After standing where he was and pondering for a moment, Shen Luo formed a hand seal with one hand and concealed his aura before setting off toward Flower Fruit Mountain.
He had not traveled far along the shore when a fishing village appeared ahead. From a distance, not a soul could be seen; the place was steeped in deathly stillness.
He crouched low and carefully crept over. Looking around, he saw that most of the village houses had already collapsed. Crumbling earthen walls stood everywhere, overgrown with weeds and moss, clearly abandoned for a very long time.
After entering the village, he found scorch marks almost everywhere along the way, remnants of some long-ago fire. At the corners of houses and bases of walls, there were even heaps of scattered human and beast bones. Some had become nests for sand crabs and centipedes, which crawled in and out of cracked skulls' mouths and eye sockets.
Beyond the village lay a winding trail hidden amid the grass, stretching all the way into the mountains behind it.
Shen Luo hurried along the trail toward the forest. After walking for half an hour, he heard a chaotic clamor ahead. He cautiously approached and saw several strange-looking demons standing at the entrance to the mountain.
The apparent leader had a human body and a bear's head. He was exceptionally large, covered all over in black fur, and wore a battered suit of iron armor. He appeared to be only at the Grain Avoidance Stage.
He gripped a crimson flag about a foot long and swaggeringly waved it before several blue-skinned lesser demons, shouting smugly, "Heh heh, see it? See it? The Mountain Patrol Token personally bestowed on me by the Third Cave Master!"
"Whoa, Brother Bear, you're really something! You got to meet the