The scenery of the Soul World lasted only for a brief moment, yet the brilliance cast by the Crystal Holy Tree left a profound shadow deep within Kant's heart. Then, the gentle breeze from the Soul Wilderness swiftly faded away. As the distant sound of bells echoed, he felt a sudden blur in front of him, and everything around him returned to its previous state—The hollow space of Boundary City at the bottom of the Fault, the end leading to the Old World and the Gate of Reincarnation, the floating land entwined with giant roots, and Yu Sheng, who stood smiling not far away.
The director lowered his eyelids and gently clenched his hands, lost in thought: "Unbelievable... So this is the feeling of 'soul anchoring to the wilderness' that the Colorless Dragon mentioned... That giant tree just now, is it the Crystal Tree transformed from the World Bridge as mentioned in the previous report?"
"I was more amazed at the grandeur of that city," Red's voice came from beside him, tinged with contemplation, "It's a pity the time was too short to see clearly. I feel several towers outside the walls looked rather strange..."
Yu Sheng was trying to maintain a facade of control with a smiling face when he heard Red's mutterings. He quickly stepped forward: "Ahem, I'll introduce that place to you in detail when there's a chance later. Anyway, 'Blood Transfer' is just like this. If you're feeling uncomfortable, speak up quickly. If there are no adverse reactions, then the ceremony is concluded."
Kant paused for a moment and gently shook his head, his tone tinged with a bit of sentiment: "No adverse reactions, just still somewhat unreal feeling..."
As he was speaking halfway, Erin started to babble: "Oh come on, what are you still worried about at this point? I'll tell you, anyway, Yu Sheng's blood isn't refundable..."
Yu Sheng casually placed the Little Puppet on his shoulder and shook his head: "Try to understand, after all, this thing is akin to signing a soul contract in a story. We even did psychological preparation a day ahead for the Blood Transfer to the kids at the Fairy Tale Orphanage back then..."
Erin found it reasonable after listening, then her eyes rolled around, contemplating something, suddenly turning cheerful, she turned to Kant and the director with glee: "Hey hey, how about viewing it differently? After all, the entire Boundary Land is considered communal property on Yu Sheng's grave. You've now kind of supplemented the lease contract for the landlord—isn't it much easier to accept if you think of it this way?"
As soon as the Little Puppet started speaking, everyone opposite hadn't reacted much, but Yu Sheng couldn't help but burst out: "What kind of communal property on a grave is that! With your level of education and cultural literacy, where does this vocabulary and associative ability even come from?!"
Lucrecia aside: "I know a suspect..."
Yu Sheng: "..."
But speaking of it, even though Erin's speech is quite sarcastic, her metaphor is remarkably precise. Kant and the director, after listening, were silent for half a minute as if struck by lightning, finally nodding to express that the Little Puppet's remark was quite reasonable...
As for Fault, he didn't express any opinions, after all, the light bulb is burned out and hasn't been replaced, his reaction speed is decreasing constantly at this moment, and fear within two hours he will be akin to a smart microwave...
After confirming the Blood Transferring Ceremony effective, Yu Sheng bent down again to pick up the strangely shaped blood-red long spear on the ground.
This was the "trophy" he brought back from the other side of the door—the act of carrying some specialties back from adventures is a feature of the travel agency, and this time he felt what he brought back is particularly interesting.
Because this long spear... seems to be alive.
Of course, all kinds of peculiar "living things" are not considered strange to Yu Sheng, after all, he has seen living orphanage, living Black Forest, living planet, and even living World Bridge, but all these things quickly "perished" after being "eaten" by him, yet the one before... is different.
Yu Sheng gently weighed the blood-red long spear in his hand, a peculiar "vitality" pulsating in his perception. He even seemed to feel the blood within the spear flowing, feeling as if it had a beating heart—this spear was once soaked with his blood, and the blood seemed not to have dissipated with his resurrection, but rather became part of some primitive power cycle within it beforehand.
Yu Sheng gently released his hand, and the blood-red long spear floated beside him, appearing docile and obedient.
Red from two meters away watched this scene, slightly furrowed her eyebrows, the expression on her face somewhat awkward—yet even she couldn't explain the reason for the awkwardness.
"This thing might've been yours before," Erin waved at the vampire girl opposite, "Look how obedient it is in Yu Sheng's hand now!"
"...Why does everything you say sound weird," Yu Sheng's expression stiffened for a moment, glancing at the Little Puppet on his shoulder and then casually grabbed the spear floating in mid-air, stepping towards Red, "Though Erin's speculation might be valid. Judging from the condition of that Rift, this thing should have a close relationship with you... Do you really not remember at all?"
