Epoch of Twilight

Luo Yuan walked towards the light blue iceberg and touched it. He got a chilly feeling from touching it and his hand felt slightly numb, even to the point that it stuck to the ice. He pulled it off in an instant and there was a soft tearing sound that was heard. He examined his hand fortunately, he realized nothing happened apart from some parts of his skin looking slightly fairer now. His +17 Physique made his skin so tough that even the sword slashing at his skin was nothing to him, which was why he did not think that the ice would tear his skin. Looking at Lin Feiyan who was not aware of what happened, he walked towards her immediately.

As a significant amount of fog was now transformed into ice, numerous mutated beasts began to reveal themselves. Every time they appeared, Lin Feiyan would freeze them to prevent any delays to their mission. This happened multiple times which made Luo Yuan feel slightly annoyed as he wanted to train himself by killing the mutated beasts so that he could adapt to his new abilities. However, every time when was ready to attack, Lin Feiyan would aggressively attack first and rob him of the chance. He was terrified by the look in her eyes.

It is not that Luo Yuan did not want to attack first... it is just that the area that Lin Feiyan’s attacks could cover was very wide. From this experience, it was hard not to see that Lin Feiyan was indeed a strong evolved human. She looked like she was attacking aimlessly and that her techniques were very limited but there was a certain rhythm to it. To quote a martial arts idiom, "It is not how good your weapon is but rather how skillful you are at using it." Anyone would die if they could not defend against her attack.

The more they continued their journey, the more boundless her abilities seemed to Luo Yuan! They encountered at least 10 different mutated beasts and two of them were at level six. Besides exhaustion from utilizing her powers, her abilities were maintained. By this point, her clothes were all torn by the effects of her own powers and when she was hit by the mutated beast earlier. Although the mutated beast was already dying, it tore the back of her shirt and her knees were also galled by it. There was also a cut on her face.

Lin Feiyan was panting frequently and all these battles made her look unkempt and messy. Every time that she was catching her breath from using her powers, she would turn back to look at Luo Yuan who was still squeaky clean and let out a sigh of frustration. Looking at her complicated expression, Luo Yuan wondered if she was blaming him for not helping in the battle. He felt that she ought to know that his abilities were no help to them in such situations. Although he could use his Will to overcome the chill, the frozen ground was clearly preventing him from doing more.

He would normally be able to root his feet on the ground but this was not possible in the current situation. Now that the ground was covered with slippery ice, not only was he no help in battle, he might even fall to the ground which would be a burden to his leader. Anyhow, Luo Yuan wanted to test if his hypothesis was right so he said, "Why don’t you take a rest and let me handle it from here?"

Lin Feiyan figured that her amazing performance had achieved its purpose. Moreover, there would be even more terrifying mutated beasts waiting for them at the lake. Hence, she should not use up all her strength now. She thought for a while and said, "Alright, be careful!" However, to their surprise, there was not a single mutated beast along the way and in less than 20 minutes, they were already approaching the hot spring lake.

"Wait." Luo Yuan paused to listen then continued speaking, "There’s someone in front." During the journey, Lin Feiyan already noticed that Luo Yuan’s hearing was exceptional and much better than hers so she trusted him. She stopped and asked, "People? Besides the residents who were all knocked out, who could it be? Could it be the bunch of soldiers who were lost?"

"Let’s go and see." Luo Yuan said with a solemn look.

As they were getting closer to the lake, the pressure on his chest got stronger. His ability to sense his surroundings was further suppressed and he could now only detect things within a 20 meter radius now so he decided to move forward slowly. A few minutes later, there was a person limping towards them. Just when Lin Feiyan attempted to call out the person, Luo Yuan stopped her and said, "Something’s wrong, the person looks strange. Let’s wait and see."

Lin Feiyan took a closer look and gasped. The way the person walked was strange and stiff. It did not look like a normal person. It looked like a puppet that was being controlled. They walked carefully and the person passed them by in the blink of an eye. Luo Yuan turned around and noticed that the person’s eyes were closed. It seemed like the person was immersed in a deep sleep but Luo Yuan knew very clearly that the person was not sleepwalking.

