“……!?” Emily Stone was utterly shocked to see that Lucas Warren had actually taken her words seriously. “I was just saying, there’s no need to actually show me!”

Lucas Warren stopped flipping through the Ascension Record and asked curiously, “You don’t want to see it? There happens to be a segment in the Ascension Record with footage of your ancestor, Shi Suying, splitting the mountain and severing the veins. I thought you’d be interested, but never mind then.”

Emily Stone was taken aback. “It’s just looking at some records?”

Lucas Warren was even more surprised. “Or were you expecting a Foundation Establishment-level patient to demonstrate a Divine Transformation-level technique for you on the spot?”

“…I admit defeat.”

——

With Emily Stone’s words of surrender, Lucas Warren once again led the way, and together they left the mist-shrouded Spirit Mountain.

By the time they returned to the Immortal Ascension Terrace, night had fallen. The Spirit Mountain behind them was hidden in the night fog, as if it were a land of deathly silence. Yet ahead, on the plain below the mountain, there was a dazzling sea of lights.

It was the fire of civilization from a prosperous metropolis, countless points of light densely packed within the city, illuminating not only the plain but even stretching their afterglow all the way to the horizon. With that city as its core, countless slender threads of light extended in all directions, like nimble little guiding spirits, weaving the prosperity of this city into connections with other places.

According to Lucas Warren’s memory, the location of that city was exactly where the outer gate of Spirit Mountain used to be. Led by the mountain-guarding Shi family, a group of cultivators who served Spirit Mountain had established a small town called Lingxi, which gradually grew as more and more people gathered, until the town nearly became a small city.

A thousand years had passed, and the small city had been utterly transformed. Its bustling appearance now stood in stark, ironic contrast to the withered Spirit Mountain.

Times had changed.

“It’s called Rong City now,” Emily Stone said. “It’s the largest city in our country, Walter Brooks, and it was the first city the Founders of the Frontier built on the ruins. It was the national capital until five hundred years ago, but after the Sovereign went into seclusion, the capital was moved to the more convenient You City, and this old capital was forced to ‘wash away its former glory’… That’s what they say, but property prices haven’t really dropped. I only managed to own a place in Rong City thanks to my ancestors’ legacy, though I’m still in debt for it.”

As she spoke, Emily Stone took the lead, walking lightly along a dilapidated blue-brick road.

After the Immortal Ascension Terrace, Lucas Warren was no longer familiar with the path, so the debt-ridden girl, now acting as a part-time tour guide, led the way. Though Emily Stone was starving, her lively steps showed her high spirits.

“By the way, as the old capital, Rong City has preserved a lot of classical-era heritage. For example, the Rong City History Museum displays a set of chime bells said to be five thousand years old. The museum also often exhibits artifacts from other countries. If you’re interested, Mountain Lord, you might want to visit sometime—maybe you’ll find some useful clues.”

“Oh, but you’ll need a Jianmu Seed to verify your identity to enter the museum. We’ll have to figure something out for that…”

“Ah, I almost forgot, Mountain Lord. To help with household expenses, I’ve rented out a few spare rooms at home, so there are a few tenants living with us. When you meet them, I’ll need to come up with a reason for your presence… How about saying you’re a new tenant, hmm, from the southern village?”

Amid Emily Stone’s cheerful chatter, the two quickly finished the broken mountain path and arrived at the foot of the mountain.

In front of them, a wide and tidy road unfurled like a black silk ribbon, winding all the way toward the brilliantly lit Rong City in the distance.

Emily Stone laughed self-deprecatingly. “Quite a contrast to the Spirit Mountain path, right? That’s the difference a public maintenance budget makes…”

Then, she took a ghastly white bone whistle from her red vest, put it to her lips, and blew. A sharp, piercing sound rang out with her breath.

The bone whistle was ingeniously designed, its shrill sound far exceeding the range of normal human hearing. Emily Stone blew it with gusto, completely unfazed.

But to Lucas Warren, the moment he heard it, his ears ached slightly, as if a cold, eerie aura had stabbed into his skull through his ear canals… The next instant, several pale ghostly flames suddenly lit up before his eyes, and surrounded by their glow, a bone carriage filled with icy chill from the netherworld rushed toward them!

The Netherworld Path!

Lucas Warren recognized the origin of this bone carriage at a glance. Though its appearance was quite different from what he remembered, the aura of death and decay flowing through each bone was almost identical to that of the Netherworld Path, the foremost of the three great demonic sects in his memory.

And Spirit Mountain and the three demonic sects had always been like water and fire!

It took him some effort to suppress the urge to immediately tear the bone carriage to pieces.

After all, times had changed—even Olivia Warren had become a dignified and steady person. Maybe Spirit Mountain and the three demonic sects were now as close as family… Besides, the whistle was blown by Emily Stone; if he destroyed the bone carriage here, the girl’s loyalty would be gone.

After restraining his killing intent, Lucas Warren looked at the Netherworld Path’s bone carriage again and made a new discovery.

It was about ten meters long and three meters wide and high, its boxy frame constructed from thousands of strange white bones. On both sides were semi-transparent windows formed from condensed ghostly mist, and beneath the carriage, four writhing balls of flesh slowly rolled along.