Epoch of Twilight

Both of them had departed by midnight, but it was already almost sunset by now.

Mushi County was about 700 kilometers away from the redevelopment area in a straight-line distance. If Luo Yuan was alone, he would already have been able to head there and back within just a day. But as he had brought Wang Shishi along, the journey had been slowed down with several stops to rest, as her perception ability was not able to last for long.

Fortunately, it was less than 100 kilometers from here to Mushi County and it would take less than an hour to reach there. However, when he saw Wang Shishi’s tired face, he still stopped and blamed himself for his own impatience. If the wisdom tree was really there, it would not disappear if he had delayed this journey by a day. Luo Yuan said, "The sky is getting dark. We should stop here now. Please be careful, I’ll be scouting around to look for a place to put up tonight."

There were mountains everywhere, but Luo Yuan managed to find a cave nearby a cliff. Outside the cave, there were dense vines that camouflaged the cave well. If it wasn’t for Luo Yuan’s sharp eyes which caught the rustling of the dead leaves, he would not have discovered this cave.

He forcefully ripped off the vines and gently covered his nose. An odor was lingering in the air from the cave. After a few steps, a mutated beast that looked like a giant bear rushed towards him, along with the pungent odor. However, it got hit badly by Luo Yuan just as it arrived him. Being flung a few meters away, it collapsed onto the ground heavily.

In order to avoid the smell of blood that could lead to unnecessary trouble, Luo Yuan was much more civilized this time and did not induce too much bleeding in his battles.

He even made sure dinner was settled for the night.

"STOMP!!"

Luo Yuan frowned and stepped on his foot heavily. There was a beetle that was trying to climb onto his feet – which was now crushed to death. Looking at this cave with various mutated creatures and insects that lived in harmony, he spread out the momentum and the air distorted violently. Large numbers of insects were already dead before they could escape.

After a while, Wang Shishi came into the cave as well. She did not care about the dirty cave any longer and sat on a rock. She was too exhausted to even want to move a muscle.

"Do you regret accompanying me?" Luo Yuan laughed.

"I am just not used to it yet. I’ll be fine after a break," Wang Shishi replied unwillingly.

Luo Yuan smiled and stopped teasing her. "You be careful while I go out to hunt for better food."

"Please come back earlier!"

Before Luo Yuan left, he veiled the cave with vines once more. He began to comb the forest. To an expert of the jungle who had identification skills, despite his meticulous search, chancing upon good food was no easy feat. If it was a planted tuber full of starch or succulent fungi, it could be found in abundance. As compared to the Reconstruction Area, many more choices of food can be found there.

Luo Yuan sniffed around and managed to determine a spot after walking for a few steps. He pulled away from the dead leaves above and found a bunch of snow-white eggs underneath. Each of the eggs was the size of a goose’s egg, and they were perfectly round, like a ball. There were more than hundreds of eggs all piled up into a mound.

Obviously, these were not bird eggs but those of insects. However, they were edible, tender and tasted more delicious.

After Luo Yuan picked five, he broke the rest of the eggs open before he left, out of habit cultivated back in the Reconstruction Area. The moment he saw any mutated creatures, he would eliminate them on the spot to avoid any possible risk.

Luo Yuan was lucky, as he found a plant bearing wild fruits before he returned. It was shaped like a hawthorn but was bigger by at least a hundred times. Each of them was as big as a football, with a very hard the shell, and was protected by barbed spines.

After he cracked the hard shell, a rich aroma filled the air. Luo Yuan ate one, and it was not as sour as hawthorns were, but it tasted slightly alcoholic, with a hint of frankincense. The flavor was indeed unique.

The whole tree was ten meters high but it only bore eight fruits. Luo Yuan picked all the fruits and used a large number of meter-wide leaves to wrap them up. Even if they could not finish all of them, he could still bring them back for Huang Jiahui and Zhao Yali.

...

The embers from the bonfire gradually extinguished and left only a dim red light in the dark.

Luo Yuan hugged Wang Shishi to sleep, quietly listening to the wailings of the mutated beasts outside. After being so accustomed to the peaceful life in the Reconstruction Area, and now having to return to the wild, they were unable to adapt just yet. Any small movement would easily jolt them awake

"Go to sleep. I am here to protect you." Said Luo Yuan.

Wang Shishi acknowledged him and was finally relieved. Her days’ worth of exhaustion finally outweighed the worries of the night. Her eyelids were getting heavy, and she soon fell asleep. After some time, Luo Yuan gently let go of Wang Shishi and looked at the time – it was already one o’ clock in the morning. He felt slightly cold in the forest and decided to get up to rekindle the bonfire.

Suddenly, a dim blue light swept through the cave. He curiously walked out, only to find that the blue light came from 30 to 40 kilometers away, and was shaking. Luo Yuan hesitated; the curiosity in his mind drove him to go over to take a look. He glanced through the surroundings and quickly found a pile of boulders.

He then pushed the boulders to block the entrance. Wang Shishi who was very tired after a long day was sleeping like a log, so the movement did not wake her up at all.

...

The forest was blanketed with thick fog, like countless evil spirits clawing close to the ground, which exuded a sinister vibe. The wailing sounds that came one after another, even made everyone feel like they were back in the prehistoric era.

Suddenly, a figure quietly passed through the forest, thronging through the mist.

Luo Yuan started to slow down; his steps became light and quiet. He hunched his body to completely submerge into the mist, before stopping to quietly lie on a hillside. He had a serious look on his face.

He found that the glow was not from a mutated beast, but rather, a scientific object.

It was about half a meter in diameter, shaped like a sphere and covered in white. Its surface was extremely smooth, and on its head, was a small concave arc. There was a fist-sized crystal supported by nothing; merely being suspended above the concave arc. The blue light was emitted from the crystals.

