Destiny in Cinders

”It will work! This is the right train of thought!” An Jing was quite delighted with himself. He had only succeeded at elixir incubation some time ago when he borrowed Ming Guangchen’s power to use Heavenly Fiend Dissolution to take out an adept of the Seated Mirage Sect. Since Ming Guangchen’s power wore off, however, he was no longer able to use it. Heavenly Fiend Dissolution had specific activation conditions that couldn’t be casually met by Fortification martialists.

But after hearing Huo Qing’s thoughts, An Jing realized that the Imperial Earth Art contained similar tricks that could be used in tandem with the power of the Imperial Sky Art to amass qi essence in the body into a core elixir, allowing him to use elixir incubation again! While that wouldn’t put him on the same level as adepts, it was still something he could deploy in critical moments to fatally damage adepts.

That aside, Huo Qing had truly changed. He was more confident, for a start. People who didn’t have confidence wouldn’t even fathom the thought that something they had gained insight into was actually used by others. During moments where life and death hung in the balance, most people weren’t able to trust their own capabilities and froze up without a single thought. The fact that Huo Qing was able to overcome his fear and take action during a moment like that was a sure sign that his nature had transformed. He was no longer the same kid who would be threatened by the likes of Gunner.

While An Jing was happy for him, he also knew that this wasn’t the time to catch up on each other’s martial progress. He asked his friend more about the fey assault on the town and learned a few interesting things.

First, the frequent fey attacks on Hilltwixt caused the Purple Mansion formation to operate rather frequently. It was likely that the frequency of activation caused the Grand Neon Tower to be disabled for maintenance, which resulted in the town faring far worse against the fey swarm.

Second, this wasn’t the first appearance of the three-legged golden crow. Initially, most people thought that this was just a larger fey assault than usual with at most led by a few Foundation Realm great feys, so they hurriedly calibrated the Grand Neon Tower and managed to fend off a few waves. By the time the three-legged golden crow appeared, however, the drained Grand Neon Tower was no longer able to strike with enough power to threaten it.

”I see...” An Jing narrowed his eyes slightly as he pondered the matter. ”That means that the golden crow is aware of the town’s internal affairs to some extent. Could there be a traitor in our midst?”

”How’s that even possible?” Huo Qing shook his head hard. ”What could feys possibly offer us humans to defect to their side? It’s not like it’s going to pay off either. Just look. The moment Sage Fogmountain steps up, the three-legged golden crow won’t be able to do anything about it.”

Perhaps Huo Qing’s good impression of Sage Fogmountain stemmed from the fact that he was a formationist as well.

”Right, so humans wouldn’t betray their own for the sake of the feys. But what if there’s someone in town who wants to make use of the feys to achieve some end?” Unlike the native Huo Qing, An Jing was someone from Void Embrace where all sorts of people and factions had dealings with heavenly fiends. They were all too happy to borrow their power for their own goals. An Jing was extra sensitive to such possibilities and plots.

In fact, he did have a guess. ”Perhaps the golden crow wasn’t even aware that there’s a treasure in town in the first place. Someone here must’ve leaked that information intentionally and lured the crow here.”

He left the warehouse and looked in the direction of the sage and the avian beast. The golden crow was still launching an endless barrage of attacks on the sage, failing to breach his defensive formations. All it achieved was draining its own energy reserves.

Despite being a true spirit, the golden crow wasn’t able to overcome the sage’s defenses. It wouldn’t want to expend its power in a meaningless battle either, so it let out a loud call and caused the flamecrows to spread out and scatter like rising smoke. The great beast itself also ascended into the sky, parting of the stormclouds like a sun amidst a chaotic cluster of stars. Then, sharp-piercing light shot out of the radiant beast. The eye of the sun gazed upon the world, illuminating everything in it.

Both Sage Fogmountain and An Jing could tell that this was the fey’s final gambit. The true spirit had decided to make one final attempt before giving up, stubbornly unwilling to admit its loss. It knew that it wouldn’t be able to defeat its enemy all the same, but had nonetheless struck out of pride.

