Chapter 114 Dream Chaser
"Where is the world full of flowers? If it really exists, I will definitely go there..."
Yang Qiu sat on the back of the undead lizard and slowly crawled along the winding and steep beast road in the Sorenson Mountains.
This... is the area with the most concentrated miasma in the Sorenson Mountains.
Even though Yang Qiu was wearing headphones and listening to the song "Chasing Dreams" on his mobile phone, the trembling sound that stimulated his head nerves still went straight into his ears.
" I never gave up on my ideals, even in the dark days..."
Yang Qiu endured the pressure from all directions with an expressionless face. Even when the fog in the mountains and forests he passed by, which looked like light smoke and thin mist or rolling clouds, was distorted into various terrifying shapes, he did not even look back.
"Tomb of the Fallen" Sorensen, the miasma here would have had an impact on him two months ago, but now... it's really not a problem at all.
"Maybe I don't have talent, but I have the innocence of dreams, and I will use my whole life to prove it..."
The undead lizard climbed deep into the forest and stopped in front of a pool of water.
Yang Qiu turned off the player on his mobile phone, took off his headphones, lifted the hem of his robe and got off the lizard's back. He stared at the pool of water surrounded by bushes and rocks, with footprints of wild animals on the ground, then walked over and stepped into the pool.
The calm surface of the pond shook... and then disappeared.
An ugly monster with a bloody mouth opened, lying quietly among the rocks, bit Yang Qiu's legs fiercely and swiftly.
Yang Qiu didn't move, didn't even blink, just stared at the ugly monster quietly.
The monster's mouth, which was larger than its head and body, could not close. Before its ferocious sharp teeth touched Yang Qiu, its body, which was the size of a foal and flattened on the ground, was decomposed into black dust and dissipated in the wind.
When souls collide or devour each other, the crushing of souls is even greater than the difference in combat power between different species; a low-level monster transformed from a fallen soul with a mental power of at most 600 to 700 would naturally end up being reduced to ashes if it forcibly attacked Yang Qiu, who was more than ten times stronger than him...
The spellcasters in this world are not glass turrets.
Yang Qiu sat down where the ugly monster was lurking.
Souls that have fallen into alienated monsters will unconsciously move towards areas that make them feel comfortable. Yang Qiu spent half a day wandering in the miasma zone before finding this relatively powerful low-level monster. The place where it was lying seemed ordinary, but in fact it was full of secrets. As soon as Yang Qiu sat down , he felt a strong sense of dizziness, and the trembling sound lingering in his ears became more and more shrill.
Yang Qiu was very satisfied. He adjusted his breathing and entered into meditation.
His senses opened up, and the crazy aura that had accumulated for a long time rushed towards Yang Qiu with joy, like a school of piranhas that suddenly smelled blood.
If the magic power of the outside world is poisonous sugar water that allows people to absorb nutrients, then the foggy miasma in the Sorenson Mountains, which is so dense that it has undergone a qualitative change and can be seen with the naked eye, is a deadly poison that can kill anyone who touches it.
With his eyes closed and his inspiration fully open, he calmly watched the crazy auras rushing towards him from a spiritual perspective.
What he "saw" was not poison or madness, but shattered and messy fragments of the soul.
The Sorensen Mountains have not been surrounded by miasma since ancient times. Four hundred years ago, these mountains were the largest trade route in the southern part of the Napalm continent.
When the shadow of the resurrected ancient gods loomed over the entire continent, and when void demons began to emerge from the unstable space-time rifts that appeared accidentally, the mountains of Sorenson seemed to be cursed and gradually turned into a forbidden zone for life.
More than two hundred years ago, when Yang Qiu was still enduring the days in the old man's wizard tower, the Sorenson Mountains gained the nickname "The Grave of the Fallen"... No one knows how many out-of-control people have used these mountains as a burial place.
What can be confirmed is that this huge "grave" is not a quiet place for eternal rest. Yang Qiu, who opened his mind, "saw" many fragments that were so broken that they could no longer be called souls, and only the fragments that devoured the killing instinct remained.
He "heard" their voices, the chaotic wailing and trembling that cut through people's nerves like a steel knife.
Yang Qiu "looked" at them calmly.
It was like looking at Camor, looking at Westram, and looking at those miserable, confused, numb, and mechanical people in the places he had traveled to.
