Chapter 42: The Binding Serpent. Liu Ming: I just think… the Third District…

“Even though saying this makes me sound like a poser, I’ve wanted to say it once for a long time.”

“Welcome to my hometown. This is the lost Seventh District.”

A black canopy descended as the laughter of The Exile echoed across the horizon.

The surrounding space warped, and everything was forced behind a veil of shattered black glass. The fragments were tiny and jagged, refracting the glow of burning yellow fire, the anxious young Correctors, and the Anomaly Kings who were now knitting their brows in deep frowns.

Liu Ming felt a sense of vertigo. His vision seemed to stretch infinitely far away in an instant before snapping back, refocusing right in front of him.

“Liu Ming!!!”

Someone was screaming at the top of their lungs. The person had green eyes, and a massive Gyrfalcon Spiritual Body spread its wings behind them, desperately trying to charge toward Liu Ming’s position.

Ah, it was Ying Huo.

“Liu Ming! Grab my hand!”

Someone else was reaching out to catch him, their voice thick with an uncontrollable sob. Behind that hand was a graceful electric ray, and the arm was clad in a wide, white sleeve.

Ah, it was Du Shui.

“Brother Liu Ming…?”

Another voice was filled with utter shock and disbelief. He also reached out, but being so young, his arm wasn’t long enough to even touch Liu Ming’s threads.

A bundle of yellow. It was Mute.

“Liu Ming! Watch out! Dammit-the Anomaly Kings haven’t even fully awakened yet, why is that snake appearing here now?”

Black fragments were piecing themselves together beside him. It was likely The Exile, currently occupying Yun Zhou’s body, attempting to use spatial abilities to teleport over.

【Young Master Liu! Watch your back!】

Even the bullet comments were scrolling this exact phrase in unison.

What was happening? Why were they all so terrified?

Liu Ming tried to clear his mind, but for some reason, he couldn’t focus his thoughts. It was as if the brain he had overtaxed for so many years had finally gone on strike. He could only tilt his head in a daze. Forget the bullet comments, which had already turned into scrambled code; he couldn’t even control the threads in his hands.

He had already calculated the path of his threads, intending to hook them onto a broken section of mining rail protruding from the cliffside to halt his fall. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make it happen.

He could only force his body to slowly, agonizingly turn his head.

He saw a pair of eyes.

A pair of blood-red, massive eyes extending from the pitch-black sky that connected to the Seventh District.

They were the vertical pupils of a serpent.

It was a snake large enough to coil around the entire world. Its scales were a beautiful silver-blue, yet they were shrouded in an eerie black mist and covered in bleeding scars.

It opened its massive maw, quietly waiting for Liu Ming to fall into its hunting range. Then it snapped shut, giving no one a chance to save him.

“Liu Ming…?”

Even the swift Exile was a step too late. From within the black mist, he could only watch from afar as the giant serpent lazily turned and burrowed back into the highest layer of the dark sky that blanketed the area.

In the moment the giant snake closed its mouth, Liu Ming felt a strange lack of fear. Instead, he felt an indescribable sense of peace and relaxation.

He could finally rest. This was the safest place.

A voice told him so.

And so, he closed his eyes.

Quiet. A silent, indescribable quiet.

Aside from the silence, there was only the sound of dripping water.

By the time Liu Ming could feel his consciousness again, he had no idea how long he had lingered in that suffocating silence.

He tried to open his eyes, but exhaustion crushed his body, forcing him to drift back into a deep sleep amidst endless drowsiness.

Until the true Emperor of the Anomalies descended upon this place, giving rise to a massive black cocoon like a tower.

Upon a throne formed by the convergence of the four elements, the Emperor he served opened his eyes.

Opened… his eyes?

Liu Ming finally regained control over his body. He opened his eyes only to find himself lying in a sea of burning fire, with a silver-blue thread attached to his wrist.

It was his own thread, stretching out toward an invisible end.

Liu Ming’s eyes widened. For the first time, he felt the dazed sensation of things being completely out of his control. He used his mental power to sense his Mental Landscape, only to discover something bizarre-his Spiritual Body, that little snake, was gone.

Liu Ming sat up, attempting to use his mental power to probe what lay at the end of the thread on his wrist, but he still found nothing.

He couldn’t see anything.

No breakthrough point here… then he would try another direction.

Liu Ming was never one to sit around waiting for death. He stood up and looked at the sea of fire around him, only to realize this wasn’t the 6th District as he had expected.

He had initially thought the rare yellow flames might be from the Great Fire Incident in the 6th District years ago, but that didn’t seem to be the case now.

There were no burning trees, and he wasn’t lying on a sea of fire; he was lying in the middle of a ring of campfires.

Several small fires formed a large circle around him, resembling some sort of sacrificial ritual. Liu Ming almost wondered if he had been asleep so long that passersby thought he was dead and built campfires to keep his soul from wandering the wilderness and losing its way home.

