"Granny Sue once said, if you ever get lost in the Great Ruins and can't make it back to the village before dark, don't panic."
Quinn steadied himself and thought, "There are lots of ruins in the Great Ruins, and many of them have strange powers. If you hide in a ruin, you might just survive. Whether a ruin can save you depends on two things. First, whether there's a stone statue like the ones in our village. Second, if there are lots of exotic beasts in the ruin. These beasts are clever—they know where to hide from the darkness..."
There were plenty of ruins in the Great Ruins; Quinn had even seen some old city walls and village remains while running earlier—crumbling walls, ancient and broken—but he didn’t have time to stop and check for any stone statues.
The sun was already half-hidden behind the mountains. Suddenly, the world fell silent—so silent it could drive a person mad.
Then came a rush of noise. Quinn looked up to see flocks of huge birds whistling through the air, darkening the sky. The ground shook, trees toppled, and exotic beasts burst out from who-knows-where, sprinting for their lives.
Quinn even saw the surface of a lake ripple as several massive, scarlet fish—each several yards long—leapt out of the water, using their fins as legs to race across the ground!
Quinn was bewildered. Fish running on land—could you even call those fish anymore?
"All these exotic beasts are running in the same direction—there must be a place ahead where you can hide from the darkness!"
His spirits lifted. He charged forward, running alongside the beasts.
The sky grew ever darker. In the distance, darkness surged like a tide, flooding over mountains, valleys, and wasteland, swallowing everything. This darkness was nothing like ordinary night—it was more like a great flood, drowning peaks, valleys, and wilds alike. Even though Quinn had seen this darkness invade before, it still left him utterly shaken.
The darkness surged forward, but the beasts kept charging straight into it. Quinn hesitated—the beasts were running toward the darkness itself. Was there really a safe place ahead to escape the encroaching night?
If there isn’t, wouldn’t that mean dying without even a grave?
No time to worry—the darkness is coming too fast. Even if I turned back now, I’d never outrun it. My only option is to run with the beasts!
He gritted his teeth and charged ahead with all his might.
Ten miles downriver from Oldridge Village, the battle between Granny Sue and the Five Elders of River Lee reached its climax. At first, only four elders besieged Granny Sue, but unable to defeat her, their leader Ian Frost, who had been watching from a cliff, joined in. All five attacked together, forming the Five Elements Demon-Refining Formation.
Unexpectedly, Granny Sue had only barely held her own against the four, but when Ian Frost joined, her power suddenly exploded. Even the Five Elements Demon-Refining Formation couldn’t trap the old woman.
The five elders were shocked and furious. Only now did they realize the old woman had been feigning weakness to lure Ian Frost in, ensuring he couldn’t escape.
Granny Sue darted around on tiny feet like a ghost, her basket’s silver needles and threads coming alive. In an instant, she left the five elders covered in wounds, threading them together and pinning their souls and bodies in place.
The little old woman smiled as she approached, scissors in hand: "I haven’t refined human skin in ages. I wonder if my skills are rusty…"
She stepped up to Ian Frost. Suddenly, Ian spat out a silver pill, sending it flying straight at Granny Sue.
The silver pill caught the wind and expanded with a whoosh, unleashing thousands of sword qi. In an instant, it became a sphere of pure sword light, more than a hundred yards wide!
Granny Sue was caught off guard and quickly retreated, her body suddenly going boneless, writhing through the air like a worm to dodge the sword lights. At the same time, her scissors flew from her hand like twin silver dragons, snapping and cutting the sword lights apart.
She was still caught off guard and struck by a sword light from behind. Her hunchback left a blind spot, and the blade pierced it precisely.
The sword lights vanished, and broken blades rained down, stabbing the ground for acres all around.
The silver pill clattered to the ground and lay still.
Granny Sue landed, reached behind her, and pulled the sword from her back, frowning slightly.
"You still managed to dodge it…"
Ian Frost, the leader of the five elders, stared in despair, his voice hoarse: "I tried to ambush you at such close range with the sword pill, which held 6,842 swords, and you still dodged it. You can’t be some obscure figure of the demonic path! There’s no old woman in the demonic path who looks like you. Who are you really?"
