Chapter 1 The Pair

Under the night sky, a large, dark mass of bats flapped their wings and swept across the sky, disappearing into the horizon. Wrapped in the center of the bat swarm was a white figure. Nangong Wuyue watched the pair of unlikely companions vanish into the distance, muttering to herself, "Vivian won't just casually drop Lily halfway, will she..."

Hao Ren strained his eyes into the distance and shrugged slightly. "Already dropped her – as soon as they flew into the forest."

Nangong Wuyue was speechless.

"It's fine. Lily's sturdy. A little tumble won't hurt her. Besides, this is their usual routine," Hao Ren said, unconcerned, as he retracted his gaze. "Every time Vivian flies out at night to relax, Lily's waiting behind the window with a slingshot. That's just how they are. Can't be helped."

Lily and Vivian, as the team's "high-speed combo," were going to investigate the situation at the blood lake outpost together. However, the Knights had already set up layers of ground defenses outside the Twisted Woods to resist the stone giants on the ground. There were almost no gaps between the various sensing magic towers and patrolling sentries. Hao Ren didn't want to cause trouble over irrelevant matters, so he suggested that the two of them cross the defense line from the air. Lily couldn't fly, so Vivian, of course, had to give her a lift – and the vampire girl was very straightforward. She said she'd cross the defense line, and that's all she cared about. She dropped the husky as soon as they flew into the forest.

Izhaks and Becky had left earlier. At this point, only Hao Ren and Nangong Wuyue remained. The cool light of the twin moons shone down. Hao Ren scanned the Dragonspine Mountains under the night sky by the light, and tossed the data terminal into the air. "Teleport!"

"Lazy bum..." The data terminal transformed into a streak of blue light and disappeared into the air, leaving only one sentence to slowly dissipate in the air.

A moment later, Hao Ren and Nangong Wuyue had arrived, via the data terminal's teleportation function, at a place nearly a hundred kilometers south of Leyton Town. This was precisely where the Dragonspine Mountains had undergone bizarre collapses and deformations. Hao Ren had barely recovered from the brief dizziness of teleportation when he was shocked by the scene before him:

Seeing is believing. It was hard to imagine how a mountain range had to deform to form a "sky road" based on other people's descriptions. Now he knew why Gelton and Ofra were both adamant that the deformation in the southern part of the Dragonspine Mountains was the power of ancient evil magic: under the night sky, the dark mountains were twisted into grotesque shapes like ferocious demons. Countless stalactite-like stone spears jutted out from the smooth, seamless mountain walls. The smaller ones were dozens of meters long, while the larger ones stretched across the horizon. The so-called "sky road" was actually just a super-giant "stalactite" extending out like this. No matter how you looked at it, the deformed mountain body, hundreds of meters wide, that spanned the Leyton Mountain ridge and plunged straight into the Twisted Woods could not have formed naturally. But it didn't look man-made either. If he had to describe it, it looked more like it had "grown" out of the mountain wall.

The reason why the Leyton defense line could be a "defense line" was that if you were to advance from the Dragonspine Mountains to the Twisted Woods, you would encounter a "geological fold" that was shorter than the mountains but steep and difficult to climb. This fold surrounded the Twisted Woods, and Leyton Town was its only entrance. When the stone giants first appeared, these huge, clumsy monsters were blocked outside by this mountain ridge. But now, the "sky road" extending from the Dragonspine Mountains completely crossed the defense line from the air, and the stone giants could enter the interior of the holy ground almost unhindered.

This "sky road" often collapsed, changed shape, and even changed the location of its other end. The Knights simply couldn't set up a fixed defense line at its end. No wonder they were exhausted when dealing with this thing.

It was just possible that the stone giants' intelligence was limited. Apart from the operation half a month ago, they didn't know how to transfer their superior forces to concentrate their attacks. The stone giants would attack the nearest stronghold from whichever peak they collapsed from. Otherwise, if all the monsters in the entire mountain range were transferred and concentrated, and they all poured into the Twisted Woods from this sky road, even if the Church Knights' faith was as fiery as fire, they wouldn't be able to defeat so many monsters.

However, there were currently no stone giants collapsing from the southern peaks. It was also possible that the stone giants were currently in a slight period of hibernation. Hao Ren didn't find any monsters wandering nearby. The magnificent and bizarre giant stone "sky road" was just quietly stretched across the night sky, looking harmless.

