Chapter 72: Bizarre World
The two trekked through the mountain forest, searching for the place in Xilutiya’s memory where she awoke.
As the journey progressed, Xilutiya increasingly felt a sense of familiarity; she could even smell the faint scent of dry leaves in the air.
“There should be a wolf corpse here.” Xilutiya stopped in her tracks, her gaze turning to the clearing amid the treeshades.
Unfortunately, there was no wolf corpse this time, not even remnant bones.
Could it have been carried off by other animals? The maiden thought involuntarily, then slowly walked toward the clearing.
At this moment, a special sensation seemed to be guiding her. When Xilutiya moved forward, she felt as if she were walking underwater; everything around her shook and twisted, but the touch under her feet and the tree trunk beside her still told her that the earth was not shaking, nor had any accident occurred.
……
On an afternoon without snow, the sky remained overcast. Talil followed behind Xilutiya, watching her head toward the clearing.
Suddenly, a strange shaking made Talil think she might have been seeing things. She rubbed her eyes, but when she opened them again, Xilutiya, who had been right in front of her moments ago, was gone without a trace.
On the other side, Xilutiya passed through the clearing, following the pull of that strange sensation, continuing step by step toward the forest.
In a place she did not notice, Talil called out to her from behind, but at this moment there was only action without sound, as if the two were in different worlds.
Xilutiya continued walking forward. After she passed through this clearing in the woods, it was as if she had reached the shore; the shaking and twisting in her vision vanished instantly, her mind cleared, and when she looked around upon raising her head, she discovered that the entire world had changed.
Overhead was an exceptionally dim world; the clouds in the sky seemed to press down to the ground, extraordinarily low and thick. Through gaps in the clouds, faint amounts of light seeped through, falling into this gray white world.
Indeed, this world was a near gray white world, without vibrant colors, only black, white, and gray.
At this moment, Xilutiya pulled back the hood on her head and placed one hand on the tree trunk beside her, constantly turning to observe the surroundings.
Was this still the forest mountain area she had been in earlier? She looked at the greatly changed scene before her.
Though it was the same undulating mountain slope, the shapes of the trees in the forest had undergone varying degrees of twisting, appearing especially eerie and bizarre. Moreover, on the ground, she saw quite a few mushrooms at the tree roots—these were extremely rare mushrooms, some said to be extinct.
Some were deep purple with white snowflake patterns, some like wrinkled red umbrellas unfolding in layers, others with a dark blue hue, their bodies flickering like dim starlight.
Even without approaching, she sensed the ‘nature’ power emanating from these mushrooms; several had even fully condensed into first order nature.
‘Nightmare’ nature, she looked at the deep purple mushroom with snowflake patterns, murmuring in her heart, then turned her gaze to the next one.
“Blood Law” nature—she actually saw ‘Blood Law’ nature on a mushroom. Could a mushroom’s nature be so inclusive and arbitrary?
Right, these mushrooms had ‘color’—this was a major distinction from other things.
The terrain around the place she now stood was the same as when she arrived, but the trees on the mountain were completely different, the soil and grassland underfoot had changed entirely, even the sky overhead was completely altered, as if…
Different periods of the same land!
Xilutiya’s mind was filled with numerous doubts, but this was not the time to consider their causes; she needed to find a way back to Talil’s side, that is, the normal world she had been in before.
This was a world with supernatural phenomena, a world with various legends and stories. When Xilutiya fell into this eerie and different environment, she immediately thought of the rumors in those stories.
Children lost in the mountains on snowy nights, stepping through that door to reach the fairy garden, the bizarre banquets seen in dreams.
Various fairy tales depicted worlds vastly different from reality; those places might really exist, just incomprehensible to ordinary people—like the witch Talil had mentioned not long ago. Probably some power separated such strange worlds from reality, and she had unintentionally crossed that boundary earlier.
Leaning against a tree, Xilutiya sorted her thoughts, slowly calming her previous anxious and uneasy mood, regaining her composure.
She lightly touched her brow with her finger, then focused her attention on her eyes, gazing into the distance.
At this moment, her sight seemed able to pierce through the gray white forest before her, seeing even more distant places.
Indeed… this was a gray white world, but not entirely.
In this gray white world, places with ‘color’ were like colored bubbles, scattered sporadically; where there were ‘bubbles,’ the plants were more vibrant, and their forms even more ‘twisted.’
Let’s try walking first, she said to herself.
Drawing the short sword from beneath her cloak and gripping it in her palm, Xilutiya slowly moved forward, preparing to leave the current ‘colored bubble’ and step into the gray white world.
However, the moment she stepped into the gray white world, a bizarre twisting sensation came from her toe, as if her left foot had been caught in the machinery of an operating factory, about to be crushed and ground into pieces.
Intense pain spread through her body in an instant; at this moment, she instinctively activated the ‘Emerald Honey’ nature within her, trying to break free.
The ‘Emerald Honey’ nature spread and covered her body; when it reached her ankle, the twisting force was corrected, and the pain gradually faded.
Withdrawing her foot, Xilutiya bent down, cradling her left foot to ease the pain, pressing and stroking it worriedly, afraid she had sprained it and couldn’t walk.
But it was all like an illusion; the intense pain from before had left no marks on her foot. Even when she checked herself with【Discernment Eyes】 ability, she appeared perfectly healthy.
Setting aside her earlier worries somewhat, Xilutiya stood up again.
This time, she was wiser; using the power of ‘Emerald Honey’ nature to wrap her fingers, she carefully touched the gray white world. When her fingertip immersed into that gray white domain, a strange phenomenon occurred: the color of ‘Emerald Honey’ canceled with the ‘gray white’ of the world, spreading a peculiar chill.
In other words, when she used ‘Emerald Honey’ nature, she could offset the pain of entering the gray white world and traverse it relatively safely.
But this offset would consume the power of ‘Emerald Honey’ nature; if she couldn’t reach the next ‘colored bubble’ before it ran out, would she be twisted and shattered by this gray white world?
After thinking this through, Xilutiya retreated, scanning around with her gaze and finding the nearest colored bubble from here, only 50 meters away.
Fifty meters—could she endure it? No, she still needed to test it.
Over the next half hour, Xilutiya successively tried inserting her entire arm into the gray white world, then half her body, and finally her whole body.
After fully stepping into the gray white world, it was a completely different bodily sensation, like being at the bottom of completely still water: all sounds were distant, sensations hard to extend and spread, and as long as she remained still, the ‘Emerald Honey’ nature in her body would not be consumed.
This scene made her think of painting again, as well as brushes and pigments.
The world was like white paper, she was the brush, the nature power she mastered was like pigment; moving the brush would inevitably consume pigment, leaving traces on the white paper, but if the brush stayed still, the pigment would not be consumed.
After figuring out the initial pattern of this world, Xilutiya gradually calmed down and began attempting true exploration.
