Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 619: Human Nature, Animal Nature, Godly Nature

In the Bitter Life Mountains, no wind blew. No sand stirred. All living beings were quiet. No one made a sound. Blood-red light continued to spread through the dome of heaven, making it seem like it had been wounded and was bleeding profusely.

On the rooftop, the Heir Apparent spoke of matters related to gods and karma, his voice echoing out into the deathly silence.

“I am not a god, nor do I have any godsource. But I do have authority, though it’s different from that of a god.... My authority does not come from a lit godfire, but rather, from a blessing given by the heavenly daos of Revered Ancient. I have no way to help you control the godsource within you. But I can give you a direction. And that is hunger.” The Heir Apparent looked at Xu Qing.

“Hunger?” Xu Qing said, and a moment later he glanced at the Captain. It wasn’t lost on him that every time the Captain saw the flesh of a god, he suddenly looked incomparably hungry.

The Captain blinked a few times but didn’t say anything.

Xu Qing thought about it for a moment.

“We don’t have much time, Xu Qing,” the Heir Apparent said, looking once again at the redness spreading through the sky. He took a step forward. When he did, he vanished, along with Xu Qing.

The Captain didn’t seem surprised that they had disappeared. Stretching a bit, he opened his bag of holding and started rummaging through it. Eventually, he pulled out a metal box.

“The Heir Apparent was in too much of a hurry...” he murmured. Sticking out his tongue, he bit it and spat some blood into the box.

Can’t do anything about that, though. I’ll just have to use this. The old man really does have some amazing powers of foresight. Back when we were about to leave Sea-Sealing County, he gave me this little thingy and said it was Fourth Sib’s anchor.... It can only open using my blood. And if I ever lose track of Fourth Sib, this can take me right to him.

The Captain looked at the box and considered activating it. That said, it was too important of an item, so in the end, he suppressed that desire.

Somewhere out in the endless desert of the Greenhair Badlands, the Heir Apparent and Xu Qing appeared out of thin air.

Xu Qing immediately sent his senses out around him. The wind had stopped, and the dunes stood still. The desert was unusually quiet. For some unknown reason, the green sand underfoot actually looked gray. It gave off the sensation of death. Xu Qing had passed through this location before, and knew that it was a few months away from the Bitter Life Mountains.

“This place should do,” the Heir Apparent said quietly. He looked at Xu Qing. “I’ll ask you one last time. Did you make a decision?”

Xu Qing looked at the red glow on the horizon, and sensed his violet moon power acting fidgety. It seemed like it wanted to burst out of him and rush off toward the horizon. He didn’t want to abandon the violet moon, and thus, he realized that he didn’t really need to make a decision. He looked at the Heir Apparent and nodded.

“Great!” The Heir Apparent reached toward him. He did not release any aura, nor any cultivation base fluctuations. There was no visible surge of energy. But that simple grasping motion caused Xu Qing to shiver.

He could sense the flame of his life force going dim. Then the vital force within him, seemingly with a will of its own, became a mist that rapidly spread off him. White mist emerged from his pores, as well as from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It spread out and then into the Heir Apparent’s right hand. As it happened, his body started withering. His hair shriveled, and he suddenly felt incredibly weak. The feeling intensified.

A moment later, a clump of white mist rested in the Heir Apparent’s hand. He put it away.

Xu Qing staggered backward several paces, gasping for breath. As of this moment, he no longer looked like he was twenty years old. Instead, he looked like an old man with one foot in the grave. Most of his hair had fallen out, and what remained was gray. He was gaunt, his cultivation base was incredibly weak, and his teeth were loose. His eyes were dim, and his life force was about ninety percent gone. There was an emptiness within him that became as cold as ice, then gave rise to a sensation of hunger. Yet Xu Qing didn’t feel that it was enough.

Looking at the Heir Apparent, he hoarsely said, “Senior, I know you’re not just doing this for me. I know you want me to strengthen my violet moon power, and if I’m right, sir, the reason has something to do with your brothers and sisters.”

The Heir Apparent didn’t respond deceptively. “You’re right, Xu Qing. I have my own selfish reasons for helping you. I hope that your violet moon power can improve and get stronger. And I hope you can learn to truly control it.”

Xu Qing smiled weakly. “In that case, keep going. I also want to control my violet moon power. And even more than that, I want to see what the world really looks like.”

After a moment of silence, the Heir Apparent performed an incantation gesture with his left hand. Instantly, a Smoldering God seal settled onto Xu Qing.

“Strip you of vitality, make your life force empty.

“Strip you of cultivation base, wither up your spirit power.

“Strip you of healing, and make it impossible for you to recover.

“Finally, strip you of the chance to live, leaving you immobile and defenseless, with no choice but to wait for death to arrive.”

Xu Qing’s mind spun until it was blank. At a certain point, he lost the ability to stand, and toppled onto the desert floor.

The Heir Apparent sighed. With a deep look at Xu Qing, he turned and floated up into the sky, gradually disappearing off into the distance. He left behind the silence of the desert, and a lone figure laying in the sand.

