Chapter Two

The sun hung overhead, its intense light illuminating the entire world.

Two carriages, both appearing quite large, moved slowly forward under the sun's rays. Two dark brown horses trotted along, pulling what looked like an older carriage. They advanced along the flat road.

Behind them was a cart covered with a large gray cloth, and the two horses pulling it in front looked much less relaxed than those in front, panting heavily from exhaustion.

When Lady woke up, she found herself lying in a carriage, or more precisely, in a compartment at the back of the carriage... inside a black wooden coffin.

It really is a coffin, seemingly carved directly from a single piece of precious ebony wood. The carvings and patterns on it, those eerie totem-like designs, seem to be ostentatiously proclaiming the carpenter's unparalleled skill.

Beneath her lay what appeared to be a sheepskin, and the cover she was using also seemed to be a sheepskin. The snow-white sheepskin smelled as if it had just been removed from the sun; there was no muttony odor, only the fragrance of sunshine.

Lady struggled to her feet, only to realize that she had somehow changed into a long white robe. Underneath the robe were only hastily wrapped bandages, the same crude method of bandaging applied to her head. A faint smell of medicine mixed with blood could be detected through the gaps in the bandages.

"Where am I?" She was a little confused and looked around.

It was a small, even tiny, compartment. On either side of the coffin was a wooden box, and next to it was another covered coffin with medicine and bandages on it, which looked like the basic items used to bandage himself.

However, these two coffins took up almost half of the area.

The remaining half was occupied by wooden chests of various sizes, emanating a faint fragrance, perhaps from some kind of spice. Even the overhead cabinets were tightly locked, clattering as the carriage moved forward, presumably crammed full. A few animal hides hung sparsely on the walls, and there were two windows, each about an arm's width wide, on either side.

Lady clenched her teeth in pain. She had a penetrating wound in her left shoulder, and even the slightest movement caused her pain, making it difficult to even breathe.

The lines on her face had disappeared, and her purple left pupil had returned to its brownish-black color. They were beautiful eyes, but lacked any liveliness, like the eyes of a dead person. Her skin was deathly pale, and in the sunlight, her flawless appearance looked rather eerie.

Because everyone has flaws, a perfect face always gives people a chill.

Suddenly, her delicate nose twitched, and a delicious aroma of food wafted through the door. Lady immediately became alert and stared intently at the doorway.

Only then did she remember something crucial: there were other people present.

She instinctively raised her left arm, only to discover that only the upper half remained of it; the lower half consisted of a rotating mechanical structure. The mechanism that should have been in place had been pried open, and the robbers had taken her knife.

At the same time, she also felt pain; she had only moved her arm slightly when she felt like she was about to faint again. Her head was still dizzy from the hammer blows, and in her panic, she saw double.

"Are you... alright?" A calm, still voice came from behind her. Lady was startled, looked up, and saw a face devoid of any emotion—the face of a young man.

He was wearing a rather formal tailcoat, but it looked quite old and worn. He appeared to be around seventeen or eighteen years old, with a face that still held a youthful innocence. He was probably between 1.7 and 1.8 meters tall, not particularly well-built, with no visible muscles, and rather rather thin.

That face was arguably the coldest face Lady had ever seen, as if all the muscles on it were frozen, unable to make any change.

Then... Lady's gaze moved upwards and she saw a cute prop that didn't match her outfit at all.

It was tied on her head like a headband, with a ring the size of a finger in the middle of her forehead. Inside the ring was a gem, and inside the gem... was a small, worried-looking face with two oval eyes looking at Lady.

“My name is Yak.” Yak paused, then said, “Bai Shi.”

The meaning of "Bai Shi" is that he has no family. Generally speaking, commoners are all surnamed Bai, and this is usually omitted when writing.

Then he pointed to the thing on his head and said in a flat voice, "Sorry, for some reason, I can't make expressions. This little thing can replace my face."

