The Golden Family of Duck Soup Mountain

Duck Soup Mountain.

It was famous because a great nobleman had once suffered defeat there and killed himself by drinking lethally poisoned duck soup.

Later, the Golden Family, a renowned Warrior Lineage, had moved their entire household to Duck Soup Mountain. They abandoned martial pursuits for farming, specializing in raising ducks, and gradually became a duck-raising lineage known far and wide.

Although many nobles secretly despised what the Golden Family had done, as the family grew stronger over the centuries, fewer and fewer people dared wag their tongues.

Every man of the Golden Family was powerfully built, possessed tremendous strength, and had astonishing reflexes. Not only could they fight and kill on land, they were also skilled at fighting on water. Had they been able to fly, they could practically have ruled land, sea, and sky.

Thus, although the Golden Family were not nobles, they were no different from nobility. Their descendants often held important posts in major cities, with dozens serving as generals alone.

The city lords dared entrust military authority to the Golden Family because of their ancestral rules: no descendant could leave the mountain before turning twenty, and once they passed forty, they had to return to Duck Soup Mountain to raise ducks for the rest of their lives.

This was an eccentric lineage. Everyone followed the ancestral rules of their own accord, and almost every descendant who left the mountain eventually laid down his armor and returned. There had never been an instance of seizing power or usurping a throne.

Yet precisely because of this, the Golden Family had stood firm for centuries and only grown stronger.

In the forest, the great stream of refugees from Waterwood Town pressed onward.

Owl and Sa sat in an open carriage, with Duck Soup Mountain already visible in