Chapter 21 – The 778th Candidate
Morning light filtered through the thin cracks in the wooden shutters, casting pale lines across the worn floor of Hao Tian's small room. He opened his eyes slowly, feeling a calm, heavy solidity in his limbs. There was no lingering soreness, no hidden ache beneath the surface. His breathing was steady, deep, and even.
Peak 7th-stage body-refining.
The feeling was unmistakable.
He rose from the bed and stood in the center of the room, closing his eyes as he gently tensed and relaxed his muscles. Strength flowed smoothly through his body, from his shoulders down to his calves. His joints felt stable, his bones firm, his tendons resilient. When he circulated Qi internally, it moved in an orderly, powerful stream, filling his meridians without any obstruction.
There were no hidden injuries left from the battle with the bear. The medicinal baths and careful consolidation had done their work well.
Yet, when he guided his Qi a little deeper, he could still feel it.
The barrier.
Like a thin but unyielding wall, it stood between him and the 8th stage of body-refining. His body felt full, saturated, but not yet transformed. He knew that without new resources or a major opportunity, breaking through would not be easy.
He exhaled slowly and opened his eyes.
"That will have to wait," he murmured to himself.
He moved to the small table and began to sort through his belongings.
His sword lay in its simple scabbard, the blade clean and carefully maintained. Beside it were his remaining medicines—some recovery powders, a few basic wound-healing salves, and several simple antidotes he had bought in town. He packed dried meat, a water pouch, and some hard biscuits into his travel pack, along with rope, a flint striker, and a small but sharp skinning knife.
Everything was arranged neatly, efficiently.
As he worked, he realized something.
This would not be a short hunt.
He was no longer just venturing out to test his luck near the forest's edge. He was heading deeper, to places where danger was real and mistakes could cost him his life.
He tightened the straps of his pack and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.
"I can't afford to be reckless anymore."
Yet, beneath that caution, there was something else.
A faint, steady excitement.
Not the desperation of hunger or survival.
But ambition.
He left the house and made his way through the town's narrow streets, heading toward the market district. Morning activity had already begun. Vendors were setting up stalls, porters were hauling goods, and hunters were gathering in small groups, checking their equipment and exchanging information.
Hao Tian went straight to a familiar place—a hunter supply stall run by a middle-aged man with weathered skin and sharp eyes.
"Maps," Hao Tian said simply.
The stall owner looked him over, his gaze lingering for a moment on Hao Tian's posture and presence before nodding. "Forest maps. Updated ones. Not cheap."
"I know."
The man pulled out a rolled map and spread it across the counter. It showed the surrounding forest in surprising detail—marked paths, hunting zones, known beast territories, and several regions outlined in different colors.
"Hunters update these," the man explained. "Whenever something changes—beast migrations, new dangers, strange phenomena—we mark it. Some information is bought, some is traded, some is paid for in blood."
Hao Tian studied the map carefully.
Near the outer regions were the familiar, relatively safe hunting grounds. Deeper in were zones marked in darker colors, with notes indicating stronger beasts and unstable areas.
And then, he saw it.
A newly marked region, outlined in a strange gray-black shade.
No clear description. Just a short note:
"New anomalous zone. Avoid."
As he was looking at it, voices nearby caught his attention.
"…I'm telling you, it just feels wrong," a hunter was saying in a low voice. "The closer you get, the more your skin crawls. My horse refused to go any further."
"It's not just animals," another replied. "I went with a group two days ago. We didn't even see anything, but everyone felt like turning back. Even the plants… doesn't it look like they're leaning away from that direction?"
"Yeah. Like the forest itself doesn't want anything to go there."
Hao Tian listened quietly, his expression unchanged.
"A repelling feeling?" someone else asked.
"Exactly. Not killing intent. Not danger. Just… rejection."
Hao Tian glanced again at the gray-marked zone on the map.
A strange area that had appeared recently.
Animals avoided it. Humans instinctively stayed away. Even plants seemed to grow away from that direction.
He paid for the map, rolled it up, and thanked the stall owner.
As he walked away, he did not let his steps slow.
He did not jump to conclusions.
Strange phenomena in the wilderness were not uncommon. Some were dangerous. Some were harmless. Some were temporary.
He unfolded the map again and traced a route with his finger.
Deeper than his previous hunts.
But not straight into that gray-marked zone.
At least, not yet.
He left the town before noon and entered the forest once more.
The familiar smells of soil and leaves greeted him, but it did not take long before he noticed the difference.
The terrain grew rougher. The trees thicker. The undergrowth denser.
And the Qi in the air…
It was still thin compared to true cultivation lands, but it was slightly denser here. More chaotic. Less calm.
He moved carefully, alert but not tense.
Before long, he encountered his first prey—a small, wolf-like beast at the 2nd stage of body-refining. It barely had time to react before his sword ended its life.
Later, he killed another similar beast and gathered a few low-grade herbs growing near a damp slope.
Nothing valuable.
Nothing special.
But something felt off.
There were fewer sounds.
No distant roars. No constant rustling of small animals.
In some places, the forest was too quiet.
He slowed his pace, his senses sharpening.
As he moved deeper, he began to feel it.
At first, it was nothing more than a vague unease.
Then…
A pull.
Not strong. Not forceful.
Just a subtle, persistent sensation tugging at his awareness.
He stopped.
Closed his eyes.
And focused.
The feeling was coming from a specific direction.
His brows furrowed.
He took out the map and checked it.
That direction…
Was exactly where the hunters had marked the strange, repulsive zone.
"That's odd…"
Others felt rejection.
He felt attraction.
He stood there for a long moment, considering.
Turning back would be the safer choice.
But after a while, he slowly shook his head.
"Not today," he said quietly.
