# 140
Chapter 140 – Black Impermanence
A blizzard-driven gale filled every corner; roadside trees had been uprooted and now spun randomly through the air.
Bricks, street-lamps, bicycles, billboards—countless objects tumbled with them like laundry in a drum, whipped across this world of wind and snow.
Within a radius of five kilometers it felt like doomsday.
Had Team 136 not set up a massive “No-Boundary Zone” in advance, innocents would have been sucked in and shredded; now the zone’s value was plain.
Under that invisible canvas, however fierce the fight became, the outside world would not feel a ripple.
Lin Qiye drove his Straight Blade into the ground to keep from being blown away; everything ahead was a white blur.
In such a storm, visibility was almost zero.
“This is a Sea-realm ultra-dangerous Forbidden Ruins? Terrifying…” He frowned.
His mind’s eye told him the rest of Team 136 were also trapped, but no one had been carried off; they stood fairly close, though they could not see one another.
“Xiaonan!”
Wu Xiangnan’s voice cut through the wind.
A soft white glow appeared beside Lin Qiye; suddenly his body felt heavier, the wind’s resistance gone, as if a thin film on his skin neutralized every gust.
The driven snow no longer blinded him; sight returned.
Looking down, he saw his own skin emitting the same pale light.
Wu Xiangnan, equally luminous, walked out of the storm untouched and ruffled Si Xiaonan’s hair.
“Well done.”
“What is this…?” Lin Qiye asked.
“‘Fateless Gauze’,” Wu Xiangnan said. “Clings to the skin, isolates the environment, heals injuries, gives some defense.”
Si Xiaonan straightened, gave a proud hum. “Not some mighty Forbidden Ruins, but it has its moments.”
Protected by the gauze, the others rose and turned toward the figure walking through the snow with a long halberd…
Han Shaoyun stared in surprise at the team unaffected by his blizzard, admiration flickering in his eyes—then dimming again, as if remembering something.
Chen Muye stood foremost, hands on his hilts, cloak snapping in the wind, gaze calm.
“You’re the captain?” Han Shaoyun stopped before him.
“Yes.”
“You’re a proper captain—more so than I ever was.”
Han paused. “About the Night Watch team in Gusu… I’ve heard bits. Five years ago they met the Church of the Ancient Gods’ ‘Yiyu’: three dead, three gravely wounded, one crippled for life. Captain Han Shaoyun vanished, only to reappear two years later as a Believer…”
Han’s brows drew together. “Your point?”
“I wonder—are you a true Believer, or a fake one? Did you join them with another aim? Are you a—”
“You over-think.” Han cut him off. “Once you enter the Believers, you belong to them for life. Their soul contract is worse than you imagine; whatever you intend beforehand, the moment you sign, your will dissolves—you become their puppet.”
“Then you—”
“If one day your teammates are nailed to crosses and you must choose—fight to the bitter end and die together, or abandon all dignity and freedom so the rest may live—what would you pick?”
Chen Muye’s knuckles whitened on his hilts. “They forced the contract that way?”
“The Church’s methods are crueler than you can picture.” Snow whirled thicker around Han. “Whoever I was, whatever I endured, I am now only the sixteenth seat of the Believers—Han Shaoyun.
I… can never go back.”
His Sea-realm aura erupted, pressure lancing the sky.
Chen Muye’s hands trembled; with a slow breath he drew the twin blades at his waist.
“I understand… I will show no mercy to the Believers.”
In the howling wind Han’s lips curved.
The blades left their sheaths; faint ghost-light filled Chen Muye’s eyes. A black circle spread from his feet, and biting cold seized the earth.
Within the black Forbidden Ruins, the blood-red outline of a palace loomed behind him, an ancient plaque hanging at its peak:
—Yama’s Palace—
The instant he stepped into the Ruins, Chen Muye’s aura turned deep and eerie.
Lin Qiye, caught inside, shivered as icy air invaded him.
“This…”
“The captain’s Forbidden Ruins,” Wu Xiangnan said calmly. “Sequence 037—‘Black Impermanence’.”
“037?” Lin Qiye was startled.
Apart from Cao Yuan’s 031 “Black King’s Annihilation Slash”, this was the highest-level Ruins he had seen. A power ranked seventh below the gods themselves—one of Great Xia’s apex Forbidden Ruins.
With a sequence that high, the captain ought to be in a special squad or Shangjing City’s Night Watch; why was he here in tiny Cangnan leading Team 136?
Before Yama’s Palace, Chen Muye walked across black water toward Han Shaoyun, twin blades in hand.
Han stared, stunned, then breathed, “Black Impermanence? You… are Chen Muye?”