Tap! Tap! Tap!
Chu Qing crossed the desolate earth, drawing ever closer to the forbidden zone.
The sky grew increasingly dim.
Sonic booms occasionally rang out around him.
They came from powerful martial artists rushing along.
Some headed into the forbidden zone.
Some emerged from it.
Along the way, he encountered a group of ordinary soldiers from the Great Gan Empire.
They were sturdy young men, high-spirited and full of vigor, their hearts brimming with expectations for the future.
However:
Chu Qing knew that very few of these youths would survive the forbidden zone.
"Still, it's better than freezing to death in the wind and snow!"
That day:
Chu Qing stopped walking.
Because the forbidden zone lay ten miles ahead.
Along the border between the forbidden zone and the Eternal Night Empire, Fire Pits stood one after another.
If one looked down from high above, one would see winding lines of fire like city walls, blocking the darkness within the forbidden zone.
Here, darkness had already taken on form and substance, like mist, like ocean waves.
Rolling... crashing...
The Fire Pit walls swayed, yet remained firmly nailed to the earth, inch by inch expanding humanity's territory.
"Madam Shi and Madam Jin are both in the forbidden zone!"
"I wonder how they're doing!"
Ever since those two women had entered the forbidden zone, Chu Qing had received only one letter from them.
The letter said that they were both doing well.
They had also used the forbidden zone to improve their cultivation.
"Once I deal with the Unique Association, I'll move into the forbidden zone too!"
Of the more than thirty people in the Square Inch Gathering, over twenty roamed the forbidden zone year-round.
Another seven or eight had ventured deep inside for three to five years without returning.
The most