The Dawn of the New World

At first Hao Xuan thought he was seeing things again. Maybe another vision or a memory transposing itself onto the current reality but when Jin Wang slapped him on the back while passing by he awoke to the truth.

"STOP DAYDREAMING AND RUN IDIOT!"

He watched Jin Wang take the first few steps, each one hurling him tens of meters ahead and he realized why it felt this way. This wasn't the first time he had seen this pyramid.

A boulder-sized piece of debris landed mere inches away from the absentminded Hao Xuan forcing him to move. He followed exactly in Jin Wang's footsteps and the moment he stepped on it the intensity of the shakes reduced significantly.

It had stopped completely by the time they reached the top.

Gasping for air Hao Xuan looked back from where they had climbed up.

"Why...did it...stop?"

Jin Wang who seemed eerily composed brushed the dust off his clothes before looking at Hao Xuan.

"You want the truth? It might be better to remain ignorant in this specific case. It will only make things harder."

Hao Xuan took a few seconds to regain his composure, finally noticing the oddness of the situation. Under normal circumstances, he would have never run out of breath just from moving this much.

His body was obviously not the same as a normal person's and he couldn't remember the last time he was this out of breath. It felt like his lungs were about to explode.

"I feel...so weak..." he mumbled before sitting down right where he was.

Jin Wang shook his head solemnly.

'It really is him...'

He snapped his fingers and all the exhaustion and feebleness that was plaguing Hao Xuan's body vanished.

Surprised, Hao Xuan inspected himself in and out but couldn't figure out what changed.

"The hell just happened?"

"It was a spell to check something. I couldn't tell you before because it might affect the result."

Although Hao Xuan should have been mad that he was made to be the guinea pig without his consent but for some reason he couldn't get angry at him.

"Did I pass? What was the result?"

"Not sure. If the spell worked you would have been completely incapacitated and if it didn't you wouldn't have noticed anything at all."

"But I felt weak, like a normal human being. What does that mean?"

"No idea. I'll have to ask the guy I made the spell for."

"And who might that be?"

Jin Wang turned around and started walking away. Hao Xuan got up to follow but the next words out of his mouth made him freeze.

"The Emperor. It was made for him."

Hao Xuan's hearts skipped a beat. Jin Wang noticed the lack of commotion and turned his head halfway to glance at him.

"So you have heard about him, at least I wasn't completely wrong."

There were so many things going through Hao Xuan's head that it felt like he would melt from overthinking. And if it was before he might just have been shocked into a comma but the him now was not the same as before.

"...How do you know him?"

Now it was Jin Wang's moment of confusion.

"You ever get that feeling of Deja vu? Like you've experienced this moment before? I could have sworn we have had this conversation already," he commented with a deep frown and Hao Xuan had to agree to a point.

"Yeah...it feels kind of...familiar. But these days everything feels a bit weird to me," he replied looking at the big metal gate facing them on the other side.

Jin Wang was walking towards the gate but stopped for a moment on the left. Hao Xuan walked up behind him and saw six figures spread out on the ground. He recognized one of their faces.

"That girl..."

"She was with that bald kid."

"Oh yeah, I remember now. Why is she here? Did you kidnap them?"

"Please, I have better taste than that. They wandered in here and picked a fight with me, I had no choice but to retaliate."

Hao Xuan did not believe him at all.

"I'm sure they did."

They were covered by a layer of dust and some even had bruises from where the debris had hit them.

"Oh yeah, what was that earlier about wanting to know the truth when I asked why the shaking stopped," Hao Xuan remembered.

Jin Wang pointed at the unconscious people, "I fought these guys here just a little while ago. It didn't get out of hand but by no means was it quiet. Afterwards I even cast several spells but there was no reaction again. But the moment you stepped in here it started happening."

"And it stopped the moment you stepped onto the pyramid because there is a barely discernable spatial barrier around this place that separated it from the space outside."