Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 22: The Temple

The suffocating darkness of the restricted zone was nothing new to Xu Qing.

He had survived the ruined city for over ten days, and he had already weathered several nights in this mutated jungle.

Wedged inside the hollow of a massive, rotting tree, he kept his eyes half-closed. He feigned sleep while silently drawing in the ambient spiritual energy—a volatile mixture heavily laced with toxic Mutagen.

As the energy flooded his meridians, the Sea Mountain Technique violently filtered it. The pure spiritual power nourished his flesh and bone, while the corrosive Mutagen was siphoned directly into his shadow.

Xu Qing was already accustomed to this symbiotic process. In fact, cultivating in this radioactive wasteland felt faster. Whether it was his shadow gorging on the dense Mutagen, or the constant, lethal threat keeping his mind razor-sharp, his progress had skyrocketed. He was already closing in on the fourth level of the Sea Mountain Technique.

*Like sharpening a knife,* Xu Qing thought.

He didn’t care for profound philosophies, but he remembered the words of a slum blacksmith: a good blade needs a harsh whetstone to bare its true edge.

This lethal zone was his whetstone.

Hours bled away. After completing a full circulation cycle, Xu Qing silently opened his eyes.

He peered through the crack in the bark into the pitch-black night. In the distance, the guttural roars of mutated beasts rose and fell, echoing through the canopy like the murmurs of dying gods.

A bone-deep chill saturated the air, invading every living thing. It seeped into the tree hollow, gnawing at Xu Qing’s skin.

It was freezing.

The oppressive atmosphere dragged his memories back to the ruined city, bringing with it a familiar, hollow ache of isolation. But loneliness was an old friend. He simply closed his eyes and resumed his cultivation.

Time crept by. His chosen shelter proved secure enough to keep the night’s usual predators at bay. But around midnight, a sound broke his concentration.

Footsteps.

Chaotic, shuffling footsteps, like a large crowd marching in unison.

Xu Qing’s eyes snapped open, narrowing into slits. He peered through the crevice, but the darkness outside was absolute. His grip tightened on his black iron skewer. The moment those footsteps had appeared, the distant roars of the mutated beasts had vanished entirely.

Dead silence had fallen over the jungle.

He remembered the footsteps that had accompanied the ghostly singing entity, but this felt different.

*No singing. Just walking.*

He analyzed the threat instantly, suppressing his breathing and locking his muscles in place. He stared into the void, waiting.

Gradually, the shuffling grew louder. A procession was approaching his tree. With them came a wave of supernatural cold—a freezing aura that bypassed flesh and bit directly into the marrow.

Xu Qing knew this cold. It was the same unnatural frost emitted by the red-shoed entity and the nocturnal horrors of the ruined city. But the intensity was weaker. The singing entity had threatened to freeze his very soul; this cold merely stiffened his joints. He could still move.

*Anomalies. Like the ones in the ruins.*

Xu Qing gripped his iron skewer until his knuckles turned white. He took a slow, silent breath, forcing his mind to calm. He squeezed his eyes shut.

*Don’t look. Don’t touch. Don’t encounter.*

After he closed his eyes, the footsteps suddenly quickened. They grew closer and closer, as if a horde of unseen beings were circling his tree.

Xu Qing’s heart hammered against his ribs. He fought the primal urge to open his eyes and see what was out there.

A long time passed. When the first rays of dawn finally pierced the sky, the chaotic footsteps ceased their circling and slowly faded away.

Daylight had arrived.

Xu Qing didn’t open his eyes immediately. He waited a while longer before slowly cracking them open. He saw that the entrance to his tree hollow was now sealed by a thick layer of ice. He had been completely encased.

Sunlight filtered through the ice, casting a pale glow on his face. He exhaled, placed his left hand against the frozen barrier, and pushed. With a sharp crack, the ice shattered, falling to the ground in pieces.

Xu Qing cautiously crawled out. He scanned his surroundings first. The wolf carcasses from the previous day were all gone. The ground, however, was covered in footprints.

