Tiny world

"I think so," Nie Li replied looking around for more uninvited guests.

"But. How?" she asked utterly dumbfounded.

Nie Li helped Xiao Ning'er to stand, continuing to study their surroundings. The more he saw, the less he liked it. The entire basement was different. When they entered, they cleared only part of the basement. The rest of it was still buried under tonnes of debris. But now, there wasn't any debris or collapsed ceiling. Even the hole they dug had disappeared and was replaced by pristine stairs. But it wasn't another basement. The alcoves on the walls were the same he noticed when he first entered this basement.

Did they travel in time? Even the books and the skeleton disappeared. Slowly girls also noticed the changes. "What's happening?" asked Xiao Ning'er.

"I don't know. But the plan is the same. We must leave as soon as possible." Nie Li decided not to take any risks. "Keep your weapons ready. There could be other ghosts like that."

"Okay," both girls agreed, warily looking at the dark corners of the now large basement.

When they walked up the stairs girls were even more surprised. Instead of the ruins, they found an intact building above the basement. Nie Li became more worried.

"What is it? Is it an illusion?" Ye Ziyun asked.

"No, I don't think so," Nie Li said. It was not easy to manipulate Nie Li with illusions. He would have detected it even if the caster was far above legend rank. "Let's hurry. If my guess is correct the other buildings must be intact as well."

Girls followed Nie Li out of the building into the street. As Nie Li predicted in the place of the other ruins there were also whole buildings. But the surroundings were even scarier. Everything around them was covered in a thin fog making the world darker. Also, everything seemed more depressing as if the bright colors become dull and dreary. Even the leaves on the trees seemed more grey than green. And the sky was covered in dark clouds.

Girls seeing the changes in the world huddled closer to Nie Li. Nie Li activated his phone and tried to contact Nie Zexi. Not only it didn't work, but there wasn't even a connection to the base station. This was bad. His cell phones should have worked even across subsidiary worlds. He hadn't checked it yet of course but was almost sure of his conclusion. And now there was no connection. He didn't know if the time travel could disrupt the connection between twin sympathetic stones. Other variants were even more ominous.

"Let's go. The garden must be in that direction." Nie Li had a small hope that after they leave the territory of the manor everything will return to normal. Girls followed him holding their swords ready.

But after they passed the street and turned into a small alleyway they came face to face with another ghost. It screeched and attacked them but was again cut down by Nie Li. When it disappeared the trio could hear groaning from the houses surrounding them.

"Run!" Nie Li shouted and they began running through alleyways. More ghosts started to appear. They simply glided in the air passing through the walls. Some of them started to appear from the ground as well. Most of them were in bloody clothes and had very grievous wounds. Some of them didn't even have limbs.

If Nie Li had to describe them he would say they looked like zombie ghosts. But unlike zombies, they were very fast and passed through the obstacles instead of going around them. And they appeared from very unexpected locations. One good thing about them was they didn't have any long-range attacks.

The trio ran for their lives cutting through the ghosts they encountered. They usually appeared in groups of six or seven. It felt like the ghosts had spread through the grounds and attacked when their territory was disturbed.

During one of the attacks, Nie Li left one ghost alive and wanted to see what it was really capable of. Some simple experiments showed that even though the ghosts glided through the air fast, their attacks weren't that fast and their agility wasn't that impressive either. Nie Li could say their reaction time was at the level of 2-3 star bronze rank demon spiritualists.

But the most dangerous thing about them was their aura. When they got closer Nie Li could feel his soul force getting slowly drained. And closer they got, the stronger the effect was. He also could feel very poisonous yin energy in their attacks.

"Don't let them touch you," Nie Li said to the girls, who were standing guard while he was experimenting. "Most likely you'll be incapacitated if you get hit."

Girls nodded and they continued on their way towards the gates. Nie Li wondered if they were the only ones who were affected by that phenomenon, or if the guards at the gate also wandering somewhere fighting against ghosts as well.

