Epoch of Twilight

Luo Yuan left in the dead of the night, at 3 a.m. and headed toward the southeast. He passed the Qinghai province, Tibet, Sichuan, and Guizhou and finally, he arrived at Guangxi. He then flew across the sea and landed in Borneo.

It was indeed a long journey, but to him, he hardly felt the distance. His mind was preoccupied with the dangers to come.

Three hours later, as the sky brightened, Luo Yuan landed on Borneo island. His face was wet with the dew drops of the morning, and he wiped them away with his sleeve. A small worm dropped off a branch and landed on his face. He grabbed the worm and flicked it away.

The forest was humid as the dew had accumulated throughout the night. It felt like it was raining from the canopy high in the trees as the dewy wet leaves fell to the ground. He was all wet. He felt his skin get sticky to the touch and he felt very uncomfortable.

He started to feel the fatigue of his journey as he settled into a walk through the tropical jungle.

The rocks at the side of the road were covered with lichen and weeds. He scraped away the carpet of moss on the rock with his knife, leaving a shiny and smooth surface and leaned against it to recuperate.

As he sat there, he stared at the insects scuttled about around him, and lost himself to the calm feeling he saw in their mindless patterns.

He looked at the time after what seemed like quite a while. Huang Jiahui, Zhao Yali, and Wang Shishi must be awake now. Perhaps they just realized he had left.

He hesitated, but then concentrated his Will to form wireless communication waves.

"I have departed. I am on my way. Everything is fine, do not worry."

Messages were delivered back and forth with the wireless comm. waves. Neither Luo Yuan nor the women could hear each other’s voices as the messages were conveyed through the encoder.

"Alright, stop crying. Don’t stress yourselves out. I have to go. Bye"

Luo Yuan ended the conversation and sat there quietly, allowing himself to miss them for a moment. He then got up and flew through the jungle. As he arrived at the city, it was shrouded by a thick layer of fog.

He gradually slowed down to have a look around, cautiously studying the area.

He found a clearing in the area and rested for half an hour before he resumed his journey through the forest.

He would take short breaks at intervals as he dashed through the jungle, to reserve his energy. In the evening, it was started raining, and a gloomy atmosphere settled upon him. The rain got heavier, and thunder roared in the distance.

Luo Yuan planned to continue moving through the night, but the bad weather forced him to stop and find shelter.

The forest got even more dangerous during the thunderstorm. Tall trees were natural lightning conductors. They were most susceptible to lightning and one could easily get struck by lightning when walking under or close to the tree. Luo Yuan observed his surroundings. The ground was surprisingly flat and barren. He concluded that it was a flatland that was cleared before the apocalypse for a civilization. Since there were no caves found to escape from enemies, the people would clear vast areas of land so that they saw predators at a distance, to allow them more time for countermeasures.

He then sensed that there were a few hidden caves under a few bushes. He chose one of the bushes that were slightly higher and uncovered it.

He was not worried if mutated beasts would have jumped out him, and crouched into the cave.

It was only 1.5 meters high. He needed to duck low when he entered the cave. The cave got smoother as soon as he passed by a thick layer of soggy dead leaves. There was a great deal of hardened soil on the walls of the cave. The wall looked solid and he had no worry of the cave collapsing on him in the night from the thunderstorm outside.

But, he had a bad feeling about the place. There was no trace of any living organisms in the cave. The smell of mutants beasts was almost non-existent. He thought that it might have been a long time since any living thing, human or mutants, had survived in the area. They probably died or moved to escape the horrors of the place. Abilities were always the key to survival. With the death toll on a rise, it was normal for the deaths of ordinary beings to be occurring every few seconds. Mutants or enhanced beings had an upper hand at the time of the apocalypse.

He continued to walk for another 20 to 30 meters deeper into the cave and reached the central area within it. He felt better as the area here was slightly larger and he could straighten up. He stretched in an attempt to get rid of the slight ache he had started to feel on his back.

Despite there not being anyone here, he found remnants of civilization in the area.

The cave was paved with a larger number of soft dead branches that Luo Yuan would have guessed was a bed of sorts. He could not set up his tent in the area as the cave was large, but not big enough for it. Anyhow, he still decided to spend his night there.

The nights were freezing cold. Although he could not stand the cold as he slept on his ice cold bed of leaves, he was glad as long as there was a place for him to sleep. He did not mind that the floor was wet, hard and muddy too.

To him, he felt the place was clean enough and that was what satisfied him the most. There were no disgusting corpses or carcasses with pungent bones left to rot.

Perhaps the previous tenant of the cave was a vegetarian, or a herbivore if it were a mutated beast. If not, the owner must be really careful not to have brought food that had the odor of blood on them to avoid attracting other mutants. But, with knowledge of this, Luo Yuan knew that it was not a strong being, and he could easily kill it if it came back.

...

The rain got heavier and was starting to stream into the cave. Luo Yuan glanced at it and decided not to bother as he was comfortably off the ground on his bed of leaves. From his experience in jungles of this kind, he knew the storm would not last long.

