So What If You’ve Been Reborn? - CH 40

C40. The Dimension Fragment

Above the thirteen lanes of the western end, the sky brightened in an instant.

“An illusion! Everyone, be careful!”

“You darned monks, you made me go to such lengths only to be trapped here! I shall have you pay with your flesh and blood!” An evil laugh could be heard in mid-air. The Heluo Sect members stood back-to-back at once, surveying their surroundings cautiously. Then they held up their fingers, attempting to divine the fox spirit’s whereabouts.

“Eeh?!” A chorus of shocked gasps broke out.

They looked up and saw the same confusion in one another’s eyes.

“Elder Huiji, our divinations are not working at all?”

Elder Long-Brows wore a dismal expression. He performed divination after divination before lowering his hands and saying, “The heavens’ secrets have been blocked off by something. This fox spirit is quite powerful, I have underestimated it.”

The Enlightened Tianyan, who had the lowest ability, had been sticking close to Elder Long-Brows. He was the only person who did not panic.

Since his cultivation base was insufficient, he did not busy himself with divinations. After gazing into the far distance for a while, he suddenly spoke up, “Hurry, cast some camouflage spells, the citizens are waking up.”

“This might be an illusion,” someone murmured.

Elder Long-Brows glared at them and sent a message through his divine sense: <Cope with the situation by maintaining the status quo, cast those spells! How can all of you be no better than this fellow!>

“…”

<Do not scatter. Wait for my orders!> Elder Long-Brows pulled the Enlightened Tianyan onto the pine tree along with himself. Thus a bunch of Daoist monks resigned themselves to crouching on roofs, standing on top of courtyard walls, or sitting up in trees. Other than when casting spells on themselves, they remained very still in their spots, not daring to move a muscle.

Slowly, the thirteen lanes came to life.

Some people stretched and rubbed their eyes in confusion, unable to understand why they were so tired even after sleeping in for so long.

“Strange, why didn’t our rooster crow in the morning?”

“I didn’t hear the time-announcer’s drum, either!”

The time-announcer was crouching by the wall, dumbfounded, as he shook like a leaf.

He had only just signalled the hour of the rat and the sun was already up, what was going on? Had he fallen asleep by the roadside? He checked the wine jug at his hip. He had not even drunk much of the wine!

“Goodness! Look at the time, hurry and fetch my new sheepskin coat!”

On the second day of the new year, it was time to visit family and friends. The day began later during winter. After getting over their shock, every household was hurriedly getting ready.

The maids and manservants got out of their beds in a hurry. The kitchen stoves were still cold; there was no hot water, and they had yet to prepare breakfast or ready the carts. They forced themselves to stay awake as they worked, but the sleepiness made it difficult to keep their eyes open.

As people stepped out with their new-year gifts, they nearly bumped into the courtyard walls.

When they met one another in the alleys, they hastily clasped their hands in greeting. But before they could say anything, they realised something amiss—why was everyone in such a hurry? Why did everyone only step outside now? There was no way everyone could have overslept.

THUMP! A donkey-drawn carriage leaving a household by the intersection had crashed to the side of the road.

Filled with disbelief, the driver flicked his whip in front of him.

WHACK! “Aaaargh!” he cried in pain, clutching his swollen cheek.

More people gathered at the intersection. They looked at the familiar road ahead of them, shocked beyond belief; the carriage lay by the roadside, unable to move ahead.

“It’s ghosts! Ghosts are behind this!”

With a terrible scream, the driver threw his whip down and fled.

The woman in the carriage was so frightened that she was crying. She climbed out of the carriage weakly and lost her footing, falling over. Everyone could see clearly that she seemed to come to rest upon an unseen wall as she slid to the ground.

Cries of terror filled the alleys. Many threw aside the things they carried, fleeing in a panic.

Some brave souls threw stones ahead of them and waited near the intersection. A most terrible thing happened—the fabric shop at the other side of the intersection slowly became blurry, as if a thick fog had descended and blocked out everything outside the area.

“There’s ghosts—“

The thirteen lanes covered a huge area, and this shocking news did not spread that quickly. After an hour, there was still a lazy man who rested against his pillow, yawning as he chided his servants, “Look at this fine weather, the sun’s shining outside, even the snow outside the windows is almost melting. How could there be ghosts about?”

