By noon the next day, after nearly a full day of tireless sprinting by the white tiger, Xu Yuan finally arrived at his destination. After letting the tiger go, he stood alone atop a side peak. Ahead of him lay Suspended Heaven Cliff, a drop a hundred thousand feet deep.
He took a cautious step forward and tried peering over the edge. As far as the eye could see, there was only an endless abyss wrapped in cloud and mist. Suddenly, the vapors around the mountaintop churned. A fierce gust of wind came howling in, making his ornate robe snap loudly and nearly throwing his body off balance.
Seeing that, Xu Yuan very sensibly retreated back from the edge. In Azure Point, he could control his character and jump off Suspended Heaven Cliff without a second thought. Now, though, that was another matter entirely.
Pulling back his gaze, Xu Yuan looked toward Heaven's Gate Peak's summit. From where he stood to where he looked, the distance stretched over ten thousand feet. Beyond the sheer and towering face of the summit, celestial mist coiled in the air.
From bottom to top, the clouds seemed to split open the sky. And on that immense mountain body was a gigantic circular opening several thousand feet wide, like a gate leading straight into heaven itself.
As Xu Yuan stared at that enormous opening, he felt more than shock. For some reason, an inexplicable discomfort rose in his chest. Only after he looked away did that unease slowly fade.
Curious, Xu Yuan turned his eyes toward the opening again. Very quickly, that strange discomfort that had just vanished began creeping back into his heart.
"What is this? Why does staring at it feel like this?" Sensing something wrong with his body, Xu Yuan hurriedly looked away. Alarm flickered through him, and a description of Heaven's Gate Peak from the official lore book surfaced in his mind. He instinctively lifted his eyes again, his expression caught between disbelief and stunned realization.
"This is sword intent? Don't tell me the heavenly gate at the summit was really pierced through by a single sword strike?"
Xu Yuan suddenly felt that his understanding of the world of Azure Point was still far too shallow. Limited by the 2.5D pixel-art presentation of the game, he had never had any real concept of just how terrifying the top experts of this world could be.
The sheer shock of learning that someone in this world had once pierced through a mountain with a single sword sent Xu Yuan's mind racing in an instant.
Compared to orthodox cultivation fantasy, this world, in Xu Yuan's mind, felt closer to xianxia. There were sects here, a martial world, and an imperial court. Could there really be someone in this world whose sword could chill 19 provinces?
But if people here really could become that strong, then wouldn't the Northern War God in the Great Flame Empire’s court, the man utterly at odds with the Third Young Master’s father, be little more than a joke? No matter how divine one's command of armies might be, it still could not compare to a casually swung sword from a truly supreme expert. If that was the case, then what dignity was there in being some god of war?
While he was still lost in thought, the surrounding clouds began to churn and surge at astonishing speed. By the time Xu Yuan came back to himself, he suddenly realized the tip of his nose felt wet. He raised a hand to wipe it, and the bright red smear on his palm made him realize he had started bleeding from the nose just from staring at the hole.
He hurriedly turned away, refusing to look again. And the moment he turned his head, Xu Yuan saw the pale white glow of dawn slowly rising in the east.
The clouds and mist had dispersed. The sunrise atop the mountain was breathtaking. The hundred thousand mountains stretched endlessly before his eyes, and the boundless sea of forest below had been dyed blood-red by the morning light.
What’s going on? The sight made Xu Yuan's mind jolt. He had only been dazed for a moment just now, so how had it suddenly gone from noon to dawn? Because of the Flame Spirit Fluid, he did not feel hungry, but the soreness from standing so long was slowly returning to his body.
Something far beyond his understanding had happened to him. Xu Yuan wanted to figure out the reason, but after thinking for a moment, he suddenly realized now was not the time for that. His first priority was meeting up with Ran Qingmo.
Since so much time had passed, where was that iceberg of a woman? Even that white tiger had only needed a little over half a day to climb from the mountainside to the summit. Yet at least a day and a half had passed now, and Ran Qingmo still had not arrived?
