Seventy-five kilometers south of Heaven Dou City, mountains stretched in an unbroken chain, their verdant peaks rising tier upon tier.
The newly rebuilt Blue Lightning Tyrant Sect stood against the mountains, its halls clustered together and its towers scattered across the slopes.
After ten years of rest and recuperation, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Sect, which had suffered the calamity of near-annihilation, had slowly revived, taking root here as it awaited the restoration of its former glory.
Beside a deserted road five kilometers from the foot of the sect's mountain, a ravaged, hunched figure slowly staggered into view.
He was an elderly man in the twilight of his life, wrapped in layers of dense, pitch-black baleful poison mist. Rolling black fumes surged and billowed like waves, while wisps of deadly poison spread in every direction. All the surrounding weeds withered, and the earth and stones blackened, leaving not a blade of grass alive.
The old man's skin had turned an unnatural black, covered in hideous, festering flesh. Pieces of skin and flesh rotted and sloughed off, sticking together in bloody clumps. His face was shriveled and distorted, his original appearance long since unrecognizable.
His once-upright frame was utterly hunched, his flesh shriveled and withered. Like a guttering candle in the wind, he could fade away completely at any moment.
It was Dugu Bo, utterly spent after traveling forty-five kilometers.
He had fought desperately to make his way from the Soul Hunting Forest, crossing mountains and rivers before finally reaching the Blue Lightning Tyrant Sect's territory.
Now, his oil had run dry and his flame was dying. Only his final obsession kept his last breath tethered to him: to see his granddaughter, Dugu Yan, one last time.
Dugu Bo staggered over to a massive blue-gray boulder beside the road. His legs gave