The migration began

"Hahaha!" Lin Shan burst out laughing. He realized he had not laughed like this in a long time.

"All right." Yan Ruxin set the iron pot in the middle of the round table and said, "I'll get the bowls. Let's eat first."

With that, she returned to the kitchen and came back with a stack of wooden bowls. After serving everyone a bowl, she sat in her seat, while Xiao Yuan stood off to one side, grinning as he ate.

Lin Shan looked at the food in his bowl. It came in lumps, somewhat like dough dumplings.

He ate a piece and found it slightly astringent, without the smooth texture of flour.

"Is this made from flour?" Lin Shan asked.

"Something similar, but it grows in the ground, like peanuts. It yields one harvest a season and grows easily. It's the Human Race's staple food now," Yan Ruxin replied.

"What a treasure," Lin Shan marveled. "Who knows how many lives this stuff could save?"

Yan Ruxin smiled and said:

"It's all thanks to Si Zhennan. This Peanut Wheat originally yielded only one harvest every six months. The seeds he improved not only produce four harvests a year, but also yield plumper kernels."

"When I grow up, I want to be like Uncle Si and make sure everyone has enough to eat!" a little boy declared loudly.

"I want to become an excellent doctor, saving the dying and healing the wounded."

The meal passed in a warm, harmonious atmosphere. It seemed these children had already adjusted to their new lives here.

At the end, Lin Shan looked at Xiao Yuan and asked, "What do you want to do when you grow up?"

"I want to become the strongest person in the Human Race, protect our people, and lead them to prosperity!" Xiao Yuan said without hesitation.

Hearing this, Yan Ruxin gave Lin Shan a strange look.

Lin Shan froze for a moment, then looked at Yan Ruxin. "Did you teach these children?"

Yan Ruxin smiled. "I didn't teach them much. They were clever to begin with." Then she turned to the children and continued, "Since you've finished eating, go help everyone in the fields."

"Yes, Director."

The children answered in unison.

"Wait." Lin Shan stopped them. "You don't need to work today. Go pack your things. We're leaving tomorrow."

"Leaving?" Yan Ruxin asked in confusion. "You mean we're relocating?"

"Yes," Lin Shan confirmed.

"..." After a moment of silence, Yan Ruxin murmured, "I hope fewer people die this time..."

Then she said to the children in the room, "Go out and play, then."

"Yay!"

The children poured out, leaving only Yan Ruxin and Lin Shan in the room.

"They don't have anything to pack..." Yan Ruxin said. Then she looked at Lin Shan again. "Don't tell me you just wanted to visit this home with nothing in it. You came to see me, didn't you? Jin Tianzong told me yesterday that you were back."

"Yes." Lin Shan nodded. "I took a few things from the Cat Clan and brought them for you to look at."

Lin Shan walked outside and lowered the Heart Light sack from the sky, then returned inside and dumped everything onto the floor.

"You went to the Cat Clan? And came back in one piece? You really do deserve to be called the strongest in the Human Race," Yan Ruxin said in surprise.

She rummaged through the things on the floor for a while, picking out only the books.

Then she sat on the floor and quickly leafed through them.

A moment later, she said excitedly:

"I don't know what the other things do, but these books describe a way to use spirituality as an energy source, along with some techniques for exploring the Ash Fog. If we can decipher them, they'll be a great help to our territory."

"Take your time studying them, then. Throw away whatever's useless. I'm heading out for a while."

The moment he finished speaking, red light flashed inside the room, and Lin Shan vanished.

Yan Ruxin was rather speechless. At that moment, she felt like an employee, while Lin Shan was the boss who left as soon as he had assigned the work.

A thousand meters in the air, Lin Shan flew toward the military camp. Along the way, he could see the army returning, tens of thousands of people forming a long, winding dragon.

When he reached the former site of the military camp, he found it completely empty. Nothing had been left behind.

Recalling where the Cat Clan had retreated, Lin Shan summoned the Heart Light Sword and hovered silently in the air.

He waited for an entire day. Even when the Red Moon rose overhead, he had not moved.

"Finally here..."

Suddenly, a butterfly glowing blue fluttered unsteadily toward the barrier. Just as it was about to pass through, a streak of golden light shot down from the sky and pinned it to the ground. After struggling briefly, the butterfly dissolved into specks of blue light.

"There was never any special tracking method. There are simply Cat Clan spies among the Human Race."

The route the Cat Clan had opened did indeed have restrictions. Otherwise, they would not have used the same point for every attack and retreat. Now even their messages passed through it.

Around dawn, another butterfly slowly flew past, only to meet the same fate and dissolve.

The other side seemed to grow anxious. Over the course of the day, they created four butterflies at intervals, all of which met a merciless end.

When night fell, Lin Shan narrowed his eyes as he spotted a man in ragged clothes approaching, glancing furtively from side to side.

The man walked up to the barrier and activated his spirituality. A lifelike blue butterfly emerged and flew outward at his command.

Just as the butterfly was about to pass through the barrier, a streak of golden light pierced it. Blue and golden motes intertwined, then dissipated.

"Who's there?" the man cried in alarm.

The next second, his hair stood on end. He tried to dodge to one side, but it was already too late.

"Urgh..." He watched helplessly as a golden spear pierced his heart. He tried to turn his head to see who it was, but his breath stopped before he could turn halfway.

Behind him, Lin Shan held the spear shaft. Once the man was dead, Lin Shan flew back into the air to continue keeping watch.

There might be more than one spy. The Cat Clan was unlikely to put all its eggs in one basket.

However, this route was the only way out. As long as he guarded it until the migration was complete, he did not believe a Sequence 9 ability could transmit messages across dozens of kilometers.

Nothing unusual happened after that. Lin Shan only left when the sun rose.

When he returned to the camp, all the tents had been dismantled, and everyone carried their entire belongings on their shoulders in bundles large and small.

Soldiers were organizing the column. Zhang Zhonghua and the other Transcendents stood at its head, while Yan Ruxin stood in the middle, surrounded by a group of children.

Lin Shan landed at the front of the column, drawing a chorus of startled cries. Everyone wondered who this man was and how he could fly.

"Is everything ready?" Lin Shan asked Zhang Zhonghua.

"Yes." Zhang Zhonghua nodded. "We can leave at any time."

Then he took a rolled-up Jade Tome from his pocket and said, "You should hold on to the Clan Artifact."

Lin Shan nodded and accepted the Jade Tome. "Then let's set out. I can lead the way alone. You guard the column's flanks."

"All right."

"Move out!"

The Human Race's vast migration column began to move.

There were fifty thousand people migrating, their long, winding column stretching for several kilometers. Including him, the Human Race had only eight Transcendents. Protecting the entire column was impossible. They could only pray they would encounter no danger.

They only needed the barrier at the edge of their territory to reach the Purple Soul Flower Forest. They did not actually need to live in the forest itself; it was a place of supernatural horrors to begin with.

In other words, they needed to travel sixty kilometers while carrying their belongings. Lin Shan estimated it would take two days.