Beginning with the Ubume Bird Chapter 275

Chapter 275: Chapter 1 The Truth Alone Triumphs, False Paths Do Not Endure

The abilities of Esteemed Walkers are generally composed of three parts.

The first is inheritance, bizarre and unmeasurable. Consuming vast resources, it is the direct support for every exceptional walker.

The second is the four-grid expanded skills, which don't require too much resources and hard work, and can be learned by spending points. However, they feel like rootless duckweed; at least in Li Yan's feeling, they're more like a kind of permission. Yan Fu gives it, and it's yours. Similarly, Yan Fu can also take it back at any time.

The third is specialization and self-enlightened skills, which often have bottlenecks that even Yan Fu can't help you break through. Their strength can't be quantified, but these are solid understandings that truly belong to oneself. In Li Yan's view, these skills are directly key to determining the upper limits of a walker's abilities.

Li Yan's current capabilities had long surpassed the limits of ordinary humans but, fundamentally, still relied on the spear and sword, following the logic of combat. At the same time, he also consciously focused on training his first and third kinds of abilities.

Fruit: Xiu'er

Lantau Island, on the sea surface outside the reefs.

Li Yan stood on a wooden raft, letting it drift towards the distance. He extended his arm and clenched the Tiger Head Great Spear in his hand, half of the spear's shaft submerged in the water as he closed his eyes and concentrated. The great spear remained immobile.

There are only three moves with a spear: block, snatch, stab.

A sword has only four actions: thrust, strike, parry, sweep.

In the entire South Seas incident, the moves of two people had stuck in Li Yan's mind.

One was Yan Ajiu's “Jiao Xi,” and the other was Zhao Xiaoyi's “Flying Carp Three Moves.”

Unfortunately, perhaps due to the difference in species, even though Li Yan's purchasing permission had reached its peak, he still couldn't visualize Yan Ajiu's “Jiao Xi.” On the contrary, without spending much effort, Li Yan had roughly figured out “Flying Carp Three Moves,” which in reality was a technique for exerting force. All three moves were for different situations, and in Li Yan's view, there was no need to separate them into three; one move was enough.

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Dragon's Craned Neck!

The surface of the water suddenly expanded into a hole the size of a bowl, and the entire half of the spear submerged in the sea came out completely dry!

Li Yan hadn't used the “Calamity Spirit's” ability to manipulate water vapor, relying solely on the power of his waist and arms. This fantastical technique was the key to how Zhao Xiaoyi could knock away other people's weapons.

Dragon's Craned Neck, that was the name Li Yan had given to this move.

A cloud drifted from nowhere above, the raindrops sparse, and in a moment, it turned into a torrential downpour.

“Whoosh~”

Waves suddenly rose high on the sea surface, half of the wave poised to crash down, encasing the wooden raft alone, and just as it was about to fall, it fiercely froze into a frosty white ice, covering Li Yan's head from above.

Li Yan placed the spear on his shoulder, casting a disdainful glance at the clouds above. Black streams of water circled around the spear, as if entwined by a demonic spirit.

That black stream of water was the Disaster Water.

Li Yan had been idle for a full two months. The Gu Huo Bird's “Blood Dip” without consumption, Hidden Flight's replacement, Wu Zhiqi's Disaster Water, spear techniques, Quanlang Sea Ghost, various abilities intermingling and progressing at a rapid pace, but without a target to demonstrate on, his bones were almost rusting.

Today was the day.

“Esteemed Walker, you are about to initiate a Yan Fu event.”

“You are not within the Heaven Jiazi Nine Fruits starting this event. After the event ends, you will return directly to Heaven Jiazi Nine Fruits, not to this fruit.”

Li Yan took out a silver fragment from his pocket.

Left by Taishuai, Barrett's Trigger.

“Initiate.”

Li Yan said lightly.

Before long, a voice reached his ears:

“Esteemed Walker, are you sure you want to use the prop to designate and enter a fruit? By designating an entry, you may encounter many unforeseen complications and dangers. Of course, these risks will also increase the settlement gains of your journey.”

“Confirmed.”

Li Yan had actually thought that nothing in this world comes without reason; Taishuai must have had an ulterior motive for giving him this thing. However, being overly cautious due to such speculation was not the way of the Hejian Skinny Tiger. The fundamental rules of Yan Fu were laid out there; it would not do to willingly place oneself in certain death.

