As Fan Feixuan and Li Xingchen returned home, the Old Ancestor opened his eyes in the Ancestor Space, emerging from his secluded cultivation.
That agonizing, near-death experience had, for him, been a fortuitous opportunity. Not only had he obtained a new Primordial Spirit Art, but he also seemed to have glimpsed the very edge of the Void Refining realm.
Li Wei looked upon the children of his clan, his eyes filled with gentleness.
After bringing Li Xingchen and Fan Feixuan back, Fan Feixuan was settled into the Li family's residence within Merit City.
The young woman was clearly taken aback by the Li family's secret realm; everything inside Merit City was new and wondrous to her.
A personal maid at the Golden Core stage was assigned to look after her daily needs, which left the young woman from the island at a complete loss.
She even addressed the maid as 'Senior,' scaring the servant so badly that she dropped to her knees and begged for forgiveness.
The next day.
The members of the Li family traveled through a teleportation formation, arriving together at the former site of Merit City in the Azure Cloud Region.
The area had now become a forest, guarded by a demon beast at the mid-Golden Core stage.
"This is…"
The moment they arrived in the Azure Cloud Region, Li Xingchen's expression changed drastically.
As the family's spirit ark passed over Tailin Town, his Nascent Soul could already sense that the town below was solemnly silent. Everyone was dressed in plain clothes of black or white.
On this winter day, white silk banners hung from every household and from the memorial archway at the town's entrance, fluttered in the wind and snow.
The wind and snow drifted down. Many of the common folk, their breath fogging in the cold, stepped outside their doors and began to burn incense.
The smoke curled and swirled in the air. After passing a few more cities, it was the same.
As they drew closer and closer to the borderlands, Li Changyao's storage ring flashed.
She silently walked over to her clansmen, handing out plain mourning clothes one by one. The family members accepted them without a word.
As Li Xingchen took the mourning clothes, his eyes went vacant.
He had more or less guessed what had happened.
People from the Azure Cloud Region had died.
A great many of them.
The Li family's spirit ark arrived at the cemetery on the border, stopping far in the distance as it drew near.
Thousands of other spirit arks, having come from every city and town in Azure Cloud, were already moored on this bitterly cold, snowy day.
The members of the Li family silently disembarked and headed toward the cemetery.
This cemetery... it hadn't originally existed. But then the Wu Clan came, and so it was built.
Only the people of Azure Cloud knew the truth: that while the graves in this cemetery stretched on for an unknown distance, most of them were empty tombs.
The battlefield is merciless; there are victories and defeats. Most of the time, cultivators do not leave behind a complete corpse. Often, their bodies are taken by others to be refined.
But to the people of Azure Cloud, that hardly mattered.
Their bodies might be destroyed, but the names carved in the cemetery could be passed down from one generation to the next.
As long as the people of Azure Cloud endured, their names would forever remain engraved upon the tombstones.
Today, many years after the Wu Clan's invasion, countless people had come to the cemetery. In addition to the Li family, people from all over Azure Cloud were arriving.
Li Wei silently followed his children toward the cemetery.
Along the way, Li Wei saw many people.
The White Qilin, who had come from Duskwild Prefecture, was in no hurry to return.
He recalled watching the people of Azure Cloud march valiantly into the Duravia Trade Prefecture.
Likewise, he had brought thirteen cultivators with him, but only five would be returning to their homeland. Tombstones would be erected for the others.
The Boss of Skynet also came into Li Wei's sight. Dongfang Xuan, Gu Yinming, the Old Man, and Han Yun were all here.
When the Li family had first captured them, there had been over one hundred and twenty members of Skynet; now, only a little over fifty remained.
They hadn't lost their lives at the hands of the Li family; instead, most had perished in the Duravia Trade Prefecture—the very place they had managed to survive in for hundreds of years.
These surviving members of Skynet had already buried the bodies of their comrades in the Azure Cloud cemetery.
In the words of the Skynet Boss, they were already rootless wanderers.
The God of War was the fortunate one; he, at least, could ultimately be buried in his homeland. But most of them had been blown far, far away by the winds of the mortal world, without even a chance to return to their roots.
These cultivators who had fought in the Duravia Trade Prefecture were, almost without exception, all seriously injured.
They suppressed their wounds and stood before the cemetery that stretched as far as the eye could see.
They watched as the cultivators ahead came and went, burying coffin after coffin in the earth. Some of the coffins were weightlessly light, and name after name was recorded on the tombstones.
Li Wei saw one familiar name after another.
Ancestor Tiangui, master of Li Tianqi's, had always been hot-tempered, cursing out anyone he met, regardless of their status or position.
He was especially vicious when cursing the former Sect Master of the Skyveil Sect, the old Daoist Jiuyou. But everyone in Azure Cloud knew that the more fiercely Ancestor Tiangui cursed someone, the better their relationship actually was.
The surviving elders of the Black Tortoise Sect said that he was still cursing right before he died in battle.
At the time, he single-handedly held back over a thousand cultivators, telling his sect members to run faster, or he would "screw their ancestors for eighteen generations."
Then there was the Jiang family's Ancestor, Jiang Ning.
This old senior, like many from the Jiang family, was not fond of scheming. After the Jiang family integrated with Azure Cloud, their Ancestor was always busy.
When a Divinity Transformation expert from the Wu Clan arrived, he would stand on the front lines. If the people of Eternal Sun Prefecture bullied those from Azure Cloud, he would step forward.
He did the same when facing the Duravia Trade Prefecture. There, he abided by the Jiang family's ancestral teachings, holding back a great aristocratic clan without the slightest reservation.
Master Wushou of Longevity Mountain.
The most cunning person in all of Azure Cloud was probably Master Wushou.
The man was always hiding his true strength, so no one ever paid him any mind. But in the Duravia Trade Prefecture, he finally revealed his true power.
It was the first time he had ever done so; he invited the spirits of Longevity Mountain's past ancestors to possess his body, and he remained in the Duravia Trade Prefecture forever.
When they went to find him, all that was left was his Mountain Lord's Token, stained with blood and flesh.
There were many, many others. They walked the final leg of their life's journey in the Duravia Trade Prefecture and went on to another place to continue their campaign.
The wind and snow in the cemetery grew heavier, lasting for a full month.
During these ceaseless snowy days, the members of the Li family accompanied their old comrades on this final journey.
Every household in Azure Cloud hung white silk banners of mourning, and they would forever pass down the stories of these fallen predecessors.
The incense smoke in the cemetery curled into the air, merging with the white mist on this snowy day.
A million cultivators entered Duravia; they walked a path of blood, and only ten thousand returned.
The spirits of these cultivators seemed to watch from high above the clouds, gazing down upon their comrades and descendants in the cemetery. With Smiles on their faces.
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