There was a small village by the sea whose people had made their living by fishing for generations.
Yet for some unknown reason, over the past few months, villagers kept leaving and never returning.
For families who made their living by fishing, such accidents should have been nothing out of the ordinary.
But when too many people failed to return, it was no longer normal.
That day, another family hung white cloth outside their door, a sign in the mortal world that someone in the household had died.
A woman wept endlessly outside the door, surrounded by several village women who seemed to be trying to console her.
Not far away, two men frowned and sighed.
One had extremely rough hands, clearly the result of years exposed to wind and sun. His face was weather-beaten as well; though he was only in his twenties, he already looked like a man of forty.
With sorrow etched across his face, he looked all the more worn down by life.
Holding a tobacco pipe, he gazed toward the sea and sighed to his companion. "Who knows how long these days will last? These waters were perfectly fine last year. What on earth has happened to them?"
His companion leaned lazily against a rock and pulled his straw hat down over his entire face. "Perhaps the immortal's protection has stopped working."
In the cultivation world, every step was fraught with hardship-not just for cultivators, but even more so for these mortals.
They lacked the strength to resist things beyond their abilities, such as demon plants and demon beasts. Anyone who survived in a place like this could be said to have had some fortunate encounter of their own.
Those words happened to reach the ears of two people dressed rather unusually.
Of course, their