It seemed like there were some text and icons on the smooth surface. Other than the geometric shape of the icon, Luo Yuan did not recognize any of the text. In fact, it looked more like distorted squiggles than legible text at all.

The ball was floating around the forest, and that blue light kept scanning its surroundings – plants, animals and even tiny insects were not spared. Apparently, the blue light was malevolent. When it scanned through the mutated beasts, there was no harm done.

The ball was moving in a haphazard manner, fast at times, and slow occasionally. It sometimes flew upwards, and sometimes it swoops downward. Even when the forest was full of twigs, the ball could fly through the forest smoothly, hindered not by the twigs.

Luo Yuan’s face turned solemn. After the apocalypse, the technology advanced under the pressure of death. In just two or three years, the technological progress had made a dramatic improvement. Although it did not improve much due to a major setback in the civilian areas, the military area experienced an influx of changes.

The new highly explosive material, the armored exoskeleton and even the application of nuclear-powered guns had also been quite a breakthrough. However, Luo Yuan did not know that it was partially his credit to take, as the normal temperature of the superconducting material had helped many areas to experience a critical breakthrough.

But no matter how many breakthroughs science and technology had undergone, the history was always traceable, and thus, massive improvement could not be done overnight.

Even when the scientific and technological content in this tiny sphere had only demonstrated the ability of flight, it still had shocked Luo Yuan immensely.

Anti-gravity and advanced intelligence were the only things that he could see. As for that blue light, he had no idea what its purpose was. Furthermore, its smooth and futuristic appearance was obviously not an aftermath of the apocalypse.

His heart grew heavy. As of late, humans had no tendency to invent a ball to such a level. Even if they could create such an item, in order to reduce the processes to improve efficiency, the surface would be with marks and edges of a machine.

...

At this moment, the ball seemed to have discovered something, as it suddenly disappeared into a shadow, and flashed towards the front.

Luo Yuan heart was not at ease, as he quickly got up and tailed it. After running for 10 minutes, he hid again.

Somewhere in the near distance, there was a level four to five mutated beast. At this point, it lowered its head and growled as if to warn. Apparently, it was irritated by something. Any mutated beast would be agitated, should they be disturbed while eating, especially with a blue light emitted onto its body. It was a top-rated predator with a fiery temper, which finally acted on its anger. It stopped eating and its whole body burned up. A bluish flame was pounding on its body like a glamorous glow.

Luo Yuan noticed that its terribly high temperature had dramatically distorted the air of its surroundings. The scene in front had been blurred, and most of the nearby plants had burned up as they could not endure such a high temperature.

The dark night instantly turned crimson red. However, the ball inside the flame did not seem to be affected by anything at all. Occasionally, it even went close to the blue flame on the mutated beast’s body. That awfully high temperature seemed non-existent to that ball, as even the color on its surface did not change at all.

After a few seconds, the ball finished scanning the vicinity and began to fly away. The crystal on its head kept scanning its surroundings and completely ignored the raging mutated beast.

Before the ball could even manage to fly a few meters away, the mutated beast suddenly moved. It did not have to take many steps to attack the ball. In just a second, it already extended its head and opened up its mouth to swallow the ball whole, right into its stomach. The whole process happened too fast; even Luo Yuan could barely see it with much clarity. He looked serious, and laid on the floor, without budging. He could not believe that such a highly-advanced, technological item would be wiped out so easily.

Perhaps this level seven mutated beast could chew this item until it was thoroughly crushed, but it was impossible to be digested in its stomach. Luo Yuan did not have to wait long, for within seconds, a white light burst out from the thick skin of that mutated beast. One of the beams shot towards a nearby rock, and turned it into red hot, flowing lava. Luo Yuan could vaguely predict that a more powerful energy was going to break out soon.

His face turned pale as he quickly crept back. After retreating for a few meters, he heard a loud explosion. A heat wave charged towards him and blew right into his hair. Luo Yuan looked upwards and saw that this powerful mutated beast had been torn into pieces, and looked extremely pitiful. Its original bright red color of flesh had now turned into charred remains. It was now dead.

Amidst the smoke, a spherical head floated upwards, and the transparent crystal ball still exuded a dim red light. It circled around the spot before flying off to another place.

He was now 100 percent sure that this item was certainly an object that hailed from outer space. No matter how pressured humans were, technology would not have achieved such an advancement, let alone such a brutal one.

Watching the battle between the ball and the mutated beast and its self-defense, he could have easily chopped the ball into two with confidence. However, he did not plan to attack just yet.

He could not guarantee that this was the only intelligent robot, and there was no certainty on what the consequences were, after killing it. After all, even if science and technology on earth could already achieve real-time video streaming, there could possibly be an attack plunging down from outer space or even self-destruction, if he were to kill the ball.

Whether it was the self-defense of aliens or merely just a counter attack, he could not afford to take this gamble, as he knew nothing about extraterrestrial beings. When Luo Yuan thought of how the ball could easily destroy an area with a radius of 10 kilometers, he could not imagine how powerful they could be. His strength seemed to so inferior compared to such a destruction.

Luo Yuan continued to follow the ball stealthily. The ball’s active zones were not huge; it only kept spinning around. At about four o’ clock, the crystal suddenly abandoned its task and retreated inside the ball, when the arc concave opened up an entrance.

An invisible force spread towards the surroundings, and the grass nearby was instantly bent to the ground. The next moment, it flew up and broke through the dense forest in a flash. A large number of branches snapped and created a big hole of a three to four-meter radius in size. The ball instantly disappeared from his line of vision. Luo Yuan quickly ran out to the forest and looked up towards the sky. The ball had now become a tiny dot, and very soon, it disappeared into the horizon.