The underground palace of Swallow Cloud Mountain was deathly silent.
The Life-less Cult no longer existed. Its followers were either dead or scattered; naturally, no one would come here anymore. Even snakes, insects, rats, and ants had vanished recently, turning it into a true "realm without life."
Yet it was not entirely soundless.
A water droplet struggling to gather upon the dome, after a long deliberation, finally chose to fall. It struck the dark channel, making a faint, choking drip.
Drip... drip.
No one knew how long it had continued. Probably no one had kept track of time.
A few drops of blood had fallen in the previous days as well, but that had ended too.
Blood without a source could not last long.
The dark blood droplets dispersed through the channel, no longer distinct.
The Long River surged onward, roaring for ten thousand miles.
Ten thousand people greeted the tide at the Qiantang River, which suddenly appeared as a single line.
Yet there were also deep gullies and hidden channels in this world, left to rise and perish on their own, sobbing in the dark when no one was near.
Though the water flowing through this underground palace of Swallow Cloud Mountain ran in a hidden channel and never saw daylight, it was not foul or stagnant. If daylight occasionally filtered through a crack, it would reveal water clear to the bottom.
The underground palace of Swallow Cloud Mountain had not always been cut off from daylight. This place, shattered to pieces by battle, had long since lost its power to isolate itself from the outside world.
When the sun happened to be in the right place and the clouds did not interfere, some rays would, after a long journey, reach this place—though only briefly.
Now was one such