Chapter 550 - Farewell, Four Maids; Where the Heart Finds Peace is Home; Evernight Approaches; The Immortal Domain Beckons - Part 2

Two days later.

The scouts the commander had sent returned, breathless, and relayed what they had witnessed at the Deathless Tomb.

The tale they told sounded more like a myth than reality.

And once he heard it, the commander felt nothing but dread, dread and the creeping chill of hindsight.

By then, Li Yuan and his group had already crossed the old Evernight Line. But the new boundary had long since swallowed this region whole.

They continued west, before gradually turning northwest. All around them was darkness and snow, towns buried under deep drifts. The world looked abandoned.

Snow passed by the small town where she and Li Yuan had once bought the embroidered shoes. Now only the jagged rooftops poked above the snow, their eaves broken, the buildings beneath them buried and lifeless.

Li Yuan passed the mountain where he had once shown the old Wolfmother the sunset. But the green hills were now white, and there was no sunset to speak of.

The maids Mei, Lan, Zhu, and Ju spotted the old path that once led to Dawn Manor. They took a short detour, only to find their ancestral home shrouded in endless darkness, desolate and cold. Not a single light flickered. Not a soul stirred.

These roads used to be full of warmth, chatter, the scent of cooked food, the glow of lanterns. Now, all of that had been buried beneath the snow and shadow.

Among the group, whispers spread, nervous speculation, quiet hopes and fears about what the outside world had become.

Li Yuan remained silent. It was the little black crow who did the talking, telling stories, answering questions, sometimes embellishing for effect.

The travelers listened, sighing again and again, hearts weighed down with both sorrow and wonder.

More than a month later, they reached the outskirts of Sword Mountain Pass.

They were barely five kilometers from the city stronghold that sealed off the Western Extremes.

It was late autumn, but here in Cloudpeak Province, snow still fell heavily.

Looking back, it felt as though the entire world behind them had been frozen in time.

Now, seated atop their direwolves, the group had stopped. No one knew what to do next.

They couldn’t just ride up to Sword Mountain Pass on wolves and barge through, could they?

Maybe this friend of their master would simply blast the gates open for them?

Li Yuan offered no explanation. He simply told them to wait, then instructed them to hide for now, while he went on ahead.

If he really wanted to, breaking through the pass wouldn’t be difficult. No matter how heavily fortified the gate was, no matter how many troops it could hold back, it couldn’t stop someone like him.

If he drew his blade, the entire gate which spanned the mountain peaks would be sliced in two.

But the problem was that the Human Emperor had issued a decree banning martial artists from using force outside designated areas. Small skirmishes might be overlooked. But destroying a stronghold gate?

That would absolutely make its way up the chain of command.

And the Human Emperor would never tolerate such a destabilizing force wandering freely.

And then what? Would it all circle back again? Would father and son be forced to face each other once more?

Li Yuan had no interest in that kind of drama. So he chose another path. He activated his Phantom Body Art and quietly arrived at Sword Mountain Pass. Then, transforming into a small insect, he fluttered into the sky, scanning the surroundings as he buzzed about.

Finally, he landed in the tent of the general commanding the gate and silently listened in for a while.

Sword Mountain Pass was currently under tight lockdown. Every entry token was stored in a secured chamber. Multiple commanders were required to approve each one before it could be used, each token bearing the name of the bearer, allowing them to relocate inland.

This system had been put in place to prevent the Nine Flames Tribe from infiltrating as spies.

But once Li Yuan figured out where the tokens were kept, he landed, summoned his ghostly white hand, and placed it against the earth.

From the void before him, doors shimmered into view, seals and locks meant to hold secrets.

He reached in casually, and pulled a token out.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

The next morning.

Just after dawn, the direwolves had been released back into the wild. The group, young and old alike, now walked on foot, each holding a valid entry token as they made their way toward the gates.

The guards at the gate raised their brows at this oddly assorted group, but after carefully verifying the authenticity of the tokens, they waved them through.

Just like that, the entire group passed openly and lawfully through Sword Mountain Pass.

But they had barely gone far when the sharp sound of galloping hooves came chasing from behind, a cavalry unit, at least a hundred strong, barreling toward them from a distance.

The hoofbeats carried through the cold wind like drums of impending doom, setting nerves on edge. Fear rippled through the group.

Li Yuan raised his hand. “Keep going. I’ll catch up soon.”

From within the crowd, an old woman stammered, “W-we can’t move fast... They’ll catch up in no time...”

Li Yuan turned to look. It was Xiao Mei. He smiled gently. “It’s fine. Just take your time. There’s no rush.”

After everything they’d witnessed on the journey, their faith in him was unshakable. They assumed he meant to kill the pursuers. With complicated feelings but full confidence, they pressed on.

But Li Yuan didn’t draw his blade. Instead, he quietly began reshaping the terrain. Dead tree branches twisted together above a narrow mountain path, forming natural archways. Farther down the path, he prepared more such

gates

.

By the time he finished, he could already sense the cavalry drawing near.

Clearly, they had discovered the stolen pass tokens and were now giving chase.

Perfect. Li Yuan sat down cross-legged, then activated his Phantom Body Art. His hands transformed into pale ghostly claws.

The pursuing riders charged through the first arch and suddenly found themselves somewhere entirely different.

They pressed forward again, but the scenery around them shifted once more. They had been transported to another strange, unfamiliar stretch of forest.

Panic spread like wildfire.

One of the veterans among them, however, kept calm.

“It’s a ghost wall,” he said. “We’re trapped in a maze.”

No longer daring to charge ahead, they dismounted and began searching for a way out on foot.

Meanwhile, Li Yuan observed from a distance. Unbeknownst to them, he had already taken control of 23 of their horses.

