"I'm dying! I'm dying! It hurts!!!"
Lin Xiaotian screamed in agony, his throat nearly tearing from the strain.
But he could no longer care about anything else. This pain was simply more than any human could bear.
"Shut up!"
"Endure it!"
A cold voice came from above, carrying a bloody, biting chill.
Lin Xiaotian fought desperately to hold it in, but the pain made him want to scream again despite himself.
This was simply beyond the control of willpower.
What rotten luck. I've only just transmigrated here. Am I going to die again already?
Lin Xiaotian refused to accept it. With an immense effort of will, he suppressed his screams.
Yet his body still shook and shuddered uncontrollably, producing a grinding chatter.
Shing! A blade left its sheath.
Lin Xiaotian shivered and forced himself to calm down.
This was not his previous life. This really was a world where people killed without batting an eye.
The instant the blade rang out, he sensed the bloody baleful aura emanating from it.
Even though he had never practiced any Martial Dao, he knew this man had to be a murderous fiend who killed without blinking.
"I will soon die. There is an opportunity here. If your blessings run deep enough, you will certainly come out alive."
Lin Xiaotian nearly let loose a string of curses aimed at eighteen generations of the man's ancestors.
Fortunately, he knew this was absolutely not the time to open his mouth.
Just thinking about it made him feel cursed with bad luck.
He had only just transmigrated into this body and had not even figured out what was happening! Then he had run into this man, who had held a blade to his throat and brought him here.
The man had even said this was a blessed place, and that anyone without the fortune to benefit from it would only come here to die.
At the time, Lin Xiaotian had stared at the fissure before him, only a person's height in length and half a body's width across, with his heart pounding. Surely the man would not make him jump in?
And sure enough, what he dreaded came to pass.
The man really did make him jump.
Mist kept churning within the fissure. Though thin, it was strangely impossible to see what lay beneath it.
He could only feel that below lay an abyss ten thousand fathoms deep, like a demon that devoured people through corrosion.
"Your blessing lies below."
The man's voice was very quiet, yet icy and beyond question.
"A blessing? Looks more like a swamp that dissolves human bodies to me."
Hearing Lin Xiaotian's question, the man surprisingly did not argue. Instead, he nodded as though it were only natural.
"You could put it that way."
"For those without the necessary blessings, it is a natural place to find release."
"The mist will break them down, turning them into nourishment for this place, which will then await someone blessed enough to come."
Lin Xiaotian's face had turned green at those words. Clinging to hope, he asked:
"Is this mist a blessing for you? No, at least it won't hurt you, right?"
The man gave him an icy look and continued coldly:
"Of course not. If I could remain unharmed, what would I need you for?"
Ah!
Lin Xiaotian panicked. What blessing? The man was sending him to his death! But why had he been chosen? His bad luck had truly hit rock bottom.
"Surely someone here can remain unharmed!" Lin Xiaotian said, unwilling to give up.
The man's voice reached him:
"No one here can. At least, in this realm, there is no one who can remain unharmed."
Lin Xiaotian felt as though he had plunged to the bottom of a valley. His heart went utterly cold.
He could not understand how he had arrived in this world only to face a beginning that brought the very heavens crashing down.
But however unwilling he was, he could not ignore the gulf in their strength.
When the man had brought him here, he had bounded over eaves and walls, treading along branches.
Lin Xiaotian did not believe this body, with no Martial Dao training, could turn the tables.
Just as he struggled between resentment and helplessness, the man kicked without hesitation, sending him straight into the fissure.
The mist swallowed him in an instant, and he felt as though his entire body had been submerged in acid.
That corrosive pain made him cry out despite himself.
That was what had prompted the man's rebuke.
Fortunately, the threat of death had made him instinctively grab the ground outside the fissure.
Otherwise, he would already have fallen into the endless abyss below.
"Urgh..."
The man suddenly vomited a mouthful of blood. It was purple.
"Looks like I can barely suppress it anymore!"
His voice remained level. He looked at the purple blood as though utterly unmoved.
Lin Xiaotian was now certain the man had not lied earlier when he said he had little time left.
But why would a dying man drag him here before his death, even traveling for roughly two days, just to take him along to the grave?
The more he thought about it, the less sense it made.
"You still haven't died! It seems you really are someone blessed."
Lin Xiaotian froze too.
That's right! There's only the pain of corrosion. Why haven't I died yet? This isn't normal!
While he was dazed, the man seemed to think of something and stomped toward the two hands clinging to the edge.
Lin Xiaotian's eyes went wide. The man really would not leave him a single chance to live!
With his lower body corroded away, powerful will alone might keep him alive for a little while.
But if he fell all the way in, surviving would be nearly impossible.
Unless there was a miracle!
Thud!
A heavy stomp struck both his hands.
It felt like being hit by a huge rock.
His grip loosened involuntarily, and he fell.
Just before his head sank into the mist, the man's quiet voice reached him:
"If you survive, keep an eye on that elder sister of yours. She's scheming."
Whoosh-
The world before his eyes was instantly shrouded in mist.
He could only feel his body falling endlessly, while the corrosive sensation never stopped for even a moment.
Without the threat of the man's icy blade, he could no longer suppress the agony, nor did he want to.
He felt as though his entire body was rapidly dissolving, the sensation spreading upward from below.
At last, it passed over his neck and moved toward his face.
The burning and dissolving sensations climbed in turn.
Now he finally understood what it meant for life to be worse than death.
He wished he could simply die right then. That would be true release.
"Why am I still not dead? Let me die! It hurts too much! Damn it all! It's killing me!"
Thud!
He seemed to have struck something, but he could no longer care about anything.
Even if he had crashed into some evil spirit from a horror film, he would not have been afraid now. He only wanted it to give him a quick death.
He did not know how long the pain lasted.
Just as his mind was on the verge of going numb, a sudden current of warmth swept through his entire body. A different sensation flashed through him.
This... I'm not dead!
Lin Xiaotian opened his eyes.
A faint bloody glow radiated around him.
That glow kept the thin mist outside at bay.
Did this bloody glow save me? No! This body belonged to an ordinary mortal. How could it have a bloody glow?
Wait, that's not right!
Lin Xiaotian's eyes suddenly widened.
He sensed something different about the Blood Qi circulating within him.
The Blood Qi seemed to flow steadily and normally, yet deep within it, rivers and seas surged, circulating at tremendous speed.
And with every cycle, it gave off an invisible suction, absorbing the mist outside.
As for the bloody glow outside his body...
Lin Xiaotian felt so speechless that he wanted to cover his face.
It was nothing more than waste blood and spent qi expelled from his body after it consumed the mist.
He looked at his intact body and felt his Blood Qi growing ever fuller and denser, then recalled the man's words.
Could this body's elder sister be more than an ordinary mortal too? Otherwise, why would he say she was scheming?
And this body-its Blood Qi is clearly extraordinary now, but the body itself hasn't grown stronger! How strange.
Lin Xiaotian muttered inwardly, but a smile rose on his face.
After all, no one wanted to die.
"Ha, it really was a miracle. I'm not dead!"
Before you continue