The Dawn of the New World

It was night out and there were no heavenly bodies to illuminate the surroundings which made it almost impossible to see very far. Fortunately, Hao Xuan did not need any help in that department.

His eyes glowed with a bright green light as all the darkness was pushed aside. To him it looked like there was a full moon out illuminating everything for miles.

He squinted lightly and his vision enhanced even more, zooming in on the pool of liquid with stark clarity. He could see every ripple on its surface that was created from the stampede of tens of thousand grunts of grunts packed within the crater.

With every complete rotation they were slowly being pulled towards the pool, eventually falling inside without putting up much struggle.

'That looks like a death spiral, doesn't it?'

A death spiral was a common phenomenon among many insectoid species especially ones that did not have their own intelligence and depended on a Queen. Once they lost track of the pheromones that were essentially their way back home, they would start following each other in a spiral that would only end with their deaths.

'But...that doesn't make sense. Why would they do this?'

Baffled by what he was seeing Hao Xuan slowly retracted his Qi and sent out his own spiritual sense to feel for the psychic force that was so utterly prevalent in the surrounding area.

It was so thick in fact that he couldn't even pinpoint its direction, that is until his spiritual sense came into contact with it.

His vision flashed for a moment as he saw various gory images that were being forcefully transmitted straight into his brain. Images of him dying a horrible death, of everyone he knew being slowly ripped apart followed by the planet being slowly covered in a black mist that consumed everything.

He had become "it" and it had become him. He felt like his mind was connected to something so much bigger than himself. It instilled within him a feeling of pious fervor that he had not known before.

If he had to define it, comparing it to seeing the vision of God would be an appropriate analogy.

And while he was seeing all that his eyes began to turn pitch black as if something was trying to take control of him but that only lasted for a mere second before everything returned to normal.

Hao Xuan shook his head while chuckling, "Ah, I get it now. Is this what you do to break down the minds of your victims before taking control of them? But it feels different from how the grunts are controlled, right? This was more personal. It felt like you were trying to 'program' me. Is that a common ability that you have?"

He had been through far too much, both in mind and body, to fall for something this simple. Hao Xuan was constantly living through the experiences of one lifetime or another in the back of his mind so one more was nothing to him.

He could feel it trying to "change" him but it never even came close.

His gaze shifted between the countless grunts trying to find the one that might stand out in some way. The Synapse had to be here.

In the meantime he continued talking to it.

"You can understand me right? Well, not understand but comprehend the meaning behind my words. Why don't you show yourself and have a talk with me?"

He waited while looking for anything that leaped out but to no avail.

Hao Xuan closed his eyes and tried to feel for it with his spiritual sense once again although this time he was more than prepared for another attack like before. And he didn't hold back either.

In his mind's eye everything around him had turned dark.

,m The middle door within his mind palace slowly creaked open allowing his spiritual sense to slowly spread out in all directions. But unlike before it had a specific shape and color now because it looked like a golden liquid.

'Hmm? Since when did my spiritual sense have a color? It feels different...stronger?'

Before, the most he could extend it was around 20 meters and even that was not in all directions. He had to pick and choose because it was similar to reaching out with the power of one's soul which could not extend too far from the body.

But that was not the case. Not only it covered every possible direction but its range had increased several folds.

Ten, twenty, thirty....hundred, and finally maxing out at a hundred and fifty meters.

When Hao Xuan opened his eyes they were burning with a bright green light.

"Baracus, check my soul strength. How much has it increased by?"

*Beep*

|Measuring...|

"Current Soul Power Level: 44".

😉