Chapter 40: The Celestial Star Spans the Continent – 2

All the nightmare entities had been eliminated.
“Why did these things suddenly appear? Did we enter some kind of special place?”
The sea was no different, and both the spear and the boat had accompanied him for a long time. Yang Zicang swept his gaze around. Finally… his eyes fixed on the sky.
“It couldn’t be you!”
If there was anything else out of the ordinary—it had to be that comet, which had taken two or three months to climb to a position like the sun at mid-morning!
If that were the case, that land might… have to go back!
Yang Zicang was completely flustered.
He had left behind the technology.
[Reconfigure, accelerate!]
Turn the boat around!
[Spiritual Artifact War Tool, accelerate!]
Boom! The dugout canoe suddenly picked up speed, its bow kicking up several-meter-high waves. Yang Zicang stood on one foot at the prow, fretting and frequently looking up at that comet.
Like an elegant arc gracefully cutting across the blue sky.
Now that it had grown slightly larger, cracks of red could be seen on its surface!
[Maintain this speed and energy consumption, time, accelerate!]
Day and night alternated several times in one second, and the comet in the sky had noticeably moved forward.
[I have advanced to a point 7.1 R later.]
Suddenly, the boat’s speed dropped sharply; the mast’s acceleration ability had vanished.
Its energy source had nothing to do with time order.
“Damn it, what exactly do you need to replenish?”
……
The dead nightmare couldn’t speak. After busying himself for a while in the face of the sudden speed drop, Yang Zicang suddenly had a flash of insight. Didn’t those nightmare engines consume flesh and blood?
He leaned down and reached his hand into the sea, catching nearby swimming fish as if they naturally fell into his palm. The moment the fish touched the mast, several thread-like filaments grew out and pierced into their bodies.
In the blink of an eye, the live fish were drained into dried carcasses! Yang Zicang was horrified but gritted his teeth.
“One fish is far from enough.”
Beneath the water surface, a faint silhouette of a massive creature drifted past in the dark sea.
[Mobilization!]
Yang Zicang controlled the swimming trajectory of the fish, catching one large fish after another and placing them by the mast. Soon, they turned into shriveled fish jerky.
At last, the mast began to accelerate again.
“Please, even if this is just a dream…”
……
A month later, the coastline finally appeared before his eyes. The moment he saw it, Yang Zicang stood up anxiously, staring at it.
The dugout canoe shot onto the sandy beach like an arrow from a bowstring, carving deep furrows in the gravel.
[Time acceleration.]
[I traveled to 2R later.]
The sun and moon rotated, and Yang Zicang found himself near the primitive tribe he had left behind. Now, it was devoid of any human presence, with only a thick, lingering scent of blood seeming to eternally permeate the place…
At the edge of the deep and dense forest, inside the cave where people once dwelled, a faint red light flickered ominously.
“Ah…”
Rage!
Yang Zicang had never felt such heartache and fury.
“Ahhh!”
Gripping the longspear, he whispered as a golden radiance, enhanced fourfold, bloomed step by step as he advanced toward the former cavemen’s den! Before he even drew near, the malevolent nightmare lying within seemed to have sensed the life form outside.
Rumble~
Rocks burst apart, and through the debris shot things resembling swordfish, bearing grotesque human faces—each no bigger than a thumb.
“Die!”
How could Yang Zicang not recognize where those faces came from!
His weapon lashed out on its own—had those ironware lain on the ground, perhaps so; but since they flew through the air, they were all bound by the limitation of regulation power, as if they were slamming themselves straight onto the spear’s tip.
Spear shadows danced like the gale.
On this vast primal continent, Yang Zicang, who had honed his combat skills through at least a decade and more of sparring with primitive beasts, poured out his painstakingly sharpened battle arts in a breathtaking spectacle in that very moment—in the blink of an eye, fragmented relics of nightmare weapons lay scattered across the earth.
He was stricken with remorse, drowning in regret that came too late! “Why did I teach these cavemen arts that don’t belong to this era?!”
{Kra~}*
A thick rush of blood mist-turned-aura welled forth.
The humanoid nightmare born from vines—who stepped out of the cave, its twisted ape-like visage—sent Yang Zicang’s pupils instantly recoiling.
“Aaaah!”—
Several vines erupted from between its fingers and proliferated at thrilling speed, unfurling into a great net that spread outward.
[Circumvent tactics activating!]
Yang Zicang swerved to dodge, while two more kindred figures emerged from the dark of the surrounding woodlands, countless nearby brambles stirred and thrashed down on him from all sides!
As the demon roared, two smaller individuals swung their giant vine arms down. The spear flew out of his hand, transforming into a streak of light under the acceleration command, instantly piercing the core red light of the first demon.
Boom!
One demon fell and exploded.
YangZicang instantly turned into an afterimage, his spear hooking up a vine net and ripping it apart with a swoosh.
Sunlight thinly penetrated the dense canopy, casting mottled light and shadow. The roots beneath the demon on the left were tough as veins, deeply embedded into the ground.
