Chapter Ninety-One: Revival

In the dimness, like a desert; in the darkness, like water.

Consciousness seemed to have sunk into a pitch-black, interminable tunnel.

No former dust, no past, no ties, no refuge.

Before the eyes there was only darkness, an alluring darkness, as though if one could keep sinking into it forever, one might dwell eternally in a sweet black dream.

Weariness.

Drowsiness.

Loneliness.

The soul could not help but sink.

This darkness seemed to whisper: if you simply stop here, you will gain boundless peace.

No more worries, no more striving, no more day after day of trudging through a sea of hardship.

It was the destination of all things, and also the final ending.

And yet—

In the heart, a faint obsession still had not dispersed.

Like a kite string, it held fast, refusing to let him fall any farther.

Within that chaotic, dreamlike haze, old memories gradually stirred back to life.

Flames, a truck, the sound of an explosion, a surging wave of heat, the searing pain from behind... and the terror and agony in the eyes of that woman whom he had watched with his own eyes.

...What was her name?

Why was she in such pain?

It was a suffering beyond words.

As though even the heart itself were crying out.

In that instant, he recalled her name.

And then it was as if every nerve inside his body had been seized; he could not help but roar as though forcing the cry from the depths of his lungs:

"...Xi..."

"...Xixi!"

Then came an answer, surprised and delighted, but it was not that voice.

When he opened his eyes, a fluffy face was right before him.

The gray dog called joyfully to the dazed young man:

"My goodness, you finally woke up!"

...

Lin Heng struggled to his feet from the ground.

Gray Shadow sat crouched before him.

"Where is this... and also, you are—"

Lin Heng shook his head.

He had meant to say "who," but somehow that felt inappropriate; he had thought of saying "thing," but this gray dog did not seem to fall within the category of a "thing."

After some hesitation, he ultimately removed the noun from the end, leaving the sentence hanging half in the air, like an axe handle jutting unevenly beyond the edge of a table.

"I am? Of course I am the dog that saved you. I know you probably have a lot of questions, but if you look carefully through the things in your mind, you should find the answers."

Gray Shadow spoke familiarly to Lin Heng. The line above had been learned from a popular online novel, in which the equivalent of a big brother character said such things to the protagonists just after they awoke from unconsciousness in a speeding carriage.

After reading that book, Gray Shadow had come to like the story very much. Now that it had the chance, of course it wanted to cosplay a little.

Hearing this, Lin Heng seemed about to say something at once, but in the end he held it back, fell silent, and searched through his own mind.

Because of Yang Luo and Ito Miu, the two successful transcendents, as precedents, Xi Gu was now extremely practiced in this kind of "setting supplementation."

Especially after he pushed research in the mental realm to another level through the "Perception Pendant" developed with his divine-tree avatar, he could now plant related "settings" within the "connection" itself. There was no need for him to inform them personally; once a transcendent awakened, the relevant memories and knowledge could be extracted from the brain.

From this perspective, it was rather like certain fantasy tales of "bloodline inheritance."

As he browsed the memories in his mind, Lin Heng's brow furrowed tighter and tighter, and his expression became increasingly stiff.

"Temple of Divine Derivation... Lord of the Temple of Divine Derivation... elixir... divine envoy... disciple... Could it be that Yang Luo truly possessed transcendent power, and that his power came from such an existence?

"...But if such an existence really does exist... why has it never shown the slightest trace over so many years in the past?"

Thanks to the video footage he had once seen on Shen Yunzhi's phone, as well as the subsequent investigation into clues surrounding Yang Luo, Lin Heng was not overly shocked to the point of appearing as though his worldview had shattered.

But no matter how skeptical he had once been, he had always, after all, retained some disbelief, and had even suspected that behind Yang Luo there might be some secret transnational criminal group or underground organization. Now, having learned the truth—that supernatural power really did exist in the world, and above all living things there was a boundless chaos, and the gods within that chaos would awaken before long—

...such an astonishing fact still left a look of faint loss on his face.

"So I am now the chosen disciple, a new transcendent?"

He asked Gray Shadow, though it sounded more like he was muttering to himself.

He glanced at his own charred hands—they seemed to have been covered in a layer of soot, making his heart leap; yet the complete absence of pain in his hands only startled him further.

"This is..."

As Lin Heng spoke, the next moment a crackling sound came from the surface of his body.

Then there was the sound of something like a stone shell breaking bit by bit.

Outside his body, the already charred parts fell away piece by piece to the ground, and in the meantime, a completely renewed body was revealed once more to Lin Heng.

"So this is transcendence..."

Lin Heng murmured in a daze. He clenched his hands, and at once a sonic boom rang out, like a string of firecrackers exploding in his palms.

Yet there was no joy on his face.

He merely gazed at his reborn hands, smooth and lustrous as white jade.

Then he turned toward Gray Shadow, and said in a low voice to the gray dog, which had been calmly watching the changes all along:

"Thank you for saving me... I should address you as... Gray Shadow Divine Envoy, right?"

Gray Shadow casually waved its right forepaw at him, indifferent.

"Oh, why be so polite? We transcendents of the Temple of Divine Derivation don't need to fuss over those mortal formalities."

For a dog to speak so solemnly of "mortal formalities" ought to have been a rather amusing sight.

But Lin Heng did not laugh at all.

He merely looked at Gray Shadow and continued to ask:

"Divine Envoy, that wave of fire that swept me up then was actually created by Yang Luo, wasn't it? Is he also a disciple of the Temple of Divine Derivation?"

Gray Shadow shook its head.

"Of course. However, he is not the one I chose. The fellow who created him is called Black Moon, a rather detestable black eagle."

"Black Moon, Black Moon..."

Lin Heng repeated the names over and over under his breath, falling silent for a moment.

Then he stared straight at Gray Shadow, with the utmost caution and care, both hoping for an answer and fearing to plunge into the abyss, and asked word by word:

"Gray Shadow Divine Envoy, may I ask... do you know what became of the girl who was caught up in that wave of fire created by Yang Luo, together with me, back then?"