Chapter 414

Chapter 415: Garrison-3

Immortal Yuan He waved away the Illusion Arts before him. The last frozen image in the fading mirage was the Dire Omen Roaming Youth Form as seen through Serpent Princess’s eyes.

“The thing at the bottom of the Demon Suppression Tower has been restless these two days,” Immortal Yuan He said seriously, “I sent Serpent Princess to test it. Looks like it really knows something.”

“Besides gnawing on Earth Veins, the Dire Omen Roaming Youth Form has a power of omen,” Immortal Yuan Ling nodded, “to be precise, a way of foreseeing dire omens. In all the years it has been bound under the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, it predicted several great disasters on this world with accuracy. Its words should not be fully trusted, but they cannot be ignored.”

The two senior brothers stood under the veranda outside the Parted Clouds Palace Grand Hall, facing rolling seas of cloud, each lost in thought.

“I’ve wondered many times,” Immortal Yuan He said, puzzled, “that thing has no goodwill toward us, yet every time a calamity nears, it still speaks up, though always with nasty words. If it wants to see the world’s joke, wouldn’t keeping silent be better?”

“I don’t understand that either,” Immortal Yuan Ling shook his head, “I’ve asked it before, and it dodged the question. It’s clearly doing this on purpose, yet not quite willingly. I’ve guessed this warning might be tied to the ‘Dao’ that Demon bears, but what that Dao looks like, I cannot see.”

“So the Dire Omen Roaming Youth Form follows a Dao of its own? That is interesting. I never thought of it that way.”

“It’s idle speculation and may be wrong. That Outer Heaven Demon has wandered the Youth Form River for uncounted years. Who knows its roots,” Immortal Yuan Ling said casually, then shifted topics, “but I still think sending Serpent Princess wasn’t steady. She is not that obedient.”

“She isn’t bad at heart. I know best,” Yuan He gently shook his head, “you all think she’s crazy and beyond help, but these years she has improved. She understands right and wrong, she just can’t control herself. When I asked for her help, she cursed hard, but she was actually pleased. And to deal with the Dire Omen Roaming Youth Form, we do need someone as wild and shameless as her.”

“I truly did not see her being ‘pleased’ or ‘reasonable,’ but if you say so, perhaps it’s true,” Immortal Yuan Ling stroked his beard, and his tone grew faintly wistful, “you’ve spent a lot to heal her. A Demon locked in the Demon Suppression Tower is almost like half your daughter.”

“Seventy years ago, five hundred forty households of White Spring Village knelt by the road to beg me to spare that Serpent Demon,” Immortal Yuan He sighed helplessly, “from then on I knew I had taken on a burden. Who would think that in the interstellar age we’d still find such a simple village on Grand Void Youth Form, and even a simple ‘Mountain God’ watching over it. I still don’t know how Nethergloom Valley ran census and registry back then.”

Immortal Yuan Ling laughed and said nothing more. He only stroked his beard and looked toward the cloud sea, thoughts drifting. [I wonder how the “expert” is doing. I hope Xuan Che’s side is going smoothly.]

…

From space, Garrison-3 looked plain and bleak: a gray-black rocky world with dark red blotches. Against the black backdrop of space its dusty tones stood out as it floated alone along a cold orbit.

It had no large natural moon, only a few small rocky satellites, mere big stones, moving in several unstable paths. Two had already shifted under outside gravitational tugs and might leave Garrison-3 entirely in tens of thousands of years, becoming comets in Deep Space or, one day, getting captured by the sun.

From the preflight files and the scene before him, Yu Sheng’s first impression was a true backwater. Even in today’s interstellar age, with the Featherwing domain full of colonies and frontier sites, this was a barren world still not on any development list.

The silver Demon Fox slowed in space, traced a graceful fox-tail arc, and began circling above the equator of Garrison-3, searching for a landing zone while observing the planet.