Human footprints.

They were densely packed, as if hundreds of people had passed through.

Xu Qing had never heard of a group of hundreds entering the restricted zone together. Especially since… these were bare footprints, not the imprints of shoes.

He fell silent for a long moment. The strangeness of the restricted zone left a deeper impression on him. Now that it was daylight and the dangers had lessened, he didn’t abandon his exploration. He darted away.

Several hours later, Xu Qing finally reached the furthest point his group had previously explored—the small canyon where Captain Lei’s team had harvested the seven-leaf grass.

The canyon was just as they had left it. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of vines and tree branches overhead, dappling the ground. The scent of flowers filled the air, isolating this place from the horrors outside, making it seem like a hidden paradise.

Arriving here, Xu Qing relaxed slightly. He looked up toward the other end of the canyon, where the distant cluster of temple ruins lay.

After gazing for a moment, he withdrew his gaze. After a brief rest, he set off at a swift pace, heading straight for the temple complex.

The jungle beyond the canyon grew even denser, and sunlight became scarcer.

Perhaps because these ancient temple ruins still emanated a faint Pressure from their era of glory, the dangers diminished as he left the canyon and approached. The oppressive aura of the jungle seemed to soften.

In the forest closest to the temples, the trees even began to resemble those from the outside world—no longer twisted and blackened.

There was also some seven-leaf grass here, which Xu Qing collected.

Everything about this place surprised him, but his vigilance didn’t waver. He approached carefully.

Another hour passed. As dusk began to approach, he finally emerged from the jungle and stood before the sprawling temple complex.

Here, trees were sparse, and sunlight fell in wide swathes, making Xu Qing’s vision blur for a moment.

Before him stood a series of massive, domed structures, each dozens of zhang tall.

Even in their collapsed, ruined state, overgrown with moss, the temples—built from neatly stacked stone blocks larger than his entire body—exuded a sense of immense grandeur.

Walking among them, stepping on the shattered giant tiles, felt like entering a land of giants.

Broken pillars and walls were everywhere, each piece radiating an ancient sense of time, as if whispering their stories to Xu Qing.

Further ahead stood a collapsed statue.

Its lower half was gone, reduced to countless, irreparable fragments. Its head remained mostly intact, though its features had blurred with age.

Even so, it stood over thirty zhang tall. One could imagine that before its collapse, it must have been at least two hundred zhang high.

Standing before it, Xu Qing felt insignificant.

A wind blew through, carrying a mournful, flute-like sound that echoed desolately. It felt like a barrier across time, where past glory remained only for later generations to gaze upon.

Xu Qing stood silently before the statue for a long while.

He thought of the ruined city outside the slums. He wondered if, countless years from now, people of that future era would cautiously enter a restricted zone and look upon that city as he now looked upon these ruins—as a piece of history.

After a while, he withdrew his gaze and searched the temple complex. He found no sign of the special stone Captain Lei had mentioned—the one that was said to emit a seven-colored glow, appearing unpredictably.

Failing to find it, Xu Qing felt a pang of regret. He agilely leaped up, scaling a few broken walls to reach the top of one temple. Standing there, he surveyed his surroundings.

Behind him lay the outer regions of the restricted zone jungle. Though he couldn’t see its end, he could make out parts of it. Calculating the time, today was the fourth day—the deadline Gu Dao, who had bought insurance from him, had mentioned.

Yesterday, he hadn’t seen any fog in the jungle. Today was the same, so he didn’t need to mount a rescue.

He then turned to look in the other direction from the temple complex—toward the deep interior of the restricted zone jungle.

After a moment of contemplation, Xu Qing noticed the sky was growing late. He decided to venture a short distance into the depths, planning to return before dark, spend the night here, and head back at first light tomorrow.

Once decided, he immediately moved, jumping down from the temple and heading deeper.

The moment he stepped into the deep jungle, his nerves tightened intensely. His caution and wariness multiplied.

He knew the dangers here were far greater than in the outer regions.

