Seven’s eye.

Once Ling Jun was done torturing the beast, he gutted it and drained the blood, before handing it to Meng Li to preserve in her spatial ring. Meng Li looked at it with obvious anticipation before putting it away.

While he had been torturing the beast, an exit had appeared so the both of them decided to leave this place before taking inventory.

However, just as they were about to leave, the entire place rumbled once again and chunks of stone and other debris began to fall. They both hurriedly ran to the exit, yet before they could reach, it was blocked by massive stone.

Although they were trapped, both realised that none of the debris was actually falling on them. Instead it seemed to consciously avoid them, the one silver lining in their otherwise bleak situation.

All of a sudden something burst out of the ground, into full view. It was a small object and upon closer inspection, they realised it was an eye.

The eye had the seven colours of the rainbow held within, each colour fading into the next, ling Jun could see a red similar to his own irises and a green similar to Meng Li's.

The eye swivelled around till it came to focus on Ling Jun. It had no mouth yet a grating voice began to sound out.

"You have returned. It must have been a long journey for you. As for you, you must have patience. What you will go through is extremely difficult. History has been rewritten by the heavens. Few know of the truth.

"What they know is that armies of the rebels suffered crushing defeat against the seven heavens emissaries. They know not of the sacrifice. The know not of the Seven of Heavens Bane. They know not that the battle still continues. And they know not that you have returned. Oh you of the Heavens Bane, don't forget your goal. Don't forget the sacrifice made in your name. And as the final hope, defeat the heavens and free us of their curse!" The voice rose in volume until it shook the heavens.

However, no one other than Ling Jun and Meng Li were able to hear it. Actually, there were five others outside who heard it. Another strange thing was that it had seemed to be talking to two different people, but had been staring at Ling Jun the entire time.

The eye then moved towards Ling Jun before stopping.

"Don't think of this as good fortune. It is but a curse. For when the seven's eye blooms with intent to kill, all seven of you will be thrown into the pits of despair. But... it is necessary. I... am truly sorry."

Before Ling Jun could react, his left eye was pierced and completely turned into mush as the seven's eye took its place. He could feel the nerves and other parts connecting to his new eye. The process was even more painful than when his hand was removed, and he screamed and thrashed and cried to no avail.

Meng Li could only look on with no way to help him at all. She couldn't help but shed tears seeing him in such a wretched condition.

Finally, the pain ended, yet Ling Jun was unable to open his new left eye. Even trying to force it open with his hands could do nothing.

Ling Jun panicked. A foreign eye had just taken the place of his left eye and had told him it was a curse. He kept inspecting his body to make sure nothing else was wrong and only after could he somewhat calm down.

He wondered how he would explain this when he got back to the city.

The exit had reappeared so they quickly made their way out in case it collapsed again. Meng Li repeatedly asked if he was okay to which he assured her he was fine.

They decided to simply head back to the city early after resting for a bit. They headed back to the cave he had cleared out earlier and killed a pack of wolves who had taken up lodging there in the day they had gone.

Ling Jun set up a campfire and began to roast the meat of the Byeon and they began to go over the events of the day.

"We received a cloning technique, two peak earth level treasures and that's about it. I received this eye, though it's not certain what it is."

Meng Li looked at his still closed left eye and felt guilty, though she had nothing to do with it. They had both thought they would just be harmlessly searching for treasure, but it turned out different, and Ling Jun received a permanent injury from it.

"No need to worry about it, nothing is happening to my body as far as I can tell."

"Thank god." Meng Li was somewhat unburdened.

They chatted and tested out the new weapons as they waited for the meat to finish roasting. Both of them had reached peak of the early seventh grade Qi realm, yet both could fight evenly with first level spiritual realm cultivators.

They were about evenly matched and decided to test the new weapons.

Meng Li was a dual dagger wielder and also used bows whereas Ling Jun was a dual sword wielder with bows also. Though Ling Jun had already decided he would in the future use a sword and a different weapon to add unpredictability to his attacks, though it would be harder to master.

He still hadn't decided which weapon he would use.

Meng Li took out a low black rank dagger and her peak earth rank dagger, the first being silver and the latter black. She rushed into close range and swung her black dagger forward in an attack which was blocked by Ling Juns black sword. She quickly turned her dagger so the flat side pushed against the sword and stepped backwards.

