Chapter Sixty-two: The Bloom Has Faded

Although moving at hundreds of times the speed of sound was as effortless as a casual stroll for Yin Seventeen, to the two temple stewards it was as if he had vanished into thin air.

Yin Seventeen disappeared before their very eyes.

“Did we just see a ghost?” One steward anxiously withdrew his hand, which had just been resting on Yin Seventeen’s shoulder, and asked his companion uneasily.

“It must be… it must be a ghost!” His companion trembled in fear. “We must have deceived the believers in the temple, and the gods, having found out, manifested themselves to warn us!”

Without another word, he turned and knelt before the statue, bowing his head to the ground and muttering prayers of repentance.

“Spare me, great one, spare me! I know I was wrong, I know I was wrong…”

Seeing this, the other steward did not doubt him and immediately knelt to repent as well, repeatedly kowtowing.

At that moment, a young couple happened to enter. Startled by the bizarre scene, they were frightened out of their wits.

“Do you think those two are insane?”

“It’s hard to say!” The couple cautiously backed out of the temple.

Meanwhile, Yin Seventeen wandered leisurely through the temple. Though each step appeared slow and unhurried, in reality, he moved at hundreds of times the speed of sound.

Visitors in the temple could catch a fleeting glimpse of him only in the instant when he paused to lift his foot. Yet when they tried to look again, there was nothing to be seen.

It felt as if the figure they had just glimpsed was a trick of their imagination.

In less than ten seconds, Yin Seventeen had traversed the entire temple complex.

Without exception, all the temples were devoted to the Greek gods.

“Is this another quirk of a parallel world?” he pondered silently.

In a world ruled by the Greek gods, it was only natural for them to be worshipped. Yet something about it felt off to him.

The sense of discord was overwhelming.

“I should take a look elsewhere!”

With this thought, Yin Seventeen lightly stamped his foot on the ground and leapt out of the city.

Continuing south, he investigated the temples in every city he passed.

Just like the first complex he had seen, every subsequent temple was devoted solely to the Greek gods.

He walked the streets with a heavy heart, filled with melancholy.

The people of this land possessed bloodlines utterly different from his own, and their shrines celebrated foreign deities. No matter what, he could not accept them as his kin.

They were merely strangers living on similar soil, sharing the same skin, nothing more.

Turning back for one last look at the bustling metropolis and its vibrant crowds, a poem slowly surfaced in his mind.

“When will the spring flowers and autumn moon cease? How much of the past do we know? Last night, the east wind blew through the small tower again; the homeland cannot bear to be recalled in the bright moonlight.

The ornate balustrades and jade steps must still remain, only the rosy faces have changed. How much sorrow can you bear? It’s like a river of spring water flowing eastward!”

“The ornate balustrades and jade steps must still remain, only the rosy faces have changed.”

Again and again, he muttered this line as he walked, drawing looks of annoyance from those around him.

Yet he kept repeating that single phrase.

People began to point and gossip about him.

At first, they thought they’d encountered a poet of some talent, but soon realized he was only a cultured madman.

Yin Seventeen paid them no mind, continuing to repeat the line. After dozens of repetitions, he couldn’t help but shake his head and laugh.

“How have I become as sentimental as Li Yu?” he mused.

But as he laughed, a subtle ache welled up within him.

“What is there to grieve for? This is not the world I once knew!” He gazed up at the sky, trying to persuade himself to let go of his complicated feelings.

Yet he could not completely set them aside.

He understood now that the people and the land here were not his own, but he could not help but connect them in his heart.

These two worlds were simply too alike.

Suddenly, at the street corner not far away and within his perception, an unusual cosmos energy appeared.

It was the cosmos of someone whose power was leaking uncontrollably, like a torch burning brightly in the dark.

He immediately recognized it as the cosmos of a warrior forcibly created by the power of an evil god.

Because their cosmos had been ignited by external force rather than cultivated through personal effort, these evil god warriors could not fully control their power, resulting in this abnormal overflow.

Yin Seventeen lifted his gaze in that direction.

“Damn, I’ve been discovered!”

At the street corner, the instant their eyes met, the young man’s expression changed drastically and he hurriedly retreated.

“Trying to escape? Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that now?”

Sensing the youth’s intentions, Yin Seventeen curled his lips into a smile and, in a flash, unleashed a terrifying burst of speed in pursuit.

The street was thrown into chaos as the mad poet disappeared in an instant, startling everyone. They rubbed their eyes and searched the area, but the man was nowhere to be found.

“Did I imagine him?”

With such doubts swirling, someone asked a friend, “Did you see that lunatic just now?”

“I did! But somehow he vanished! I thought I was seeing things!” the companion replied, scratching his head.

The crowd buzzed with speculation, but found no answers.

In the end, they could only attribute it to a mirage.

Elsewhere, the youth with the abnormal cosmos fled frantically through the crowd.

Sensing Yin Seventeen closing in relentlessly, drawing ever nearer, terror flooded his heart.

“This guy is so fast! If I don’t come up with something quick, I’ll never get away!”

Seeing Yin Seventeen pursuing at a leisurely pace, the youth realized at once that his opponent’s strength far surpassed his own.

He understood that Yin Seventeen was only holding back because of the presence of ordinary people on the street. Otherwise, he would have been captured already.

With this in mind, he steeled himself and unleashed hundreds of punches at the buildings flanking the street.

“Forgive me, everyone!”

Boom!

Winds from his fists transformed into dazzling bursts of light, striking the buildings on either side, instantly reducing the walls to rubble.

In a flash, dozens of buildings collapsed in unison.

“Ah—!”

“Help—!”

The sudden disaster sent the crowd on the street into a panic, their screams filling the air.

“Clever, but far too ruthless,” Yin Seventeen shook his head and immediately abandoned the chase to rescue the imperiled bystanders.

If he endangered so many innocents in pursuit of an evil god’s warrior, how could he answer for it upon returning to the Sanctuary?

Such were the shackles hidden beneath the mantle of justice.

If one claimed to be just, one must act accordingly.

Though he was not a hot-blooded youth brimming with a sense of justice, he could not bear to place so many civilians in harm’s way because of his actions.

This was a mess of his own making, after all.