As he thought about it, Xu Yuan's heart gradually sank. The best possible explanation for the current situation was that, to ensure his safety, Ran Qingmo had deliberately lured the enemy away and had not yet managed to shake them off.
And the worst… Ran Qingmo's strength was beyond question, but at this point in the story, there were still plenty of people in this world stronger than she was.
Xu Yuan hurriedly cut off the train of thought, refusing to let himself spiral further. He was very clear on the situation he was in. If Ran Qingmo had died on the way, then unless he could gamble his life on that miserable Luck stat of three, jump off Suspended Heaven Cliff, and somehow successfully enter that cave abode, then he might as well declare himself dead already.
If he stayed beside Suspended Heaven Cliff, then no matter who found him first, whether it was the people trying to kill him or the original Xu Yuan's father's subordinates, he would die without question. The appearance of rejection syndrome had sealed off many of Xu Yuan's fallback options in one stroke.
The method by which he had crossed over and taken over this body was not some flawless soul transmigration beyond the laws of this world, but rather a case of possession and rebirth that still operated within the world's rules.
Though possession and rebirth were nearly perfect aside from the initial period when rejection syndrome would appear, everything in the world had its balance. Since possession had existed in this world for so long, methods of detecting it had naturally developed as well.
Those methods were now almost entirely lost, but they did truly exist. Most fatal of all, someone under the Third Young Master’s father already knew how to use those detection methods.
No one would suspect him for no reason, but Xu Yuan was not Xu Changtian in the end. In front of someone truly close to the original owner of this body, the slightest oddity would probably be noticed almost at once. And once that oddity was noticed, if they put him through the full set of tests, Xu Yuan did not even dare imagine what kind of fate awaited him.
There was indeed a way to make body and soul fuse perfectly, and Xu Yuan knew where to find it, but that thing was inside the cave dwelling below Suspended Heaven Cliff. If that iceberg of a woman died, Xu Yuan would never have a chance to get down there and retrieve it.
Taking a deep breath, Xu Yuan forcibly cut off his thoughts. Enduring the soreness in his body, he sat down cross-legged on the ground. No matter how much he thought now, it would be useless. All he could do was wait quietly for the outcome.
Rumble… Rumble… The moment he sat down, a faint tremor running through the ground made Xu Yuan jolt upright.
He lowered his eyes to look down. All he could see were a few scattered pebbles lying still across the earth.
A hallucination? Xu Yuan's eyes flickered. He pressed a hand lightly against the ground.
Rumble… Rumble… The subtle trembling passed through his fingertips from the sand and stones below, the vibration gradually growing from weak to strong.
An earthquake? Xu Yuan frowned. The thought had only just flashed through his mind when
BOOM! Along with a wave of sound spreading outward, the mountaintop suddenly gave a violent shake.
Xu Yuan instinctively held his breath. Not an earthquake. Someone was fighting.
One second, five seconds, ten seconds…
BOOM! The roar came again with another tremor, and this time the entire cliff seemed to shudder faintly.
Xu Yuan clenched his fists hard. Uncertainty flashed through his eyes as he lifted his head and looked back toward the path he had come from.
Time itself seemed to freeze.
Against the blazing sunrise still climbing in the east, a black dot appeared. That black dot rapidly grew larger in his field of vision, and in the blink of an eye it became a gigantic shadow blotting out the rising sun as it sped toward the mountaintop.
BOOM!
In the space of a single breath, the massive shadow crashed into the open ground a dozen meters in front of Xu Yuan like a meteor from beyond the heavens. The impact instantly sent sand and stone flying across the summit, smoke and dust billowing everywhere.
And when the dust finally cleared, through the gap between his fingers, Xu Yuan saw the head of a gigantic python more than ten meters tall.
And there, in the golden light of dawn, atop that savage serpent head, stood a slender figure in black, sword hanging in hand. Her long dark hair streamed behind her like a waterfall, stirring softly in the wind.