....
A crushing aura erupted from a single point, as if the heavens themselves shrank in that moment.
An aura that could only belong to those of the second realm.
At the center of that pressure… was Di.
A young man, unnaturally handsome, as if beauty itself had been twisted into the shape of a demon.
His face was devoid of any warmth, his eyes black as the depths of a bottomless abyss, and his body pulsed in silence with an indescribable strength.
Beside him, on the cold ground… lay a completely dried corpse, stiff as if centuries of nothingness had passed over it.
Di glanced at the corpse briefly.. without regret, without contemplation.
He calmly reached toward its chest, pressed gently, and pulled out a small leather pouch.
Then, without hesitation, he kicked the corpse away.
As if it had never been human.
As if it had merely been a stage… now ended.
There was no emotion in his eyes.
No guilt.
No mercy.
Not even disdain.
It was simply… that what had passed, was no longer worth carrying.
Holding the storage pouch in his hand, Di stared at it for a moment, then sent his spiritual sense inside.
There was no resistance.
The caravan master was dead, and with his death, the spiritual imprint that once guarded the pouch had vanished.
The contents of the pouch unfolded before Di, as if a wall had crumbled.
What he saw inside… barely piqued his interest.
There were a few thousand low-grade primal stones, lying coldly in one corner. Their dim glow was barely noticeable, yet they still represented a decent fortune in the eyes of many.
His gaze moved to a group of unknown materials.. some dried herbs with strange scents, others metallic objects with twisted shapes, lacking beauty or value in his eyes.
There were also several tightly sealed vials containing medicinal pellets of various grades. Perhaps they had some use… but Di didn't need them now.
Spare clothing.. some formal, some simple.. and an old traveler's set of tools… nothing extraordinary, nothing that stirred his curiosity.
He didn't bother to analyze everything.
He withdrew his spiritual sense after a quick scan, as if the contents weren't worth the effort.
As for the caravan master's sword, which still lay near the wall, Di cast it a cold glance.
It was a finely crafted sword, no doubt, but in Di's eyes… it held no weight.
..
From his own storage pouch, Di took out a small object.
It was the tiny purple skull… still.
No pulse, no aura.. just a trinket seemingly forgotten in an ancient tomb.
But Di wasn't deceived.
He stared at it with emotionless eyes, yet behind that emptiness… was caution.
He still remembered the vision.
The chill that pierced his soul.
The entity that tore the sky apart…
That moment was no illusion.
Nor was it a dream.
It was consciousness, forcibly pulled to a threshold he wasn't ready to witness.
Slowly, he raised the skull, never taking his eyes off it.
"What are you?" he whispered inwardly, without a voice.
"And what is your link to that.. thing?"
Silence.
Then, as if to test the stillness, Di infused a thread of energy into the skull.
He didn't rush.
His energy was cold, dark.. like a shadow sneaking past a closed window.
At contact, nothing spectacular happened.
But Di felt it.
A faint tremor.
Like a stone dropping into a lake that had been still for centuries.
A dim glimmer lit up within the skull.. a faint, non-human glow.
Then… everything returned to silence.
Di closed his eyes for a second. Not from fear.. but from thought.
He slowly wrapped the skull in its cloth and placed it back into the pouch.
.....