Weeds grew thick, and jagged rocks jutted everywhere. The Blood-Sweating Steed, having run a full day and half a night, showed no loss of speed, its swiftly alternating hooves kicking stone after stone into the air. Peaks high and low swept past on either side.
Ye Tianxie opened the map the city lord had given him and pinpointed his position at once. A few more hours ahead there should be a small town called Guping. And south of that lay his destination — the nest of the blood-colored phoenix.
The phoenix: in Huaxia’s myths, a divine beast as noble as the dragon. In any world it ought to stand at the very summit, the most exalted existence there is, and even as a BOSS it would forever be a peak BOSS. Yet here it had appeared far too early in his career in Fate, and even he felt the occasional twinge of wrongness at it.
“Oh la la, the wind feels so nice like this.” Guoguo sat on the Blood-Sweating Steed’s head with her little legs bent, her long hair streaming back in the wind. In her hands she still cradled the lollipop she could scarcely be parted from, licking it bite by bite. Even now, Ye Tianxie wasn’t entirely sure whether Guoguo’s attachment to lollipops came from genuinely loving them, or from wanting to satisfy some strange pride she took in being a loli.
Probably the latter, mostly… because under Su Feifei’s influence, this little thing — who seemed never to have eaten meat before — now flung herself weeping and shouting at any meat she saw and ate until she was full. And yet she’d never once been seen cradling a great slab of meat and licking away at it in bliss.
The land here was desolate, hills large and small scattered in disorder, and riding through it was plainly far harder than it had been just outside the City of Heaven’s Stars. It was also, clearly, prime country for all manner of savage beasts. So all along the way Ye Tianxie had never relaxed his vigilance, keeping watch on his surroundings at all times… Level 14. Among players that level towered above all others, but across the whole Lost Continent it sat squarely at the bottom. And in a dangerous place like this, any monster that happened to spring out would be enough to end him.
Her lollipop finished, Guoguo stuck out her small pink tongue and licked at the corner of her mouth a while, unwilling to let it go, then sucked the last sweetness from the plastic stick before flicking it away with a wave of her hand. She stretched, twisted around, and settled onto the horse’s head in the most comfortable position she could manage. “Master, Guoguo’s going to sleep now. Watch me carefully, and be careful not to let me fall off — because if it hurts, master will feel bad for me.”
Ye Tianxie… nodded. He was long since used to this little tyrant making demands of him, reasonable and otherwise.
Two hours later: Guping Town.
The town took its name from a hero called Gu Ping, a hundred years ago. In those days there had been a terrible place south of the town, called the Skeleton Cavern. Excessive yin energy there had spawned all manner of dreadful undead creatures of the death element, and as time went on the undead it produced grew stronger and stronger, until at last a powerful Undead Sovereign was born.
Ordinarily, common undead could only live in darkness and could not bear sunlight — but the mighty Undead Sovereign was fully capable of surviving in the light. And so, a century ago, the Undead Sovereign stepped out of the Skeleton Cavern and, following the scent of living things, came to the nearest town… The town suffered an enormous calamity, and it was then that a brave one named Gu Ping appeared. With his sword and his shield he held back the Undead Sovereign’s attacks and at last destroyed it… and the price of destroying it was his own life.
The Undead Sovereign… a Level 100 Heaven-Severing-tier BOSS.
And that warrior called Gu Ping was a true hero whose name the whole Lost Continent remembered at the time — the Captain of the Guard of the City of the Lost, a man who had obtained both the Hero’s Badge and the Champion’s Badge.
And in that same year, the Lost Continent learned the new name of this little town, which no one had known before. From that time on, Guping Town became a town that respected and revered heroes.
Guping Town was not prosperous, but the moment one stepped into it, a wave of tranquility and peace washed over. Ye Tianxie, mounted on his Blood-Sweating Steed, immediately drew every sort of gaze. The town was very small, with perhaps fewer than a thousand people, and having long kept apart from the world, most of them knew one another. The sudden appearance of an obvious outsider drew the townsfolk’s attention at once.
“Hello. Might I ask which of you is the town mayor?” Ye Tianxie stopped beside a quiet old man who looked to be in his fifties or sixties, and asked politely.
The old man looked up at him, a mild smile appearing on his face. “Hello, adventurer from afar. Welcome to Guping Town. I am the mayor here.”
Ye Tianxie was briefly startled, and only then noticed the name hovering above the old man’s head… Mayor of Guping Town.
My luck is absurd… Then again, twelve points of Luck really is nothing to sneeze at.
Ye Tianxie sprang down from the Blood-Sweating Steed, scooping up the soundly sleeping Guoguo in one hand as he went, then dismissed the mount. Even with all that commotion, Guoguo somehow failed to wake, her small nose still twitching evenly with each breath of her dreams.
“Hello, mayor. I’ve come from the City of Heaven’s Stars, entrusted by the city lord to make some inquiries.” Ye Tianxie said — while, after a long search, still finding nowhere to set Guoguo down, and so having to keep holding her.
“The City of Heaven’s Stars — now there’s a place to be longed for.” The mayor’s eyes brightened, and he sighed with feeling. “Brave one from the City of Heaven’s Stars, whatever we can do to help, please only say it.”
Ye Tianxie nodded. “Not far south of this town lies the nest of a blood phoenix. Do you know of it, mayor?”
“Know of it… of course I know of it.” The mayor’s voice grew visibly agitated. “It is a beautiful and terrible phoenix, the color of blood. Three years ago it came flying suddenly from the south and rained down blood-colored flames, burning the land south of our town. In the three years since, it has flown over our town again and again, and though it has never attacked us since, every time it passes we are gripped by deep fear — because should it one day carelessly loose those blood-colored flames again, this little town that bears a hero’s legacy will be reduced to ruins. A month ago, a company of warriors from the City of Heaven’s Stars went to the blood phoenix’s nest… but… Ah!”
Something stirred in Ye Tianxie’s heart, and he frowned. “What happened to them? They have not returned for a long while, and it is precisely to find their trail that the city lord entrusted me with this task.”
(End of Chapter 95)