"It really is desolate..."
Standing atop the mountain and gazing out, all she saw was dust and gloom. Speaking from the bottom of her Dragon Lungs and Liver, Bai Yujun would rather have assassins lurking in ambush, waiting for a chance to strike—better yet, a bloody battle with blades clashing—than this silence so complete she could hear herself breathing.
She shook her cloak, scattering thick dust, then bent over and rummaged through her storage pouch.
She took out an antique monocular telescope and extended it. Simple runes were inlaid across its surface to help bring distant sights closer. Her beautiful phoenix eyes searched through the circular view.
The ash-filled landscape looked as blurred as falling snow.
The runes flickered and adjusted the focus, barely making it possible to see. It was one of the few items personally made by Bai Yujun that could barely be called a magical treasure.
"A deep pit resembling a Ring Mountain. It was probably caused by an Extraterrestrial Meteorite. Ignore it."
"Another Rift Valley. Hmm... shallow and narrow with no pattern. A geological movement phenomenon. Ignore it."
"An Extinct Volcano. Ignore it."
"Ignore..."
After searching for a long while, she found no relics from Ancient Times and not a single clue.
When the lens turned toward a spot in the distance, she finally discovered something unusual. There was a very peculiar mountain there. She could not say what was different about it, but at a glance, it seemed special—like a crane standing among chickens, utterly out of place amid its surroundings.
In the blink of an eye, the mountaintop was empty.
Dust spiraled down like curled scraps of paper.
At the far end of the distant horizon, beside a sheer cliff beneath the gray heavens.
Bai Yujun walked to the cliff's edge and looked down.