Facing an Ancient God for a Year

Chapter 2695: Chapter 2690: Flowers and Butterflies

Isn’t this getting a bit over the top?

The saying that ”whatever you see in the Eldest Son’s Perspective goes wrong the moment you think about it” seems to have been given solid form at this instant.

The description did succeed, but the result described really does somewhat challenge human understanding.

Not quite real, it’s almost more like the history of what once happened here.

Yet this piece of history really does have strength, strong enough to viciously stab those who come after.

The wound had already healed in an instant, but the shock it caused was still there.

Fu Qian drew his gaze back from his shoulder and took another step forward.

The strike that had torn open the wound just now seemed to be aimed precisely at stopping this movement.

However, now that he was no longer in the Eldest Son’s Perspective, nothing blocked him anymore.

One has to admit, this sense of awkwardness really does carry all the way through.

Still he kept walking; Fu Qian threaded his way through the newly boiling storm, the winding ruins far behind his back.

And ever since he stepped through the door this time, that feeling of wrongness had only grown thicker and thicker—

Past footprints remained yet went unnoticed, mingled power of Superior Beings had somehow grown estranged from one another; clearly belonging to the past, yet capable of inflicting harm upon history at this very moment...

This former meditation sanctuary, beneath its outward calm, was clearly breeding something distinctly twisted—so why was that?

At a certain moment, Fu Qian’s steps turned and moved back the way he’d come.

He no longer insisted on challenging the road ahead; instead, he simply went with the flow, walking backwards through the storm, retreating step by step toward his original starting point.

The reason for doing this wasn’t anything particularly special either.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do—since the atmosphere is this bizarre, His Seat might as well join in.

...

The path back was noticeably faster than the way in, mainly because there were far fewer irregular spatial jumps, which fully let one feel the heartfelt effort of the ruins to keep him here.

But even so, Fu Qian still tried his best to stick to retracing his original route, for example, the exact spot where he’d gone downstairs.

After lightly leaping several times in succession, Fu Qian once again arrived at the ”Liliyana Observation Point.”

Only then did he follow the road he had first taken going upstairs, turning around and walking down one step at a time.

And this time it outright felt like a ”double negative makes a positive” replay, almost as if his previous actions were being played backwards.

Unfortunately, this movement comparable to a piece of performance art failed to trigger anything special.

Even when Fu Qian walked back to that corner where his footprints had first begun, Senior Lilianna’s graceful presence remained nowhere to be seen, not a single trace left behind.

But that was already quite good.

Fu Qian did not feel disappointed.

Although he had never managed to have anything approaching normal communication with her, this senior had already provided him with a great deal.

Now that the subject of disturbing the Night Watchmen had come up, it was obviously unnecessary to use any overly violent methods.

His gaze didn’t linger; Fu Qian walked straight through that illusory door.

Just like not too long ago, heading home along the road toward the Half-step Moon.

...

What a pity—the battlefield of commerce allows no slack.

As expected, he once again appeared behind the bookstore counter; Fu Qian glanced out the window.

In the time it took to go there and back, daylight had already grown bright.

Shangjing had awakened from its brief stillness and was officially starting a new day.

And as the saying goes, a day’s plan lies in the morning—Fu Qian reached out his hand, pressing his middle finger down on the spike of his seat.

That’s right, his coming and going was never about preparing to receive some insomniac customers.

The scene at the God’s Burial Ground is indeed sensitive, and it does seem as if the bubbles have grown sealed off from one another.

But don’t let your thinking get rigid; don’t forget that for him, there have always been two doors leading to that place.

The senior’s hiding place has acquired the taste of the Blood Lake? But he can’t walk to the Blood Lake to see what’s going on?

Sorry, having a save point means you get to do whatever you want.

Back then he used that ring heavily connected to Su Gao to record the coordinates in the Blood Lake.

So this time, the Phoenix whose Metal Blood had been taken—could it still resurrect itself again and again? It... rather seems it couldn’t.

The door, its entire surface seeping blood, slowly opened before his eyes, and the next instant an intoxicating scent was already filling Fu Qian’s nose.

...

So what’s going on here this time?

Fu Qian stood there quietly, taking in the crimson that saturated his vision.

The place should be right; it had always been this full-bodied color of throbbing life force and even Sinful Power.

But the place did seem somewhat different—for instance, the elements within that color appeared visibly richer to the naked eye.

Unbothered by the feel, Fu Qian bent down and fished a long object out of that viscous mass.

At a glance it was strikingly familiar—precisely the Phoenix Feather he had once seen while searching for Eternity.

It was just a shame that it seemed to have been utterly ruined by a rotten aura; the instant it left the Blood Pool it could no longer hold its shape, crumbling away like liquefied mud.

Such a scene could only make one feel all the more that times had changed, as if some final, struggling obsession had completely dispersed.

And without needing to dive down himself, Fu Qian could easily confirm that the egg-bearing Phoenixes of the past were no longer flourishing as they once had, leaving only a few fragments of bone that could scarcely maintain their form.

Sure enough, with the support of Eternity gone, certain Miracles would never appear again.

What was comforting was that life contains both decay and new birth—like here.

With a single step he crossed a long distance and landed behind a certain pillar-like structure, then took another step into some inconspicuous corner.

Bending down, his fingers brushed over a clump of ”plants.”

Yes—red petals, red leaves, a spray of blossoms that at first glance made it hard to tell whether they were made of flesh or not.

More importantly, the shape of those petals was so familiar.

...

First Generation Dark Moon?

Indeed, that ”intoxicating” description earlier was never just sarcasm.

Though he lacked Extraordinary Perception, Fu Qian had still, at the very first moment, picked out a faintly different note from that unpleasant smell.

And it was by following that note that he had found this place so quickly.

What he finally discovered here, one has to say, was truly fertile ground for wild speculation.

Aside from being blood-red in color, they were exactly the same shape as the flowers he’d seen in the garden filled with blossoms.

And as everyone knows, that thing seems to have a considerable connection with the Witch’s mother.

From the Night of the Tyrant’s fall, you could even tell that the First Generation Dark Moon and the Dragon King were, apparently, teammates who acted together.

And now an element related to Him appears here?

No matter how you look at it, this seems to be powerful support for the previous guess.

That the Dragon King had not been completely annihilated, and that this place is precisely His Bone Burial Ground...

In the next instant, the hand with which Fu Qian was caressing the flowers continued upward; when he drew it back, there was something new between his two fingers.

About the size of a palm, its wings as regular as a geometric solid, and only one...

Yes, a Soul Butterfly.

The precious Extraordinary Materials that the group of adventurers at the Dragon Summit Inn had coveted.

Just now, it seemed to have been lured by the fragrance, wanting to alight on those blood-red petals.