Chapter 90: The Passage of the Dead
Black Crow City did not sleep that night.
After the crack appeared above its rooftops, no one dared to behave normally. Even the most brutal demonic cultivators kept their voices low and their eyes turned toward the sky, as though the entire city had sensed the approach of something far above it in the natural order of predators.
Some merchants packed their goods before midnight.
Others barricaded their doors and paid cultivators to guard their rooftops. The city gates remained open longer than usual, as the guards seemed more concerned with escaping the city themselves than preventing anyone from entering.
By the time Han Feng left before dawn, rumors had already begun multiplying.
Some claimed that a Gu Immortal had descended from the heavens.
Others insisted that the eye belonged to an ancient beast imprisoned beyond the firmament.
A drunken cultivator swore that he had recognized the gaze of a dead ancestor.
Han Feng believed none of them.
He had seen enough to know that the event was real.
Everything else remained speculation.
He had no intention of staying in Black Crow City while frightened people tried to turn an unexplained disaster into something they could understand.
More importantly, the encounter in the tavern continued to trouble him.
The man in white.
That gaze.
It had not felt like the scrutiny of an ordinary cultivator, no matter how powerful. There had been no obvious release of spiritual pressure, no attempt to probe Han Feng's defenses, and no hostility he could identify.
Yet for one brief instant, the Art of the Celestial Veil had seemed almost irrelevant.
Han Feng disliked that feeling.
Concealment was not merely a technique to him. It was the difference between choosing when to face danger and allowing danger to choose for him.
Anyone capable of making that distinction meaningless was someone he needed to avoid.
He had considered returning to the tavern to investigate the stranger.
Then he dismissed the idea.
Curiosity was not worth risking his life.
If the man wanted to meet him, he could make the first move.
Until then, Han Feng would continue toward the Central Region.
He had more immediate problems.
His injuries remained incompletely healed. The poison from the previous battle had weakened but not disappeared. His primordial essence reserves were recovering slowly, and the crimson energy associated with the foreign flame remained difficult to predict.
The Celestial Diagram was no less troublesome.
Its golden lines had become more stable since the battle at the demonic camp, but stability was not the same as understanding. He still could not summon the golden particles at will, and every attempt to examine their structure produced more questions than answers.
He had no intention of testing them recklessly.
Not when he was traveling through a world where the sky itself had begun to crack.
The road north grew increasingly desolate.
Green vegetation gradually gave way to dry shrubs and twisted trees. Their bare branches stretched toward the clouds like the fingers of corpses reaching from the earth.
The soil darkened.
Patches of gray stone appeared along the road, sometimes arranged in unnatural circles, sometimes scattered across the ground as though something enormous had crushed the earth beneath its weight.
By midday, Han Feng encountered the first abandoned cart.
Its wheels were broken.
The animals harnessed to it had vanished, leaving only torn ropes and dark stains on the ground.
Several steps away lay a merchant's hat.
There was no sign of the owner.
Han Feng examined the surrounding area without approaching the cart.
No footprints led away from it.
No obvious tracks suggested an attack by spiritual beasts.
The ground around the vehicle was strangely smooth, as though a thin layer of dust had settled over everything at the same time.
He crouched and released a thread of Qi.
The energy traveled only a short distance before dispersing.
Han Feng withdrew it immediately.
The disturbance was faint, but unmistakable.
Something had interfered with the local spiritual currents.
He stood and continued walking.
An hour later, he found another abandoned cart.
Then a dead spirit beast.
By the time the sun began sinking behind the clouds, the road had become almost entirely deserted.
Gray Ghost Valley was near.
The region had been feared for centuries. Stories claimed that cultivators entered its mist and gradually lost their memories, sometimes wandering in circles until their bodies collapsed from exhaustion.
Others described hearing the voices of dead relatives calling from beyond the trails.
The most disturbing accounts spoke of people who emerged from the valley alive but no longer recognized their own names.
Han Feng had always considered such stories unreliable.
Fear made ordinary events sound supernatural, and supernatural events became legends after enough people repeated them.
But the disturbances he sensed now were not ordinary.
The Celestial Diagram vibrated at irregular intervals.
Each time, the golden lines brightened slightly before returning to their previous state.
The reaction was not directed toward a single location. It seemed to respond to the surrounding region as a whole.
Han Feng stopped on a rocky slope overlooking the valley.
