Volume 1, Chapter 58 – A Brief Halt

After more than half an hour in the tunnel, the space ahead suddenly opened up.

It was also shrouded in night, visibility low. Even so, it was clear they were in a clearing.

The ground lay lower here, with slopes on all sides. The surrounding brush and undergrowth showed signs of being burned and hacked back. Towering trees filled the view; the trunks of the first few were each over three meters across.

Bai Xiang searched her memory; this kind of mysterious space was called an illusory realm.

Outer real, inner unreal—hidden in the seams of a mysterious space, invisible and untouchable under normal circumstances. Hence the name: illusory realm.

Huang Qian told the team to hold position. He went up a slope alone to scout and found a stone platform masked by tree trunks, where traces of black ash remained.

He crouched to examine it, then came back and nodded to Cao Chuan. “Scouts, most likely.”

The Demon-Immortal Dao wouldn’t be so stupid as to pull everyone straight back into the depths of the Demon Kingdom. There had to be eyes posted at the entrance.

“Judging from the footprints in the tunnel, they have at least thirty people,” Huang Qian calculated. “This black ash is from a campfire. They left two behind. This is a site they’ve used many times, and from here you can see the tunnel mouth directly.”

Cao Chuan went with him to check and agreed: this was indeed the best observation point. If it were up to him, he’d have chosen it too.

“Where are they?” Liang Wenbo came up as well, gripping his broad war sword and peering around. “We didn’t scare them off, did we?”

“No.” Huang Qian shook his head. “It hasn’t even been an hour since their raid. They’d never expect us to catch up this fast.”

Putting himself in their place, Liang Wenbo figured that if he were a demonfolk posted to watch the tunnel, he’d take it for an easy detail.

On one hand, after a raid the camp has to tally casualties and debate next steps. That takes time.

On the other, even if the Chilong Army got riled and, taking the supposed ‘death of Bai Xiang’ as planned, rushed out a pursuit unit, they’d still have to deal with the phantasmic Demon Pool outside.

“They think we wouldn’t come this fast.” Huang Qian fished a sharpened stick from the ash and pointed at the clotted bits of meat on it. “My guess is the two of them went hunting.”

It sounded fanciful, but out in the wild there was nothing more normal.

Anyone traveling outdoors carries rations, sure. But rations are for emergencies, not daily meals. Take Huang Qian himself: when he marches troops in the wild, he only eats rations when racing the clock.

At other times he forages on the spot—fruit, game, fish—to stretch the rations and keep them for real crises.

Since it was only two small fry, Huang Qian left Liang Wenbo to hold this position while he and Cao Chuan went to seize the demonfolk scouts.

Interrogating some intel out of them would be far better than charging in blind.

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From the moment she entered, Chai Xuan had kept herself hidden behind Hao Chengzhuo. While everyone’s eyes were forward, she quietly edged to a rock wall, pinched a protruding nub, and twisted it around.

“Commandant.” She suddenly stepped out. “May I go as well?”

The disciples nearby—including Hao Chengzhuo, Zhao Xu, Xiao Ming, and Xu Xi—were all stunned. None knew why she made this request.

Liang Wenbo was also a bit surprised. He turned back, and everyone looked at her together.

“You…?” Huang Qian gave her a cold look, then seemed to recall something. “Oh… you’re that national top scorer?”

“Exactly!” Chai Xuan perked up, her eyes brighter than before.

“You entered Benling halfway along, and you’re stuck at the Visualization stage, right.”

“Yes!”

“Then you should be in ‘Nurturing the Spirit Tiger,’” Huang Qian said with certainty. “At this phase, compared to Forge the Sword, your combat power hasn’t improved much. I don’t need an assistant who hasn’t reached Condensing the Aspect.”

That was a refusal, but Chai Xuan didn’t give up. “For your knowledge, Commandant… I’m from Daizhou, a Zhong’an Daoist. Before my father retired to tend his health, he served as a Zhong’an Army counter-bandit scout. I grew up around it and am likewise skilled at field reconnaissance.”

“Oh?” Now Huang Qian was genuinely surprised. “Daizhou, Zhong’an Dao, Zhong’an Army… your father served under Huang Yuxian?”

“Yes!” Chai Xuan nodded vigorously, then cut a side glance toward Bai Xiang, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly.

Huang Yuxian.

Bai Xiang didn’t notice her small gesture; she was reviewing the names.

According to the memories she’d fused, the name Zhong’an Dao had a story behind it.

In year 938 of Great Yu, the Luo and Huang clans of Dingbei Circuit usurped the throne, plunging the Nine Provinces into war and splitting the realm three ways.

Though the records only note briefly that a descendant of the imperial house, “Yao,” cast down a falling star to steady the realm, the pacification of the chaos also owed much to a Huang branch that continually supported Yao.

In recognition of that bond, when Yao took the throne he rewarded and punished clearly: on one hand, he beheaded the Huang main line along with over a thousand servants and slaves; on the other, he lavishly rewarded that branch.

The branch patriarch, Huang Zhangyin, was ennobled as “Marquis of Zhong’an,” his retainers named the Zhong’an Army. They were moved from their original Daizhou in Dingbei to the old Hulu Circuit, the circuit renamed Zhong’an.

Marquis of Zhong’an, Zhong’an Army, Zhong’an Dao—Great Yu history calls them the “Three Bestowals of Zhong’an,” a famous episode.

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Thus the Huang clan firmly planted itself in Zhong’an Dao, guarding the empire’s gates for generations.

Bai Xiang didn’t know who “Huang Yuxian” was, but it was easy to guess he belonged to the Huang line.

