“Those things actually have such tough skin? I’ve got a bag of sunflower seeds here, want some?”

“Sure,” replied He Chunhua, even with the wind and sand blowing like mad.

“Those things have got to weigh as much as an elephant. Tch, if one of their fat asses lands on you, they could probably squeeze the crap out of you, literally! Hey, isn’t that unlucky bastard one of Nian Songyu’s men?”

“What’s ‘crap’?”[1]

“Oh, nothing important. Look, the state preceptor’s casting a spell! He just threw two giant fireballs right into the toad’s mouth… Huh, it burped… It doesn’t seem to have worked.”

After about the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, both violet-gold toads were tossed overboard.

Compared to the awe-inspiring bulk they had when they first leaped aboard, they were now shriveled down to barely one-fifth their original size, their bloated bodies having been reduced to skin and bones.

He Lingchuan remembered seeing State Preceptor Sun cut into them and stuff something inside. Not long after, the toads began to wither before their eyes. They became severely dehydrated and feeble, and then they became unable to hop. Their eyes bulged and stared blankly into space. Then, they croaked.

“Did you see what he did?” They looked like toads that had met their righteous end.

He Chunhua simply shook his head. A man like State Preceptor Sun surely possessed extraordinary methods, and if those tricks worked on monsters, they probably worked just as well on people.

The journey pressed on, and along the way, they were attacked twice more by monsters unfazed by the stench of death. Yet each time, only State Preceptor Sun’s boat was affected. The other two vessels were left unscathed.

Onlookers remarked at the state preceptor’s misfortune while secretly thanking the heavens that the monsters had not landed on their own boats. Had it been them, things likely would not have been resolved so cleanly.

However, Sun Fuping and those with him found their brows furrowing.

They all kept wondering why the three most recent attacks had all been directed at them. Was it simply an instance of the tallest tree catching the wind?

Continuing onward, the group finally neared their destination just before nightfall.

From Nian Songyu’s boat, a herald shouted back to the other two boats, pointing ahead, “Panlong City is right ahead!”

Although there was no need for him to do so, everyone had already gathered at the bow, staring at the most awe-inspiring sight in the Panlong Desert: the Chipa Plateau.

Long ago, this plateau had been violently forced skyward by some unstoppable force, and now it towered above the surrounding flats with a sheer drop of at least a hundred and thirty meters!

Between them and the base of the plateau yawned a deep, twenty-meter-wide chasm.

It was like the boundary between two continents—sharp, unambiguous, absolute.

The walnut boats slowed as they approached. The boatmen grew extra cautious, using the cured meat to guide the sand wyrms forward, inching along the edge of that natural abyss toward the west.

A single misstep here, and it would all be over.

After about a quarter-hour, Panlong Ancient City finally began to loom larger in their sight. The outline of its gray outer walls became more defined.

The plateau itself was vast beyond belief. Its vertical cliff face resembled the cross-section of a double-layered cake, nearly perpendicular to the ground. It was as if the words “stark” and “imposing” were made for it.

The sun was beginning to set, casting mottled shadows along the cliffside. Against the orange glow, the landform resembled a massive beast crouched in the desert—coiled, silent, and majestic.

This was the epitome of terrain that was easy to defend and hard to attack. No wonder Zhong Shengguang had held out here for year after year. Without such massive natural advantages, ideals and passion alone would not have lasted long.

Further ahead, the elevation began to dip gently, forming a long downward slope.

And Panlong City stood precisely at the slope’s mouth, guarding the only southern passage onto the Chipa Plateau.

The boats began to decelerate. Up ahead stretched a bridge spanning the great chasm from south to north.

It was a natural stone bridge. One end of the bridge anchored to the land beneath their feet, the other linked to a small patch of flat ground just outside Panlong City’s southern gate.

This was likely the only viable path for any assault on Panlong City. Even ten times the troops would not be able to break through. As He Lingchuan gazed at the bridge, he could not help but feel secondhand frustration on behalf of the Xianyou and Baling armies from a century ago.

