Welcome to Ability Store-Chapter 124 - 123: The Calamity of Erosion
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No one knows how the erosion started, and most people don’t even realize it’s an erosion. Half an hour ago, the sky suddenly became overcast, and the clouds were so low they seemed about to touch the top of the Moon Gazing Tower.
"Why did it suddenly get dark?" Xu Xuanling looked up. "It looks like it’s going to rain. How long until it’s our turn?"
The steps below the Moon Gazing Tower were crowded with cultivators.
Everyone was here to sign up.
Many wore uniforms to show off their sects, and since they gathered closely together, the crowd looked like a large, colorful palette, vibrant and dazzling.
"After the blue, green, and black teams finish registering, it should be our turn," Hua said crisply.
"So you’ve been watching all along, good job," Xu Xuanling praised. Despite joining the sect later, due to her older student number and age, she always acted as the senior sister in front of the sibling pair. "Why doesn’t the Sect Leader give us matching clothes too? Everyone looks like a bunch of loose cultivators wearing different things."
"Because the Sect Leader is an Immortal, and Immortals don’t care about this," Jiu replied earnestly.
"Hey... even if you believe in him, there should be a limit," Xu Xuanling grumbled. "The Sect Leader is strong, but he’s nowhere near an Immortal. A True Immortal can call the wind and rain, go up to the heavens and down to the earth, he’s far from that."
"You’ve never seen a True Immortal, how do you know he’s not?" Jiu retorted.
"You don’t need to see to know. Everyone says so!"
"Since there’s no standard, I say he is unless you can find a True Immortal for me to see."
Xu Xuanling was momentarily speechless.
"You can’t find one, so you lost," Jiu said seriously.
"I didn’t lose!"
"You lost."
"No, I didn’t!"
"Pfft." Xue Xiaojin couldn’t help but laugh. "You’re so strong when cultivating, how come you argue like children?"
"Aren’t you a child? You’re younger than me!" Xu Xuanling glared.
"Yeah, but I can cook and handle chores. Can you?" Xue Xiaojin retorted. "Whoever can’t is the child."
"I—" Xu Xuanling was so choked up she couldn’t speak. She finally decided to seek help from Liu Shuyue.
The person she admired most in the sect was, of course, Immortal Master Liu, who taught them personally. Though the sect didn’t bestow Daoist names or require formal disciple rituals, she already considered him her master. Over the past month, Xu Xuanling gradually realized that Sect Leader Chen Xuan probably didn’t understand cultivation at all. The sect was barely running thanks to Immortal Master Liu!
She knew Liu Shuyue would never lie against his conscience.
Xu Xuanling moved to the front of the line and tugged at Liu Shuyue’s sleeve, "Master..."
Before she could ask her question, she was stunned.
Liu Shuyue slightly tilted her chin, staring motionlessly at the sky with an unexpectedly stern expression.
That wasn’t the look of someone worried about rain.
The sky seemed even darker than before.
Just then, an uproar erupted from the back of the crowd.
Some were shouting in surprise, others were screaming.
Xu Xuanling turned back and saw something descending from the sky, falling among the crowd. People hurriedly scattered as if avoiding something filthy.
Wait, was that a rope?
Did someone throw it from the Moon Gazing Tower?
She looked up and realized something was off. The group was four or fifty meters away from the tower, and there shouldn’t be anything overhead for the rope to hang from.
"Strange..." Hua also noticed the rope floating above. "It looks like it fell from the clouds."
Whoosh!
Suddenly, another rope fell.
This time it landed very close, only a few steps away.
The cultivators near the rope reacted just like the ones behind, screaming, retreating, even swearing.
Liu Shuyue was drawn by the noise, and a glance made her complexion change drastically! She immediately shouted to the ten disciples, "Let’s go, we’re not registering today!"
"Hey, but it’s almost our turn?" Xu Xuanling was surprised. The blue and green teams at the front were already under the tower, it was about to be their turn.
