Immortal Burial Town

East of Immortal Burial Town, the two-hundred-zhang-wide Sui River seemed to break off and plunge downward here, forming a spectacular cliffside waterfall like a decapitated giant dragon. This was how Dragon Slaying Pass got its name.

After the Jiu Li Tribe retrieved Otherworldly Coffins from Blood Sea Coffin Dock, they had to carry them through the two-hundred-li, exceedingly perilous Departed Spirit Mist Domain. Then they would follow the narrow path and stone steps upward to reach Dragon Slaying Pass. Only there could they board the warships prepared in advance and transport the Otherworldly Coffins downstream to the cities of the various tribes.

After Shi Jiuzhai entered Immortal Burial Town, the gray mist cloud shrouding the three of them dispersed.

Bang! Bang!

Li Weiyi and Gao Huan fell to the ground.

"Welcome, Master!"

Xing Wanxing, Fang Tong, and Yan Qingqing—the three Martial Arts Masters of the Earth Wolf King Army—quickly stepped forward and bowed together before Shi Jiuzhai.

The three had led over a thousand soldiers to Immortal Burial Town a day before Shi Jiuzhai arrived. They had already slaughtered all two hundred-odd Jiu Li tribesmen stationed in town to receive them, provide meals and supplies, and dock the ships. Their corpses had been piled into an incomparably bloody hill in the center of town.

Xing Wanxing was Shi Jiuzhai's tenth disciple and one of his moneybags. Short and potbellied, he reported with a smile, "We have interrogated everyone who needed interrogating. This time, it is the Cangli Tribe, one of the Jiu Li, that has gone to Blood Sea Coffin Dock for Coffin Retrieval. Li Songlin, the Cangli Tribe's foremost expert of this sixty-year cycle, is leading the party. Cangli, hailed as the Cangli Tribe's greatest outstanding person in nearly a thousand years, is accompanying them as well."

"I only care how much money we can make this time," Shi Jiuzhai said.

Xing Wanxing had long since calculated it all clearly. "Li Songlin brought five thousand men. They will retrieve no fewer than a thousand coffins. If we seize them all, even selling them for a million Spring Money would be a conservative estimate."

"They say Otherworldly Coffins are frighteningly expensive, things only great cultivators can afford to play with. They truly are priceless treasures—profit without capital, gain ten thousandfold." Shi Jiuzhai was in an excellent mood.

Xing Wanxing smiled along with him. "If there are especially rare Otherworldly Coffins among them, a single one could sell for a million Spring Money. Converted into silver coin, that would be one hundred million."

"Besides, among the Jiu Li Tribe, only the future clan chief is qualified to bear the tribe's name. If we can capture Cangli, won't the Cangli Tribe obediently offer up another million Spring Money to ransom him?"

Shi Jiuzhai's mood improved even further. Though the mountains were high and the road long, this trip had been well worth it!

Yan Qingqing was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a lush and alluring figure and charming, liquid eyes. She was of the Canine-like Mutant Race, with furry ears and a fiery red tail hanging from beneath her skirt.

She reminded him in a coquettish voice, "Master, our main purpose on this trip isn't money."

"Who says it isn't for money? Your master came for money."

Over a hundred million silver coin—let alone Shi Jiuzhai, whose eyes turned red and heart raced at the sight of such wealth, even the masters of Myriad Gate Families like Dragon Gate and Zuoqiu, who dominated an entire prefecture, would certainly find it tempting.

How could one raise such a vast army without provisions and pay?

The moment Shi Jiuzhai threw him to the ground, Li Weiyi rose to his feet. He saw Shi Jiuzhai and the other three heading into the distance to discuss something in secret.

His gaze swiftly swept over the surroundings as he assessed the environment.

All around them stood burly men carrying weapons and dressed in brown monk's robes. There were also a small number of huge half-beast, half-human monsters, perhaps one or two tenths of the total, each with a ferocious, baleful look.

Yet when they looked at the two of them, their expressions were either puzzled or reverent.

Li Weiyi quickly came up with a plan. Putting on an arrogant, vicious air, he beckoned at one of the burly men who looked more timid. "That's right. You there, come over!"

Though Gao Huan could not understand what Li Weiyi was saying, Li Weiyi's expression, manner, and tone were far too overbearing. His heart leaped uneasily into his throat.

After the seemingly timid burly man came over, he immediately put on a flattering smile, even more uneasy than Gao Huan.

Pointing his thumb toward Shi Jiuzhai in the distance, Li Weiyi asked, "Do you know who we are?"

"I do, I do," the timid burly man answered repeatedly.

Li Weiyi said, "If you know, then say it."

How could the timid burly man possibly know who Li Weiyi and Gao Huan were? Everyone had been temporarily transferred from the Earth Wolf King Army and had raced across a thousand li, only arriving at Immortal Burial Town yesterday.

The burly man was not truly timid. He merely feared the Shi Jiuzhai standing behind these two, which was why he had avoided Li Weiyi's eyes earlier.

Could those brought back by King Jiuzhai on a cloud of magical power be ordinary people?

Knowing he could not afford to offend them, the burly man told the truth. "Everyone only arrived yesterday. We spent the night clearing out and arranging the place, and have not yet had time to rest. Forgive this lowly one's poor eyesight—I truly do not know Your Excellencies' identities. But since you travel with King Jiuzhai, you must be extraordinary figures whom people like us can only look up to."

Li Weiyi secretly let out a breath of relief and patted the timid burly man on the chest. "Good that you know. The two of us are King Jiuzhai's personal attendants. Is there anything to eat?"

"Yes, yes..."

The timid burly man hurried off to fetch some.

Li Weiyi pulled Gao Huan along and followed him.

He had no desire to remain active under the watchful eyes of that King Jiuzhai. Otherwise, they would sooner or later give themselves away.