He sighed and looked into the distance. The surrounding environment imprinted itself clearly into his brain, which had finally resumed its normal functions.

This wasn’t the forest of the 6th District, nor the desert of the Fifth District. It was a seemingly endless wasteland and snow-capped mountains.

Moister than the Fifth District, more desolate than the 6th.

The towering mountains were nearly level with the sky. The sky here felt very low, as if it were right before his eyes. Because there were no heavy industrial factories like in the Fifth District, the night here was even clearer and more beautiful. Every star seemed within reach, flickering with faint white light like a summons from the universe.

This was the Seventh District.

In his understanding, the Seventh District should have been swallowed and destroyed by the black disaster from the heavens long ago, sealed off because it was crawling with Anomalies. He hadn’t expected it to look like this.

Quiet and beautiful.

“Snap.”

The sound of a small branch being stepped on rang out. Liu Ming whipped his head around and saw a familiar figure.

Yun Zhou stood there, clutching a bundle of freshly gathered firewood, looking at Liu Ming with a bit of bewilderment.

The expression was far too innocent, making it impossible for Liu Ming to tell for a moment whether the person standing before him was Yun Zhou or The Exile.

“How did you wake up so fast? Had a nightmare?”

Liu Ming clenched his fist. He was certain now-it was still The Exile.

“Why are you still occupying his body and refusing to let go?”

Liu Ming picked a relatively clean spot to sit. He couldn’t afford to be a neat freak now; this clearly wasn’t a normal place, and extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures.

“I’d love to let go, but Yun Zhou isn’t giving any reaction at all. Can you believe that?”

The Exile’s tone turned grumpy at the mention of it. He irritably tossed the firewood into the campfire closest to Liu Ming. “Hey, you were practically frozen solid just a moment ago. I went to all the trouble of using these fires to warm you up. Not only do you not thank me when you wake up, but all you think about is Yun Zhou!”

Liu Ming looked up at him calmly. “By all rights, our plan was for only the four of you Anomaly Kings to be pulled into the Seventh District. Why am I here too? I haven’t even asked you that yet.”

The previously aggressive Exile instantly lost his momentum. He sighed and crouched down. “Fine, I’m at fault too. But I really don’t know why that giant snake jumped out!”

“That one?” While warming himself by the fire-the night wind in the Seventh District was quite chilly-Liu Ming alertly caught the implication in The Exile’s words.

“…Can you stop analyzing everything people say? I hate people like you the most. Seriously, it feels like there are no secrets around you. It’s impossible to be friends.”

The Exile said this with great sincerity.

“Thank you for the compliment.”

Liu Ming’s reply was equally sincere, leaving The Exile at a loss for words. He could only scratch his head and stomp his feet in frustration.

“I’m done looking after you! To think I specifically used fire stolen from Surtr to light these campfires for you. From now on, you can freeze to death wherever you like!”

The Anomaly King gnashed his teeth in anger, but in the end, he could only muster a limp threat that carried no weight.

“Then I truly thank you. Where are your three colleagues? Are they not here?”

Liu Ming looked toward the distant snow mountains and wasteland. He saw no burning yellow flames, no sprawling red shadows, and certainly no wind or snow.

The white on the mountains seemed to be the result of years of accumulation, not nearly as aggressive as Liu Luo’s power. The bullet comments had also completely vanished from his sight; even the scrambled code was gone.

Seeing that he couldn’t gather any information on his own, Liu Ming had no choice but to ask The Exile.

“I pulled them all into the Seventh District. However, because of my birth, the space-time within the Seventh District is inherently chaotic. Entrances to different cycles-and don’t tell me you haven’t heard that term before-different cycles appear here. So, even I don’t know which world they were tossed into. It doesn’t matter, though. Any world reachable from here is one that has already been destroyed.”

The Exile shrugged, looking completely indifferent.

After he finished speaking, he noticed that Liu Ming was lost in thought.

For someone like Liu Ming, this was nothing short of eerie. The Exile waved his hand in front of Liu Ming’s face several times without getting a reaction, so he finally just shouted at him, “Liu Ming? Liu Ming? Young Master Liu! What are you doing?!”

Liu Ming finally snapped back to reality. “Ah, I was just admiring the view.”

The Exile snapped, “Admiring what? You’re not even listening to the business you’ve been so obsessed with?”

“I just think the Seventh District is truly beautiful.”

Liu Ming spoke from the heart. In the distance, snow-capped mountains stretched in a continuous chain, their high peaks piercing the sky.

The scenery of the plateau possessed a natural, soul-cleansing grandeur.

The Exile suddenly fell silent.

He lowered his head, staring at the soil beneath his feet as if the entire world were contained within it.

So he does care after all, Liu Ming thought.

How could anyone not care about their own home? If he didn’t, why would he call himself The Exile?