Another half hour went by, and ahead of him were still ruins of white bone, without the slightest difference from before except that the sky seemed to have grown a little darker. Ye Tianxie was not even entirely sure he hadn’t come back around to where he had started.

An hour went by. An hour and a half. Close to two hours…

The scene repeated itself across his vision, and the ruins ahead seemed to have no end at all.

Crack!

An odd sound came from underfoot as Ye Tianxie inadvertently kicked loose a helmet mottled all over with verdigris. He gave it a casual glance and thought nothing of it. Besides bones, there was no shortage of old armor and weapons here, whole or broken; all of it had belonged to warriors who had died in battle.

And just as he took two more steps forward, that helmet he had kicked loose rose soundlessly from the ground and floated up into the air.

At the same moment, all around the helmet, an intact bronze cuirass, a pair of bronze greaves, and a spear stained with old blood burst up out of the ruins and hung floating around the armor.

The stir of movement snapped Ye Tianxie around, and he stood frowning at the weapon and battle gear that had risen on their own. These pieces of armor and this weapon had come to rest in exactly the right positions — arranged like a transparent man wearing helmet and cuirass with a spear held in his hand. An imposing warrior.

Ye Tianxie focused, and the Eye of the Evil Dragon fixed on what stood in front of him. Under his deliberate gaze he saw a blurred shadow: a warrior with an expression of endless killing intent and rage, wearing the armor that had burst up out of the earth, the spear gripped in his hand. An ordinary person would have seen nothing but equipment floating there uncannily.

Warrior’s Departed Spirit: Level 20, HP 950. A valiant warrior who died in the defensive war eighty years ago. Though the body perished, the conviction he guarded with and the will to fight did not, and the remnant of his departed spirit clings stubbornly to the battlefield, attacking all invaders without mercy. Only by defeating them can their souls be released.

Talent: Undead Body — all death-attribute attacks are wholly ineffective.

Skills: None.

Weakness: Fears all Light- and Life-attribute attacks.

Carried by the warrior’s departed spirit, the floating armor charged at Ye Tianxie, the spear driving at his throat with a ferocity that would not be turned aside. Ye Tianxie twisted out of the way without particular effort and brought a Dragon Rend Slash down on the cuirass, saying under his breath, “Be released, spirit of a hero.”

For those who had died guarding their homeland and their convictions, he kept a measure of respect in his heart. That one strike of Ye Tianxie’s killed the warrior’s departed spirit outright, and the equipment that had assembled itself flew apart and scattered back into these seemingly endless ruins.

But that one strike of his amounted to kicking a hornets’ nest. Warriors who have gone through life and death together feel for one another more deeply than brothers, and when one of them falls, what it kindles is boundless grief and rage. In the same instant that the warrior’s departed spirit was scattered, an appallingly cold wind blew through the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins, and the bone-strewn ground around Ye Tianxie began to churn horribly. Dark earth was flung up, and armor and weapons — some whole, some broken — came flying out of the ruins, assembled themselves, and hung floating around him.

One. Two. Three… Ten. Eleven!

Eleven warriors’ departed spirits ringed Ye Tianxie, thick death-aura and furious killing intent locked onto his body.

Nearly two hours, and Ye Tianxie had finally run into an enemy — which was actually a relief to him, because if all he was ever going to meet was endless ruins, then even he could not have said how much longer he would hold out.

But right then, a prompt sounded in his ear that left him stunned outright.

“Ding… Your time inside the ‘Ten Thousand Bone Ruins’ has exceeded two hours, reaching the daily upper limit for a single player’s stay in the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins. You will be removed by force.”

“Hey! Hey… hold on a—”

Ye Tianxie had barely got the shout out before his vision blurred, the space around him shifted violently, and in the next second the sharp reek was gone and the light had brightened — he was back at the City of Stars respawn point.

His first expedition into the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins ended right there. Ye Tianxie stood where he was, tangled in knots for a good long while… He was certain the quest description had not mentioned a time limit anywhere. Plainly this was a hidden factor. It was also why no team had ever stayed inside the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins for more than two hours.

Compared with the Heaven Soul Graveyard, where defeating every enemy completed the quest, a quest built so plainly on searching was harder for him by an incalculable margin. Given the choice, he would sooner have faced a direct challenge twice as difficult as the Heaven Soul Graveyard.

That said, this trip into the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins had not been entirely without gain. That last warrior’s departed spirit had given him the faint beginnings of a lead.

Each System Quest map could only be entered once every three days by a given player, which meant Ye Tianxie would have to wait three days before he could enter the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins again. He thought about it for a while, then turned and walked toward the north of the City of Stars — toward Wuhua Temple again.

