dmims Capital of the 2nd Empire
Capital of the 2nd Empire
The rope was pulled very tight, gripping Zhou Yun's throat and constricting his artery, forcing a suffocating sensation into his trachea like thick asphalt.
Then, the feeling of oxygen deprivation rose from his trachea, climbed to his brain, and his brain cells cried out in anguish under the deprivation of oxygen. The intense pain urged the brain to release endorphins, injecting a vague and sweet sense of euphoria into Zhou Yun's will.
This euphoric feeling was like slippery snakes, coiling around Zhou Yun's brain nerves, trying to drag him into this hazy sensation, letting the rope around his neck strangle him.
The euphoria seemed to possess some kind of power, a will of its own, whispering in Zhou Yun's ear that struggling would bring pain, while accepting death would allow one to enjoy the joy brought by endorphins.
But Zhou Yun still struggled.
Compared to the pain of struggling,
He feared even more the pain of returning to the golden throne after death.
The feeling of suffocation causes dizziness, muscle spasms, and a rapid loss of control over the body. Under normal circumstances, humans are unable to effectively struggle when hanging themselves.
But perhaps the torment on the golden throne had tempered his will, to the point that the pain of suffocation had been shielded by his will, allowing Zhou Yun to still struggle consciously.
His fingers gripped the rope that was tangled in his throat, trying to break it, but his body wasn't in good physical condition. Zhou Yun could feel his body losing its function due to lack of oxygen, he could feel his internal organs aching, and he could feel the weakness in his muscles. He pulled on the rope, but he couldn't muster much strength.
Compared to the hunter Zhou Yun stayed with in the forest the first time, this body was much weaker.
The hunter in the forest was strong enough to tear the rope wrapped around Zhou Yun's neck with his bare hands...
Zhou Yun reached out again, trying to untie the knot binding the rope.
But the knots were tightly bound, like venomous snakes biting each other. Zhou Yun could only sense the knots by touch and had no way to untie them.
The dizziness became increasingly intense.
Zhou Yun's head throbbed with pain, the blood on his cheeks seemed to be burning fiercely, and his eyes began to bulge out of their sockets. The entire room seemed to spin and distort; the candle flame burning on the table under the window was stretched long, burning and spiraling, transforming into a vortex of light.
Zhou Yun could almost feel the Golden Throne drawing his will back, pulling his desire to escape the cage back to the Golden Throne.
The candlelight swirled into a vortex, the golden throne beckoned from the warp, and the veil of reality thinned.
Zhou Yun sensed the surging psionic energy emanating from the subspace.
Zhou Yun quickly realized that this new body, like the previous one, possessed a certain level of spiritual talent.
Of course, it's also possible that the psionic talents of the previous body were inherited by this one.
Zhou Yun gritted his teeth and uttered fragments of words.
A low hum came from the warp energy, the surrounding air suddenly turned cold, the smell of ozone filled the room, and the veil of reality was briefly breached, allowing psionic power to flow into reality through Zhou Yun's body.
The candle flame suddenly exploded with a crackling sound, the flame swirling and shooting upwards towards the rope hanging above Zhou Yun's head.
The rope snapped in the flames, and Zhou Yun fell to the ground with a thud, sending the scattered bottles on the floor of the room trembling.
The dizziness was still lingering in Zhou Yun's mind.
But Zhou Yun was still delighted, because the call of the golden throne had become blurred again, and the burning pain on the throne had become a distant background.
If Zhou Yun didn't focus his attention and return his will to the Golden Throne, he could hardly feel the pain anymore.
As the suffocating sensation in his mind subsided and his thoughts became clear again, scattered fragments of memories belonging to this body began to surface.
Zhou Yun saw that the body's former owner had been a spirited scholar, a teacher at a grammar school, and also someone who was addicted to gambling and succumbed to the allure of alcohol...
Zhou Yun rubbed his temples, processing these fragmented memories.
Based on his experience, as time goes by, he will gradually recall the memories of this body and gain some of the skills of its predecessor...
Language is often the first thing we learn.
"Boundless darkness..." Zhou Yun cursed in the language the scholar remembered, a curse that seemed to originate from a group of barbarians on this planet.
He got up from the floor and walked to the wooden table under the window.
The candles on the wooden table had gone out, leaving only a faint, dark red moonlight shining on the surface.
Zhou Yun was stunned for a moment, then looked up and saw four moons embedded in the vast sky above the narrow window.
The most captivating of them all... that moon was covered in crimson cracks, like a bloodshot eye hanging in the sky, filled with rage...
Looking at the moon, Zhou Yun's spiritual energy became slightly agitated.
Zhou Yun took a deep breath and looked back at the table.
"First, I beg the fire-breathing dragon Vulcan; second, I beg the emperor to lend me a light..."
He muttered to himself as he brought his fingers close to the candle.
A wisp of flame leaped from his fingertips and ignited the candle in front of him.
This was a simple application of psionic energy, but Zhou Yun frowned slightly.
It feels... different from when I was in Hive City.
Zhou Yun felt that mobilizing his psionic energy to traverse the veil between reality and the warp was far less smooth than it had been in the hive.
It seems that the veil surrounding this planet is much thicker than that surrounding the planet where the diviner resides.
By the candlelight, Zhou Yun opened the drawer of the table and found what he wanted inside.
It was a notebook with slightly wrinkled edges. In Zhou Yun's memory, this notebook was the kind of notebook that scholars usually used to record trivial matters.
"On February 18th, I played cards with Cicero and lost fifty-four dinars."
"On February 19th, Cicero urged me to play cards, and I lost forty-two dinars."
"On February 20th, Cicero asked me to play cards again. I lost 66 dinars. I had no money, so I borrowed 66 dinars."
"Oulus, Oulus, you can't gamble anymore, you owe too much money."
"On February 21st, I played cards with Cicero and lost 396 dinars, borrowing 396 dinars in return..."
Zhou Yun paused for a moment,
Almost simultaneously, a golden flame suddenly ignited on the notebook, engulfing the scholar's name, 'Aulus,' within its pages.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the flames vanished, and the places where "Oulus" had been written were replaced with "Zhou Yun."
Zhou Yun's gaze sharpened slightly. Was this also some kind of imperial power?
He reached out and flipped through a few more pages of the book. The more he turned the pages, the clearer the memories became. It seemed that the scholar's life was gradually merging into Zhou Yun's body.
Meanwhile, the scholar's expertise in grammar, education, literature, and history was gradually emerging in Zhou Yun's mind.
He stopped flipping through the pages, his gaze settling on a single word in the notebook.
That word is the name of the city, and also the name of the planet.
"Makurag," Zhou Yun murmured the name.
One of the twenty-one lost Primarchs, the Primarch of the Thirteenth Legion, the homeworld of the ambitious Robert Guilliman.
The homeworld of the Ultramarines, the capital of Ultramar, the capital of the Second Reich...
Not only that,
What attracted Zhou Yun's attention more than the location was the time.
Surprisingly, this notebook contains absolutely no information about the Empire, the Emperor, the Primarchs, or the Astartes.
(Please read the new book! Please read it! Please read it!)