Dark Moon Era

Huu, huu, huu.

The moment the black dot exploded, Tang Ling felt that it was hard to breathe.

He inhaled and exhaled. To maintain his breathing tempo, he had to exert strength around his throat which was filled with a weird saltiness. Even his mouth and teeth all tasted salty.

However, Tang Ling cared about none of those. He madly spun his eyeballs, trying to remember the glorious moment.

Countless beams of light messily swept across the void. Then, a big expanse of clouds appeared and the darkness in between them started to absorb light.

An unknown power appeared, followed by an unknown material floating in the void.

They spun and converged, forming a shape of something.

‘This is the grand beginning. The curtains of the grand stage have been unveiled.’ It seemed like there was a voice explaining the unfolding of events to Tang Ling in his ears slowly.

Excitement overflowed in Tang Ling’s heart, but at the same time, he was filled with doubt. Would the vision not put one into a strange silent state? Yet, why did he feel so excited like every cell in his body was boiling!?

To his horror, in the next moment, the beginning of everything, the glorious scene, and everything else vanished from his eyes.

The scenes before Tang Ling’s sight drastically changed. Somehow, his eyes could see through his skin, his blood, and his flesh as his crimson blood flowed and swirled around his spine happily as though they were a parade circling around the sky-piercing tower of his spine that had no end. He was able to capture all the liveliness that filled his cells.

Then, he should be… seeing his own talent, was he not?

Tang Ling instinctively and reasonably thought of it, but he shockingly found himself in a thick mist.

Mist! There was a thick mist everywhere! It blanketed everything before his eyes, and all Tang Ling could see was the spiral path intertwining under his feet.

Tang Ling tried to explore the unfamiliar place. There was a strong but ambiguous feeling within him, telling him the truth that he sought would be in the mist.

As for the time or what he was originally doing? Tang Ling almost forgot all of that.

“Not bad.” Fei Long’s finger stroked his clean-cut beard at the tip of his chin which was rather bristly.

He clearly saw Tang Ling enter the silent state to discover his true self via the vision after a mere second.

His response incited confusion among the other candidates. Even Fei Long was not as concerned about the others displaying outstanding talents.

What was so great about Tang Ling?

However, after that, an irritating breathing noise came from inside the machine. Even with the transparent door apart, the noise still made his ears tingle.

Everyone unconsciously looked for the source of the noise and they realized it was Tang Ling.

Why was his breath so heavy and hurried?

“What the hell? Is he scared or something?” Orston said in annoyance.

He did not think too much though. He only saw Tang Ling’s face go red and his body shake while sitting in the machine. It felt so strenuous for him as if he was facing some titan beasts.

Other than Orston, everyone was surprised because they too had gone through the test. Although they could not reveal their vision, every one of them shared a similar feeling. When the vision appeared, it was a delightful and comforting feeling to them, but Tang Ling’s experience was entirely different. What did it mean?

In fact, it was not just the young candidates, but even Yang Kong stood up. Fei Long went straight to the transparent door of the machine, squatted down, and tried to understand what happened.

To everyone’s surprise, when Fei Long squatted down, blood spewed out of Tang Ling’s nose and mouth.

“Is there anything wrong with the Genetic Chain Measuring Machine?” Fei Long stood up suddenly and asked Yang Kong in a strict tone.

Even without Fei Long’s concern, Yang Kong was already checking the measuring machine. His eyes were scanning the transparent monitor as lines of codes gushed up, and his fingers were hitting the keyboard as quickly as he could.

“There’s nothing wrong.” In less than 10 seconds, Yang Kong gave a solid answer. At least, the machine was still working perfectly fine despite the unusual situation.

Fei Long slightly heaved a breath, If nothing happened to the most important asset of Safety Sector No. 17, things were not as serious as it looked.

After confirming that from Yang Kong, Fei Long looked at Tang Ling again.

Despite Tang Ling reacting vehemently, he appeared fine in the machine. His eyes were shut and he looked a lot calmer than before. Even his breaths started to calm down.

Yang Kong walked to Fei Long and voiced his opinion, “Why don’t we wait and see? Based on his spirit that he was able to visualize in three seconds, the result might be out soon.”

“Did something similar happen before in the past?” Fei Long furrowed his brows. He had only been the leader of the Purple Moon Warriors for less than three years, meaning he had limited experience in invigilating the candidates, so he was baffled by the situation.

Yang Kong shook his head in denial. “There’s been nothing like this before, at least, not when they are feeling their true self. Based on the information on my hand, there is no record of a similar situation as well, but…”

“But what?” Fei Long looked at Yang Kong.

Yang Kong pushed his glasses up a little. “But mankind has only explored so much of the secret of this era, let alone Safety Sector No. 17 alone. There were indeed unusual situations happening in the past exams once in a while, so I don’t think it is something that we should be surprised about. I’m just suddenly a little curious about what his result would be.”

Yang Kong spilled all the information in one go. Fei Long went silent for a while before saying with a nod, “Then, let’s wait and see..”

Meanwhile inside the machine, Tang Ling had no idea what happened outside or what was happening to his body.

He was lost in the mist and was trying his best to clear the path. It was difficult though as it seemed to require a great amount of strength.

The mist felt sticky. Every step that he took was arduous, but the desire deep in his heart had never been so strong before. He could not resist it, so he could only search for it in the mist.

Time flew by in the silence. Tang Ling was like a small knife stabbed into a tenacious material, he relied on his persistence to arduously moved up the spiral path.

Sometime later, he saw a huge black chain in front of him.

It was enormous and was coiled up on the path in front of him, at least where his eyes could reach. Above the chain was endless mist and the huge chain was faintly peeking out from the mist.

Tang Ling did not know what the chain was, but there was a feeling in his heart that as long as he could see it, he would be very close to the answer he sought.

So, he continued forward tirelessly.

Sometime later, he finally saw the giant lock on top of the black chain.

Under the black chain were clouds of thicker mist. As the mist seemed to materialize around the lock, the clouds of mist moved like water. Tang Ling pressed forward quicker.

He felt like it was the very first place that he wanted to reach. He just had to find out what was hidden beneath the watery mist.