They are also sentient beings.
Yang Qiu's origin on Earth was not very good. His original family was a mess. His father abandoned his wife and children, his mother was clear about small things but confused about big things, and his relatives were unreliable...
Before Yang Qiu went to middle school, the most vivid memory was that every New Year's Day his mother would dress him in his most tattered clothes and drag him to the neighborhood committee to complain to someone, just so that his family could get an extra half barrel of oil and a few kilograms of rice and flour when the neighborhood committee visited the low-income households.
Yes... Because my father irresponsibly abandoned his wife and children, before my elder sister Yang Ying came of age, part of their family's living expenses came from his and my elder sister's minimum living allowance.
After graduating from high school, the elder sister gave up college to work. Their family's income exceeded the city's minimum living standard. Only then did Yang Qiu free himself from the embarrassment of having to act pitifully.
He never felt how happy his life was, and after entering high school he found that there were so many generous classmates among his peers and he complained a lot.
Until he came into this world inexplicably.
He then realized... that life could be even more bitter.
It turned out that his mother dragged him to perform for half a bucket of rapeseed oil and a few kilograms of rice and flour, which was nothing. There were many people who had worked hard and sweated a lot, but still had to kneel down and lick the housekeeper's shoes in order to get a few pieces of black bread that they deserved.
It turned out that his envy of his classmates was so ridiculous that it was not worth mentioning. Some people were born noble and enjoyed luxury; some people were labeled humble from birth, and did not know what it meant to change their lives, did not know what hope was, and their biggest wish was not to die hungry.
It turns out that the sentences in the textbooks, "The rich have wine and meat, while the poor freeze to death on the streets" and "Those dressed in silk and satin are not silkworm farmers," are such heavy words.
It turns out that the Buddhist concept of "all living beings suffer" is not just a joke.
Yang Qiu was unwilling to accept this kind of world that could make one feel cold all over just by looking at it for a few more seconds. He struggled desperately to survive and to become stronger. He wanted to go home. Even if he couldn't go back, he would at least find a way to change this fucked up world and not let himself suffer this unprovoked crime in vain.
But the reality is hopeless. The more powerful Yang Qiu becomes, the more he realizes that he can do nothing - he can still make revolution in the era of breech-loading rifles, but in this world where gods walk everywhere and extraordinary people are worse than dogs, no matter how he deduces or calculates, he cannot see any hope of success.
Not to mention the people rising up and becoming masters of their own destiny, even a second-rate capitalist revolution cannot do that.
This world had completed the Industrial Revolution more than a hundred years before he traveled through time. By the time he traveled through time, one could see airships densely traveling back and forth in the skies over big cities, giant ocean-going ships of hundreds of thousands of tons sailing across the open sea, and magic steam train tracks laid as far as the capital of an inland country like the Kingdom of the Rhine.
Developing in parallel with the magic industry are tens of millions of industrial workers across the continent, factories springing up everywhere, and a large number of emerging capital aristocrats.
These emerging capitalist aristocrats did challenge the authority of the feudal aristocracy to some extent, but they were still quite far away from social change, such as a war of unified ideology like the American Civil War.
The reason is simple. The guillotine of the ancient god hanging over everyone's head and the invasion of the void demons have curbed the expansion of capital power.
Once the all-consuming nature of capital is curbed, it will turn conservative. The developed countries on the earth that have divided up the high-end manufacturing industry and then sat back and enjoyed the benefits of their ancestors for decades have proved the inertia of capital in this regard.
The capital that is most likely to trigger social change has survived, so what can the people do?
What can Yang Qiu do?
He can't do anything.
He can only allow himself to observe all living beings, see their suffering, and listen to their pain.
Although he is powerless to change the current situation, he should at least be aware of the suffering of all living beings.
He opened his inspiration and accepted the poisonous magic mixed with countless fragments of painful souls. He heard countless voices wailing in his spiritual realm, and he felt the painful groans of countless people echoing in his soul.
His soul felt like it was being torn apart.
Yang Qiu remained unmoved and allowed these chaotic and crazy consciousnesses to travel through his mind.
There was a voice crying out its repentance to its mother.
There is a voice regretting having lived a bad life.
There is a voice venting its dissatisfaction with someone.
