Ch 36 – Saint Regional Wall

"Caw! Caw!"

The sound of birds cawing and screaming greeted Kaleido as his faded consciousness slowly regained its strength.

Next, he heard the sound of waves crashing and swishing, then the sound of winds whooshing and flying through the air.

As he breathed in, he smelled the salty air just like when he and his family went to the beach and was greeted by the salty air of the sea.

But that wasn't the only thing that greeted him when he breathed in, as a sharp pain punctured through his mind stemming from his chest and lungs.

Opening his eyes sharply after experiencing that gut-wrenching pain, his eyes were met with an endless expanse of undulating waves and blue water, rising up and down in an orderly yet chaotic manner.

As his mind woke up fully, he stared around him in a daze before he finally noticed that his entire body was numbed. It felt like he was a paralyzed piece of wood floating in the sea, numbing the pain that he would have felt if his senses weren't dulled.

Readjusting his disjointed thoughts, he moved his focus towards the illusory sphere around his stomach and noticed his aperture was still fully intact and fine, along with his Gu being all fine and dandy. Unfortunately for Kaleido, he saw that all of his Space Step Gu and Displace Domain Gu was gone and missing.

Upon seeing the lack of any of his movement-type Gu, memories flashed through his mind as he remembered what happened.

'It seems like my bet paid off considering I'm still alive, though drifting at sea with a body near the brink of death.' Calming down, he activated his Mending Space Gu and felt a mystical space gather around his body in the next moment, releasing a strange power that mended his wounds and healed his fractured bones.

­Gradually, he felt his senses return to normal, and his broken-down body returned to normal after a few short seconds.

Moving his neck, he stared at the dirty piece of wood he found himself lying on and ignored all of the questions he currently had running rampant in his mind.

Instead, he placed his palm on the wood that was floating on the boundless sea and pushed himself up into a sitting position.

Placing his left hand on his forehead, he closed his eyes and visualized the entire fight sequence he had against Lo Bai, then paused at a certain moment, the moment where he was falling down to the ground with his heart missing and a gaping hole was on his chest.

'Back then…' Kaleido clearly remembered the events clearly and the events that transpired, 'When I was on the brink of defeat and had all of my measures and methods turn useless, I suddenly saw the "thing" again and it seemed that my attainment in not just space path, but also time path, broke through and reached quasi-Grandmaster realm. Due to that, I quickly understood what the unknown Rank 2 time path Gu I had on me was able to do.'

'Due to that, I gained enough confidence in my final trump card, and just like I imagined, it accelerated me to speeds far beyond what a Rank 2 Gu is capable of doing. At my current level, my extreme physique amplified it to be a little weaker compared to Rank 3 Gu, and because of the… dao marks on my body, it would have at least given it a 300x multiplier.'

'Quick Movement Gu, when activated, would warp time around me to increase my speed while not affecting my lifespan, allowing me to move faster by around twice as fast… when it's a normal Rank 2. Amplified by my extreme physique, it bordered Rank 3 and allowed me to move four times faster, and if I were to multiply that by 300…'

As he opened his eyes, they let out a glint and he muttered with a grin, "I was moving 1,200 times faster than normal."

'And that's not talking about the boost given by my quasi-Grandmaster attainment in time path, allowing me to use the Gu near its fullest potential and perhaps even moved faster than my lowest estimate.'

'Taking into account that I can run at speeds of 5 meters per second even with my body being battered down and broken, I would have moved at speeds around…'

"At speeds around 6,000 meters per second!"

In contrast, the speed of sound only moves at around 300 meters per second, and he was many times faster than that!

It's not an exaggeration to call him godlike already, especially if he were to be placed back on Earth right now with just that Gu alone.

'Hahaha! With that speed, I would be already unrivaled in this world!' Kaleido held back his urge to laugh madly and instead inspected further about the uniqueness of the situation.

'But that's not the strange part, the strange part happened when the white dao marks on my body lit up just like when I first entered Space Cave. And seeing that white river, that can only mean one thing.' Kaleido turned his head to the boundless blue sky, and his smirk widened by a slight amount.

'I entered the River of Time.'

'Of course, I still don't know all of the mysteries that place has, so I shouldn't enter it again in the near future unless forced to. Fortunately for me, Quick Movement Gu feeds on the river of time and is low maintenance, because if not, I would have to let it starve to death and die.'

After thinking about it, he soon turned to analyze his new strongest Gu, a Gu that can potentially make him rival Gu Immortals if they aren't as fast as him, perhaps he can even slaughter Rank 6 Gu Immortals if he was severely overestimating their general strength.

'At the very least, Lo Bai can fly at speeds faster than sound, so perhaps I'm in the upper echelon of speed in the Rank 6 realm if I were to use my Quick Movement Gu, although there is one critical flaw regarding this Gu.'

