As dawn began to break, a shadow sat motionless in a clearing amidst a sea of flowers, emitting a strong grey aura.
Suddenly, the man's eyes opened, revealing two inches of grey light that, combined with the dim light of dawn, would be impossible to discern without extraordinary vision and focus.
The man slowly stood up, exhaled a turbid breath from within, and the grey light around his body shone brightly once again before slowly fading away.
The faint sound of a qin drifted from afar, invigorating the spirit. The man looked towards the still green-clad Xiaoya in the distance, blending perfectly with the surroundings. She was beautiful, so beautiful.
Yet the man showed no sign of emotion, simply watching and listening to the music quietly.
After a moment, the man sighed in defeat, shook his head helplessly, and with a slight shake of his body, he disappeared and reappeared beside the girl named Xiaoya with just a few flashes.
"Ye Han brother, have you finished cultivating?" Xiaoya wasn't surprised by Ye Han's sudden appearance, apparently used to it.
"Yes," Ye Han answered indistinctly. Hearing his brief and emotionless reply, a hint of disappointment flickered in Xiaoya's eyes but disappeared instantly.
"Ye Han brother, can you tell me about things outside?" Xiaoya put down her qin and looked at Ye Han with yearning.
Just as Ye Han was about to refuse, he caught the hopeful and eager look in her eyes. That look stifled the refusal he was about to voice.
Xiaoya, the girl who first discovered Ye Han, was born here and knew nothing of her parents. Though raised by Old Curtis, her solitude was profound without the company of peers.
Xiaoya didn't like cultivating, and with Old Curtis often wandering around, her loneliness only deepened. When Ye Han inadvertently entered this place, Xiaoya was naturally overjoyed to finally see someone her age. In their brief encounters, Xiaoya naturally developed special feelings for Ye Han due to her isolation, but Ye Han's indifference left her disappointed.
"Alright," it took a long while for Ye Han to utter these words. Xiaoya, hearing his consent, sat quietly on a stone bench, gazing at Ye Han dreamily.
But after agreeing, Ye Han immediately regretted it a bit. Due to his past and upbringing, he had almost no friends and thus did not know how to converse with others.
After a long wait for Ye Han to speak, Xiaoya gently probed, "What's wrong, Ye Han brother?"
"Nothing. I'm just not sure how to begin," Ye Han said with a helpless expression.
"Oh, I see... Then, Ye Han brother, just talk about yourself," Xiaoya suggested with a sweet smile.
"Me? Alright," Ye Han gathered his thoughts and began to narrate slowly.
"I was born in the Frost Empire, the seventh son of a minor family head. Born with white hair, I was known as 'the one forsaken by the gods' and mocked by everyone, whether within my family or outside. Everyone avoided me. Only my mother cared for me..."
Ye Han fell into his memories as he recounted his life, omitting the fact that he was a zombie. Xiaoya listened silently, reacting with gasps of concern at each peril he described, as if witnessing it herself.
"In the end, under the attack of three peak-level warriors, I forcibly used space shuttling to escape and found myself here." Ye Han's voice trailed off, his eyes filled with boundless killing intent. If not for those three, he wouldn't have ended up in this state. His hatred for the Kress family had reached its peak.
After Ye Han finished, Xiaoya was lost in thought. The two sat in silence, one standing, the other sitting, both without a word.
Time passed until Xiaoya lifted her head, her expressive eyes looking at Ye Han. "No wonder Ye Han brother is so aloof. Such experiences have made him resistant to everything and everyone around him. He no longer trusts anyone," she thought to herself.
"Now it's better. There's no conflict here, and no one will chase Ye Han brother anymore," Xiaoya said with a smile.
"I hope so," Ye Han replied, then moved swiftly, appearing ten yards away. Without lingering, he flashed away, gradually disappearing from Xiaoya's view.
As Ye Han left, Xiaoya's eyes once again showed disappointment. She slowly picked up her qin and walked towards the humble house.
Shortly after Ye Han and Xiaoya departed, the space where they had been standing rippled slightly, and two figures appeared out of thin air. A white-haired old man with a smile and a sensuous, enchanting woman.
"Curtis, is that the newcomer?" the seductive woman by Curtis's side asked.
"Yes, that's him." Curtis's voice was no longer as kind as
before, though his smile remained, it was now icy and hard.
"Are you sure he can do it?" The woman's smile was unwavering, her charm captivating, but no one was there to admire it except Curtis.
"I'm not entirely sure. Now there are only eight of us left. In three months, the space will calm down once every thousand years, presumably then..." Curtis didn't finish, but his eyes showed deep fear.
"Yes, then those powerful beings will definitely choose one from among us with weaker strength."
"I don't know exactly what attribute of cultivation he practices, but I'm certain it has to do with the blood of living beings," Curtis continued after regaining his composure.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Half a month ago, there was a significant fluctuation in his soul, nearly causing it to disperse. At that moment, a surge of blood emerged from his body, similar to that over there..."
"Let's go. They must have awakened from their cultivation by now. We should tell them the news." After speaking, the two disappeared into the air as if they had never been there.
After leaving Xiaoya, Ye Han continued to move around the confinement of the End of Days. In the month since he arrived, he had become as familiar with the surrounding thousand miles as the back of his hand and was not afraid of losing his way.
With his eyes closed, Ye Han relied solely on his soul power to explore space, finding the gaps more quickly than when he first grasped the speed mystery. Each time he flashed, it was only a moment before his body turned into afterimages, appearing ten yards away.
Ye Han could shuttle further, but as a zombie, close combat was much more powerful than long-range attacks. Thus, he chose a distance of ten yards, which was the best range for close-quarters combat.
As Ye Han shuttled continuously, he suddenly opened his eyes and stared ahead.
Not far ahead, in a radius of about fifty yards, the air was filled with red mist. "What is that?" Ye Han couldn't believe what he saw. "The scent of blood," he exclaimed, and without hesitation, he moved rapidly towards the source of the red mist.
Before him was a sea of blood-red, with a boiling, bubbling blood pool in the center, constantly burning with flames that produced the hazy red mist.
With not much essence blood left in his body, and having used up most of it to resist the heat of the Crimson Flame Desert, Ye Han was concerned about his blood supply. Once it was completely depleted, he would fall into an enforced slumber, only awakening when new blood was infused.
There were two types of slumber for a zombie: voluntary and involuntary. Ye Han's depletion of blood would lead to the latter. It was unheard of for a zombie above the fourth tier to fall into an involuntary slumber since where there's life, there's blood.
Looking at the burning flames and the churning blood in the pool, Ye Han was eager to dive in. But just as he was about to enter the pool, he noticed something strange.
"A sword in the blood pool?" Ye Han halted, quietly observing the intermittently visible long sword within.