Sage Fogmountain rose on the earth that he had conjured up, his six formation banners rapidly spinning to project the Hex Singularity Unification Stablestar Disaster Pacification Formation in the air. Yet, an accident occurred right as An Jing was preparing to reenter the warehouse to avoid the shockwaves of the true spirit and sage’s final clash.

A massive explosion could be heard coming from the Grand Neon Tower that stood at the center of the town. Metal, flames and lightning came bursting forth from the major formation’s foundations that had either failed from overuse or sabotage. The Grand Neon Tower snapped like a chopstick, pulled down by gravity like falling timber. Even Huo Qing felt that something was off and came to the entrance. Most of the citizens of Hilltwixt looked outside with shock and awe, their gazes following the tower’s trajectory as it crashed into the ground. Sage Fogmountain, engaged in combat with the golden crow, was helpless to stop it.

Yet, that was merely the start. Massive tremors could immediately be felt all across Hilltwixt after the tower’s collapse. A massive crack in the ground suddenly appeared, stretching from north to south where the tower used to stand, separating it into two massive cliffs in the east and west. The eastern side gradually rose while the western side sank, resulting in an altitude difference of hundreds of meters within a few short seconds.

The two halves of the town continued to separate, expanding the canyon between them more and more. An Jing and the warehouse was on the eastern side. Sensing the danger, he summoned Frostwhite Dart and immediately rode into the air with Huo Qing. Many other cultivators in Hilltwixt also rose into the air with their respective vehicles, watching speechlessly as the land they had resided on for many years warped to such a degree. They heard the powerful bellows coming from deep within the ground as the surface reworked itself into a tidal wave of earth and rock that spread across the whole of Mortality Plains.

The nonstop thunderous rumbling from deep within the mantle created a massive cloud of dust that rose into the sky, forming a black-brown veil a thousand zhang in height that blocked out the sun. Lots of spirit ores were sent flying by the rampant winds, sparkling colorfully in the air, forming a neon rainbow.

The golden crow that had looked like it was about to retreat shrieked once more before it zipped toward the sage and pinned him down. Even the squirrel in An Jing’s chest pocket managed to snap wide awake. It looked intensely at a certain direction and squeaked nonstop, turning around and raising its tail high. It pointed incessantly at a specific location of raised ground near the rift valley.

”What? Wait a second...” An Jing used True Spirit Eyes to take a look and caused his breathing to immediately quicken. He was looking at the very source of the sinkcrystals that were being mined in Hilltwixt! The massive seed crystal approximately the height of a human was embedded in a crystal cave, surrounded by other silver-gray sinkcrystals. It had slumbered there for ages, only to be unearthed by the sudden disturbance in the ground’s structure.

Is this a fortuitous encounter? An Jing didn’t overthink it. He would be a fool not to go and collect it for himself. Even if the town asked him to hand over the seed crystal later, he was sure to be rewarded for keeping it safe in his custody.

”It’s mine!” He drove his hoverbike close to the rift and raised his hand, lifting the seed crystal into the air without directly touching it and putting it into his void artifact. All this had happened in the blink of an eye.

Haha! That easy? Satisfied that it went so well and nobody else fought him for it, he was in quite a good mood. Tribulations are truly great opportunities to hunt for treasures. While I don’t know what the golden crow is after, it’s still worth taking the risk to obtain the seed crystal!

An Jing then ascended into the air with his hoverbike and looked to the side back at the crystal cave he had just left. Then, his movements ceased completely. He widened his eyes with disbelief, subconsciously using True Spirit Eyes fully. Gold and crimson blood and metal lethal qi flowed and pulsed from the corners of his eyes. Even Huo Qing noticed that something was off.

However, An Jing no longer cared about any of that. He was focused entirely on the light that could be seen down in the pitch-black abyss deep in the ground. Underneath the town was a cavity that looked much larger than the town itself, its true appearance only revealed after the massive landscape overhaul. It looked like an ancient complex of ruins, nothing short of a massive and untouched immortal castle.