A sea of gray mist stretched between the cliffs.
It covered the ground, swallowed the lower branches of the trees, and drifted through narrow ravines where no wind should have reached.
The air was completely still.
No birds circled above the cliffs.
No insects crawled across the rocks.
Even the usual sounds of distant spirit beasts were absent.
Han Feng narrowed his eyes.
"Something is wrong."
He already knew that.
What concerned him was the source.
The energy in the valley did not resemble ordinary Qi, nor did it behave like Gu essence. It was diffuse and unstable, with faint fluctuations that seemed to arrive from different directions at once.
Some of those fluctuations appeared to originate beneath the earth.
Others seemed to come from somewhere beyond the surrounding space.
Han Feng could not prove that they were connected to the fissures.
But the possibility was difficult to ignore.
He studied the mist for another few minutes.
Then he entered.
The instant he crossed the valley's outer boundary, the temperature dropped.
Cold air passed through his clothes and settled against his skin.
Han Feng slowed his breathing.
The Art of the Celestial Veil concealed his aura, but he did not assume that it would protect him from whatever affected the valley. Concealment could hide his presence from an observer; it could not necessarily protect his mind or body from a hostile environment.
He kept his spiritual sense close.
At first, the mist behaved normally.
It drifted between the rocks and curled around the trunks of dead trees.
Then Han Feng heard a whisper.
"Come back..."
He stopped.
The voice had come from somewhere to his left.
It sounded distant and indistinct, as though someone were speaking from the bottom of a deep well.
Han Feng waited.
Nothing followed.
He examined the area with his spiritual sense, but found no living presence.
He continued walking.
A few dozen steps later, the whisper returned.
This time, it came from behind him.
"Please..."
Han Feng did not turn.
The voice had been too similar to the first.
Not identical, but close enough to suggest repetition.
An illusion formation could reproduce sounds. Certain Gu could interfere with perception. A cultivator skilled in soul techniques might even imitate a voice familiar to the target.
He had no reason to assume that the valley itself was speaking.
He continued forward, marking the rocks along his path with tiny scratches.
If the mist altered his perception of direction, the marks might help him recognize the distortion.
After several minutes, he found the first corpse.
It lay beside a dead tree, half-covered by gray dust.
The remains belonged to a cultivator wearing the robes of a traveling merchant. His storage pouch had been cut open, but most of its contents remained scattered nearby.
The corpse showed no obvious wounds.
Han Feng crouched beside it.
The man's face had dried into a rigid expression of terror.
His eyes were completely black.
Not merely darkened by decay.
The pupils and the surrounding whites had become indistinguishable, leaving two empty black circles beneath his brow.
Han Feng examined the nearby objects.
A broken defensive Gu lay beside the man's hand. Its shell had cracked outward, as though the insect had been subjected to pressure from within.
The cultivator's fingers remained curled around it.
He had tried to defend himself.
Something had overwhelmed him before he could complete the process.
Han Feng released a thread of Qi toward the corpse.
The energy touched the man's skin.
Then abruptly recoiled.
Han Feng withdrew his hand.
His expression became serious.
"Spiritual contamination?"
He considered the possibility.
The body might have been exposed to a soul attack, but the remaining traces did not resemble any soul technique he recognized.
The disturbance seemed to have affected the cultivator's ability to maintain his spiritual existence.
As though something had disrupted the connection between his body, his soul, and the energy circulating through them.
Han Feng stood.
"The mist isn't natural."
He looked deeper into the valley.
"And whatever caused this is still here."
He left the corpse behind.
As he moved forward, more bodies appeared.
Some were old enough to have been reduced to bones. Others looked as though they had died within the last few days.
A merchant lay beneath a broken cart.
Two cultivators were slumped against opposite sides of a boulder, their hands still raised as though they had been fighting each other.
A large spirit beast lay on its side near a narrow ravine.
Its claws had carved deep grooves into the stone, but its body bore no injuries sufficient to explain its death.
Han Feng did not stop to investigate every corpse.
The longer he remained in one place, the greater the chance that he would become another.
He was examining a cluster of footprints when a scream pierced the mist.
Han Feng's head snapped upward.
The scream came from ahead.
A second followed.
Then silence.
He hesitated.
The sensible choice was to continue toward the valley's northern exit.
The sounds could be bait.
The voices could belong to an illusion.
The person screaming might already be dead.
