At dawn the next morning, the sky was just beginning to brighten.
The Vermilion Bird Boat took off from Northern Garrison Pass, trailing a long ribbon of flowing fire behind it as it sped toward the southeast.
Lu Chen stood at the bow, gazing down at the vast Gobi Desert racing backward beneath him, a trace of gravity between his brows.
The scene from deep within the ruins the previous night replayed over and over in his mind—the figure seated upon the throne of white bones, those ghostly green eyes, and the wisp of ghostly green mist that had escaped through the crack in the seal at the very end.
Where had that wisp of mist gone?
A vague sense of unease rose within him.
Though that wisp was exceedingly faint, the will contained within it was immensely powerful. There was no way it had simply dissipated.
It had either hidden somewhere near the ruins, or...
He suddenly recalled that ghostly green speck of light that had fled from Dragon Head Peak.
That speck of light had possessed a Mystic Heaven Sword Sect disciple.
And at this moment, that Mystic Heaven Sword Sect disciple should have returned to the sect with Luo Jinghong and be at Ye Qingtian's side.
Could those two wisps of aura... have been one and the same entity all along?
If so, then the Undead Monarch's scheme extended far beyond merely the Northern Frontier and Dragon Head Peak.
Its tentacles had likely already reached into the heartland of Great Xia, perhaps even into great upper sects like the Mystic Heaven Sword Sect.
Lu Chen took a deep breath and suppressed the unease in his heart.
There was no use dwelling on it now. His most urgent task was to raise his strength as quickly as possible