A voice was screaming unconsciously.
There is a voice complaining about the unfairness of fate.
There is a voice cursing all life in the world, wishing that everyone would fall into purgatory like it.
Amid the intense pain that tore his soul apart, Yang Qiu began to experience hallucinations.
A poor seaside town, a smelly fishing port, and a man standing beside a broken wooden boat, looking at him in horror.
The man smiled at him ingratiatingly, exchanged a few words of greeting between strangers, then left with an excuse and ran towards the town without looking back.
He discovered a wanted criminal worth 90,000 gold coins, and he hurried back to inform the sheriff.
When Yang Qiu left the town, this fisherman who had worked hard for his family for more than ten years had his hands and feet broken and was hung on the rack for drying fishing nets.
He actually did nothing wrong. He just wanted to get rich, very rich, so Yang Qiu did not make things difficult for him... but he caused the sheriff to be hung on a weather vane by Yang Qiu and exposed to the northwest wind all night, so of course the sheriff would not let him go.
The man in the hallucination looked at Yang Qiu with his dying breath. There was no hatred in his eyes, only pleading and flattering.
Yang Qiu remembered this pleading look for many, many years.
The man's phantom disappeared, and what appeared in front of Yang Qiu was... a large group of people.
A large group of people in tattered clothes, shaped like skeletons, with blurry faces.
Yang Qiu stared at this group of people for a long time, and then he thought, ah, it's you.
Refugees.
Natural disasters occur frequently in the Nabarron continent, but there are no PLA uncles in this world.
The victims who could not survive and had to flee in groups were regarded as hot potatoes that could cause trouble by the governors of various places.
Yang Qiu didn't know where this group of people came from. He only remembered that he met this group of people when he was escaping from the holy land of the Fiery Sun Church.
With angry pursuers behind him, Yang Qiu couldn't stop.
Even though he knew that this group of refugees, carrying the elderly and children with them, would never be accepted by the Holy Land, and that they would only be driven into the uninhabited wilderness and die quietly where no one could see them... He did nothing. He just glanced at these refugees who were destined not the winter of that year and left in a hurry.
I haven't forgotten you...How could I forget you? Not far away from this group of refugees is the roaring magic steam train.
The phantoms of the refugees disappeared like bubbles, and another group of people emerged.
Yang Qiu looked at these phantoms lingering in the depths of his soul, and his heart gradually calmed down.
He knew very well that these images were his inner demons, a reflection of his own powerlessness, and the guilt and regret engraved in his soul.
He never thought of forgetting these, and when he saw them again, he did not feel embarrassed, but only had a deeper understanding of himself.
During these long three hundred years, he has realized his own powerlessness countless times. This is an objective fact and there is no need to conceal or beautify it.
After a long while, Yang Qiu smiled slightly: "I saw you... I remember you."
"forever."
The magical power surging around Yang Qiu suddenly climbed upwards.
This active, boiling magic instantly attracted the dormant magic within a radius of one kilometer. Inside and outside the mountains and forests, countless magic rushed into this dense forest, gathered together, and gradually formed a magic vortex.
The filthy magic power that even the prophet of the holy land who held the sealed object would avoid was swirling, boiling, piling up, merging with each other, and gradually condensing. After more than ten minutes, its quality turned into irregular crystals visible to the naked eye.
Yang Qiu looked up at the huge translucent magic crystal, pushed himself up with his hands, and stood up from the ground.
The giant irregular crystal floating in the air and slowly rotating shone brightly, enveloping Yang Qiu completely.
Several kilometers away, in a mountain among the Sorenson Mountains, a caravan from the Southern Continent was passing through the "safe passage". The mercenaries protecting the caravan were stunned as they looked at the mountaintop that had just shone with dazzling light.
A mercenary said in shock: "That's... the realm gate? Someone actually came to the Sorenson Mountains to advance?!"
“Oh, gods, this is such a huge gate to a realm, could it be that someone is advancing to the legendary level?”
The mercenaries looked in that direction in surprise. The mercenary captain Ben was also watching the fun. Suddenly he thought of something and hurriedly urged them, "Stop looking and leave! The legendary realm gate is not a place for fun. If the guy who came to Sorenson to advance loses control, it will be a big trouble!"
Upon hearing this, the mercenaries quickly quickened their pace.
