Chapter One: In the Black Mist of the Dark Bamboo Grove

On a night veiled in black mist deep within the Black Bamboo Grove, a series of relentless explosions flung a boy through the sky like a blazing meteor. Fire-red light from the blasts and the pale radiance rising from within his body intermingled, carrying him northward through the air.

At last, after the fiercest detonation of all, the explosions ceased. By then, Zhou Yu had already fallen unconscious.

Throughout it all, not a single part of his body had escaped destruction, only to be restored at once each time. The divine power left within him by the three great lords of Asura had been mending him. Including the one use spent during his crossing over, the three total instances of damage immunity were now reduced to a single one.

The watch on his wrist had been obliterated in some earlier blast, leaving behind only a tiny green mole where it had once rested.

Unconscious as he was, Zhou Yu could not look within himself. Had he been able to, he would have discovered that his meridians, after being shattered and regrown, had all joined together, uniform in thickness and evenly balanced; yet the energies once stored throughout his body had vanished without a trace, reduced to ash by the explosions.

When the blasts ended, his body, faintly shining with white light, began to fall. In the end, it landed in a stretch of black bamboo forest far beyond the distant Mist Mountains.

With a dull, heavy thud, accompanied by a low cry edged with pain, Zhou Yu crashed into a mass of black mist and was swallowed whole.

This black bamboo forest was eerily strange. It was packed with thick black bamboo, and dense black fog drifted everywhere within it. Beneath the wind, the mist kept changing shape, at times forming battlefields strewn with corpses, then in an instant becoming scenes of debauchery, or else endless heaps of gold and silver treasure, shifting without cease.

Outside the grove stood an old man holding a cane shaped like a giant question mark. Narrowing his eyes, he watched the direction where Zhou Yu had fallen.

His left hand rested on the cane, while his right gently stroked the long white beard that nearly touched the ground. He was clearly a monster who had lived for who knew how many years, yet his eyes remained crystal-clear, as though they could pierce through all things under heaven.

This old man was the first wonder of the Path of Rebirth, known as Nangong Wen, the one reputed to know all and see all.

When Zhou Yu, the old man, and Liu Yueming first entered the Spirit Realm, Ling Youzi had not been there. At that time, he had gone to seek out Nangong Wen to ask about the Chosen One of Fate. Yet even with his immense power, Ling Youzi spent three months and still failed to find this marvel of a man, and in the end could only return alone to the Spirit Realm.

Now Nangong Wen stood outside the Black Bamboo Grove, carefully studying the thick black mist. His cane tapped lightly against the ground, as though he were wondering whether he ought to go in.

"So heavy with malign energy. No wonder even the demon clans have marked this place as forbidden ground," Nangong Wen murmured, shaking his head.

He then pointed his question-mark-shaped cane toward the forest. From it burst a stream of pure energy that cut a path through the black fog.

Leaning on his cane, Nangong Wen hobbled into the Black Bamboo Grove like a man who had grown old beyond all measure.

The deeper he went, the more astonished he became. He had assumed that within such a bizarre forest, no living thing could possibly exist. Yet to his surprise, this black bamboo grove was astonishingly rich in life. Every sort of small creature seemed to be present. After only a few hundred steps, he had already seen thirty kinds of flowers, seventy-two kinds of grass, and thirteen kinds of small animals.

The more he thought about it, the greater his confusion grew. In a bitter, desolate place like the demon realms, a region so abundant in species was almost impossible to exist at all. For demon beasts to survive, they had to eat; over the years, with their numbers swelling, the demon lands had been stripped so clean that even the softer stones had nearly been gnawed away. If such a place teemed with life, how could it have failed to attract demon beasts?

Though the black mist was strange, he could see with his own eyes that little squirrels, wild rabbits, and various other animals moved within it safely and unharmed. That meant the place was fit for animals to live in. Then why could not the more formidable demon beasts survive here? And if they could, why was there not even the faintest shadow of one to be seen?

Nangong Wen knew that this black bamboo grove was a forbidden place of the demon clans, but he had not expected living creatures within it. Carrying his questions with him, he pressed onward.

No one knew how long passed before Zhou Yu’s consciousness slowly began to stir. His eyelids felt glued together, impossible to open, and his entire body seemed submerged in some exceedingly viscous liquid. He could feel it, yet could not move at all.

As time went on, his awareness fully returned, but he remained unable to move. It was not that he could not control his body; rather, some substance had wrapped him tightly, binding every inch of his surface.

Hunger stirred in his belly. Zhou Yu tried to call out to the voice in his mind, but there was no response.

He could not open his eyes, and so could not see what lay around him. His limbs and body would not move, and so he could not reach out by touch to learn his surroundings. In this boredom and frustration, he could only give a wry smile. Yet the moment his mouth moved, a salty, slightly bitter liquid flowed into it.

The taste was salty and bitter, with even a hint of fishiness, but Zhou Yu was so hungry that he swallowed reflexively.

The instant he did, a warmth spread from his throat down into his stomach, then radiated outward through his whole body. At the same time, the liquid in his mouth seemed incomparably delicious. Perhaps this was what people meant by an aftertaste that lingered endlessly.

This only deepened the hunger in his belly. His tongue and taste buds quivered slightly, as though still savoring the sweetness of that sip. Zhou Yu steeled himself and opened his mouth again; once more, the unknown liquid flowed in.

This time, though the flavor remained salty and bitter, Zhou Yu found that bitterness strangely pleasant. Not only his tongue and taste buds, but his entire body thrilled to it, craving it eagerly.

So he no longer held back. He opened his mouth and drank greedily. Each time the liquid entered his stomach, it was instantly digested, vanishing without a trace.

Based on his experience, Zhou Yu guessed that the energy contained within this liquid must be extraordinarily rich, and that its disappearance was simply the result of digestion and absorption, being stored throughout the body.

And indeed, things were exactly as he suspected. The black energy transformed from that unknown liquid swiftly occupied Zhou Yu’s entire body, completely swallowing the little remaining energy that had been left within him.

Yet Zhou Yu knew nothing of this. After losing contact with that voice in his mind, he could no longer look inward, for his cultivation was too low. Thinking of it again, he called out within his heart once more, but still there was no answer.

He could not feel the watch on his wrist at all, and a vague premonition of something ominous rose in him. Recalling the man with the huge iron box on his back who had blasted him away with a single punch, and how that punch had then split into thousands upon thousands of meteors that exploded over his body, Zhou Yu honestly had not felt much pain at the time. The shocks from the explosions had come one after another, and in his final memories, white light had shrouded him, seeming to repair his body.

By all logic, under that level of attack and explosion, Zhou Yu should have died. Yet though he could not move now, he clearly sensed that he was not dead. He was still alive. Thinking of the words that voice had once spoken, and of the three men in black who had caused his crossing, Zhou Yu could only believe that it was the three so-called great lords of Asura who had granted him three instances of damage immunity and spared him from death.

The man with the iron box on his back must surely be some deity sent by the Heavenly Way to hunt down the crossers. Zhou Yu did not know which one. Then he thought of A Buli and the others, wondering whether they were all right. From the current situation, it seemed only he possessed three instances of damage immunity; even if A Buli was the reincarnation of the Asura King, with his present strength that would not be enough. I’m afraid they’re in grave danger. Surely I’m not the only one left? Zhou Yu thought.

No one knew how long passed before the delicious liquid seemed to have been completely drained away. Though his whole body was still wet, the feeling of being bound had lessened considerably. Zhou Yu tried to move a little. The moment he slightly lifted a foot, a violent shaking erupted, so intense it made him dizzy and lightheaded. He hurriedly stopped and dared not move again. After some time, the trembling gradually ceased.

At intervals, the delicious juice would once again fill the area around Zhou Yu’s body, and he would, without the slightest courtesy, open his mouth to suck it in. But as the number of times increased, the juice grew less and less. During all this, Zhou Yu would sometimes try to move, and without exception each attempt brought about violent shaking. Yet it caused him no great harm, so whenever he was bored to the extreme, he would move a little just to summon the trembling and amuse himself with it.

Deep in the Black Bamboo Grove, Nangong Wen continued his slow advance, leaning on the question-mark cane. Each step he took seemed to consume immense effort, as though he could never possibly take another, yet every time he still managed the next step, and so he came onward one step at a time.

At last, on a pitch-black night, he arrived at the grove’s central region.

All around stood dense ranks of tall, thick black bamboo. The closer one came to the center of the Black Bamboo Grove, the blacker and more massive the bamboo became.

Nangong Wen stopped, bracing both hands on his cane as he stood beside a sturdy stalk of black bamboo, gazing toward the open center of the grove.

The heart of the Black Bamboo Grove was an open clearing, barren of even a blade of grass, let alone bamboo. There, a thick mass of black fog had gathered. Under the night wind, the fog swayed and shifted endlessly, occasionally revealing a faint glimmer of armor.

Around the edge of the clearing, corpses lay everywhere. The bones of various demon beasts were piled into little hills.

After only a cursory glance, Nangong Wen saw that every corpse in the field belonged to a formidable demon beast. These were creatures that could rampage across the demon realm and make even ordinary demon kings fear them three parts, yet all had been killed by having their waists snapped in two by some unknown force. They had rotted and vanished slowly in this Black Bamboo Grove, a forbidden land of the demon clans, now accumulating in a great heap. Among them were even several demon king skeletons, and judging from the injuries to those bones, they too had been slain in a single blow.

When he spread his protective energy a little, a strand of faint black qi slipped inside. Nangong Wen closed his eyes and sniffed carefully, his expression turning peculiar.

The black mist surged, forming a giant hand that reached for him. But the instant it touched the energy around Nangong Wen, wisps of white smoke rose from it with a sizzle.

The mist rolled again, and the giant hand withdrew, still leaving hidden what lay within.

The Black Bamboo Grove was now utterly silent. Not a sound could be heard. As if frightened by the very aura released when the black mist stirred, wild rabbits and boars alike had all collapsed to the ground at once, trembling all over. They felt fear from the depths of their being, lying rigid and motionless on the earth, not daring even to breathe.

Near the edge of the grove, several birds flapped away in panic toward the sky, then turned back from not far off, as though unwilling to leave.

"At last I have found you. After all these years, do you still possess consciousness?" Nangong Wen said softly to the black fog that had finally ceased roiling, tapping his cane with a dull thud.