The Earth Armor Dragon's nest had been quiet for two days, but today that peace was suddenly shattered.
A gigantic Night Owl swooped down from the sky, transformed into a man in black, and landed before the ruins of the mountain.
It was the great demon Night Shadow, who had gone out to search for Ye Feng and Yuan Lie.
"What is this..." Night Shadow stared in shock at the enormous Qingshi standing atop the mountain ruins.
The Qingshi stood nearly twenty zhang tall. One entire side had been planed flat, and a line of large characters had been written across it in blood.
"Zhou Hao slew a Xiantian Lifeform of the Black Hand Tribe here!"
There seemed to be traces of a beast digging beneath the Qingshi, but the spot was actually part of the solid rock left behind when the mountain had collapsed. With the heavy Qingshi pressing down on it, no ordinary beast could dig through.
Night Shadow spotted a pool of dark-red blood at the base of the Qingshi. It seemed to have seeped out from underneath, so he turned his hand over and took out a long black-vine whip, lashing it at the blood-inscribed stone.
Whoosh!
The black-vine whip rapidly lengthened and wrapped around the Qingshi. Night Shadow then channeled his demonic power.
Rumble~~~
The black-vine whip wrenched the entire Qingshi free.
"Commander Yuan!" Night Shadow cried out.
Beneath the Qingshi lay a corpse, crushed nearly flat.
Worse, most of his head had been smashed, and his upper body was twisted grotesquely. Only the simian features of his face could still be made out.
"How brazen! Was he afraid we wouldn't find it?"
After his initial shock, Night Shadow angrily whipped the black-vine lash in his hand.
Whoosh!
The whip cracked like a black serpent's tail, lashing toward the Qingshi bearing the bloody words.
Bang!
The Qingshi was only ordinary rock. It could never withstand such force, and shattered into rubble.
After venting his fury, Night Shadow looked at Yuan Lie, who had once been so imposing that he had barely shown any regard even for his master, Motai Xiao, when he first arrived in Motai City. Now Yuan Lie was not only dead; his corpse had been crushed beneath a Qingshi. Night Shadow couldn't help but grow suspicious of the identity of the Zhou Hao who had left the blood-written message.
"This Zhou Hao managed to kill Commander Yuan, who was at the peak of the Xiantian Realm. He's very likely a Purple Mansion Cultivator. How have I never heard of him on the Great Wild Plains?" Night Shadow thought. "Could he be a powerful expert sent by the Second Young Lady of the Liu Clan? That doesn't make sense. All this over a mere maid?"
The Second Young Lady of the Liu Clan was well known among the top echelons of the tribes across the Great Wild Plains, for no other reason than that she had married into the Ji Clan, the undisputed overlords of the entire Great Wild Plains and even Guangling Prefecture.
The Ji Clan was one of the eight hundred feudal lords appointed when the Great Xia Dynasty first unified the land. Even across the whole dynasty, it ranked among the very top clans.
The great tribes of the Wilderness, such as the Hu Clan, Yang Clan, and Miao Clan, might not know such details, but Night Shadow's master was Motai Xiao, an ambitious man determined to establish an overlord tribe on the Great Wild Plains.
He had not only forged ties with the Fire Worship Sect long ago, but also paid especially close attention to intelligence on the other great tribes.
As Motai Xiao's spirit beast, Night Shadow knew a great deal of these secrets as well.
"My master was right. Let the Fire Worship Sect worry about this instead. I hear even the Ji Clan, the Marquis of Guangling, is wary of the power behind the Fire Worship Sect."
Swish!
Night Shadow stored Yuan Lie's corpse in a storage treasure.
Fortunately, it was a corpse. Living beings could not be put into storage treasures.
As for Ye Feng's corpse, Night Shadow searched the area and found no trace of it, so he stopped looking.
A team of nearly a hundred Black Cunning Beasts suddenly burst out from the edge of a forest overgrown with weeds.
"Stop." Iron Ox, at the head of the group, raised his hand. Everyone pulled up on the hide ropes controlling their Black Cunning Beasts, and the procession came to a halt.
"Young Master." Ren Liang pointed ahead from atop his Black Cunning Beast and called out, "That's Jade Dragon City. We've arrived."
"Jade Dragon City?" Zhou Hao looked into the distance.
At the edge of his vision, a chain of mountains stretched across the far end of the plains.
In the middle of the range, where the slopes were gentle, stood a vast city, as if it had been built atop a winding divine dragon to hold it down.
Though they were still nearly a hundred li from the city, Zhou Hao's divine sense could already faintly feel the waves of energy emanating from it.
"We're finally here." Longing filled Zhou Hao's eyes.
"Jade Dragon City." Iron Ox, Xiangcao, Old Blind Man, and the people of the Iron Ox Tribe all had the same light in their eyes.
It was a longing for a peaceful life, and a hope for the future.
"Come on, let's head over." Zhou Hao dug his heels into the Black Cunning Beast's belly. It immediately sprang forward and raced toward the city.
Xiangcao, Ren Liang, Iron Ox, and the rest of the tribe followed close behind, still riding their Black Cunning Beasts.
After two days of nonstop travel, they had finally caught sight of their destination, Jade Dragon City. All their weariness seemed to vanish, and they covered the nearly hundred-li distance in no time.
The closer they got to Jade Dragon City, the more people they saw.
Markets, taverns, and restaurants lined the roads.
