Cultivation and Apocalypse: Crossing Between Two Worlds

A Blood Moon hung in the sky.

The air was thick with the stench of decay.

The sky was forever shrouded in haze, and the entire world was steeped in an apocalyptic aura, carrying the despairing feeling of a dying struggle.

A library, an ocean of knowledge, should have been a clean, bright place filled with the fragrance of books and scholarly charm.

But now, it seemed like a forgotten corner of the world.

Zheng Yi stood inside the library, looking at the dust-covered building, the heaps of scattered books, and the occasional rotting skeleton mixed among them. Everything appeared so dilapidated and chaotic.

Books littered the floor, tables and chairs lay overturned in disarray, and dark-red bloodstains remained in the corners. Every detail showed that something terrible had once happened in this library.

"Is this what the apocalypse looks like?"

"Living here, never knowing if you'll survive the day, liable to die in a zombie's jaws at any moment and become one of those rotting things... it's even more despairing than life at the bottom of the Cultivation World..."

Inside this somewhat eerie library, Zheng Yi wore a grave expression, his brows slightly furrowed.

His footsteps were light as he swiftly moved between the bookshelves. His gaze swept over both sides while his divine sense spread out, as though searching for something.

"Found it?"

Suddenly, he stopped. His brows lifted, and a sharp glint flashed through his eyes.

"Seems to be a survivor's diary?"

With a sweep of Zheng Yi's sleeve, the thick, bloodstained diary was lifted by an unseen force and flew into his hand.

Soul searching had given him fragments of scattered memories, including this world's language and writing.

Zheng Yi stood where he was and opened the notebook. As he flipped through it, his expression grew increasingly solemn. He muttered to himself, "No wonder this entire city resembles a Ghost Domain and has fallen into ruins. So this world actually suffered an outbreak of a zombie virus."

He had already learned from the library's books that he was currently in a region known as the Western Alliance.

The entire alliance had endured for over four thousand years, developing into a regional hegemon with highly advanced technology and culture.

Now that he had obtained this survivor's handwritten diary, combined with the information he had gathered earlier, he quickly reconstructed the general situation.

On December 5th, Alliance Year 4085, a Blood Moon appeared in the sky without warning.

Soon afterward, humans and animals everywhere underwent varying degrees of mutation. Then, the terrifying virus that swept across the entire world broke out completely.

Under the light of the Blood Moon, countless humans, wild beasts, and even pets mutated. Combined with the zombie virus, the entire world rapidly fell.

At the beginning, the Western Alliance had still relied on its powerful control built up over thousands of years. It quickly mobilized a vast number of troops and used forceful measures to seal off all regions where the virus had erupted.

In the early stages of the virus, the alliance had managed to suppress it. Everything seemed to be under control.

However, as the Blood Moon in the sky erupted, on January 13th, 4086, around forty days after the virus emerged, the first Red-Eyed Zombie evolved.

This was a monster far more infectious than ordinary zombies. Its strength and speed had increased dramatically, and most terrifying of all, it possessed a certain degree of rudimentary intelligence.

The appearance of the Red-Eyed Zombies caused the situation, which had already been brought under control, to collapse rapidly.

Led by the Red-Eyed Zombies, the infected and the zombie hordes soon broke through the military blockade, and the virus spread completely.

Then, on February 9th, the first recorded massive zombie tide erupted.

Under the Blood Moon's influence, Malevolent Ghosts, Specters, and mutated monsters also began appearing one after another in every corner of the world.

Millions upon millions of zombies, led by tens of thousands of Red-Eyed Zombies and even more terrifying evolved Mutated Zombies, swiftly surged across nearly every land.

Major cities fell one after another. In the end, even the alliance's final stronghold was breached, and the Western Alliance was destroyed.

According to the hastily scrawled notes left later in the diary.

With the alliance's fall, scattered armies and other forces everywhere established independent Gathering Places, each fighting for itself to prevent humanity's last spark from being extinguished by the raging tide of the zombie virus.

"This world is very strange. If it were only a zombie virus, how could things like Malevolent Ghosts and Specters appear?"

"The real problem lies with that Blood Moon in the sky. No wonder I felt a wave of dread in my heart when I first saw that blood-red moon..."

"The situation probably isn't good!"