"Senior Sister! No, look at the rope!" Xuan shouted, his voice even trembling slightly.
Xu Xuanling froze, then looked carefully again.
Immediately, goosebumps spread from her back up her arms.
That wasn’t a rope at all, it was a wet, slippery intestine!
"Stay close, don’t fall behind!" Liu Shuyue’s tone uncharacteristically reflected tension.
The group quickly followed, moving towards the edge of the crowd.
Xu Xuanling couldn’t take her eyes off the intestine. She saw people scattering around it, but some cultivators tried to approach, seemingly wanting to see what kind of trick it was.
One even drew a sword, hacking at the gut, slicing it into several pieces.
Blood immediately flowed out.
Even so, the intestine continued to slide downward as if trying to maintain its original length. As that person used the sword tip to prod the severed pieces, the intestine suddenly flailed. The swinging end touched him. Instantly, he seemed struck by lightning, standing rigidly while trembling all over, his sword clattering to the ground.
Then Xu Xuanling saw a nightmarish scene.
The person was absorbed by the intestine!
He wasn’t swallowed into it, nor did he turn to blood. Instead, parts of his body mysteriously detached and blended with the intestine, then rose upward! It started with the spine, because the back had been touched, then the lungs, stomach, ribs, and other unidentifiable organs.
Both bones and flesh merged with the intestine, continually rising to the sky. This person lost all resistance when his spine was extracted, allowing his body to be hollowed out bit by bit!
The terrifying sight turned the surrounding cultivators’ calls into screams!
Xu Xuanling couldn’t help but scream too!
What the hell was this!
Even the most frightening nightmare wouldn’t feature something so disgusting.
Since they moved quickly, they left the most crowded area before the cultivator queue completely descended into chaos, entering the streets of Chang’an.
However, things hadn’t improved here at all.
Intestines still fell from the sky, hanging on street edges, coiled on rooftops, all with one end hidden in the clouds.
The reaction of common folk was far weaker than the cultivators. Several had already fallen victim, getting their tendons pulled and skin stripped by the intestines, then sucked up to the sky in plain view.
Liu Shuyue summoned two re-forged Thousand Thoughts Swords, guarding the group front and back. Whenever intestines approached, the Qi swords flew to slash them apart. But this merely addressed the symptoms, not the cause. No matter how much they sliced away, the intestines would drip down again, replenishing the lost portions.
Now the surroundings were filled with wailing and screams. People either ran back indoors, sealing all doors and windows, or frantically fled the city, seeking distance from this terrifying place.
"What’s going on?" Xu Xuanling felt on the verge of collapse. This was Chang’an City, under the Immortal Alliance’s rule! Experts from all over the world gathered here. How could unknown intestines slaughter the city’s citizens unchecked?
"It’s probably an erosion," Liu Shuyue suddenly said in a deep voice.
"What’s that?"
"I’m not entirely sure, but roughly, it’s the fusion of different worlds." She hadn’t witnessed an erosion firsthand but discussed it extensively with Lin Qing, developing some understanding of incursion points and world-overlap theory. "It seems like we’re still in Chang’an City, but we’re actually entering another world."
"Another... world?" Xu Xuanling repeated blankly. She looked around — weren’t these all familiar streets and buildings? She’d lived in Chang’an for over a decade, knowing every tree along Vermilion Bird Avenue like an old friend. Suddenly calling this another world, how could she accept that?
She knew some top sects possessed Grotto Heaven resources, where the Sumeru Mustard Seed Cave Heaven inside was akin to a small world. But small and big worlds were distinct, having nothing to do with each other, completely unlike what Immortal Master Liu described.
"Earlier I felt the Qi flow become inexplicably chaotic, somewhat foreign. That’s likely when the erosion occurred," Liu Shuyue said while walking. Regarding why the city hadn’t visibly changed much, according to Lin Qing, space overlap takes time to manifest. And now part of it has shown — the sky above.
The sky above them was no longer that of Chang’an.
