The Portal of Wonderland

In a patch of unvisited, densely-packed woods on the Western He continent, a single ape with long wispy hair crossed its arms as it casually swung from one tree to another.

The ape grinned as it espied a big tree somewhere before it. It swung its long arm and hurled itself forward, while the other arm reached out to grab the tree’s branch.

Just as the ape was about to grab hold, a streak of black light suddenly carved out of the air as ripple-like pulses coursed through the space around the single light. A humanoid figure fell out from the black light, slamming himself onto the ape. The man fell to the ground, but the ape was sent flying over a distance.

Before it fell, it spun uncontrollably in several somersaults. By the time the ape picked itself up from this humiliating position, it had already bared its teeth in irritation. Despite that, it seemed to be largely unharmed by the sudden clash.

It scratched its head and glared at the man before scurrying away.

The man stood up and patted the leaves off himself. He scanned his surroundings and threw his arms up as he sang, “I am back, finally!”

Indeed, it was none other than Shi Mu who just came back from the land of the dead.

He moved his hands and feet for a while, enjoying the spiritual energy flowing in the air around him, his face brightening in happiness. Judging from the concentration of energy, he was probably somewhere in the Western He continent.

He barely managed to take a few celebratory steps before his happy expression changed. His eyebrow creased, and a strange color of red and white started crossing his visage.

He suddenly felt the blood in his body becoming incredibly hot, as if near-boiling.

A look of pain etched on Shi Mu’s face. He felt like he was being grilled inside a furnace as his body—from the skin to the organs—were being scorched and baked by some sort of infernal heat. His skin, in particular, was so ruddy that it was as if blood was going to ooze out of his pores.

“Aahhh!” He let out a piercing scream with his head facing the sky, scaring the birds in the woods into a fluttering frenzy.

At the next second, the green veins in his forehead surfaced while his pupils dilated, golden lights flashing out from them. Unlike before, the golden lights were nothing like the graceful fabric of light draping over his eyes; instead, it was as concentrated and solid as gold itself, which gave off an unsettling feeling.

Shi Mu’s muscles were swelling at a speed so quick that the naked eyes could see. “Schiatt!” His garments were ripped to shreds as his body continued to grow.

Boom.

Shi Mu’s one knee buckled. As he landed his fist onto the earth, dust clouds and rocks were shocked into the air. When the dust cleared, a new big trough had been revealed, with jagged cracks etched from its edge like a cobweb.

Shi Mu’s arm was still burrowed in the earth when silver-white fur sprouted from his arms in a frenzy as his body continued to grow in size. In a split second, he had once again assumed the form of a gigantic white ape.

“Aucccrrrr!”

The newly-transformed white ape bellowed to the sky as it beat its own chest with its two fists.

At the same time, the golden glow in his eyes had almost solidified, the pain visible in his face.

The white ape beat his own chest for a while and still, it seemed that the pain had yet to subside. In a flash, he whipped a punch at a single thick tree at the side.

The tree trunk was so thick that three average adults would have to link their hands together to completely encircle it. Yet under the ape’s violent attacks, the tree trunk snapped into a dozen pieces in an explosion as they scattered to all sides.

The white ape discovered that by exhausting the Real Qi within his body, the searing pain would lessen. Just like that, he sprinted toward the next tree—the next victim.

Without a word, smashed the trees once again.

Boom! Boom! Boom! As the sounds of trees crashing down rang one after another, splinters and pieces of wood rained down.

It did not take long before the white ape was surrounded by a mess of tree remains and upturned mud.

Smashing these trees seemed to have been therapeutic as the look of agony had left his face. He was almost relieved—

Then it started again. The white ape hugged his own head and started to roll around in pain.

“Auuucchhh!” He gave another bellow and slammed his hands onto the earth, making the ground tremble. The gigantic white ape leaped into the air, apparently catapulted into the sky by the reaction force from his own blows.

Being that large, a single jump was enough to have broken through the highest foliage and canopy of the wood as the ape soared into the sky several hundred yards above the earth.

With a harrowing whoosh, he plummeted from the sky like an asteroid back to the earth.

Boom!

The moment the white ape crashed down from the sky, the entire mountain echoed with only the rumble of its tremor. The trees had quickly become splinters from the force of the resulting gale.

Yet, the white ape had not gotten any better. Again he rolled on the ground like a petulant child making a scene before suddenly getting up once more, hands grabbing on a nearby ancient sycamore, before bending the branches backward.

As the branches were being yanked to its maximum degree, right before they were about to snap, the white ape released and catapulted himself into the air as the branch sprang and propelled him forward.

His gigantic shadow loomed over the horizon in an arc as he flew right out of the mountain and slid in a waterfall about ten-odd yards tall.

With a boom, the white ape’s meteor-like body crashed into the deep plunge pool beneath the waterfall. The force was so great that the water splashed upward over ten yards high before pelting back to the ground like a storm.