The trio passed through the garden. Even though it was in a very pristine condition no one could call it beautiful. With the dull colors, dark atmosphere, and ominous silence the garden felt more sinister than beautiful. And the number of ghosts they encountered was also lessening. For some strange reason, the ghosts attacked Xiao Ning'er more than him and Ye Ziyun.

Group unhurriedly killed the three ghosts that appeared out of the small garden house and continued on their way. They weren't running for their lives anymore. It wasn't just because the ghosts started to appear less frequently. The group killed more than a hundred ghosts already and knew their real combat abilities. It's difficult to be scared of something that you can kill with one move of your sword after all.

The ghosts still looked scary, but they weren't a real threat to the trio. Naturally, without enchanted weapons, it would have been a hard task to deal with these intangible enemies, but Nie Li prepared them for force majeure situations like that. But with weapons that cut through their enemies easily and armor that somewhat protected against the aura attacks, they were more confident about their chances. Unless they face someone more powerful than ghosts or more powerful ghosts.

So when they reached the gates, they were even a bit bored from the monotonous attacks. Seeing the structures there Nie Li sighed. They were not the ones they had seen a couple of hours ago when they passed through this gate. And there were no guards around.

"Nie Li, what's happening?" asked Ye Ziyun looking around.

"Don't know, let's continue walking. I don't have any working theory for all strangeness here," he said looking at the sky that seemed closer than it should be.

Nie Li led them towards his second mansion. It was also completely different. In the place of his new mansion, there was some dilapidated old one. Nie Li could imagine that this manor could have stood here 70 years ago. Only the strangeness of the surrounding world prevented him from claiming time travel.

This almost monochromatic world with ghosts and a strange sky did not fit that theory.

So they continued on their way. The further they went the fewer ghosts they faced. After some time they completely disappeared.

It wasn't long before they reached some strange anomalies. There were some half buildings and some two different fused together buildings. The sky was even closer and it was really strange. The dark grey-black swirls that filled the entire sky didn't look like clouds at all. Some suspicions appeared in Nie Li's mind but he didn't voice them before confirming them himself.

They didn't have to walk long before they reached the TDG, the literal end of the world. The dark grey-black swirls stuck into the ground creating a wall in front of them.

"Fu*k" Nie Li cursed.

"What is it?" the girls asked seeing his reaction.

"I don't think we are in Glory City anymore" Nie Li stated.

"Why? The buildings are from Glory City even if a bit outdated and peculiar…" Xiao Ning'er trailed off looking puzzled at a strange fused house. One part of it was new and the second part of it was old and decrepit. To tell the truth, she also didn't think that they were in Glory City too. She wanted to know the reason for Nie Li's reaction.

"This wall you see, it's called world boundary. Don't try to pass through it. Behind it exists the Chaos Sea that protects the world from the Void. We are actually in another world!" Nie Li sighed and continued, "Extremely small, real world. I thought only subsidiary worlds could be so small."

"What's the difference?" Ye Ziyun asked. She had heard about subsidiary worlds, but not much.

"The subsidiary worlds are part of the real world. They do not have their own laws. Instead, they follow the laws of the real world they are connected to. But most importantly they don't have access to the Chaos Sea and the Void through it."

"But how did we get here? We haven't traveled through the void. Or I would have noticed it." Nie Li mused aloud. "Could it be that this world is inside the Tiny world?"

"What Tiny world?" the girls asked. They haven't heard of it before. Could it be Nie Li referring to their world?

"It's the name of our world. We call it the Divine Continent but in reality, the Divine continent isn't the only continent in our world."

"But why 'Tiny' world?" Ye Ziyun asked.

"Because it's smaller than other worlds."

"And how do you know that?" It wasn't the first time Nie Li showed otherworldly knowledge and Ye Ziyun was very curious about its origin. Could it be Nie Li's mysterious master was from another world!

"I will tell you when the time comes. Right now we must concentrate on our current problems." Nie refused her. It wasn't the time to reveal his past to them yet.