The five members of the Preaching Squad left the banks of the Mother-Child River and followed the directions toward Jieyang Mountain.
The mountain path wound ever deeper. The woods on either side grew secluded, birdsong grew sparse, and gradually even the sound of the wind became sluggish.
Jieyang Mountain had been a place of tranquility.
The Fetus-Dropping Spring nourished the surrounding land and safeguarded the peace of this corner of the Kingdom of Women.
Yet as the five entered the mountain now, they sensed an indescribable emptiness.
The mountain was still the same mountain, the trees still the same trees.
But the mountain's numinous mechanism seemed to have had a layer drawn away, leaving a sense of depletion.
Little White Dragon circulated his Numinous Immortal aura, closed his eyes, and sensed his surroundings for a moment. His brow furrowed slightly. "This mountain's vital energy has dispersed."
"In the past, this place should have been nourished by a spiritual spring, its earth veins brimming. Now it's like a dried-up well, nothing but an empty shell."
The others swept their spiritual senses across the mountain wilderness and sensed it too.
They said nothing, merely quickening their pace toward the spring's source, where the villagers had directed them.
Birth-Preventing Cave.
The site of the Fetus-Dropping Spring.
The five reached the cave entrance, only to stop in their tracks.
The cave was still there.
But the spiritual spring that should have been bubbling forth had long since vanished.
Its basin was dry, exposing a gray-white bed of rock.
The mist that had once risen, the numinous mechanism that had swirled around it, the vitality that had nourished the earth veins-all had dissipated completely.
Only a layer of dried moss remained on the rock walls, faintly marking the traces of the spring water of years