CHAPTER 52
The Beginning Of A New Arc: Abducted
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From the shock freezing Rachna's expression to the surprise flashing in the eyes of the veiled twins, Lu Xie's broken words struck like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky.
This was the first time Rachna had ever heard the voice of the Young Miss, a girl she had been convinced was suffering from severe Nonfluent Aphasia.
"And the mute speaks."
The Veiled figure sitting on the roof spoke. His tone was flat, making it impossible to discern if he was mocking her or genuinely surprised.
"Who I am... you will find out soon enough."
As the second twin on the ground spoke, a strange, suffocating power surged from his hands. It didn't attack her body; it attacked her perception. It suffused her senses, blotting out the world in an instant.
She was conscious, yet she could sense nothing.
She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She couldn't see with her eyes open, nor hear a sound. It was a terrifying sensation, far worse than merely being paralyzed—it was as if she had been erased from existence while still being awake to witness it.
~Unknown Location — Underground Cavern~
After an inestimable period of time, the strange power that suffocated her senses began to wane. Her connection to reality returned like a sudden jolt, sharp and stinging like a needle prick.
Lu Xie, ever the survivalist, quickly assessed her surroundings the moment her mind cleared.
First, she sensed that she had been bound by a black sludge. The substance seemed to possess its own will, squirming around her wrists and ankles, tightening whenever she tensed her muscles. It felt disturbingly familiar—similar to the living blob of ink that had accompanied Kuang Luosheng, the Soul Stealer.
Second, she discovered she was in an underground cave. The air was damp and smelled of wet rock and old wax.
Third, directly in front of her, carved into the slightly elevated rocky floor, was an insignia. It depicted the Cosmos trapped within a circle. Green and blue flame candles lined the perimeter of the circle, casting long, dancing shadows that gave the room an ominous, ritualistic feeling.
Lu Xie's eyes narrowed. This insignia greatly resembled the symbol etched into the back of the strange red cloth she had been wearing when she first woke up in this world.
It wasn't hard to draw a connection. These people weren't strangers; they were connected to whoever had "found" her first.
It was then that her eyes adjusted to the gloom, catching sight of several figures cloaked in black hoods standing in the hidden corners of the cave. They stood silent as statues, their presence barely detectable.
Her mind raced, panic threatening to rise, but she crushed it instantly, replacing it with an icy calmness.
The miracle of speech occurred again.
In broken, halting language, she demanded, "Who... are... you... lots?"
The youths she believed to be her abductor—the "Veiled Twins"—surprisingly weren't present. Instead, a middle-aged man with a short, neatly trimmed beard and deep, wrinkled eyes stepped forward from the shadows.
He wore heavy robes and had decided to adorn his neck with an inappropriately sized pendant that hung below his knees, almost touching the floor. The artifact was ostentatious, heavy, and undeniably powerful. Even from a distance, Lu Xie could tell it was a treasure based on the intricate, delicate spirit patterns that pulsed faintly across its surface.
The middle-aged man finally arrived before her. He looked down at her bound form and began speaking at a slow, deliberate pace, as though trying to explain her current situation to a child.
However, Lu Xietong could only comprehend bits and pieces of what he was saying.
Bound by the strange living sludge, she could only watch as the man's mouth moved. For a moment, her mind drifted, finding the situation almost absurd.
'I never knew speech could be so intriguing,' she thought, gawking at the man's rhythmic mouth movements. 'It is basically just strange sounds we assign meaning to. It's like watching animals communicate—bleating and barking—but we can't even understand what they mean.'
After a brief, one-sided speech, the middle-aged man seemed to realize she wasn't grasping the gravity of the situation based on the strange gaze in her eyes. He stopped talking and rummaged through his wide brocade sleeves.
He retrieved a clear crystal pearl. It oozed with a light so pure it seemed untainted by the dust of the mortal world.
He closed the distance between them. Without a word of warning, he pressed the crystal against her temple.
Buzz!
The result was immediate.
Cool waves of pure light flooded her skull. It carried intention, will, vocabulary, and grammar—pure knowledge pouring directly into her consciousness, bypassing the need for study or comprehension.
Lu Xietong's eyes rolled back slightly as she was overwhelmed by the sudden burst of understanding. However, through sheer force of will, she remained physically upright, refusing to show weakness.
In less than a blink of an eye, the fog lifted. The strange sounds transformed into words. The gibberish became structured sentences. She could now understand the local language—Lark—as if she had been born speaking it.
But then, her eyes flickered. Her expression shifted from relief to a chilling realization.
The information from the pearl wasn't just language; it contained basic context about the world.
Based on what she had just learned, she could now be certain of one terrifying fact: She wasn't in the Domain of the Celeste anymore.
In fact, that would be a gross understatement. She wasn't even in any of the known Nine Heavenly Realms.
It was a completely different world. A different dimension. A different Universe entirely.
It possessed its own unique Laws, its own Daos, and its own Order of things.
'How did I wind up here?'
'Do such worlds exist outside our own plane of existence?'
'Did I transmigrate?'
'Is there even a way back?'
Another Q&A session began in her head, and as expected, the questions outnumbered the answers ten to one.
"You are quite exceptional."
The remark came from the middle-aged man, his wrinkled eyes staring down at her with a hint of appraisal.
His sudden words ended the tribunal in her head abruptly, drawing her attention back to the world of the living.
He retrieved the pearl back into his sleeve. Lu Xie followed the movement with greedy eyes.
That pearl had done in half a second what she had struggled to do for a month.
In a low murmur, she sighed aggrievedly, "Where have you been all my life? Oh! The things I could do with you..." her eyes oozing with avaricious light.
She cleared her throat, shaking off the greed.
Now, speaking with the perfect fluency of a native Lark speaker, she looked the man in the eye.
"What do you want with me?"