He seemed well aware of how awkward and rude his expressionless face appeared to others, so he offered an explanation before Lady could even ask.

Then came another deathly silence, because Lady didn't reply, she just stared at him silently.

Yak looked a little embarrassed by the stares. He looked away, his face flushed, and he seemed a bit shy.

Then he quickly put down what he was holding and placed it on the closed coffin next to him.

It was a wooden plate with bread and milk on it. It looked like a nice breakfast setup.

"Where am I?" Lady looked at him for a long time, and only when she was sure that he was not hostile after putting down his things and preparing to leave did she ask with a slight sense of relief.

Just as Yak turned around, he quickly turned back around. At that moment, the wheel rolled over a stone, and the sudden jolt almost made him fall backward.

“This is the Kurrus Steppe,” Yak said, straightening himself up. “We found you outside the city of Oulu.”

Oulu was the closest city to them last night; it belonged to the Gorlov dynasty and was a city in a small state.

"Did you bandage me?" Lady suddenly realized something, her face flushed, and she turned her head away and whispered.

“I have studied relevant medical knowledge,” Yak said expressionlessly, his voice as hard as stone.

But the little expression on its head betrayed it; its little face was now flushed red, and it turned its head away to avoid looking at her.

...Rewind half a day, and the sun is just rising.

Following yesterday, today's weather remains good, with clear skies, excellent visibility, and a generally safe environment.

Logically speaking, this place is located in a chaotic area where the four seasons are reversed and natural disasters and earthquakes are commonplace. It is a place where you shouldn't be alarmed to see bones buried by quicksand on the grassland.

A man with a tangled head leaned against the wooden frame, yawned, and whistled at the birds in the sky.

Judging from his appearance, he already looked like a very slovenly middle-aged man, with stubble growing haphazardly on his chin without any discernible pattern.

"Ark, do you think that guy is still alive?" He tilted his head, looking at the guy next to him who was holding a notebook and calculating with his head in his hands.

“I don’t know. I’ve already bandaged her wounds and used some newly arrived healing medicine. The medical supplies used totaled twenty-six… no, twenty-eight pieces of broken board. In other words, we’ve done our best.” Ark’s expression remained unchanged, but the small expression on his headdress showed a hint of struggle: “Denos, did you check the seal on the salt container? There will be heavy rain in two hours, and I need to change the carriage wheels now. The terrain may twist into a swamp afterward, and the current wheels will undoubtedly get stuck.”

"What about our horses?"

“Next, we need to find a place to rest. This heavy rain won’t last long. The elemental turbulence will turn the swamp into a desert in thirty minutes, and then we can continue our journey.” Ark stood up. “Let’s think about setting up camp now. I’ll go prepare some food. She seems to have woken up.”

What he just said was incoherent and illogical. It's a sunny day with not a cloud in sight, just an endless grassland, a gentle breeze and a rising sun. There's no sign of a downpour.

But the slovenly man yawned and snapped his fingers, indicating that he understood and was ready to do as he had just been told.

Because this is a chaotic place, it would be abnormal to have a normal day here.

This world was created by a god, but this is not recorded in any scriptures. Instead, it is written in history books, with accurate dates and verifiable events, clearly recording the absurd and incomprehensible past in black and white.

The world is round, like a giant floating island. The world is shaped like a huge inverted cone, suspended in this void. It is a creation of God. Tens of thousands of years ago, God forcibly created this world in the void.

Its boundaries were discovered thousands of years ago; beyond those boundaries lies an endless void, and stepping into it results in annihilation. The last person to attempt this lost his entire arm.

After God had done all this, he died.

However, it cannot be said to be truly dead, because according to historical records, after creating all things, it created eighteen demons to rule the world, although those beings could not be called demons at that time. However, what happened next is easy to guess: the demons rebelled and fought a fierce battle with the gods, resulting in the deaths or serious injuries of both sides, and they are now nowhere to be found.

