Azure Riverbank (Part 1)

Leaving the valley where the ancient battlefield ruins lay, Lu Chen continued eastward.

The stone forest gradually thinned. Those jagged black boulders became sparse, then eventually vanished altogether.

Before him once more stretched that vast, boundless gray-white wasteland—monotonous and deathly still, crisscrossed with fissures beneath a low-hanging lead-gray sky that seemed unchanged since time immemorial.

Yet Lu Chen could sense that the flow of spiritual energy in the air was slightly different from before.

Beyond the omnipresent aura of deathly desolation, there seemed to be an exceedingly faint yet exceptionally pure water-aspected spiritual resonance, like the echo of distant tides drawing at his senses.

Looks like the Azure River isn't far now, Lu Chen thought, quickening his pace.

The guidance left by the ancient shield's lingering will was vague. It had only said, "Three thousand li east." He would have to find the exact location himself.

But this sensitivity to water spirit energy was undoubtedly a clear signpost.

The farther east he went, the clearer and richer that water spirit energy became.

A faint dampness with a strange freshness began to permeate the air, forming a subtle contrast with the wasteland's deathly stillness.

The cracks in the earth were gradually replaced by fine sand with a faint silvery-gray sheen.

After traveling for another two hours or so, he crossed a low slope formed of weathered rock, and the sight before him suddenly opened up!

A great river lay across the wasteland.

Its waters were neither clear nor muddy, but an unusual, almost transparent void-like color, as if what flowed within was not liquid, but solidified space gently rippling.

The river was astonishingly wide. Even with Lu Chen's eyesight, he could not see the opposite bank for the moment, only a hazy expanse where water met sky.

The river flowed quietly,