“Wuuu…”
Crunch, crunch~
In her hazy consciousness, Sheng Ge felt as though she had been trapped in endless, silent darkness for a very long time. Then, she seemed to hear a child crying, along with the sound of someone grinding their teeth beside her ear, so irritating that her brows furrowed in annoyance.
Who dares grind their teeth beside this Venerable One’s ear? I’ll knock all their teeth out!
“You should wake up now.”
Suddenly, a clear and chilly voice drifted over from somewhere deep and distant. A flash of light streaked through Sheng Ge’s mind, and in the next instant, she felt a powerful force kick her violently out of that endless darkness.
Sheng Ge abruptly opened her eyes.
Then she came face-to-face with an indescribably ugly face.
It was so close it was almost touching her.
What was going on? Wasn’t she fighting the Abyss Demons?
Oh, right. The fight had already ended, and she had suffered severe injuries and fallen.
So had she arrived in hell? Was this thing in front of her some kind of ghost monster?
That had to be it.
This ghost was truly disgusting—crooked mouth, twisted eyes, and half the flesh on its face was already rotting away.
No, wait, that wasn’t right either.
Hadn’t she survived in the end? Her master had saved her. He only told her she needed to enter seclusion and sleep for a thousand years. Once she woke up, she would become the honored Grandma Grandmaster, enjoying the filial devotion of generations upon generations of disciples and grand-disciples while living a wonderful retired life.
So… had she awakened from her thousand-year slumber?
And this thing in front of her was one of her many-times-removed grand-disciples?
Possible.
After all, it was currently grinning at her with its mouth wide open.
Though… which disciple line are you from exactly? Which blind fool of a master accepted such a uniquely horrifying creature as a disciple?
And stop baring your teeth like that. Is there something wrong with your brain?
Ugh—
How many years has it been since you last bathed, you little brat?!
Within the brief instant after waking from her thousand-year sleep, countless thoughts flashed through Sheng Ge’s muddled mind. Before she could sort out which possibility was the most likely, the “suspected grand-disciple” in front of her suddenly let out a hoarse growl and lunged at her to bite.
Sheng Ge’s brain had yet to react, but her leg had already moved instinctively.
Bang!
The suspected grand-disciple flew away in the next second.
“Waaah! Master!”
Another child’s cry rang out beside her. Sheng Ge rubbed her forehead and slowly sat up, finally taking a look around.
Only then did she realize she was lying inside a cold jade coffin.
The surrounding area looked somewhat like the forbidden cave dwelling of her sect, though it appeared far more dilapidated, aged, and empty than she remembered.
Following the sound, she saw a strangely dressed little boy crying as he ran toward the person she had just kicked away. But the moment that person staggered back to his feet and lurched toward him again, the boy screamed and fled.
“Ahhh! Master, don’t eat Ah Bao!”
Ning Ah Bao shrieked as he dodged his master, who had already turned into a zombie and was now lunging at him. Then he spotted Sheng Ge sitting upright in the jade coffin.
His eyes lit up instantly.
With tears and snot all over his face, he ran toward her.
“Help! Please save me!!”
Although Sheng Ge still had no idea what was happening, there was no way she would just watch a child die in front of her.
Her gaze sharpened, and with a thought, she tried summoning her sword.
But after trying twice, she still couldn’t sense it.
Only after examining the spiritual energy within her body did she realize that her cultivation was now less than one-tenth of what it used to be!
Meanwhile, the suspected grand-disciple from before had already reached her again, mouth hanging wide open, face twisted grotesquely, stumbling forward with its legs spread awkwardly.
Sheng Ge could only lift her leg once more and kick him flying over ten meters away.
“Hm?”
Her eyes widened slightly.
The person she had kicked did not die like she expected.
Instead, he struggled shakily to prop himself back up. Judging from the sound earlier, most of his bones were probably shattered from her kick, because the moment he pushed himself up—
Smack!
He collapsed onto the ground again.
Then he pushed himself up again.
Collapsed again.
Pushed up.
Collapsed again.
Combined with that horrifying face, he looked exactly like a wriggling rotten worm.
Sheng Ge covered her chest in disbelief and took two steps backward.
“I’ve actually become this weak?!”
At that moment, Ning Ah Bao, who had been hiding behind the jade coffin, cautiously poked his head out and secretly looked at Sheng Ge’s back.
“A-Auntie… who are you?”
Sheng Ge slowly lowered her hand and turned to glance calmly at him.
A boy around seven or eight years old. His clothes were tattered and strange, his entire body filthy from head to toe. The only pleasant thing about him was his pair of large, round eyes, which were currently staring at her timidly.
