhaps to avoid seeing too many familiar faces. This was especially true after Tuyue and the Qingfeng Daoist Disciples arrived; she visited even less then.

Even Lin Hui hadn’t seen her in many years.

Weiwei had clearly matured a lot.

After more than ten years, the fine lines of time had begun to trace themselves upon her once-youthful and beautiful face.

She now stood outside the gate in the black attire of a Martial Artist, a dazed look on her face.

When she noticed Lin Hui step out, her body stiffened. After a moment of silence, she forced a smile.

"Long time no see."

"Changsheng is grown up. He’s not the child you always looked after anymore... Don’t worry," Lin Hui said softly.

Weiwei nodded.

Nodding in return, Lin Hui quickly left the courtyard and headed straight for the Inner City Moon Tower.

The palpable acceleration of the corruption prompted him to go to the Black Cloud intelligence center to get a full, detailed report on the recent changes in the surrounding areas.

For the past few years, he had been meticulously sorting through the atmospheric qi above Jade Valley. At first, he tried to remove the intertwining tendrils of corrupting aura, but he found it was impossible.

The corrupting aura was fundamentally linked with living beings; one might even say the two were one and the same, long since having become inseparable.

Thus, he could only reduce the friction between the auras of life and death and sort out the chaotic flow of energy.

But after spending over a month accomplishing this, the Star Breath Sword Manual showed no reaction, let alone any feedback from the Celestial Sacred Form’s aura.

Lin Hui carefully searched his memories and understood what was missing. He stopped rushing and simply focused on his cultivation, waiting.

But now, it seemed the external situation would no longer allow him to cultivate and advance at his own pace...

First, he went to the Moon Tower’s library to select some needed formation arrays. Only then did he proceed to the surveillance Moon Tower, which handled intelligence, and make his request to the Blood Ancestor stationed there.

"Recent changes in the surrounding areas? My lord, I wonder what level of changes you wish to know about?" The Blood Ancestor was a red-haired, middle-aged woman wearing glasses. She had a stern demeanor, and the back of her body was almost half-fused with the wall of the Moon Tower. She was the intelligence chief for all of Black Cloud, and her name was Yalan.

"Changes concerning the Fogman Level," Lin Hui specified.

"Of course. Please wait a moment."

The crystal on Yalan’s brow flashed rapidly with colorful light. A few breaths later, a green ray shot out from between her eyebrows and entered Lin Hui’s.

Streams of information from the last eight years rushed into Lin Hui’s mind.

He closed his eyes to examine it all carefully.

He soon locked onto a few unusual pieces of information.

’Despite multiple attempts, the sea storms in the surrounding waters could not be dispersed. Black Cloud’s shipping lanes have been rerouted out of necessity.’

’A giant, cold crystal sphere has appeared in the sea north of Black Cloud. The sphere is blue and emits a blue light that shines on the surrounding area. Any living creature illuminated by it freezes into an ice sculpture within a minute, losing its Heart and Spirit. Even if thawed, they only become corpses, unable to be revived. So far, only Fog People have been found to withstand the crystal sphere’s light for extended periods.’

Next were the cases of Fogman-Level corruption that had appeared within the city over the last three years. There had been a total of five!

All were caused by the corruption of powerful Blood Ancestors. Some were from Black Cloud City itself—from Extreme Desire Heaven and the Taixu Origin Plate—while others were Blood Ancestors who had fled from other places and lost the support of their city’s populace.

The latter accounted for three of the cases.

This frequency made Lin Hui’s heart sink.

Although a Blood Ancestor couldn’t last a single move against him now, they were absolute apex predators when faced with ordinary people.

In the past, Blood Ancestors could easily live for hundreds or even thousands of years, but in such a short time recently... five had actually fallen.

"What about the number of corruption cases among Martial Artists and Summoners below the Fogman Level in the city over the last three years?" Lin Hui asked again.

"Overall, there’s been a sharp upward trend. Compared to three years ago, we now see one to two hundred cases of corruption-related turmoil annually. The age of onset is also trending downward. For ordinary people, it’s concentrated between seventy and eighty years old. For Martial Artists and Summoners, the age varies, as their corruption is mainly accelerated by injuries sustained outside the city," Yalan replied swiftly.

"The injuries to Martial Artists and Summoners are primarily caused by raiding Sea Beasts coming ashore from the ocean. Their strength is constantly increasing, and the virulence of their contamination is also growing stronger. In the last three years, fourteen new species of monsters from the deep-sea Fog Areas have appeared. Most of them are at or above the Priest level in strength."

"Haven’t the three City Lords thought of a way to eradicate the root cause?" Lin Hui asked.

"It cannot be eradicated. These changes are systemic, and the cause is unknown. The pressure on Black Cloud is also mounting because the conclaves of Fog Spirits are in turmoil as well," Yalan said. "As a result, Black Cloud’s foreign trade has been gradually decreasing in recent years. Many small and medium-sized merchant fleets can no longer maintain their shipping operations; only the large fleets remain."

Lin Hui fell silent upon hearing this.

Although he had recently suspected that the situation outside was worsening, he hadn’t expected it to have gotten this bad.

WHOOSH!

Just then, outside the Moon Tower and above the sea of fog, a streak of golden light shot across the sky, vanishing in the blink of an eye into a massive green crystal at the tower’s peak.

