Epoch of Twilight

After Luo Yuan successfully got rid of all the traces of his sexual desires, he noticed that the sky was still dark. Thus, he did not hurry to get back. He paused for a while to reflect on what had happened and then started pacing back and forth. Suddenly, he just stopped and started doing Tai-Chi. His method is very different from ordinary Tai-Chi in terms of speed and style - his was much faster. Every movement could cause maximum destruction even though it looked smooth and graceful.

Any normal person would not be able to capture his movements in its entirety. When his attacking speed approached its limit, Luo Yuan could feel the air in the surrounding become a viscous liquid. Each of his punches were several times more powerful than his usual ones but his vision would keep getting blurry as the air keeps on twisting and boiling. When he gradually slowed down, the surrounding air also gradually got back to normal.

In less than a second, Luo Yuan swiftly released another punch into the air and it formed a cloud-like circle around his fist. He stirred the surrounding air and pushed it away with an invisible force. It hit a cliff nearby which caused a few rocks to scatter all over the place. His movements were inconsistent - sometimes fast and sometimes slow. When he slowed down, it felt like a huge rock was lying on the ground and when he sped up, it was like a lightning struck the sky with a "Pop" sound.

A couple of meters around the area where Luo Yuan was standing was covered in a thick fog. One could only vaguely see a shadow-like figure moving at a high speed and occasionally some sounds could be heard.

Swordsmanship is an extended skill of boxing - their basic way of generating force was interlinked. With his current level of abilities, even if he practiced frequently, there were no more skills to be trained as he was already classified as proficient. The next level for him would be more related to his will and momentum.

There was nothing too challenging for Luo Yuan before he entered the expert level. There were basically no bottlenecks for him to practice his own version of Tai-Chi. When the sky was getting bright, Luo Yuan’s practice slowly came to an end. All the leaves and dust that were previously floating in the air slowly fell to the ground, forming a circle around him.

Of course, there was no Yin Yang pattern formed around him like in the movies, especially since what Luo Yuan was doing was not really Tai-Chi. Although what he practiced looked very similar, he had upgraded every single move through his continuous development. With his current state and power, the Tai-Chi that he practiced had become a brand-new type of kung-fu.

In Luo Yuan’s eyes, all types of pre-apocalyptic boxing had a lot of flaws. The actual effect was not satisfying and the force being used was too light. Fortunately, he was already very familiar with his own body and could do a lot of self-exploration to improve his skillsets. Every single move that Luo Yuan made could easily utilize 80-90 percent of his body’s muscles while a normal person would only utilize about 40-50 percent of his/her body’s muscle when boxing.

Luo Yuan wiped away the sweat from his face and went back to the cave with a fresh body and mind. Most of the people had already woken up by that time.

"You didn’t sleep last night? Come and wipe your face, it is so sweaty." Huang Jiahui came to him and handed him a towel.

"Yes, I couldn’t sleep so I just went out to do some practice. Did I wake you up?" Luo Yuan asked while wiping his face.

"No wonder it was so noisy, I didn’t really sleep." Huang Jiahui said with a smile.

Luo Yuan was slightly stunned for a moment. He looked at her carefully but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He was relieved and said, "Sorry, I should have practiced somewhere farther."

"Give me the towel, I will go wash it." Huang Jiahui replied.

Huang Jiahui retrieved the towel with a smile on her face, but when she turned and took a few steps forward, her smile had already faded. After the end of the world, her sleep had been very easily disrupted and coupled with the unfamiliar environment, she simply could not fall asleep easily. She was awake when Luo Yuan and Zhao Yali left the cave together. She even heard the soft moaning sounds from afar. She tossed and turned and could hardly fall asleep until dawn. She was still a woman despite the apocalypse and it was definitely a hard time for her to accept this fact.

She sighed slightly but she knew that she should not care too much about it. This was not the first time he had done such things. In fact, she was the one who pushed Zhao Yali to Luo Yuan in the first place, so she should at least act more generously. Sooner or later, she would probably be able to get used to it.

Everyone looked much better after consuming a lot of salt and coupled with a good night’s sleep, the gang was livelier than ever.

Early in the morning, there were a few people practicing in the hallway. Luo Yuan watched them and occasionally corrected and taught them. When Luo Yuan approached Zhao Yali, her face blushed slightly and she was visibly nervous. However, she pretended not to see him and tried to act like nothing had happened. She just continued to practice. She seemed to be able to feel Luo Yuan observing her every move and her actions became disrupted and messy. Her face naturally blushed again.

