The Lord of Void and Real

“What on earth is happening?”

Shen Luo hastily threw the objects in his hand away, quickly scanning his surroundings. The residual sleepiness instantly vanished.

He was not on the bed in his own house, but sitting on a patch of barren, muddy land.

Shen Luo grimaced and climbed to his feet, looking around helplessly.

He noticed that the place where he had been lying was flanked by thickets of weeds with insects chirping intermittently. A muddy path that could barely fit one person was vaguely visible. It was unclear where the path led. The surrounding area was entirely covered by a faint mist, obstructing his view, making it impossible to discern anything.

With both hands, Shen Luo forcefully slapped his cheeks. The burning pain informed him that he was not dreaming.

“What happened? I was clearly sleeping in the house. How did I suddenly end up in this place? Was I kidnapped from the Spring and Autumn Pavilion without a sound?”

On this thought, Shen Luo hastily checked his clothes, then raised his sleeve to look carefully at the emblem of the Spring and Autumn Pavilion on his sleeve. He slightly relaxed after moving his limbs and realizing that everything was alright.

He remembered going to sleep in his clothes because he was exhausted, and things seemed the same as before. There was nothing odd about his body either.

Shen Luo was filled with bewilderment, knowing that the urgent task at hand was to figure out exactly where he was now.

He forced himself to calm down and re-examined his surroundings again.

The nearby air was filled with an eerie coldness. Even though it was summer, it was as cold as late autumn. He felt inadequately dressed and wrapped his outer robe tighter around his body.

Shen Luo suddenly thought of something and abruptly lifted his head to look at the sky.

The sky resembled a boundless black curtain, with nothing but a crescent moon hanging in the air, casting a rather dim light. Clearly, it was still night time.

Then, the sound of the wind, like the wail of a ghost, blew from the distance in several gusts, scattering the and lifting the nearby fog, allowing him to see some blurry scenery.

After inhaling deeply, he pursued down the narrow path with caution.

Before long, both sides of the road began to reveal patches of flat earth; some even had rows of crops growing on them, appearing to be fields.

The soil in the fields without crops was fluffy — it seemed that they had recently been tilled in daylight.

Seeing this, Shen Luo felt somewhat relieved.

Since there are fields and signs of habitation, he should not be in any danger. Although he had no idea how he ended up here without reason, there was no time to delve into it now.

Picking up his pace a bit, he continued down the country road.

…

The night fog grew thinner, and the landscape in the distance gradually revealed itself.

A mile straight ahead, he could vaguely see some sparse houses built against the mountain, with occasional flickering lights which looked somewhat blurry.

At the sight of this, Shen Luo felt a surge of joy.

He would surely understand where he was if he went to one of the houses over there.

Buoyed by this thought, he felt warmth from the distant lights, and his step unconsciously accelerated.

Soon, he was less than a hundred feet away from the source of the light.

This place was indeed a small mountain village. The village was small, with only about a dozen houses.

However, it was already late at night, the village was quiet and pitch-black, with the exception of a house in the middle of the village emitting a little light.

Shen Luo walked to the entrance of the village and froze momentarily. After confirming there were no villagers moving around, he walked into the village. However, just after taking a few steps, a ‘bang’ reverberated, and a pain shot through his toes. He had accidentally bumped into something.

That thing rolled out about a foot away.

He lowered his head in shock, only to see that what had rolled out was a dirty half-stake. Not far from his foot, there was another half.

Upon closer inspection, these two half-stakes were not ordinary objects. On their surface, there were familiar ancient patterns carved.

Only upon careful inspection did Shen Luo realize that these patterns were comprised of runes.

He furrowed his brows, bent down and picked up the half-stake at his feet, moving it closer to inspect.

The runes on the stake looked very crude and haphazard, far less complex than his own talisman, but they were twisted abnormally on the surface of the stake, giving off a highly uncomfortable feeling.

He had only taken a quick look when he suddenly felt dizzy, quickly looking away in horror.

The runes on this stake had such an odd ability. What would happen if they were drawn on talisman paper?

Shen Luo quietly speculated whilst silently using the Small Transformation Yang Skill. A Yang Gang Qi emerged from his Dantian, travelled to his right hand, and made his palm slightly warm.

He then reached out and touched the runes on the surface of the stake. Noticing nothing unusual, he quickly withdrew his hand.

After some hesitation, Shen Luo tossed the half-stake back to where it came from and walked briskly toward the house with the light on.

Right now was not the time to dawdle. Once he figured out his situation, he would have time for research.

When he came to the open ground in front of the house, he stopped again.

Surprisingly, there was a collapsed god niche in front of the house.

Under the faint lamplight from the window, Shen Luo could clearly see that the god niche was more than one person tall, pitch black, and had no name plaque. There was only one fallen incense burner, and incense ashes were scattered all over the ground.

What caught his attention were the runes engraved on the god niche, which were very similar to those on the stakes at the entrance of the village. However, the runes here were blood-red, as if drawn by fresh blood and rather discomforting to see.

Shen Luo stared at the god niche, his face changing uncertainly.

Just then, gusts of cold night wind blew, rustling the leaves of several big trees near the house, blowing leaves all over the sky.

The wind also swept in a thick fog from outside the village, making the already dim light in front of the house dimmer. The other houses in the village also became hazy, as if they could disappear in the fog at any moment.

Shen Luo felt the air around him become colder, and his body temperature was dropping rapidly. His limbs were somewhat numb in the wind, he took a deep breath, temporarily cast away his concerns and walked to the front door of the house.

Just as he was about to knock on the door, his hand stiffened, and he slowly withdrew it.

Shen Luo looked uncertain and after sniffing a couple of times, he looked down, and his pupils constricted.

A stream of black blood was seeping out from the door opening, almost spreading to his feet, giving off a pungent bloody smell.

Shen Luo’s face turned pale, and he immediately turned around and ran back where he came from.

The sound of the wind was deafening to his ears, the breathings in his mouth, feeling exceptionally frigid, as though several knives were scraping inside him.

Shen Luo felt like he had never run so fast before, it was as if his chest was going to burst open. In the blink of an eye, he had reached the entrance of the village, but he didn’t pause, and was ready to plow right out of the village in one breath.

With a “bang”.

He suddenly froze, and his body fell straight to the ground, dragging out a deep trace half a foot long.

Shen Luo felt his whole body stiff and freezing, and something cold seemed to have been added at his chest, moving against his skin.

Shen Luo let out a low, struggling growl in his throat, his hands clutching tightly in an attempt to recover some strength. He suddenly ripped open his coat to look down.

On his chest, two clear black handprints had appeared at some point. They were the size of a regular person’s hand, pitch black as ink, moving upwards quickly. Everywhere they passed over was exceptionally cold, making his hairs stand on end. In the blink of an eye, they crawled up to his neck, starting to constrict as if they were real…