Bao Gu and Yu Mi rushed to the city wall as fast as they could.
It was wartime. By all rights, as people who weren’t from the Yue Kingdom, they should have been stopped from going up the wall to prevent spies from opening the gates from inside. Yet no one blocked them. They went up the wall unobstructed and were even invited up onto the main gate tower by the commanding general.
Horn blasts echoed again and again. At the base of the tower, outside the city gate, shrill screams and hoarse, desperate roars rose into the sky.
“Open the gate, quick—!”
“Let us in—!”
“Ah—!”
Yu Mi gasped.
“Bao Gu—”
She stared wide‑eyed at the scene outside the city wall.
Bao Gu was also so stunned by what she saw that her whole body trembled uncontrollably.
Outside the city wall, one transmission domain gate after another hung fixed in midair. The immense power of the domain gates tore open the void, linking two places that had originally been very far apart. On this side of the gates was Cangdu City. On the other side… was a world like purgatory.
Through the gates they could see a boundless expanse of scorched earth and ruins. All vegetation was dead. Blood‑red miasma of death and slaughter rolled across the land. The wastes were packed densely with humanoid and bestial skeletons—some still encased in armor and clothing, weapons and magic treasures in hand, their bones faintly glowing red, yet with all flesh, blood, and marrow gone.
They surged like a tide toward the domain gates, poured through, emerged outside Cangdu City, and then rushed straight at the city walls.
Powerful blasts of force roared out from atop the walls, slamming into the skeletal monsters. They were blasted away, only to climb up again and continue charging. Attacks that struck the transmission gates themselves fell instead into that purgatory world beyond, gouging out massive craters—yet all they did was send the skeletons flying. They crashed down, then climbed back up and swarmed toward the gates again—
What shocked Bao Gu the most was that she could clearly see, up in the sky above those ruins, several warships with their defensive barriers fully opened. On the warships, transmission domain gates were being tossed down like they were worthless junk.
Someone was throwing domain gates inscribed with Cangdu City’s coordinates into the Desolate Ancient Mountains, drawing the things from that place over to Cangdu City!
Everyone in the cultivation world knew that Cangdu City had a way to deal with the ba plague. Someone couldn’t accept that and was using the things in the Desolate Ancient Mountains to attack Cangdu, using them to wear down that ancient danger while also bleeding the Yue Kingdom and Cangdu City dry—and then sitting back to reap the profits.
Not long ago, Bao Gu herself had shouted about throwing domain gates into the Desolate Ancient Mountains to deal with the alliance army, only to be harshly scolded by the Demon Saint. Now someone else had come up with the exact same idea—to use against them.
While Bao Gu and Yu Mi stood there in a daze, Yue’s defenders had already pushed the newly forged corpse‑bane ballistae and war chariots up onto the tower and were unleashing volleys at the corpse fiends and corpse ghosts outside.
Bao Gu knew the Yue Kingdom could not have crafted very many of these anti‑ba devices and treasures. These past days, they had been barely coping with the alliance army’s mad‑dog assaults. They had no spare capacity to manufacture such weapons in bulk. Many of their cities hadn’t even finished the most basic defensive formation upgrades, let alone constructed these offensive devices.
“General, give me a warship. I’ll go to the Desolate Ancient Mountains and destroy those transmission gates! If the corpses keep coming without end, we won’t be able to hold Cangdu City!”
“General, I’ll go too!”
Several Yue generals rushed up to the city’s main commander, urgently asking for permission.
To go to the Desolate Ancient Mountains and destroy the gates meant going into the ba’s lair. How could they possibly come back alive? It was certain death.
“Open the gate, open the gate, quick! Ahhh—!”
“Ah, how did it turn out like this!”
“Ahhh, corpse ghosts—!”
Below the tower, cultivators were still arriving through the long‑distance teleportation arrays, rushing to reinforce Cangdu City. But the moment they stepped out of the array, they emerged right in front of Cangdu’s gate—only to find themselves instantly swallowed up by the army of abominations pouring out of the Desolate Ancient Mountains.
The city gate was tightly shut.
They couldn’t get in. They couldn’t possibly handle so many corpse ghosts, corpse fiends, and skeletal monsters. In utter despair, they launched a counterattack, screaming in agony, while pinning their last hopes on the people atop the gate tower.
“Open the gate and let us in!”
Bao Gu had thought what she’d seen before was already tragic enough, but this scene before her eyes left her completely at a loss as to how she should even react.
Suddenly, a familiar figure tore out of the sky, and at almost the same moment a shrill scream rang out.
“Dad—A Sheng—uwah—”
That scream twisted into a dragon’s roar.
All color instantly drained from Bao Gu’s face. If earlier she’d thought she might be imagining things, then when that familiar figure turned into a several‑zhang‑long flood dragon in her panic, Bao Gu was so terrified she stopped breathing.
An instant later, another voice rang out.
“Shu’er!”
It was the Demon Saint.
Zi Yunshu, now a flood dragon, twisted frantically through the air, her claws lashing out non‑stop, batting aside the giant skeletal birds that—though they were nothing but bones—still flew straight at her, hurling themselves at her like they didn’t care about their own lives.
