The Decaying World-Chapter 104 - 99: Exploration (Part 1)

Beneath a gray and hazy sky.

On the brown plains, a lone figure sprinted away from the town’s buildings.

The figure’s body was slightly arched, a gale swirling around him. His white robes fluttered as if he were flying close to the ground, crossing over thirty meters in a single bound before his feet tapped the earth, launching him into the next leap.

It had been ten minutes since Lin Hui descended the cliff.

This time, he didn’t follow the planned roads into the residential area. Instead, he chose a different, deserted direction and ran at full speed.

The sprawling buildings were quickly left behind. The dense collection of houses thinned out until they vanished completely.

Soon, only the bare, brown plains remained around him.

Strange, ferocious-looking, leafless vines could occasionally be seen. They arched up from beneath the ground, spreading wantonly across the surface.

He lost track of how far he had run. Only when the sky began to darken did Lin Hui gradually slow down and take out the mobile containment cloak he had prepared in advance.

He had never stayed in the Inner City until nightfall, so he had brought a full set of equipment this time, planning to use it when he finally experienced a true night within its walls.

After another ten-plus minutes of sprinting, currents of air began to fill the surroundings.

The turbulent air currents formed strong, natural gales, causing the leafless vines on the ground to sway relentlessly.

Lin Hui checked his direction and gradually decelerated.

The wind around him grew stronger, and the plain ahead gradually sloped upward.

Lin Hui looked up.

Far in the distance, directly ahead, a long black wall completely blocked the path forward in all directions.

The surface of the black wall was covered in hard scars and scratches. On this plain, it resembled a long, thin, black caterpillar crawling on the ground.

As he drew closer, Lin Hui could gradually make out the Black Armor guards patrolling back and forth on the wall.

They wore heavy, black full-body armor and carried double-edged steel blades, short spears, or long pikes as they paced back and forth atop the five-to-six-meter-high black wall.

At the foot of the wall, several scantily clad young women were bent over, searching for something.

Lin Hui slowed to a normal walking pace and then continued moving forward.

WHOOSH~~~

As he drew closer, a distinct whistling sound emerged from the air—the strong, natural wind of this place.

The wind tugged at Lin Hui’s robes, making them flutter violently.

He narrowed his eyes, relaxed his Inner Strength’s control over the airflow around him, and began walking left along the black wall.

The wall blocked his path, and it was clearly guarded. He decided to try and find a way around it so he could continue onward.

But five minutes later, Lin Hui’s expression soured as he stood beneath the black wall, watching a few scattered, white-haired old men picking at something in the distance.

’This wall is much, much longer than I imagined.’

He looked up, watched a squad of Black Armor guards with torches pass by on the wall, and calmed himself. Then, he found the two nearest Scavengers and approached them, intending to ask about the situation.

The two closest Scavengers consisted of a skinny old man with graying hair, wearing only a pair of gray boxer shorts. His shriveled frame was completely exposed. He wore tattered brown leather boots and carried a large, snakeskin-patterned cloth sack on his back.

The other was a middle-aged woman, perhaps in her forties. Her face was gaunt, her eyes sunken, and her pupils were a startling, unsettlingly vivid blood-red.

The woman followed behind the old man, her expression vacant, constantly muttering unknown words.

"Hello, can you tell me where this is?" Lin Hui shouted against the strong wind, stopping five meters away from the pair.

"*@&#*!" Hearing the noise, the old man looked up at him warily. He stopped what he was picking up and spouted a string of bizarre, guttural words.

"Hello? Do you speak the Tuyue Language?" Lin Hui was taken aback. ’To think I’d run into someone in Tuyue Inner City who doesn’t speak the official language.’

"..." The old man paused, then spoke again, this time managing a few difficult phrases.

"Stranger... away from me... far! Keep... distance!"

"Okay. Can you tell me what this place is?" Lin Hui repeated his question slowly and clearly.

"I warn you! Go away! This... trick... attract... will guards!!"

The old man’s voice grew higher and sharper.

He was becoming agitated, his hands waving wildly as he gesticulated.

Despite the jumbled word order, Lin Hui understood what he meant.

He noticed that as the old man’s voice rose, the Black Armor guards on the distant wall had stopped to look in their direction.

The guards began to unshoulder the powerful metal bows from their backs and take aim.

"Go away! Go away!!" the old man shrieked, his voice growing even more shrill.

"I mean no harm..." Lin Hui tried to gesture that he was friendly and wouldn’t hurt them.

But the old man had already started making threatening gestures, making communication impossible. Lin Hui had no choice but to retreat and put some distance between them.

"Stranger, you can’t communicate with Scavengers. Don’t waste your energy." A clear male voice came from behind him. It had a strange, subtle, hissing quality, like the rushing of air.

But regardless of its tone, it was the most standard Tuyue Language Lin Hui had heard here so far.

He took a few more steps back and turned to look at the source of the voice.

There on the brown plains, a tall man—his eyes also blood-red—was approaching. He was bare-chested and carried a curved saber and a round shield on his back.

The man’s hair was tied in a high ponytail. A large, crude gold hoop hung from one ear, and his lips and nose were also pierced with smaller gold rings. A bluish-black, unidentifiable tattoo adorned his forehead.

Adding to this were the contours of his strong, gray-black muscles and the various scars, large and small, that littered his upper body.

An unfamiliar, exotic air washed over Lin Hui.

Ugh...

Lin Hui instinctively held his breath.

