Cultivation Through Artifacts

Khal watched with quivering eyes as the gigantic beast soared through the sky like the bringer of chaos, turning everything below it into literal hell where only death waited for those that were unfortunate enough to be there or were bold enough to enter that area!

"So this is how beasts from the Higher Realms look like?" Khal asked in a low and scarcely shaky voice, fear clearly present on his face as he watched the beast fly further away from him while leaving behind its wake nothing but destruction with a single flap of its wings!

[That was a Cloudburst Bird, a beast which is only at the lowest Stage among the beasts inside the Fourth Realm. It's a rather weak creature.]

"Weak?!? That thing?! If it weren't for you and my luck that it passed me from afar, I could have died without knowing what killed me!" Khal wished to curse Nova's ancestors to hell one after another, but as he didn't know if she even had any nor did he desire to attract unwanted attention, he resisted the urge and swallowed his next words.

After taking a deep breath to calm both his chaotic mind and fast-beating heart that made his body tremble unwillingly, Khal opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

[Do you still think your choice was a wise one? After seeing that creature, do you still have what it takes to continue your journey?]

As Khal watched the Cloudburst Bird's massive image fly further and further away from where he was, Nova's voice appeared in his head which sounded rather concerned.

But who would have thought, that instead of doubting his decision of coming to the Zero Realm starting to hesitate, Khal even showed a crazy grin and said, "I do not regret my choice not even in the slightest. Even if a beast coming from straight from the Sixth Realm appears in the distance like that bird, my determination is firm!"

[Sigh... I see. You kind of remind me of someone I knew in the past. How funny...]

"Someone? Who?" Khal asked with piqued curiosity as he looked around and climbed out of the pit he was in, but as he got no answer he just shook his head and continued to follow the green star in the sky.

Khal walked for more than four hours straight in an explicit line and although he met several beasts on his way, each of them holding and possessing terrifying powers that could easily kill any cultivator from the Second Realm including Khal himself, thanks to his disguised aura and Chameleon Armor he was able to travel through different landscapes without getting spotted.

"Just how long more do I have to walk to reach the path into the First Realm?" Khal sighed quietly under his breath and watched as a beast representing a huge bee with snake scales covering its body flew far away into the distance.

Currently, he was walking through a vast forest which was rather bizarre, to say the least. The trees were as tall as skyscrapers from his previous life while the trunks of each were as thick as three adult humans put next to each other! But the most bizarre characteristic of these humungous trees was not their height nor their thickness, but their appearance instead! Each tree had a deep blue color with small but thick scales growing on their branches instead of leaves, giving Khal a rather dumbfound complexion as he examined the sight around him.

"Huh? What is that?" as Khal walked through the forest with a high alert but also curiosity-filled eyes, his eyes spotted something in front of him.

  "A wooden path?" Khal raised a brow when he saw the blue path in the distance, seemingly crafted and built from the trunks and scales of the trees around him.

[Be careful. You are currently in the Zero Realm thus not only beasts are your enemies but your environment too. Special Domains can also take your life away just like any terrifying creature or maybe make you encounter a fate worst than death!]

"Special Domains?" Khal's guard immidieatly got raised when he heard Nova's words, knowing full well just what kind of weight those simple two words carried.

Special Domains were areas in a specific landscape where the law of the universe worked differently, meaning anyone that entered them could meet their demise sooner than anticipated!

For Instance, according to the Record of All Realms, somewhere in the Fourth Realm there was a whole solar system called Timeless Zone where time flowed completely differently, could be said almost chaotically! 

In there, one couldn't even survive for a full day as time there worked randomly than it would normally. There were moments when it would rush a hundred times faster than normal or simply flow reverse, turning everyone into a baby in mere seconds before killing them. There were even times when it just stops, freezing everyone and everything that dared to enter the zone in the clutch of time!

Special Domains were always feared by everyone, particularly if the Special Domain they have encountered was something completely unknown; that was the nightmare of all cultivators as they could not anticipate what to do or think once they accidentally enter such forbidden lands!

Thus it was no wonder when Khal stopped moving and seemed hesitant about what he should do next.

"I think I will just go around it. A little detour won't hurt me, right?" Khal said to him and was about to walk to the left when his body froze still and his complexion stiffened.

"A-Another path?" watching as another blue path identical with the first one was apparent on his left, Khal quickly looked toward his right only to see with horror as even there was a path.

What's more, there was another blue path behind him despite the fact that there was none when he came from there!

"I hope it's just some kind of a bad trick, right?" Khal muttered with a shaky voice, his face gradually losing all the previous colors it had.

It seemed Nova jinxed it and he has already walked into a Special Domain where things seemed not to bright for him at the very moment.