Destiny in Cinders

The collapse of the Grand Neon Tower and the subsequent chaos on the ground caused the regular-looking circular town to end up like a broken biscuit. Its many shattered pieces were pulled farther and farther away from each other as the land of the eastern part of town rose to become a mountain. While the buildings of the eastern district where An Jing’s warehouse was remained intact, nobody dared to remain indoors.

Deep below the crevice in the ground, a massive complex of ruins could be seen, albeit for only a short moment. Right after, powerful spirit qi burst into the sky, sending everyone nearby flying off, even An Jing and Huo Qing who were on the hoverbike.

”What in the world was that?!” Huo Qing had also seen the shadowy outline of the immortal castle within the canyon. Most likely, the other denizens of Hilltwixt had also witnessed the same.

”They’re ruins!” An Jing used spirit power to stabilize the hoverbike midair and the remaining momentum to fly rapidly back away from Hilltwixt toward Deepnight City. ”The so-called mining efforts of Hilltwixt have come into doubt. Even if the town does have terrestrial veins that make it suitable for seed crystals to grow, where did the terrestrial veins come from?”

There was something that he left unsaid. He turned back and looked at the sage and the golden crow who remained in a standoff. The Purple Mansion sage of Hilltwixt must have known the truth the whole time. Not to mention, the collapse of the Grand Neon Tower was suspicious to say the least. It was highly unlikely that the malfunction of a Purple Mansion Realm major formation could result in such a large landscape-altering shift. The sage, being the formationist in charge of the town’s defenses, was definitely aware of the anomaly.

While others believed that the three-legged golden crow managed to hold the sage back, An Jing didn’t think so; he had witnessed his sage master, Ming Guangchen, fight and even used his ability token before, so he knew that Sage Fogmountain could have easily leveraged the major formation’s power to slay the Purple Mansion true spirit rather than exchanging moves until they reached a stalemate.

”What group does that sage belong to?” An Jing asked.

”Hmmm... Shouyang Mountain!” Huo Qing said after some thought. ”He reports to a direct subsidiary of the Shouyang Group, Golddagger Industries!”

Shouyang Group, Golddagger Industries... They sounded familiar to An Jing. In fact, it was the company that produced the self-destruct drones he frequently bought. He hadn’t forgotten the fact that Shouyang Mountain was most likely the shrouded mastermind behind the incident involving the True Talisman. Deepnight City was a spirit-vein metropolis where Luofu’s influence reigned supreme. Shouyang Mountain was able to exert some of its power there as well, but they paled in comparison to Luofu when it came to control.

An Jing would never believe that Luofu was completely ignorant of the immortal castle underneath Hilltwixt. In fact, it was more than likely that the entire town was a coverup for the immortal castle whipped up by Luofu. In fact, the Grand Neon Tower’s true function as the central pivot of a Purple Mansion major formation might be that of a terrestrial-vein probe!

If the immortal castle had something to do with the True Talisman, the assault on Hilltwixt must’ve been planned in advance. This must be part of a greater plot by Shouyang Mountain against Luofu to force them to publicize the immortal castle’s existence.

These megacorporations just do whatever they want without caring about loss of life at all! An Jing furrowed his brow. Fortunately, Hilltwixt wasn’t that populated, and those that lived there were rather powerful and could defend themselves from fey hordes readily. Otherwise, the number of casualties would have been staggering.

He put the suspected parties in his shitlist before taking Huo Qing with him away from the bisected town. Many others were leaving as well; quite a few hundred people used luminous flight or other artifacts to soar into the sky. The flamecrow horde had already dispersed, so there was not much in their way, making their escape rather uneventful.

Soon, the two arrived at Pilljungle Town. While Huo Qing wasn’t too willing to return to his old home, he had subconsciously guided An Jing to it in that moment of crisis. Many cultivators in town were watching the battles at Hilltwixt using different artifacts.

Some former neighbors of Huo Qing even came to him and asked about what went down there. When they heard that Sage Fogmountain was fighting a three-legged golden crow to the point that their abilities completely upended the town, a few onlookers cheered in awe and constantly hounded them for details.

Huo Qing instantly became a celebrity while An Jing quietly snuck away from the ravenous crowd. He used a distance-viewing technique that was part of True Spirit Eyes’ arsenal to continue observing the battle. Given his current capabilities, there was no way he would be able to make out everything that was going on. All he saw were flashes of clashing lights, followed by clouds receding from the area. Still, he could tell that Sage Fogmountain held the upper hand and was gradually suppressing the golden crow at a leisurely pace. But near the end, he appeared as if he carelessly forgot to seal off the golden crow’s movements, allowing the true spirit to fly off and escape.

After that, Sage Fogmountain used his ability, the Hex Singularity Unification Stablestar Disaster Pacification Formation, to deploy a barrier around the entirety of Hilltwixt and bind the entire crumbling area together. He even used his authority as the guardian sage to leverage power from Mortality Plains’ terrestrial veins to repair the damage. All seventeen towns across the plains glowed in different colors. Deep within the nether, invisible networks of spirit power linked up with terrestrial veins to form a massive suppression formation.

”How impressive...” Huo Qing had managed to free himself from the crowd and came back to An Jing’s side to observe the situation together. He was stunned by the network of spirit veins around Pilljungle. ”Even though I know that all seventeen towns on Mortality Plains are part of Deepnight City’s defensive formation, I could never have imagined how vast it truly is until witnessing it in action myself. Not to mention, Mortality Plains is only one of the many safe zones around Deepnight City. I struggle to comprehend the scale of the whole thing.”

An Jing nodded. ”This is what central spirit-vein cities are capable of. It’s even defended by a number of Goldcore venerateds. If it isn’t impressive, what is?”

Deepnight City’s combined might would add up to that of an intermediate sect in Void Embrace, and there were four such cities in Skysource. While the combined might of the entirety of Skysource paled in comparison to that of Void Embrace, each megacorporation had elites comparable in number to upper sects that had their own empyreans. Combined together, the megacorporations were probably as strong as heavenly sects, if not stronger.

An Jing was growing ever more certain that it was no coincidence that Deepnight City was built where it was. This land where major spirit veins intersected was also the center of civilization back in the ancient era of the Dao Sect. So, it was all too reasonable for there to be ancient ruins of the Dao Sect in the vicinity. No doubt, this kind of information was typically classified and only available to Purple Mansion cultivators or above. However, some people had other ideas and wanted to expose the existence of this immortal castle to the public.

What about that place where I first appeared in Skysource? He suddenly recalled the cave in the wilderness outside Mortality Plains. There was a pathway that led deep underground. Some ten years ago, an expeditionary force of Luofu was sent to explore it, but they all died along the way and eventually became my first pile of loot. What was their objective? Were they looking for something deep in the cavern? Could that pathway be a subpath that leads to the immortal castle ruins?