C120-1 : Hold On To Something

Tap, tap, tap....

The sound of pen rhythmically poking a tabletop reverbated inside the deathly silent hut. Han Xuhan sat on his bed, his arms resting on the table, watching Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian write down whatever he instructed them to. It was both a punishment and a training for the minions, as they had already moved past the language spoken in their region, Xuhan having brutally hammered it into them after the incident with the report on Fang Xie where they had skipped a very important paragraph because apparently it looked really hard to read.

Right now, Xuhan was teaching the skeletons English, as it seemed much easier to learn compared to his own native language on earth. To familiarize the minion with the alphabets, Xuhan randomly uttered one every few seconds and made them write it from memory.

There was an easier way to learn, of course. After gaining initial mastery over the memory transfer technique inside his dao base, Xuhan could make them experience much of his memories of learning English and thus let them learn it automatically in the process. However, that would be a bit risky. He didn’t trust the minions that much.

"Okay, that's it for tonight. Off you go, and teach little Zhe some manners once you’re there. I'll be testing how effective you two are as teachers. Remember, your cultivation depends on it, as do your future prospects."

Cancelling the summon on the disgruntled faces of his minions, Xuhan dragged over the pages they had been writing on. His minions were increasing in number, as were the anomalies he was haunted by from every direction. He wouldn’t have the luxury to teach the future newcomers everything by himself. It was necessary to train up Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian for this exact reason.

His eyes fell on the amateur scribbles on one page that little Tian had made. It contained his current thoughts on several issues.

The world of the crimson sun is clearly a form of punishment. Perhaps a battle of epic scale had taken place between two sects, or between two planets, or between a protagonist and a random young master's extended family. Even I, little Tian who was clearly a bird, wasn’t spared....or maybe a little shit like myself deserved it.

Han Xuhan imagined the day when little Tian would be able to fluently read and understand the contents of these pages.
Hehehehehehe....


From what we've observed so far, the world of the crimson sun is filled with a layer of fire on its surface. However, the fire doesn't seem to require any fuel except the soul-like entities it tortures. Our avatars were clearly not harmed even though we should have melted under the searing heat all around. It suggests that the fire is a result of a massive curse or spell. Clearly, the forces involved in a conflict of this calibre is far beyond anything we have encountered till now.

Han Xuhan stiffled a sigh as he got to rereading this portion of his observations. Ever since he had started cultivating, his perception of 'incredible power' had skyrocketed. Every other week, he would encounter an incident that made him reorganise his thoughts on the highest possible power in his vicinity. Where did the cliches go when he needed them? Why couldn't the power progression of his opponents be the same as his?
A couple minor realms higher? He had easily escaped Shen Kai.
An entire major realm higher? He had even tricked brother BB.
A FEW major realms higher? He still hadn’t lost all control of the situation with Fang Xie and Xuan Zi....

But a realm of power that could burn an entire planet and keep its inhabitants' souls intact, slowly torturing them into submission of some sort?

That was way beyond his league. That type of powers were supposed to pop up only after a protagonist had conquered a few universes. But looking at Mu Ran, Xuhan couldn’t quite find any signs of that sort of progression. Yuen Zhou herself was barely a few steps ahead of that guy, and she was supposed to be Mu Ran's trophy wife of this realm....if his suspicions about their cliched relationship was correct.


Regardless, the fact that the appearance of little Zhe had formed a permenant interdimensional connection with this world is definitely suspicious. According to the Skeletal Monarch scripture, there should only be a connection with the satellite of the burning world. In fact, the scripture is pretty vague about these details....
Could there be a bigger scheme here that we are missing? Have we unknowingly become a chess piece in an another power struggle between old monsters?
Being the passive party in this situation will do us no good. We need information. We need more resources. We need to tread more deviant paths to fool our opposition. Choosing the safe road and not meddling into these events anymore is no longer an option. We have gone too far down a path we ourselves desire to tread.
When so many tornadoes have surrounded us, we cannot escape the fate of being swept off our feet. But we can attempt to find something to hold onto.
We simply must figure out what it is.