The outline of River-Yang City grew clearer in the night. Spiritual light flickered along its walls, lending them an air of desolation.
Qin He and Long Qingyun did not hurry into the city. Instead, they skirted the walls and sped toward the outskirts.
The Lin Household's ancestral tombs stood on Phoenix Cry Ridge, ten li outside the city. Rumor had it that a spiritual vein from the Ancient Era lay beneath the ridge. The Lin Lineage's ancestors had deliberately chosen this site to draw upon its energy and shelter their descendants.
The closer they came to the ancestral tombs, the denser the surrounding spiritual energy became. Yet mingled with that richness was a faint, elusive aura of decay.
From afar, the ancestral tombs followed the mountainside, enclosed by blue-brick walls that stretched for several li. The tops of the walls were weathered and mottled, though traces of their former grandeur remained.
The gate had been forged from a single slab of mystic iron and engraved with the intricate crest of the Lin Lineage. Protective restrictions wound through the patterns, but their spiritual light was dim. Clearly, they had not been maintained for some time.
Two cultivators guarded the entrance, one in the Dao Palace Realm and two in the Wheel Sea Realm. The Dao Palace Realm cultivator was an old man whose aura was already waning, while the two Wheel Sea Realm cultivators were leaning against the wall, dozing.
"These are their guards?"
Long Qingyun's soul phantom huddled inside the Black Demon Banner, his voice dripping with disdain. "When I came here back then, one Divine Bridge Realm cultivator and three Dao Palace Realm cultivators guarded the entrance. The restrictions were more than three times stronger than they are now. Not even a fly could get through."
Qin He said