Human Inferno

【Looking back once more, it all seems like a dream.】

【Looking back once more, my heart remains unchanged.】

【You have been separated from the Human Realm for sixty-six years, struggling and scraping by in the Material Realm for sixty-six years amid hardship, adversity, and utter loneliness.】

【Now that you are close to home, you are overcome by a sudden nervousness. You long to see those familiar faces.】

【Li Lingyue, Big Brother, Third Sister, Da Chun, Zhenpin, Li Chengqian, Hua Wuyan, Shen Yue, Li Liushui, Dongfang Shuo, Wang Mingbai, Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, Hongluan…】

【Yet when the chaotic spatial currents around you finally settle and the Human Realm comes into view, you stand there in stunned silence.】

【The earth lies shattered, with bottomless rifts splitting the land apart.】

【The sky has been turned upside down. Huge boulders float high above, while pillars of black clouds stretch from heaven to earth.】

【Howling gales sweep across the land. Tornadoes run rampant, their shrieks carrying away everything in their path.】

【Volcanoes erupt, rivers of magma flowing unchecked and melting every living thing they touch.】

【“What happened here? Did I come to the wrong place?”】

【At this moment, you look like a living person, but in truth, you are merely a projection originating from the Material Realm.】

【You cannot directly touch the matter of the Void Realm, but your cultivation, abilities, divine powers, and everything else can still be used.】

【You simply have to be careful not to exceed the Void Realm’s limits. If you do, the surrounding space will collapse.】

【The moment you return to the Void Realm, your spiritual sense and ability to fly through the air all return to you.】

【Moreover, because you have already reached the Core Formation Realm, your spiritual sense is terrifyingly powerful. The instant you release it, it covers the entire continent!】

【From the remnants of cities and the characteristics of the terrain, you can confirm that this is indeed the Human Realm!】

【“Why has it become like this? It looks as though the Five Elements have fallen into chaos. Could something have happened to the Five Elements Origin Artifacts? Da Chun!”】

【The Five Elements Origin Artifacts are what the cultivators of the Human Realm call the Great Dao Immortal Artifacts.】

【You have a feeling that this apocalyptic scene is most likely the result of the Five Elements collapsing.】

【If that is true, then all the Five Elements Origin Artifacts in the Human Realm have been destroyed!】

【If even one of them were still functioning normally, things would never have descended into such chaos.】

In the real world.

Chen Yi could no longer sit still.

No matter how great a crisis he encountered in the simulations, Chen Yi never experienced the slightest emotional disturbance in the real world.

But this time was different.

Sixty-six years from now, the Human Realm would become a living hell?

That was directly connected to him!

“How could this happen? Nothing like this occurred in any of the previous simulations. Why is it happening this time?”

Chen Yi soon figured it out.

There was only one major difference between the sixth simulation and the five before it.

The Great Demon, the Sword Master, Shen Yang, Li Wentian, and Chen Yi himself had all gone to the Material Realm!

“Could that be the reason?”

Unable to guess, Chen Yi could only continue watching, hoping that his simulated self would uncover the truth.

He had to get to the bottom of this.

If this calamity was destined to happen, Chen Yi could flee to the Material Realm to escape it.

But the people he cared about would have no way to avoid it.

【You have a clone named Chen Four who remained in the Human Realm.】

【While you were in the Material Realm, the barrier between worlds severed your connection with him, leaving you unable to recall him.】

【Now, there is no longer any problem.】

【Yet after trying several times, you still failed to bring him back.】

【“Is he dead?”】

【If he had died, you should have been able to create another Chen Four.】

【But you cannot do that either.】

【Then there is only one possibility.】

【He has been sealed.】

【“There should still be some survivors. I’ll ask them what happened.”】

【With a single step, you used the divine art Quantum Ghoststep. Your figure flickered from place to place like a phantom, and in the blink of an eye, you had crossed a thousand miles.】

【The techniques of the Material Realm were even more powerful when used in the Void Realm, their effects enhanced by more than a single degree.】

