C127-2: The Fallen One

"Ahhhhh-"

POP~
Han Xuhan's scream came to an abrupt halt as his body hammered onto an incredibly soft, squirming substance, barely avoiding critical joint displacement from the fall.

No, he hadn’t landed on a curvy girl. This wasn’t a xianxia novel with trashy romance. . . .hopefully.

His landing turned out to be a cloud; a small bed-sized miniature version of the usual sort that could be found in the sky.
The cloud was exceptionally elastic, to the point where his body bounced twice before coming to a final stop, making his organs lurch around violently enough to keep him still on his back for a good ten seconds before finding the courage to move gingerly.

"For fuck's sake. . . ." Xuhan muttered to himself once he realized that he wasn't fatally injured from the fall. He wasn't injured at all, in all honesty. But his mental state certainly wasn't stellar.

He had just been thrown off a mountain to a sea. Logically speaking, he was supposed to find some super awesome legacy down on the seabed as he almost drowned to death; well, at least that's what transpired in cultivation stories. But he had landed on. . . .not sea, wherever it was. Moreover, Luo Yi didn't seem to have murderous intentions toward him either. Maybe he hadn't fulfilled those critical conditions in order for the cliche to happen.

"Hello there! A newcomer, are you? Which sect do you hail from, brother?" a voice came from his back, making Han Xuhan jump in fright. He had barely gotten back up on his feet. There hadn't been enough time for him to run a threat check on his new surroundings. He had no idea where he-

His thoughts came to a sudden halt as he took a proper look behind him. That was happening a lot these days.

The first problem was— nobody was standing behind him. Nobody was flying either, which was a possibility he had learnt to consider after becoming accustomed to the world of cultivation. But that wasn't nearly as striking as what he COULD SEE now that he had turned around.

There lay a gigantic castle made up of aquamarine crystals before his eyes, barely a hundred meters away. It looked like a crossover between a Disney creation and Tolkein's imagination. Walls as high as small peaks surrounded the castle, sporting dozens of outposts from where different types of accessories stuck out.

Han Xuhan took a deep breath. Some of those accessories looked a bit too similar to cannons; cannons which were pointed right at his frail, vulnerable body right at the moment. Did gunpowder and explosives get invented already? When? How? Was it another transmigated senior whose brain had been full of convenient 'common knowledge of modern weaponry'?
And those weren't even the most intimidating ones.

There were also crossbows– giant ones, pointed in his direction from every visible angle.
He could even sense massive structures running on qi, constantly growing in terms of intensity. Those probably were not friendly mechanisms, as far as his experience with magical gadgets told him.


Han Xuhan experienced a faint urge to sob pitifully. But alas, he was too manly to shed tears in the face of deadly threats; and too distracted by the sentence that followed after his invisible greeter received no answer to his enquiry.

"You know, I thought people would be much more surprised by an invisible entity trying to make a conversation rather than that ugly shack over there. Hey, brother, you know I can kill you long before any ammunition from the stronghold reach this place, right? That's like. . . .basic aerodynamics."


Basic Aerodynamics?

Oh.

Fuck.

Han Xuhan craned his neck around for a second look at his surroundings. Whoever the speaker was, Xuhan didn't have the capability to fight them head-on, not when he didn't know their cultivation level, which the party was actively hiding from his senses. It implied that the other party was perhaps not very powerful. However. . .that implication itself smelled like a trap.

Were they trying to test whether he was an enemy by offering him a weak, juicy prey, which could even stand as his hostage against the cannons on the walls? It was a life-saving opportunity delivered to his doorstep.

As far as realistic strategies went, it was a decent trap. The only reason Han Xuhan hadn't fallen for it was that he had no confidence in being able to overpower any cultivator in a fight, regardless of their cultivation level. He had zero experience in hand-to-hand combat. He also happened to be borderline paranoid, constantly trying to analyse any element around him that might be dangerous. Where others saw risks and opportunities for themselves, Han Xuhan saw interlinked interests of the parties involved. And right now, if he put himself in the shoes of a sect competing for the Championship, such a trap was barely surprising.


The matter of their unnatural advancement in scientific fields required proper investigation. But he had to take control of the situation first. Wracking his mind, Xuhan tried to come up with an appropriate strategy to tackle the issue.

"Hey, brother, are you deaf? Nod if you're deaf."

Han Xuhan nodded emphatically with an honest grin on his face.

". . . . ."