The Decaying World

Chapter 201: Chapter 191: Radiation 3

「Early on the morning of the 12th.」

Lin Hui went to the dining floor with Hong Ling again. After their meal, Wang Yue stopped by, bringing with her a young man named Xie Sheng Sheng to join Lin Hui for a meal.

This was Lin Hui’s last meal before leaving the Inner City.

The group switched to a different restaurant, sitting around a large, red wooden table.

In the center of the table, a small pine tree was slowly sprouting and growing.

The pine tree’s trunk branched out, growing green pine needles. White fruits of various sizes naturally formed at the tips of the needles. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

"This is our main course for this meal. Don’t worry, go ahead and eat. These fruits are desserts made from flour mixed with pine nuts. They taste pretty good," Hong Ling said enthusiastically, playing the host.

"It’s not easy to snag a meal from Minister Hong," Wang Yue remarked. The blackness on her body had faded, revealing her true appearance. She was a short-haired girl with a tomboyish air and striking features, quite attractive in her own right. Then again, there were hardly any unattractive people in the Inner City Moon Tower.

Xie Sheng Sheng, the friend who came with her, was likely her boyfriend. The two sat very close, their hands clasped together under the table in a display that was almost sickeningly sweet.

"What are you talking about? With our relationship, you can come sponge a meal off me anytime," Hong Ling said with a laugh.

"I wouldn’t dare. Your mother, Elder Hong, is far too intimidating. I don’t even dare to go near your house. The last time she spotted me from a distance, I was nearly lured into participating in one of her ’activities’..." Wang Yue said, a look of lingering fear on her face.

Beside them, Hong Lingxiang quietly sent a mental message to Lin Hui, explaining why Wang Yue was so afraid.

Their mother, Elder Hong, was a key figure in the Extreme Desire Heaven and went for both men and women. Once you joined one of the activities she organized, she wouldn’t let you go until you were played to the point of complete exhaustion.

"Besides, as elders, my mother and the others have a monthly ’death by pleasure’ quota. And that quota is filled by people from the Core Area of the Inner City Moon Tower," Hong Lingxiang sighed.

"The Inner City?" Lin Hui was taken aback. "What about the Outer City?"

"The Outer City...?" Hong Lingxiang also seemed surprised by the question. "Isn’t it largely ungoverned, with only basic order maintained? They can grab anyone they want from there, whenever they want."

"...Don’t the lives of Outer City People count as lives?" Lin Hui mentally replied, his brows furrowed.

"Lin Hui, there’s a problem with your thinking," Hong Lingxiang said earnestly. "The Outer City is just a region. Most of the people there are exiles from the Inner City or drifters from other districts; they’re not a good lot to begin with. Besides, a flower that grows from the mud can still be beautiful. You are no longer one of the mud-people from the Outer City. Don’t sell yourself short."

"..." Lin Hui was speechless.

"From the moment you stepped into the Inner Power Realm, you were no longer an ordinary person. You just happened to live in the same area as them. There is a massive, natural chasm between you. You are of our class, not theirs," Hong Lingxiang repeated with seriousness.

"I understand what you mean." Lin Hui sighed and collected himself, no longer wanting to discuss the topic. freewebnovel.cσ๓

At that moment, Hong Ling was discussing the power of the Blood Ancestors he had witnessed with Wang Yue and Xie Sheng Sheng.

"I saw it with my own eyes this time. After a Blood Ancestor uses Blood Heart Devour, the loss in the process is about thirty percent. This ratio should be fairly accurate and isn’t far from the rumored twenty percent. This means the maximum power a Blood Ancestor can devour and grow in a year is roughly equivalent to their own total power," Hong Ling said seriously.

"That’s still terrifying. The key is, where do the Blood Ancestors find so many enemies to devour and supplement their Blood Hearts? The Fog Area? And surely this growth is constrained by the limits of their own willpower?" Wang Yue said softly.

"That’s right. That’s why the higher-ups place so much importance on Heart and Spirit. Especially for us of the Original Blood. As long as our will and Heart and Spirit can keep up, once we reach the Blood Ancestor level, the amount of power we can obtain is virtually limitless," Hong Ling said with admiration.

"Resisting decay, strengthening oneself... you need a strong Heart and Spirit for everything. That’s normal. So, how strong do you think the Fourteenth Blood Ancestor who acted this time is, at his absolute limit?" Xie Sheng Sheng asked curiously.

"It’s hard to say what their limit is. After all, no one at that level would expose their full strength for no reason. They always hold a few things back.

But in terms of their usual performance, Blood Ancestors aren’t famous for wide-area destruction. AoE attacks are meaningless to them. They rely on extreme speed, immense power, and an absolutely fortress-like constitution from wearing Void Power Divine Armor. If you can’t break through their Void Power, you don’t even have the right to touch their skin," Hong Ling said seriously, combining it with the scenes he had witnessed.

"Then how do you explain the crater several hundred meters deep that you mentioned?" Xie Sheng Sheng pressed.

"That was collateral damage from the leaked aftershocks of their clash. In fact, even watching from a high-altitude Moth Car, we had to stay at least several dozen kilometers away to be barely safe. Otherwise, we’d have been hit by the leaking aftershocks and not even our corpses would have remained intact," Hong Ling said with a helpless shrug.

"What are you guys talking about? The power levels of the Blood Ancestors?" Lin Hui asked, his curiosity piqued.

"Yes," Wang Yue nodded.

"Don’t you Moon Tower People know? Haven’t you seen them in action before?" Lin Hui asked, surprised.

"We’ve seen them, of course. The main thing is that the Blood Ancestors’ strength isn’t fixed," Wang Yue explained.

"What do you mean?" Lin Hui’s interest was piqued. He was most interested in anything related to power realms and cultivation.

