The faces of the group were somber. However, having traveled for over two years—a thousand days of flight, several brushes with death, and treading at the gates of hell—they could no longer truly say they feared death.
The Heavens had long since worn away the spirit they once possessed in the mortal realm.
Xu Xian said listlessly, “If you don't speak, no one will think you're a mute.”
The Sovereign scoffed but didn't take offense. It had been two years, and they had traveled tens of millions of miles together.
They had come to understand each other's temperaments well enough.
To put it bluntly,
if you stayed with a pig for two years, you'd develop some feelings for it.
However, this wasn't necessarily a good thing. At the very least, Xu Xian and the Sovereign shared the same worry.
They were too familiar now; they feared they might not be able to bring themselves to strike the other down in the future.
Li Shuhe said, “I'll keep watch. You all should hurry and rest.”
With that,
she leaped away, heading to a higher mountain peak to face the wind alone.
From a distance, her bridal gown remained a brilliant red, untouched by a single speck of dust.
The others said nothing, each sitting down on the ground. Lu Yuan pulled out some dried immortal ginseng he had been saving and began to chew on it.
This was good stuff. Previously, he had been reluctant to eat it, but things were different now. If he didn't eat it now, he might never get the chance.
The others were mostly the same.
They could treat what the Sovereign said as a joke and ignore it.
But with Li Shuhe being so serious, they understood clearly that whatever was coming next would be no small matter.
Xu Xian leaned back against a rock and reclined, taking out a jar of Peach Blossom Wine to drink alone. As the strong liquor hit his throat, the fragrance of peaches filled his senses—a taste he hadn't experienced in a long time.
Looking at the wine in his hand, he thought of the Peach Blossom Immortal Abode and the senior sister who loved to sit on the swing under the peach tree. Naturally, he also thought of Li Qingshan, Lin Qianqian, Zhang Yang, Tu Kongkong, Chu Yi, Ruan Hao, Wen Qingxue...
Old friends and old memories brushed through his heart, and a trace of melancholy inevitably stained his eyes.
Separated for a thousand days, he wondered if they were all well.
“Time really does fly!”
The Sovereign approached and sat down beside Xu Xian. However, he sat more formally, keeping his royal attire perfectly straight.
Compared to the others who wore gray robes as disguises, he certainly looked more respectable.
He reached out a hand. “Give me a jar.”
Xu Xian ignored him as usual.
The Sovereign didn't get angry. He withdrew his hand and smiled playfully. “Don't you want to know what kind of fellows are blocking the road ahead?”
Xu Xian glanced at him and said nonchalantly, “You say that as if you actually know.”
“How do you know I don't?” the Sovereign teased, his confidence unshaken.
Xu Xian was half-skeptical, but thinking it was just a jar of wine and that he had plenty,
he considered that this guy might actually know something.
The former Immortal Emperor, even if fallen, possessed methods beyond those of ordinary people.
He handed the jar he was drinking from to him, then took out a new one for himself, unsealing it and taking a long swig...
The Sovereign looked at the wine Xu Xian had already drunk from, his expression stiff with disgust.
Xu Xian urged, “Are you going to drink or not?”
The Sovereign carefully rotated the jar, pointing the side Xu Xian's mouth hadn't touched toward himself. He took a somewhat reluctant sip, but the moment the wine hit his throat, he looked exceptionally pleased, an expression of pure enjoyment appearing on his face.
Naturally, his disgust for Xu Xian was thrown to the back of his mind.
“I must say, your wine is quite good. Much better than what that Little White-Haired one has.”
“Little White-Haired” was Bai Ze,
and “Little Red-Haired” was Lu Yuan.
These were the nicknames he had given them. Speaking of which, Bai Ze was truly lucky. Just because he had given the Sovereign a piece of clothing, the Sovereign had actually protected him all the way until now. Otherwise, he likely would have perished long ago.
As for the others,
Xu Xian had naturally exerted no small amount of effort for them.
Lu Yuan,
and Tu Sisi went without saying—one was his younger brother, and the other was his master's woman.