{Wugula!}
They howled like primitive humans, raising giant vines that split the ground, twisting like a swarm of massive snakes.
YangZicang moved with agility, dodging these roots that traveled underground. With a low roar, two smaller vine demons swung their woven giant arms, pounding down with a whooshing wind.
[Trajectory Dispatch!]
Boom!
The two vine giant arms altered their trajectory, crashing violently into each other and bursting into a flurry of floating fibers.
He flickered and lightly leaped aside, while his spear transformed into a streak of flowing light, shooting straight towards the demon’s chest.
“Accelerate! Pierce it!”
The spear sped up sharply!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The roots beneath the ground exploded outward in the blast, sweeping toward Yang Zicang like brandished spears.
Thump, thump, thump!
Yang Zicang lightly tapped his feet several times, stepping onto an arching root to leap up.
“Go back to hell!”
His whole body shimmered with golden light, punching through countless tiny vines ahead. Meanwhile, the gun shaft slammed into a gap sealed by vines beside another small nightmare creature.
Bang!
The red energy cluster burst open.
In the dappled sunlight, debris scattered and dissipated in the air.
Yang Zicang stood up, turned his head indifferently to look around; the ground was littered with the unrecognizable remains of monsters.
He strode into the cave, spear in hand, silently. Scattered around were over a dozen withered human forms.
On the walls, playful children had carved chaotic lines with rocks… Higher up, the clan’s respected savage had drawn various images of creatures: a beast represented by an arch and four short lines; a man, denoted by upright crossing lines; and several fish composed of two twisting curves entwined together.
“So you all could catch fish.”
“People who tried so hard to survive…”
Yang Zicang clenched his fist, looking at the rock pile at the foot of the wall, drained of vital essence, beneath these paintings.
But this was not the time for lament. The continent was vast, and he had left various technologies and artifacts scattered in many places.
If the mutations began from this side one after another… he quickly headed towards the groups and small tribes where he had left behind skills and weapons in his memory.
……
The comet had already crossed a small half of the sky over the past few months, and by now it was well into spring.
Along the way, Yang Zicang encountered one ruined settlement after another.
Only a few bewildered savages had managed to escape with their lives, too afraid to ever return home. They were scattered, alone, across the vast land, with no way of knowing when they would meet others who had suffered the same fate to form a new tribe.
“Is this the secret you wanted to tell me, Temple Emblem!”
The comet in the sky hung against the flawless blue firmament, like an exquisite brush stroke from an artist.
Boom!
The nightmare formed within this wooden shed in the forest was shattered by several shots from his rifle.
Under the scorching sun, Yang Zicang strode forward, having crossed most of the continent.
Piercing a piece of shattered wood and looking down, the remains of the bodies beneath the shack seemed as if they had died less than half a month ago.
“This nightmare should have formed not long ago. My guess was correct.”
He withdrew his upward gaze and was about to leave when he suddenly heard a few voices from afar.
A large and a small savage burst out, crouching like apes a dozen meters away, staring at Yang Zicang with grunts of surprise.
“I’m sorry… this time, I can’t teach you anything more.”
He vanished from the spot.
……
Beside the withered-yellow forest, after Yang Zicang re-manufactured a stone spear and a complex little wooden house, no nightmare was born.
Yang Zicang looked up.
The comet continued its steady advance, spanning more than half the sky, yet it was a step too late for him.
“If I go to Xiao Wu’s tribe now, it should still be in time.”
He lit a fire, burned down the wooden hut, and smashed the stone spear into pieces.
……
……
The shaman sat before the campfire.
Surrounded by his dim, aging eyes were countless people with simple yet sharp glances.
Men, women, young, and old—all were wrapped in clean, neatly arranged various furs.
The blizzard raged. Yet, under the cliff, within that hollow, there were occasional bursts of laughter. But these people dared not speak loudly near the aged shaman, only occasionally whispering and jesting at the edge of the crowd.
If anyone disturbed the old man, several tribal leaders would immediately untie their ropes, strip off their belts, pull away their animal skins, and throw them into the storm.
For without the shaman, how could they live so comfortably? They would be starving and freezing in the blizzard, struggling to survive the winter.
The reason they were so harsh toward the young savages who committed offenses was that the old man was far too aged, no longer able to withstand the stimulation of any noise.
From those who still survived from that era, there were only a handful of people left.
But don’t underestimate these individuals—their lifespans had already exceeded more than double that of ordinary savages. That was because most savages originally couldn’t live past thirty. Most died from disease, starvation, or at the jaws of beasts. This was, by all means, impossible.
A man with a smooth forehead mumbled a few indistinct words to the girl beside him. The female savage, whose round face was framed by shoulder-length hair, shot him a glare before quietly getting up and stepping away.
The male savage chuckled and sneakily backed off, retreating from the vast, blazing campfire.
The two tribal leaders exchanged a glance and smiled knowingly.
They encouraged the growth of their tribe’s population, as it meant a steady stream of manpower to sustain and strengthen the settlement.