He studied the map that he retrieved from his backpack. It was not a regular map. Instead, it was a high-resolution satellite map. Since the fall of civilization, he knew the city would be completely covered with vines and moss. So, it made no difference even if he owned a normal cadastral map.

The satellite map was two meters long and wide. It was printed on a thick, special kind of water and fire proof paper. It was extremely tough and normal people would find it impossible to tear.

At night went on, the forest became darker and darker. The dim light was blocked by the bushes and obstructed by the winding cave. It was extremely dark at the center of the cave. In this darkness, Luo Yuan’s pupils dilated, which made his eyes appear completely black. He could still see a little in the dark as there was a weak beam of light that illuminated the space.

"It seems like I am now in the region of Qinghai. If I maintain this speed, within 10 days I should be able to arrive at Guangxi." Luo Yuan thought to himself.

He would reach in less than three days if he were to run at full speed. But, seeing as to what might be awaiting him there, he was in no rush.

Running a short distance at the Reconstruction Area was totally different as running long distance outdoor. The former was relatively safe to run at his full speed but the latter was rather dangerous. Every two to three hours Luo Yuan would rest to recover his Strength. He had to conserve most of his energy so that he could protect himself from danger.

Furthermore, he had to be more alert as the terrain was getting rather complicated. He slowed down and maintained his movement at a speed of 70 to 80 meters per second.

...

He folded the satellite map, placed it back into his backpack and lay on the leaves.

The sound of rain as it poured outside was deafening in the silence of the cave. He stared into the darkness of the ceiling and started to feel lonely. He had just left home a few hours before and he already missed the city and the people.

He wished he had a companion on the dangerous journey ahead. There was no trace of the human existence the whole time he was traveling, only mutated beasts moved about around him. He could not describe the feeling of loneliness. It was as if he was the only human living on the post apocalyptic earth he knew.

Luo Yuan sat up as he felt that the atmosphere was getting more and more humid. He walked around the cave and found that the ground was all wet and muddy.

"F*ck!" Luo Yuan cursed. The land was too flat here, the water streaming in had stagnated in the center of the cave. The water level had risen to about 20 centimeters. I should have walked further to look for a better one, he thought to himself.

He walked out of the cave with his belongings and got soaked by the thunderstorm outside. The pouring rain fell through the leaves, right on his face. He wiped away the raindrops, squinted his eyes and looked around. He could not find a large rock that could block the rain from entering the cave.

He then had an idea. The trees around him were massive, with diameters of around 2 meters. All he needed was a well-shaped piece.

He took out his Zhanmadao and headed toward the nearest tree.

His Zhanmadao that was initially white in color had turned black. It radiated a mysterious aura when he unsheathed. When rain splashed on the body of the saber, it merely slides right off the blade without as much as a watermark and fell to the ground. The knife was dry as if no rain had spattered on it at all.

"Space Cut Zhanmadao."

"Materials: 165cm of alloy; nails of a Clawed Turtle"

"Rarity: Light Purple"

"Weight: 31 kilograms"

"Power: ??????"

"Equipment Requirements: Strength (16)"

"Additional Abilities 1: Attack Speed +4"

"Additional Abilities 2: Sharp Cuts (passive) - Easily cut through any materials, even atoms (Advanced effect)"

"Remarks: A sharp Zhanmadao that contains subtle space energy."

...

The new Zhanmadao had been upgraded to level eight after merging with the level eight black blade, but he did not notice much of a difference. His Zhanmadao combined with his skill was powerful enough for him and deadly to anyone that dared oppose him. Although, the benefits from the upgrade were his range of attack, as well as the sharpness of his blade which greatly improved, and its Will complimented his own more readily. The attributes of the black knife were astonishing, even Luo Yuan was amazed.

In addition to that, the new Zhanmadao now had 2 secondary effects. It could even be regarded as a spiritual weapon.

The first effect was that it could now perform extraordinary slashes through space. A wavy light appeared on the body of the knife due to the refraction that occurred when it was used.

The next effect was way scarier. The blade could add an extended, invisible form of itself, increasing the range of attack to cover up to 4.5 meters

However, it would take some time to get used to.

Luo Yuan knew that gravity could warp space-time as well as smoothening the waves in space-time. These were the two ways space slashes could be defended against.

His Will was powerful and could resist almost any kind of cut and attack since the difference between normal and space cuts were not that significant.

Putting the force of the gravity aside, nearly none of the substances could resist its power. The new Zhanmadao was terrifying.

...

Luo Yuan chopped down the tree with just one swipe.

After a few seconds, the gigantic tree leaned on the tree next to it, cut clean away from its base.

Luo Yuan chopped off one meter from the initial cut tree and slide off fell to the ground. He then used his Zhanmadao to shave and shape the piece accordingly and placed it at the entrance of the cave to cover it.

Luo Yuan found a cave a little way off, blocked the entrance with the tree trunk and sealed the edges of the entrance with mud to prevent a water leakage.

The new cave was at least 60 centimeters above ground level. Regardless of how heavy the rain was it would not make it into the cave.

Luo Yuan relaxed, lay down and drifted off to sleep.