And indeed, that proved true. After just half an hour, Xu Qing’s figure reappeared within the temple complex.

His face was grim, his eyes still holding a trace of lingering fear.

But his leather pouch was bulging, seemingly filled to the brim.

He had traveled less than half a kilometer and had already found numerous mature seven-leaf grass plants, as if they hadn’t been harvested in a long time. This delighted Xu Qing, as such aged herbs were very valuable.

But while harvesting them, he clearly felt the Mutagen concentration multiply. If not for his shadow absorbing it, anyone else would have been unable to take a single step.

Moreover, he had glimpsed from a distance one of the strange jellyfish-like entities he’d seen before in the restricted zone…

And there were over ten such entities here, though much smaller, their chilling aura still palpable.

Fortunately, most of these jellyfish hung from trees, seemingly asleep. Xu Qing spotted them and carefully avoided them.

But as he pressed forward, he felt an intense sensation—as if countless gazes from the deep jungle, tangible and greedy, were fixed upon him from unknown directions.

It made his skin crawl.

And this was only the very edge of the deep restricted zone. The interior stretched far beyond, unimaginable in its horrors.

Xu Qing didn’t dare go further. He retreated, managing to escape without major incident.

Only when he returned to the temple complex did that prickling sensation on his back fade.

It was as if the temples formed a boundary, repelling the malice from the deep zone.

Xu Qing took a deep breath. As the last rays of the setting sun lingered, he found a relatively intact temple and entered.

He located a crevice in the stone and squeezed inside, preparing to spend the night.

Captain Lei had said this place could offer temporary refuge from danger.

He had also inspected the temple interior. It was spacious, filled with a strong sense of elapsed time. Both the main statue—a stone figure holding a blade—and the numerous human figures carved into the walls had blurred with the passage of years.

There weren’t many traces or droppings from mutated beasts inside.

If there had been none at all, or if they had been everywhere, Xu Qing wouldn’t have chosen it. That would have been abnormal. Only this—some traces but not many—seemed relatively safe.

After all, though the temples were within the jungle, trees were scarce here. It made sense that beasts accustomed to dense forests wouldn’t frequent the area.

Soon, night fell.

As roars echoed from outside, Xu Qing silently cultivated.

Time passed. As he had judged, mutated beasts were rare around the temple complex at night. Though distant roars still sounded, they remained far away.

But just like the previous night, when Xu Qing was deep in cultivation around midnight, the eerie, chaotic footsteps appeared again!

This time, they were right outside the temple.

*Again?*

Xu Qing frowned. He didn’t know why these footsteps had appeared near him twice now. A vague unease settled in. After a moment’s thought, he followed the same protocol as before and kept his eyes shut.

But this time, the footsteps didn’t gradually fade away. Instead, they grew in number.

More and more gathered, until waves of chilling cold permeated the air, as if countless anomalies had congregated outside the temple, preparing to invade.

Xu Qing’s heart sank. He gripped his iron skewer tightly, his mind rapidly mapping the temple’s layout and planning escape routes should danger strike.

Just then, the gathering footsteps outside suddenly ceased. An absolute silence fell.

This silence didn’t ease Xu Qing’s tension. Instead, it felt like the calm before a storm. Every hair on his body stood on end. He had a distinct feeling that the anomalies gathered outside were hesitating, deciding whether to enter.

In the next instant, amidst the silence, the anomalies outside finally chose to step inside. Xu Qing heard the sound of footsteps on the stone floor of the temple.

*Thud.*

The sound struck Xu Qing’s mind like a boulder, making his heart plummet. But at that very moment, a chorus of sacred whispers suddenly echoed through the temple.

Simultaneously, strands of golden light erupted from the temple walls, illuminating the entire interior and washing over Xu Qing. The world behind his closed eyelids, once pitch black, was now flooded with radiant light.

Under this golden radiance, Xu Qing’s eyes stung with pain. For the first time when encountering such an anomaly, he opened his eyes.