Xu Qing liked peace and quiet. It helped him think, and he liked thinking. But right now, despite the silence, he hardly had the strength to think. He felt so incredibly weak that he could barely move his fingers. And he could feel something that he truly hated: the cold.

It’s been a long... a long time.... It truly had been a long time since he experienced the type of cold he had faced as a young person.

It was a cold that seeped down to his soul. He felt like ice inside and out, causing him to shiver uncontrollably. He was starting to lose consciousness. Then he saw something. Images, flitting though his mind. He saw a dirty kid climbing out of a pile of endless corpses, struggling, fighting, just to stay alive.

I experienced this same feeling when I was young... and it didn’t stop me.

There had been many times when he was so hungry he thought he would die. Or times when he had been so cold he lost all hope. In order to stay alive, he’d eaten anything he could find. Back then, tree bark had been a luxury. Back then, he had been so hungry that he could find nutrition even in dirt.

Actually, the Heir Apparent was wrong. He should have left me some strength so that I could experience hunger on an even deeper level.

Forcing himself to smile, he lifted his trembling hand until it was at his mouth. Bloodshot eyes shimmering with madness, and veins bulging on his forehead, he gathered all the strength he could muster and bit deeply into his hand. Blood oozed past his teeth and lips, but before it could drop to the ground, he sucked it inside and swallowed it.

His bite had also ripped out a chunk of his own flesh. Instead of chewing it, he just forced it right down his throat. The flesh wriggled as it slid down into his stomach, where his stomach acid met it like a parched desert meeting a morning dew. Xu Qing could feel his stomach twitch. The familiar sensation made him smile again.

That’s what I’m talking about. If you want to be really hungry, you need to have a bit of energy.

His smile was more than a little terrifying. But as he smiled, and as his eyes turned more bloodshot, he started breathing more heavily. And with the tiny bit of energy he had now, the coldness and the empty hunger grew more intense.

Xu Qing shivered. He felt like his insides were so profoundly empty that his view of the world was distorted. Thankfully, he had a lot of experience in this regard. Looking up into the sky, he suddenly let loose a curse.

“Son of a bitch!”

Back when he was young, whenever he got really hungry, he would curse at the face in the sky, just like this. Cursing some more allowed him to focus his thoughts and control the madness that had been growing inside him.

Controlling my hunger this way isn’t enough. The hunger I feel now isn’t the hunger of a god that the Heir Apparent mentioned. I’ve had other experiences with hunger.

He thought back to when he devoured those Red Moon Cathedral cultivators, and the sudden impulse he’d had to continue with that. It had almost felt like an addiction; the more he devoured, the more he wanted to devour.

Back then, I controlled the feeling. But if I had just kept devouring, then I would have lost control.... And then there’s Eldest Brother’s hunger. And Emperor Ancient Spirit’s hunger! Or the hunger shown by Crimson Mother back in Forbidden by the Immortal, when using Zhang Siyun as a doppelg?nger.

Their hunger is both similar to mine and different. In that case, what happens if I don’t keep it under control?

After some thought, he stopped trying to control it. Looking down, he gasped for breath as the sense of hunger overwhelmed his rationality, taking over everything.

Opening his mouth wide, he bit another chunk out of his arm. It was almost as if he didn’t realize it was his own flesh and blood. He took bite after bite, and as he chewed, he went further and further away from rationality. His instincts took over.

As of this moment, he was like a wild animal!

As his blood dropped down onto the sand, he instinctively got on all fours and then started wolfing down the blood-stained sand. Despite that, the hunger within him wasn’t abated at all.

“Hungry... so hungry....”

Trembling, he started crawling forward. He wanted more to eat! Unfortunately, he was in a very desolate location, where there weren’t even any animals present. After crawling for a few meters, he collapsed, overwhelmed by darkness and insanity. As a feeling of weakness and death spread through him, he gained a moment of clarity.

The Heir Apparent talked of an overlap between human nature and godly nature. But right now, I’m like an animal. The fact that I’m lucid now is more like an overlap between human nature and animal nature. It just proves that I’m not doing the right thing. In that case, what is human nature? And what is godly nature?

Three days passed.

***

While Xu Qing wandered the Greenhair Badlands in a state of extreme hunger, all other living beings in the Moonrite Region felt despair at the coming of the red moon. And out of despair was born chaos.

Things were devolving in the Moonrite Region, with madness becoming the order of the day. Since the final doom of death was just around the corner, there was only a short period of time to live, and in such circumstances, anything and everything could happen. Razing, killing, looting, raping, and plundering were going on everywhere. The ugliest side of life was playing out everywhere as countless people of the Moonrite Region wantonly gave vent to their insanity.

There were no restraints. No limitations. Howls of grief and pain became a tempest that swept over everything.

Human nature was collapsing. Benevolence was crumbling. Animal nature proliferated. Madness erupted.

The cultivators in the Greenhair Badlands were no exception.