Most of the passersby wore cloth clothes; few wore beast-hide garments.
The long-missed air of civilization made Zhou Hao sigh.
At last, this isn't a primitive Wilderness World.
Before this, he had thought the entire world was like the Great Wild Plains, with people living in tribes and nothing beyond them but desolate lands prowled by yao beasts.
Iron Pillar was riding the same Black Cunning Beast as Xiangcao. When he suddenly saw this bustling market, his eyes darted everywhere, unable to take it all in.
What caught his attention most was a restaurant with three huge pots set up outside. The aroma of the beast meat simmering inside was too much for Iron Pillar, who had spent two days eating nothing but hard, dry rations.
"Auntie, I'm hungry." Iron Pillar gazed at Xiangcao with pleading eyes, the aroma already making his mouth water.
"Good boy, hang on a little longer. Once we're in the city and settled, Auntie will stew some meat for you." Xiangcao tried to soothe Iron Pillar, but her own stomach suddenly growled.
Seeing Xiangcao's face turn bright red, Zhou Hao smiled and said, "There's no need to rush in just yet. My stomach's growling too. Let's eat before we enter the city."
Zhou Hao had quietly become the leader of the group. Iron Ox and the others had no objections. They had eaten cold, dry rations for two days, and the smell of meat had already left them craving a meal.
Xiangcao's eyes flickered. Zhou Hao had not teased her; instead, he had helped cover for her. Her heart felt as if it had been sweetened with honey.
"Brave warriors, our shop just received a fresh shipment of Zhilong Meat today. Paired with our owner's secret broth, even the Xiantian Lifeforms in the Green Flood Dragon Army can't stop praising it. They come here to eat all the time."
As soon as they arrived at the restaurant, a young attendant in blue cloth came out to greet them.
"Ah! That's a lot of people."
Only then did the attendant notice the hundred or so men, women, adults, and children following behind Zhou Hao and the others, along with nearly a hundred Black Cunning Beasts crowding the road.
"Well, um... Our shop doesn't have enough room. If you brave warriors don't mind, could you rest in the empty lot next door for now?" The attendant hesitated.
The restaurant had stood in West Gate Market outside Jade Dragon City for over a decade, and its staff had seen plenty of tribal warriors from the Great Wild Plains.
Those men in beast-hide clothes were used to running wild in their tribes and had terrible tempers. They could draw their blades at the slightest provocation.
True, they were outside Jade Dragon City, and West Gate Market had city guards too, but they only had one life.
"It's no problem." Zhou Hao glanced inside. The restaurant had only six or seven tables; even if they were all full, it could seat no more than thirty or forty people. He had no intention of making things difficult for the attendant.
He had Old Blind Man and the other warriors take everyone to rest in the empty lot nearby. Only Zhou Hao, Iron Ox, Xiangcao, and Iron Pillar followed the attendant inside.
"Sorry for the trouble. Please serve meat to my tribespeople as soon as you can. We still have to enter the city after we eat." Zhou Hao casually took out a piece of Dog-Head Gold and handed it to the attendant.
"No problem, no problem. There are three or four hundred jin of Zhilong Meat simmering in the pot. If that's not enough, we'll cook more." The attendant lit up at the sight of the Dog-Head Gold.
He knew he had met a generous customer, and he became even more attentive as he showed Zhou Hao and the others to their seats.
Clip-clop-clop-clop-clop~~~
A sound like hooves pounding the ground came from outside, then abruptly stopped in front of the restaurant.
A booming voice rang out from outside. "So many people here today? Zhu Da! Zhu Da! I heard another batch of Zhilong Meat came in today. Our Commander Cao has come to patronize your business!"
"Coming, coming!" came a reply from the back of the restaurant. A stout, broad-faced middle-aged man emerged.
He seemed to be the restaurant's owner. He paused in surprise when he saw Zhou Hao and the others, but then spotted the Dog-Head Gold in the attendant's hand. He urged the attendant to seat his customers first, then hurried outside to greet the newcomers.
As the attendant led Zhou Hao and the others to a table tucked away in a corner, he whispered, "Brave warriors, the newcomers are Commander Cao Rong of the Green Flood Dragon Army's Xiantian Battalion. He's a big shot even in Jade Dragon City. Keep your voices down when you talk, and don't provoke them."
"Commander of the Xiantian Battalion?" Zhou Hao thought it over. He had come to Jade Dragon City specifically to join the Green Flood Dragon Army's Xiantian Battalion.
Just after Zhou Hao and the others sat down, a tall, powerfully built young man with fiery red hair strode inside, dressed in green armor.
Three other men in matching green armor followed behind him. The burly restaurant owner led all four to the table in the middle of the room.
Perhaps due to the instinctive awareness of one expert for another, the red-haired man's gaze swept over Iron Ox and the others before finally settling on Zhou Hao.
"Xiantian Lifeform?"
When Zhou Hao saw the red-haired man looking at him, he gave him a slight nod in return.
This man was an expert.
Attention! Attention! The next chapter has a questionable part... I made a perspective mistake by treating the background and plot details I knew as if everyone knew them too.
If that part bothers you, just hurry on and read the chapter after it.
You'll see it was all a misunderstanding.
A lot of readers have asked me to change it... I don't have the time right now, so I can only warn you all in advance and help you build up your immunity.
Sorry, sorry!
Before you continue