What did having ten times the troops matter when they could not launch a siege with all of them at once?

Once the walnut boats reached this point, the journey was complete, for now at least. The helmsmen unhooked the slabs of cured meat from their poles and tossed them to the sand wyrms as a reward.

After sprinting for two hours straight, the three sand wyrms were exhausted, and steam puffed from their mouths. Had they not been so single-minded, so dim-witted, and so obsessed with the tantalizing scent of meat dangling just ahead, they might have given up long ago.

Now that the meat had finally made it into their mouths, the sand wyrms no longer cared about the abundance of prey all around them. With a flick of their tails, they turned and bolted.

Everyone disembarked. State Preceptor Sun stepped over and retrieved his magical treasure. With a few incantations, the boats shrank back down to tiny walnuts.

Despite the strong wind and stinging sand, the air here was infinitely fresher than aboard the boat. Freed at last from the stench of cured meat, the soldiers could not help but breathe deeply in relief.

He Lingchuan tapped the ground with the tip of his boot. “We’re stopping here? Aren’t you afraid some mutated beast or monster might show up?” Just like along the sides of the Hongya Route?

Nian Songyu chuckled. “It’s all bedrock down here. The sand’s barely fifteen centimeters thick. The worst things that could be hiding here are just some centipedes or sand snakes. What, are you scared?”

He Lingchuan kicked away a layer of sand and found solid stone beneath. I guess that makes sense. If the cliffs on both sides weren’t this sturdy, the natural bridge would’ve collapsed long ago.

Suddenly, Nian Songyu called out, “What’s going on over there?”

He Lingchuan turned and saw several of Zeng Feixiong’s men dragging two people over.

These two struggled furiously. One was short, the other thin, yet it still took three burly men apiece to barely hold them down.

Most curious of all was what they wore, talismanic robes that resembled a magua[2], really just two sheets of yellow silk, one in front and one in back, tied together at the sides. Red talismanic runes danced across the silk, lifting off and slowly revolving around the captives.

There was no question that these had once been Zeng Feixiong’s own men. But now the way they looked at the group was… wrong. Their eyes gleamed with violence and greed.

He Lingchuan had been a hunter. He knew that look, and he immediately linked them to those of jackals.

“They’ve been possessed by Three Corpses Worms,” Zeng Feixiong said, clearly uneasy. “The state preceptor bound them for observation.”

On the other boats, the Three Corpses Worms had all been driven off, but Sun Fuping had kept two alive.

Now, he was the first to set foot on the bridge.

In truth, the bridge was not narrow. It was about fifty meters wide. However, here in the wilderness, spanning a vast chasm before the looming Panlong City, it looked no thicker than a toothpick.

It was here, most likely, that the coalition armies of the past had met their doom, again and again.

He Lingchuan looked down and noticed the bridge’s surface was mottled and stained in patches. The discoloration was layered and inconsistent, as if blood had seeped in over the years and never quite faded.

Crossing this bridge, one could almost smell the acrid tang of blood in the air.

This was the front line of a great war. Countless skirmishes had taken place over this very bridge.

More souls had perished here than almost anywhere else.

Suddenly, Sun Fuping spoke, “This bridge wasn’t naturally formed.”

Nian Songyu stomped lightly on the surface and added, “The material’s clearly different from the surrounding terrain. This must’ve been constructed by the Baling and Xianyou coalition.”

Zeng Feixiong, walking beside He Lingchuan, was visibly astonished. “But the stone shows no seams, so it should be one solid piece. You’re saying this was manmade? And the sentries atop Panlong City weren’t blind, so how could they just watch as their enemy built a bridge right under their noses?”

1. Note that He Lingchuan uses modern slang here, hence why He Chunhua is asking about the word. ☜

2. This is a style of jacket worn by males during the Qing dynasty. ☜