# Chapter 314: Decisive

In Lu Yuan's precognitive vision, two Spatial Rifts tore open above a vast forest. Green flames poured down like a deluge as green-robed humanoid figures surged through the rifts, corrupting Feral Beasts one after another, spawning Aberration Sources that radiated outward in every direction.

The Wheel of Fate slowly faded from his eyes, and the vision dissolved with it.

He raised an eyebrow, surprise flickering across his face.

*Those green-robed figures — aren't they from the Heavenly Calamity Cult? How can there be so many of them?*

Two Spatial Rifts, and roughly twenty to thirty cult members had poured through.

His mind immediately went to the Spatial Rift he'd encountered in the Dark Night Forest. The rifts in this vision were clearly the same type.

*So the Heavenly Calamity Cult really can open stable passages into the Upper Layer of the Land of Origin now. How are they managing it?*

A weight settled in his chest, though genuine worry was hard to come by. With his current strength, destroying two Spatial Rifts would be trivial. He could also harvest some Unknown Aura along the way, accelerating the Evolution Cube toward its next metamorphosis.

*And if suppressing these rifts pays out like last time, that should be another million-plus Merits. A few more of those, and I should be able to afford the Time Stasis Combat Technique.*

The problem was that he had no idea where those Spatial Rifts would appear.

But that wouldn't stop him. He had a rather unique method of finding his way.

Lu Yuan rose, vanished from the Gravity Room, and reappeared on an open field outside Sky-Mending City. He drew his greatsword casually as a ring of interlocking black and white materialized in his eyes.

Wheel of Fate — Fortune.

Spirit Power surged through him as he layered the maximum fortune effect onto himself. Then, silently repeating *find the location from the vision*, he tossed the greatsword into the air.

The blade spun end over end before thudding into the earth, its tip pointing north.

Lu Yuan nodded with satisfaction. "North it is."

He called this technique the Lucky Pathfinding Method. With the Wheel of Fate's extreme fortune in effect, getting lost was no longer a concern — he could find the right path with his eyes closed.

He retrieved the greatsword and vanished from the clearing.

Along the way, he stopped periodically to repeat the process — not to confirm direction, but to gauge distance. After all, he was traveling by spatial displacement, and it would be easy to overshoot.

Before long, a familiar forest came into view.

Colossal beasts roared and bellowed within. The rumble of combat echoed from the distance, and Lu Yuan could even sense the aura of Saint Grade powerhouses deep inside. This region lay enormously far from Sky-Mending City, and the Feral Beasts here were formidable to match — quite a few Aberration beasts among them.

Lu Yuan hovered in the air, scanning his surroundings and comparing them against the vision to pinpoint the exact location.

A savage roar erupted from below. Terrible energy rolled outward as a grotesque Feral Beast burst from a nearby hillock — two pairs of bat-like wings on its back, bristling with spines, wreathed in a sickly gray-green aura. It lunged straight at him.

A borderline Saint Grade Aberration Feral Beast.

Lu Yuan glanced at it. A pale gray scythe materialized above the creature's head and swept down. The beast froze mid-charge, all vitality draining from its body, and plummeted to the earth with a heavy crash.

*Scythe of Death really is something else,* he mused — not for the first time.

After dispatching the Saint Grade beast, he glanced toward the forest, then turned away and flew onward. The Spatial Rifts in his vision hadn't appeared in this area — at the very least, he hadn't seen any hillocks in the vision.

After Lu Yuan departed, several purple-skinned, single-horned Battle Emperors crept out of the forest on trembling legs. They exchanged glances, residual horror still plain in their eyes.

"Who *was* that?!"

One of them — a striking female Battle Emperor — spoke with a tremor in her voice, fear not yet faded.

A burly man beside her shook his head, equally stupefied. "No idea! That Chi-Bone Beast was a Saint Grade Aberration — and it just *died* like that! He has to be a high-level Battle Saint at minimum, possibly even War God rank! Didn't you see? He noticed us. He just didn't care."

A tall, gaunt elder spoke up. "With power like that, of course we were beneath his notice. What concerns me is that a Saint Grade Chi-Bone Beast was lurking here. If we'd gone up that hill earlier, things could have ended very differently."

The others nodded grimly. A group of Battle Emperors might seem formidable, but an ambush from a Saint Grade Aberration beast could have wiped them out entirely. Even without the element of surprise, they would have had to fight for their lives just to escape.

After a brief exchange, they turned and headed for the outer regions.

After killing the Chi-Bone Beast, Lu Yuan circled the forest several more times before finding a stretch toward the outer edge that closely matched his vision.

This area differed from the deeper zones. King Grade and Sovereign Grade Feral Beasts were abundant, and Gene Warriors were actively hunting them. He could sense a significant number of warriors in the vicinity. If the Spatial Rifts really appeared here, the casualties would be devastating.

But with him here now, that wouldn't be a problem.

His precognition showed future events, but the exact timeframe was uncertain — he could only confirm it would happen within the next few months. With no way to pinpoint the date, he had no choice but to maintain a presence.

Cultivating outside the Gravity Room was too slow to bother with, so instead he stationed a Shadow Divine Messenger in the area while his true body went to hunt Aberration Feral Beasts elsewhere — harvesting Unknown Aura and accumulating Merits in one sweep.

Time passed. A little over a month later.

Anastasia, Xia Zhi, Nina, and several other Nightshade Race prodigies arrived at the forest's edge, escorted by two Battle Emperor–rank Nightshade warriors.

The lead escort was none other than Violette — the same woman who had once invited Lu Yuan to meet the Nightshade Battle Saint, Gladys. She gazed out at the towering forest stretching endlessly before them like a green ocean and smiled.

