In a nameless wilderness on the northern border of the Yinshan Kingdom.
Little White took the form of a giant wolf, clouds rising beneath her paws. As though treading over waves, she ran joyfully through the boundless sea of clouds, soon arriving before a canyon more than ten li wide and five hundred li long.
It was a magnificent canyon that stretched like a long dragon. Below lay a deep-water ravine fed by an underground river surging up from beneath the earth. It connected to the earth veins of the active volcanoes to the north, where fire essence flowed through it. Sulfur, cinnabar, and other minerals were heated day and night, releasing toxic fumes that accumulated underground and occasionally emerged to spread across the water's surface, making it look like boiling water.
Fang Qianyuan had Little White stop and stood on a protruding rock to look ahead. All he saw was a bleak haze of red and yellow mist, while the air carried a faint, unpleasant odor like rotten eggs.
Not far away, an enormous stone tablet several zhang wide and more than ten zhang tall was embedded in the western cliff face on the left. Three large characters in an ancient script stood out in relief upon it: "Eagle's Sorrow Ravine."
"Eagle's Sorrow Ravine..."
"So this is Eagle's Sorrow Ravine!"
"Legend has it that this ravine was formed when an earth dragon turned over ten thousand years ago, opening a Void Rift. But the true cause is recorded by the major sects and aristocratic clans."
"This place was once called 'Sword Valley' and stretched a full eight hundred li. Someone cleaved it open with a single strand of Sword Qi-a rift created by human power!"
"The earthquake that followed actually destroyed its original scale, turning the latter half into