Their battles turned over 80%, even nearly 90%, of the world into a chaotic wasteland.

As its name suggests, the Chaotic Realm is a place where gods and demons fight fiercely, paying no heed to the people on earth, nor repairing the places they have destroyed while they are at war.

Therefore, their battlefield became a place of utter chaos, where the power of gods and demons remained. Moreover, in addition to the bizarre weather and almost constant disasters, there were other dangers as well.

After all, to survive here, one can only absorb those chaotic energy flows and become a monster.

Denos scratched his messy hair and went to the carriage at the back. He lifted the gray cloth to reveal the box underneath.

The boxes were mostly filled with salt, because the city they were going to next, Durum, couldn't produce its own salt and had to buy it from merchants.

Therefore, there is no more profitable commodity than transporting salt there, provided that they do not die in the strange weather or perish at the hands of monsters.

However, among these salt bins, there was a bamboo bucket about half the size of a person, which seemed out of place.

"Hey, aren't you going to come out for some fresh air?" Denos actually tapped on the bamboo bucket and said, "You've been cooped up for too long, aren't you uncomfortable?"

"Forget it." A voice actually came from the bamboo bucket, and it was an extremely hoarse voice, almost like the sound of rubbing stones together: "If I go out, I'll scare her."

Then he added, "I'm fine... It's nice to stay here, it's warm."

To this, Denos could only chuckle helplessly, then covered the lid with the cloth: "Fine, whatever you say."

When Acker led the girl he had picked up out of the carriage, Denossler stopped the carriage and waved to the girl from a distance of about ten meters.

Now is not the time to chat. They only have two hours to set up a temporary shelter. Both carriages have a hidden feature: they can be put together to form a small wooden house.

"What are you doing?" Lady looked at them with some surprise, busy with their tasks, seemingly having no time to pay attention to her.

“It’s going to rain heavily, we need to prepare.” Yak led the horses together, patted their heads to signal them to behave, and said, “Denos, build a barrier.”

"Okay, how big do you want?"

"Just enough to cover everything, and also reinforce the ground a bit, otherwise it will be troublesome if we get stuck in the swamp."

Lady watched silently for a while, then sat on the wooden frame next to her and looked out at the vast grassland.

Her slender legs swayed slightly in the air, like tree branches. The air was still a bit chilly. She hugged herself gently, exhaled slowly, and shivered slightly.

She is terrified; she can't help but be terrified.

She was in a strange place with two strange men, as if she had been kidnapped.

But now no one can save her, and even if these two guys want to sell her to some slave trader, Lady can't resist.

But from the moment they arrived until now, they had only been diligently building the shelter and hadn't explained anything to her at all. Lady hadn't found a suitable opportunity to ask, so she could only sit there and watch them work.

Finally, parts of the two carriages were disassembled and simply reassembled to form an irregular, near-circular shape that surrounded the area where Lady was sitting.

They fed the horses something, and they fell into a deep sleep. Then they covered the horses with a cloth and lit a campfire around Lady.

After all this was over, Denos took out a stack of papers with strange incantations drawn on them from his clothes. While muttering something, he stuck them on the ground around him. Then he took out a purple wooden splinter and drew a large circle around the area, a circle that enveloped everything.

When he connected the two ends of the line, a pale green barrier appeared faintly. Denos wiped the sweat from his brow and nodded in satisfaction.

"Preparing only a wood elemental barrier is too hasty, isn't it?" Ark said expressionlessly, his tone completely devoid of emotion.

"That's enough, that's enough." After finishing, Denos bent down and pasted a few more sheets of paper before stuffing the stack into his pocket. "Alright, how much longer until the rain comes?"

"About ten minutes," Yak said, looking into the distance. "What a beautiful day."

“I wonder when it will appear again.” Denos also came over and sat down by the fire.

Ark nodded slightly, then looked at Lady, who seemed a little uneasy, and said, "Come sit by the fire, it might get a bit cold later."