Cohabitation with Sword Spirit-Chapter 346 - 83: The Adventure Story Is About to Begin
When Vice City Lord Jinghai of the Shen Family was in agony, cooperating with Golden Jade’s Zhao Family to urgently publish a missing person notice, the handsome man with a square face, Zhao Jincheng, was in the mountains seven hundred and twenty kilometers south of Shen City.
He looked at the gray mountains and waters around him, his eyebrows furrowed, finally feeling something was amiss.
His copper-bell-like eyes stared around desperately, his Spiritual Vision pushed to the extreme, his gaze piercing through the ground so well that even the mating rabbits in their burrows were crystal clear to him... Yet even so, he couldn’t find the legendary scene of flames covering the mountains, with blood-red leaves and incredible beauty.
Staring at the beautifully printed Red Leaf Fairy Realm in his guidebook, as well as the beautiful Shen City girl representing it, Zhao Jincheng was plunged into deeper confusion.
Where did things go wrong? Clearly, he’d been walking straight for so long... yet he saw neither red leaves nor a beauty admiring them. Instead, he found a place where spirit monsters were rife, most being wild and untamable dangerous breeds, having been attacked by these fierce creatures over 20 times since entering the mountains, including some with formidable strength. Had it not been for the fact that he received guidance in Immortal Cultivation since young and fortuitously broke through to the Rain Cover Realm last year... he might have already ended up in the belly of a creature.
After repelling another wave of beast attacks, Zhao Jincheng wiped the sweat from his forehead, feeling a sincere admiration for the people of Shen City.
Back in Golden Jade City, he had heard rumors that Shen City folk were fond of martial arts and war, living daily lives of eating, sleeping, and fighting. Initially, he was skeptical, thinking that Shen City was a famous city with political importance not unlike Golden Jade City, and couldn’t be that wild.
However, today it seemed Shen City’s reputation was well-deserved; even their famous scenic spots were full of danger. Without some skill, one might not only fail to admire the maple leaves but would risk being skinned and dismembered by the creatures. For Shen City’s people to survive and thrive in such an environment for thousands of years, it’s no wonder no one on the continent dares to provoke them...
But now was not the time to admire the people of Shen City. Having promised the Shen Family to meet at the entrance of the scenic spot, he was worried he was already late and still couldn’t find where it was. Keeping them waiting was truly disrespectful... Thinking of this, Zhao Jincheng furrowed his brow further, and a sense of anxiety rose in his heart.
Yet Zhao Jincheng had been notoriously poor with direction since childhood, getting lost even in his own bedroom, and finding the right path was almost harder for him than cultivating immortality. Looking around, he felt all the surrounding mountains seemed carved from the same mold, with no difference in which direction he took.
Only now did Zhao Jincheng feel remorse; he shouldn’t have ditched his men to venture alone... He thought breaking through the Rain Cover Realm and refining his Divine Sense would improve his sense of direction. In his own home, he’d been able to go to the bathroom alone, but it seemed that while going to the bathroom was one thing, traveling alone for miles was still too much for him.
After walking for about half an hour and passing over a dozen peaks, continuing south for more than a hundred miles, Zhao Jincheng finally gave up struggling and admitted he was thoroughly lost.
With no other choice, he fished a Talisman from his sleeve, preparing to contact his two faithful Guiding Dogs to rescue him from this maze.
Though wandering off alone and sending a distress signal in the wilderness after half a day was incredibly embarrassing, he couldn’t care about that now...
However, when Zhao Jincheng channeled his True Essence into the Talisman, attempting to activate it, he felt as if it was suppressed by a gray force. The signal to contact the Guiding Dogs was dissolved halfway.
At this moment, Zhao Jincheng felt truly grave.
The signal failing to be sent indicated either someone using a Great Immortal Technique to completely block his Golden Jade Talisman, or that the land’s veins were chaotic, rendering all Magic relying on the Heaven and Earth Spirit Wind ineffective.
Yet if someone were targeting him, the Jade Talisman he carried should’ve reacted. To deceive that Jade Talisman would be impossible for anyone on the entire Xiangzhou Continent.
