I'm not just human!

Before anyone could react, it suddenly charged towards Xia Fa!

In the blink of an eye, Xia Fa was completely enveloped by the colorless, semi-transparent pillar of light.

The next moment, he and the two pirates vanished from the deck.

As if realizing something, everyone rushed to the edge of the deck, leaning over the railings and looking at the place where the group of traveling whales were trapped.

Suddenly, they were pushed apart by an immense force, and a whirlpool appeared on the sea surface.

The vortex was like an entrance to a strange realm, within which a village slowly emerged.

As for those poor traveling whales, although they were pushed away, they were still trapped in the time loop, continuing to swim forward, only to be reset again and again.

But everyone had no time to worry about that for the time being, and all eyes were on the village.

With a flash of light, the hot-tempered, scarred pirate appeared on the muddy ground in the village.

He had a head of coarse black hair that spread out behind his head like a lion's mane, and his eyes were wide open with very small pupils, making him look like someone not to be trifled with.

However, upon appearing in this village, his fierce expression immediately vanished, replaced by a cautious and observant demeanor.

Just then, many villagers came out of the houses in the village.

At first glance, the villagers looked exactly like humans, with vivid expressions and mannerisms. The people on the boat didn't notice anything unusual at first.

However, anyone with even a little knowledge of the mystical knows that these are not people, or even living beings.

Or rather, they are both human and not human.

These villagers are beings formed by the "rules" of this time-looping ghost realm. They possess all the characteristics of a human, but they are reset time and time again as the rules are triggered. Even in death, they are reset to their state before death.

It must be understood that in this world, even if the nine righteous gods were to intervene, resurrecting a person would be extremely difficult. The boundary between life and death has always been the most difficult place to cross in this world.

However, these villagers can die and be resurrected time and time again as the time loop is reset. Therefore, some scholars have pointed out that any living being in the time loop type of ghost realm, whether human or other race, is essentially a product of the rules and cannot be regarded as a real living being.

"Someone's coming! Someone's coming!"

Among the villagers, someone shouted, and led by the white-haired village chief, everyone immediately surrounded the black-haired pirate.

"Where are you from, young man?"

The village chief stroked his long white beard, asked with a smile, his expression extremely kind.

The villagers stared wide-eyed at the scarred pirate, seemingly waiting for his answer.

That pirate was impulsive and reckless, and having reached the whale-level rank, no one on the ship, except for Captain Red Porcupine and Dagney, dared to easily provoke him.

In this time-looping, eerie realm, it was already quite remarkable that he was able to restrain his temper and observe cautiously for a while.

Therefore, faced with the village chief's question, the pirate didn't think twice and replied:

“Where else could I come from? I’m from the Kingdom of Augu, of course.”

Unexpectedly, as soon as these words were spoken, the expressions of all the villagers changed immediately.

"He's not from around here, kill him, kill him!"

Other villagers echoed loudly, raising their sickles, pitchforks, and other farm tools.

"He's not from around here, kill him, kill him!"

"He's not from around here, kill him, kill him!"

The pirate was clearly extremely impatient and suddenly took a step forward:

"You want to kill me? All of you combined wouldn't be enough to defeat me!"

He clenched his arm muscles, as if he was about to unleash some kind of secret ability.

However, his expression changed immediately the next moment.

Because he discovered... he was unable to activate any of his secret abilities!

He was like an ordinary person, just like the villagers in front of him!

"Kill him!"

"Kill him!"

The villagers shouted loudly and suddenly swarmed forward, stabbing the pirate to death.

The pirate looked fierce and violent, but he was completely powerless to resist.

The village rippled and undulated, and everything returned to normal. The villagers disappeared one by one, and the yellow earth at the village entrance became silent again.

The second pirate to appear was the illiterate pirate.

However, on the deck, Avalon was the first to show a thoughtful expression. Although his voice was calm, his words made everyone's hearts sink.

"This is troublesome. This strange realm can actually imprison a person's secret abilities..."

Chapter 178 The Bizarre Time Loop, Xia Fa's Solution—Is He Truly a Genius? (Part 2)

Avalon's words struck everyone like a bolt from the blue.

"The ability to imprison secret contracts? This...this..."

The captain of the Red Pufferfish was speechless, his eyes widening, and continued:

"What should I do?"

Originally, everyone thought there was a great chance of breaking the time loop in this eerie realm, since what appeared was actually a village and a group of ordinary villagers.