Hidden among the foliage, the fox spirit smiled sinisterly. It sized up the lazy man, but this man was too impure for its taste. It left the area without being discovered.

As they saw the mysterious thick fog, the Heluo Sect members murmured among themselves again.

“This is a dimension fragment!” Both Elder Long-Brows and the Enlightened Tianyan looked grim at once. Luckily, the latter kept quiet, otherwise he would have to explain how a young Daoist monk who had never left Yuzhou could somehow know of such a thing.

Some of these Nascent Soul-level cultivators were mystified.

Cultivation was a lengthy process, and they lived in a peaceful world. It was normal for people who were often holed up in their territories to not have heard of dimension fragments.

“During ancient times, mortals led primitive lifestyles in the mountains and forests. The land was much larger than it is now. Then the Great Calamity Wars happened eight millennia ago, and the wars spread from the earthly world to the cultivation world, all the way to the Celestial Realm. All kinds of deities and demons descended to aid the war efforts, dimming the skies and throwing day and night into disarray. The land split and tore apart, and whole continents sank.”

Not wanting to tell the full story at this time, Elder Long-Brows summed up this bit of history in those few sentences.

“Hence, the lands and seas of today are no more than remnants created by the Great Calamity Wars. Most of the broken ancient lands have faded, but some fragments have been sealed and stored away by those with the power, and they were scattered throughout the existing land. Those are the dimension fragments. Who knows where this fox spirit got this one from.”

He did not know this. Even the Enlightened Tianyan, who had already lived once, had not known a thing.

In the previous life, the eight-tailed fox spirit had been wreaking havoc in Beihai. It consumed many cultivators along the coast, even wiping out some of the smaller sects. When the most powerful cultivators headed to Beihai to capture it, it vanished without a trace.

The Orthodox-Demonic War followed soon after, lasting for around three hundred years. Until Grandmaster Liyan’s ascension and the Enlightened Tianyan’s suspected death, the fox spirit had been hiding its tracks and concealing its whereabouts. Naturally, the Enlightened Tianyan would not have known that this fox spirit had a dimension fragment in its possession.

Such things were not as common as eggshells by the roadside.

Dimension fragments were pieces of the ancient continents. They could contain precious herbs and materials that had been abundant in ancient times, or hordes of ancient beasts.

“This land has been cut off from the outside world. The heavens’ secrets have been blocked; they cannot be divined.”

Elder Long-Brows promptly switched to communicating through divine sense.

<This dimension fragment has yet to show its full form as it has been sealed for a long time. That fox spirit sacrificed its own heart blood to unlock this dimension fragment; we must kill it if we want to escape!>

Though the Heluo Sect cultivators voiced their agreement, they were scratching their heads in frustration as they watched the mortals panicking below.

The fox spirit was cunning and had hidden itself in the crowds. How were they to find it?

—the snow piled on the roofs was constantly melting off as the sun shone fiercely in the sky.

The eight-tailed fox spirit felt exceptionally pleased as it listened to the screams of terror and looked at the people’s anxious faces. Oh, and not forgetting those darned monks who were at a loss for what to do.

Although it had wasted this hard-earned dimension fragment and trapped itself in the process, it would reap even more benefits when things were chaotic. Why, there were a hundred Nascent Soul-level cultivators here!

The fox spirit had a ferocious look in its eyes as it licked its lips greedily.

It looked up at the blazing sun, sharpening its claws absently.

This dimension fragment had been an accidental discovery. And how laughable that minor sect’s cultivator had been; he had no idea what this was, and he only placed it on the altar and treated it as some ancient item left behind by the cultivators of old.

Dimension fragments were worth a fortune, or they could be dangerous beyond measure. This depended on its contents—of which the fox spirit knew nothing either.

It was only a remnant of the ancient world. After unlocking, only almighty immortals had the power to seal it away again. Otherwise, it could only be broken from within. Who could say for sure before something like this was put into use?

“You darned monks, let’s see how lucky you can get.”

The fox spirit assumed a human form, preparing to hunt some prey amid the chaos.

As for the mortals in the thirteen lanes of the western end…Tch, who would care about their lives. During ancient times, mortals led tough lives, often becoming prey for the many beasts. Although, if it ate those beasts’ viscera, it might be able to develop its ninth tail.

As the fox spirit became more pleased with itself, it suddenly stopped in its tracks.