What left Ye Tianxie at a loss was that the monk receiving him this time was neither yesterday’s Monk Wuhua nor the Master Whoremonger of two hours ago, but yet another and older monk. This one’s age was unmistakable; had anyone told Ye Tianxie he was past a hundred, he would not have doubted it in the least.

“Greetings, adventurer from another world. Your expression tells me you have come to undertake a trial,” the old monk said, saluting.

“That’s right, Master. If you would be so good as to teleport me to the Ice-Severed Wolf Den.” Ye Tianxie returned the salute politely.

“The Ice-Severed Wolf Den… That is a terrible place. Not only is the cold there piercing to the bone, but countless savage beasts have their lair in it. Benefactor, will you hear a word of advice from this old monk? Before your strength reaches level twenty-five, do not attempt to go there — because even without an enemy in the place, the terrible cold alone is enough to damn you beyond recovery. Amitabha.” The old monk counseled him patiently.

Ye Tianxie’s expression did not change. “My thanks for the Master’s advice. I won’t push past what I can manage… but I would still ask the Master to help send me to the Ice-Severed Wolf Den.”

“Since this is the benefactor’s own choice, this old monk will naturally not refuse.”

“I haven’t yet asked the Master’s dharma name?”

“Amitabha. This old monk’s dharma name is… Little Bird,” the old monk said, calm and solemn.

“…Much obliged, then, Master Little Bird.” Ye Tianxie was by now quite certain that the monks here looked normal on the surface, but that not one of them actually was. “By the way — where are Master Wuhua and Master Whoremonger?”

“Amitabha. They have been taking rather too many clients and are worn out, so they have both gone to rest.”

Taking rather too many clients… That sentence set Ye Tianxie’s skin crawling from head to foot. He said nothing further and waited quietly for Master Little Bird’s teleport.

Master Little Bird did not teleport him at once. Instead he said, carefully and slowly, “One hundred and seventy-two brave parties have gone to the entrance today, yet at present not one remains there — and of those, only two teams entered the Ice-Severed Wolf Den. Even so, do you still wish to go?”

“Oh? Why would so many people be sent there and only two parties enter? What about the rest? And why would they not stay and wait, but leave to the last man?” Ye Tianxie asked, frowning, his mind full of questions. After the Mercenary System quest’s rewards had been announced, the desire to complete a System Quest had been set alight in countless players. The scene at the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins, where three hundred-odd teams had kept watch to fight over the last entry slot, was proof enough of that.

And yet at present there was not a soul in front of the Ice-Severed Wolf Den. He could not for the life of him work it out.

“Benefactor, you will know once you have gone. This old monk should not disclose it. Very well — this old monk shall send you across now.”

The old monk murmured an incantation, and a sigil array formed swiftly beneath Ye Tianxie’s feet and carried him away from Wuhua Temple.

“Amitabha. May you return safely.” The old monk intoned it softly, sat down cross-legged, and took up his recitation of the holy scripture once more… a scripture which was, syllable by drawn-out syllable, the refrain of a well-known rock ballad in which the singer likens himself to one small bird, complete with the wailing cry at the end of the line.

The cold cut at him like a knife. The moment Ye Tianxie appeared in this world of ice and snow, he understood why no team had been willing to wait here.

The stench at the entrance to the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins could still be endured. The cold here was flatly not something a normal person could bear for any length of time.

-5

-5

-5

-5…

Every second that passed, a red number floated up above Ye Tianxie’s head. The cold here did not merely savage the body; it stripped life away without mercy at the same time.

He switched on the automatic HP recovery property of his Ring of Life, which he normally kept turned off, and the drain was immediately canceled out. Ye Tianxie took a step forward — and under the thick snow was ice as smooth as glass. Caught off guard, his foot slipped and he nearly went over.

“Yee-hahahaha! Huh? How come he didn’t fall over?”

At the very moment Ye Tianxie’s foot slipped, a thoroughly unrestrained laugh rang out — and that voice was plainly the childish laugh of a little girl, except that the wild abandon in it was not something a little girl ought to have had. But Ye Tianxie’s balance was far beyond an ordinary man’s, and it held him steady in a posture nobody else could have managed. He did not go down, which left the owner of the voice both astonished and disappointed.

Steadying himself, Ye Tianxie looked toward the source of the voice — and was startled to find, not far in front of him, a snowman heaped up to more than half a man’s height. All around it was pure snowfield. The colors blended so nearly into one another that he had genuinely failed to notice this snowman before… no, that could not be a snowman — it had to be a figure of white ice, because sitting on top of it right now was a little girl with a face full of excitement.

Sit a little girl on a proper snowman like that and it would have collapsed straight away.

(End of Chapter 186)