CHAPTER 490: CHAPTER 367: DARK REALM AND VOID_2

You’re quite prone to getting hit, you know that?

"It’s not just the lantern." Without the light from the lantern, this place was plunged into complete nothingness. There was no light, and Li Zheng found that there was not even the presence of sound or air. The voice of Xu seemed to echo directly in his mind.

"Even you and I do not exist in this world. Don’t believe it? Touch your body." Xu continued ’speaking’.

Prompted by its words, Li Zheng raised his hand to touch the direction of his body, and his hand passed right through it.

No!

It wasn’t just his body that was gone; he even felt that he was nothing but consciousness.

This feeling was very peculiar and very strange. He could clearly know he had a body, but he couldn’t sense it, yet he could still transmit the thought of moving his body.

He tried to clench his fist, and though his fingers felt nothing, he knew his fist was clenched, yet that fist didn’t actually exist.

"This... what’s going on?" Li Zheng was dumbfounded. This phenomenon was completely beyond his understanding.

"This is ’nothingness’. I just let you experience a moment where even consciousness doesn’t exist here. Unfortunately, you don’t remember experiencing it because that feeling is non-existent to you, it is void." Xu’s voice continued to sound.

"So... can the concept of nothingness be explained with death?" Li Zheng attempted to understand the concept in his way.

"You could say that. ’Nothingness’ includes ’death’, while ’existence’ includes ’life’. Let me show you something interesting."

As Xu finished speaking, light suddenly returned, and Li Zheng looked down to see that he was still holding the lantern.

As if everything that had just happened was an illusion.

"Look." Xu raised a hand and gently tapped, and a ripple appeared between the two "people".

Before long, a silhouette jumped out of the ripple, tense and fearful, mumbling incessantly.

"Don’t shake, don’t shake! If I don’t run now, I’ll die! Ah!!!"

In the next moment, his figure dissipated and turned into another person.

"No! I can’t accept this! How could I die here, at the hands of this trash?!"

Afterward, he also vanished, changing into another man somewhat similar to him.

"Hehe, it’s the victor who becomes the king. If it weren’t for that fool Lin Fan, how would I have lost?"

He disappeared too.

After this, one figure after another appeared, and Li Zheng watched all this in shock.

Because he knew these people!

The first was "Chen Xiao", a player killed and devoured by the Desert Fire Scorpion, whose death previously made Li Zheng quite sentimental. It was also because he discovered his Identity Card, allowing Li Zheng to experience a so-called feel of "death’s parting".

The second was Lin Fan, seemingly still stuck at the moment of his death, crying out in defiance.

The third was Lin Feng...

Then came Gangmen Pianzou, Gangban Rikawa, Meichuan Kuzi, Kato Junwa...

Some had died at the hands of Li Zheng, and some had not.

But their common trait after appearing was that they were unaware they had been dead for some time, their thoughts still frozen at the moment of their death.

"Are these... souls?" Li Zheng murmured. If this were the case, perhaps there was a way to turn virtual into reality and resurrect some of them?

"Not souls." Xu smiled: "These are merely the traces they left when shifting from reality to virtuality."

"Without your arrival, bringing a slight amount of reality to the Dark Realm, I could not have shown you those traces just now."

Just traces...

No way to resurrect.

Li Zheng was a little disappointed. He had thought he could bring some players back from here.

Now it seems, even if he did bring them back, they would only repeat the same state as earlier.

To put it simply: their souls are no longer complete, only retaining the memory of that moment of death.

In this state, even if brought back, what would be the point?

Li Zheng shook his head, dispelling these thoughts, and asked, "You still haven’t told me why this place is called the Lamp Holder Headquarters?"

"Is that important?" Xu asked in confusion: "You only need to know that this is the Dark Realm, also called the Lamp Holder Headquarters by some creatures, isn’t that enough?"

"Not enough. I want to know more!" Li Zheng said: "I want to know how creatures before me entered here, and... what’s the deal with this lantern!"

At this moment, Li Zheng looked rather stubborn.

"Wow, you really are... determined to get to the bottom of things." Xu sighed with a smile: "It seems you won’t give up unless I explain it to you clearly."

"Before you, indeed, some creatures accidentally entered here. They had a common characteristic, they didn’t have a physical body, and belonged to a unique life form that exists between reality and virtuality."

"Between reality and virtuality... I think I’ve encountered that before..." Li Zheng frowned: "Abyssal Walking?"

"Hmm... It seems there was indeed a fellow from such a race who broke in here." Xu showed a displeased look, "That was an impolite fellow, whom I imprisoned here for a very long time, and later I gifted to someone else who seemed more agreeable..."

"Speaking of which, the lantern you’re holding was crafted by that fellow later. Using Abyssal Walking as a guide, it utilizes this race’s inherently stable virtual-reality characteristics to travel between the Dark Realm and the Physical Realm."

Xu’s words resolved a previous doubt for Li Zheng.

That was when encountering Abyssal Walking, taking out the lantern astonishingly absorbed it completely.