【Because the power you used exceeded what the Void Realm could bear, the space behind you collapsed wherever you passed, leaving a trail in your wake.】

【It was not that you did not care about your homeland.】

【The Human Realm was already in this state. Caring would not change anything. It was better to hurry, since the amount of time you could remain in the Void Realm was limited.】

【You first arrived at Divine Weapons Commandery.】

【Some people from the Divine Weapons Pavilion had survived, but the entire city of Divine Weapons had been transformed beyond recognition. More than half of it was buried beneath scorching volcanic lava.】

【Some disciples of the Divine Weapons Pavilion and the surviving commoners of the region had settled in a basin more than a hundred miles from the ruins of the city.】

【Conditions in the basin were relatively better. Apart from the occasional tornado and localized torrential rain, there were no major natural disasters.】

【They had rebuilt a small village there and lived self-sufficiently, though their lives were clearly extremely difficult.】

【Zhuge Zhujin was still alive.】

【It seemed that he was no longer much of a pavilion master. He was working in the fields like everyone else; otherwise, he would have had nothing to eat.】

【“The wind is coming! Reinforce the roofs! Put more weight on them!”】

【Someone ran down from higher ground, shouting at the top of his lungs.】

【Hearing this, many people hurriedly abandoned their work and rushed home to protect their houses.】

【Others simply gave up, sitting on the ground with bitter expressions.】

【“What good will reinforcing them do? That wind can lift mountains into the air. Whether we live or die is up to fate. What’s the point of struggling?”】

【Zhuge Zhujin gathered the disciples and used the few resources they had left to set up a formation that could block the gale.】

【The cultivators took out their spirit artifacts and formed the first line of defense, standing in the path of the approaching wind.】

【Zhuge Zhujin stood at the very front. Looking at the enormous tornado rushing toward them from the distance, carrying broken stones, houses, corpses, trees, and all manner of debris, he shouted to the commoners behind him:】

【“Everyone! Get out of here! We’ll hold it back for as long as we can!”】

【But the commoners did not leave. They raised pot lids, hoes, and door panels, standing shoulder to shoulder with the cultivators.】

【“Pavilion Master Zhuge, where else can we go? The entire world is collapsing. This is the only place we can reach that still has habitable land. If the gale destroys this place too, we won’t survive!”】

【How could Zhuge Zhujin not understand that?】

【Cultivators still had ways to cross obstacles such as lava and rifts, but ordinary people had very few places they could reach in the face of a catastrophe that had overtaken heaven and earth.】

【All he could do was sigh helplessly and prepare to stake his life on one final battle.】

【“Rumble!”】

【The tornado was close.】

【The terrifying waves of air that shook heaven and earth made it impossible to stand steadily. The ground trembled violently beneath the storm’s assault.】

【The disorderly debris carried within the wind began to fall like raindrops.】

【The cultivators tried desperately to clear it away, but much of it still crashed down upon the commoners.】

【The tornado had not even arrived. Its peripheral force alone had already smashed the hard-won village into ruins.】

【When the tornado finally reached them, the defensive formation established by the Divine Weapons Pavilion proved utterly helpless. It was ripped out by the roots and destroyed on the spot.】

【Watching the pitch-black gale bearing down on them like a ravenous demon, Zhuge Zhujin roared in fury:】

【“Does Heaven truly intend to destroy the Human Realm?!”】

【Suddenly, a streak of golden light descended from the sky.】

【“Boom!”】

【A colossal golden figure came crashing down from above.】

[He stands forty meters tall. When he lands, the earth trembles and mountains shake, while dust erupts into the sky!]

["Light-Speed Punch!!!"]

[He throws a punch. His fist, several meters thick, unleashes a blinding pillar of white light. The space around it collapses on the spot, and the terrifying tornado is instantly swallowed by the spatial turbulence.]

[The golden radiance enveloping him comes from a banner in his hand.]

[He is you!]