302: Chapter 300 Natural Disaster

Yun Ming flew for nearly half a month before he finally caught a distant glimpse of the outline of Tianyuan City.

He retracted his Escape Light when he was a hundred miles from the city and landed on a desolate mountain. He also suppressed his cultivation to the Early Golden Core Stage.

When he last visited Tianyuan City, the massive No-Fly Array had left a deep impression on him; he certainly did not want to be knocked out of the sky again.

He walked on foot in the direction of the city.

He had not gone far before he felt that something was wrong.

The fields on both sides of the imperial road were abandoned. This was not the emptiness of post-harvest, but the desolation of fields overgrown with weeds, left uncultivated for years. The ridges had collapsed, the irrigation ditches were dried up, and the roofs of several farmhouses had mostly caved in, with crooked doors and empty window frames. As the wind blew, the withered grass rustled, stirring up a few tattered rags.

Yun Ming frowned and quickened his pace.

After walking a few more miles, he saw the first corpse.

Then, he began to see them one after another, in large swathes. They were scattered along both sides of the imperial road; some lay prone on the roadside, others had fallen onto the ridges, and some were curled up beside the collapsed farmhouses. Their robes had mostly rotted away, revealing grayish-white bones. Their skin and flesh were shriveled and blackened, clinging tightly to the bones like air-dried cured meat. Some still clutched swords and blades in their hands, while shards of broken spirit talismans and Magical Artifacts were scattered all around.

Yun Ming crouched down and examined a relatively intact corpse.

The style of the robes was the standard-issue armor of the Tianyuan City Patrol Camp, and there was a penetrating wound on the chest—not from a sword or blade, but from some kind of sharp claw; three parallel lacerations extended from the collarbone all the way down to the ribs.

Yun Ming stood up and continued walking forward. There were more and more corpses, and more and more scattered fragments of Magical Artifacts.

The wreckage of Battleships was scattered across the wasteland, and there was more than one.

Huge hulls were jammed diagonally into the fields; some were half-buried in the earth, others were snapped in two, and some were overturned on the ground, the formation patterns on the bottoms of the ships long since dimmed and lusterless. Those hulls were covered in massive fissures with jagged edges, as if something had ripped them wide open. Broken armor and Magical Artifacts were scattered across the decks, along with a few corpses pinned beneath the wreckage. Yun Ming could not count how many there were, nor did he want to. He bypassed an overturned Battleship and continued moving forward.

Finally, he saw the city walls of Tianyuan City.

The city walls towered into the clouds, pitch-black throughout, and carved with dense, intricate formation patterns. However, those formation patterns had completely extinguished, leaving only dried-up grooves. The wall surfaces were covered in cracks, and in some places, large sections had collapsed, with rubble piled at the base of the wall, overgrown with weeds. The city gate stood wide open, the door panels nowhere to be seen, and the gate tunnel was deep and long, like the open maw of a giant beast, pitch black inside, revealing nothing. There were no guards at the gate, no pedestrians, and no signs of any living soul. The wind poured out from the gate tunnel, carrying the stench of rot and an indescribable deathly silence.

Yun Ming stood at the city gate, not rushing to enter. He spread out his Divine Sense; within a radius of several thousand miles, there was no sign of any life. No Cultivators, no Mortals, no Yao Beasts, not even wild dogs or rats. There were only corpses, only ruins, and only a deathly silence.

Tianyuan City, the capital of the Zifu Immortal Dynasty, the seat of the Void Refinement Divine Lord, had actually fallen into such a state of ruin.

Yun Ming could not understand it.

He activated the Fuli Heaven-Concealing Record, concealing his aura completely without a single leak, and then walked into the gate tunnel.

Inside the city, it was even more tragic than outside.

The streets were filled with corpses everywhere. Some had fallen in the middle of the road, some leaned against the base of walls, and some lay prone behind the counters of smashed shops. Their manners of death varied—some had their chests ripped open by sharp claws, some had their skulls pierced by something, some were charred black all over as if struck by lightning, and some were completely shriveled as if their blood and flesh had been drained away. But without exception, the expressions on their faces were very calm. It was not the peace of the afterlife, but the bewilderment before death. Many people's eyes were still open, their pupils unfocused, their mouths slightly agape, as if they had died in that instant without even having time to react.

The more Yun Ming saw, the more alarmed he became. This did not look like a battle with give and take; it looked more like a one-sided massacre.

