Tree Wall

This was a place hemmed in on all sides by high walls.

A village whose permanent and transient populations combined did not even amount to ten thousand.

Although those walls were all made from stone and timber.

They looked rather plain.

Yet with a thickness of ten meters and a height of seventy or eighty meters, they could still provide the residents within with some necessary basic defensive strength.

Defensive strength that was useful under ordinary circumstances.

But utterly useless when faced with a truly powerful enemy...

It could only be said that keeping out wild beasts was not a problem.

Early in the morning.

The sun and moon had only just completed their transition.

Gentle sunlight.

Was spilling across the earth.

Standing atop the tall walls, watching the heavy gates below slowly open and the bustling stream of people entering and leaving, a guard of neither particularly high nor low strength could not help but let out a soft breath.

"Another day—"

"I hope things will remain uneventful today as well—"

It was a simple and straightforward hope.

As for whether that hope could be fulfilled?

No one could say...

Not even him.

Even the village's three chieftains.

Those three experts who had reached the [Qi Nourishing Realm].

Dared not guarantee that they would definitely live to see tomorrow's sun.

Life and death were decreed by fate.

Flourishing like weeds, then silently vanishing like weeds.

That was the destiny of all sorts of settlements in this region.

How long any of them could continue to exist.

Compared to raw strength.

Often depended more on luck...

Even a village that had stood for a hundred years.

Could be slaughtered clean overnight without warning.

That was perfectly normal.

There was no reason to make a fuss over it.

At the very