"Your Highness, ahead lies the Skywaste Forest. It spans the border between Sky-Mending City and the Mechanical Race's Genesis City — an immense expanse. They say divine beasts dwell in its deepest reaches, and even War God–rank powerhouses would risk their lives trying to cross it. We'll be staying in the outer portions, where the Feral Beasts are mostly King and Sovereign Grade, with very few at Emperor rank. There are plenty of Aberration Feral Beasts out there, including nesting sites. If we're lucky, we might encounter a rare specimen — and rare kills yield rare Transcendent Genes."

Anastasia and the others listened attentively, nodding along.

Nina grinned. "I can barely wait."

Violette exchanged a glance with the other Nightshade Battle Emperor — a woman named Sherry — then spoke in a grave tone.

"Your Highness, the beasts in the outer forest may not be overwhelmingly powerful, but danger is still very real. Unless you encounter an Emperor-rank Feral Beast, Sherry and I will not intervene. Please stay vigilant."

Anastasia gave a slight nod and replied evenly. "Understood. Take us to an area with a high concentration of Aberration beasts. That shouldn't be a problem?"

Ever since learning that Lu Yuan had broken through to Battle Emperor, the urgency gnawing at her had only intensified. She needed Merits — mountains of them — to purchase cultivation resources and break through to Battle Sovereign. She wasn't terribly far from that threshold now. Just a bit more would do it.

Violette nodded. "The densest Aberration populations are generally in the northern sector. This way."

The group soon entered the Skywaste Forest.

Trees hundreds — even thousands — of meters tall packed the landscape, their canopies blotting out the sky. The Land of Origin had no sun to begin with, leaving the sky perpetually dim, but inside the forest it was pitch black. Fortunately, at Battle King Rank and above, night vision was extraordinarily sharp. Barring environments that actively disrupted perception, total darkness was no different from daylight.

The party pressed forward in the direction Violette indicated, dispatching every Feral Beast and Aberration they encountered along the way. As Nightshade Race prodigies, each of them had inscribed at least one Sovereign Grade gene despite only being at Battle King Rank. Anastasia herself had inscribed three, making her exceptionally powerful. Their coordination was seamless, too — even Sovereign Grade Aberration beasts fell before their well-practiced teamwork.

They moved quickly, and before long reached a stretch of dead forest.

The soil here was rotten, every towering tree long dead. Not a single leaf remained — only skeletal branches clinging to desiccated trunks. Gaunt, hairless canine beasts with gray skin prowled among the dead trees. Their eyes burned with green fire, and their bodies sprouted grotesque mutations — an extra eye here, a pair of tentacles there, even jagged bone spurs jutting from their flanks.

At the edge of the blighted zone, Violette's eyes sharpened.

"This appears to be a Rot Demon Hound nesting ground. Every one of them is an Aberration. Your Highness — we will not intervene."

Anastasia and the others spotted the distant hounds, and their expressions grew serious.

She nodded curtly. "Prepare to engage."

Xia Zhi and the rest acknowledged with sharp nods.

Then a deafening roar tore across the sky from somewhere nearby.

The Rot Demon Hounds snapped to attention, heads jerking skyward toward the source of the sound, howling in agitation. Violette and Sherry stiffened simultaneously. They locked eyes, saw their own alarm mirrored back, and immediately pulled Anastasia's group behind them.

Everyone's gaze snapped toward the disturbance.

The dead canopy offered no obstruction, giving them a clear view of what was happening overhead. Where the sound had originated, the sky itself seemed to fracture — two massive Spatial Rifts ripping open like wounds in reality. A tide of malevolent, twisted energy spilled outward the instant the rifts formed.

Green flames blazed within each rift — one to the left, one to the right — then cascaded downward like twin waterfalls of fire. Sickly green light flooded the entire forest.

Violette, Sherry, Anastasia — every one of them stared wide-eyed, shock written across their faces.

"That — isn't that the same Aberration Source that appeared in the Dark Night Forest?!" Sherry couldn't contain her cry of alarm.

Beside her, Violette's brow furrowed deeply. "Sherry — Your Highness — something is very wrong."

She had noticed it the instant the rifts opened: the Rot Demon Hounds — previously only King and Sovereign Grade — were absorbing the twisted energy pouring from above. Their power surged at a terrifying rate, blowing past their former limits. King Grade hounds reached Sovereign Grade. Emperor Grade hounds emerged among them.

"We leave. *Now!*"

Violette and Sherry exchanged a single glance — the pressure bearing down on them said everything words couldn't.

Anastasia and the others understood the severity instantly. They nodded without a word and began falling back.

Then an Emperor Grade Rot Demon Hound swung its head toward them and let loose a thunderous howl. Every other hound followed suit, green-fire eyes locking onto the group with eerie synchrony.

The entire pack charged, howling, their combined killing intent crashing forward like a wave that meant to devour them whole.

Violette's expression shifted. "Sherry! Take the princess and the others — go! I'll hold them!"

Sherry nodded without hesitation and moved to escort Anastasia's group away.

But roars erupted from behind them as well. Aberration beasts of all shapes and sizes surged out of the surrounding forest, closing the circle.

Xia Zhi's eyes went wide with disbelief. "Those were ordinary Feral Beasts just moments ago!"

Now every one of them had become Aberration creatures. And they were surrounded.

Anastasia's expression hardened to ice. She made the call without hesitation.

"Violette, Sherry — break through! We can handle ourselves!"

She knew that every second they lingered, more Aberration beasts would converge on their position. If they waited too long, escape would become impossible. Their only chance was now.