He suddenly noticed Granny Sue’s back. Where the blade had pierced her hump, there was a wound but no blood—just light shining in, and the inside was clearly hollow.
Ian Frost shuddered. "This isn’t your real body—you’re wearing someone else’s skin…"
You’ve damaged my skin shell.
Granny Sue frowned, but the voice she made was nothing like her usual old-woman rasp—instead, it was melodious, the kind you’d expect from a beautiful woman in her prime, not someone with one foot in the grave.
She pressed her throat, sighed, and muttered, "It’s leaking…"
She took some thread from her basket and stitched up the wound on her back, testing her voice until it returned to normal.
Suddenly, Ian Frost’s face twisted in horror as if he’d seen a ghost. "I’ve heard your voice before—I know who you are! The cult mistress of the Cult of the Heavenly Demon—"
Granny Sue’s expression changed. She flicked her fingers on the thread binding the elders, and the Five Elders of River Lee were instantly sliced to pieces, flesh and blood scattering everywhere.
Strangely, the thread remained spotless, curling itself into a tidy ball and returning to her basket as if it were alive.
Granny Sue snorted and cackled, "Cripple, how long have you been here?"
Not far behind her, Crippled Joe hobbled over on his crutch, grinning. "Just got here, just got here. Sis, I didn’t see or hear a thing."
Granny Sue glanced at him and smiled, "Seeing is fine—as long as you didn’t hear anything. Let’s go back to the village."
Crippled Joe hesitated, then said, "Tyson Li, master of the Cult of the Heavenly Demon, was wise and powerful all his life, but he made one foolish mistake. In his old age, he fell for the most beautiful demoness of the time, discarded his former wife, and married her. The cult was in uproar. On their wedding night, the new mistress betrayed Tyson Li, crippled centuries of his cultivation, and stole the sect’s core scripture. The elders and founders all chased her, but she escaped and vanished."
Really?
Granny Sue chuckled, "I heard of a man who refined his legs to the level of gods, earning the title Divine Legs. He was the fastest in the world, but he loved to steal and became known as the World’s Greatest Thief. Though not a god, even gods envied him. When he snuck into the Everpeace Empire to steal the Imperial Disc, the empire’s Imperial Preceptor caught him and severed one of his Divine Legs. Still, he escaped with the Disc. The Imperial Preceptor, hailed as the greatest under the gods, couldn’t keep the thief, but he still keeps that Divine Leg, waiting for its return."
Crippled Joe grinned wider. "Granny, we’re all cripples from the same village, each with our own little secrets. We agreed not to pry. From now on, I’m deaf and mute, lips sealed."
Granny Sue snorted and walked toward the village with her basket. "Did Quinn send you to help me?"
Crippled Joe shook his head. "Your fight with those five old geezers was so loud and violent, everyone in the village felt it. The Village Chief sent me to see if you needed help."
Granny Sue’s face changed. "Did Quinn come back to the village?"
"I didn’t see him when I came."
"Oh no!"
They rushed back to Oldridge Village. Before they arrived, the sun set and darkness rose from the horizon, flooding the land like a tide, swallowing everything in its path.
Granny Sue returned and searched the village in a flash, her face pale. "Quinn didn’t come back?"
Darkness completely swallowed Oldridge Village.
"Don’t worry, Granny."
The Village Chief was carried over by Crippled Joe and the Apothecary. He stopped Granny Sue, who was about to carry a stone statue out to search for Quinn. "We’ve taught him everything we could. If he’s learned well, he should survive in the Great Ruins. There’s nothing you can do now—the night has already fallen."
Granny Sue slumped, knowing the Village Chief was right. If Quinn was still alive, he could survive the night; if not, even searching with a stone statue would be useless.
"He still has that jade pendant to protect him…"
Even so, Granny Sue knew the pendant could only shield a small area around Quinn’s chest—it was meant for infants. He’d grown, and its light now covered only his chest.
"Quinn, you have to be clever…" Granny Sue whispered.