He adjusted his route, stopping short of that area, and chose a place not too far away to set up a simple camp.
As night fell, the forest grew unnaturally quiet.
No insects.
No distant beast calls.
Hao Tian sat by a small, carefully concealed fire, his eyes occasionally drifting toward that direction.
He did not know why.
But he was certain of one thing.
Something was waiting there.
And whatever it was…
It would change the path of his life forever.
......
Hao Tian woke before dawn.
The forest around him was still dark, the air cool and faintly damp. For a few moments, he remained seated beside the small, dying campfire, listening to the quiet breathing of the woods.
Then he realized something was wrong.
It was too quiet.
No insects chirped. No birds called. Even the distant rustling of leaves that usually came with the early morning breeze was absent. It was as if the forest itself was holding its breath.
He stood up slowly and looked around.
Nothing moved.
The strange pulling sensation in his chest was still there—faint, but clearer than the day before. It wasn't forceful. It didn't compel him. It simply… existed. Like a distant star quietly tugging at his awareness.
Hao Tian hesitated.
Every instinct he had cultivated through hardship and near-death experiences told him that whatever lay in that direction was dangerous.
But after a long moment, he extinguished the campfire, packed his things, and followed the pull.
The deeper he went, the stranger the forest became.
The silence grew heavier, not just in sound, but in feeling. Even his own footsteps seemed muted, as if the ground was unwilling to echo them.
The trees began to change.
Their trunks twisted subtly, not randomly, but as if they were all leaning away from something. Their branches stretched in awkward directions, and many of their leaves were yellowed or withered despite the season.
Plants became sparse. Then scarcer.
The soil underfoot slowly shifted in color, turning from healthy dark brown to a dull, ashen gray.
Hao Tian's scalp tingled.
"This place…" he murmured quietly.
It felt wrong.
Not actively hostile. Not murderous.
Just… rejected.
As if the land itself did not want to be here.
The pull, however, became clearer with every step.
After nearly an hour of cautious travel, the trees finally thinned out completely.
And then, he saw it.
Ahead of him was a vast, shallow depression in the earth—an enormous crater, at least eight hundred meters across. The edges were jagged and uneven, as if something had fallen from the sky with tremendous force and shattered the land on impact.
At the center of it all was a deep hole, roughly eight meters across.
Hao Tian stood at the edge, staring.
The ground inside the crater was dead.
No grass.
No insects.
No signs of life.
The Qi here felt… strange.
Thin, as if the area had been drained.
Yet at the same time, it felt heavy—like the air itself carried an invisible weight.
This was not a natural place.
He descended carefully, step by step, sliding and climbing down the sloped inner wall of the crater.
When he reached the bottom, his gaze was immediately drawn to the center of the impact point.
There, half-buried in cracked stone and gray soil, was a small ring.
It looked like iron.
Or perhaps blackened steel.
It was simple. Plain. Unadorned.
Yet the moment his eyes fell on it, Hao Tian felt his heart tighten slightly.
"That's… it?"
The strange pressure in the area was not coming from the land.
It was coming from that ring.
Not aggressively.
Not consciously.
Just a faint, unconscious presence—like the residual pressure of something that had once been unimaginably vast.
Now he understood.
This was why beasts and humans alike felt repelled from this place.
Not because it was dangerous.
But because something here made their instincts recoil.
Hao Tian took a careful step forward.
The pull intensified.
He took another step.
Then—
The air shifted.
No sound.
No explosion.
No visible movement.
But suddenly, something was standing between him and the ring.
It was a humanoid figure made entirely of bronze.
A combat puppet.
Its body was tall and perfectly proportioned, its surface covered in faint, ancient patterns. Its eyes were dark, without light or emotion.
Hao Tian's pupils shrank.
He could not sense anything from it.
No Qi.
No blood.
No life.
And yet, every fiber of his being screamed one word:
Danger.
He stopped instantly.
The puppet's head turned slightly.
Then it spoke.
Its voice was calm, deep, and completely emotionless.
"Candidate."
Hao Tian's heart skipped a beat.
"Are you willing to obtain the inheritance of a being that once wielded power even the heavens were wary of?"
The words echoed in the silent crater.
Hao Tian froze.
Inheritance?
A being feared by the heavens?
His first instinct was disbelief.
This sounded like the kind of story drunk storytellers told in taverns.
But then he looked at the crater.
At the dead land.
At the ring.
At the puppet that he could not sense at all, yet feared instinctively.
He swallowed.
Whether this inheritance was truly that grand or not…
For someone like him—someone preparing to challenge a sect's recruitment test, someone who desperately needed strength—this was not an opportunity he could afford to ignore.
Even if it was only one in a thousand as good as it sounded.
Passing it up would be stupidity.
"What happens if I say no?" Hao Tian asked cautiously.
The puppet did not answer.
It simply looked at him.
Hao Tian understood.
He took a breath.
"I'm willing."
The puppet's eyes lit up with a faint, ancient glow.
"Confirmed."
"Trial for the 778th Primordial Chaos Inheritance begins."
Hao Tian's heart pounded.
"Candidate number: 778."
"The trial guardian's strength will be restricted to match the candidate's realm."
The puppet raised one arm slightly.
"Trial condition: The candidate must strike a vital point with sufficient force."
"Failure condition: Loss of combat capability."
Hao Tian's scalp went numb.
This thing…
Was his opponent?
"Prepare for battle," the puppet said calmly.
Then—
A number appeared in the air between them.
10
9
8
Hao Tian's breathing tightened.
His grip slowly closed around the hilt of his sword.
The pressure in the crater seemed to deepen.
And for the first time since entering this place, he felt something very clear:
This was not an opportunity.
This was a gamble with his life.