Luo Yuan felt that her actions were very funny but he understood that Zhao Yali was easily affected by what other people thought of her. She felt guilty and uncomfortable with what had happened earlier so he did not mention anything and just walked past her.

"Booooommmmm!!"

Suddenly, there was a sharp sound coming from somewhere outside followed by another sound which sounded very much like an explosion. Luo Yuan was shocked and quickly looked toward the direction of the sound.

There was a huge mushroom-shaped cloud that shot up into the sky from the forest a couple of kilometers away. Due to the huge impact of the explosion, a giant tree had collapsed and the soil was rolled up. When they looked down from where they stood, there was a hundred-meter-wide hole in the forest. Everyone had stopped practicing and began to be nervous and worried.

"Was it a missile?" Huo Dong looked extremely worried. After a similar experience from Donghu City, he had a strong phobia towards any kind of missile.

Commander Xia observed the area carefully, then shook his head and said, "I’ve seen many missile explosions... this is definitely not a missile. There is no smog formation from gunpowder and no fire... it looks a bit strange, what exactly is this thing?"

"Could it be from a mutated creature?" Cao Lin asked abruptly. Everyone was shocked and remained silent for a while.

The incident happened about 50-60km from here. 20 seconds had now passed from the time of the explosion. When Luo Yuan heard the sound, he already noticed the smoke soaring into the sky. Thus, he was not able to figure out what had happened over there.

Luo Yuan looked very serious as he kept staring at that blank piece of land. If this was done by a mutated beast, it would probably be something higher than green level.

"Let me go and look!" Luo Yuan said with a heavy heart.

"No, you cannot go! I forbid it! It’s too dangerous." Huang Jiahui was scared and tried to stop Luo Yuan from going.

"I agree. We do not know what just happened there. It is better to stay here and observe the situation first, maybe it was just an accident." Commander Xia also urged.

The rest also discouraged Luo Yuan as he was the backbone of the team. If he got into trouble, the whole team would be plunged into despair and collapse. No one had the confidence to survive in this crisis-ridden forest so they all tried to persuade Luo Yuan to stay.

The voices from the team were buzzing around Luo Yuan’s ears. He quickly stopped them and said, "We are too close to the incident area. It will take just a few minutes for those high-level mutated beasts to reach here. It is not safe if I don’t go and check. Don’t worry, I am not going to do any risky moves."

Since Luo Yuan insisted on going, Huang Jiahui knew well enough that it was useless to persuade him anymore. She looked worried and said, "Please be careful, if there is anything wrong please return as soon as possible."

Luo Yuan nodded his head, "You all have to stay in the cave after I leave. Do not walk around. Be prepared. Even though it looks peaceful now, if I find anything wrong I will be back and we might have to move immediately."

Everyone heard his words and felt pressured.

Luo Yuan went down along the wall with his saber in hand. He was running at a speed of about 50 meters per second. The surrounding landscape rapidly passed by his vision and within a few seconds, he had already entered the forest.

He stopped running once he got in and instead chose to hop with the support of the branches and vines in the forest. He was hopping at a fast frequency, as every time he landed he immediately hopped again. There was almost no pause to his rhythm and no mistakes. With his powerful dexterity, he could choose the most suitable branches to hop on, and when the branches were too far away, he would use the vines to swing from one tree to another without any delay.

He tried to scan the surrounding with his senses. There were a few hidden dangers which he sensed and he could avoid them. For example, a snake-like creature that camouflaged itself in the vines; various predatory mutated trees; several colorful, poisonous and seven to eight-meter-long strange insects. The forest was full of imminent dangers.

He felt the constraints of having a lower level of intelligence when it came to some emergency situations and complex terrain. His brain would not be able to produce a fast response and thus this had led to a speed constraint too.

Without any accidents or incidents, Luo Yuan finally arrived at the flattened area in less than seven minutes. It was a mess here; a lot of trees had collapsed. The dried leaves and grass had all disappeared and all that was left was black humus. There were only a few giant trees still standing in the area with bare trunks. It looked like they were shaved off on one side or missing a big piece of bark.

Luo Yuan took a glance to check on the big hole. His face looked serious.