Chai Xuan wouldn’t mention him for no reason, and given that Huang Qian was also a Huang, the connection was obvious.

“In that case, you can come.”

As expected, once he heard that lineage, Huang Qian changed his tune and agreed to bring Chai Xuan.

He still disliked her asking in public like this; it rankled to indulge her completely.

Annoyed, he glanced aside and spotted Bai Xiang; his eyes lit up. He pointed. “Bai Xiang comes too.”

“I need the details on how you killed Lü Ran!”

Chai Xuan’s eyes went wide. The smile slowly faded from her face.

But Huang Qian was already waving them forward. She could only swallow it, grab her sword, and hurry to keep up.

Cao Chuan watched it all coolly. When Bai Xiang came up, he slung his sword and walked beside her.

The four broke off from the unit and began a rapid sweep of the area.

“Bai Xiang.” During this, Cao Chuan caught up to her and asked in a low voice, “Do you bear a grudge with her?”

Chai Xuan’s disguise skills were decent, but only good enough to fool peers. To Cao Chuan, the flaws were obvious.

He could tell at a glance that she liked to posture, and from the repeated looks she kept sneaking over, he judged she held negative feelings toward Bai Xiang.

“More or less.”

Staring at Chai Xuan’s back, Bai Xiang said softly, “I can handle it myself.”

“Is that why you turned down Hantian?” Cao Chuan frowned, thinking she was being a bit hotheaded.

Feuding with someone, thinking it’s shameful to seek outside help, insisting on relying on your own strength to slap faces and lift your head—such thinking was a bit childish.

“Shenming Sword Dao once had a dazzling sword-track student named Bai Nianchan—you know her,” Cao Chuan reminded her. “If she’d gone to Yujing earlier and taken shelter under Yuming Sword Dao, that would never have happened.”

But Bai Xiang’s attitude didn’t change, and Cao Chuan could only let it drop for now.

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Bai Xiang had her own reasons for not telling Cao Chuan the full story.

Even though Bai Shengju wanted to borrow Fang Xiaochun’s strength to take back the ancestral ground, Bai Xiang believed there was another wrinkle: why had Chai Xuan come back?

Suppose this was the Shenming ancestral ground, and the Chai father and daughter stole its location by visiting the dojo, then used some power here to let Chai Xuan leap to Forge the Sword within half a year.

If so, this place should have lost its value to Chai Xuan.

After all, she’d gotten into Qizhou University Sword Institute and even entered Benling Sword Dao—one of the Nine Daos. She had no reason to still value a Seventy-Two Paths demon-breeding ground.

Unless there’s something special here—something even the Nine Daos don’t have.

In the face of such a treasure’s lure, Fang Xiaochun was not one hundred percent trustworthy.

As she pondered, a barked challenge came from ahead.

“Who?”

Then came several dull thuds. Moments later they saw Huang Qian push through the brush, hauling two demonfolk, and toss them to the ground with a cold smile.

Both wore archaic-style clothing. One had long leather gloves; when he pulled them off, both his hands were covered in sticky tendrils. The other’s mouth jutted outward, and his eyeballs hung outside like a snail’s.

Their looks fit the definition of “demonfolk.”

With the two secured, Huang Qian roused them in turn and questioned them for intel.

His methods were brutal. He didn’t hesitate to slice off their limbs, promising that if they cooperated he’d give them a chance at surgery; he didn’t have to put them to death.

Here, “surgery” didn’t mean prosthetic augmentation but cutting out their demonized tissue.

After removal, they’d have a chance to return to society—but their status would drop to fourth-class menials, fit only for the lowest work.

“I’ll talk!”

Seemingly persuaded by Huang Qian, the two demonfolk finally relented.

They spilled their intel: the Demon-Immortal Dao had found this place more than half a month ago. As for why they stole the healing treasure, the Jade Phoenix Sword—first, someone inside the Chilong Circuit sold them the relevant information; second, and most importantly, they wanted to use the Jade Phoenix Sword to accelerate a massive egg case buried deep underground, the portion protruding above the surface already five meters long and wide.

An egg case?

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Huang Qian narrowed his eyes. “Where is your camp?”

Snail-man: “I don’t know! We change locations every shift!”

“How big is this place?”

“Don’t know! But it isn’t smaller than the area you’ve encircled outside! At least five or six times bigger!”

Five or six times, huh.

Bai Xiang did the math. Fang Xiaochun had said they’d cordoned off thirty hectares—that’s about a city park. An ordinary person could walk a circuit in just over forty minutes.

Five or six times that meant roughly two hours on foot.

“How is it this big?” This was beyond Huang Qian’s expectations. “That’s not the size a small illusory realm should have!”

And that wasn’t all. Further questioning had the snail-man revealing there were more than ten at the Stain-the-Body stage in the demonfolk camp, most of whom had passed the second body tribulation.

“Why gather so many people?” Huang Qian pressed.

When the camp was attacked, the one he’d faced was a three-tribulation demon. Taken together, the enemy’s strength far exceeded estimates!

The tendril-man shook his head. “That’s not for the likes of us to know…”

After repeated interrogation and confirming they’d squeezed the intel dry, Huang Qian and Cao Chuan exchanged a look, drew their swords together, and drove them into the two demonfolk’s heads.

“We’ll need to take the long view on this…”

Having finished the enemy, Huang Qian gave his opinion.

“I propose we go back and secure the tunnel mouth, and have the unit bring in heavy firepower.”

“As for you.”

He looked at Bai Xiang.

“Find a place and get some sleep first.”