Editor: Kitty
Luo Jian did not discover the wolf, and the wolf never attacked him. It just followed behind him quietly and secretly, tracking him with his smell through its nose under the covers of the forestry and shrubs’ shadows. In this manner, it followed behind him step by step.
Luo Jian followed the two monsters in front of him…… Both of them may have been two proper human beings previously, but now they were now monsters that appeared unrecognizable. Ya’an, the snake monster, would sometimes turn back to check on Luo Jian. The skeleton next to Ya’an was not as kind as him. He moved forward silently, though his bones would still creak because of his movements.
“We’ve been walking for a long time; haven’t we arrived yet?”
The valley was so huge that even though Luo Jian had been following Ya’an for nearly an hour, the forest in front of them was still lush and dense. This forest was different from the small forest that Luo Jian was trapped in previously. The trees here were very luxuriant with many branches and leaves in vibrant green. The greenery covered everything in the skies and the earth within their sight, as if it could obtain part of the skies.
Occasionally, cracks between the branches hanging above would reveal splatters of blood-red sun rays, and the rays would sprinkle over the grass patches on the earth.
Luo Jian noticed that there were almost no other animals in the forest, and he could not even see birds or small flies. In fact, the same was true of the forest where he had been before. There were no flowers and birds, no insects and no animals in the grass and trees, and the soil was very dry and lacked moisture. However, while in that predicament, the wolf kept pestering him, so he did not consider that.
“This forest is so quiet…” Luo Jian could not help but say what he thought inwardly. He said, “Nothing can be heard, and I don’t see any living creatures……”
“Of course, hiss, hiss—there are no other living creatures in the Crimson Asura Realm! Except for us outsiders, it’s as quiet as death.” When Ya’an heard what Luo Jian said, he turned back and told him that.
Ya’an said, “You know…… didn’t I say that before? The Crimson Asura Realm is very special. It was not created by the secret chamber’s will but created by a player! A ‘player’! Can you understand what I’m saying? Just like you, or me—the me previously!”
“Even if you say that, I don’t quite understand.” While walking behind the two monsters, Luo Jian lowered his head as he reflected upon the issue.
“Alright hiss, hiss~ Then I’ll ask you simply and straightforwardly: can you create a world?”
“No.” Obviously, Luo Jian was very clear on his capabilities.
“But that player could. He had the ability to build his own world! He created this world, and this world is what we see today—Crimson Asura Realm, hiss, hiss!” After speaking, Ya’an seemed to be excited by his own declaration. His tail was shaking and wagging behind him. And Luo Jian’s line of sight was attracted by his tail.
“Yeah, he sounds so amazing that he can blast through the skies!” Luo Jian paused before continuing: “Do you know of any players who escaped from this secret chamber?”
“The way you ask&#k2026;&#k2026; Is your memory restored?” Ya’an looked at Luo Jian thoughtfully.
Luo Jian answered: “A little of it has recovered, but not all. But at least I remember that I was in a damned survival game, and the rules of the game were to escape endlessly from several strange secret chambers.”
“Pretty much. If you can think of that much, I’ll tell you the secret of this Crimson Asura Realm.” While waving his cute tail, Ya’an began to tell a story to Luo Jian.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t know who the fellow who created this Crimson Asura Realm is, and I don’t know where he went after that. Did he leave this damned secret chamber space forever? Or did he die in this secret chamber? I don’t know about that because the secret chamber’s will never publicly announced or told us all that anyone else has escaped here.”
“But I know what happened after the Crimson Asura Realm was created.”
“To be exact, the creation of the secret chamber, the Crimson Asura Realm, is a failure.”
“A failure?” After Luo Jian heard this, his footsteps stopped. For some reason, he always felt something was following him, so he could not help but look back. Behind him was a patch of green forest. He felt that he smelled the familiar scent of blood, but after trying to sniff it out, there was no such smell in the air again.
Luo Jian thought that he had simply imagined it, so he returned his attention back to Ya’an. The snake-bodied monster did not care about Luo Jian being absentminded and told his story happily:
“The player failed to create this secret chamber,” Ya’an claimed.
“I don’t think so. If he failed, we wouldn’t be here,” Luo Jian retorted.
“But he did fail. Hiss, hiss~” Ya’an said, “If I could create a world, first of all, I would build a space. Let us imagine spaces as small boxes with four squares and three dimensions. Inside the box is chaos and darkness. Then I would put a planet in the darkness.”
Luo Jian shook his head helplessly: “What a great imagination you have. Do continue, Ya’an.”
“You know, hiss, hiss, there are a lot of things on a planet, such as water, air, mountains, trees…… In the outer layer of the planet, I would wrap some soil and earth, lay the ocean and foundation, and make mountains or valleys—just like where we are now.”
