Mountain of Ten Thousand Silences

Inside the grand hall of the Flowing Cloud Sword Sect.

More than a dozen corpses lay neatly arranged on the cold floor, covered with white cloths.

The man standing at the front wore a thunderous expression. The pressure radiating from him made every elder and disciple in the hall hold their breath, not daring to make a sound.

He was Lü Ci, the current sect master of the Flowing Cloud Sword Sect.

His gaze swept over the white cloths. When he saw Lü Yan's charred corpse, barely recognizable as human, even the veins at his temples twitched.

Crack!

He crushed the armrest of his chair with the sheer force of his grip.

Lü Yan had not only been a sect elder, but also his younger clansman!

A Core Formation Elder, a chief disciple in whom the sect had placed great hopes, and more than a dozen fellow disciples had been uprooted and slaughtered at their own outpost!

"Have you found out what happened?"

Lü Ci's voice trembled with fury held back to its breaking point. "Who did this?!"

"Please calm your anger, Sect Master."

An elder with a gaunt face stepped forward. "According to the news from Ancient Gaze City, the killer is named Si Chen. He is around twelve or thirteen years old, and his cultivation... is reportedly at Foundation Establishment."

"Foundation Establishment?"

A hot-tempered elder beside him cut in sharply. "Nonsense! How could someone at Foundation Establishment kill Junior Brother Lü Yan? And wipe out Zhao Qinghe and all the others?"

"That is precisely what makes this boy so uncanny."

The gaunt elder continued, "Traces of extraordinarily violent thunder power remained at the scene. Apparently, Si Chen can conjure thunder spears out of thin air, with astonishing power. Elder Lü Yan... seems to have used the Blood-Burning Secret Art, but was still no match for him."

"Si Chen..." Lü Ci slowly repeated the name, his sinister gaze finally unable to contain his towering fury.

"Whatever sinister arts he used, whoever stands behind him, he killed an elder of our Flowing Cloud Sword Sect and slaughtered our disciples. This debt must be paid in blood."

He spun around and all but roared his order. "Issue my decree as sect master! Mobilize every resource, spare no expense, and find that little bastard named Si Chen!"

"Kill him on sight!"

The thin elder pondered for a moment before adding, "Sect Master, this boy defeated a Golden Core cultivator while only at Foundation Establishment. Ordinary disciples can no longer subdue him. To ensure success, should we... ask the Night Rain Tower to act?"

A cold gleam flashed in Lü Ci's eyes.

The Night Rain Tower had a name with a touch of poetry, yet the mere mention of it made cultivators throughout the Eastern Region pale.

They operated in secrecy and were highly efficient. Though their prices were staggering, they rarely failed.

Hiring them would indeed preserve the sect's strength as much as possible. Moreover... it would be discreet enough to protect the last shred of the Flowing Cloud Sword Sect's tottering dignity.

If this matter could not be resolved swiftly and cleanly, the Flowing Cloud Sword Sect would become a complete laughingstock in this region, with no foothold left!

At that thought, Lü Ci hesitated no longer.

"Do it."

"Contact the Night Rain Tower yourself. Tell them the price is no obstacle. All I want is results-the head of that little bastard!"

Si Chen spent another few days regulating his breath before leaving those desolate mountains.

Now that his cultivation had reached the Foundation Establishment Late Stage, his windborne flight had become considerably faster.

As he flew, he habitually suppressed the cultivation that kept increasing on its own within him.

He had decided on this long ago. If his cultivation rose too quickly, his body would probably fall behind again.

Forming a Golden Core probably won't be difficult, but there's still no sign of the "Yang Thunder" needed for the second tribulation of the Nine Tribulations Thunder Body. As for cultivation, enough is enough. I can worry about it when it really isn't sufficient.

Thinking this, he took out the map he had bought at the Ten Thousand Treasures Tower in Ancient Gaze City and examined it as he flew.

Back when he lived with his lineage, he had possessed little sense of how vast the outside world was-not until he saw this map.

Ancient Gaze City and the region containing the Flowing Cloud Sword Sect occupied only a fingernail-sized patch on the map, pitifully remote.

According to the man at the Ten Thousand Treasures Tower, even this map covered only a corner of the Eastern Region's borderlands.

"So the world really is this big..." he muttered, lowering his head to search the map carefully for his home.

