Chapter 1 The Weird Sky Road

According to Gelton and Ophra, this bizarre sky road seemed to have a mind of its own, capable of sensing the approach of outsiders. Even a single knight soldier climbing onto the road would cause it to collapse, and each collapse was remarkably precise: only the stones beneath the feet of the outsider would fall away. According to the reports of the returning soldiers, this collapsing process was as strange and unnatural as the emergence of the "sky road" itself. It was as if the mountain rocks were consciously shaking, trying to throw off the insects and ants on their bodies, filling the soldiers with fear. The continuous deformation of the entire "sky road," the unpredictable tremors and collapses, and the strange miasma permeating the area, had made it impossible for the Knights to conquer this place—despite the fact that there were no "enemies" stationed there. It was more impregnable than any fortress.

Faced with the power left behind by the ancient magic empire, the modern natives of the Dream Plane were as helpless as if facing the great power of nature.

Of course, the Knights could try to blow up this "bridge," but obviously that was a stupid idea: the Dragon Spine Mountains could rebuild the "sky road" countless times, unless the entire mountain range was flattened, this would never end.

After hearing about these situations, Hao Ren had another doubt: why did such a "bridge" only appear on the southern side of the Dragon Spine Mountains? If the entire mountain range really became completely active, based on the "action" it showed on the southern side, it could even swallow the entire Beinz region, making the Knights irrelevant. But the current situation was that only one breakthrough had appeared in the entire mountain range, and only four peaks that could split off stone giants existed to this day.

Hao Ren guessed that perhaps the "ancient power" sleeping in the Dragon Spine Mountains had not fully awakened, or perhaps this power had been suppressed for ten thousand years and only this little bit of ability remained, or perhaps a certain mastermind truly did not have the ability to control everything—in any case, Hao Ren smelled an unsettling aura in the changes of this mountain range over the past two months. He felt that there should be an even more terrifying power hidden deep within this mountain range, but it had not yet manifested itself.

Now, he wanted to personally test the strangeness of this place and have the data terminal monitor the surrounding energy readings, in the hope of finding the source of the various anomalies in the Dragon Spine Mountains.

He first threw some stones onto the sky road ahead, of course, without any effect. Then, he carefully walked onto the "sky road." At this moment, he suddenly remembered that he should have had Vivian come with him as a team: she could fly…

But at this point, he didn't think too much about it. After stepping onto the "sky road," the expected collapse did not occur. Everything around was still silent. Not to mention collapsing, the ground under his feet didn't even shake.

"No reaction," Hao Ren took a few steps forward and then ran back and forth twice. "Could it all be stories made up by the soldiers to scare people?"

"Don't mess around, impossible," the data terminal flew around Hao Ren in circles. "Those were elite troops, how could they conspire to play such a nasty joke on their superiors, and the number of soldiers who died in mountain road collapses is not just one or two… This unit believes that some kind of monitoring system in this place is just asleep…"

Hao Ren glared at the data terminal: "You're even less reliable!"

In any case, the ground around was completely normal. Nangong Wuyue nervously watched from a distance, so nervous that she had curled herself up on a large rock next to her. Seeing that Hao Ren wasn't causing any movement, she slowly crawled over: "Nothing's happening?"

"I don't know what the principle is… it seems we won't arouse the 'alertness' of this mountain," Hao Ren had subconsciously regarded the anomaly of this "sky road" as a conscious behavior, so he unconsciously anthropomorphized it in his words. "According to what Lily later heard from the soldiers in the city, as long as you stand here for more than a few seconds without moving, a collapse will occur. The stones under your feet will roll over, and they will even suddenly pop up and throw people into the cliffs below, without exception—except for now."

Nangong Wuyue used the tip of her tail to circle and pat the ground nearby, seemingly trying to find a hollow place underground, but of course, she found nothing. "Could it be that this mountain only reacts to 'locals'? It may indeed have a detection mechanism, but it's not manually operated. This automatic detection mechanism will only treat the residents of this world as 'people'."

Hao Ren touched his chin and nodded: "Possible. In any case, let's go back first and follow the small path we took earlier to see the situation in the mountains."

As Hao Ren spoke, he turned and walked in the direction he had come from. Nangong Wuyue wriggled and followed behind him, but just as they had walked out a few steps, they heard a loud "rumble" coming from a distance!

