“It’s still the same.” His eyes glided over the white patch of holy power that looked like a modeling clay in the window’s gap. “This is the holy power I applied here the last time I came. I can’t believe that it is still here! But by the looks of it, it has been almost exhausted.”
Lin Sheng came to the window. As he wiped the holy power in the window gap with his finger, tiny white light dust fell off his finger. The light dust was not as white as the pure, holy power, as if there were some impurities in it. He willed and a gush of holy power of an even higher-purity level than what he used last time was injected in it.
He did not want to waste time on this. As he raised his right hand and closed it, pure, holy power burst out from his hand, spreading through the entire house and purifying everything it came into contact with. Even the gray vortexes in the air were purified and now pure white. Instead of screams of terror in the vortexes, there were now snores and the calm breathing sound in sleep.
The new holy light had assimilated and cleansed the entire house and the patch of holy power that Lin Sheng previously applied, returning them to their former pure white glory. So this was the replacement for the old holy power used to seal the door and windows. Now even the air smelled fresher.
He looked around the house for a moment: the living room, reading room, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom. There was nothing unusual, or any hidden dangers.
“I can use this as my temporary base in the dream now.”
Lin Sheng was pleased by what he had done. Again, he came to the corridor between the living room and the bedrooms. He still remembered he used to lunge out from the window in the corridor to explore the world outside the last time he was here. The window glass was covered with a layer of faint white glow, which was holy light particles that could expel any monsters that tried to enter the house through this window.
Lin Sheng poked his head around to check out the situation outside, which was a vast expanse of dark-red plain. In his spirit vision, he could clearly see inside the faint dark-red mist was a giant column that connected the earth and heaven.
“If I’m quick enough, I may be able to finish exploring this place soon.” After getting a huge bump in strength and power, Lin Sheng was more confident this time. “The situation in the real world is on the brink of disaster, and the Black Tide could get worse any time. No time to explore carefully! I should be able to come and leave this home in the dream freely. Here goes nothing!”
With the protection of the Eight-eight Guards and through some presage, he could faintly sense his connection with this house. So long as there was a connection, he could come back here straight through the added guards. Also, the power of the Dark Wheel had greatly enhanced his ability to handle complicated situations.
As he had figured this out, Lin Sheng pushed to open the window and jumped out onto the red ground outside while keeping as little red mist from coming into the house as possible.
Outside was an endless dark-red plain. He could see some stelae and stone columns erected in the distance. Other than the red clouds in the sky, there were many floating islands of different sizes burning with fire in the air.
“This is quiet. Much more quiet than last time.” His keen senses had detected something had changed in this place. Prodding the ground with his heel, he could feel the unusual soft texture of the ground as if it was a cake soaked in water.
“In this case, I’d have to do it quickly.”
Lin Sheng glanced up at the giant pillar in the distance. His eyes told him that thing was quite a distance from here. It would not be wise to go there now. He first needed to find clues, and any hidden secrets in the surroundings. So he shifted his attention to the burning islands floating in the sky.
“Let’s check them out.”
Pure white holy light gathered and formed a light disc behind him. Following a rumble, the light disc put out a tail of white flame, pushing him flying up toward the nearest floating island. Holy power particles, left behind by the white flame, had purified the red mist, brightening up the space in the surroundings.
Lin Sheng was now high up in the air, leaving the ground far down below him. Everything on the dark-red land was fast becoming smaller. The higher he went, the stronger the air currents. The strong wind, which reeked of malicious intent, was circling around him.
Soon, these violent air currents condensed into semi-transparent humanoids. They had long tails, more like half-human, half-snake hybrid creatures, their faces distorted with brazen malice. No matter what ability these humanoids had, the moment they came near within one meter of Lin Sheng, his intense, holy power would purify and rip them apart.
They kept coming towards Lin Sheng and then dissipated just as quickly. After their bodies dissipated, they again turned into the wind in the air and provided Lin Sheng with a small amount of pure souls.
“These things possess soul power?” Lin Sheng looked around him and frowned.
He slowed down and now floated 1,000 meters in the air. Right above him was a burning, floating island. This island looked the size of a fingernail when looking from the ground. But it looked bigger than what Lin Sheng had imagined. The flames on the island shot over ten meters high in the air with heat radiating into the surroundings.
Lin Sheng looked around. Except for the giant pillar linking the heaven and the ground below, everywhere he looked was only red mist. Even the land down below looked blurry because of the red mist. Finding nothing unusual, he flew from the dark underside of the island up and landed on its black edge on the left side of the island.
Stepping on the ground in his black leather shoes, Lin Sheng could feel the ground was solid. It was solid rock, scorched black. Looking into the distance, all he saw were black rocks. They were everywhere on the island. In the middle of the island, there was a sea of collapsed man-made structure in the fire, burning with orange-red flames. This island might seem large to ordinary people. But all Lin Sheng took was one minute to finish viewing it.
With the tap of his foot, he launched himself into the air and started examining the island. There was no fire on the edge of the island. But there was also nothing there, just scorched dark rocks. No luck getting any information there. There seemed to be something in the burning structure, however.
But Lin Sheng first checked the edges. There was nothing except some burned fabric on the ground. Now he shifted his eyes to the structure in the fire. It looked like a square courtyard with a collapsed wall on one side, through which Lin Sheng could make out what might look like a sculpture inside.
Ignoring the fire, Lin Sheng kicked open the stone wall. Flames were spreading toward him, but were all blocked off by his holy power. He strode in and quickly checked the small courtyard. There were no rooms in here, just a small, abandoned garden, in the center of which was the sculpture of a solemn-looking woman holding a whip in her hand.