Quinn Shepherd handed him half a bucket of spirit pills, filling up a washbasin, and said to Crystal Blaze, "He’s timid, but when it comes to food, nothing scares him anymore."
Crystal Blaze suddenly understood, laughing: "Bruno’s strength is no joke. I used all my power and still couldn’t pull him out of the ground. What were you looking at just now? You looked terrified!"
Quinn handed her the Book of Life and Death, saying, "It’s a Netherworld divine art left to me by the Lord Prefect. I got absorbed in it."
Crystal Blaze sat down and carefully examined the runes on the book, finding them far too complex to understand.
Quinn sat beside her, guiding: "These are Netherworld characters. Netherworld script is different from the living world’s; to people here, it’s what we call ‘ghost scrawl.’ But Netherworld script is ancient, and within each glyph lies unfathomable divine arts—the very carriers of the Netherworld Dao."
Crystal Blaze listened, a bit lost, but with Quinn sitting beside her, she was happy enough not to care much about the book’s writing.
Quinn continued, "Script is information—it carries Dao. Once you understand a civilization’s writing, their cultivation path gets a lot easier to figure out. The Lord Prefect didn’t want to teach me this divine art, worried I’d spread it everywhere, but if he thinks he can keep it from me, he’s really underestimated me."
Crystal Blaze placed the Book of Life and Death on her lap, smoothed her hair at the temples, and asked, puzzled, "If this divine art is so complicated, how can you possibly learn its principles?"
Quinn laughed: "I understand Netherworld Tongue, so the runic mysteries here aren’t a problem for me. What’s tricky is the way the patterns shift and layer over each other—those parts, I don’t fully grasp. I haven’t delved deeply into Netherworld divine arts, but I know plenty of talented people. If I ask them to help study it together, we’ll definitely crack its secrets!"
The Fishing Elder stood up, packed away his little folding stool, and walked over: "Let me have a look."
Crystal Blaze hurriedly stood up and handed him the Book of Life and Death. The Fishing Elder flipped through it, feeling dizzy and confused, then shook his head: "I can't understand it. Maybe the Woodcutter Sage could—he knows a lot more than I do."
Quinn glanced at the Moonwell and saw many small moons tethered beside it, each radiating bright light. The Fishing Elder had somehow fished out so many moons in such a short time—his skills were truly extraordinary.
The Fishing Elder packed up his fishing hook and line, and the two little red fish jumped back into his basket.
The Fishing Elder waved his hand: "I've already fished out the sun and moons. It's time for me to leave. Will you ride the red kun back with me, or return via the Moonwell?"
Quinn discussed with Crystal Blaze: "The Fisherman Celestial Teacher is watching the eye on my brow. I'm worried he'll be tempted to fish out my elder brother, so let's return by entering the Star Sea through the Moonwell—it's a shorter route."
The Fishing Elder waved goodbye, shouldered his fish basket, and turned to leave.
"Make sure to stay happy together!" The two little red fish poked their heads out and waved their fins at them.
Quinn and Crystal Blaze blushed, the atmosphere a bit awkward. Bruno was busy licking the basin, the scraping sound breaking the momentary silence.
Bruno licked the basin clean, then with a flick of his tongue, made the washbasin disappear—no one knew where he'd hidden it.
He always valued his food bowl above all else.
The Star Sea must have been left behind by a Pioneer Era powerhouse; otherwise, Ching Qing the goddess wouldn’t have planted the Sunwell and Moonwell here. But the treasures in the Star Sea are nearly ripe—why hasn’t anyone come to claim them?
"If we go around High-Emperor Heaven and Luofu Heaven, it’ll take almost a month to reach the Sunwell."
Bruno carried them out of the Moonwell, into the open, and flew toward the distant escarpment.
It was still daytime, so no light shone from the escarpment; only at night would it glow.
The escarpment originally had two sloping flying bridges from top to bottom, making travel easy. But when the giant red kun brought Quinn here, both bridges were crushed by High-Emperor Heaven. Now, both bridges had been rebuilt!
Quinn was astonished and told Bruno to slow down. On the backside of High-Emperor Heaven, a huge tunnel mouth had opened, with many girls busily repairing the bridge foundations.
Inside the tunnel, countless massive stone blocks had grown legs and were marching out in an orderly line.
Crystal Blaze had never seen something so strange and was amazed. Quinn laughed, "This is a Western Lands divine art. Now I know who’s digging the High-Emperor Heaven Tunnel."