Hao Ren raised the data terminal and shone it around like a searchlight. The data terminal was puzzled by his behavior. "What are you doing?"

Hao Ren took it for granted. "Aren't you a sensor? I'm scanning the environment..."

The data terminal was stunned for a moment, then flew out of Hao Ren's hand and shouted, "Can't your brain function normally for once? Just tell me!"

Then, the data terminal emitted a faint blue light and scanned the surrounding situation. A dozen seconds later, it returned to Hao Ren's shoulder. "There's no magical energy residue on the 'sky road' itself. It's just a plain stone. The source of this anomaly should be inside the mountain."

Hao Ren looked up and found a path on the jagged mountain walls next to him that he could climb to reach the "sky road." "Let's go up and take a look. I heard that the 'sky road' will 'throw' people down if it senses someone climbing it. Let's go up and try it." As he said this, he looked back at Nangong Wuyue. "Are you waiting down here, or..."

"I'm not here to hold you back!" Nangong Wuyue puffed out her cheeks and put her hands on her hips. "The sirens don't have any other skills, but at least their survival ability is stronger than yours. Exploring this kind of dangerous place is all about my skills, okay?"

As Nangong Wuyue spoke, a cloud of water mist suddenly swirled around her, obscuring her vision. When the water mist dissipated, she had transformed into a seductive snake-woman form. She also conveniently threw the frozen-stiff ball of clothes into Hao Ren's hands. "Help me put these away. Let me walk in front after we get up there. Didn't you say there's miasma on the mountain road – I'm best at dealing with that stuff."

Hao Ren casually put away Nangong Wuyue's clothes and looked thoughtfully at the other party's seemingly boneless snake tail, then at the jagged mountain walls. "Is your body structure suitable for climbing mountains? Don't wear your belly bald..."

Nangong Wuyue flicked her tail over. "Watch more nature shows when you have time. Your brain needs some work!"

After saying that, she took the lead and wriggled her body up the mountain, her body completely adhering to the jagged rocks. Her posture was graceful, but her speed was fast. Hao Ren quickly followed behind her, running up the mountain. "The nature shows don't talk about snakes that specialize in mountain climbing..."

The two of them moved quickly and soon arrived at the beginning of the "sky road." After climbing up, Hao Ren noticed that the part where the "sky road" connected to the mountain was not as abrupt as it looked. There was a fairly large, gently sloping transition zone at the junction of the two, and there were also wide slopes extending along the mountain on both sides of the "sky road." He just hadn't noticed these structures from below because of the angle. The meaning of these gentle and wide transition zones was self-evident: it was to make it easier for the stone giants to come here, after all, those monsters didn't have the ability to climb cliffs.

"The 'design' is so sophisticated and thoughtful to this extent, it seems inseparable from human intervention," Hao Ren said, tugging at the corner of his mouth, preparing to find the real starting point of this twisted mountain body from the terrain. But he first frowned. "What's that smell?"

The air was filled with a strange smell like rotting vegetation, and it was so subtle that it was almost impossible to distinguish. If Hao Ren's senses weren't beyond ordinary people, he would probably subconsciously ignore it or think it was the normal smell of decaying vegetation in the mountains. However, before Hao Ren could finish speaking, a cool breeze containing moisture blew in and dissipated the strange smell. Nangong Wuyue stretched her arms and used water mist to disperse the surrounding poisonous fog. "This should be the so-called miasma. It's very dangerous because it's non-toxic when it's first inhaled. It will react in the warm environment of the lungs for a while before it becomes deadly."

Hao Ren was shocked. "I think I just inhaled some!"

Nangong Wuyue glanced at him. "It's okay, this lady's water mist can detoxify you – and with your physique, a little bit won't kill you."

Hao Ren felt that Nangong Wuyue was such a versatile girl – she could treat illnesses, heal injuries, detoxify, and give the team a shield. In special situations, she was also a Bishui Jinjing Beast (mythical water-avoiding creature). Where could you find such a high-end support? The only problem was that she chickened out as soon as a fight broke out...

"Now is the time to test how this mountain 'senses' someone climbing the 'sky road'," Hao Ren looked at the giant stone "bridge" spanning the sky not far away. "I want to see who's watching this place. By the way, if I fall down later, remember to use spatial teleportation to pull me back. It won't be good to fall from such a high place and then be smashed by dozens of tons of rocks..."

The data terminal slammed into Hao Ren's back. "Alright, alright, go on your way!"