But now, the situation seems to have completely reversed, with an ordinary person facing a group of armed and strong villagers...

"This isn't just a simple ability to imprison secret bonds; to be more precise..."

Avalon stared at the pirate's corpse on the ground, stabbed to death by the villagers. After the village's time was reset and everything returned to normal, his corpse strangely did not disappear.

However, it is gradually aging.

It gives the impression that it will soon turn into a skeleton and then into a handful of dust as time flies by.

"...He was directly turned into an ordinary person."

Avalon's words shocked many, and many pirates were plunged into utter despair.

Time loop ghost realms are just that unreasonable. Some time loop ghost realms can even turn people into elderly people or children after entering them.

Becoming an old person is fine, but becoming a child would also mean losing all secret abilities, because it would be like returning to childhood.

It won't be until you come out that you can recover.

Avalon seemed completely unconcerned about the reactions of others to His words, including His earlier soliloquy, which appeared to be more like deep thought. He then continued:

"To be precise, after the three of them went in, time reversed for them, back to the time before they signed the secret contract. Only those with the Sovereign rank can withstand this kind of time reversal."

Prince Justinian suddenly realized:

"Is that so? Then why haven't their appearances changed?"

Avalon's tone remained calm, like a still lake, without a ripple:

"This is normal. Changes in the flow of time, at the level of rules, can be specified. Their 'extraordinary' abilities have regressed, but their 'age' remains."

Prince Justinian sighed regretfully:

"Unfortunately, the things you've discovered can't be known to the people in this time-looping ghost realm, especially Xia Fa. Luckily, he's the third one."

Everyone could see that this time loop was being broken by the three people one by one. Those who weren't in the loop were essentially hiding in the void and watching from the sidelines, but they couldn't move. Only the Dominator could come and go freely.

The advantage of this is that later entrants can learn from the experiences of those who came before.

At least for now, the first lesson learned has been summarized.

That is, you absolutely must not tell the people in this village that you come from the Kingdom of Augu!

However, the price for summarizing this experience was rather painful, amounting to the life of a pirate.

Upon seeing the illiterate pirate appear on the yellow earth of the village, the villagers soon followed suit and came out of their houses.

They still carried farm tools such as sickles, shovels, and pitchforks, and their faces were peaceful, showing no signs that they might kill at any moment.

Someone else shouted, and the villagers immediately surrounded the illiterate pirate.

The village chief was still smiling, with a kind expression that made it easy for people to lower their guard at a glance.

He walked up to the illiterate pirate, smiled, and asked softly:

"Where are you from, young man?"

The illiterate pirate had clearly learned from the experience of the previous hot-tempered pirate. He was somewhat apprehensive, and after thinking for a while, he tentatively answered:

"I...I'm from our village?"

Although he spoke in a questioning tone, the village chief's smile immediately became more amiable upon hearing it, and the villagers also lowered their guard considerably.

"Is that old Mike's son? He's been gone for so many years, he's finally back."

The village chief patted the illiterate pirate on the shoulder, his tone full of emotion:

"It's good that you're back, it's good that you're back. Perfect timing, our village is holding an ancestral worship ceremony today, why don't you come and join us?"

The illiterate pirate, who was sweating profusely, breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that he had answered correctly by sheer luck. He then followed the village chief and the villagers to the center of the village.

On board the Red Porcupine, the crew was somewhat surprised to witness this scene.

"This is okay?"

The first mate, looking utterly astonished, continued:

"I thought this answer would be complicated, but I didn't expect Telslit to be so smart."

The others were also somewhat surprised. They had all guessed that the answer wouldn't be the Boyue Empire, but they never expected that the answer would be that they were from that village!

As for why some people would guess the Boyue Empire, the reason is simple: these villagers are not carrying cloth bags, nor are they particularly large or have hands and feet made of blades, so they must be human.

Based on past experience, the locations where "time loops" occur in time loop-type ghost realms are generally related to nearby countries.

So, since the Kingdom of Augu is being treated as outsiders, shouldn't it be the Wave Moon Empire, which is also a human kingdom?

But to everyone's surprise, the answer was that he directly said he was from the village!

“Telslit hadn’t read many books, and his way of thinking was different from ours. He probably noticed the extreme xenophobia of these villagers.”

The captain of the Red Pork Cuttlefish exclaimed: