I used to sincerely, with all my soul, hate hiking. I hated walks, I hated dust, I hated sweat.
My room was my perfect, quiet, sheltered temple. A small cozy sofa, my loyal PlayStation, and endless, gripping matches in Mortal Kombat or Tekken. I could spend hours, days on end reading manga on a huge, bright TV, turning on my favorite anime and simply enjoying that thick, enveloping darkness.
My world was digital, and I like it.
But here... with every damn day, this alien, frightening nature bites deeper into my soul. This deafening voice of birds, this endless, maddening rustle of gargantuan leaves.
Perhaps it's this overwhelming, cyclopean gigantism of everything around. Metre-long, chitinous, disgusting insects that cross our path here and there, only to die — crunching, crushed, vile. And all around — massive, unthinkable Darwin Trees, some of which pierce the clouds, reaching hundreds of metres in height. Endless trees.
Endless greenery. An endless, sucking scale. That is exactly what fascinates: this picture is too grandiose for the human mind. Sometimes we found simply empty, scorched clearings, and sometimes the forest turned into impenetrable scrub where giant, hungry beasts, in blind attempts to devour me or Darwin, met instantaneous, merciless death.
Of course, any first-rank cultivator would kill such scum with one careless swing. Darwin, too, dispatches them with a certain frightening, beastly ease. Me... I still need my artifacts for that, but I have plenty. Too many artifacts for one person
.
Five days. Exactly five agonizing, long days have passed since my meeting with Darwin. We've measured dozens of kilometers, but due to this cursed gigantism of the terrain, it feels like we're standing still.
No complex cliffs, no sharp turns — just a monotonous, exhausting movement down the current of the great river. Down. Down. Down. I am sure, if we continue this path, we will reach the destination. We will definitely make it.
"Lord Lin... How does the so-called "Qi" even appear?"
Darwin — he understood biology incredibly, phenomenally well. Every beast he killed, every creature that attacked us was studied by him with maniacal precision. Whether due to some kind of organic X-ray vision or his own transcendent intellect.
Even without cutting the flesh, he already saw the bones, vessels, nodes. He questioned me about everything.
About cultivators, forbidden techniques, the complex structure of our bodies, our differences from ordinary people and mutants. And here it was — the main, fundamental question.
"No one knows, buddy. To be honest, people don't even understand what it is. Qi is everywhere and nowhere. Inside electrical charges, in the crushing strikes of lightning, in every written line, in every fleeting thought. It is an existence so complex, so elusive, so different from ordinary matter and habitual energy... Attempts to figure out what it is have not ceased for centuries. Fruitless, agonizing centuries of searching. And where does it come from? That is an even more complex, even more unreachable question. We don't even know what it is, Darwin. We just use it, not understanding the essence. We are blind, Darwin."
"Why do you think this world is so huge? Why does this monstrous gigantism prevail here?"
" You just can't imagine how vast the Dragon Continent is. It is monstrously, unthinkably, frighteningly huge, Darwin. To help you understand the scale of this madness: it is divided into sixteen giant regions. And just the Fish Region, where we are now, already exceeds the entire planet Earth in its landmass. A whole planet, do you understand? Humanity here is an incredibly, abnormally widespread species. Due to the development of technology, due to medicine that surpasses our real world, due to this hyper-efficient agriculture. Food here is cheap, food here is plentiful, food is everywhere. Therefore, the population grows. Unlike our old world, where the birth rate fell, here the lifestyle itself, the land itself does not allow it to happen. Vast territories, endless resources, the magical abilities of cultivators that allow them to build houses from nothing... The birth rate only grows. I don't know the exact figures, Darwin, but I think the number of people here has already surpassed a hundred billion. Hundreds of billions of souls in this infinite world."
Darwin listened. He listened with hungry, sincere interest. I saw it in his gaze — in that heavy, complex, deep, almost human gaze.
For his hyper-efficient, perfectly adapted body, this forest was just an easy, pleasant stroll. He studied every plant, every bird with a wingspan of thirty metres, every bush where a leaf was the size of my arm. For him, it was paradise.
A true, biological paradise. But for me, it was weight. An unbearable, pressing weight. Every step was a struggle. The belly vanished. The body began to grow hard, dry muscle. Proper nutrition with magical meat and elixirs of the past turned this body into something surpassing the physical capabilities of any ordinary human. It was magnificent. It was terrifying.