But if living cultivators were being attacked nearby, they might possess information about the valley or the source of its contamination.
More importantly, the Bone Refining Sect had been reported operating along these routes.
If its members were conducting experiments here, Han Feng needed to know.
He adjusted his course.
Not directly toward the sound, but along a parallel path that allowed him to approach from higher ground.
He moved silently through the mist.
Several minutes later, he found them.
Three cultivators stood in a shallow depression between two enormous rocks.
A young woman lay on the ground before them.
Her clothes were torn, and blood darkened one sleeve. She was struggling to rise, but each attempt ended with her collapsing onto one knee.
The cultivators wore dark robes decorated with small pieces of bone stitched into the fabric.
The bones were not ordinary ornaments.
Faint gray energy passed through them in thin pulses.
Han Feng recognized the symbol embroidered on one man's collar.
Bone Refining Sect.
The same organization the woman in Black Crow City had described.
The cultivator closest to the prisoner held her by the hair.
"Stop resisting," he said. "Your body is still useful."
The second man crouched beside her and pressed two fingers against her wrist.
His eyes narrowed.
"The spiritual lineage is intact."
"Good."
The third cultivator, who had remained near the rocks, laughed quietly.
"Master will be pleased. A body with this kind of affinity could survive the next stage."
The woman twisted away from the man holding her.
"Let me go!"
He struck her across the face.
She fell against the ground.
Han Feng's expression did not change, but his attention sharpened.
The bones attached to the cultivators' robes were reacting to something in the mist.
Their energy fluctuated whenever the gray vapor thickened, briefly brightening before fading again.
The cultivators were not merely tolerating the valley's contamination.
They were using it.
Perhaps the bone ornaments helped filter the energy.
Perhaps they stored it.
Han Feng could not tell.
But the implication was troubling.
If the Bone Refining Sect had discovered a way to incorporate foreign energy into its techniques, even imperfectly, its experiments might be more dangerous than the rumors suggested.
The man holding the woman drew a narrow bone blade.
"Don't worry. You'll still be alive when we begin the refinement."
The woman's eyes widened.
Han Feng had already made his decision.
He released a controlled thread of primordial essence.
The crimson flame appeared around his hand.
For an instant, it remained small enough to conceal within the mist.
Then he struck.
FOOOOM!
The flame crossed the distance before the nearest cultivator could react.
It engulfed his upper body.
He screamed and stumbled backward, releasing the woman's hair as the fire spread across his robes.
The other two men turned sharply.
"Enemy!"
The cultivator near the rocks immediately raised his arm.
Dozens of bone needles emerged from his sleeve.
Han Feng stepped out of the mist.
His face was calm.
His gaze was cold.
He did not announce himself.
He did not offer the men an opportunity to surrender.
They had been preparing to refine a living woman into a tool for their experiments. Whether they deserved mercy was not a question Han Feng needed to answer.
The surviving cultivators attacked.
The first released his bone needles.
They shot through the mist in a dense volley.
Han Feng shifted sideways.
Several needles passed his shoulder, while others struck the rocks behind him.
The moment the attacker adjusted his aim, Han Feng moved forward.
A thin layer of crimson fire wrapped around his fingers.
The Celestial Diagram vibrated.
Golden lines illuminated his consciousness.
Han Feng felt the familiar sensation of the Diagram responding to the flame.
He did not attempt to force the reaction.
Instead, he allowed the golden particles to appear where they had before, keeping his attention on the immediate threat.
The crimson flame changed.
Its outer edges became narrower and brighter, while tiny golden points flickered within it.
The bone cultivator's expression shifted.
His instincts had recognized the danger before his mind understood it.
He tried to retreat.
Too late.
Han Feng thrust his hand forward.
The flame pierced the mist.
BOOM!
The cultivator vanished inside the explosion.
The shock wave struck the nearby rocks and sent gray vapor spiraling across the depression.
When the light faded, only scorched earth remained where the man had stood.
Han Feng's eyes narrowed.
The attack had consumed more primordial essence than he had intended.
The golden particles had increased its destructive force, but the interaction remained unstable.
He could not yet reproduce the result reliably.
He would have to remember that.
The final cultivator stared at the scorched ground.
For a moment, he appeared unable to comprehend what had happened.
Then he turned and ran.
Han Feng followed.
The man was fast, and the mist distorted the terrain, but panic had already damaged his judgment.