Feeling the searing heat all over his body, the white ape found consolation in the coolness of the water and enjoyed the relief it brought. Still, the respite proved to be temporary as a new surge of pain arose. The white ape felt almost needle-like prickling stings in his brain so great that his vision failed and he blacked out.

He was still in the plunge pool underneath the waterfall. As the water continued to stream and jet into the pool, it shoved the white ape’s now unconscious body. The ape bobbed in and out of the water as he slowly started to cruise downstream.

A few days later, close to a mountain stream…

An adolescent without any clothes on climbed out of the water slowly before sitting on top of a rock, completely drenched.

It was, of course, none other than Shi Mu. Ever since he had lost consciousness, the water had been gently bringing him out to a gentle mountain stream.

Shi Mu composed himself before producing a new green shirt from his storage ring to change into. He went to the side of the stream and cupped the water in his hands to wash his face as well as fixing his messy hair.

From the reflection, however, he saw something that awed him.

A ring of gold had etched around his raven-black pupils, which radiated a soft, faint glow.

Shi Mu’s mind raced as he stared into the water.

His vision went straight through its turquoise color and right into the bedrock of the stream, as he could clearly see the details of the scale, tails, and fins of the fish swimming below the surface. In fact, he could even see the finer lines making up the scales.

He had not even activated his magical eyes yet—this was his normal vision. Yet, he had already managed to see the minute details.

After he regained himself from his initial shock, Shi Mu thought for a while before triggering the spiritual energy inside of him as golden light draped over his eyes once more, before leaping out of his eyes and zipping into the water like lightning.

Bzzzt! Bzzzt!

Two ripples spread from the surface of the water before fading away.

A few seconds later, a single black carp broke through the surface of the water, belly up. From the looks of it, there was no physical damage to hint at the cause of its death, but it was obvious to Shi Mu that the fish had fallen victim to his materialized vision attack.

Shi Mu was beyond joy at this discovery. He looked up at the sky.

Ten yards away, a few wild geese flocked through the blue horizon, their feathers, beaks, and talons were all too clear and detailed to Shi Mu’s new eyes.

Shi Mu’s eyes once again flashed coldly as he stared at the flock, but nothing happened.

He persisted, experimenting with his new eyes for a while until he found out that the absolute limit to materializing his spirit into a vision attack was three yards away from him.

The distance was short, but Shi Mu was happy that he had obtained a new ability nonetheless. He was sure that with new improvements and breakthroughs in his power rankings, he would also become even stronger.

Shi Mu could feel his vital organs and blood becoming even stronger and fortified than before—his whole body was practically bursting with energy.

It seemed that the success of accepting the second drop of the white ape’s essential blood would produce even more obvious results to one’s body.

He had not expected the integration process to be so torturously agonizing, just as he had not expected himself to do so at once instead of spending ten years to train and cultivate it as before.

Shi Mu thought about it for a while and understood why quite easily. His first intake of the white ape’s essential blood was before he even managed to become a Hou Tian practitioner—his body was so inferior that it was impossible to merge his blood with it at once. If it wasn’t for the Clamgirl Xing Zhu injecting the blood into his body in wisps, he may have very well died out of rapid explosive growth in body size.

However, he was different now; his body had been tempered with the Art of the Almighty Ape Rebirth as well as the mutation caused by the first drop of blood, making him superior to the rest of his same-rank peers. Hence, the second drop of white ape essential blood was smoothly integrated into his body this time.

…

The realm of the Dead Spirit World…

Yan Luo donned a full set of silver armor while half of her face was covered with a silver mask. Not an inch of her skin was barren, save for her eyes. She held a silver spear in her hand as streams of silver lights pulsated through the weapon’s shaft.

Standing behind her was a towering and a small figure. It was Wu Ye and Bi Ling.

Farther behind her was a massive league of undead creatures. The number of skeletons and zombies among the ranks was even greater than when Shi Mu was around.

Standing before Yan Luo was a lofty mountain filled with leagues of dead spirits and undead creatures. What’s more, they were at least one size larger than hers.

Roar!

A soul-trembling bellow split through the atmosphere from the mountain opposite Yan Luo before a leviathan-like figure rose into the air, covering about half of the sky with its size as it radiated a powerful mien not the slightest bit inferior to Yan Luo’s.

It was a black Cadaver Jiao Dragon, seventy to eighty yards long, although half of its body had already sprouted a new layer of black scales while a pair of gigantic wings sprouted from its back.

The black Cadaver Jiao Dragon hovered above the sky for a while before landing on the crest of the mountain. It then gave a threatening, low growl directly at Yan Luo.

Silver light flashed in Yan Luo’s eyes as the armor on her body shone brightly. With her spear dazzling in silver light, she pointed the weapon at the mountain where the black dragon was standing.

In the blink of an eye, her undead army had turned into an unbridled torrent as they stampeded toward the mountain opposite of her.

The earth rumbled.