ebookland Chapter 404 - 405
Chapter 404 - 405
The wind sliced through the skies.
Arcon advanced through the clouds like a black arrow, his enormous wings beating at steady intervals, producing a hypnotic rhythm that accompanied the passage of time.
Kilometers of land passed beneath them, forests, mountains, rivers, and valleys, all reduced to blurred stains by their speed.
Since Kyrian had left Red Smoke City, sixteen days had passed.
Sixteen days of travel. Sixteen days of flight.
Even for a powerful spiritual mount like Arcon, a beast of rare bloodline whose wings could sustain flight for days without rest, it was a long journey.
During that period, Kyrian did not set foot in a single city.
There was no need to waste time in small cities. His objective lay beyond them, far beyond. Stopping at every village, every fortress, and every cultivator settlement would only delay his journey.
The Northern Region was gigantic. Much larger than he had imagined.
During the first days of flight, Kyrian could still see signs of the Great Volcano’s influence.
Black mountains rose from the earth like scars upon the land.
Rivers heated by subterranean activity, so hot that steam rose from their surfaces even on cold days, wound through the valleys.
Fields covered in ash, thick as snow, suffocating any vegetation that tried to grow, stretched to the horizon.
But as the days passed, the landscape began to change.
The gray disappeared. The red disappeared.
Life returned.
Forests appeared. First, small ones, clusters of sparse, isolated trees, as if they were testing the soil.
Then vast, dense, green forests filled with sound and movement.
Then the endless ones.
Green oceans stretching as far as the eye could see, ancient trees with trunks as thick as houses, mountains covered in vegetation with their peaks hidden among the canopies, and broad rivers winding across the land like silver serpents.
The humidity increased. The air became cooler. More pleasant. More alive.
Along the way, Kyrian encountered several cities.
Small ones. Clusters of wooden and stone buildings surrounded by low walls. Weak cultivators, Qi Release at most.
Medium-sized ones. More elaborate fortifications with markets and temples. A few Core Formation elders.
He even saw a fortress built atop a cliff, with black walls, pointed towers, and red banners fluttering in the wind.
But he ignored them all.
His goal remained the same.
To reach the city controlled by a third-level force.
A city as large as the capital of the Cloud Empire, the capital he had visited months ago, where he had participated in the grand auction, where he had fought in the Cloud Coliseum.
Kyrian had a plan.
First. He would sell his pills and formation plates.
During his months in the Blood Court and the Verdant Sword Sect, he had accumulated a considerable quantity of both Rank 4 and Rank 5 pills and formation plates of various types and purposes.
With the spirit stones earned from the sales, he would buy every cultivation technique available in the city.
And battle techniques as well. Every single one.
The more techniques he studied, the more different perspectives he would gain on how Qi flowed, how meridians functioned, and how body and spirit connected.
Understanding that would help him create his own technique in the future.
Furthermore, by studying so many techniques, Kyrian would better understand his enemies.
Many cultivators used similar techniques, variations of the same theme, and adaptations of the same flow. If he knew the original, he would recognize the variation.
"Afterward," Kyrian thought.
"I’ll refine more pills and create more formation plates. Replenish my stock."
"Then I’ll continue traveling."
"Stopping at the next major city."
And so on. Until he reached the Central Region.
It was a simple plan.
And an efficient one.
...
The days passed quickly. Not all of them were peaceful.
Flying spiritual beasts, creatures adapted to the skies with wings, claws, and hunger, occasionally crossed his path.
On the fifth day, a flock of Blood Hawks tried to surround him. They were large birds with wingspans greater than a man’s height, and their crimson feathers gleamed like blood beneath the sunlight. They attacked in formation, attempting to encircle him from all sides.
They were killed in less than ten breaths.
Kyrian did not use elaborate techniques. Only his eyes, violet sparks leaping from his pupils, lightning cutting through the air.
The hawks fell.
On the eighth day, a Winged Serpent emerged from the clouds.
The creature was enormous, its scaled body over fifteen meters long, and its leathery wings produced a terrifying sound whenever they beat.
A creature at the peak of the Core Formation Realm, nearly as powerful as the Five-Horned Lava Lizard Kyrian had faced at the Great Volcano.
Kyrian took a little longer.
But in the end, with his Eyes of Fire, orange flames burning through the serpent’s scales, he reduced the creature to charcoal.
Kyrian only managed to recover the beast core. The remains fell into the forest below, smoking.
On the thirteenth day, a swarm of Ghost Bats attempted to attack Arcon during the night.
They were silent creatures, nearly invisible in the darkness, feeding on the Qi of sleeping beasts. Their attack was coordinated, dozens of them emerging from the shadows simultaneously.
None survived.
With his lightning, purple eyes shining in the darkness, sparks leaping in every direction, Kyrian annihilated them all.
The bats fell like black rain.
The battles were so simple they hardly deserved to be remembered.
Kyrian barely remembered the details himself, only flashes of movement, Qi being unleashed, and bodies falling.
The real difficulty was something else. Distance.
The farther he traveled, the more Kyrian realized how small he was. It didn’t matter how much he flew.
The map, the one Dong Zhen had given him with its careful annotations, seemed unchanged.
The mark indicating his destination stubbornly remained in the same place while he flew for hours, for days.
It was like crossing an endless ocean.
The Northern Region was practically a continent unto itself.
A vastness impossible for ordinary cultivators to traverse.
Only the strong could manage it.
Only those with powerful mounts or cultivation sufficient to fly on their own could cover such distances.
On the morning of the sixteenth day...
Kyrian finally landed.
A clearing near a river. The place was silent. Peaceful.
The surrounding forest was dense. Gigantic trees, some with trunks so thick that five men could not wrap their arms around them, rose dozens of meters above the ground, their canopies forming a green ceiling that partially blocked the sunlight.
The scent of wet earth filled the air, fresh, organic, and alive.
Birds sang in the distance, sharp, cheerful, carefree notes.
Insects produced constant sounds among the leaves, a low continuous hum that was almost meditative.
After so many days of flying, of constant wind, continuous movement, and the need to remain alert, that silence was pleasant.
Kyrian hunted a spiritual beast similar to a deer.
The creature was fast. Its hooves struck the ground forcefully, its agile body weaving between the trees. But not fast enough to escape his eyes.
He prepared the meat. Ate.
Meanwhile, Arcon remained nearby, wings folded against his body, head lowered.
Kyrian took out several low-grade spirit stones from his ring and offered them to the beast.
"A reward for the journey."
The horse devoured the stones without any ceremony.
As if they were simple grains.
Its powerful jaws crushed the crystals with dry cracking sounds, and its red eyes shone with satisfaction.
Kyrian imagined that Arcon was close to breaking through to the next stage.
The beast had consumed many spirit stones during the weeks of travel, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. Its energy had grown denser, its Qi stronger.
"Perhaps soon," Kyrian thought.
"Perhaps in the next major city."