Book 7: Chapter 1 – Traces

Winter.

A thick layer of snow had long piled up around the Xia Capital, whilst the winter air pervaded the world. On the third floor of an elegant restaurant it felt quite warm and comfortable.

Good wine was kept warm.

Xue Ying and Jing Qiu sat facing each other, drinking the delicious fruity wine while chatting. Even though there were other guests on the third floor, they were seated quite far from them. Although Transcendents were, more or less, friendly with each other, they valued privacy, hence they would often just give each other a nod as a greeting and would not disturb other Transcendents. Xue Ying and Jing Qiu clearly enjoyed this type of environment.

“Jing Qiu, after the Faction Head thoroughly examined your progress yesterday, your ranking jumped to fourth,” Xue Ying praised. “Even though they say that Transcendent mages improve much slower, from what I see, your improvement is quite fast.”

Jing Qiu gave a beautiful smile, took a sip of her wine and replied with a tilt of her mouth, “What, you are already ranked first, but you aren’t allowing others to improve by a bit?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Xue Ying added hurriedly.

“I’m just joking with you! Honestly, ever since you became number one, I feel more perceptive in my investigations. For some reason, when I study the spell models, I’m able to understand the contents after only a moment, and after that, I make a breakthrough.” Jing Qiu laughed. “Cultivating with such a pleasant mood is really comfortable. Actually, earlier on, I thought that they treated you unfairly. And now, I was proven right!”

“You ah, you’re too focused on these things.” Xue Ying shook his head.

“Hmph. Before, when I heard the Faction Head reprimanding you, I already felt quite unhappy,” Jing Qiu shook her head, before her eyes brightened. “Oh right, this time, you slapped his face quite harshly. What did he look like when you saw him after you completed the Mountain Road mission? Was his expression really awkward?”

“It’s not what you think it is! Actually, Faction Head Si Kong has quite a large heart. Previously, he was very worried that I was walking down the wrong path, and only because of his concern for me did he reprimand me so harshly,” Xue Ying answered.

The two of them chatted together. A layer of World Energy formed a privacy shield over them.

When Transcendents were chatting, nobody would eavesdrop deliberately. After all, it would be really impudent for one to do so.

Suddenly—

Three Transcendents sitting on the table beside them had a huge change in their expressions. One of them even stood up, overturning a flask of wine and spilling its contents to the floor. One of the waiters came rushing over.

“Mn?” Xue Ying and Jing Qiu, along with the Transcendents on the other tables looked over with confused expressions.

“What happened to them?” Jing Qiu asked, surprised. “Being Transcendents, how can one lose their state of calm to the extent of overturning the flask of wine!”

“Look at how shocked the three of them are, I think something huge must have happened that is related to them.” Xue Ying calmly sipped from his cup of wine.

“Fellow Transcendents.”

One of the three Transcendents, who was a relatively imposing male with a disheveled hairstyle, swept his gaze towards the other two tables and shouted out, “Brother Dong Bo, Brother Wei An, do you know of the matter regarding the demons?”

“What happened?” Xue Ying,Jin Qiu and the other Transcendents were extremely curious.

The imposing male, Rong Jun, was a Saint realm Transcendent and was relatively famous in the Xia Capital.

“It seems that our fellow Transcendents do not know what happened yet” Rong Jun continued. “I just received news stating that my Can Gan County in the Eastfields Province… has just been entirely annihilated!”

“What!”

Xue Ying, Jing Qiu and the other two Transcendents at the other table were so shocked that they stood up instantaneously.

A county had just been annihilated?

Since counties were usually relatively well established and long-lived, their defences would be quite impressive. At the same time, ordinarily there would be more than ten million people living within a county. Now a county had been annihilated? That was devastating news! Transcendents would not dare to do such a thing, including those from the Beast Clan, unless the two races were at war.

Doing such a thing would definitely infuriate the entire Xia Clan, and the Xia Clan would use their full strength to take vengeance against the perpetrators.

“How is this possible? Who would dare to do it?” Xue Ying hurriedly asked, “Brother Rong Jun, did you just mention something about demons? Were the demons at fault? But how long has it been since Abyss Demons have previously appeared? And even if there were some demons left alive within the world, I doubt they would dare to do such a thing.”

“That’s right, brother Rong Jun, I’ve heard that even though some Abyss Demons are hiding and staying dormant, they are all extremely prudent and would never dare to risk going out in the open.” The other Transcendent, Wei An, could not help but say.

“I’m not clear on what exactly happened either.”

Rong Jun added, “But what I can confirm is that there was an extremely powerful demon who dared to slaughter the people in my county. In the end, after our Xia Clan’s Demigod reached the location, they began a big battle! The aftershock of this battle was extremely huge, and that demon’s aura was so earth-shaking that many people located in the distant area could feel a terrifying and destructive dark aura. As for the details of the battle, that is something I’m unclear of. However, some of the men from our county followed the aftershock to investigate what happened. When they reached the location, they discovered that the entire county silent, and many corpses lay there. Although they were all dead, the corpses did not have any visible injuries.”

“No wounds?” Xue Ying’s expression drastically changed.

Causing the entire county’s population of more than ten million people to die without having any visible injuries was frightening for anyone hearing it. Some Demigods might have the capabilities to do such a thing, but they would not dare to do it either!

“What exactly happened?” Jing Qiu could not help but ask. “Why did such powerful demons appear? Our Xia Clan’s Demigods have been lording over the various locations, so how could the annihilation of an entire county happen?”

“Let’s ask big brother Eternal Wind,” Jing Qiu added.

“Mn, I guess he should know more.” Xue Ying immediately sent a message with his communication wristband to Chi Qiu Bai.

……

It wasn’t just Xue Ying and those with him.

Currently, the entire Xia Capital’s Transcendents had received various news from their hometown. After all, these Transcendents would still communicate with those from their hometown.

There were different types of news.

Like how there had been an earthshaking battle that created huge aftershocks.

Or that there were some Abyss Demons who had been slaughtered by some powerful Transcendents after the demons massacred the populace!

But matters like the annihilation of an entire county was really rare. After all, the defensive capabilities of a county was relatively strong, and its area of protection was huge – the area for the population of ten million people. Wanting to exterminate an entire population of 10 million of people within a short period of time… could only be achieved by the strongest of demons.

“What exactly happened?’

“Why would there be so many traces of demons?”

“Why are there no words from the Demigod elders?”

Xia Capital’s Transcendents were exchanging these messages.

These Transcendents knew too little. At most, their assumptions were just conclusions drawn from clues pieced together from everywhere.

Within the highest floor of a certain restaurant.

The entire top floor had been booked. Transcendents from the Tranquil Sun Province were currently gathered at this location, and they all felt uneasy. They gathered not because of any special occasion. Several Transcendents like Hai Ru Zhen and Peng Shan were currently at their hometown.

“Fellow Transcendents, stay calm,” Xue Ying said. Right now, since Chi Qiu Bai and Peng Shan were not around, he was currently their temporary leader. “Big brother Eternal Wind has sent a message for us to stay calm and wait. I believe that there will be news coming from him soon.”

“We also don’t know what exactly happened.”

“I guess it should be an invasion by the demons, though the scale of their invasion is unknown as of now.”

“Ai.”

These Transcendents all felt really uneasy.

From the information they had gathered, demons had appeared all over Dragon Mountain Empire, and all those battles were extremely fierce. Clearly, it was the Demigod overlords who were currently moving to all the various locations, especially so with their huge combat power and their ease of shuttling through space.

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