A World Worth Protecting

1

<em>I can’t log on?</em> Wang Baole shook. His breathing stopped as a thought surfaced in his mind.

<em>Xie Haiyang, that fellow. Did he just grab everything and run away?</em> Wang Baole began to panic. He took out his voice transmission ring and tried contacting Xie Haiyang again, but he received no reply. Simmering with frustration, Wang Baole sat down and began to think.

<em>Xie Haiyang doesn’t seem like the type to resort to such despicable tricks…</em> Wang Baole thought. Finally, he sighed and turned on the Federation communication channel on his voice transmission ring. The Federation cultivators were talking about the battleship. After a long moment, Wang Baole shook his head and set aside his worries about Xie Haiyang. He shut his eyes and began to meditate.

However, it didn’t take long before Wang Baole suddenly opened his eyes. There was a strange, contemplative light in his eyes. Even though he had decided to stop thinking about Xie Haiyang, somewhere inside him was a voice telling him that something… was very wrong!

“Jin Duoming suddenly paying a house visit, Xie Haiyang being uncontactable, and me not being able to log on to the game…” Wang Baole muttered. The three things seemed to be related to one another, but he couldn’t tell what the problem was. He was no longer in the mood for cultivation. Wang Baole had a feeling that… he wouldn’t be able to rest easy if he didn’t figure this out.

He mused silently, recalling his interactions with Jin Duoming and Xie Haiyang. Then, his eyes widened. His breathing quickened as he remembered asking if the game would suddenly crash. Xie Haiyang had answered him then.

“The game won’t crash unless you’re dreaming!”

Those words were like bolts of lightning exploding inside Wang Baole’s head. He began to tremble, and waves of emotions surged inside him.

A terrible light flickered in Wang Baole’s eyes, and he was silent for a long while. Then, his right hand reached into his clothes and began rummaging. He pulled out the mask in which Little Missy resided.

He could feel the mask in his hands, but he couldn’t see it at all. Wang Baole’s face darkened instantly. There seemed to be something in the air, a whiff of something floral.

<em>That floral scent again…</em> Wang Baole narrowed his eyes. He remembered the first time he had smelled that, it was the instant he had been teleported away by the battleship.

He sat there silently. The voice transmission jade slip in his storage bag started vibrating suddenly. He lowered his head, narrowed his eyes, and pulled out the jade slip. As his Spirit Qi flowed into the jade slip, he heard Feng Qiuran’s tired voice.

“Baole, come to the cave abode, I have something very important to tell you.”

Wang Baole’s face was devoid of emotions as he shut his eyes. After a long while, he finally opened them again. There were no signs of anything having gone wrong shown on his face. He rose to his feet, left his palace, and headed straight for Feng Qiuran’s cave abode. He observed his surroundings along the way. There were numerous Dao Palace disciples and Federation cultivators running about. Everyone—Sect Lord Xu, the giant tree, and all the rest—were all acting normally. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

<em>There are no loopholes…</em>

There was a slightly lost look in Wang Baole’s eyes as he finally arrived at the entrance of Feng Qiuran’s cave abode. He stopped and stood there, staring at the gates.

“Baole, come in.” The gates slid open slowly as soon as Wang Baole arrived. Feng Qiuran’s raspy voice rang out. She sounded tired, both physically and emotionally. Even her voice sounded weak and sorrowful. It was as if she had lost all hope.

“Still no loopholes…” Wang Baole muttered to himself as he listened to Feng Qiuran’s voice and sensed her listlessness. He didn’t enter the cave abode immediately. Instead, he stood outside and pulled out the mask again. It was still invisible. Wang Baole took a deep breath and knew that the mask had been why he had managed to discover that he had been in an illusion during the Ethereal Dao College’s preliminary trial. The mask was invisible now because an illusion had no way of materializing it.

<em>Am I in an illusion now…</em> Wang Baole looked to his sides, then to the skies, and finally to the ground. He observed everything around him. The immense realness of his surroundings led him into another bout of silence. However, the mask’s invisibility was clear proof that everything was an illusion.

If that were the case, Wang Baole could now reasonably guess the reasons behind Jin Duoming’s house visit and Xie Haiyang’s disappearance.