'I only move faster; my stamina and body aren't strengthened or anything. So even if I want to move 6,000 meters in just a second, I would still need to run, not walk, for 6 kilometers straight without rest. So, in terms of long-distance, Displace Domain Gu is still far superior when in a fight.'

Letting out a sigh at his unfortunate loss, Kaleido suddenly paused as he felt the cold winds brush not against his body, but his bare skin.

As if noticing this oddity, he stared down at his body and noticed a certain problem, 'Oh, I'm mostly naked.'

'Phew, it's extremely fortunate for me that I didn't use Formless Bubble Gu's defensive application because it would have been broken ages ago, especially when I consider that its main application is for storage and not defense.'

Summoning the nigh-invisible formless bubble to surround his body once again, he waves his hand and a white robe magically appeared out of nowhere.

Without a care in the world, he discarded his current clothes and let his bare body be seen by the entire world, unfortunately for everybody else, no one was there to witness his naked body.

Putting on his clothes and pants, he nodded his head as he felt that he wasn't as barbaric compared to before.

But as he finished putting on his clothes and inspecting his current appearance by using the clear sea as a mirror, he abruptly heard a loud growl coming from his stomach.

'How long was I out for? I feel so hungry that I could eat a horse, and I clearly noticed that my muscles seemed to have decreased a bit in size. Heh, with my heightened awareness in space now that I'm a quasi-Grandmaster in space path, I can clearly feel the size of each individual muscle in my body, giving me a ginormous advantage compared to others! Perhaps I'll even build a physique akin to those of Greek gods given enough time!'

Reeling in his thoughts about muscles, he instead sat down on the crude piece of wood he currently used as a boat and took out a basket of food from his formless bubble, placing them down on the ground in front of him.

'It's just like a picnic, but I'm at the sea and all alone, with my life at risk at any given second.' Letting out a self-deprecating chuckle, he sighed, 'When would I be able to return to my family again?'

His eyes revealed a surprising hint of melancholy; to think that even a man like Kaleido, a person who was able to massacre an entire tribe and quickly adapted to the cruelness of the world of Gu and was more than willing to resort to murder, was melancholic and nostalgic!

Smiling lightly, he took out some beef jerky and chewed at it, grabbed some bread and bit into it, and drank some juice placed inside a jade bottle.

Even though the food he stockpiled inside his storage space has been staying there for weeks and months already, because of the mystical property of his Formless Bubble Gu and the space within it lacking the passage of time, he can safely store a ginormous quantity of food without worrying about it getting spoiled.

In fact, he did just that!

If one were to somehow gain access to his storage space, one of the things one would instantly was a vast but neat array of food stored like a ginormous library. All kinds of food, from bread to piping hot ramen bowls, they were there!

Do you suddenly have a craving for sugary bread? Kaleido has it!

Do you want to drink tea? Kaleido has it!

Do you want a miniature chair entirely made out of meat? Kaleido also has it!

Kaleido has lived for months already in the world of Gu, and one lesson that he ingrained into his heart and soul was to be cautious and prepared for any possible scenario.

From healing medicine, antidotes, poison, furniture, beds, and pillows; if it was even slightly useful, then Kaleido might have it.

Even a tree that was still attached to a plot of dirt was floating amidst the sea of items within his storage space.

He even stored oxygen, nitrogen, and all kinds of gases in his storage space for a "just in case."

And as if he himself was surprised by how prepared he was, he widened his eyes as he saw a small boat amidst the sea of items inside his storage space, "Even with my nigh-perfect memory, if I wasn't thinking about it, then I would "forget" it. Whew, luckily, I found this boat!"

Pulling it out of his formless bubble, he watched as it crash down and splash water everywhere as it landed right in front of him.

Hopping onto it, he stared back at his previous crude raft that quickly disappeared into the distance.

Silently saying his goodbye to the raft, Kaleido turned his head to survey the area when he suddenly saw something on the far horizon that astonished him.

It was a wall that pierce the blue sky and fleeting clouds, extending towards the nine heavens as if it had no end. It shone with a soft golden-white glow and was like a solid wall of light, stretching out from left to right until it was the only thing he could see in his entire field of view.

"I'm near the regional wall of the Central Continent, the Saint Regional Wall?"

'Hmm, I see, so this is where my coordinates in relative to the ones I know of, so I should be able to teleport back near Lo Clan again if my estimates are correct.'

Just as Kaleido was planning on opening the illusory Space Door once again, he suddenly paused, noticing something peculiar, 'I'm at sea… the sea where beast emperors and desolate beasts are abundant in amount, so why haven't I been attacked yet?'

AN: This chapter has 2025 words.

(February 7, 2023 – 439th day of writing)