Designating fruit: Ghost Branch, Tinghai Axis, Sequence Two Hundred Sixty-Two!

However, instead of the expected sensation descending upon him, a harsh cacophony of noises came through. It was like a radio transmission, or perhaps the sound of a cat clawing at a metal door.

“Tssss~crackling…”

After the noise subsided, another voice reached Li Yan's ears.

This fruit has already been plucked by a Yan Fu Walker!

Previous taker: Qiong Qi.

The event is still ongoing!

Yan Fu Walker, please pay close attention to the following points:

[This fruit does not exist in physical form as Earth Endurance!]

[This Yan Fu event will not count towards the number of events experienced by Walkers.]

[Even after experiencing this fruit, without Qiong Qi's permission, no Walker can record the sequence or location of this fruit.]

[A plucked fruit will not have the stacking effect, and all bodies of Walkers have been “withered” by Qiong Qi! You will abruptly find yourself within this fruit!]

These words were blindingly conspicuous, and what shocked Li Yan even more was that he again felt the sensation he had when first entering into a Yan Fu event–the feeling of being swallowed by darkness, of his body continuously plummeting in weightlessness!

After the darkness, he witnessed once more the teal-colored plasma ocean, downloading and loading onto and sinking into the verdigris grand hall…

Open your eyes!

Coarse grains of sand assaulted him, pattering against Li Yan's body, while billowing dust obscured the sun. Tumbleweeds whined as they rolled past his feet, crashing into the dried bones of cattle and sheep.

The desert?

He put on his Smith coat and looked around. Then, from the top of a dune, he spotted a rust-streaked blue metal plate with barely discernible numbers–14–it resembled something like a bus stop sign.

Li Yan's gaze lingered on this plate for a while before he looked into the distance.

Between the dim sky and earth, there were creased and twisted buildings with only their steel frames left, half-buried in the sand. Car wrecks were scattered as far as the eye could see, and occasionally, Li Yan could make out fragments of cracked asphalt roads adorned with white traffic markings he could not comprehend.

The branches of Populus euphratica trees extended from the car windows, merging indistinguishably with the metal structures. Li Yan walked over and tried to pull open a car door. Red rust flakes showered down, and he ended up breaking the door off entirely.

The car was empty; the leather seating was moth-eaten, and brown scorpions had made their homes within the crevices.

Thump~

A car frame collapsed, and the nearly dried-up fuel tank leaked gasoline that quickly soaked into the sand, leaving behind dense, tingling text for Li Yan.

Time: Old Era 1988, the 43rd year of Rigid Winter.

Location: b24 unpopulated zone, latitude 29deg41′, longitude 91deg1′

This world, finally perished along with the ambition of Hitler Adolf.

The war that broke out suddenly destroyed everything. Tens of thousands of nuclear warheads launched at the same time, and when people emerged from their shelters, they looked upon devastation, intense ultraviolet radiation, contaminated underground water sources, and immediately afterward, drought and bitter winters. The dignity of civilization had nowhere to rest.

The most despairing thing was that most of the human population, contaminated by radiation, lost their fertility.

And for the radiation in this world to fade to levels tolerable for ordinary humans would take nearly six hundred years…

Chaos, violence, desire.

Survival became the only necessity for humans to band together. Those who had weapons held hope for continued survival. Sex was a bargaining chip, bullets were currency, armored vehicles, airships, and tanks could crush all opposition.

In the meantime, amongst the nearly genetically collapsed human population under radiation pollution, mutants were quietly born…

Qiong Qi's note: I like it here; this is my backyard. No matter who you belong to, bring some benefits and get lost quickly.

The requirements for this Yan Fu incident are as follows: Search for “Shuishu Park,” and upon completion, you may choose to return immediately or opt to stay for a maximum of one more month.

There's an abandoned hideout of mine in “Shuishu Park”, the key is the Barrett's Trigger given to you. Once there, take whatever you can.

— Yu Shu

Li Yan read the content of the mission and the background information several times over.

“Sounds pretty easy.”