“It’s ugly,” Irene poked her head out from under Yu Sheng’s arm and peered over the silver fox’s back, muttering, “no wonder no one lives here.”

“It being ugly has nothing to do with people living here. With eco domes, you can live anywhere. This planet wasn’t developed because it lacks Earth Veins. It’s a wasteland star. For Immortals in the Featherwing domain, transforming it isn’t worth the cost,” Yu Sheng explained, knowing Irene likely had no patience for this, “worlds without Earth Veins have thin spiritual energy, and their ecosystems mutate easily.”

Irene thought for a moment and delivered her key finding: “Anyway, it’s ugly.”

Luna watched the little doll in silence, then after a few seconds said one line: “Ai Lin, shallow.”

Irene considered it: “C Buckle, your accent is really heavy, I’m telling you…”

Luna ignored her and kept studying the surface below with Yu Sheng, as if weighing something carefully. After a long while she broke the silence: “Dead air.”

Irene tilted her head: “Huh?”

Luna did not speak again. She only raised a hand and pointed at the gray, barren world below.

“She means the planet is wrapped in a layer of death,” Yu Sheng said. He often could not directly understand Luna’s slow, short sentences, but through the bond in their blood he could “hear” the ideas riding along with her words. After catching her meaning, his face grew more serious.

Irene still did not follow: “Of course, it looks dead.”

“No. Looking dead and being wrapped in death are different,” Yu Sheng shook his head, “Luna means this planet has the air of death.”

“Is that really different?”

“Yes,” Yu Sheng said slowly, “in most cases, death presumes something once lived.”

Foxy began to descend. She had found the “battlefield ruins” Xuan Che mentioned.

A dark Impact Crater lay plain to see even from orbit. A vast region had been reshaped forever by a shocking force. The rim was jagged, showing how layers were squeezed hard in a short time, rumpling and breaking. The center had a gray-black glassy look. Large swaths of molten rock had cooled into crystal, keeping ripples on their surface as they set. Far sunlight glinted off the glassy field in fine halos.

Yu Sheng still could not see the “death” Luna spoke of. Many of Luna’s “new skills” seemed to come from his influence, yet he did not have matching abilities himself, like dragging someone into the Soul Wilderness to beat them, or reading death with a glance. He did not know how her tricks worked.

Even so, he felt the planet’s strangeness.

It really did feel like he was drawing close to a giant corpse.

A flash of memory jolted him. After a moment he realized where that feeling came from.

It was like the first time he approached Sentinel Silence.

Back then, he felt Sentinel Silence’s weakness, a weird, sub-healthy state.

Irene felt Yu Sheng’s arm tighten a little around her. She looked up to study his face.

“You’re going to have a blood calamity!” the little doll suddenly blurted.

Yu Sheng jumped at her shout and looked down: “What are you yelling for?”

“You’re going to have a blood calamity again!” the doll repeated proudly, though there was nothing to be proud of.

Yu Sheng chuckled: “Please, when do I not have blood calamities? What about predicting something good for once? Like when I’ll pull a rare card on the first try?”

“No way. If I could predict that, I’d do it for myself first,” Irene said with perfect logic, “I only predict bad luck. Especially your bad luck.”

Yu Sheng: “…”

A hot glow blossomed around Foxy. The Nine Tailed Fox had entered the atmosphere.

Garrison-3 was barren, but its air wasn’t that thin. It was toxic to most carbon-based life, yet that was no problem for Yu Sheng, who could hold his breath in vacuum, for Irene, who didn’t need to breathe, or for Foxy, who could cross space on flesh alone.

Like a meteor, the silver fox drew a red trail through the sky and finally landed on the inner slope of the crater’s ring.

“We’re down.”

Yu Sheng sent Xuan Che a quick message, then patted the Nine Tailed Fox’s back, urging her toward the crater’s center.

At the same time, his gaze swept the surroundings.

[Will there be any trace of the Dark Angels here?]