The Hell Mech Armor, once equipped, represented a genuine upgrade to Shen Cong's defensive capabilities. The aggressive, unsettling silhouette did cost him something, though — external weapon attachment points had been significantly reduced. He could no longer festoon himself with a full array of bone-gold weapons the way the old Half-Activated Armor had allowed; only a limited selection of essentials could be carried.

Not that it mattered much. In a fight these days, Shen Cong basically just swung the Tyrant Broadsword until things stopped moving.

The new look suited him.

He left the old Half-Activated Armor behind in Great Vajra, mounted the Four-Legged Dragon, and continued downstream.

The channel was broad on this side, so they moved at a quick pace. Shen Cong scanned as he went but found little of unusual note — the crevice walls were blanketed in what appeared to be mutated moss, thick green sheets spreading across every surface. Otherwise, unremarkable.

Before long, he'd passed clean through the dark river's entire length. When the crevice finally ended, the river had already emerged from beneath a dense stretch of forest, resurfacing as an open channel running north.

At the edge of the northern horizon, a silver ribbon curved across the earth.

The Huai River?

He cross-referenced his mental map and placed himself quickly: Heqiao Town, under Xuyi County jurisdiction, right on the Huai River's bank. Once the dark river met the Huai, the mystery stripped away entirely. Nothing unusual remained.

He'd already formed a hypothesis about the river's origin.

Before the Apocalypse, nothing like this existed here — no underground river, no river at all. Just Twenty-Li Ridge. Then the Apocalypse storm hit. The earth fractured. Torrential rains followed, massive floods scouring through the fissures, carving out this channel, cutting straight toward the Huai.

Then the rains ended. The dark river was left running on whatever filtered down from the mountain — seepage through the ridgeline, trickling through slowly.

That was the rough picture. Shen Cong wasn't a geologist and didn't pretend to a more precise answer.

"Back, then."

A word to the Four-Legged Dragon, and they…