The Dawn of the New World



The pale white light surrounded Frons as the strength of the soul-bond intensified by several degrees. It was bright enough that Hao Xuan could not look directly at him.

When the light receded a moment later Hao Xuan found himself holding an anthropomorphic creature. Frons still had 'his' original form of a leek but now there was a very human-like pair of eyes, nose, and mouth on its stem.

He was also twice his previous size and much heavier.

"How...what was that?" he mumbled incredulously and to his surprise, Frons actually made a vague shrugging gesture with the help of his leaves.

"You can understand me?!"

A pondering expression crossed Frons ace as he thought about it for a second before nodding hesitantly. He was just as confused as Hao Xuan if not more.

"I've never heard about a soul-bond leveling up when given a name. I guess you really are special in your own way, huh?"

Frons's chubby roots swayed back and forth merrily upon receiving the compliment. Two small baby leaves sprouted from its sides and with a light pop, fell into Hao Xuan's hand.

"What's this??"

Hao Xuan couldn't find anything special about the leaves just from looking at them but when examined with the help of the threads of spiritual sense he could feel an extremely pure energy in them.

Frons picked up one of the leaves and pointed at Hao Xuan's mouth.

"You want me to eat it?"

Frons nodded in response.

Although still a little cautious Hao Xuan took the leaf and placed it in his mouth. A wave of cool energy immediately passed through his body as the leaf melted into a bright green liquid.

He couldn't help but swallow it instinctively and when it reached his stomach the same energy exploded in a gentle shockwave.

Hao Xuan's pupils contracted to the size of pinholes as he felt the changes taking place inside of him.

*Beep*

[Internal Energy Reserves at 140%]

"Foreign energy particles detected. Unable to locate the source."

*Cough*Cough*

"I know the source," Hao Xuan muttered with half a smile, shocked at the gift Frons had given him.

That one little leaf had not only completely refilled his internal energy but also left so much extra that he could waste it and still not run out. But perhaps even more amazing was the effect all this extra energy had on him.

He gently tapped against the ground and slammed head-first into the roof of the cave.

"My body feels as light as a feather! It feels like I'm completely weightless! How did you do this??"

But Frons was as unaware as Hao Xuan if not even more. He was going off instinct and intuition with basically no knowledge about anything.

"Okay okay, that's fine either way. I'll have to 'store' you away now because it will get dangerous."

Frons nodded weakly before rolling up into a white stick.

"I guess it took some energy out of you, makes more sense."

Hao Xuan stored him in his central meridian along with the second leaf.

"For another time."

It was like having a full spare battery at his disposal which could prove to be as precious as a life-saving treasure in the right situation.

And with that, he was once again back on the thorny path to the settlement.

**

It didn't take long for the shadow beasts to find him and slowly but surely the horde began to form around him again. But now things were much easier.

With the help of all the excess energy Hao Xuan's speed was unmatched for short periods of time. He realized that this energy could not be used constantly otherwise it would run out quickly so instead Hao Xuan only used it when he was surrounded from all sides.

Thanks to [Umbra] more than half of the beasts couldn't even find him when they were within the aura of the 'First Gaze' but the other half that were being controlled by the remnant parasites of the Greater Shadow Beast were not affected by it.

Their minds had already been twisted far beyond their limits so it made sense that nothing would work on them anymore apart from a hammer to the head.

The remaining distance should have taken almost two hours to cover but because of the boost in speed, Hao Xuan reached the settlement in a little over 75 minutes. Unfortunately, that's where the glad tidings came to an end.

He stood outside of the main gate looking at the tens of meters long stretch of missing walls to the side.

Half of the floodlights were gone and the rest were on the verge of being put out by the coalescing mass of pitch-black shadows trying to crawl up to them.

"They broke in!?"

*Beep*

"Affirmative. Settlement integrity has been compromised."