He stumbled over a hidden rock.
Han Feng appeared behind him.
The cultivator twisted around and attempted to activate a defensive Gu.
Han Feng struck before the insect could complete its response.
The man's body fell into the mist.
Silence returned to the depression.
Han Feng stood over the corpse for several breaths, listening for other footsteps.
Nothing.
He looked toward the first cultivator, whose body had been consumed by the crimson flame, then toward the scorched patch where the second had disappeared.
The flame had destroyed most of the evidence.
That was inconvenient.
He had wanted to examine the bone ornaments.
Instead, he had learned only that the Bone Refining Sect's techniques were somehow interacting with the valley's abnormal energy.
It was enough to confirm that the organization was doing something dangerous.
Not enough to explain how.
Han Feng turned back toward the woman.
She had dragged herself several feet away from the corpses and was now holding a small knife in both hands.
The blade trembled.
Its point remained aimed at him.
Her breathing was uneven, but her eyes were alert.
She had not mistaken the arrival of a stranger for proof that she was safe.
That was sensible.
Han Feng stopped several paces away.
"How long have they been chasing you?"
The woman hesitated.
"Two days."
"Why?"
She tightened her grip on the knife.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because three cultivators from the Bone Refining Sect were willing to kill for you."
Her expression hardened.
"Then you should leave before more arrive."
Han Feng regarded her for a moment.
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Neither does your question explain why you helped me."
"Do you have an answer?"
She said nothing.
Han Feng almost smiled.
She was frightened, injured, and probably exhausted, but she was still thinking.
That made her more useful than someone who trusted the first person to offer assistance.
He glanced at her wounds.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes."
She attempted to stand.
Her injured leg buckled immediately.
She caught herself with one hand and forced herself not to cry out.
Han Feng watched without moving to help her.
After several seconds, she sat back against the rock.
"Not far," she admitted.
"Then you should stop pretending otherwise."
Her eyes flashed with anger.
"Would you prefer that I beg?"
"No."
Han Feng looked toward the mist beyond the depression.
"I'd prefer that you stay alive long enough to make your own decisions."
The woman stared at him.
She seemed uncertain whether to interpret the words as kindness or mockery.
Perhaps they were neither.
Han Feng had no intention of becoming responsible for a stranger's life indefinitely. He also had no desire to leave an injured person in the middle of a contaminated valley where the Bone Refining Sect was operating.
He reached into his storage pouch and removed a small healing pill.
He placed it on the rock between them.
"Take it if you want."
She did not immediately reach for it.
"Poison?"
"If I wanted to poison you, I wouldn't need to waste a pill."
The answer was blunt enough to make her hesitate.
After a moment, she picked it up and inspected it carefully.
Han Feng waited.
She finally swallowed it.
"Thank you," she said, so quietly that the words nearly disappeared beneath the mist.
Han Feng nodded once.
"Your name?"
The woman looked down at the pill's empty wrapping.
"Shen Lian."
"Han Feng."
He gave her the name without further explanation.
For now, it was a name she could use.
Shen Lian studied him.
"You're not from the Bone Refining Sect."
"No."
"You're not with the men who were chasing me?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
Han Feng looked toward the gray mist.
"Bad timing."
For the first time, a faint expression appeared on Shen Lian's face.
It might have been disbelief.
It might have been the beginning of a laugh.
She quickly suppressed it.
Han Feng crouched beside one of the fallen cultivators and examined the remaining pieces of bone sewn into the man's sleeve.
The material was darkened and slightly warm.
When he brought his spiritual sense near it, the faint energy inside recoiled.
The Celestial Diagram responded with a small vibration.
Han Feng immediately withdrew his perception.
That reaction was enough.
The bone material had been altered by the same kind of abnormal energy that permeated the valley.
He did not touch it again.
"Why were they taking you?" he asked.
Shen Lian hesitated.
"They said I had a rare spiritual lineage."
"Do you?"
"I don't know."
Han Feng glanced at her.
She met his eyes.
"I can sense spiritual currents more clearly than most people. I sometimes notice when formations are about to change. My master said it was a talent, not a lineage."
"Your master?"
"Dead."
The answer came too quickly.
Han Feng did not press her.
Shen Lian lowered her gaze.
"They attacked our settlement three days ago. My master told me to run. I did."
She swallowed.
"I thought they had stopped following me yesterday. Then I entered the valley and heard them behind me again."