After Zheng Yi finished the last page, the notes afterward were written in a messy scrawl and mixed with a great deal of incoherent rambling.

It was easy to see the recorder's despair and helpless panic at the time.

He raised his head and looked outside. Through the gray, misty window, a Blood Moon illuminated the earth from the sky, yet what it cast down was an eerie red glow.

Even the spiritual power within his body seemed to be suppressed, making Zheng Yi's expression turn unpleasant.

For this library to possess so many records, it must have had some degree of protection at the beginning.

But now it had practically become ruins. The thick dust proved that this place had long been abandoned, and no one had likely come here for a very long time.

Without a doubt, this place was also a victim of the zombie tide beneath the Blood Moon.

"Run! The zombies are catching up!"

"Damn it, how were these zombies hiding behind the crates? You couldn't see them at all from outside."

"Stop talking! Look, there's a library ahead. Hurry inside and find a way to deal with these monsters!"

Suddenly, a burst of commotion came from outside.

Amid a flurry of disorderly footsteps, two figures crashed through the doors and stumbled inside.

Five or six ferocious zombies followed closely behind them.

Their bodies were shriveled, their claws sharp, and their expressions hideous. Their cloudy eyes radiated bloodthirsty madness as they lunged forward from behind with teeth bared and claws extended.

"Ah, why is there someone here?"

"Another survivor, maybe..."

"Damn it! Don't stand in the way! If you don't want to die, get out of here..."

"Run! Run..."

The intruders were a middle-aged man and a young man. Panic still lingered on their faces as they desperately tried to remain calm.

The middle-aged man carried a large saber, black blood still dripping from it.

Following behind him was a youth of seventeen or eighteen, holding an iron spear with a wooden shaft. Even its spearhead had been dyed blackish red.

The one thing the two shared was that they both looked extremely thin, clearly malnourished.

The moment they burst into the library and saw Zheng Yi standing there, they immediately shouted in alarm.

Zombies were still chasing them desperately from behind, yet this survivor was directly blocking their path.

Zheng Yi looked at the father and son who had rushed in, and a long-lost smile appeared on his face. He had been in this damned place for more than half a day already.

Apart from the beginning, when two blind fools had pointed pistol-like toys at him and been soul searched for this world's language and writing.

These were the first living people he had encountered again. Finding survivors in a place like this was no easy matter for him either.

But when the father and son saw his expression, they took him for another fool frightened senseless by zombies and immediately berated him.

"Get out of the way, brat!"

"If you want to die, go die somewhere else. Don't block our escape route."

Just as the distance between them shrank to two meters and the youth was about to raise his wooden-shafted iron spear.

"Go!"

Zheng Yi formed a hand seal with his fingers. A streak of cold light shot out, passed over the father and son, and beheaded the pursuing zombies one by one.

Then the cold light drew a circle through the air and returned to his hand.

"Oh, my God."

"Is that an ability?!"

"We actually ran into an Ability User here..."

The middle-aged man in front stared at the horrifying scene before him, dumbstruck, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.

The five or six terrifying zombies that had filled him with fear had been so easily decapitated by the mysterious short sword released by the young man before him. The ability displayed was truly terrifying.

If that cold light had swept across his own neck, he would likely have ended up no differently from those zombies.

Thud!

The father dropped directly to his knees, dragging his son down with him. Bowing his head, he said fearfully, "Sir, we truly did not mean to offend you."

"We did not know you were a distinguished Ability User, nor did we know this was your territory. Otherwise, we would never have rashly entered this place."

"Please forgive us."

In this chaotic world, morality and dignity had long been thrown beyond the nine heavens.

Survival was what mattered most. Human lives were the cheapest things of all. If they encountered one of those unpredictable powerful figures, it would be difficult for them to leave this library alive today.

"Get up."

Zheng Yi looked at the scene before him in surprise. After a moment, he said flatly, "I have some questions for you. If your answers satisfy me, I can let you leave."

A trace of delight appeared on the middle-aged man's face at once. With the young man's support, he hurriedly stood up.

After all, he had seen storms and waves. Having survived for so long amid the ruins of this zombie apocalypse, his basic mental fortitude was still there.

The middle-aged man quickly calmed down. Under Zheng Yi's questioning, he began to speak freely.

Zheng Yi did not care about the father and son's origins. Nor did he have the ability to play savior, and his saintly compassion had certainly not suddenly overflowed.