Next to itself was a two-courtyard house, so quiet that nothing seemed amiss. It was as if the sun had never risen and the residents were still in dreamland.

—even if they had not been stirred by the bright sunshine, did they not hear the screams and noise in the vicinity? Moreover, with the increasing temperatures, the snow had already melted completely, and there was water everywhere in the house. Why had the people in this house not reacted? Unless they were all dead?

The fox spirit grinned.

It seemed to have discovered something intriguing.

In a flash, the fox spirit leaped over the wall.

All was quiet in the courtyard. The fox spirit spotted the maid standing still under the tree at once; that was a crafted dummy. It pushed the maid over, and the latter became a pebble surrounded by a kind of cold, menacing Qi.

“Hurhur.”

Dimension fragments were convenient things. They were separated from the world, and they were pieces of the old world that had fallen away; there was no divine order or karma, and no one could divine the heavens’ secrets. If the person who crafted the dummies had not been trapped in the dimension fragment, the flow of spiritual energy would be broken. Even the strongest dummies would be forced back into their true forms.

The fox spirit crushed the pebble to powder effortlessly just by stepping on it.

“A Golden Core-level dummy.” The eight-tailed fox was so excited that its tails were peeking out of its robes. It made a quick round around the two-courtyard house.

The kitchen, the bedrooms, the halls—all the servants in there were dummies.

The two most powerful Nascent Soul-level dummies were guarding a room in the rear courtyard. They lifted their hands to stop the fox spirit but were instantly kicked aside. And thus, Chen He, who was cultivating in his room, was exposed to the fox spirit’s eyes.

Only Immortalisation-level cultivators could create Nascent Soul-level dummies. Leaving them in such a common little house, with little regard for the immense amount of spiritual energy consumed—clearly, someone was being protected here.

Owing to the strange circles in the cultivation world, Nascent Soul-level dummies could only be protecting lower-level cultivators at most.

And how! It was some whelp who had not even reached the Foundation Establishment stage.

The eight-tailed fox spirit took a deep breath greedily, but it did not sense the rich, concentrated spiritual energy it had expected, which stunned it for a moment. Only then did the fox spirit take a good look at Chen He. Faint seals could be seen around the bed on which he sat; they sealed in spiritual energy and provided defence. The fox spirit gnashed its teeth together furiously.

How could one be happy when they could only look at a sumptuous meal right before their eyes?

This whelp’s cultivation practices were very odd. Pale golden spiritual energy flowed around gradually as his hand seals changed. The fox spirit licked its lips impatiently. It felt as if it had seen this odd state somewhere else before, but it had lived for so long that some of its memories had become blurred.

Beast cultivators’ lives were longer than those of human cultivators.

Thanks to the Secret Beixuan Treasure which would appear every few centuries, the fox spirit would be able to reap some benefits amid the ensuing confusion. A sect’s disciple disappearing abruptly, a minor sect decimated in a single night—the cultivators suspected one another in the chaos, and the fox spirit was clever about it, so it had never once been exposed.

This time, it had failed at something that should have been easy, committing this huge a blunder in front of the Heluo Sect.

The fox spirit thought about it angrily. It shook itself and transformed into an alluring woman dressed in sheer silk, spewing fragrant mist from its mouth to create illusions.

Chen He had been cultivating and thinking all night. Though he was not seeing anything, he was still somewhat on alert. Just then, he felt a disruption in the surrounding spiritual energy, which made him open his eyes at once.

The first thing he saw was an attractive woman he had never met. She was dressed in sheer silk that seemed barely there, with a lovely smile on her face. She walked with slow yet graceful steps, and every breath she exhaled was as delicate as a fresh orchid.

“To think this little Yuzhou City would have such an esteemed young man living in seclusion. This humble maiden gives her greetings.”

The fox spirit did not even hide its identity. It left its eight snow-white tails trailing behind.

Chen He held his breath silently, glancing at the fox spirit.

Just when the fox spirit thought this young cultivator would either pretend not to see anything or get flustered, Chen He undid his hand seal, absorbed the spiritual energy back into his meridians, and calmly pointed at the fox spirit’s large chest.

“The camouflage spell on your chest is kind of lousy.”

“…”

The fox spirit instinctively covered its chest, its face darkening.

With a furious swish of its sleeve, it undid the spell. Though it was still dressed in gorgeous sheer silk, the chest area became significantly flatter. Clearly, this was a male fox.