"Why enter Gray Ghost Valley?"
"I didn't know what it was."
Han Feng considered the answer.
It was possible she was lying.
It was also possible that she had fled blindly, with no time to understand where she was going.
Neither possibility changed his immediate problem.
The valley was becoming more unstable.
He could feel it.
The Celestial Diagram's vibrations were growing stronger, and the mist had begun to move against the natural currents of the air.
He stood.
"We need to leave."
Shen Lian struggled to rise.
Han Feng offered his arm.
She looked at it for a moment before accepting.
He supported her only long enough for her to regain her balance, then released her once she could stand on her own.
"Stay close," he said. "Don't follow any voices you hear, and don't step outside the path I choose."
Shen Lian looked at the gray mist.
"What if the voices sound familiar?"
"Especially then."
They had taken only a few steps when Han Feng stopped.
The Celestial Diagram had begun to vibrate.
Not the faint, irregular pulses he had felt throughout the valley.
This was different.
The sensation struck his consciousness like a hammer.
Han Feng froze.
Shen Lian nearly collided with his back.
"What is it?"
He raised one hand, ordering her to remain silent.
The mist around them began to rotate.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Gray vapor spiraled upward from the ground, gathering into narrow columns that rose between the dead trees.
The whispers returned.
But there were more of them now.
Hundreds.
Perhaps thousands.
They overlapped in a cacophony of voices, none speaking a language Han Feng recognized.
Some sounded distant.
Others seemed to come from directly beneath his feet.
A few were so deep that he felt their vibrations in his bones.
Shen Lian went pale.
"No..."
Han Feng turned toward her.
"What do you know?"
She shook her head.
"No, no, this can't be happening."
"Shen Lian."
Her eyes were fixed on the sky.
"I've heard stories about this place. My master said that Gray Ghost Valley wasn't always a valley."
Han Feng waited for her to continue.
"He said it was once a passage."
"Between what?"
"I don't know."
The ground trembled.
Pebbles lifted from the earth and hung motionless in the air.
A nearby corpse began to twitch.
Its fingers curled.
Then its entire body rose several inches above the ground.
Han Feng immediately pulled Shen Lian backward.
The corpse's black eyes opened.
A sound escaped its mouth.
Not a scream.
Not a word.
Something like the creaking of an enormous door.
Then the body collapsed into gray dust.
Han Feng's expression turned cold.
The energy in the valley was no longer merely contaminating the environment.
It was changing the behavior of the space itself.
He looked upward.
The clouds above Gray Ghost Valley were moving.
Not rotating as they had above Black Crow City, but separating around a central point, as though an immense force were pushing them apart from the other side.
A thin crack appeared in the sky.
Han Feng felt the golden seal burn beneath his chest.
The Celestial Diagram vibrated so violently that he could barely maintain his concentration.
Golden lines blazed across its patterns.
The crimson trace inside its sealed container stirred in response, but Han Feng kept it contained.
He would not allow another unknown energy to escape merely because the world had become unstable.
The crack widened.
A soundless pressure descended upon the valley.
Han Feng's knees bent beneath the weight.
Shen Lian fell to the ground, gasping.
Stones began floating around them.
The gray mist surged upward in enormous waves, revealing the corpses scattered across the valley floor.
Every blackened eye turned toward the sky.
Then the cracks in the ground began to glow.
Thin lines of pale light spread between the stones, forming a pattern that extended far beyond Han Feng's field of vision.
The Celestial Diagram reacted.
For a moment, the golden lines within Han Feng's consciousness aligned with the pattern beneath the earth.
He saw a shape.
Not a complete formation.
Only fragments of one.
Several enormous rings.
Broken connections.
And a dark central point that seemed to consume the light around it.
Han Feng's breathing stopped.
The pattern vanished before he could understand it.
But the reaction had revealed something important.
The valley's abnormal energy was not entirely random.
Something beneath the ground was responding to the fissure.
Or perhaps the fissure was responding to something beneath the ground.
He could not determine which.
Then the opening in the sky expanded.
A silhouette appeared within it.
Gigantic.
Its outline was difficult to distinguish from the darkness behind it. Vast shapes seemed to overlap within its body, shifting in ways that made Han Feng's eyes ache when he tried to follow them.
Then the eyes opened.
One.
Ten.
A hundred.
