At the highest reaches of Living Soil Mountain.
Ancient trees stretched in endless groves, their thick roots bursting through the earth and intertwining, forcibly holding aloft a vast hall with no ceiling in sight.
Mountain winds swept through the woods and lashed the leaves, howling mournfully.
Deep within the hall, the Silver-Haired Old Woman sat cross-legged with her eyes closed atop a meditation cushion woven from withered vines.
The hidden injuries she had sustained some days ago while fighting to obtain the Li Fire Gold Scabbard would require time to slowly nurture back to health.
With every breath she drew and released, the surrounding wood energy turned into wisps of green smoke that slipped through her nose and mouth into that hunched, shriveled shell of a body.
Suddenly, footsteps sounded from the long stairway outside the hall.
The steps were steady, neither hurried nor slow, accompanied by the faint crunch of boots treading on fallen leaves, all of it carried into the hall.
The old woman opened her eyes, her cloudy vertical pupils gazing straight through the doors toward the end of the stairway.
There.
The visitor stepped over the exceedingly high threshold and entered the hall. Her gaze swept around before finally settling on the meditation cushion.
The old woman immediately furrowed her brow.
By her reckoning, it had not even been half a month since she had handed over the Li Fire Gold Scabbard.
Why had this girl returned out of nowhere?
The old woman lifted a hand and tucked the silver hair scattered by her temples behind her ear, asking in a dry, hoarse voice,
"Why have you returned so quickly?"
The girl in black stopped.
Without exchanging pleasantries or offering much explanation, she merely brushed away the trace of dust on her sleeve and raised her