Before he could even blink, the next moment the whirlwind had vanished, leaving utter silence,
The raging, world-obliterating sandstorm that had seemed unbreakable only moments ago also dissipated like smoke.
The bamboo forest, mountains, altar, Demon Sovereign statue, children, Taoist—everything was like a preposterous dream that had never existed.
Every living thing between heaven and earth, the laws of the universe, even the flow of time itself seemed to vanish at that moment.
Only Li Fan remained, sitting alone under a purple sky canopy, atop a flat expanse of rock.
In front of him, the sky above suddenly cleared, no longer hosting a purple moon,
The night adorned with stars, the Milky Way stretching across, sparkling brilliantly, an infinite celestial dome radiant as rain.
Through the clouds, he could faintly see a bubble of dark purple, like a soap bubble water sphere, floating in the cosmos, refracting the light and shadows from the myriad stars through the curved surface of the bubble and projecting them onto his retina…
Then suddenly something heavy dropped into Li Fan's right palm. Subconsciously, he clenched his hand tightly, and the sharp pain that pierced through his palm interrupted his trance focused on the starry vault.
Li Fan looked down and saw a small sword, three inches long, in his hand. The blade lacked a guard, the spine twinkling with starlight, its edges formed into diamond-shaped blades, fine as needles, sharp as shooting stars, incomparably keen. Merely holding it loosely, Li Fan's right palm was sliced open by a thin line of blood. Then, the little sword, with a whoosh, burrowed into Li Fan's palm, clearly travelling up the meridian of his right arm like a silver fish, lively burrowing into his body!
What the hell is this!
Before Li Fan could react, he heard his own voice, as if passing through a curtain of rain into his ear, saying to him,
'Charge 100/100, lottery complete!'
'Li Fan's mood has decreased by 1 point, be careful! Li Fan, mood, 8/100, extremely dangerous!'
'Li Fan's mood has decreased by 1 point. Be careful! Li Fan, mood, 7/100, extremely dangerous!'
'Li Fan's mood has decreased by 1 point. Be careful! Li Fan, mood, 6/100, extremely dangerous!'
…
What, what's going on!? My mood is dropping every second! Why has a countdown started all of a sudden!
Without a second thought, Li Fan began gobbling down the cake in his arms.
As a result, he nearly choked to death eating too quickly in three bites!
Cough, cough, cough! Water! Water!
"Tsk!"
Suddenly, a gust of wind brushed past his face, and then someone reached out and, grabbing Li Fan by the collar, hoisted him up.
Before Li Fan's eyes, the face of the old Taoist suddenly appeared.
In the span of a breath, a walnut-sized hole had burst open on his forehead as if something had cracked his skull, and dark crimson blood plasma was spurting out vigorously. His eye sockets were hollow, gouged out into two bloody caverns, as if forcibly excavated with fingers, making the old man's face grotesque like a demon from hell, frightening Li Fan so much he gulped, swallowing the cake that stuck in his throat.
'Li Fan's mood has increased by 1 point. Be careful! Li Fan, mood, 6/100, extremely dangerous!'
Although the system continued to sound the alarm, the one-point-per-second drop seemed to have stopped.
"What exactly did you see!" the old Taoist bellowed at Li Fan, the bloody spittle from his mouth spraying all over Li Fan.
"What what what did I see ..."
This guy really gouged out his own eyeballs...
Li Fan stared at the ruthless figure before him, and then, irresistibly drawn by something else, shifted his gaze past the old Taoist's shoulder.
In just the short span of a few seconds, during his trance-like state, he had returned to the open space in the bamboo forest, the altar now gone.
The six-headed, eight-armed Demon Sovereign had been split in half by a sword, cut cleanly down the middle, the once clay and stone statue now a rotten mess of flesh.
In the hands of the blind old Taoist, the Vermilion Wooden Sword shone with a rainbow glow, from its spine boiled blood that sent a frightening heat wave rolling out, splashing towards Li Fan as if the breath of some monstrous beast.
Around the altar, the cushions scattered about, the children who had come with Li Fan were nowhere to be seen.
But Li Fan could roughly guess their fate from the charred corpses scattered around the outer ring, the desiccated skeletons, the seven-headed eight-armed, organ-mutated stillbirths, one after another, seemingly humanoid, yet not quite so, all cleanly and neatly split in two by some monstrous entity...
"Chi Qiu said you still have a trace of humanity, not to be killed, so what exactly did you see?"
The old Taoist brought his face right up to Li Fan's, his empty eye sockets gaping, staring intently into Li Fan's eyes.
"Was it a 'thing' or 'non-thing'?"