Xu Lai glanced at it a few times before looking away. It was extremely rare for a spirit to awaken within a supreme-grade Immortal Artifact, especially an Elixir Furnace. Such a starting point was enough to surpass the vast majority of beings in the Immortal Domain. As for how far it could go in the future, that would depend on its own destiny.

Ruan Tang was oblivious. She had no idea what kind of gentleness and wonder her casual act today would bring to future generations.

「On the moon.」

Chang'an City was in an uproar.

Luo Chu, who had left the city a few days ago, had returned in tattered clothes. Despite her appearance, she had somehow managed to rescue Qian Song and two other Martial Artists who had been missing for a full six months.

This was no small feat. That was the territory of one of the Lower Crescent Moon Clans! It was an undisputed danger zone within the Exotic Realm, to say nothing of the interior lands beyond Tangshan, which were populated by various Crescent Moon Clans and the Royal Clan.

Take Tangshan, for example. Four Watchmen had died there. Two others had sustained irreparable injuries, eventually passing away back in Chang'an City. Yet now, Luo Chu had returned from that very place, alive.

The Martial Artists in Chang'an City surrounded Luo Chu's group, their faces filled with joy and excitement. They too had wanted to search for their comrades, but they couldn't. They bore the responsibility for the survival of Hua Country's over one billion souls. They had learned this lesson the hard way, having once paid a heavy price just to save a single, barely breathing Watchman. Otherwise, their situation would not be so passive today.

"Chuchu, Chuchu..."

With a faint whisper, Qian Song was the first to awaken from his coma. His immediate instinct was to pull the person in front of him into a tight hug.

A hush fell over the crowd.

The person Qian Song had embraced was the Watchman, 'Wu' Zhang Henshui.

But Zhang Henshui wasn't angry. The blind man said helplessly, "A hug is fine, but don't let your hands wander south."

Hearing a voice that wasn't his wife's, Qian Song's eyes snapped open. When he saw the familiar faces, he was utterly stunned. "This... this is... I'm not dead?"

"No, you're not," Zhang Henshui confirmed, explaining that they had been found unconscious at the city gate.

Qian Song's expression turned to one of pure shock. "What happened? How am I not dead? I was thrown into a Moon Pit and scorched by flames! Half my body was burned away!"

He looked around and saw Luo Chu, whose body had also been badly burned, now sleeping soundly with a rosy complexion and rhythmic breathing.

'Wu' Zhang Henshui 'looked' toward 'Chou' Zhao Wumian and said in a low voice, "What are your thoughts?"

"With our level of strength, it's impossible to get out of Tangshan alive."

He didn't need to finish the sentence; everyone knew what he meant.

"Furthermore, that terrifying pressure vanished right after Luo Chu and the others returned. Could it be..."

No longer listless, the youngest Watchman, Zhang Suzi, mused aloud, "Could the source of that pressure not be an Otherworlder... but one of our own kind, a human!?"

The area fell into a brief silence once more.

Zhang Henshui shook his head. "Impossible. The Human Race is bound by shackles within our bodies. The peak of the Divine Gate Realm... that's our limit."

"Then what about Senior Xu Yanyang?" Zhang Suzi retorted, unconvinced. "He must be in the Spirit Wander Realm! Otherwise, how could one man defend Chang'an for three hundred years and slay hundreds of thousands of Otherworlders?"

The Spirit Wander Realm. A boundary that existed only in legend, one that nobody was even sure could truly be reached. Among Hua Country's current Divine Gate Realm practitioners, Xu Yanyang was the only one widely acknowledged to have reached it. He was that devotee of the Martial Dao who had stood with his blade before the city gate, day in and day out, for three hundred years.

"Whether it's him or not, we have to investigate," Zhao Wumian said solemnly. "I'll make the trip. My Talent Seed is Space. As long as I don't run into any of those slumbering old monsters, no one can stop me."

"No." 'Wu' Zhang Henshui's expression was grim. "I can die. Suzi can die. But you cannot. You are too important to Hua Country!"