He had Bruno land. The female divine arts users saw him, surprised and delighted, and called into the cave, "Boss, son-in-law is here!"
Quinn blushed and explained to Crystal Blaze, "The person in charge must be Formation Mistress Ivy He, one of the Three Masters of the West—a formidable array expert, third best in the world. They’re joking; I’m not really House He’s son-in-law. It’s just a local custom. I didn’t come as a visiting kin—I only helped Princess Mother Bear reclaim her authority…"
As he spoke, a fragrant breeze swept over, and a woman rushed into Quinn’s arms, laughing, "My lover is here!"
Quinn froze, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
Ivy He let go of him and laughed, "Look how scared you are. Miss, he’s not really my lover—don’t worry."
Crystal Blaze was deadly serious, saying nothing, just staring at her.
Quinn laughed, "You scared me. Ivy, are you here on imperial orders to dig the High-Emperor Heaven Tunnel?"
"The emperor ordered House He of the Western Lands to repair the roads and dig the tunnel, connecting the East and West."
Ivy He smoothed her hair and wiped away sweat: "The emperor granted us the Black Tortoise Pearl, so all House He experts are using its power to enter High-Emperor Heaven, cut the mountain stone, and let the stones walk out and repair the bridges themselves. See those bridge piers? Without the Black Tortoise Pearl, I wouldn’t have enough power or perception to do this."
Quinn looked back and couldn’t help but praise—beneath the two flying bridges, the bridge piers were actually colossal mountain giants, their shoulders supporting the bridges.
The mountain giants were of varying heights, their shoulders holding up the bridges and letting the decks slope smoothly. The tallest must have been several thousand zhang!
Quinn exclaimed, "Compared to the ancestral treasures of Western clans, this is just as impressive."
Suddenly, a woman called out loudly, "Formation Mistress, it’s getting late—let’s take shelter in the nearest village!"
Crystal Blaze suddenly said, "No need. With me here, you don’t have to worry about the darkness attacking."
Ivy He paused, giving her a deep look. Not long after, the sun set. Quinn immediately looked at the cliff and saw darkness gushing from its cracks like a tidal flood, instantly engulfing their side!
The darkness swept in. When it encountered High-Emperor Heaven, it was as if it didn’t exist at all, flowing right through and quickly flooding the Great Ruins.
Everyone gathered around Crystal Blaze. She now seemed like a small sun, radiating divine light that blocked the darkness. No matter how fiercely the darkness surged, she stood firm.
Crystal Blaze glanced at Ivy He in a show of defiance. Ivy smiled slightly, but felt a chill: "This woman is a goddess and so possessive—getting close to him won’t be easy."
Quinn stared intently at the cliff face. Darkness poured out completely, and suddenly beams of light appeared, shining on the back of High-Emperor Heaven.
These beams of light came from the cracks in the cliff!
"Just as I suspected—the darkness comes from these hidden heavens! At night in the Great Ruins, those heavens are in daytime; when it’s day here, the cliffside heavens are in night. It’s like an hourglass."
Quinn narrowed his eyes. On the cliff at the Yong River Source, countless cracks were shining—there must be many hidden heavens inside this escarpment!
"That Lou Qianchong I killed said the darkness in the Great Ruins was laid down by his master, the Netherworld Black Emperor. The darkness alternates at the cliff, but what exactly is it?"
He hesitated. Until now, he still didn’t know what the darkness really was. It definitely wasn’t ordinary darkness, but some strange substance.
Not only that—when the darkness swept in, strange monsters would prowl within, devouring any life that dared enter.
But at daybreak, the monsters and the darkness vanished together.
So where did these monsters come from?
And after darkness fell, terrifying demon gods would also wander in the dark. When Quinn rescued Ariel Skyfeather and the others at the Sunwell, he saw monsters crawling out from another timespace—proving there are many such portals in the Great Ruins!
The place with the most portals is right here, the escarpment at the Yong River Source.
"Among these beams of light, one must be the true source of the darkness! That source can’t be one of the glowing heavens—it must be a heaven full of darkness, with no light at all. The simplest way to find it…"
Quinn quickly took out paper and, from memory, sketched the cliff’s outline, marking every glowing point. "At dawn, I’ll compare my map to the cracks. The fissure that didn’t glow tonight is the source of the darkness!"
————Last chapter got 981 likes—still not quite at a thousand!