Grey Goat’s Toolbox was a small casket, though reasonably large next to the creature it came off — square-sided, silver, and if you shook it you could hear things knocking about inside. A strange lock lay across the top of it. Ye Tianxie tried several times, could not get it open, and had to give up.
Red Goat’s Frying Pan… the standard shape of a frying pan, only several sizes smaller than one a person would use. Ye Tianxie put it away feeling thoroughly torn about it… could this possibly be some hidden piece of cookware?
And the last one, the Grey Goat’s hide…
Cupping that grey goatskin in his hands, Ye Tianxie checked several times over that there was nobody around, then steeled himself several times more — and still could not gather the courage to say I am a goat out loud, still less the courage to turn into one. He badly wanted to shout: who the hell invented this monster, and who the hell invented this item!! What earthly good does turning into a goat do anyone?
“Oh la la! Evil can never beat justice! The big bad Grey Goat has been defeated by the great Master at last! Whoa! Master is so good!” Guoguo drifted back and forth above Ye Tianxie’s head, chattering away in the pose of a conquering hero, as though she had just saved the planet.
The way Guoguo’s mind worked, no one on Earth would ever understand.
He put the Grey Goat’s hide into his pack all the same… you never knew… you just never knew… one day it might actually come in useful…
“Guoguo, let’s go.”
“Oh la la… Master, now Guoguo will tell you the story of Master’s great war with Grey Goat!”
Ye Tianxie: “……” (spare me)
Toward evening.
Ye Tianxie spread out the map, looked at the building ahead of him — an old castle by the shape of it, and long since fallen into ruin — and knew for certain… that was the place the City Lord of the City of Stars had spoken of, the present hiding place of the Dark Nether Ghost King, one of the Eight Demon Kings: the Phantom Beast Ruins.
From here, less than five kilometers remained to the northern side of the City of Heaven’s Sun. But oddly, this whole stretch of country was cold and deserted, and there was a desolation running through the emptiness. As far as the eye could see there was no trace of man or beast.
By the City Lord’s account, near as this place was to the City of Heaven’s Sun, it seemed to be one of the city’s forbidden grounds, so ordinary people never came near it. And the reason it had become forbidden was not that there was danger here, but out of respect for the Phantom Beast race, who had once flourished so greatly.
Because in the far past, it was the Phantom Beast race that had guarded the whole of humankind. In the eyes of the people of that age, the Phantom Beasts were the race of the gods, and no one disputed it.
Only, for reasons nobody knew, they had faded away step by step, and at last died out altogether… leaving behind nothing but this one abandoned ruin, silent now for a very, very long time.
Go around this place, ride five kilometers further south, and he would reach the City of Heaven’s Sun and finish the letter quest… and at the same time become the first player in the region to reach a second main city. He had come the whole way at enormous speed, but the road had held dangers past counting, and no one who had not walked it himself could understand.
He worked out the time. Su Feifei’s appointed dinner hour was close. Ye Tianxie hesitated, then decided to get to the City of Heaven’s Sun first. Five kilometers, at a Blood-Sweating Steed’s speed, would not take long at all.
He turned off the road and carried on south — and as he passed a point level with the Phantom Beast Ruins, the Hour of Fate hanging at his neck suddenly flickered for an instant with a pale yellow light. That flicker crossed the corner of Ye Tianxie’s eye and brought him to a halt. And Guoguo, who was still reading her picture book, lifted her head as well, staring blankly toward that old castle… toward the Phantom Beast Ruins.
He waited in silence, watching for it deliberately, but the Hour of Fate never flared again. Ye Tianxie cupped it in his hands and frowned, not understanding.
“This feeling…” Guoguo said it to herself. Then her eyes flashed bright, her face went urgent, and she drifted onto Ye Tianxie’s shoulder in one movement and shouted into his ear. “Master! Master! Go there, go there quickly!”
“What have you found?”
“There’s a Fate Core there! There really is! That was an orange feeling… it’s the second Fate Core! It must be!”
A Fate Core… an orange one… Orange Fang!
He did not doubt what Guoguo said. And thinking back, that faint light the Hour of Fate had thrown a moment ago had not been a pure yellow at all but an orange — which looked like some strange resonance between the Hour of Fate and a Fate Core.
After Blood Feather and the Blue Soul, he had word at last of another Fate Core.
“Guoguo, are you certain it is inside there?” Ye Tianxie said, looking at the Phantom Beast Ruins in front of him. By the City Lord’s account, the ruins were ringed by an indestructible transparent barrier, and apart from the Dark Nether Ghost King, nobody before had ever had the power to get inside. So… if Orange Fang were in there, how was he to get in himself?
“Yee-yaa! Guoguo never ever tells lies. Master, let’s hurry up and go… or else, or else if it goes away it’ll be so, so hard to find again. Fate Cores are all really powerful, they can use their own strength to give themselves a body and a soul, they really can run away. Master, quickly!”
