Standing on the boat, Gu Qing Shan gazed into the intense current below.
The color of the water slowly became profound.
The Forgetting River?
Gu Qing Shan carefully felt it.
——no, this sensation, this isn’t the Forgetting River.
The Forgetting River gives off the sensation of a new life after death, by discarding all memories, once again beginning anew.
But this river gives off the sensation of endless despair and chill.
The small boat lightly floated along.
The river flow slowly became wider and wider until the river banks couldn’t be seen any longer.
“What is that?” Gu Qing Shan whispered to himself.
At the very center of the river, just a bit further away in front of him, there was a small island.
Although it was called a small island, it was only a few meters squared in total.
A single statue stood atop the island.
The statue appeared almost like some sort of lizard, but it had three heads.
One of the heads was a tiger, one similar to a hawk, while the last one appeared humanoid, yet not humanoid at the same time.
『 Come 』
A voice resounded in Gu Qing Shan’s head:
『 Come to my island, I will grant you my inheritance, this way I would be able to die with my eyes closed 』
Gu Qing Shan turned to the statue.
The statue had already taken up every last bit of room on the island, so anyone who stepped foot onto it would be left with no place to even stand.
“I can’t get on” Gu Qing Shan replied.
『 You can control the boat to move it closer—– do not jump, as the boat will disappear 』the statue told him.
Gu Qing Shan looked down at the small boat.
Sure enough, the boat followed his thought and started floating towards the statue.
“Like this?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
『 Indeed, just like that 』the statue said.
Gu Qing Shan controlled the ship, and rode across the flowing water, making sure to keep several dozen meters of distance as he went past the island with the statue.
The statue’s three heads were staring straight at Gu Qing Shan, moving along with the boat.
『 Why are you going away? 』the statue asked confusedly.
“Because I still have something to do, once I return, I’ll come to you” Gu Qing Shan replied.
The statue said: 『 Listen to my advice, since you’ve obtained a tomb boat, you had better use it to quickly escape this place and not head deeper into it 』
The boat stopped.
Gu Qing Shan said confusedly: “But I want to take a look inside”
『 Do not head inside. There are nothing but countless heavy Apocalypses in there, even the countless powerful entities of the void in the past had lost their lives to those Apocalypses, let alone you? 』
The statue continued: 『 Flee, bring my inheritance with you and quickly flee! This is your only chance of survival! 』
Gu Qing Shan stared closely at the statue.
He continued to control the boat and head downstream.
After a while.
The island on top of the water suddenly vanished.
Gu Qing Shan finally relaxed.
He wiped the cold sweat off his forehead.
This time, he had no information, relying purely on his own caution and intuitions to make his choice.
The other party was so concerned with my boat…
There must be some sort of rule that prevented them from directly boarding.
Gu Qing Shan silently thought and loosened his control over the boat, allowing it to move forward on its own.
15 minutes later.
Something else appeared in front of the small boat.
Something jet-black bobbed up and down within the river, almost like a piece of driftwood.
Gu Qing Shan drew his sword and focused on it.
Unfortunately, that black object was being obscured by something, and there was some fog drifting just above the water, so not even his inner sight managed to observe it.
When the boat finally got close enough, Gu Qing Shan finally saw what that thing was.
—-it was a black finger that was several dozen meters in length.
The finger seemed to sense the small boat and started struggling in the water.
A gentle female voice resounded in Gu Qing Shan’s mind:
『 The glory and honor of the olden days has already passed; I now need someone to pass on my knowledge. Come, you will be able to learn all knowledge within the void through me! 』
『 Brave human, become my successor! 』
Gu Qing Shan watched the black finger and asked: “Who are you? Why are you here in the form of a finger?”
The gentle female voice replied: 『 I could not prevent the deep destruction from the Apocalypse, leaving only this finger to drift for countless years——- but now, I will soon no longer be able to bear it. I need you to take on all of my knowledge and link the fire for my lineage! 』
Gu Qing Shan remained silent without saying a single word.
In his heart.
He could sense a boundless chill and danger, causing his heart to beat increasingly faster.
This feeling was similar to the gradual approach of a tsunami.
Something is——
Very wrong here.
This wasn’t purely his intuition, but also a faint impression from their conversations and surroundings.
Instinctively, Gu Qing Shan wanted to use his World Technique.
——once the [Parallel Dream] technique was activated, he would be able to tell what the black finger would do if he made certain decisions.
It was at this point that Gu Qing Shan suddenly remembered that both his World Techniques were already gone.
That’s right. When I performed the last sword strike of the seven swords of offering to the infinite worlds, the worlds of the past fused into one and entered my iris, causing both of the World Technique to be gone.
His new World Technique was still being conceived, so it hadn’t fully manifested.