"There are many more of them ahead. Let’s not bother who that person is, it’s better that we find out where the mutated beast is." Luo Yuan said while pulling Lin Feiyan whose face had turned pale.

Lin Feiyan snapped out of shocked state and followed Luo Yuan. At that moment, she was not even aware that Luo Yuan had taken the lead. Suddenly, she felt the fog ahead getting darker and eerier. Fear was slowly rising inside of her. If she were placed in a different scenario, she would not behave like how she was right now. But as girls were naturally afraid of creepy stuff, she would naturally allow Luo Yuan to take the lead.

There were more and more ‘pedestrians’ popping up randomly on the street as they got closer to the lake. They noticed that the area surrounding the lake was swamped by a huge crowd and there were people coming out of their houses from time to time to join the crowd. The eerie atmosphere made Lin Feiyan picture what would happen if she became one of them. As she was walking through the crowd, she caught a glimpse of Luo Yuan and quickly caught up with him.

Suddenly, there was a splashing sound that came from afar which sounded like something heavy falling into the water. Besides that, Lin Feiyan got a whiff of a dense odor in the air which was similar to the smell of meat. As she was still trying to decipher what that was, she thought of something that gave her a chill down her spine. The two of them felt the same way and subconsciously walked faster. Not long later, they arrived at the shore.

Luo Yuan was upset and in disbelief to the point where his scalp was numb. The boiling hot spring lake was filled with countless dead bodies that were just floating on its surface. As the temperature of the lake was a little on the high side, the dead bodies were in a half-cooked-state as they floated on the surface the lake. Some of them were even disfigured and deformed.

Since the onset of the apocalypse, Luo Yuan had witnessed many catastrophes so corpses had become a norm to him. However, this sight was upsetting to his stomach.

Luo Yuan remained very quiet... He was not sure how many people had walked in a daze into the lake. There were at least a thousand of them from what he could see but looking at the sheer size of the lake, there could be more than 10,000 of them in total.

What Luo Yuan saw next gave him goosebumps. As these ’people’ were walking into the lake, he saw a blur of a shadow forcing its way out of the crowd but was instead sucked into the bottom of the lake moments later. It was a soul! The mutated beast was eating their souls! It was now clear why the mutated beast wanted to invade the reconstruction area. To a soul-eating mutated beast, no food could compare to the soul of a human. In a dense city like this, it was like a mouse entering a barn. The temptation was so strong that it was willing to risk its life.

Those soldiers must be under the control of the mutated beast and were led into the Hot Springs City during the midnight fog. Luo Yuan was trying to process everything as quickly as he could and soon he understood the whole thing. He quickly took a deep breath to gather his thoughts. The soul-eating mutated beast was at the bottom of the lake so he had to think of something to force it out as there was nothing that he could do while it was in the water. He turned around to look at Lin Feiyan who was still stunned and said, "Can you freeze the entire lake? Without a doubt, the mutated beast is somewhere inside the lake."

Lin Feiyan was still in her zone. It took her a while to snap out of it. She said "Freeze it? I can try!" She walked towards the lake and without thinking too much, she put her hand into the lake. Soon, there was a thin layer of ice becoming visible on the surface. In an instant, the ice was getting thicker and spread across the entire lake.

The fog on the surface of the lake was also getting thinner. As time went by, Lin Feiyan’s face was flaming red and her body gave off a scorching high temperature. Her armored suit started to curl up. There was a heat wave surrounding her and out of nowhere, her clothes caught fire.

Luo Yuan was shocked by what he had just witnessed but any fears were quickly removed when he noticed that the fire did not seem to affect her at all as her hair did not even burn. She looked like a mini sun that was giving off heat and light. It was now difficult to differentiate between her body and the shadows. It was now Luo Yuan’s turn to be stunned. The energy that was stored in her was beyond his imagination. If she could unleash the energy she had in its entirety instead of absorbing it, he may choose to avoid her in the future.

As Luo Yuan pondered this, there was a loud sound that sounded like ice shattering that came from the lake. There was a terrifying force that was striking the middle of the lake where the ice was a few meters thick. Chunks of crushed ice that each weighed a few tons shot into the air. In an instant, a giant beast leaped on top of the ice. Its eyes were pitch black and it let out a furious roar!