Under Guoguo’s impatient urging, Ye Tianxie thought for a short while, then set off toward the Phantom Beast Ruins he had meant to go around.
If the City Lord of the City of Stars had it right, then the Dark Nether Ghost King — one of the Eight Demon Kings, and certainly beyond powerful — was hiding in there. And he had seen what Blood Feather and the Blue Soul were… even Blood Feather, lowest in energy of them all, could take the form of a creature with terrifying strength, and far from submitting to the Hour of Fate of its own accord it had attacked him first… So what about Orange Fang?
Both of those were excellent reasons for him not to go in. Whether it was the Dark Nether Ghost King or Orange Fang, either was a strength he simply could not resist.
And with Orange Fang and the Dark Nether Ghost King in the Phantom Beast Ruins at the same time — was there some connection between them?
Ye Tianxie walked toward the Phantom Beast burial ground without hesitating. He knew perfectly well that with his own strength it was essentially impossible to get into the Phantom Beast Ruins with a barrier around them, and that even if he could, what waited inside was an enemy he could not stand against. But since what lay inside was Orange Fang, which bore on the Hour of Fate, he had no choice but to try. And if he really did meet danger he could not turn aside, he still had the Soul of the Evil Dragon to fall back on.
A hundred meters… fifty meters… ten meters…
Ye Tianxie did not walk fast. He had to stay alert the whole way for an invisible screen that might suddenly stop him or even fling him back. But right up until he came close to that dim, ancient gate, he found no trace of any barrier at all.
And at the moment he came within three meters of the castle gate, an invisible screen did appear in front of him — and in the instant that screen touched his body, a ball of white light flared on the back of Ye Tianxie’s left hand and was gone. Only, the light was not glaring, and the Holy Dragon’s Fang worn on that left hand covered it completely, so Ye Tianxie never noticed it.
And then Ye Tianxie’s body passed straight through the transparent barrier and he was standing before the gate of the Phantom Beast Ruins. He put out a hand and pushed it open. As the gate swung slowly wide with a heavy sound, what appeared ahead of him was a stretch of darkness.
Could the City Lord of the City of Stars have been wrong? Or had the barrier been broken by the Dark Nether Ghost King, and that was why he could get in?
Doubts filled his mind, and he wiped them away at once. Since he had got inside by accident, he had no intention of turning back — and ahead of him lay unknown danger.
He brought himself to his best condition and walked slowly inward… and then his foot came down on nothing.
No wonder there was only blackness ahead. Beyond the gate there was nothing but a chasm…
Ye Tianxie had no time to think. He gathered his mind and called quietly, “Netherfog!”
Grey smoke formed under Ye Tianxie’s feet on the instant and bore his body up, slowing his fall sharply. Just as the Netherfog reached its fourth second, his falling body touched ground at last. He steadied himself quickly, and the Eye of the Evil Dragon — whose sight was not affected in the slightest by darkness — looked ahead.
Ye Tianxie had reached level 20 now, so naturally the gear he wore was no longer that suit of level 15 Resilient pieces. He had changed into the level 20 Silver-grade War Tiger Blaze Armor and War Tiger Boots taken from the Amethyst War Tiger; the rest was unchanged. Since his base attributes were already so large, equipment of different levels and grades at this early stage made comparatively little difference to his numbers, so he was not especially fussy about relatively low-grade gear at this point.
Ye Tianxie’s overall attributes at present:
Character: Xietian Level: 20 Class: Rebel-Boned Evil Dragon Renown: 3,880; Money: 1,514,031,923 gold Hunger: 115/346 Basic attributes — Strength: 246, Constitution: 147, Agility: 114, Spirit: 93 Fixed attributes — Luck: 17; Comprehension: 17; Charm: 27 HP: 3,120 MP: 2,334 Physical attack: 866 Magic attack: 186 Physical defense: 404 Hit: 114 Dodge: 123 Reaction: 72 Perception: 53 Focus: 42 Attack speed: 100 Movement speed: 112 HP regeneration: 5 (recovers 5 HP per second automatically). MP regeneration: 0. Fire resistance: 23%. Water resistance: 23%. Wind resistance: 23%. Lightning resistance: 28%. Earth resistance: 23%. Light resistance: 73%. Dark resistance: 73%. Skills: Frenzied Battle Intent, Netherfog, Dragon Rend Slash, Dragon Shadow Strike, Dragon Tornado Sevenfold Rend. Equipment: Hour of Fate (weapon), Hero’s Headguard (mask), Resistance Earring (earring), Resilient Helm (helmet), War Tiger Blaze Armor (body), Resilient Greaves (legs), War Tiger Boots (feet), Ring of Life (ring), Hero’s Badge (badge), Mercenary King’s Badge of Glory (badge).
(End of Chapter 235)