Seeing Bao Gu and Yu Mi standing atop the gate tower, Zi Yunshu, scared out of her wits, almost burst a vein in rage and screamed,
“Bao Gu, you little bastard! Cangdu City is under siege and you still told me and A Sheng to come here! You’ve killed us!”
“Shu’er, be careful!”
The Demon Saint’s voice rang out again. She appeared above Zi Yunshu’s neck, raised her palm, and struck the forehead of a giant roc skeleton that had rushed up and was about to rake its claws across Zi Yunshu’s throat.
A soft white light instantly spread from the roc skeleton’s forehead across its whole body. The blood‑red death miasma shrouding it evaporated like smoke as the light washed over it. The roc collapsed on the spot, its bones bursting apart into separate pieces, then shattering to bone dust as they hit the ground.
But there were too many skeletal birds in the sky. In moments, they had wrapped around Zi Yunshu completely.
Bao Gu’s eyes flared with fury.
“Little Martial Aunt—open the gate! Open the gate, hurry!”
With the city’s defensive formation fully activated, the entire sky above Cangdu was sealed. No one could fly in. Not only that, but even the void was locked. Teleportation arrays and domain gates couldn’t penetrate it. The only way in was to temporarily remove the formation’s seal from the gate and enter through the gate itself.
Yu Mi pulled out a greatbow engraved with sigil patterns and took a quiver of ancient demon‑script arrows from her storage ring. She nocked an arrow, drew, and loosed toward the mass of skeletal birds wrapped around Zi Yunshu.
The arrow struck a skeletal bird, and in a burst of sigil‑light, the creature exploded into fragments. But there were just too many of them, packed into a huge sphere of bone in midair, wrapping Zi Yunshu and the Demon Saint in layer after layer.
The sight alone was enough to make anyone feel despair.
Bao Gu, filled with grief and rage, roared,
“Open the gate!”
Seeing that no one around her moved, she turned and charged toward the gate, lifting her leg to kick it—only to be hurled back by its defensive force. She scrambled up, summoned the Xuantian Sword, and hacked at the gate with all her strength.
“Open the gate, or don’t blame me if I cut down Cangdu’s city‑guarding formation!”
Several city guards rushed in to stop her.
“If we open the gate, there’s no way to keep the corpse tide out! Think of the people inside the city!”
“Shu’er, let’s go!”
The Demon Saint’s urgent shout echoed from outside.
“Don’t get bogged down, go!”
Zi Yunshu’s voice came back, half sobbing, half roaring,
“How am I supposed to go—ow, my face—ssst, that hurts—aooo—uwu—”
Each dragon’s roar sounded like a sob, enough to wring a person’s heart.
Zi Tianjun came racing up to the gate. One look at that huge ball of bone wrapped around his precious daughter, then hearing her voice coming from somewhere inside that mass of skeletons, and his eyes nearly split with agony. Sword already drawn, he rushed toward the gate, bellowing,
“Open the gate!”
Hundreds of Yue city guards surged out, sealing the gate as tight as a drum. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to save people—but if the gate opened, all those skeletons crammed outside would flood in. Then they’d never be able to shut the gate again, and Cangdu City would certainly fall. Who knew how many would die within its walls?
The Demon Saint’s voice, tight with grief and fury, rang out again.
“Shu’er—!”
“Awuuuu—”
Zi Yunshu’s cries of pain shook the heavens.
Zi Tianjun howled, tears spilling from his eyes. He swung his sword at the city guards, trying to cut his way out of the city to save Zi Yunshu.
Suddenly, a sheet of pure white light exploded outside the walls, tearing through the blood‑red sky and washing the world in pale radiance. Within that soft glow, lotus petals drifted, like snowflakes—yet this “snow” was made of immaculate, crystalline lotus blossoms.
Bathed in that gentle light, the blood‑red miasma of death dissolved soundlessly. The skeletal monsters, piled in vast numbers outside the walls, began to shatter, one after another, into fine bone fragments.
Bao Gu looked up.
Hovering in midair was a lotus of pure white, fixed in the void. The soft, holy light and the drifting snow‑white petals were all emanating from it.
Beneath the lotus floated a flood dragon, its body covered in wounds. Tears filled its eyes as it turned its head toward the lotus and rasped,
“A Sheng, don’t scare me…”
The lotus fixed in the void shifted into human form. She swayed in the air for a moment, then steadied herself. Her face was pale, and she looked extremely weak. She wrapped her arms around Zi Yunshu’s neck.
“Shu’er, let’s go.”
As she spoke, she tossed out a teleportation platform.
Zi Yunshu turned back into human form. Her whole body was drenched in blood, and a raw, bloody gash slashed down her left cheek. She couldn’t even stand once she transformed, and the Demon Saint had to hold her up. The two of them tore open the void and vanished into the distance.
As their figures disappeared, the brief hint of white that had begun to show in the world was once more swallowed by blood‑red light.
The skeletons continued pouring out of the domain gates in a ceaseless tide, quickly filling the patch of ground that had just been “cleared.” The area outside Cangdu’s walls was once more drowned in an ocean of bone.
