The small amount of that thing seemed to make his consciousness become ‘clearer’. Despite that, he still couldn’t tell where he was.
‘What is this place?’ Chu Yunsheng could not feel the existence of his own body. This feeling was very strange. It was like he was being located in the middle of this mysterious dream-like world, but at the same time, he was also like being everywhere in this world. He had a strange feeling that he was this world, and this world was him.
However, he could not see this world clearly. Everything around him was blurry as if he was in a dream.
After a long time, as more and more of that ‘thing’ was sucked in by the black vortex, the world around him finally began to change, and colors began to appear.
Before the color appeared in this mysterious world, Chu Yunsheng’s line of thought was continuous and linear, but the content in his thoughts seemed to be random and meaningless. However, after the color appeared, something magical happened.
The color seemed to change when the content of his thoughts changed. When he thought of his aunt’s family, the color would form blurry shadows of his aunt’s family. When he thought of Shu Du city, the shadow became a ruined city.
All kinds of scenes were reconstructed whenever he thought about it. This mysterious world seemed to be stimulating whatever existed in his mind.
Gradually, his thought was no longer random. He began to focus only on one question: ‘What exactly is this place?’ And when he thought of this, the world around him slowly became dim until everything became blurry again.
A few moments later, the blurry world was suddenly cracked open as if it had been struck by an extremely bright lightning bolt. Then some strange shadows continuously appeared one by one. As he ‘looked’ carefully, he realized that they were the black monolith, the black gas, the veiled woman, the insects…
‘Zero-dimensional space?’
‘If it is indeed the zero-dimensional space, how did I get in? Is it something to do with the black vortex?’
‘What is that black vortex? Where does it come from?’
Chu Yunsheng’s memory was moving backward fast like a flood, trying to figure out where it might come from. However, it stopped twice, and both times stopped at the time when the black gas appeared.
The first time the black gas appeared was back in Hong Kong. It was during the time when he was transforming into a Min’s final form. The second time the black gas appeared was in Shu Du city. It was at the time when he merged with Dark.
Suddenly, he seemed to have noticed something.
Both times were closely tied with life force.
The world around him also began to change at this moment as if Chu Yunsheng’s thought seemed to startle something.
Then Chu Yunsheng suddenly remembered the words said by the veiled woman.
“All the consciousness of our lives is in another space – the zero-dimensional space! ”
“You don’t need to be surprised, this conclusion has cost our entire civilization. When we finally understood it, it also brought destruction.”
“In the zero-dimensional space, there is no spatial concept such as size or distance. You can think of it as a point, or you can think of it as infinity. It exists in your mind and it also does not exist in your mind. It is your consciousness, your ‘self’.”
“When the time axis exists in your zero-dimensional space, your life has meaning, in other words, you are alive. When the time axis disappears from your zero-dimensional space, your life is meaningless, so you are ‘dead’.”
“When a person dies, the zero-dimensional space will also disappear with it.”
…
“….when you close your eyes, and turn off the functions of all the sensory nerves, can you still feel the existence of this world?…”
“When you close your eyes,…. can you still feel the existence of this world?”
“…. Can you still feel the existence of this world?…”
Chu Yunsheng’s consciousness became more and more clear as he repeatedly thought of the words said by the veiled woman.
Suddenly, the blurry world began to shake violently. A moment later, countless nerve-like lines appeared at a place not far from him. However, there were only a few lines glowing in dim red light. All the rest of the lines were dark and quiet.
As Chu Yunsheng gathered his focus on one of the lines that glowed in dim red light, a cold feeling instantly filled his entire consciousness layer.
Then he shifted his focus to another one, the cold feeling was instantly replaced with blood smell.
He then shifted to another line again, but this time, it was pitch black around him….
In terms of those dark and quiet lines, they didn’t have any reactions at all.
‘I understand it now!’ Chu Yunsheng withdrew his focus from those lines and looked at the black vortex above him.
After a long silence, Chu Yunsheng didn’t know why, but he suddenly had a strange thought. ‘Is this how my identity, my ‘self’, was born? But…’
It was at this moment, as if he had touched something that was forbidden, the entire blurry world was stirred up. It was like a hurricane or a tsunami, turning the entire blurry world upside down. Then a strong suction force appeared from that black vortex…
In the next second, Chu Yunsheng opened his eyes.
******
Sixteen years old Chiba Hiro had a pair of bright and beautiful eyes. She could always see things clearer and further away than everyone else.
One month ago, she heard from samurai Nii-san saying that the mountain-like fruit tree had suddenly disappeared.
Since then, many large bodies of strange monsters had been washed towards the riverside and the beach near them. There were many giant monsters that even the leader of the Akizuki clan had also never seen before.
It was said that the god of death was angry, and it had sent down bolts of lightning to kill those sea monsters. Of course, some people didn’t believe that. Especially those old people. However, no one could explain why so many monsters’ bodies had been washed towards the beach near them.
Initially, it was the monsters with red blood that had been washed towards the beach. Slowly, all kinds of monsters with different types of blood appeared.
All the people in the Akizuki clan, no matter how old they were, and what gender they were, were asked to work endlessly on the beach.
With dozens of other girls, Chiba Hiro followed a group of aunties trying to disassemble the bodies of the dead monsters. She then used snow to wash the meat clean, stored them on a wooden trailer, and pulled it back to the camp.
Despite a huge amount of work, her father and sisters were smiling all the time. Because those meats were enough to support them for a very long time.
They also didn’t need to risk their lives to search for food on the other side of the river and fight with those Chinese people.
The leader of the Akizuki Clan said that they needed to endure the difficulty and respect the people who lived on this land before. Despite them constantly fighting each other at the moment, they would eventually find a common ground.
However, the leader of the Tachibana Clan said that if they needed to survive in this place, they must defeat the other side and gain the total control of this place.
The argument between the two leaders happened almost every day. It even got to the point that the leader of the Tachibana clan had to execute some people.
However, Chiba Hiro was just a lowly little girl, she didn’t understand what they were arguing, she just knew that when her father pledged his loyalty to the leader of the Akizuki Clan, the leader Akizuki Clan was right.
She was cutting the body of a dead strange sea monster. However, her attention was sometimes attracted by a valiant and dashing young man who was standing in the territory of the Hoshino clan.
The young man was the young leader of the Hoshino clan.
He was also sixteen years old, and an awakened samurai. It was said that he had once single-handedly killed a tentacle monster. He was the prince charming of all the girls who were at the same age as her.
However, as a low-born girl, Chiba Hiro knew that there was no possibility between her and the young leader of the Hoshino clan. Especially when her clan and the young leader’s clan were supporting different ideas.
Having thought of that, she began to lower her head and focus on cutting the body of the strange sea monster.
It was at that moment, several boats sailed across the part of the river that was near the estuary of the Huangpu River and moored at the port that half belonged to the Hoshino clan and the other half belonged to the Akizuki Clan.
The people from the Akizuki Clan quickly pushed a tailor towards the boats. On the trailer, it was loaded with the bodies of strange sea monsters that they had prepared earlier.
However, the people from the Hoshino clan instantly drew their swords and got ready for the fight. All of them were looking at the people from the Akizuki Clan with disdain.
The heart of Chiba Hiro was beating rapidly. The Chinese who lived on the other side of the river would come to collect some food from them once in two days. The leader of the Akizuki Clan had agreed to this. However, the people from the Hoshino clan would resist every time.
And this time, the young leader of the Hoshino clan was leading the group.
Meanwhile, from deep underneath the sea suddenly jumped out a gigantic sea monster. It was rolling around on the surface of the sea and roaring constantly in pain. At the same time, it was heading towards the beach.