What interested him was merely the Ability Users the middle-aged man had mentioned.

"It sounds like this world's supernatural power..."

It turned out that while zombies mutated and evolved, some scientists studying them had accidentally discovered Corpse Cores within their bodies, which contained a strange kind of energy.

Humans could absorb that energy. So long as they endured it, they could awaken abilities.

Abilities such as immense strength, incredible speed, physical toughness, invulnerability to blades and bullets, controlling zombies, commanding mutated beasts, and even manipulating elemental forces such as water, fire, and metal.

When Zheng Yi had displayed the Flying Sword Technique just now, the middle-aged man had mistaken him for an Ability User capable of controlling metal...

As for Ability Users wishing to evolve, they had to absorb zombie Corpse Cores.

There was also another profession called Ghost Master, a profession for those with powerful spiritual strength.

A few years after the zombies appeared, Specters and Evil Ghosts began to emerge in various places. These elemental lifeforms were even more terrifying than ordinary zombies, killing people without form or shadow.

It was precisely by relying on these two professions, Ability Users and Ghost Masters, that the surviving humans preserved the spark of civilization.

They barely formed Gathering Places like isolated islands, successfully resisting the impact of the zombie tides and becoming the main force against the Apocalyptic World. This was also the key reason humanity had managed to cling to life until now.

After Zheng Yi finished questioning them, he let the two go as promised.

Afterward, he dissected the brains of the zombies his Flying Sword had killed and actually found a gray crystal the size of a thumbnail.

"There really is a strange energy inside."

He sensed the crystal in his hand and spoke in some surprise.

It was an energy he had never felt before, entirely different from every energy he had encountered in the past.

"Not Sha Qi? Nor spiritual power? It resembles some kind of life-source energy..."

After pondering for a while, Zheng Yi turned and walked deeper into the library. A flash of white light passed, and his figure vanished with it.

Da Yi Immortal Domain.

This was a world of cultivation, where immensely powerful immortals could cross the void, tread upon Wuji, overturn rivers and seas, and destroy heaven and earth with a single hand.

And Zheng Yi was one of its insignificant Rogue Cultivators, a little nobody at the very bottom of society, without father or mother, with no one to care for him.

"I thought Heaven had already treated me as badly as it could, but I never expected it to have prepared such a huge surprise for me."

Having returned to the Immortal Domain, Zheng Yi stood inside his own house and suddenly burst into laughter, his voice brimming with joy.

It was no wonder he was so excited. After crossing over from Blue Star to the Da Yi Immortal Domain, he possessed none of the four essentials—law, land, wealth, and companions. He was merely an insignificant Rogue Cultivator, and his aptitude was not particularly good either.

He had absolutely no hope of attaining the Great Dao!

True sorrow was when Heaven gave you hope, then personally destroyed it.

That had been Zheng Yi's previous belief.

Yet what he had not expected was for Heaven to secretly prepare such a "great gift package" for him.

The reason Zheng Yi had returned so impatiently was because he had seen an opportunity!

If he could make good use of it, Zheng Yi might take a single step onto the path of the Great Dao.

There was hope for the Great Dao!

The Da Yi Immortal Domain did not only have the Righteous Path. There was also the demonic path that contended against it. The two sides were evenly matched in strength, so neither could suppress the other.

Compared to the slowly cultivated techniques of the Righteous Path, demonic techniques could raise one's strength quickly, but the methods they employed were harmful to Heaven and reason.

For instance, they required human Living Souls and corpses, blood sacrifices of living people, and some even sacrificed entire villages in blood.

Not only would the Righteous Path never spare them, but they could also suffer Heaven's punishment at any moment.

Zheng Yi possessed only Mixed Spiritual Roots of four elements. Relying solely on his current cultivation, he had absolutely no chance of attaining the Great Dao.

But what if he used Malevolent Ghosts and zombies in the Apocalyptic World to cultivate demonic techniques?

The moment this idea surfaced, he hurried back without delay. The thought stirred his heart greatly.

If it truly worked as a substitute, then the Apocalyptic World would be nothing less than a perfect geomantic treasure ground for cultivation in Zheng Yi's eyes.

"This is my only chance."

In the end, Zheng Yi made up his mind and decided to walk this path into darkness!