Most of the buildings on both sides of the street had collapsed, and those that remained were tottering, with wall plaster peeling off to reveal the charred bricks and stones beneath. The pavilions, stages, and gardens that had once floated in the air were now either hanging crookedly in mid-air or had already fallen, crashing into the ground and turning the entire street into a stretch of ruins.

A massive floating island was jammed diagonally in the center of the city. The Spirit Spring on the island had long since dried up, and the waterfall had turned into a dry riverbed, hanging in mid-air like a stiff, dead snake. Another floating island had smashed through a group of towering buildings in the distance, crushing those magnificent, golden palaces into smithereens; golden glazed tiles were scattered everywhere, trampled into powder.

Yun Ming stepped over rubble and debris, hurrying toward Paradise. The Teleportation Array was broken, so he could only walk or fly at low altitude. He chose to fly at a low altitude, three feet off the ground, moving slowly but able to avoid the collapsed buildings and the corpses strewn about everywhere on the ground.

He flew past what was once the bustling main street. The shops on both sides of the street were unrecognizable; the once magnificent, golden signboards hung crookedly, some having already fallen to the ground and been trampled into fragments. The bluestone slabs on the ground were shattered, revealing the soil and rubble beneath. Stains of blood had seeped into the crevices of the stones, long since dried and blackened. There was no one, no living creature at all.

He flew over a massive plaza. Scattered across the plaza were countless shards of Spirit Stones, and the remnants of various Magical Artifacts, Medicinal Pills, and Materials were mixed together, having been washed by rain countless times, their original colors no longer discernible. The stalls that had once been piled high with goods were now nothing more than a few crooked wooden poles, and the walls that had once been hung with merchandise were left with only a few empty iron nails.

He flew past a collapsed high tower. The tower body had snapped in the middle, with the upper half toppling onto the adjacent building, while the lower half's ruins buried a few corpses wearing uniforms of a standard style, the colors of their robes no longer distinguishable. He did not know what this place had originally been, nor did he want to know.

Paradise had arrived.

The group of floating islands that had once hovered in mid-air had now mostly fallen, and those that remained hung crookedly in the sky, teetering on the verge of collapse. The flying pavilions with flowing cinnabar, the suspended corridors and bridges, the gauze curtains, and the spirit lamps—all were gone without a trace. The ground was covered everywhere with rubble and debris, along with some remnants of spirit lamps that had fallen from the sky; the crystal lamp shades were shattered all over the ground, and the lamp wicks had long since extinguished.

That highest pavilion had been snapped off at the base. The massive structure had crashed into the ground, smashing a pit several zhang deep. The bottom of the pit was filled with murky rainwater, with splintered wooden planks and strips of cloth floating on the surface.

Likewise, there were no living things. Not a single one.

Yun Ming stood on the ruins of Paradise, silent for a long time. Where was Xue Ji? Where was the Princess Royal? Where were those Cultivators who had once reveled in debauchery here? They were all gone. Just as he was preparing to head into the depths of the ruins to search for clues, at that very moment, two terrifying auras suddenly descended from the Nine Heavens.

The aura was too strong, so strong that even Yun Ming, an Early Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, could not lift his head. His knees went weak, and his body involuntarily crouched down, as if a great mountain were pressing on his shoulders. That was not Spiritual Pressure; it was a power of a higher level, the trembling of the Laws of Heaven and Earth themselves. Yun Ming gritted his teeth, barely managing to lift his head to look at the sky.

Above the Nine Heavens, the clouds were torn apart, revealing the deep purple Void Realm behind them. Suspended in the void were two figures. No, they were not people; they were two balls of light.

The ball of light on the left was dim and dusky, exuding an aura of decay and ruin, like fallen leaves in late autumn, like a withered old tree, like a candle flame about to extinguish. The ball of light on the right was blood-red, exuding a violent aura, like a butcher who had just slaughtered ten million living beings, his entire body soaked in blood and Killing Intent. That aura was so scorching that one dared not look directly at it, as if one would be seared by that Killing Intent just by taking another glance.

The two figures hung facing each other in the void; neither spoke, and neither moved. Their very existence was enough to make the entire world tremble.

Yun Ming did not know who they were, did not know why they had appeared here, and did not know what their connection was to the destruction of Tianyuan City. He only knew that he did not want to be discovered by them.

He crouched in the ruins, pushing the Fuli Heaven-Concealing Record to its limit, his entire person becoming like a stone, like a piece of dead wood, like a wisp of blue smoke about to dissipate. He dared not move, dared not breathe, and dared not make a single sound.