Chapter Thirty

No one knew how much time had passed when Cheng Yuan heard a gentle voice, “Passenger, the bus has reached its final stop. Please get off.” Cheng Yuan nodded, sleepily clutching the little tiger as he disembarked, then sat at the bus stop for a while, letting the wind blow over him. Suddenly, he looked up at the sky. “Damn, when did it get dark?”

Only then did Cheng Yuan take in his surroundings, his eyes reflecting a hint of confusion. “So this is what the main bus terminal looks like?” It was utterly desolate, with waist-high perennial weeds everywhere. Cheng Yuan pulled out his phone and opened the navigation app. “Baiyun City, Xijiang Province? That’s not right. Where is this?” He stared at the unfamiliar information on his screen, then glanced at the little tiger, who was still dozing with its head tilted. “If I rule out the possibility that I’ve time-traveled again, then there’s only one explanation left: I’ve been transported into some kind of instance.”

Meanwhile, in the outside world, Cheng’s father was watching the news: a special instance, the Yin-Yang Bus, was running again. For reasons he couldn’t explain, a sense of foreboding crept into his heart.

Cheng Yuan walked over to the route map in front of the bus stop. “Route 609, headed for Hainiu Bay, passing through Bone-Pendant Tomb Square, Two-Legged Dolphin Slaughterhouse, West River… Wait, what kind of places are these!”

He stared at the names, suddenly feeling that this place reeked of the netherworld. He took out his student ID. To enter this instance, he’d used his student ID card, and besides that, his phone connected easily to the local network. This meant that, despite the ghostly atmosphere, the world’s technology had reached the age of smart devices. Most likely, money would still work here too.

The only question was: where was the exit? Cheng Yuan looked in the direction the bus had come from; most likely, the entrance and exit were just one point along this route. He had no desire to wander randomly in a strange instance; this wasn’t the time to be reckless. With two young creatures in tow, if he blundered about and got wiped out, who would that help?

So Cheng Yuan woke the little tiger, slung the giant monitor lizard over his back, and started walking in the direction the bus had arrived from. After a long walk, when he finally saw another bus stop, a group of children in blue Daoist robes came skipping up to the stop. Cheng Yuan was taken aback—such a righteous and adorable bunch in a place as eerie as this, both uncanny and harmonious. He was genuinely surprised.

As Cheng Yuan stood there watching them, one of the children noticed him standing still and cocked their head in curiosity. At that moment, a mature woman’s voice came from Cheng Yuan’s blind spot. “Xiao Ying, what are you looking at?”

The child immediately pointed at Cheng Yuan and asked, puzzled, “Teacher Gan, is that a supernatural being?” A tall woman in a yellow Daoist robe quickly appeared in Cheng Yuan’s field of vision. Both sides were startled at the sight of each other. Teacher Gan immediately said, “Children, close your eyes, quickly!”

She spread her arms, shielding the children like a mother hen protecting her chicks. Cheng Yuan frowned. What were they planning to do? “I’m not a supernatural entity.” But as soon as he said it, Cheng Yuan began to reflect: from the perspective of the instance’s NPCs, he really might be classified as a supernatural outsider.

After hearing Cheng Yuan’s words, one of the children spoke loudly, “Supernatural beings never admit to being supernatural. You came from the Nether Banks, yet you don’t even have a Daoist robe. You can’t possibly be human.”

Daoist robe, Nether Banks—this instance was more unusual than he’d thought. Just then, Cheng Yuan heard the woman muttering something under her breath. As soon as she finished, a sense of danger swept over him. He quickly tilted his head, and a wooden sword crackling with lightning grazed past him.

Cheng Yuan was irritated—if not for the mental strength gained from meditation, he’d have died just now. The little tiger was startled too, its fur bristling as it hissed at the woman. At that moment, the giant monitor lizard’s head poked out from under Cheng Yuan’s clothing. This sight only confirmed the woman’s suspicions. Just then, a bus marked 406 pulled up. The woman in yellow shouted, “Children, get on the bus quickly. I’ll keep watch here.”

Cheng Yuan stood his ground, watching the bus driver in a matching yellow robe. The driver was clearly on edge, eyes locked on Cheng Yuan—not his face, but his clothing. Was the clothing the key?

Cheng Yuan made no sudden moves, merely stood quietly watching the bus. In this instance, humans possessed extraordinary powers and advanced technology. Recklessness meant certain death. He needed to learn the rules of this instance. With that in mind, Cheng Yuan checked his phone, which still had 80% battery, and started searching for information online.

After a dozen minutes, Cheng Yuan heard another bus approaching in the distance. He quickly ducked into the nearby weeds. During his online search, he’d already discovered the significance of Daoist robes in this world. To move forward, one had to have a Daoist robe—it was the sole proof of humanity.

The bus driver kept a wary eye on the weeds. With his cultivation, he could sense that the supernatural being lurking there hadn’t left, and he remained on guard. After three minutes, he finally released the clutch, stepped on the gas, and sped away.

Cheng Yuan stroked his chin. This was an unusually large instance, and such colossal instances often vanished on their own—disconnected from the outside world—meaning he could be trapped here indefinitely. But from what he’d just found online, this instance wouldn’t disappear anytime soon, because the target creature was still active.

This instance housed at least one disaster-class monster, and the most terrifying part was that it had already completed an ecological reshaping. The key difference between disaster-class and king-class monsters was this: a disaster-class monster might initially lose to certain king-class individuals in combat, but once it gained a foothold and began releasing its ecological field—

It would start subtly and persistently altering the local ecosystem. For example, an ice-type disaster-class monster could lower the temperature even in a desert, eventually bringing snow, and if it lingered long enough, the place would become a polar icefield.

In short, the longer it persisted, the harder it was to kill, the greater the environmental changes, and the more powerful it became—a positive feedback loop. Once ecological reshaping was complete, it became a perpetual motion machine within its domain; unless the environment’s energy was depleted, it would never cease.

This massive instance had been ecologically reshaped by a disaster-class monster known as the Ghost Emperor of Fengdu, with at least a thousand years of accumulation. Such a terrifying existence—anything less than disaster-class had no right to even attempt a fight.

The Ghost Emperor of Fengdu had already survived the initial danger period and the assimilation phase, now entering the final stage of limitless ecological reshaping—a stage where it was nearly impossible to kill.