Fortunately, Shi Jiuzhai was meeting with an extremely secretive distinguished guest, discussing all manner of arrangements for seizing the Otherworldly Coffins, and had no time to bother with their two "little wolf cubs."

This secret guest wore a Silver Robe White Tunic and a black Buddha-head mask. From his handsome, upright figure and the slender, fair hands holding a flute, it was clear that he had to be quite young.

Yet this young man faced the feared Shi Jiuzhai with his hands clasped behind his back. His gaze and bearing were not exactly arrogant, but he showed not the slightest fear.

He said, "The gate master's intention is not merely to seize the coffins, but to kill every last one of them. Only by making it bloody enough can we throw Lizhou into great chaos."

Shi Jiuzhai only wanted money, and his brows drew tightly together. "You noble people of the Myriad Gate Families are even crueler than thieves like us. Before this, you never said everyone had to be killed. That includes Li Songlin, the Cangli Tribe's foremost man, and five thousand commoners of the Li..."

The masked guest laughed. "What, you don't dare? Afraid of provoking those old monsters of Jiu Li Mountain and Jiu Li City?"

Shi Jiuzhai shook his head. "What I mean is, stealing coffins has one price, killing people has another. You need to pay more!"

Led by the timid burly man, Li Weiyi and Gao Huan had a hearty meal in the Earth Wolf King Army's crude cookhouse, eating until they were thoroughly satisfied.

All strength, focus, and fighting spirit were instantly restored.

Gao Huan was frantically stuffing supplies into bundles, preparing to flee. In a low voice, he whispered, "When I passed through the town center just now, blood was flowing like a river and corpses were piled into mountains. It nearly scared me to death! These people definitely aren't cultivating Buddhism. We need to get out of here as soon as possible."

Li Weiyi said, "The robes they wore, resembling Monk's Robes, were all brand-new. They were definitely rushed out recently. It was precisely because they knew only their own people would wear such robes that King Jiuzhai mistook us for them."

"If my guess is correct, the three people eaten by the Thousand-Headed Dragon Vine were most likely three scouts they had sent out."

"Also, though they call themselves the Earth Wolf King Army, their discipline is lax, every one of them carries a vicious aura, and their strength varies wildly. They don't look like any proper army."

"Third, I observed the way here. Every intersection in this abandoned town has been sealed off. It probably won't be easy for us to slip out without anyone noticing. If we're discovered... then even our capital for borrowing a fox's might in the tiger's name will vanish into thin air."

Gao Huan exclaimed in amazement, "All I could think about on the way here was food. I never expected you to have noticed so much."

"There's more than that."

Li Weiyi continued, "They're hiding in this town because they're after that coffin-bearing convoy. I calculated their pace on the low hillside just now. It will take them at least another two hours to get here."

Gao Huan said, "I get it! Two hours from now, once they start slaughtering each other, that'll be our chance to escape."

"Exactly."

After some thought, Li Weiyi added, "But there's still something I don't understand. With so many of them hiding in the town, how have they managed to stay concealed? There can't possibly be no experts in that coffin-bearing convoy, and experts have extraordinarily keen senses."

Shi Jiuzhai arrived beneath the mountain of corpses in the town center. Forming seals with both hands, he exhaled a mouthful of gray mist-like magical power that spread over it. At the same time, an almost transparent pearl flew out from his body alongside the gray mist and hovered above the town.

Boom!

Shi Jiuzhai's palm slammed fiercely into the ground.

Flame-like magical power surged underground. In an instant, the ground across a radius of more than ten yards began to burn, and waves of heat swept through every street of the town.

Blood Qi steamed up from the mountain of corpses, streak after streak of red smoke shooting toward the pearl in midair.

After absorbing all the Blood Qi, the pearl burst forth with one translucent scripture after another. Before long, the entire Immortal Burial Town was shrouded in scripture.

"Pass down the order. Wait until half the Cangli Tribe has come up before making a move. Cut the coffin-bearing convoy into two from the middle. Slaughter them all. Leave not a single one alive." Shi Jiuzhai's imposing majesty was terrifying, his tone cold and grim.

The Firehead Camp was not far from the town center. Upon hearing Shi Jiuzhai's order, Li Weiyi's expression turned extremely grim.

Only then did he realize that the timid burly man was not timid at all. He clearly feared Shi Jiuzhai's cultivation and murderous nature, and thus also feared the two of them who followed at Shi Jiuzhai's side.

"Slaughter them all. Leave not a single one alive. How many people are they planning to kill?"

After learning this, Gao Huan said despondently, "I suddenly feel that survival is equally cruel everywhere. Either you become an ox or horse worked to the bone, or you can only be a pig or sheep waiting for the butcher's knife. Only by rising above the crowd can one truly live."

Two hours later.

The vanguard of the Cangli Tribe's coffin-bearing convoy had arrived beneath the Dragon Slaying Pass waterfall.

The water roared, and the air was damp.

A barefoot young girl as beautiful as an elf born from the night mist walked at the very front of the convoy. With five slender, jade-like fingers, she carried a bronze ancient lamp that emitted a ghostly blue glow like fireflies. Nine silver bracelets circled her wrist.

Though barefoot, her skin seemed carved from jade and feared not the stones beneath her feet.

Every step she took was light and soundless, yet carried her more than a yard away. Blue Mist Light Traces flowed beneath her feet.

She was Li Ling, the Netherlight Guide Envoy of the Cangli Tribe's coffin-bearing convoy. A successor to the priesthood, she could use Netherlight to find a path through the Departed Spirit Mist Domain, leading her clansmen to and from the Blood Sea Coffin Dock.

(Reader-created supporting characters already written: Qin Ke, Xing Wanxing, Fang Tong, Yan Qingqing)