Ya’an said, frowning: “But that player did not create a planet in this manner. He did not make a planet. It may be because of the restrictions of his abilities, but he only created this valley, surrounded by cliffs, and forests, streams and plains in the valley.”
“He’d done all this, but he didn’t add any creatures to it! He didn’t put insects, birds, or other animals in, so…… you can’t find any other living things in the forest where we are now!”
Luo Jian suddenly stopped moving after he heard that. Ya’an, who was walking in front of him, did not seem to mind because Ya’an also stopped. He continued to say to Luo Jian: “Hiss, hiss, and the creator of the Crimson Asura Realm, his biggest mistake was…… stopping time in this secret chamber.”
“He stopped time?” Luo Jian was full of doubts as he questioned: “But we can still talk. If time stopped, it should be…… that we would experience everything being immobile.”
“Has the sun moved in the sky since you woke up from this chamber, hiss, hiss?” Ya’an pointed his tail to the sky.
“No.”
“Do you feel the wind in the air, hiss, hiss?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen the water flow in the stream, hiss, hiss?”
Luo Jian hesitated. He remembered that he had passed by a stream when he left the forest that he met the gigantic wolf in. He did not pay attention to the water in the stream because he had been so thirsty that he only cared about drinking water. When he was drinking water, he only noticed that the water was very clear and there were no fish in it.
As for whether the water in the stream was flowing…… oh! The water was so clear that the smooth stones in the water could be seen clearly. The water was so calm that it was as if it were a mirror!
At that time, Luo Jian completely did not notice this peculiarity in this special place.
But he could only answer Ya’an now. Luo Jian said, “No…… the water in the stream was very calm, as if it were a mirror.”
“Ever since we came into this space, time had stopped in the world within this space.” Ya’an seemed to be smiling. His smile caused him to look even more terrifying because his huge mouth could almost crack open to the back of his ears. When he smiled, his whole face appeared distorted.
However, Ya’an seemed to know that when he smiled, he did not look good, so he did not smile for long. He continued to hiss: “And we are foreign objects, living in the cracks of time. Our time has not stopped moving. Instead, it has been moving forward, but the time of this space has stopped, preventing us from going forward, so we are stuck in this damned place …… Any one of us, every one of us, can repeatedly, incessantly…… revive!”
Luo Jian was shocked for a moment and nodded to show understanding. He said, “I know that. I have…… already experienced it.”
This time, Luo Jian finally understood why he could be revived and why the wolf would come back to him again and again. It kept climbing out of the hands of the God of Death and continued to make trouble for him.
But this was not anything good because if everyone could revive again and again—
“That’s why I said the world is horrible. Hiss, hiss—” Ya’an curled into a circle on the ground and continued to lead the way for Luo Jian: “There are no living creatures here, and these plants, trees, and so on, no matter how damaged they are, can recover automatically. Even if I want to plant an apple tree on the ground, the seed will not sprout.
“Even if you don’t eat or drink until you die, you will soon wake up full of energy, hiss!” Ya’an seemed annoyed: “And I want to tell you, the resources in the world are very strange. You can cut down a tree and take the wood of the tree trunk to burn. Even if the cut tree is restored, the wood you used to burn and the fire will not disappear. But if you don’t use the wood and merely leave it there, after a few hours, when you come back to find it, the wood will have disappeared.”
“So you can’t cut down trees to build a wooden house for yourself because even if you build a house, after a while, as long as you don’t move it, the house will disappear by itself? Is that right?” Luo Jian froze as he deduced.
“Yes! That’s it, hiss, hiss!” Ya’an said angrily, “I’ve done such a stupid thing in the past! Although I don’t know why I wanted to build a wooden house!”
“If so…… this is a horrible place. How do you spend your time?” Luo Jian listened to the other party’s complaint-like narration and deeply felt how bored they would get, staying in this strange secret chamber. There was almost nothing to do here although the place had a name that sounded very lofty.
“Do you know why this secret chamber is named this—Crimson Asura Realm, hiss, hiss?”
Luo Jian obediently shook his head: “I don’t know.”
“In fact, when this space was first created, its creator, that player, did not leave any messages about the name of this space. He merely built a space and disappeared. After that, the name was chosen by those of us who came in later. It’s people like us who named this place.”
Ya’an raised his head, extended his forked tongue, and gazed at the blood-red sky: “Crimson refers to the red sunset. The sunset here is very dazzling and beautiful, much like the crimson of blood, but if you gaze at it for too long, you will want to vomit. As for Asura Realm…”
“Asura Realm?” As Luo Jian listened, he saw Ya’an stop talking. He suddenly found that they had slowly walked out of the forest while they were talking and moving forward. There was an open grassland plain in front of them.