Red pursed her lips and gently shook her head.
"Alright then," Yu Sheng exhaled, "I'll take it back for some research, shouldn't be of any issue, right?"
"Be my guest," Red graciously bowed slightly with a polite smile appearing on her face, "After all, it is you who 'brought' it out."
Yu Sheng nodded and then surveyed around the vicinity once more.
"Today's action ends here, everyone each go back and take a rest. The exploration on the other side of the door will follow the plan discussed earlier—during this time also trouble you to keep an eye on the movements below the Fault. Inform me immediately if there are any changes."
The director nodded slightly: "No problem."
"Still taking a boat up there?" Lucrecia asked casually, raising her magic wand and pointing it at the white paper boat on the edge of the Floating Island, "After all, it hasn't been taken back yet."
Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then shook his head, "Let's wait for a bit, I still want to try again."
As he spoke, he reached out into the air beside him, and with a gentle pull, a phantom door appeared out of thin air.
The door opened, but what lay beyond was only a chaotic darkness, not the surface of the upper layer of the Fault as he expected.
Erin scratched her head, "This door is really off-kilter..."
Yu Sheng also furrowed his brow tightly, muttering to himself, "Strange... I had recalibrated the coordinates according to the environment here, yet it's still off, and this time it's not opening from the outside to here, but from here to the outside..."
He waved away the door he had summoned, while quickly pondering in his mind.
Earlier, when he was "above," he had attempted to open a door to the bottom of the Great Void in the Fault but failed. At that time, his main suspicion was that the collision from the Kingdom previously had caused a shift in the space-time coordinates at the bottom of the Fault, but he now realized this hypothesis might be wrong.
Yu Sheng, frowning, slowly turned around, and his gaze fell upon the colossal structure standing in the center of the Floating Island.
That triangular door that symbolized the "End" (with the revolving door version).
The end of the Old World, the origin of the New World, the start and end of time—
"Is this thing causing interference?!"
Erin heard Yu Sheng's mutters but didn't immediately react, "Huh? What do you mean? What interference?"
"Death is a door, and 'uniqueness' and 'unidirectionality' are its foundational principles," Yu Sheng raised a hand and pointed at the triangular door, explaining casually to the people nearby, "The new structure I added earlier only solved the problem of unidirectionality, but the uniqueness of the door is still in effect, so the power of the World Bridge is suppressed here."
Erin listened, dumbfounded, not knowing how much she understood.
Then she watched Yu Sheng step toward the triangular door—
Although she didn't know what Yu Sheng intended to do, the Little Puppet suddenly reacted, her memories from not long ago boiling over, "Hey, what the hell are you doing! Yu Sheng, explain what the hell you are doing?! Wait... wait! There's interference here, we can open the door from a bit further away. That revolving door you made earlier was damn thunderous, I'm telling you... This is an antique! This is ancient architecture, damn it—"
However, the 66.6 cm tall Little Puppet flailed her limbs in vain, unable to stop the person who had crawled out of the coffin from persistently working to modernize their tomb landscape—as she watched Yu Sheng place his hand on that mysterious, ancient triangular door. In the next moment, with a screeching sound, the counterpart to the revolving door began to wriggle and deform, and within moments, a simple iron security door appeared on the corner surface of the ancient door.
The good news is that this door doesn't rotate.
The bad news is that it looks like it was picked up for 50 bucks from a second-hand building materials market—if you had to use good words to describe it, you could only say it had a bit of a homely and childhood familiarity...
Yet Yu Sheng smiled, radiating an authentic and heartfelt happiness.
The Little Puppet sitting on his shoulder wore a mournful face, muttering, "At least make it symmetrical, even if it's two revolving doors... one turns while the other doesn't, a perfectionist would just drop dead on the spot."
"If the Terran Archaeological Society learns of what happened here, a third of them might die from the outrage," Baili Xue whispered beside Baili Qing, "Ancient architecture from the very birth of the universe..."
Yu Sheng heard the mutters around him clearly, but he paid no heed. He simply raised his hand over the plain, old, even slightly ugly, iron door, then let his fingers trail over its door frame, landing outside the frame, on the rough, ancient obsidian structure.
The heavy, solemn triangular door emitted a low hum, as if pleasantly responding to something.
"Everything that 'End' used to represent is now a matter of the Old World. This new world, full of possibilities, no longer needs to rely on a door to bind the rules of death for all beings. As for this door..."
Yu Sheng turned the handle of that old security door and gently opened it.
Opposite was the scene of the Teleportation Hub's hall.
"Care to sit in my backyard?" Yu Sheng invited with a smile, "My backyard is rather spacious."