After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

"Those are gray-eyed hunters, hunting dogs released by the upper tribes."

To have survived falling into the abyss from their clutches and still be alive, you're incredibly lucky.

"A land without fire?"

The girl didn't explain, but turned around and shouted something towards the outside of the cave.

"Ashi, give him some water."

A boy, so thin he was just a skeleton, threw off his animal skin and ran in.

The boy had a rune etched on each side of his cheek, the marks so deep they almost reached the bone.

He held the chipped stone bowl in both hands and quickly walked to the stone slab.

The bowl was filled with murky green liquid.

Zhou Ran sniffed once and immediately recognized what was inside.

It has a strong sense of vitality.

There are also deadly poisons.

Seeing that he didn't drink, the girl spoke up.

"If you don't drink it, your wound will fester and burst before dark."

Zhou Ran leaned against the stone slab and looked at her.

"Did you drink it?"

"Perhaps it won't rot."

"Perhaps?"

The girl's face was expressionless.

"We are not a large tribe, and we don't have clean, living grass."

Zhou Ran didn't waste any more words.

He used the boy's hand to support the stone bowl, tilted his head back, and poured the murky green liquid down his throat.

The bitter taste went straight to the throat.

The next moment, the abdominal wound started burning.

The poison was extremely potent, coursing through his damaged meridians, threatening to turn his nerves into mush.

But the venom did indeed contain a trace of pure life.

Zhou Ran did not use his true essence.

He activated the primordial blood energy deep within his bone marrow.

The black-gold blood energy formed a net within his body, swallowing and crushing the rampant poison in one gulp, and then squeezing out the last trace of life force and stuffing it into the wound in his abdomen.

Visibly, a thin membrane of flesh had grown over the horrific tear.

The girl stared at the newly formed fleshy membrane, and her eyelids twitched.

"Can you neutralize the poison yourself?"

"I know a little."

The girl glanced at the boy.

The boy turned and ran out.

Before long, the animal skins were repeatedly torn open, and several more people walked into the cave.

An old man, a woman, and two teenagers.

They were all barely clothed, and each person's body was covered with those strange runes.

They stood around the stone slab, their eyes fixed on Zhou Ran.

The way they look at their prey.

This prey is not only alive, it can also talk.

They are better able to understand their language.

An old man with a wrinkled face reached out his withered hand to touch the gray lines on Zhou Ran's chest.

Zhou Ran lifted her eyelids.

"You'll die if you touch it."

The old man's hand hung in mid-air, frozen and afraid to fall.

The girl asked, holding the bone spear.

"real?"

Zhou Ran stared at her and said in a serious tone.

"Fake."

The old man's face darkened, and he spat on the ground.

The girl's lips had just curled up when she bit them back down.

She raised her hand and waved, signaling the onlookers to step back.

My name is Yan.

Leader of the Gray Inkstone Tribe.

Zhou Ran glanced at her severed left arm.

"You think you're a leader?"

The inkstone was lifeless.

"I killed the previous leader with this hand."

Zhou Ran nodded.

"That is indeed quite convincing."

Yan sat down on a moss-covered stone, with the bone spear across his knees.

"Where are you from?"

"Outside."

"Outside the Void Realm?"

Zhou Ran did not hide anything.

"right."

The cave suddenly fell silent.

The old man took half a step back, pressing his back against the cave wall.

Several children crawled behind the woman, who placed her hand on the bone knife at her waist.

The two teenagers exchanged a glance and moved silently toward the cave entrance.

Yan stared intently at him.

"impossible.

There are no living beings outside the illusory realm.

"Not before."

Zhou Ran's tone was casual.

"Now we have it."

Yan remained silent for a long time, his five fingers gripping the bone spear so tightly that his knuckles cracked.

What's outside?

"Blue Star".

What is Earth?

Zhou Ran thought for a moment.

"A world that's about to explode because of this lousy place of yours."

Yan couldn't understand Blue Star, but she understood "explosion".

She lowered her voice.

"The Moon Emperor is about to wake up again."

Zhou Ran's gaze was fixed on her.

"Do you know the Moon Emperor?"

Yan stretched out his only remaining right hand and pointed to the dark rock layer at the top of the cave.

Everyone in the lower realm knows this.

She is the master of this land, and also the one who abandoned us in the mud.

Zhou Ran propped himself up with his elbows.

The rattan creaked and dug into the flesh.

He didn't break free; now is not the time to overturn the table.

Explain yourself.

Yan looked at him.

"This is the lower realm."

The garbage dump at the very bottom of the Moon Emperor's physical body.

Above us are perfectly ordered mountain ranges, vibrant rivers, powerful tribes that control everything, and the grey-eyed hunters you encounter.

There are also giant flying beasts.

"And below, there is only this silent land."

"There is no life here, no complete rules for survival, and no right to be watched by the Moon Emperor."

Zhou Ran asked:

"So how did you survive?"

Yan raised her hand and touched the glowing breath mark on her cheek.

"Go to the upper border to snatch the fragments of life."

After retrieving it, he ground it into powder, mixed it with herbs, and then used bone needles to carve it into the body.

"It must be taken once every seven days."

"If you don't replenish it, your physical body and memories will be devoured by the surrounding nothingness."

She pointed outside the cave.

Zhou Ran followed the gaze.

At the edge of the swirling gray fog, there was a grayish-white stone.

Stone remained kneeling.

If you look closely, it is a human shape, but the facial features have been smoothed out, turning it into a lump of stone.

"That's my own brother."

The sound of the inkstone was so flat and smooth that it was as quiet as someone gossiping about other people's business.

"He was a step too slow last time he went to grab the fragments."

No one spoke in the cave.

Zhou Ran didn't respond.

He was used to seeing life and death, but this kind of death made him feel nauseous.

It's not about having your head chopped off, or being pierced through the chest by a sword; it's about having your existence erased bit by bit by the world, until in the end you can't even retain a human form.

Yan continued:

"The upper-level tribes have taken over the River of Life."

They call us the people without breath.

Parasites. "

"Every month, they would let the grey-eyed hunters out to hunt."

Those who are caught are brought back to the higher-ups.

"Peel off the skin with the breath marks, eat the flesh and blood, and smash the bones to make talisman needles."

Zhou Ran sneered.

Man-eating bastards are truly abundant in every dimension.

They change their world and their skin, but these beasts always come up with newer and newer tricks.

"What exactly is a Gray-Eyed Hunter?"

Zhou Ran asked.

"The upper tribes forcibly created a living dead creature using the poisonous blood of a strange bird and fragments of the rules of the void."

"They have no soul."

"My mind is only focused on instructions."

"Catch the person who has no credit history, catch the key."

Zhou Ran raised an eyebrow.

"key?"

Yan's gaze fell on the six gray lines on Zhou Ran's chest.

There is a legend in the lower realm that has been passed down for thousands of years.

Before the Moon Emperor fell into slumber, he left behind a door to his heart.

If the heart remains closed, the lower realms will never see the light.

"Legend has it that the key to open the door will come from the outside."

The person bore gray scars and had no protective runes, yet they were not consumed by the void.

As soon as he finished speaking...

All eyes in the cave were fixed on Zhou Ran.