In Xu Xian's heart, they were at the top of the list.
After them,
came the several demon gods from the Demon Abyss.
Of course,
it wasn't that Xu Xian had stood by and watched the other two die; he simply lacked the strength to save them despite his desire to do so.
Xu Xian knit his brows and said with his usual coldness, “Speak.”
The Sovereign took another drink and said slowly, “If we go further, we'll reach the Spirit River. In the past, this place was called Cang. Later, the Spirit River passed through here, splitting the province in two—one half fallen to darkness, and the other half preserved in the light.”
“For ten thousand years, the two sides have been in a confrontation in this province, and the stalemate continues to this day.”
“It's strange, though,”
“according to what those dark creatures say,”
“the Spirit River flows from south to west, yet Cangzhou is the only place where it can be crossed. Everywhere else, it's said that even an emperor would find it difficult to cross. It's as if someone deliberately opened a gap here.”
“Naturally, this place became a battlefield and its name was changed. They call the million-mile territory on both banks of the Spirit River the Spirit-Immortal Boundary. It's quite a mouthful; I don't know who came up with such a terrible name.”
Xu Xian listened intently while drinking, silently repeating the name in his heart.
“The Spirit-Immortal Boundary?”
The name indeed wasn't great, but the meaning was clear. It sounded appropriate and fit the actual situation.
The Sovereign continued, “But I reckon that once we cross over, those fellows on the other side will call it the Immortal-Spirit Boundary. That sounds much more natural...”
Xu Xian didn't say a word. He had long since grown accustomed to this guy's way of speaking—always rambling and habitually going off-topic.
Based on his experience, once the Sovereign had wandered enough, he would return to the point on his own.
But if you tried to argue with him, there was no telling how long he would stay stubborn...
Sure enough, after a few more complaints, the Sovereign returned to the topic. “Stationed on this side is the Far East Legion of the dark creatures. As the name suggests, it's an expeditionary force. I've heard there's an elite unit within it called the Blood Spirit Army. It's composed entirely of dark creatures at the Small Spirit Lord stage, numbering a full hundred thousand. Impressive, right? All of them are at the Heaven Immortal stage. Tsk tsk, this setup is even more extravagant than my Twilight Legion was back in the day...”
One hundred thousand?
This number truly gave Xu Xian a shock. An army composed of a hundred thousand Heaven Immortals—that was an incredible level of power.
One had to realize,
based on current knowledge, a single fallen province only had a few dozen Small Spirit Lords. This meant that in the seventy million miles of wasteland they had traversed, there were at most two thousand Small Spirit Lords in total.
Yet a hundred thousand were gathered here.
Furthermore,
since the minimum was the Small Spirit Lord stage, there would naturally be no shortage of Great Spirit Lords at the God Immortal stage.
And those would also be numerous.
After hearing this, Xu Xian was half-skeptical. “How do you know this so clearly?”
The Sovereign looked triumphant, being deliberately mysterious to show off. “It's news to you, but there are many things I know. For instance, I also know there are several Ancestral Spirits at the Immortal King level over there.”
Ancestral Spirits
were the beings with the noblest bloodlines and the greatest strength among the current dark creatures, second only to the three First Ancestors.
According to Li Shuhe, besides the existing descendants of Ancestral Spirits, the only condition to become a new Ancestral Spirit was to be a powerhouse at the Immortal King stage.
This race was not only powerful but also rare; Xu Xian hadn't encountered any along the way.
He had heard the Sovereign and Lu Yuan bragging about them, saying that Ancestral Spirits were different from other dark creatures. Their skin was not dry-gray, and their eyes weren't necessarily red; they looked no different from ordinary beings.
Of course, Xu Xian wouldn't fully believe everything he said while bragging. He asked cautiously, “How many?”
The Sovereign said casually, “Originally, there were two.”
“And now?”
The Sovereign added just as casually, “At least three.”
“And at most?”
The Sovereign curled his lip. “Who knows...”
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