THE MARTIAL KING - Season 9 Episode 23

Shaking his head dazedly, he looked over at another side and saw something much more peculiar and astounding than the sight he had seen just a moment ago. “Eh? There is another continent?!” he exclaimed, eyes wide as saucers at the new information. Due to the visual that captivated him and caught his undivided attention, he was absolutely certain that this unknown continent was even a hundred times bigger than the entirety of the four divine kingdoms! Scanning his eyes back and forth between this continent and the others, Zen found that the Central Region, the four divine kingdoms, and even the formidable Sea God Continent were like islands rather than continents. It was an undeniable fact that all of them looked insignificant compared to the former. “What is that place, anyway?” Zen asked out of curiosity, somehow mesmerized and intrigued by the huge continent he had little to no knowledge of before that very moment.

Needless to say, he was without a doubt, awfully curious about the Upper World and what was in it.

The Upper World possessed over one hundred thousand great worlds and tens of thousands of varying races. Although the place was clearly abundant, Zen, upon taking a good look at the world where he had lived in, realized with a sinking feeling that he did not actually know much about the place he had stayed in all those years.

Progressively flying farther away made the continents look smaller in comparison until they became vague shapes in the distance. As Zen’s consciousness suddenly accelerated, he rose infinitely, not really knowing where it would take him.

“The gale!” the man cried out upon sensing the forceful current of air approaching his form.

In the blink of an eye, a huge mass of intense wind appeared around Zen and revolved ruthlessly everywhere he could lay his eyes upon.

With his forehead creasing in worry, Zen noticed the gusts of howling wind were seemingly able to break everything they came into contact with to shambles.

Moreover, he observed that when the masses of strong gale collided with each other, a penetrating boom was emitted, as the collision created even more dangerous gales. The sight reminded Zen of a terrible tornado except this was ten times more distressing; the windstorms exponentially grew, constantly dissipating and colliding with each other which endlessly produced more intense wind.

No one below, not even Zen, was well-informed of the existence of such terrifying gales. Perhaps these occurrences had existed ever since the infinite universe came to be, which did not remove the fact that not a single being had ever been able to penetrate such a disarming layer of gale.

Even if Zen’s body, which was a top-grade fairy weapon, was drawn into the immensely strong wind, it was highly likely that he would be ground into fine powder by the sheer force of it.

However, Zen glanced down and instantly remembered that he was not in his physical body. Exhaling inaudibly, he was suddenly grateful that he did not have to experience being pushed and pulled by the harsh gusts of wind.

Feeling relieved, Zen bore in mind that he was currently just a strand of consciousness perpetually rushing forward. Due to this, he was now enthralled by the way the dangerous gales were not able to touch him or cause the slightest bit of harm to him.

After passing through the layer of treacherous winds, Zen once again turned his head around and looked down at the vastness of the space before him.
Just like every single person who had gone through the same childish curiosity about the new and ensnaring world they lived in when they were young, there were at least one or two questions Zen had always wondered the answers to.

When Zen himself was at a tender age and his father had still been alive, Zen recalled innocently asking his father for the first time as they sat together one day. “Father, what is at the end of the Eastern Region?”

With a placating smile at his son, the old man replied, “Well, the end of the Eastern Region is the Central Region, son.”

Hearing his father’s answer, the young Zen nodded absent-mindedly and looked up at him with round eyes before asking another question, “Then what is at the end of the Central Region?”

“Hmm, at the end of the Central Region is the sea…” His father drifted off and frowned, not really knowing how to respond to his son’s incessant inquiries.

Unperturbed by the unsure tone of the older man, the child asked once more, “And what is at the end of the sea?”

After the question, his father was then unable to answer him directly. Instead, he had plopped a thick book that covered myths from the great lands, dictating him to browse through the book himself to find out the answers to his questions.

Upon reading the contents of the book, the legends had stated that at the end of the sea was a wide cliff. Fascinated by the answer provided by the text, the young child was contented to know that the entire world’s seawater constantly flowed down the cliff.

However, his childlike content did not last long before he found another thing to mull over. “Then… What is at the bottom of that cliff?”