Amid the standoff, Luo Chu and the other rescued Martial Artists began to wake up. They had little memory of what happened, only recalling being thrown into the Moon Pit.

Only Luo Chu wore a bewildered expression. She could vaguely remember a blurry figure from behind, one that looked a little like...

Xu Lai?

Luo Chu quickly felt inside her robes, but the identity medallion Xu Lai had given her was gone. An inexplicable sense of loss washed over her.

Was it him? But he isn't even registered, so there's no way he could have come to Chang'an. Besides, I never crushed the wooden token.

After turning it over in her mind, Luo Chu sighed softly. It must have been a hallucination.

Just then, Qian Song grasped her hand. Tears instantly welled in both their eyes as they hugged each other tightly.

Meanwhile, Zhang Henshui was unable to dissuade Zhao Wumian. He insisted on investigating the situation, determined to discover whether the source of the oppressive aura was human or Otherworlder, friend or foe. Otherwise, the lingering uncertainty could lead to endless trouble.

The Moon King, scared out of his wits, had also sent his elites to investigate Tangshan. The two groups advanced with extreme caution, sneaking toward the territory of the Lower Crescent's Third Clan. They found the vast area shrouded in a thick mist.

Both parties gasped in unison.

This mist... was a mist of blood!

There wasn't a single corpse on the ground, only the thick, nauseating blood mist drifting in the air.

Zhao Wumian, whose Talent Seed was Space, spotted the four-person Moon Clan squad sneaking around. He didn't attack, choosing instead to hide within the void and coldly observe.

"Spread out and investigate. Signal immediately if you find any danger!"

The four Moon Clan members exchanged a look and split up, heading north, south, east, and west.

Zhao Wumian didn't move. He believed waiting here was his safest option. He might even overhear some crucial information.

Half an hour later, the four Moon Clan members reconvened, their expressions grim. They had not found a single living soul in the entire Tangshan District. The countless enormous, circular earthen buildings stood like empty husks, their silence as deep and unnerving as an abyss.

"The Lower Crescent's Third Clan... they've been annihilated." The color drained from the female Moon Clan member's beautiful face. While the Third Clan's population wasn't huge, it still numbered over a million. To think they were all reduced to a blood mist in a matter of hours... If they hadn't seen it with their own eyes, they would never have believed it.

"The Moon Pit of the Third Clan is gone, too," another member said.

"The Moon Pits of the four Upper Crescent Clans, the four Lower Crescent Clans, and the Royal Clan, along with all the other pits scattered across the moon—they're all gone! How is that possible?"

"First, let's worry about how we're going to explain the deaths of a million Moon Clan members to the King. With his temper, is he even going to believe us?"

"Shhh! Walls have ears. We need to report back to the Royal Clan, quickly."

SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!

The four figures transformed into streaks of light and shot toward the depths of the Exotic Realm.

Zhao Wumian remained silent for a long time. Despite being at war for over a thousand years, their understanding of the Otherworlders was shallow. The two sides never communicated; meetings immediately erupted into battles to the death. Furthermore, the Otherworlders were notoriously volatile and had never been taken alive. Their only real intelligence had come from the three Otherworlders recently captured by Li Mi, a reclusive master from Hua Country. From them, they learned about the Upper and Lower Crescent Clans and the Royal Clan. They also learned that the Otherworlders called themselves the Moon Clan, claiming to be descendants of the moon itself. As for anything else, the captive Gu Jiu'an and the other two would rather die than speak, as if they feared touching upon some great taboo.

Zhao Wumian knew about the Moon Pits, of course. They nullified a Martial Artist's Spiritual Power, making a fall into one a certain death sentence. They were forbidden ground for the Moon Clan and the Martial Artists of Chang'an City alike.

"But one thing is certain: that mysterious expert is not one of the Moon Clan! Otherwise, they wouldn't be here investigating!"

A wave of relief washed over Zhao Wumian as he raced back to Chang'an City.

「Back on Earth.」

Inside a photography studio, Xu Lai gazed at a photograph hanging on the wall and exclaimed, "Honey, our wedding photo looks amazing!"

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