Gu Qing Shan sighed helplessly and temporarily gave up on what he wanted to do.
In this dangerous situation, the boat was already barely able to handle his weight, let alone that heavy finger.
He paid no more heed to that black finger.
Within the silence, the small boat gradually moved further away from the black finger.
The female voice became hurried: 『 Wait a moment, if you save me, I’ll tell you a secret, it’s a secret related to your survival! 』
Gu Qing Shan shook his head: “Living is more important than any secrets, goodbye”
The female voice abruptly became sharp and high-pitched, emanating thorny malice with every word:
『 Rider of that boat, you do not know who you just angered 』
『 I am the Ruler of all darkness in the void, all things in the shade beg me to manipulate them, but an insect like you dare reject me! 』
『 In the name of darkness, I curse you! No matter which burial ground you step foot onto, you will die within the heavy Apocalypse! 』
『 Ahahahahahaha! 』
The voice laughed in a maddening manner.
Following that laugher, the black finger sank into the river, no longer to be seen.
Gu Qing Shan felt a bone-freezing chill.
——as if he had just stepped into a freezer.
This sensation swiftly came and swiftly passed, disappearing in a flash, causing anyone to mistake it for an illusion.
But Gu Qing Shan knew for a fact that it was very real.
Lines of glowing text also appeared on the War God UI:
[You’ve been afflicted with a curse from the void monster: Void Gloom Matriarch]
[The moment you set foot on any burial ground; you will surely die in that place]
[Note: Fortunately you arrived here in the ‘Night Cruiser’ state, once your ‘Night Cruiser’ dies, that curse will vanish]
Gu Qing Shan sighed in relief.
As expected, the especially powerful void monsters who came into the tomb still haven’t completely died off. In one way or another, they still remain within this river with its messed-up sense of space and time.
If that’s the case, the Lord of the Space-Time Mystery Nest could be considered quite an excellent one among them.
After all, it managed to escape the tomb, only to be suppressed and sealed away by the Tomb of Myriad Beasts.
Otherwise, it might have been able to turn to power!
Gu Qing Shan’s mind was in a bog, as he had a feeling that these monsters’ words and actions seemed a bit unusual.
Without waiting for him to think any further, a faint mass cluster of water vapor drifted above the water a few hundred meters ahead of him.
This water vapor quickly converged to form a giant skull.
This skull was quite different from a human skull, as its cheeks were too long, almost thrice as long as a human, proportionally.
A soon as this skull appeared, the entire river seemed to have come to life.
Countless strange and unusual entities appeared from underneath the water, hurriedly moving away from the skull.
Gu Qing Shan suddenly felt something and lightly tapped his Inventory Bag.
The colorful rooster jumped out from the Inventory Bag on its own, shouting at him: “Flee! Hurry up and flee! I can sense the presence of a true Apocalypse!”
“True? What do you mean by ‘true Apocalypse’?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
“Fool! Many Apocalypses are merely the derivative form of true Apocalypses, weakened to a considerable degree. They’re nothing more than illusions only capable of destroying incredibly feeble worlds, and this isn’t one of those garbages!” the colorful rooster hurriedly answered.
This colorful rooster was a product made from [War God Intelligence] and the most advanced information conduit from the Hitman Guild, Gu Qing Shan naturally trusted it without a second thought.
He turned the boat around and hurriedly fled to where he came from.
Behind the small boat, the skull slowly started moving.
Wherever it looked at on the surface of the river, the floating objects within quickly disappeared without a trace.
Gu Qing Shan was shocked.
——is it destroying living beings simply by looking at them?
Or perhaps, is it doing something else that I can’t perceive?
If it only needed to gaze at something to destroy it, the small boat wouldn’t be able to escape!
“Hey, can this skull be killed?”
Gu Qing Shan drew his sword and focused his mind, prepared to fight.
The colorful rooster took one look at the skull of fog, then suddenly froze and curled up on the ground: “Oh no, oh no, we’re not going to make it this time”
Gu Qing Shan couldn’t help but shout: “That’s why you need to hurry up and tell me, can it be killed? The only way out right now is to fight it”
“It is not part of Space-Time, so you cannot kill it”
The colorful rooster explained: “This is the main body of an Apocalypse that arrived from outside the Gate. Once its gaze meets you, both the Laws of Space and Time would cease to exist on your body, you will be plunged into eternal emptiness, and only in death would you have a tiny chance of release”
Gu Qing Shan remained silent for a long while.
Suddenly, he sighed in relief, held the colorful rooster in his chest, and said: “Time’s up”
Instantly, he vanished without a trace.
…
At another location.
The Tomb of Myriad Beasts.
The Western Sea Grotto.
The School of Shan Hai.
In the middle of the Study Lodge.
Gu Qing Shan woke up inside a destroyed world.
