*Chapter 13 — Vitality Aura*
The Grand Calamity had begun.
That was where the history books continued. As Arin gazed into the endless wilderness, another fragment of what he had once learned surfaced in his mind.
The appearance of the Eyeball had not been the end of the disaster. It had only been the beginning.
Purple roots began spreading across the world. They emerged from the earth and stretched across the land, spreading farther and farther with each passing day.
Wherever they reached, the world changed. The Grand Calamity became worse.
Cities that had once been filled with people became ruins. Countries collapsed. Continents were devastated. Humanity's modern civilization, which had taken countless generations to build, was torn apart in a matter of months.
The technology that had once made life easier became useless. Machines stopped functioning. Communication systems went silent. The modern world was slowly erased.
Billions of lives were lost. Humanity was forced to abandon the civilization it had known and fight simply to survive.
The history books described those years as some of the darkest in human history. But they also recorded something else. Humanity did not completely surrender.
When extinction stood at the world's doorstep... Something answered.
Arin opened his eyes. The fragment of history faded from his mind. He was no longer thinking about the past. He was standing in the Mysterious Realm. And something strange was drawing his attention forward.
---
Arin took another careful step in the direction where the strange presence had disappeared. He didn't know what it was. It wasn't Blood Qi. It wasn't the blood qi of a beast. And it wasn't Spiritual Qi either.
The sensation was completely different. It was gentle. Almost soothing. Yet there was something about it that made his body react instinctively.
Arin stopped. He closed his eyes and concentrated. The strange energy was faint, but he could feel it moving through the forest. It was as though the entire area was carrying a type of energy he had never encountered before.
"What exactly are you?" There was no answer. The sensation disappeared again.
Arin stood there for several seconds before opening his eyes. His instincts told him to remain cautious. He continued forward.
---
The deeper Arin went, the stranger the wilderness became. The trees were becoming larger. The air felt cleaner. Even the atmosphere seemed different.
His body, which had been exhausted from three weeks of constant fighting, felt slightly more comfortable with every breath.
Arin noticed the change. His eyes narrowed. "That strange energy..." He couldn't explain it. But his body could. It was reacting to it. His vitality seemed to be recovering faster. Not by much. But enough for him to notice.
Arin continued walking while keeping Blood Qi Sense around him. Nothing. No nearby beast. No strong blood qi. No killing intent. The silence continued. He didn't like it.
After surviving three weeks in the wilderness, Arin had learned that silence could be more frightening than a beast's roar.
He moved carefully. Then suddenly— A faint movement came from ahead. Arin stopped. Blood Qi Sense detected something. A beast. Its blood qi wasn't particularly powerful.
Arin lowered his body and moved toward it. He eventually saw the creature. It looked like a hyena. Its body was roughly the size of a normal hyena, but its muscles were far denser, and its eyes carried the viciousness common among the exotic beasts of this realm.
It hadn't noticed him yet. Arin watched it carefully. His hand moved toward the blood sword strapped across his back. The dull crimson blade came free.
The moment the beast sensed the killing intent, its head snapped toward him. It snarled. Then it charged.
Arin didn't retreat. He waited. The hyena opened its jaws and lunged toward his throat. Arin's eyes sharpened.
Beast Spirit activated. He noticed the slight movement of its shoulder. The shift in its weight. The direction of its attack.
At the last moment, Arin stepped sideways. The hyena's jaws snapped shut beside his face. Arin twisted his body. The blood sword moved.
A crimson flash passed through the beast. The hyena's body froze. A thin line appeared across its body. Then— It collapsed.
Arin stood silently beside the corpse. His breathing was steady. He looked down at the beast. Another battle. Another victory. But he wasn't satisfied.
The beasts around this region were becoming less useful to him. Blood Devour still worked. But the amount he gained from each beast was becoming smaller. His growth had slowed.
Arin crouched beside the corpse. He activated Blood Devour. The beast's blood qi began flowing into his body. Its corpse rapidly dried. Arin absorbed everything he could.
But even after the process finished, the increase was barely noticeable. He frowned. "I'm reaching my limit here." He needed stronger beasts.
But before he could stand— He felt it again. That strange energy.
Arin froze. This time, it was stronger. He could feel it flowing through the surrounding environment. It wasn't coming from the dead hyena. It was everywhere.
Arin slowly stood. He closed his eyes. The sensation touched his body again. His muscles relaxed. His heartbeat became steadier. The fatigue he had accumulated over the past few days seemed to lessen.
Arin's expression changed. "Vitality..." The word suddenly came to him. He remembered something from the knowledge he had gained about this world.
Vitality Qi. An energy associated with life itself. Unlike Spiritual Qi, which was used by cultivators to strengthen their spiritual cores, Vitality Qi nourished the body. It could strengthen one's vitality, improve recovery, and support the body.
Arin had never encountered it in such abundance before. He slowly opened his eyes. "So that's what I've been sensing."
He looked around. The strange sensation wasn't coming from a single creature. It was coming from the environment. The farther he moved, the denser it seemed to become.
Arin's expression became thoughtful. _If this much Vitality Qi existed in the air... Then what was at the source?_
---
He didn't rush toward it. That would have been foolish. Instead, Arin moved carefully, following the faint sensation while keeping his Blood Qi Sense active.
The forest gradually became quieter. The trees around him grew larger. The air became denser. And the Vitality Qi became easier to feel.
Arin eventually stopped beneath one of the enormous trees. He looked upward. The branches disappeared into the canopy. He decided to climb.
If he could see the surrounding area from above, he might understand where the Vitality Qi was coming from. Arin climbed. His strengthened body made the task much easier than it would have been weeks ago.
When he finally reached a thick branch high above the ground, he looked into the distance. His eyes widened.
More trees. More greenery. And beyond them... A strange radiance seemed to fill the deeper region of the realm.
Arin couldn't clearly see its source. But he could feel the Vitality Qi coming from that direction. It was much denser there.
His instincts immediately told him that whatever existed deeper inside was different from the wilderness he had spent the past three weeks surviving in.
Arin remained on the branch. He didn't move. He simply watched. Something about that place felt peaceful. Almost like a paradise.
But Arin had learned not to trust appearances. A beautiful place could still hide something capable of killing him. He tightened his grip on the blood sword.
"First, I need to know what's waiting for me."
He remained there for several minutes, studying the strange region ahead. Then he noticed something. A faint boundary. Almost invisible. It stretched across the forest in the distance.
Arin narrowed his eyes. "A barrier?" He couldn't tell what it separated. But the strange Vitality Qi was clearly coming from beyond it.
Arin looked at the vast wilderness behind him. Then at the mysterious boundary ahead.
He had survived three weeks in this place. He had bled. He had nearly died countless times. And now, for the first time since entering the Mysterious Realm... He had found something that didn't feel like death.
It felt like an opportunity.
Arin jumped down from the tree. He adjusted the blood sword on his back. Then he began walking toward the distant barrier.
Whatever lay beyond it... He would find out.