Using the momentum to bring the sword down to her left, she quickly spun to the right and used her left hand to strike at Ling Juns neck.

Ling Jun used his arm to push her arm out of the way, causing the dagger to miss, before he flipped the sword in the same arm to point downwards to pin her feet, bringing his other sword back and pointing upwards to her neck. At the same time though, Meng Li had also retrieved her other dagger and pushed it in the direction of his heart.

They both stopped right before killing each other and the battle ended in a draw.

Meng Li stared at her new dagger in joy as she contemplated how she was near invincible in her clan now. The highest treasure in her clan was a medium black level sword which would snap like a twig in front of her dagger.

Of course, the heads of the clans in Xin city were all at the first level of the soul realm and could still easily kill her so she would still hide her treasure.

Luckily, the beast had a spatial ring which contained nothing but the corpses of the humans it had killed. Although empty, Ling Jun now had his own spatial ring which he could use to hide his possessions.

He put the sword back in the spatial ring. Upon binding the spatial ring he had actually realised something. He could hide things in his spatial ring to the point where even if he gave permission for someone to check his ring, they would be unable to see anything he didn't want them to see.

He had showed Meng Li and she was unable to see his sword when he hid it. This discovery elated him but that wasn't the only thing. He could actually send himself into his own spatial ring albeit only for a second and then he would be unable to enter again for a week. Although it hadn't been a week, he could just simply sense that was how long it would take.

This was another life saving trump card he now had at his possession. He wouldn't use it unless absolutely necessary.

The fragrance of the meat had begun to waft out and the meat was ready, Ling Jun added some seasoning and they began to eat. Meng Li once again wolfed the food down causing Ling Jun to smile whilst shaking his head.

After the meal, they both packed up and headed back to the city separately. Ling Jun could not think up any excuse for why his eye would absolutely not open, and decided to simply say he didn't know how it happened.

However, when he reached the city wall an hour after Meng Li, although he had been recognised, no one seemed to notice his closed eye or comment on it. He entered the city after flashing his badge and walked a while till he reached the Ling clan compound.

Even as he walked in, no one noticed anything strange. A disciple walked up to him and notified him that the clan leader had initiated summons for him and a few others next week, yet he didn't notice the closed eye.

"Hey, could you check my left eye? Is it red?" Ling Jun asked the disciple. The disciple was slightly taken aback yet checked anyway, before concluding there was nothing wrong with it.

"Oh ok thanks!" Ling Jun replied cheerily.

It seemed that his eye looked as normal to everyone. However, he knew that Meng Li was able to see his closed eye. He thought about the eye mentioning the seven and the fact that he had six strings stretching out from him. Does this mean that there are also people at the ends of the other strings?

What is it that links us? Will they also be able to see my closed eye? I've come from earth, how the hell do I fit into the big picture? Ling Jun had so many questions, yet not enough answers.

He decided to simply focus on getting stronger, so that he would not be in danger in the future.

Having decided, he made his way over to his courtyard and confirming with spatial sense that nobody was near, he was just about to get out his lightning flash when he felt a strange sensation.

It was like he was being watched. Turning his spatial sense back on, Ling Jun saw something strange. He could sense the Qi in the surroundings as well as the elements, yet there was also a different kind of energy focusing outwards, all coming from the same spot, in the dead centre of the compound.

He realised that this must be the divine sense of the clan master, enveloping the entire compound. What was strange was that he was able to sense the clan masters divine sense yet the clan master could not sense his spatial sense.

He knew this because if his had been sensed, the clan master would have come over to investigate, yet he hadn't moved from his position.

After a bit of thought, he realised it made sense.

His used space affinity to form his spatial sense while divine sense used a different type of energy, which could project outwards. However, Ling Jun didn't manipulate space, only utilised it therefore nothing would look out of place.

This meant he had another advantage he could use. He wondered if his divine sense would be different upon reaching soul realm because if it was the same, it would be useless.

He couldn't see how far the divine sense stretched to due to his own spatial sense limitation of five hundred and fifty metres.

After a few seconds, the clan master seemed to find what he was looking for, before he headed over and out of the range of the spatial sense.

Ling Jun waited a while before confirming the divine sense had vanished before pulling his Lightning Flash sword technique out and reading carefully.