"Vice City Lord Lin, a message just came in," Yalan suddenly said, her voice dropping to a low, urgent tone.

"The Bright Heart Association Leader has officially opened the largest contamination channel in history. By sacrificing his soul, he has completely connected the Haiming World with our own."

Lin Hui was stunned. Seemingly sensing something, he turned his head and looked to the north.

HUMMM!

In the next second, the Moon Tower beneath his feet actually began to shake violently.

Immediately after, from the ground beneath the center of Black Cloud City’s many Moon Towers, a brilliant blue pillar of light silently erupted.

Within the pillar of light spun countless complex symbols and patterns, while long, dragon-like but not-quite-dragon monsters coiled around the pillar as it surged skyward.

Fortunately, the pillar of light only lasted for a few seconds before rapidly dimming and extinguishing.

"Sea Roar Power..." Lin Hui recognized this special power, the same one the Bright Heart Association had demonstrated before.

His gaze turned sharp.

He didn’t know what this contingency plan left behind by the Bright Heart Association was for, but it definitely wasn’t anything good...

SWISH!

Just then, Zhang Yao and Gongsun Xinlian both appeared in the air where the pillar of light had dissipated, their expressions grave.

They had searched and cross-checked repeatedly before but had never been able to find where the Bright Heart Association had made its arrangements. It had been a persistent worry for them.

And now, that worry had finally become reality.

"It seems like nothing has changed?" Gongsun Xinlian said, sensing her surroundings carefully.

"No... This is just a key," Zhang Yao said in a low voice. "Look up!"

Gongsun Xinlian abruptly raised her head, and her pupils contracted violently.

At this very moment, the gray-white fog, which had never dispersed for countless years, was actually starting to part.

But what was revealed behind it was not the pure sky above.

It was a massive, blue-black rift.

Inside the rift was a churning, turbulent sea of blue-black water.

It hung upside down in the sky, as if it could capsize at any moment and completely submerge Black Cloud City.

SWISH.

Lin Hui also flew out of the Moon Tower at this moment, looking up at the sky.

And at the same time, he felt the nearly infinite Sea Roar Power.

’Bright Heart Association...’

BOOM!!

The next moment, in the distance, Gongsun Xinlian raised a hand, gathered a brilliant green light, and shot it violently toward the rift in the sky.

The beam of green light was dozens of meters in diameter, instantly illuminating the Inner City below and the faces of all the Black Cloud City citizens, who looked on with shock and worry.

SPLOOSH!

But when the green light shot into the rift, it was like a stone sinking into the ocean. It stirred up a few blue-black splashes and then vanished without a trace.

"It’s useless! The world rift is open. We have to build a giant fortress to seal and suppress it. We can’t block the passage on our own!" Zhang Yao stopped Gongsun Xinlian, who was about to try again.

"Inform Big Brother. Tell him to come back at once." He stared intently at the massive blue-black rift overhead. "Otherwise, I’m afraid monsters from the Haiming side will be invading very soon..."

"Right!" Gongsun Xinlian nodded.

This was no longer a time for power struggles between factions. This was a war between races, between camps, between worlds.

It had been the same with Purgatory, Extreme Cold Heaven, and Hui Jing before...

In the distance, Lin Hui also stared at the rift. He had only ever seen the sealed Purgatory Fortress and Extreme Cold Fortress before. This time, he was witnessing a world rift appear and open with his very own eyes.

"Brother Lin, we may need your help to stand guard over the city. My brother and I must first try to establish a sealing formation in the sky to slow the leakage of Sea Roar Power." Gongsun Xinlian’s voice arrived in a chime of wind.

"What will happen if the Sea Roar Power leaks?" Lin Hui asked.

"It will change the surrounding environmental force fields, suppressing all of our powers and enhancing all of the Haiming invaders’ powers."

"I understand. I will cooperate," Lin Hui nodded.

"Judging from the Bright Heart Association’s scheme, I’m afraid it’s not just our city that has a rift. It’s likely a simultaneous outbreak in multiple locations across the Federation. This disaster is no less severe than the Purgatory Cataclysm that erupted in the past!" Gongsun Xinlian sighed.

"If the Sea Roar Power leaks and spreads, will the Bright Heart Association’s power grow stronger?" Lin Hui suddenly asked.

"Yes... much, much stronger... But so many people will die... Although the contamination from Sea Roar Power is relatively mild, it is still irreversible... Even if we set up a formation, we can only slow the leakage at best. In six months at most, the contamination will spread and worsen!" Gongsun Xinlian said. "And that’s not all. No one knows what kind of powerful monsters exist in the Haiming world. What we can predict is that they are stronger than us... and certainly much stronger... Otherwise, Mingxin wouldn’t have chosen Haiming! He could have easily chosen Purgatory, Extreme Cold, Hui Jing, or others that have a record of past invasions."

"Perhaps he never cared about the lives of ordinary people from the very beginning..."

Lin Hui’s gaze was profound.

He had a strange feeling that this world was like a ball full of holes. Many people were inside, patching it up here and there, while others, like the Bright Heart Association Leader, were deliberately poking new holes in it with a needle.

Faced with such a situation, could he really continue to maintain the peaceful life he desired?

’It seems I must return at once and set up countermeasures... I also need to hurry and evolve formations that can counter these various contaminating powers...’