Countless red points of light emerged across the silhouette.
They did not open simultaneously.
They awakened in stages, each one revealing a different depth of darkness behind it.
The valley shook.
Han Feng felt his blood turn cold.
This was not the eye he had seen above Black Crow City.
At least, he could not convince himself that it was.
The presence beyond the fissure felt different.
More chaotic.
Less distant.
As though whatever existed beyond the opening was not merely observing the world but struggling against the boundary that separated it from the Gu World.
The pressure intensified.
Han Feng could no longer suppress the trembling in his arms.
He had faced powerful cultivators.
He had stood before ancient guardians.
He had encountered beings whose strength he could not measure.
But none of those experiences had prepared him for the sensation of being exposed to something that seemed to exist outside the rules he understood.
The golden seal burned.
The Celestial Diagram shook.
And a voice echoed through the valley.
It did not enter through Han Feng's ears.
It appeared directly inside his consciousness, accompanied by a wave of pressure that nearly shattered his concentration.
"The passage... is opening..."
Shen Lian screamed.
The sky split with a deafening roar.
BOOOOOOM!
A column of pale light erupted from the fissure and struck the center of the valley.
The impact sent rocks flying.
The mist exploded outward.
Every remaining corpse disintegrated into gray dust.
Han Feng seized Shen Lian by the arm and threw himself behind a massive boulder as the shock wave swept through the ravine.
The stone cracked.
His defensive Qi collapsed under the pressure.
Pain tore through his injured side, and he tasted blood.
For several seconds, he could hear nothing.
Then sound returned all at once.
Stone grinding against stone.
Mist screaming through the ravine.
Shen Lian struggling to breathe beside him.
And, beneath everything else, a deep vibration rising from somewhere far below the valley floor.
Han Feng forced himself upright.
The fissure remained open.
Its edges twisted and pulsed, revealing glimpses of a darkness that seemed far too vast to fit within the sky.
The red eyes continued to watch.
But the enormous silhouette was not fully crossing through.
Something held it back.
Or something on the other side had not yet finished opening the passage.
Han Feng could not tell.
His Celestial Diagram was still vibrating violently, but its golden lines had begun to form a stable pattern around the seventh point.
The point itself remained dark.
No breakthrough occurred.
No new power entered his body.
Instead, the Diagram seemed to be struggling to maintain its own structure against the pressure coming from beyond the fissure.
Han Feng's expression tightened.
For the first time, he wondered whether the Diagram was not reacting to the entity itself, but to the boundary that separated them.
The distinction could be important.
It could also be meaningless if the valley collapsed before he escaped.
He looked toward Shen Lian.
She was conscious, though barely. Her face had gone white, and one hand was pressed against the ground as if she were trying to keep herself from being swept away.
"Can you stand?"
She shook her head.
Han Feng cursed inwardly.
He had entered Gray Ghost Valley to reach the Central Region more quickly.
Now he had found himself trapped beneath a spatial fissure with an injured stranger and an entity whose presence threatened to tear the entire region apart.
The world had a cruel sense of humor.
He tightened his grip on Shen Lian's arm.
"Then hold on."
He looked toward the lower ravine.
The pale lines in the ground were still glowing.
Some converged near a narrow passage between two cliffs. The spiritual currents there were unstable, but the pressure seemed slightly weaker.
It was the only possible route he could see.
Han Feng did not know whether it led out of the valley.
He did not know whether the passage was natural or part of the ancient pattern beneath the earth.
But staying here was no longer an option.
He drew a controlled amount of primordial essence into his legs.
The Celestial Diagram continued to vibrate.
The golden seal burned.
Above them, the fissure widened by another fraction.
Han Feng looked once toward the countless red eyes.
He did not challenge them.
He did not attempt to communicate.
He simply turned away.
"Move."
He dragged Shen Lian toward the narrow passage as the valley erupted into chaos behind them.
The ground split.
Gray mist surged through the ravines.
And from somewhere beneath the earth, an ancient mechanism began to turn.
One deep pulse.
Then another.
The Celestial Diagram answered each pulse with a tremor.
Han Feng's face tightened.
Whatever Gray Ghost Valley had once been, it had not been created merely to serve as a road.
It was part of something larger.
Something old enough to have been forgotten.
And whatever was opening beyond the sky had begun to awaken it.
The passage was opening.
But Han Feng was no longer certain which side it was meant to connect.