“If nothing unexpected happened, you should be calling this Venerable One ‘Grandma Grandmaster.’”
“G-Grandma Grandmaster?”
Confusion flashed through Ning Ah Bao’s eyes before they gradually widened.
Dressed in flowing white robes, ethereal as an immortal, and emerging from a jade coffin…
Could this fairy-like auntie actually be—
“Y-You’re the legendary Grandma Grandmaster from our Wuji Sect?” Ah Bao asked uncertainly.
“If you are also a disciple of the Wuji Sect, then yes, this Venerable One is indeed your Grandma Grandmaster.”
Sheng Ge nodded indifferently.
“Grandma Grandmaster, y-you’re really alive! Master really didn’t lie to Ah Bao!”
The moment Sheng Ge admitted it, Ah Bao went from disbelief to wild excitement, practically jumping in place.
Ever since he was little, his master had told him that the Wuji Sect had a Grandma Grandmaster who had slept for three thousand years.
Legend said she was the final disciple personally accepted by the founding ancestor of the Wuji Sect.
According to the stories, thousands of years ago, cultivators truly existed in the world. Back then, the Wuji Sect was the number one sect in the cultivation world and the strongest sword cultivation sect of all.
But later, the cultivation world fought a great war against creatures from the Abyss.
Most cultivators died in that battle.
As a result, the cultivation world gradually declined. Cultivators became fewer and fewer until cultivation itself eventually turned into nothing more than legend.
And the legendary Grandma Grandmaster of the Wuji Sect was said to be the only cultivator who survived that great war.
Though she survived, she also fell into an endless slumber that lasted thousands of years.
Since then, one of the greatest duties passed down through every generation of Wuji Sect disciples was to guard Grandma Grandmaster and wait for her awakening.
But after three thousand years had passed—and with cultivation long since becoming mere legend—fewer and fewer people believed the story anymore.
Aside from his master, not even his master’s own sons or fellow disciples believed it. In fact, they had severed ties with his master because they refused to spend their entire lives guarding the mountain like he did.
Honestly, Ah Bao himself hadn’t believed it before either.
He always thought his master was just making things up.
After all, how could someone sleep for thousands of years and still wake up?
But now…
His master had actually been telling the truth!
There really was a Grandma Grandmaster!
And Grandma Grandmaster had truly awakened!
Sheng Ge couldn’t be bothered paying attention to Ah Bao’s excitement. Resting one hand beneath her chin, she curiously examined the wriggling “person” on the ground.
The more she looked, the more astonished she became.
This “person” clearly no longer possessed any life force, yet somehow it could still move.
It resembled the corpse puppets she had seen before.
Even stranger, despite lacking awareness, it still retained the instinct to attack people. Yet she could not sense the slightest fluctuation of spiritual energy or any other power from it.
She had no idea what kind of force was controlling it.
“Boy, what exactly is this thing?”
“Ah?”
Pulled out of his excitement by the sudden question, Ah Bao’s expression instantly fell. He carefully walked toward Sheng Ge.
“This is my master, Ning Zhengde…”
Ah Bao looked sadly at his master, who had completely lost consciousness and become a zombie.
“Your master?”
Sheng Ge frowned.
Since when did the Wuji Sect start accepting monstrous creatures like this as disciples?
Ah Bao’s expression became even sadder, and tears immediately poured out again.
“It’s all my fault! Master became a zombie to save me! If I hadn’t run so slowly, Master wouldn’t have been bitten by a zombie… Waaaah! Master… it’s all Ah Bao’s fault…”
“Ah Bao didn’t even get the chance to grow up and cook delicious food for you yet… sob sob… Now that Master has turned into a zombie, does that mean you can only eat meat from now on? But Ah Bao doesn’t have money to buy any…”
“Enough!”
Sheng Ge frowned.
“Get to the point!”
“Hic!”
Ah Bao froze and looked blankly at his newly acknowledged Grandma Grandmaster.
“What’s… the point?”
“…The thing you called a zombie. What is it?”
“A zombie is a zombie,” Ah Bao answered sincerely, even glancing at his zombie master afterward.
“…Fine. I suppose that answer isn’t wrong. Then let me ask something else. What year is it now?”
“It’s the second year of the Disaster Era.”
“Disaster Era?”
Sheng Ge frowned deeply.
“Which emperor came up with such an unlucky era name?”
Ah Bao looked at her with sympathy and sadness.
“Grandma Grandmaster… it wasn’t set by an emperor. It’s called the Disaster Era because… because we’re in the apocalypse now.”
Sheng Ge: ?
What?
The end of what world?