The exotic smell was a bit strong, too. As the man drew closer, a pungent body odor, like rotten eggs mixed with onions, wafted over on the wind.

"Hello, stranger. Care for a fat bean pod?"

The strange Martial Artist stopped three meters away, revealing a friendly smile. He took a glistening, translucent bean pod from a pouch at his waist and waved it.

"It’s delicious. Good for refreshing the mind."

"Who are you? What is this place? And thanks, but we’re not familiar enough to be sharing food. I’m good," Lin Hui said bluntly.

"I’m a wandering Martial Artist. You can call me Anbo. It’s the Taixu name I chose for myself," the red-eyed Martial Artist replied with a smile.

"Also, this is the Gate of Purgatory, a fortress in the Outer Ring. It’s an important sealed location. Why would you come here? This isn’t a good place to be."

"The Gate of Purgatory?" Lin Hui’s heart clenched. He instantly recalled the word "Purgatory" that had once appeared on his Blood Seal.

"A sealed location? What does that mean?"

"You don’t know?" The red-eyed Martial Artist looked surprised. "Legend says this land was originally the site of Purgatory’s great gate. A limitless Purgatory Aura constantly leaked out, contaminating the surroundings. Later, the Fog People came, sealed the Gate of Purgatory, built a fortress to maintain the seal, and established the No-Fog Zone. That’s how the vast Tuyue Inner City in the No-Fog Zone was created."

"...A seal... A place like this actually exists...?" The surprise on Lin Hui’s face was impossible to hide.

"It’s quite normal. There are many such fortresses sealing unknown rifts in the Inner City. You can find one every so often along the Outer Ring. There are dozens of them, large and small. It’s not just the Gate of Purgatory; there’s also the Gate of Extreme Cold, the Gate of Destruction, the Sin Domain Fortress, and so on. The Fog People have dispatched large numbers of the Black Army to guard and suppress them all," the red-eyed Martial Artist explained. "Ordinary people don’t come near these places. One misstep and you could run into those crazy Scavengers. They’re not actually scavenging; they’ve been affected by the leaking contamination, and they wander around in a daze, instinctively trying to find and absorb even the faintest traces of the Purgatory Aura."

"...Anbo, right? Thanks for the explanation. So you’re saying this is a fortress meant to seal some kind of dangerous gate?" Lin Hui reiterated.

"That’s right. Where are you from? How did you get here without knowing even the basics?" Anbo asked, puzzled.

"I’m from the Outer City. This is my first time in the Inner City," Lin Hui answered truthfully.

"The Outer City?! That’s at least several hundred kilometers from here, isn’t it? How did you get here?" Anbo said in astonishment.

"I’m pretty fast. I just ran and ran, and here I am."

"...Well, you must be really fast then." Anbo tossed a fat bean pod into his mouth and chewed with satisfaction.

The thing seemed to be like chewing gum; it could be chewed repeatedly, releasing a fresh, minty scent.

"Let’s go. We shouldn’t stay in one place for too long, or we’ll attract the Black Army’s attention. Are you a Summoner or a Martial Artist?" Anbo said, leading the way in another direction.

"What about you?" Lin Hui asked in return.

"I’m a Martial Artist. You people here classify by Inner Power Realm, but my people don’t. We are born with the ability to awaken the power of a strong physical body. These powers are our gift, allowing us to resist all kinds of dangers and injuries," Anbo answered.

"I’m just a rookie who recently broke through to the Inner Power Realm. I’m very weak," Lin Hui replied.

"What does ’rookie’ mean?"

"It refers to a bird that’s so easy to catch you could cook it. It’s a metaphor for being weak and new."

"That’s quite a good metaphor."

The two walked along the wall. Soon, with Amber leading the way, a collection of crude, ramshackle wooden huts appeared up ahead, built right up against the wall.

The huts were arranged in a circle. In the clearing inside, many people were sitting on the ground, displaying small stalls to sell their wares.

"This is a temporary black market where good stuff from inside the fortress gets out. It’s the main reason people like us travel so far to get here," Anbo explained.

"A black market?"

"Yeah. The fortress has at least a thousand Black Army soldiers stationed in it. They’re all human, and they have needs. Someone’s always killing some strange creature, and they’ll secretly process the materials to sell for money. The law technically forbids the sale of contaminated materials, but the profits are just too great," Anbo said in a low voice.

’It seems it’s the same everywhere.’ Lin Hui found it all quite novel. He had wondered what the Inner City would be like and what he might encounter, but he had never expected to find a place like a sealed fortress.

As the two walked over, one in front of the other, people immediately came up to speak with Anbo in hushed tones. It was clear he was a regular here. He casually exchanged a few words, clapped one person on the shoulder, and then led Lin Hui further inside.

On pieces of tattered cloth, some round, some square, all sorts of miscellaneous materials were displayed.

Most of these materials were carapaces, limbs, fur, and even equipment from various creatures.

"Huh?" Lin Hui suddenly stopped, his eyes fixed on a shortsword at one of the stalls. It was sky-blue and looked as if it were carved from crystal.

The hilt of the shortsword was styled like intertwined black vines, and the blade itself was clear and smooth, glowing with a faint light.

"Interested? Fifteen blood for it. It’s a sidearm from a Malice Cavalryman. These aren’t easy to find. Normally, when a Malice Cavalryman dies, all their belongings turn to ash. You need special methods to preserve something like this," the stall owner, a short man in a heavy gray cloak, said in a hoarse voice.