He then opened the exploration notebook of the Esteemed Walker in Yan Fu's world. As a Nine Luminaries Walker, he was able to filter out a lot of valuable information from it. But before he could finish, something unexpected happened!

Buzzing bullets exploded near Li Yan's feet, kicking up dust and smoke.

Li Yan was neither surprised nor angry, glancing in the direction from which the bullets came. A man in camouflage uniform emerged from behind an abandoned car, his military boots crushing a white scorpion, pulling up translucent slime…

He had the features of an Asian, dark skin, topped with an old M35 helmet and goggles, and the way he held his gun showed formidable military prowess, not that of an ordinary mobster.

But Li Yan didn't quite understand what he was saying.

“A wild mule?”

After cursing a few times and seeing that Li Yan was expressionless and his clothes clean and tidy, the man narrowed his eyes and asked, “Are you one of the Black Star war vehicles?”

“Uh…”

Li Yan hesitated for a moment before saying, “Yes.”

Bang!

Almost the moment Li Yan nodded, the man in front of him did not hesitate to pull the trigger, shouting fervently, “Long live the Medicine Buddha!”

Sparks and shards of ice flew out together.

An ice shell spontaneously shielded Li Yan's face, which although pierced through, deflected the bullet's trajectory.

Li Yan's feet shoved, and he vanished from his spot in a “whoosh,” the light of the Ring Dragon Sword glinting as he cleaved directly towards the man's Mauser rifle, utterly smashing the military man's rifle.

Li Yan wanted to spare a tongue, so he didn't deliver a killing blow, but something happened that Li Yan didn't expect.

The soldier's eyes suddenly turned blank!

Then he jumped back! Drew his gun! Shot!

The soldier was carrying four guns: one Mauser 98k rifle, two Luger P08s, and a break-action shotgun. During his backward leap, the speed at which he drew his gun and the firing rate of the pistols became incredibly fast, all in a blink of an eye!

Bullets poured down on Li Yan like a violent storm!

Wu Zhiqi, Calamity Wave!

The ice layer, a foot thick of frosty white, was shattered by the bullets. By the time they hit Li Yan, they were already harmless.

The defensive power of Quanlang Sea Ghost, calculated by the density of the surrounding water vapor, and including the 240 tons of water that Li Yan himself carried, meant that though he had been caught off guard, Li Yan was not injured.

But it hurt, infuriating Li Yan.

Thud!

Li Yan's right hand parried the bullet rain with his sword, while his left fist slammed directly into the man's head. With a dull thud, blood and flesh splattered, marking a gruesome death.

“Damn, used too much strength,” Li Yan cursed, not overly upset. Crouching down, he began rummaging through the man's belongings.

The records clearly stated that the environment was harsh; as a native, this man was naturally better prepared than Li Yan himself.

Field pants, belt, gas mask, goggles, sewing kit, alcohol, water bottle.

After Li Yan looted these, he examined the man's exploration records and discovered several particularly surprising entries.

“Tanya Mining, Black Star vehicles, Pompeii Armaments, these are what I've scouted. Are there any newcomers among the fruits of these major forces?”

— Anonymous

“Religion! Many people here follow obscure small sects from the past, Medicine Buddha?”

— Anonymous

“Now for some good news, all the major powers here are secretly researching genetic potions. There's a variety; some enhance physique, vision, explosive power, cell regeneration speed, and are calculated multiplicatively with inherited enhancements!”

— Mountain Ghost

“Hmm, I'm not sure if there are psychics here, but I've never seen such a terrifying sniper in my life.”

— Anonymous

“The environment is far more hazardous than people, with radiation still being a danger to walkers.”

— Anonymous

“One thing to be wary of for sure! Damn, this should have a higher price tag; the rulers of this world, those big mining and armaments companies, have become aware of the existence of Yan Fu walkers. However, in this apocalyptic era, they seem to only care about how to extract every last bit of worth from walkers, like, say, for dissection studies… Damn it!”

— Anonymous

“Don't worry about the rest; anyone who has seen a Legacy Projection must be silenced!”

— Changcheng

Having read through, Li Yan looked down at the soldier with the bullet helmet and observed the Sanskrit inscription on his chest:

stymevjytenaanRtm //

Truth alone triumphs, false paths do not persist.

Li Yan smirked, turned around, and walked away.

Chapter end