<em>If this were truly an illusion, perhaps it means that the illusion isn’t able to conjure Xie Haiyang either. That was why Jin Duoming had paid me a visit under the guise of buying shares. His true purpose was to let me know that Xie Haiyang had disappeared. Once I believed him, this would have erased the final loophole.</em> Wang Baole sighed. He might have viewed a single incident as a coincidence, but Jin Duoming’s strange behavior had been followed by Xie Haiyang’s disappearance, his own inability to log on to the game, and finally the mask’s invisibility.

A determined look appeared in Wang Baole’s eyes as he thought through the series of incidents that had occurred.

“Who cares if it’s a dream or an illusion, I just have to dispel it!” As he muttered to himself, Wang Baole lifted his head and stared at the cave abode before him. As Feng Qiuran’s questioning voice rang out from the cave abode, Wang Baole raised his right hand abruptly and unleashed his full cultivation at the cave abode. The Thearch Armor appeared instantly on him. His aura rose to the skies, and he sent his fist flying forward!

The punch unleashed the full power of the Flame Snatch Thearch Armor and Wang Baole’s will. It contained the determination to break through all barriers, summoning a tornado that swept into the cave abode, howling. Feng Qiuran’s cave abode quaked and began to show signs of caving in. Feng Qiuran darted out, her steps stumbling as if she had yet to recover from serious injury. Her face was alit with shock and fury, and she yelled at Wang Baole as soon as she appeared.

“Wang Baole, what are you doing? Have you been hit with the Never-Ending Clan’s bewitchment as well, like Mie Liezi?”

<em>bewitchment?</em> Wang Baole’s face darkened. He charged at Feng Qiuran, his right hand tightened into a fist. A Divine Armament’s power erupted from his armor’s right arm—the melded arm of the Dao Disciple. A power that even Wang Baole found terrifying exploded from his arm. It transformed into a huge, illusory skeletal hand that emanated death and destruction. It seemed capable of destroying everything in its path—even the great abyss. The skeletal hand made a grab at Feng Qiuran!

Alarm flashed across Feng Qiuran’s face. There was fury and incomprehension in her eyes as she raised her right hand. Her Soul Conduit realm cultivation rose to the skies, forming an incredible power that seemed to blanket the entire world. It surged towards Wang Baole, and it was clear that her power vastly surpassed Wang Baole’s. However, her seemingly serious injuries disallowed her from maintaining her strong show of strength. She didn’t seem to want to kill Wang Baole. Having held him down with her power, she shouted yet again.

“Wang Baole, fight against the Never-Ending Clan’s bewitchment! Wake up!”

Wang Baole shook at the display of Feng Qiuran’s power and her words. His hair flew, and his clothes whipped in the strong winds. His body was prickling with pain. Everything felt so real, and uncertainty ate at him, but the thought of the mask’s invisibility, as well as Jin Duoming’s and Xie Haiyang’s bizarre behaviors, made Wang Baole’s eyes flash with an icy glint. He roared, and his illusory skeletal arm slammed down on Feng Qiuran!

A thunderous boom resonated in the air. Feng Qiuran’s smile was laced with pain. She had been injured too heavily. The cultivation that she had unleashed earlier dissipated, and her earlier attack seemed to have worsened her injury. When Wang Baole’s Divine Armament came slamming down, she was swept aside like paper. She shook violently and spat out a mouthful of blood. As she fell to the ground, she looked at Wang Baole with bitterness in her eyes. Her voice was weak and faint as she murmured.

“Mie Liezi’s been enchanted, and now you as well… Wang Baole, please, come to your senses. This is reality, it’s not an illusion!”

“So, an bewitchment…” Wang Baole fell silent. He looked at the fallen Feng Qiuran and could tell that his easy victory had been because Feng Qiuran had already been seriously injured. She had urged him to wake up. Everything seemed so logical and reasonable.

There was a reason for her injury. She had mentioned it. It was because… Mie Liezi had also suffered the Never-Ending Clan’s bewitchment like he was. He had suspected that everything had been an illusion.

“This is the Never-Ending Clan’s bewitchment. Can you smell a strange floral scent? That’s a symptom. It means that you’ve fallen to an bewitchment before the teleportation!” Feng Qiuran’s breathing grew uneven. Her eyes were bright with anxiety, and she seemed desperate to convince Wang Baole that this wasn’t an illusion.