The young Zen raised such a question, perplexed by the idea of where the flow of water possibly went after exiting the cliff. Unfortunately, not a single adult he had asked knew the solution to his problem. Not even the books he had browsed through held the answers as there was no such record in the myths.

As his consciousness moved farther once more, Zen’s field of vision grew wider and wider. Those continents had all turned into black dots, with the boundless sea around them!

“The border,” the man mumbled in disbelief before rubbing his eyes to make sure he was not hallucinating it. “There it is!”

The young man swept his gaze over the vastness of the blue ocean and finally found the edge of the water—the end of the world’s territory.

However, Zen became disappointed to a great extent upon seeing that the edge was covered with a dense mist that was white in color.

If Zen was to compare what he was currently seeing to something he could understand, it looked as if the entire world was surrounded by four giant walls made of white mist. It was unmistakable; the silvery vapor appeared to be surrounding a diamond-shaped world!

“How could this be?” he whispered to himself, his expression showing incredulity as he shook his head.

When Zen’s eyes grasped the impressive scene before him, he could not help but feel a surge of excitement at the discovery. The fact that he, alone, was able to witness such a spectacle was thrilling to him and made his blood rush to his ears.

As the spellbound man peered over the wall formed by the hazy mist, another vast sea stared back at him, a similar sight yet completely different from the ocean he was familiar with.

Pondering over what he was seeing at present, Zen started to mutter under his breath, “The sea here…”

“This is not the one that belongs to the world I live in. Maybe it’s part of another world,” he continued, musing with wonder at the thought of another world close to his own. “So it turns out that two different worlds are inextricably linked. But where is the end of the world?”

As of the moment, Zen’s consciousness relentlessly flew at increasing speed as he pored over the new knowledge he had just gained from the universe.

Contemplating on his life back on his world, it seemed like Zen finally understood what other people meant by roaming the great world. With a slight smile briefly gracing his lips, he was definitely fortunate to be able to experience something as life-changing as this.

The whole world looked so massive and intimidating, as if there was no end. Tilting his head up, Zen’s eyebrows furrowed; even though he was flying at such a bullet-like speed, the distant stars stubbornly remained too far away for him to reach. It was as if the distance between him and the twinkling lights was not shortened at all, for they were still significantly distant. Even if Zen’s consciousness traveled higher and higher through the atmosphere, there was only a marginal change between their gap, much to his displeasure.

Luckily for him, his consciousness constantly sped up compared to the slower pace from before, moving faster and faster towards the celestial bodies.

After a long while, Zen managed to look back once more at the world below, locking his gaze on the world he had left.

Biting his lip restlessly, it was instantly evident that there existed multiple worlds that could be linked with one another. Each of these worlds was merely separated by four thick wall-like mists, just like what he had observed surrounding his own world. If one was to look as far as Zen was able to, the worlds that interconnected with its neighboring worlds appeared like menacing scales on the hide of some vicious beast.

“What is that?” He examined the being with prying eyes, oddly intrigued and horrorstruck by the thing.

Taken aback, Zen eventually figured out that there was indeed a giant intimidating beast that stayed on those scales!

The gigantic monster was completely coated in black, as if it was born directly out of the stillness of the night. Its appearance was eerily similar to that of a humongous turtle as it crawled slowly, seemingly able to absorb any form of light if one happened to pass by it.

Despite being extremely threatened at the sight of such a terrible creature, Zen still marveled at the unknown beast, most especially its remarkable scales. Dumbfounded, Zen finally became aware of the fact that every diamond-shaped scale was actually a singular world. As the giant beast covered over a dozen scales, it meant that it also covered over a dozen distinguished worlds. The actuality that the turtle-like being was even crawling while it had multiple worlds under it was all the more astounding to Zen.

Dazedly looking at the crawling creature, the realization sunk in the pit of his stomach like an unsettled stone in the middle of a raging river. With such a massive body that was ultimately larger than a dozen worlds combined, it was very much possible that it could easily crush a world with a single stomp of its colossal feet.

The man’s breath was stuck in his throat as he became speechless at the scene in front of him. As his astonishment reached its peak level, Zen merely blinked at the beast, a wave of shock washing over his very being.