444: Chapter 444 The Rebirth of the Skeleton World

The dark red fragments slowly dispersed at an altitude of 550 kilometers, like burnt paper ash being blown away by the wind.

The white light was also contracting.

Starting from the outer edge, it retreated inward circle by circle, finally shrinking into a bright spot and disappearing completely.

There was nothing left in the sky.

The grey-yellow sky was clean and clear; for the first time, it looked quite pleasing to the eye.

In the distance, the skeletons on the Bone Plains were collapsing one by one.

After a long time, the Randan Spirit finally spoke.

"550 kilometers."

The old man's voice was very soft, as if he was confirming it to himself.

"Your iron contraption flew 550 kilometers and blew that thing to pieces?"

Su Mingyuan turned his head to look at him.

The Randan Spirit floated in mid-air, his translucent figure facing that clean sky.

"550 kilometers."

He said it again.

"A Cultivator at the Nascent Soul Stage, striking with all their might to unleash a Sword Qi, can reach at most a few dozen kilometers. A great being at the Soul Transformation Stage, using their innate Divine Ability, reaches their limit at just over a hundred kilometers."

His gaze shifted from the launch vehicle and swept over the technical soldiers in camouflage uniforms within the base.

He had already checked the cultivation of these people.

Each one was lower than the last.

Most hadn't even reached the Qi Refinement Stage; in the world of cultivation, they couldn't even touch the threshold of an Outer Sect Disciple.

Yet these were the people who, by operating a few iron vehicles, shattered a formation core that had accumulated energy for a hundred years from 550 kilometers away.

The Randan Spirit closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them again, he looked at Su Mingyuan, his gaze completely different from before.

Before, it was condescending—the kind of look a Spirit Tool that had lived for who knew how many years would give to a few juniors at the Foundation Establishment Stage.

Now, it was not.

"I have lived for many years," he said. "I have seen Genius Disciples split mountains with a single sword strike, seen old monsters at the Soul Transformation Stage shatter a city with one palm, and seen the most brilliant young people at the Sect grand competition fly hundreds of miles on their swords."

He paused for a few seconds.

"But I have never seen Mortals who cannot Cultivate accomplish things that rival the gods."

Su Mingyuan did not respond.

It wasn't that he didn't want to, but that he didn't know how to respond.

Tao Zhe stood beside him, clutching the walkie-talkie, the curve of his mouth refusing to be suppressed despite several attempts.

Zhao Liang stood at attention beside the launch vehicle, not saying a word, but his back was straighter than before.

The technical soldiers stopped looking at the radar screens and were all tilting their heads to look at the sky.

It was quiet for about two minutes.

Then Han Li said: "Did you smell that?"

Su Mingyuan turned to look at her.

Han Li stood at the edge of the command platform, her nose slightly raised, her eyes closed.

"The wind has changed," she said.

Only then did Su Mingyuan notice that a wind had started in the base.

Before, the air in the Skeleton World was dead, stifling, and stagnant, as if sealed in a giant jar.

From the moment they first stepped into this world, they had never felt wind in the true sense.

But now, there was.

The wind came from the south, carrying a hint of dampness and mixed with an indescribable scent.

Han Li recognized it first.

"It's the scent of soil," she opened her eyes, "not the pungent smell of blood that was on the Bone Plains before."

Su Mingyuan walked to the edge of the command platform and looked out.

Changes were happening on the Bone Plains.

The first thing to change was the color.

The grey-white land covered in skeletons began to show a layer of dark brown from the distant edges.

This was the color of soil.

Then came the skeletons.

The skeletons lying helter-skelter on the ground were changing bit by bit.

The grey-white bone matter turned grey, the grey turned earthy yellow, the earthy yellow turned dark brown, and finally, it mixed with the soil beneath their feet, making it impossible to distinguish which was bone and which was ground.

"The skeletons seem to be decomposing," Tao Zhe walked to Su Mingyuan's side, his voice a bit uncertain, "It's as if... they are melting into the soil."

Su Mingyuan didn't speak and continued to look down.

The speed at which the skeletons were disappearing was accelerating.

The area closest to the base was the first to be cleared.

The bones that were originally densely packed in several layers were now just a patch of dark brown soil.

Then Su Mingyuan saw something even more incredible.

In the cracks of the soil, a small green dot appeared.

He stared at that dot for a few breaths.

Subsequently, the small green dot grew larger.

A tender sprout pushed its way out of the soil crack.

The stem was as thin as a needle, topped with an unfurled leaf.

The leaf was curled, with a color that was a pale, yellowish green.

A second one emerged from two inches away.

A third.

A fourth.

Su Mingyuan held onto the railing of the command platform and looked further away.

It wasn't just the area beneath their feet.

Across the entire Bone Plains—or rather, it could no longer be called the Bone Plains—green was sprouting on that land that was turning dark brown.

Scattered here and there, in clusters east and west, but more and more, and denser and denser.

Tender sprouts pushed out of the soil and unfurled their leaves.

The stems were shooting upward at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Some of the faster-growing ones had already turned from a needle into a small blade of grass a hand's span high.

The wind blew again, stronger than before.

The newly grown tender grass was bent by the wind, then sprang back.

Han Li squatted at the edge of the command platform, her eyes shining unnaturally.

"nine-origin herb," she pointed at the nearest cluster of sprouts below, "The shape of the leaf, three-lobed palmate, with fine serrations on the leaf margin, it's a seedling of the nine-origin herb."

She looked to the right again.

"That broad-leafed one over there is white tiger ginseng. The cluster further over with the slender leaves looks like seedlings of the red vein vine."

She stood up, turned around, and had that expression only Han Li had—half-excited, half-tender, like someone looking at a litter of newborn animals.

"They're all Spirit Medicine."

Su Mingyuan did not look at her.

He was looking further away.

At the end of the Bone Plains, near the foot of the mountain, the changes were more drastic.

The soil there was darker than on the flat ground, the moisture was heavier, and the vegetation grew faster.

It was no longer just tender sprouts; in some places, waist-high shrubs had emerged, with unfurled leaf buds hanging from their branches.

The mountainside was also changing.

On the grey gravel slope, wisps of green were squeezing out of the cracks.

Moss, small grass, and some vine-like plants whose names Su Mingyuan couldn't identify were climbing up along the rock crevices.

The sky was also changing.

It wasn't getting darker; it was getting brighter.

In the grey-yellow sky, a bit of light had appeared at some point.

It wasn't the dark red light of the blood moon, but a normal, whitish light, as if something was seeping out from behind the clouds.

Su Mingyuan looked up for a while; he didn't see the sun, but the light was indeed getting stronger.

The whole world had brightened up quite a bit.

He lowered his head and looked at the land beneath his feet that was turning green.

Ten minutes ago, this place was covered in white bones.

Now the ground was full of green Spirit Medicine and wild grass.

Su Mingyuan turned his head and glanced at Tao Zhe.

Tao Zhe was also looking outside, his expression very complex.

Su Mingyuan patted the railing.

"Another good place."

Tao Zhe added from the side: "That's right, it's very suitable for us to farm."