The Dawn of the New World

For all intents and purposes, this world was a paradise. But Hao Xuan wasn't naïve enough to take what he could see as certainty.

'Baracus, what do you have?'

*Beep*

'Primary Analysis Complete. The atmosphere is fit for breathing. Elements include 47% Oxygen, 24% Nitrogen with the rest being inert or harmless to ingest elements.'

'That's good...'

Hao Xuan closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, one that created a small vacuum around him. The air was so fresh and had such a high Oxygen content that he felt a tingling sensation go down his spine as the oxygen coursed through his blood and moved through the body.

And when the blood reached his brain Hao Xuan couldn't help but break out smiling from the 'high'. All of a sudden he felt lighter as if the troubles of the world had left him to his own devices for that short moment.

The sounds of nature and all that it had to offer crawled into his ears, elevating his mood even further. But as all good things must come to an end, Baracus soon spoke up bringing him back to reality.

'I have started working on recreating the rune sequence to return to the planet. The first sample should be finished within 56 hours.'

'A little over two days, that should be equal to a few hours then?'

'Few hours? I do not understand,' Baracus was unaware of this new development of Hao Xuan's abilities.

'Oh, I forgot to tell you, the time in here is faster. By a few times at least. I don't exactly know how much but....the difference FELT big, hours to days or something...' he explained everything he had seen and felt after entering this world and what he thought it could mean. All he knew for sure was that time flowed faster here but had no real idea by how much.

Listening to him Baracus went silent for a little bit and a few seconds later an image popped up in front of Hao Xuan's eyes.

'This should be the source of your newfound ability.'

The image showed his brain or more importantly the growth that had physically changed its structure.

'What the fuck...is that a flower?!'

'Flower? No, it's all still made of soft tissue, primarily grey matter containing neural cells. Only the eight-round bodies are composed of a foreign material. They appear to be the roots of your power.'

Baracus quickly analyzed the situation and presented a set of most likely scenarios related to this new organ.

'If what you say is indeed correct, it is these eight bodies that are able to sense the temporal disturbances. And considering it originates from the demon you absorbed, there might be more to them than just being able to sense a difference in the flow of time. '

'The demon was able to "see the future" or perhaps communicate with itself in the past. I am not sure exactly how it worked but these two are the most likely end results, if not more.' (Ch606)

Hao Xuan recalled the fight with the Puer. That one was a real close call, one that he didn't wish to ever repeat again. He couldn't help but wryly shake his head.

'If it really is like that, that would be way too awesome. If nothing else I could at least dodge death once or twice.'

But he wasn't hoping for much. It was better to expect nothing, that way he wouldn't be disappointed later on.

'Since time flows differently here, you should make use of it and focus on recovering and cultivating instead. Who knows when such an opportunity might arrive again,' Baracus gave a few words of advice before returning to his work.

Figuring out the right rune sequence to return to the planet was no small task. There was an infinite number of possible sequences and Baracus needed to understand all of the information he got from the pyramid to find the right one, which even for him would take 56 hours minimum.

Hao Xuan turned around and went up to Burak and Isak who were discussing something on the side while the other barbarians curiously explored the surroundings. They had never seen such tall structures and quickly forgot about the recent events while immersing themselves in what they could actually understand and control.

Hao Xuan chose to keep most of what happened a secret and only gave them the most basic information, saying that this was an ability of his and that he needed time to use it again.

They weren't foolish enough not to see that he was keeping things to himself but the Barbarians weren't a greedy bunch. They believed in their own strength, in the abilities of their physical bodies, and took pride in them.

As unique and mysterious as what Hao Xuan pulled of was, they weren't going to inquire about it more, especially since he didn't want to part with such information of his own accord.

It proved to be a somewhat difficult task to explain exactly how long 56 standard hours were since they measured time differently, but they understand the gist of the matter within half an hour.

They chose one of the buildings nearby that was bigger than the rest and in a relatively good condition to make camp in. Some of the barbarians that went out exploring even brought back some small critters native to the world. Although nobody knew if they were safe for consumption.

The sun was about to set within the next few hours and when it eventually did, the heat went with it. The temperature dropped to -4 degrees centigrade within minutes.

All of them including Hao Xuan were so busy with other things that none of them bothered asking perhaps the most important question. Where had everyone gone?

There were still personal belongings left in most of the rooms. The structure still stood upright with the only damage coming from natural wear and tear so it couldn't have been a war, there were animals and plants here so the planet wasn't inhospitable, in fact, it was quite the opposite since it was teeming with life.

Yet, there were absolutely no signs of sapient lifeforms anywhere.

Where did they go? The ones that built this city? Surely it was out of the ordinary for entire settlements to be left vacant like this.

It wasn't like they were 'spirited away' or anything so....what happened here?