The Dawn of the New World

"Oi! You okay!?" he shouted in their native language and waited for a response. Ten seconds, twenty, thirty, and then a whole minute passed but no response came.

'Am I hearing things?' Hao Xuan thought inwardly, doubting the events of the last few minutes. '

Maybe it was a hallucination? Maybe the barbarian wasn't even real to begin with,' but that line of thought quickly went down a dark path. If he started doubting everything he saw then where would it stop?

It was a slippery slope to say the least.

Putting such thoughts to the back of his mind, Hao Xuan decided to investigate first. He once again concentrated his senses to listen to the surroundings for clues.

He closed his eyes to focus on the olfactory and auditory senses since there were no visual clues to be found. The world darkened before falling to silence.

The smidgen of the ancient Lycan blood that was running through his veins got to work as one by one the various sounds and smells came crawling back. The darkness was now filled in by various colors and sounds that he could perceive with his entire body.

The first thing he heard was the whistling wind. It was soft but loud, carrying with it the vestiges of the recent past.

'There!' he caught a familiar scent still lingering in the air. It belonged to one of the barbarians. But as for which one he did not know.

With his eyes still closed, Hao Xuan could visually 'perceive' the faint particles left behind by him. It showed a streak of different colors coming from the direction where he had come from, going down to the left side of a neighboring building.

But it was on the exact opposite side to where Hao Xuan had gone.

'Woah!' Hao Xuan exclaimed. This was a new development and one that Hao Xuan hadn't expected, but not an unwelcome one.

He sniffed the air around the streak of orange color and somehow could feel the 'emotions' within.

'Are these hormones?' he mused. It felt like anxiousness, a bit of fear, and some sweat mixed in.

He gagged, 'Argh, I can taste it,' and tried to wipe his tongue on his sleeve to get rid of the taste but that did very little to help him.

Hao Xuan opened his eyes and surprisingly could still see the streaks with his eyes.

'Did I 'catch' his scent? Am I a dog now? I thought Baracus said that Lycan shit wouldn't turn me into a damn furry, I hope that's still true.'

Hao Xuan jumped down onto the nearby balcony and lept towards the building Tasgall had disappeared into. He followed his footsteps that went to the second-lowest level of the building. The last one was flooded all the way.

'Hmm?' as soon as Hao Xuan landed he noticed the peculiarity. The air was ice cold. He took a step back and the temperature went back to normal but the moment he entered the building, the temperature dropped by tens of degrees.

He looked ahead and noticed the streak change color. From orange to light blue with a hint of violet.

Hao Xuan took another sniff.

'He got scared a little here...' but the streak did not end there and continued moving deeper in.

Hao Xuan took a couple more steps in before pausing mid-stride.

'It feels different here, emptier somehow...'

The world felt hollow, almost colorless. He turned around saw the sun shining brightly just outside the window but it was like looking through a mirror. It didn't feel like it was real.

He got a knot in the pit of his stomach just thinking about going deeper but that's where the streak led.

'He could still be alive. It's my fault this happened to I can't just turn back,' he told himself. It was supposed to be a prank to lighten the mood a little bit and he didn't mean any harm but...that scream definitely didn't sound normal.

Hao Xuan called out the glaive.

*Hmmmm*

It hummed lightly in his grasp. In the other hand he circulating a bit of Chaos Qi, readying himself to receive any attack.

Taking in a deep breath and braced himself and followed after the streak, venturing deeper into the dark corridors that lay ahead. A few seconds after he passed, the wall to the side cracked like a mirror's surface and a pale humanoid head popped out.

It looked in the direction Hao Xuan had gone into before retreating back into the wall before the cracked disappeared as if it was never there to begin with.

**

With silent steps, Hao Xuan went from one room to another until even he lost track of the way back. The color of the streak had changed from light blue to dark purple with a faint trace of white mixed in.

'Fear. An unmistakable taste of sheer terror.'

Hao Xuan could feel everything Tasgall had felt.

'But not even once did he even attempt to turn back around.. There is fear but also a bit of courage mixed in, albeit barely even discernable now.'