’It was mainly because he had no frame of reference to benchmark the path he was on. That’s why he always paid close attention to this kind of classified information.’

"It’s like this, let me explain," Hong Ling interjected. "The Blood Ancestor realm, a level above Palace Master, is actually a stage unique to the Original Blood. Those who aren’t Original Blood don’t have this realm; Palace Master is their limit. After that, they can only enhance their strength by means such as fusing with a replica of the Evil Soldier Insect Scripture, strengthening their combination of Martial Arts, or searching for powerful relics. All of these require establishing a faction to search far and wide."

After a pause, he continued.

"The core of a Blood Ancestor is something called a Blood Heart. This requires an Original Blood Noble to purify and condense their entire bloodline. The success rate is extremely low, and failure means certain death. That’s why there have always been so few Blood Ancestors. In Tuyue, their number probably doesn’t exceed twenty. Officially, only the elders of Extreme Desire Heaven and the Taixu Origin Disk are Blood Ancestors, which adds up to ten, including my mother. But there are likely many noble Patriarchs who hide their true strength, so we guess the total is no more than twenty."

"Actually, many people know about this realm; everyone has studied it thoroughly in their attempts to break through to the Blood Ancestor stage. After a Blood Ancestor condenses a Blood Heart, it doesn’t actually increase their own power at all, because the Blood Heart itself has no ability to directly enhance strength. It has one, and only one, ability: Devour."

"Devour?" A chill went down Lin Hui’s spine as he began to form a guess.

"That’s right. After defeating an opponent, they can devour everything from the opponent’s collapsing Heart and Spirit—both their Mental Power and their physical strength. This also means a Blood Ancestor’s upper limit of power depends entirely on how many powerful enemies they have defeated. So, just how strong the Blood Ancestors are is an unknown. Only they themselves know their true limits," Hong Ling explained.

"Theoretically, the Blood Ancestors’ method of power is actually derived from the highest-level Fogman City Lords," Wang Yue added. "A Blood Ancestor defeats and then devours an opponent. The Fog People, on the other hand, spread a misty rain over an area. Anyone who cannot endure and resist the rain’s erosion will become a part of the Fog People’s power. The two are similar in form."

"..." This was the first time Lin Hui had heard about the power of the Fog People. He had always assumed they were just top-tier experts with immense power and a massive area of effect.

But now, the people at the table were telling him he was wrong. The Fog People were an ultimate power that could grow. How strong they were depended entirely on how much power they had devoured.

’Suddenly, Lin Hui thought of the sealed fortresses guarded by the Black Army. In that case, were these fortresses merely sealing the gates to other spaces—rather than destroying them completely—precisely to provide the Fog People with a continuous source of power to devour?’

’It was remarkably similar to the Wind Disaster Affinity he had just acquired.’

After the meal, Lin Hui went to the Moth Car parking area to pick up the one gifted to him by Hou Xihan.

It was a giant moth, entirely black, with two grayish-white eyespots on its back.

"What a fine moth!" A flash of envy crossed Hong Ling’s eyes as he looked at the Moth Car. By comparison, his own Moth Car was clearly a tier lower.

"Sister Han is certainly generous, as expected of a big shot from the Taixu Origin Disk. You’ve hit the jackpot. A Moth Car like this would cost at least ten thousand bloods on the market."

"That expensive!?" Lin Hui, who was gently stroking the Moth Car’s smooth wings, jumped in surprise.

"Of course it’s expensive. Why else would Sister Han announce it in front of so many people? For a powerhouse of her level, this is considered a relatively formal gift," Hong Lingxiang said, her eyes also full of envy.

At her age, she still had to share a Moth Car with her brother, and one that was a tier lower than the one before them.

"Then I owe her a pretty big favor," Lin Hui said in a low voice.

"Don’t worry. For someone at Sister Han’s level, it’s just casting a wide net. She’s betting on your future—or to be more precise, your brother’s future. If your brother takes a position of power in the Rain Palace one day, and if his master takes another step forward, he could almost enter the Taixu Origin Disk and be on the same level as Sister Han.

Then the value of today’s gift will be more than worth it," Hong Lingxiang said with a smile.

From her words, Lin Hui understood that his big brother, Liu Wu Jun, had considerable potential and was highly valued by the higher-ups. But even more valued was his brother’s master, the Vice Palace Master of the Rain Palace, Jiang Zhixia. This person was likely an Original Blood Noble holding a concurrent post, with room for advancement, and would very possibly enter the Taixu Origin Disk—one of the highest institutions—in the future.

Climbing onto the new Moth Car, Lin Hui, under the guidance of his friends, grasped the two moth antennae with both hands and completed the initial bonding process.

"When you’re in the Outer City, you can keep the Moth Car at the nearest flight point. This thing has a hefty appetite, needing several hundred pounds of meat, fruits, and vegetables every day. The flight points have specialized handlers who’ll take care of it. You just have to pay them. It’s about 400,000 silver a month," said Hong Ling.

"Alright... Thank you for your generous hospitality, Brother Hong." Lin Hui cupped his fist at him, then boarded the Moth Car. He then clasped his hands in salute to the others one by one.

"Thank you all for seeing me off. Let’s meet again when we have the chance."

"Alright. Be careful on your way. You’re now a person of status in the Moon Tower. Since you’ve registered, you can come and go as you please from now on. The Peacekeeping Army won’t stop you, don’t worry," Hong Ling said with a smile.

"Okay, thank you." Lin Hui nodded, smiling as he patted the Moth Car. He gripped the antennae and pictured the direction and appearance of his destination.

Instantly, the black moth began to crawl forward. With a quick leap, it jumped from the edge of the Moon Tower, spread its wings, and glided away.

Around him, as noon approached, other Moth Cars could be seen flying and soaring above the sea of fog.