Nangong Wuyue was immediately startled and exclaimed: "Ah—it's collapsing, it's collapsing…"

But even after she finished exclaiming, the ground under her feet didn't move at all: the loud roar had come from somewhere else. Hao Ren helplessly turned his head and comforted this disappointing siren: "Don't be so nervous, it's somewhere else… uh, speaking of which, do you have to be like this?"

It turned out that Nangong Wuyue had reflexively curled up her tail the moment the roar sounded. It was simply an unfathomable speed of self-binding. When Hao Ren turned his head, he saw a familiar snake ball swaying behind him. Nangong Wuyue's upper body was waving her arms, trying to maintain balance.

Hao Ren covered his forehead: "...Do you have to roll yourself into an Orochimaru every time you encounter a slight disturbance?"

Nangong Wuyue unwound herself while muttering: "Is that what 'maru' in Orochimaru means…"

The roar had come from the east—deep in the mountainous area where Hao Ren was located, and it sounded like it was some distance away from here. Hao Ren suspected that new stone giants had collapsed from the mountain walls again, so he quickly pulled Nangong Wuyue to go and check the situation. They ran wildly on the rugged mountain road, and after a while, they approached the location where the sound had come from. At this time, Nangong Wuyue suddenly called out to Hao Ren in a low voice: "There's a bloody smell."

"How is it that your noses are all more sensitive than mine?" Hao Ren quickly slowed down, while subconsciously muttering.

Nangong Wuyue lowered her body and slowly snaked forward along the mountain wall, speaking in a low voice: "Different professions have different focuses—according to you, compared to Lily, we might as well throw our noses away."

As Nangong Wuyue spoke, she approached a tall rock. She hid her body and coiled her tail into a circle like a mosquito coil, then slowly raised it up. Hao Ren felt that this girl's functions were even more abundant than he had imagined: she was also a jack, although he didn't know how much weight it could bear…

The siren girl peeked out and immediately let out a low exclamation, signaling Hao Ren to come forward. Hao Ren immediately propped up his shield and ran ahead: Nangong Wuyue didn't have much combat power, so if there were really enemies, he had to run ahead.

However, there were no stone giants on the scene. Under the hazy moonlight, there were only a few scattered soldiers on a small rocky flat in the mountains—strictly speaking, they were already dead soldiers, and they had died tragically, obviously at the hands of stone giants.

"Died not long ago," Nangong Wuyue quickly snaked to the side of one of the soldiers. "The blood is still warm. So miserable…"

Her voice was slightly sighing. Her travels in the world for hundreds of years had allowed her to witness many lives and deaths, so she didn't really have any aversion to dead people, but people who died at the hands of stone giants were often extremely tragic, and even someone like her felt a little uncomfortable.

Most of these fallen soldiers had broken limbs, tendons, and bones. Some were even crushed flat on the ground, armor and all. There were also a few mages on the scene, but these mages had obviously been killed before they could cast the gravity magic specifically used to deal with stone giants: they didn't even have time to activate their wands.

Recalling the sudden roar of collapse just now, it was easy to guess what had happened here: these soldiers should be members of the Kingdom Knights who were patrolling in the Dragon Spine Mountains. According to the situation at the scene, they should have been resting here temporarily, but just as these soldiers relaxed their vigilance, the cliff above their heads suddenly collapsed—a stone giant fell from the sky, not giving these people any time to react. Some of them were probably crushed to death on the spot.

Hao Ren looked up at the rock wall and indeed found dents that looked like they had been left by a stone giant collapsing.

A low-probability event, but one that was truly likely to be encountered in the current Dragon Spine Mountains. Now, the soldiers and mercenaries who came and went on the mountain roads every day were most afraid of stone giants falling from the sky and hitting them, but there were not many who had suffered such a calamity like the soldiers in front of them.

"The monster should have gone down the mountain road," Nangong Wuyue raised her body and looked into the distance. The traces left by stone giants on the road were still easy to find. "Should we chase it?"

It was just a lone stone giant, which was of no value to Hao Ren now. There were countless such giants wandering on the western side of the mountain range, so he shook his head: "No, let's go to the main peak and take a look. The data terminal detected a reaction that seems to be an energy hotspot there."

The two mourned for the soldiers who had suffered misfortune. Nangong Wuyue left a layer of barrier around the corpses to prevent wild animals in the mountains from gnawing on the soldiers' bodies. Other patrol troops would naturally discover these missing soldiers the next day and take them back.

Then they left this place.

But they hadn't gone far when the expression on Nangong Wuyue's face suddenly changed: "Go back! Something's up!"