Yet after searching for ages, until his eyes were nearly swimming, he still could not find it.

He was a little puzzled. After leaving home, he had flown on the wind and occasionally used Thunderbolt Flash to travel. It had not felt as though he had gone very far.

How come I can't even find it on the map? Could my lineage be outside this region?

Unable to figure it out, he simply stopped thinking about it. His lineage's Message Stone was in his ring, anyway. He could ask when the time came.

His family had not set a deadline for his return, either. Spending a little longer exploring the outside world was fine.

He casually selected a city on the map that looked somewhat larger than Ancient Gaze City and flew unhurriedly toward it.

When tired, he landed to regulate his breath. Occasionally, he also took out the dark scale he had obtained from Lü Yan and turned it over and over in his hand.

The scale felt cold to the touch and was hard in texture. He could discern little else unusual about it, but the trace of peculiar thunder energy inside continued to pique his curiosity.

He flew like this for several days, the landscape below gradually shifting from hills to increasingly barren mountains.

Just as he approached a mountain range, the scale he was toying with suddenly gave off a faint tug!

Si Chen immediately stopped in midair and looked down at his palm.

The sensation was subtle, as though something far away had gently tugged on the scale.

He unfolded the map and discovered that the direction led toward a vast area called the Mountain of Ten Thousand Silences.

A brief note beside it read: continuous mountain ranges, occasional abnormal celestial phenomena, abundant rare spirit materials, but rampant demonic beasts and dangers at every turn.

"Abnormal celestial phenomena..." Si Chen studied those words thoughtfully.

Perhaps... it's worth taking a look?

Although the description warned of danger, this seemed more worthwhile than wandering aimlessly through a city asking around.

Without much hesitation, Si Chen changed course and flew toward the depths of the Mountain of Ten Thousand Silences.

The Mountain of Ten Thousand Silences was indeed seldom visited. Even along its outskirts, there were no mortal villages.

The few cultivators he occasionally encountered had all come for those supposedly rare spirit materials. Every one of them looked wary and travel-worn.

Some noticed Si Chen flying overhead on the wind. Seeing his youth and clean clothing, so unlike a rogue cultivator who spent years risking his life in the mountains, they could not help casting inquisitive looks his way.

Si Chen paid those gazes no heed, merely continuing in the direction the scale had initially indicated.

Unable to gauge his background, most of those cultivators likewise chose to watch in silence, and neither side troubled the other.

However, after persisting for a short while, the scale's pulling sensation vanished completely without warning.

Si Chen stopped and tried channeling a trace of spiritual power into the scale. There was no response.

He then examined it carefully with his spiritual sense, but the scale remained lifeless, like any ordinary inanimate object.

He even tapped it with his hand, imitating the way his Third Uncle Si Shuo inspected magic artifacts, but the result was the same.

And that's... it?

Si Chen looked at the scale in his hand, which had suddenly "gone on strike," and felt a little disappointed.

He gazed at the overlapping mountain ridges before him, where mist was beginning to spread. Since the trail had gone cold, he might as well search the area himself.

What if I get lucky?

And so, Si Chen began roaming through the mountains.

But the terrain within the Mountain of Ten Thousand Silences was far more complicated than he had imagined. The mountains rose and fell unpredictably, deep valleys crisscrossed the land, and the farther he ventured, the thicker the fog became, severely obstructing his sight.

He tried flying higher into the sky to get a bird's-eye view of the terrain.

Yet the moment he shot upward, he found billowing clouds and mist above, below, and on every side. Never mind finding a route-he could barely tell north from south or east from west.

"Looks like flying too high won't work, either." He could only descend again.

Since the sky offered no solution, he would try searching on the ground. Remembering the cultivators he had encountered on his way in, he decided to find someone and ask for directions.

However, he had overestimated his ability to navigate unfamiliar mountain forests.

Relying on his personal navigation method of "I think this direction looks nicer," Si Chen wandered among the ridges and mist for the better part of a day.

The result was...

He, Si Chen,

a rising talent who had just defeated a Core Formation cultivator despite his lower cultivation and made his name throughout Ancient Gaze City, experienced for the first time what it meant to "lose all sense of north" after voluntarily entering the Mountain of Ten Thousand Silences.

He was lost.