Whether a spellcaster or someone of other professional level, if one wants to enter the ranks of the extraordinary, one must pass through the "Gate of Realm".
The "Gate of Realm" is not a door, but a beam of light.
However, those who have been enveloped by the light prefer to call it a door.
When Yang Qiu stepped into the "door" for the third time and opened his eyes, what appeared before his eyes was a vast white world of nothingness.
The world behind the "door" seems empty, but it is not empty.
The void is the end of all nothingness, the place of all terror, and the destination of all extinction.
Behind the "door" is order, rules, and the scrutiny and test from the laws of the plane.
Yang Qiu had just recovered his five senses and six consciousnesses from the feeling of dislocation when he entered the "door" when he felt the familiar heavy pressure as if he was sinking to the bottom of the deep sea.
This feeling was terrible, the air seemed to have become as sticky as liquid. Not only was it difficult to breathe, but his mind and spirit also seemed to be pressed down by invisible hands, as if they wanted to press his entire body to the ground and completely crush his spirit and will.
This is not the evil taste of some god, but just the pressure unconsciously exerted by the plane laws behind the "door".
This level of intimidation is very suitable to be used as a "threshold"...Challengers who are not determined enough and have not been tempered enough will be defeated at this level.
Yang Qiu, who had been here twice, naturally would not take this level of pressure seriously. After adapting to the environment behind the "door", Yang Qiu raised his head and looked up into the sky.
Above, there was a huge, cold, pale pupil.
"Eye of Truth." Yang Qiu called out the pale pupil's real name.
The pale and colorless pupils turned towards Yang Qiu.
The plane law is not a personal god. It has no intelligence and no emotions. When the creatures passing through the "door" call its real name, it will give a completely fair baptism.
The surging energy fell into the pale pupils and rolled towards Yang Qiu.
Yang Qiu spread his arms and accepted the impact calmly.
The baptism of power bestowed by the Eye of Truth depends on the size of the "gate" that the living being passes through.
This is the fairest treatment for the creatures in this magical world except for death, and it is also the only ladder to heaven that people of poor backgrounds can hope to climb.
It’s just... the power of this world is poisonous. Even the baptism of power bestowed fairly by the Eye of Truth, the impersonal god representing the laws of the plane, is equally poisonous.
The moment he was hit by the force, Yang Qiu's whole body trembled violently and even his consciousness began to blur.
The flow of information that cannot be summarized in words plows through every inch of nerve, and every second is so long that it drives people crazy.
While trying hard to resist the baptism of power like a flood, the illusion that had just disappeared reappeared.
And... it was even stronger and clearer than when Yang Qiu used the special environment of the Sorenson Mountains to rehearse his baptism.
Yang Qiu's whole body was convulsing, blood was coming out of his mouth and nose, and he felt dizzy.
The image of the group of refugees whom he had watched dying without rescuing was almost solidified on his retina. He could clearly see how lifeless the numb eyes were on those people's thin faces.
When he maintains what he believes in justice in a simple and crude way, the people he obviously wants to help are more afraid of and hate him than the people he is targeting.
He began to tremble, body, mind and soul.
His mind started to go haywire.
Tears of regret rolled out of his eyes and mixed with the taste of blood in his mouth.
In a daze, a melody suddenly sounded in his mind.
This melody pulled him out of depression countless times when he was confused and tired, and kept him moving forward.
"...Run forward, facing the cold stares and ridicule..."
"How can we feel the vastness of life without going through hardships..."
"Fate cannot make us kneel down and beg for mercy, even if our arms are covered in blood..."
Yang Qiu opened his bloodshot eyes, gasped and spat out the blood foam in his mouth.
His nerves, soul, and body seemed to be washed by a violent torrent as sharp as a knife, causing him excruciating pain.
But his brain woke up.
The melody in his mind, which was extremely familiar to him and which he had loved very much before he traveled through time, carried all his longing for his hometown over the long three hundred years and had long since seeped into his bones and blood.
Now, it was instinctively awakened by memory, flowing out from his bones and blood, feeding back into his will and spirit.
"How can we see the brilliance of life if we don't persist to the end..."
"It is better to burn out than to linger on. For the beauty in your heart, do not compromise until you grow old..."
"——This old man will never compromise!"
