Chapter 1294: The Dragon's Ascent Mountains
Dragon’s Ascent Mountains, the third of the Three Danger Zones and also the most dangerous out of the three.
It was once said that a dragon was seen ascending into the heavens from these mountains, thus the name.
Located at the north-eastern edge of the Tianhun Empire, the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains was also bordering the western edge of the Soulbeast Forest. A vast expanse of desert and wasteland ranged from the entire eastern side of it.
One had to travel another wasteland in order to get to the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains, one that was extremely vast in size.
And today, Bai Yunfei was currently standing in front of a chain of mountains that marked the beginning of the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains. He was also currently lost in thought.
“This is the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains? Black Cloud Valley feels like a tiny garden in comparison to this…”
He couldn’t even begin to see the edge of the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains from his perch high up in the sky. It was just an endless expanse of mountains.
The most striking feature of this place was definitely the ‘atmosphere’. Starting from a certain point, the clouds were jet-black and broiled with lightning. Bai Yunfei could even see lightning bolts shoot out from it every once in a while.
In another area, east of the center, the terrain was deathly calm.
Left of the center, the mountains were completely frozen over as if it was in the middle of a huge snowstorm…
Differing environments with differing environmental conditions. This was one of the ‘characteristics’ of the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains.
“Chengfeng,” Bai Yunfei turned his head. “Did the Saint of Fate enter from this place? Which direction did he go?”
Li Chengfeng was currently surveying the area in front of him with an observant stare. “Yes, I’m sure of it. The Saint of Fate came from the western side of Hidden Dragon Valley, meaning the path he took started from here.”
Bai Yunfei turned to the other side where Shen Pojun and the Frostfeather Saint stood. Shen Pojun nodded, “Then we’ll head for Hidden Dragon Valley from here.”
Agreeing with the course of action, the four all transformed into a beam of light to fly off in the same direction…
……
The battle for the Fate School had been half a month ago. Though the group set out for the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains on the fourth day after that, they took a while to get here in the Star Ocean Province. Traveling the entire empire was no quick feat and required a decent amount of time to arrive at the right entrance. By all rights, the group arrived here relatively fast already.
That being said, Tang Xinyun, Huangfu Rui, and a few others came out to ‘travel’ and ‘tour’ certain parts of the continent on their way here. But now that they were at the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains, everyone besides the four were back in the Core World so they could get to Hidden Dragon Valley.
There was one important thing to mention. When they agreed on finding the Supreme Saint’s Inheritance, Li Chengfeng opted to divine the future by using the +12 additional effect of the Heart Compass.
He didn’t gleam much information other than that the journey would be ‘perilous’ and their outcome was ‘unclear’. No matter how powerful the +12 additional effect was, it was limited in its inability to be concise and clear with the details. If there were too many factors in play then the future would be considerably harder to make clear.
An outcome like this was relatively normal when it came to divining the future. Li Chengfeng tried several times after that, but the outcome didn’t change. Not even when Ge Yiyun tried his hand at it.
Any situation relating to the Supreme Saint’s Inheritance was a situation that could influence the entirety of an era. It should be expected that one would find it difficult to predict the future.
There was a piece of good information though. Whenever a prediction failed, the +10 additional effect would still allow for some information to be learned. The probability was low, but it was still enough for the group to see ‘images’. But most of those images were of the landscape of either the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains or within the pocket dimension. The latter of which was quite useless.
To be extra safe, Li Chengfeng even used the +12 additional effect to see what Gu Jimie and Shangguan Xiongyan were up to. All he learned was that they were in the extreme north heading for the Soulbeast Forest. No one knew why, but they all agreed it was definitely for a nefarious purpose.
—Aside from a few in the Soul Refining School, hardly anyone knew of Gu Lianhun’s contract with the Abyssal Snake Saint to become a Saint. Not even Shen Pojun or the Frostfeather Saint knew that their enemies would be running off to ask for the assistance of someone stronger than them…
……
What Bai Yunfei and his group didn’t know was that another group came onto the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains just half a day after they first left!
Even more baffling was how these people appeared in the exact same area Bai Yunfei’s group had entered the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains from!
Three men stood at the front of the group; the Abyssal Snake Saint, Shangguan Xiongyan, and Gu Jimie. Behind them stood four others: a Late-stage and Mid-stage Soul Emperor from the Tianhun School and two Mid-stage Soul Emperors from the Soul Refining School.
Almost every single of the Soul Refining School’s Soul Emperors were dead. Aside from these two, there was still one Early-stage Soul Emperor guarding the Soul Refining School within the Lost Swamps. The Supreme Saint’s Inheritance was the Soul Refining School’s last chance to survive, thus why Gu Jimie was so adamant on it. Having the two Soul Emperors here wouldn’t do much good, but they still might prove to be helpful in a fight. The group were confident that they’d come across Shen Pojun and the Frostfeather Saint’s group at some point, so the Soul Emperors could at least keep Ge Yiyun or any other Soul Emperor busy.
Shangguan Xiongyan stood there with a small palm-sized mirror in his hand. Strangely enough, the mirror wasn’t reflecting Shangguan Xiongyan’s face on its surface, but had a small foggy whirlpool beneath its surface. If one were to stare at its surface, they would’ve been disturbed to feel their own soul being attracted into it.
Shangguan Xiongyan was currently staring at the mirror with an intense glare as if trying to spot something.
He lifted his head after a while to stare north-west from their current spot. “They went that way. Let’s go, but we should slow down to avoid detection. And do not disturb any of the wildbeasts.”
The others beside him nodded in confirmation before setting out into the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains. Gu Jimie’s eyes lingered on the small bronze mirror in Shangguan Xiongyan’s hand with hidden desire. Fortunately for him, no one else noticed.
“Surprising that this thing…was able to find them…”
……
It wasn’t until the group was deep into the Dragon’s Ascent Mountains that Bai Yunfei finally understood how large the area was. Even under Li Chengfeng’s guidance for half a day, Bai Yunfei was astounded to hear that they were barely twenty percent of the way to Hidden Dragon Valley.
Everyone was flying up high in the sky, but their auras were kept to a minimum so as to avoid disturbing the local life. They didn’t fear any class seven or eight wildbeast, but fighting them was detrimental to their plans and would eat up a fair amount of their time.
The group’s pace began to slow down after the second day of traveling. They were carefully making their way forward now as they doubled their efforts to avoid detection. The wildbeasts were already beginning to become a bigger threat than they’d like.
Dumb, these wildbeasts would make trouble whenever they spotted prey, even if that prey was stronger than them. If anything, the wildbeasts would probably attack the two Saints anyways. Shen Pojun and the Frostfeather Saint already had to take care of three reckless class eight soulbeasts already.
“Roar!!!”
The tremendous roar of another wildbeast could be heard deeper within the valley they were flying over.
“Boom boom boom boom…”
Then came the rumbling of thunder. From the same area where the roar was heard, Bai Yunfei saw a large flash of green and black light.
Surprised, the entire group stopped to stare at the aberration. This wasn’t something caused by the natural environment. “A battle? I sense a class eight wildbeast and…a soul cultivator?”
The distance was too far for Bai Yunfei to sense properly, so he was surprised to hear what it was from Shen Pojun. “What? There’s…there’s actually a soul cultivator here?!”