As for the land veins issue, if they were chaotic enough to disrupt the Heaven and Earth Spirit Wind, such places are typically called Chaos Death Land. These lands were once frequent in the frontier areas of the Xiangzhou Continent but, over a thousand years of expansion, Xiangzhou’s cultivators extended the borders of civilization to remote realms. Chaos Death Lands are now rare in inhabited areas, but that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous. Quite the opposite, modern Chaos Death Lands are more dangerous than two thousand years ago, filled with numerous and often powerful Demon Essence entities, and lone cultivators venturing into these lands risk being overwhelmed by relentless Demon Tides.
And as Shen City is an edge area of the Xiangzhou Continent, every year, cultivators perish on the Chaos Battlefield...
Considering the myriad materials about Shen City he had seen before coming, especially the data on Chaos Blood Battles, Zhao Jincheng felt cold sweat slowly emerging, accompanied by a wry smile on his face.
Who would’ve thought seeking red leaves on Red Leaf Mountain would lead him to a Chaos Death Land? It seems he really can’t trust his navigation skills in the future and should honestly live like a disabled person, relying on Guiding Dogs...
While shaking his head and sighing, a signal of worsening fate came: as Zhao Jincheng turned around a mountain foot, he suddenly caught a whiff of a faint, ephemeral scent of blood.
This smell was so faint at first that Zhao Jincheng thought it was an illusion, but after taking a few more steps, it became stronger and more distinct.
Zhao Jincheng’s heart tightened.
This was unmistakably the scent of slaughter, not with a few casualties, but hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands!
Zhao Jincheng was all too familiar with this smell.
Although noble, he wasn’t a shut-in young lady—but with Guiding Dogs, he did occasionally venture out—and he had witnessed bloodshed and slaughter before.
It should have been something more than ten years ago.
Back then, Zhao Jincheng had just broken through to the Cloud Flipping Realm, and City Lord Zhao Chenlu arranged for him to serve as a junior official in the government for training. During his tenure, there was a large slaughterhouse within his jurisdiction, slaughtering countless animals daily. When visiting the slaughterhouse, Zhao Jincheng had smelled a similar scent of blood.
Unexpectedly, more than a decade later, he encountered that familiar smell again, though back then it was followed by lavish banquets post-inspection. Now, in this Chaos Death Land, there likely aren’t banquets but possibly deadly threats.
The cultivation at the Rain Cover Realm was indeed formidable, two thousand years ago it could even be called unparalleled, but in the Chaos Blood Battle records of Shen City, there were more than just a few Rain Cover Realm cultivators who perished on the Chaos Battlefield!
Hence, when confronted with such obvious ominous signs, should one confront them head-on, or withdraw where possible?
Zhao Jincheng weighed his options in his heart and, gritting his teeth, decided to head toward the smell of blood.
After all, considering his sense of direction, even if he intended to retreat, he might just end up circling back to the massacre area... Instead of all the trouble, he might as well confront his destiny like a man.
Zhao Jincheng never felt his steps so heavy; for a Great Cultivator capable of cloud-surfing, every step seemed like walking through thick mud, every movement a struggle.
It was unclear how long he walked, but Zhao Jincheng only felt the bloody smell around him become nauseatingly strong, finally...
He saw a stretch of bright red.
Like the promotional painting in the Red Leaf Mountain tour guide booklet, the mountains dyed crimson, scarlet as fire. Only it wasn’t leaves but boiling blood.
The bloodstains on the ground must have been there for a while, but the heat they contained had not yet dissipated, stirring up a terrifying blood mist from the blood-soaked ground.
Enveloped in the blood mist, a young man clad in white like snow, akin to a celestial immortal of legends, stood unstained on the mountain peak.
He had a flawless countenance, features sleek yet mighty, eyes bright as stars, with an overwhelming aura of intimidation.
Especially that slightly sharp face, making Zhao Jincheng, with his square face, feel inferior.
Nonetheless, as the younger brother of City Lord Golden Jade, Zhao Jincheng received the finest education from a young age, quickly recovering from the intimidation.
In these red mountains, a man with such striking looks standing alone seemed dreamlike, filled with intrigue.
However, what Zhao Jincheng had learned since childhood was: there are no unsolvable problems in the world; as long as you connect the clues, even the most incredible mysteries can be unraveled.
Then, given this scenario, what would be a reasonable explanation? Who exactly was this man in white?
Pondering for a moment, Zhao Jincheng took two forward steps and cupped his hands in salute.
"Excuse me, might you be Vice City Lord Shen Jinghai?"