Bao Gu’s legs gave out, and she collapsed to the ground, limp. Tears streamed down her face, drop after drop.
Zi Tianjun sheathed his sword and walked away without looking back.
Yu Mi came over and helped the weakened Bao Gu up, cradling her in her arms.
“Bao Gu, it’s over. It’s over. Saint Aunt and Little Martial Aunt have left. They’re safe now…”
Bao Gu clutched Yu Mi’s clothes in a death grip, sobbing as if her heart would break.
In a world like this, the price of saving someone was too high. Saint Aunt and Little Martial Aunt had come here to save people. When they fell into danger, who would save them? Guard the gate, and what—did they really think they could wipe out the ba and win? Did they truly believe they could hold this city?
Yu Mi let out a long, heavy sigh. She wiped the tears from Bao Gu’s face, but the more she wiped, the more Bao Gu cried.
By the time she had finished drying Bao Gu’s cheeks, there was only coldness left in Bao Gu’s eyes.
Bao Gu stopped crying. She squeezed Yu Mi’s hand.
“Senior Sister, let’s go back.”
She held Yu Mi’s hand and walked away.
Si Ruo hurried over. Seeing Bao Gu’s tear‑streaked face and icy expression, she froze for a moment.
“Bao Gu.”
She said,
“Cangdu City probably can’t be saved. We’ve used up all the weapons that can deal with corpse fiends and corpse ghosts. All that’s left is the city‑guarding formation, barely holding on.”
She gave a bitter little laugh.
“You saw it, right? The other side used a holy artifact. Corpse ghosts and corpse fiends are using holy artifacts to besiege a city. Don’t you think that’s ironic?”
She tilted her head back, looking up at the heavens, and laughed quietly.
“The ones throwing domain gates into the Desolate Ancient Mountains think they’ll live? That the ba will just die out on their own?”
She laughed, eyes brimming with tears, her smile full of desolation.
“We… we can’t deal with the ba plague. We can’t save this cultivation world. Because people’s hearts are already rotten to the core.”
Bao Gu said nothing.
Si Ruo asked,
“Do you remember what you promised me?”
Bao Gu nodded.
“I don’t want to be the monarch of a fallen nation. I don’t want to be the Yue Kingdom’s last empress.”
“Then hurry and pick someone to pass the throne to before Yue is destroyed.”
“I’m not joking, Bao Gu.”
Si Ruo’s tone hardened.
“They want the Yue Kingdom wiped out. They want Yue to use up the strength of the Desolate Ancient Mountains. But we don’t want to die.”
She took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry I was late just now. Because of me, the Demon Saint and Fairy Yunshu couldn’t get into the city. I’ve already removed the sealing formation over the Kan Gang’s territory. You can leave through the domain gate.”
“And you?” Bao Gu asked.
Si Ruo smiled faintly.
“I’ll fight to the death. What else can I do? We were unlucky enough to be closest to the ba and then got framed on top of that.”
“Withdraw,” Bao Gu said. “Go to Shadow City.”
Si Ruo blinked.
“Shadow City?”
“Shadow City,” Bao Gu said. “The Kan Gang’s main hall.”
Si Ruo stared at her.
“You’re not afraid they’ll draw the ba plague to Shadow City next?”
Bao Gu shook her head.
“I’m not afraid. I’ll stay in Shadow City and calmly watch them all die to the ba plague. The Kan Gang will move out immediately. If the Yue Kingdom wants to take refuge in Shadow City, they’ll be very welcome.”
With that, she turned and headed straight for the Kan Gang’s branch hall.
Back at the Kan Gang’s Cangdu branch, Bao Gu said to Yu Mi,
“Senior Sister, gather all disciples of the Xuantian Sect. Get ready to pull out.”
She then summoned the branch hall master of the Kan Gang in Cangdu and ordered him to immediately gather every Kan Gang member currently in the city, including the ones who had just joined and those still waiting in line to join.
They would open the teleportation formation. Everyone would migrate to Shadow City.
“What about the badly wounded outside, the ones still being treated?”
Bao Gu hesitated briefly, then said, voice low,
“Bring them all. I don’t have a habit of quitting halfway.”
Si Ruo returned to the imperial palace, convened her ministers, and after discussion they reached a unanimous decision: the Yue Kingdom would relocate to Shadow City.
Cangdu City was the imperial capital, the Yue Kingdom’s foundation. No one was willing to abandon it. But what use was reluctance? They couldn’t hold it. While the city‑guarding formation still held, they could still leave. Once the formation collapsed, they wouldn’t even have the chance to run.
Better to retreat and one day fight alone, than to have “allies” at their back ready to stab them.
Cangdu City was breached.
Countless skeletal monsters poured into the city.
Overnight, the vast Cangdu City became an empty shell. Aside from vacant buildings and palaces, nothing remained.
The Kandao Edict Master once more activated the Kandao Edict, issuing a single command:
All members of the Kan Gang were to rush to Shadow City immediately. Three days from now, Shadow City would be sealed and cut off from the world.
