Black Snake did not rush to set out.
His Primordial Spirit heard vague, broken words, steeped in sorrow.
First, he carefully followed that thread of strangeness with his senses, like lowering a string through the barrier between the Spirit Realm and the Mortal Realm to find its source.
Once he had a sense of where it was, he told Xiao Yu he was going out.
He rose into the air, swinging his tail as he swam through the surging mist in that direction, as swift as a streak of black lightning tearing through the white clouds.
After he had traveled a few dozen li, that strange sensation grew increasingly clear.
He looked down. This was the closest point to the disturbance; opening a passage here would take the least effort.
He gathered his spiritual power and began constructing a passage. The air rippled like water, revealing the Mortal Realm. Out of habit, he chose a mountaintop, then plunged through. A black shadow suddenly appeared in the air above the summit of a steep mountain.
Still unpracticed with the spell, Black Snake crashed into the dense forest from midair.
Branches snapped with a volley of cracks, shattered leaves flew, and birds scattered in alarm. He smashed through two trees before coming to a stop.
Birds chirped on the branches, insects sang in the grass, and all sorts of smells came flooding toward him. He could not help drawing in a few extra breaths.
How lovely. None of this existed in the Spirit Realm.
He coiled around a tree trunk and climbed. When his head emerged from the thick canopy, the whole world suddenly opened up before his eyes.
He could dimly make out a winding river gleaming white below the mountain. Its scent was familiar-it was the River where he often