A fishing net. How often could one see an ordinary fishing net in my past world? Yes, often. And here, near cities, they should be too.
"Is that a fishing net?"
"Yes, Darwin, it's a net. It means a city is close."
When I saw this city, not a trace of my former grandeur remained. A fisherman, who approached later, drove us to the very gates. Huge, ten-metre gates.
After the City of Silver Knights, it didn't seem like something wild, but Darwin was in shock. He froze, rooted to the spot.
"It's a protection, Darwin. Magical formations, walls, steel. All of this is needed to deter animals and give people time."
Precious, pathetic time for salvation.
The city was small. A seedy, dusty, boring hole with not even a million people. No more than a village by the standards of this huge world. A heavy-set guard pierced me with his sharp, suspicious look. Not a cultivator. An ordinary person. Strange. One energy crystal allowed us to avoid a search and pass through quietly. We entered. Four-story stone houses, empty balconies, the scorching, merciless sun. The streets were empty. Almost deserted.
"Let's go eat."
I saw a stall cooking fried fish. Small, nondescript, smelling of oil and spices, thousands of such can be met in any city.
"Hello, young master! What will you take?"
People here don't give a damn about Darwin. In a world where cultivators turn into monsters after failed experiments, his appearance is just another oddity.
An ordinary, habitual oddity. Perhaps some brewer messed something up and the beautiful appearance of the youth... changed greatly.
"Give us some fried fish, bread, and some kind of juice."
The food was magnificent. Divine. After the dry, loathsome meat, this meal finally lifted my mood, to be honest, my thoughts have already settled, a plan of action has formed in my head...
" Tell me, old man, how are things in the city? "
I asked almost lazily, but inside, unease was already growing.
" Everything is fine, master! Only the taxes haven't been collected. The fish is going well. There's been a phenomenal amount of it in the river. I'll expand the stall soon!"
The old man smiled. A wide, kind, naive smile. And Darwin... he was stunned. Not a single snicker in his direction. Not a single sideways glance from that small group of citizens we passed on the road.
Here he was just a part of society. A part of the crowd. I saw how unusual it was for him. How strange it was for him to feel ordinary. Mutants in his world were despised, but here... here, nobody cares. He started to eat — fast, greedily, munching clumsily.
"Another portion for him."
"Mister Lin, you shouldn't..."
"Eat, Darwin. You'll need the energy."
I looked at the seller, and a black, sticky gloom washed over me. A premonition of a future disaster that will surely happen.
" How many of them, old man?"
The merchant's face changed. The smile slid off, exposing a grey, deadly fear.
Demonic cultivators. How. Many. Of. Them. In. The. City?
I hammered out every word.
He turned pale. He turned blue. He trembled with his whole body. Such terror is impossible to fake.
"There's no protection at the entrance. Ordinary people on guard — that's impossible. Only if all your cultivators are dead. The sun is scorching, yet the streets are empty. People are hiding in burrows. I'm not an idiot, old man. Speak."
The old man wept. Quiet, pathetic tears flowed down his wrinkled face. Animal horror before the inevitable.
"I have a family... children... I can't..."
I saw Darwin's eyes narrow. How the veins bulged on his neck. A righteous, pure, primal rage flared up in him. He remembered his world. Remembered the mockery of mutants. And he saw the same injustice here.
A shadow fell upon our table. A vile, fat, sticky shadow. A youth with a disgusting smile, familiar to me until it hurt, appeared behind us.
"You talk too much, fisherman. You have a long tongue. I hope your five-year-old daughter's is like you... Pucha-ha-ha!"
A first-rank demonic cultivator. A fat pig with a black blade in his hand. He was relaxed. He felt like the master of this meat stall. He looked at me, then at Darwin.
" I'll kill this fat one first. He'll go for skewers. And this freak, I'll..."
Crunch. A loud, juicy, squelching crunch of broken bones. The youth didn't finish. His fat body flew five metres and collapsed into the dust.
"Shut up"
Darwin growled.
Pfff.A real man. A real hero. I wanted to burst out laughing with delight; seeing the face of this fat pig turn into mush was truly amazing, suddenly my gaze fell on the fish seller, I saw it, how the old seller collapses into a faint from terror.
"Let's go, gramps. We'll only be in the way here. The real work is beginning."
"Eee-ee??"