His beastmaster skills had always allowed him to command ordinary animals. Birds were his usual choice because of their usefulness in scouting, but horses...well, they had their uses too.

The 23 horses was his current limit for ordinary beasts.

To be precise, his mutated beastmaster skill allowed him to control up to 7 eighth rank, 13 ninth rank,or 23 unranked beasts.

He had chosen to devote his full capacity to the horses.

Then, all at once, the controlled steeds reared and bolted, wild with frenzy. While the cavalry dismounted to search for a path through the illusions, the horses charged into one of the gates and instantly vanished.

The remaining soldiers could only watch in horror as the horses disappeared right before their eyes. It was as if they’d been swallowed by the forest itself. A chill ran down their spines; goosebumps pricked their skin.

Nothing about this day felt natural.

Li Yuan, having captured the horses, rode them to catch up with the group making their way home. After rejoining them, he sent the steeds back toward the phantom maze to further stall the cavalry.

Under the control of those eerie ghost hands, the hundred soldiers became like puppets, blundering helplessly through the twisting forest paths, popping in and out of illusion after illusion.

After repeated failed attempts to escape, the cavalry fell into despair.

Eventually, they gave up and made camp for the night.

By morning, the maze was gone, as though nothing had ever happened.

They mounted up and galloped back toward Sword Mountain Pass like men fleeing from death itself, haunted by what they’d witnessed.

None of them even considered pursuing the group again.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Three months later.

After a long journey, Li Yuan’s group finally arrived at Dragon Beam Mountain.

Under the rule of the Human Emperor, order had been restored, and peace had returned. The travelers had braced themselves to find a land in ruins, fields left fallow, the dead unburied. But what they saw surprised them. There was no famine, no devastation, no corpse-littered roads.

Instead, snow was falling from the sky.

But not just any snow, warm snow.

The local residents rushed out of their homes, faces lifted to the heavens, cheering in joy.

Xiao Lan tugged at someone nearby, asking what was going on. She got a baffled retort in return: “Where’ve you been? Don’t you know? When this warm snow falls, the land gets rich again. Next year, we can grow crops!”

She was scolded, but for Xiao Lan, it felt like waking from a dream. Fertile land? Crops? Words like these had become foreign to her. And yet...they filled her heart with an unfamiliar joy.

This, finally, was the end of the road.

Li Yuan helped the elders and their descendants resettle here, restoring them to proper homes.

Even the household registration was handled easily. By chance, a disciple of the Bladeseekers had just been assigned to this county as the local

warden

.

All it took was for a little black crow to land on his desk, say a few words, and every potential problem vanished.

Disciples of the Bladeseekers were everywhere now. In the southern lands, they had an excellent reputation. Ever since following the Xie sisters into the capital, they were seen as an upright force, unlike the chaotic sects forcibly subdued by the Human Emperor’s campaigns.

Some of them had been drafted straight into the Ministry of War, tasked with maintaining order across the Empire. Others entered the Myriad Lineages Academy to continue their cultivation. A select few were even drawn into the Emperor’s inner circle for special duties.

In just a short time, the Bladeseekers had transformed into a powerful new faction in the Empire.

Sheng’er was almost certain this had all been calculated byLi Yuan from the very beginning.

She continued questioning the young disciple, who though officially part of the imperial structure, still treated her like a superior officer.

After all, no one in their right mind dared to offend the likes of Lady Divine Crow, Crimson Flame Child, Yan Yu...or that mysterious figure who had cured them of the madness.

The smarter disciples were beginning to notice the undercurrents, how the Emperor had deliberately left the southern lands untouched, how Lady White Plum seemed to connect to deeper schemes—all of which, they suspected, somehow tied back to Lady Divine Crow herself.

So the young disciple stationed here didn’t dare slack off for even a moment. He gave her a full report on everything that had happened in the Central Capital.

Back in mid-October, many from the southern regions had left, turning their homelands over to the first wave of northern refugees before heading to the imperial capital.

Only then did the public learn the truth.

Lady White Plum was none other than the Emperor’s birth mother, Empress Dowager Xie.

And her so-called death by self-immolation in the Jade Pool Palace? A complete fabrication.

Historians had already begun revising the records, rewriting that scandalous fire as a royal sleight of hand, a brilliant escape.

Because in truth, Empress Dowager Xie had merely gone south to lie low...and now she had returned.

Her younger sister had formally rejoined the Xie Clan as well, bringing her daughter with her back to the ancestral home.

The Human Emperor, for his part, inherited the legacy of the Bladeseekers. He spent a night in silent contemplation of its teachings before issuing his verdict.

The disciples were to be dispersed.

Some were assigned to the Ministry of War, given the title of

Wardens

, sent out to hold key territories. They would prove themselves in service, then return to the capital, most of these came from the Ruling Blade lineage.

Others were sent to continue their cultivation in the Myriad Lineages Academy.

A third group was formed into a special branch under the Ministry of War, a new elite force known as the Black-Clad Guard. They acted directly under the authority of the Human Emperor.

The decision to establish them came after the Emperor studied Li Yuan’s Jade Seeding Method. This was a cultivation technique that demanded one’s heart be as pure as flawless jade, clear, upright, and untarnished. Naturally, those who cultivated it could not be scoundrels or villains; they had to be just, even heroic.

That was the reasoning behind the Emperor’s bold decision to form such a group.

And since the Jade Seeding Method was a fourth rank cultivation technique, only those who had already reached the peak of fifth rank could even begin to practice it. As a result, every single member of the Black-Clad Guard was a fifth rank expert.

Their current commander-in-chief was someone Li Yuan knew all too well, Zhao Chunxin.

Once an instructor of the Bladeseekers, Zhao Chunxin had broken into fifth rank with her peerless blade. She was well-versed in the Ruling Blade, Phantom Blade, and Final Blade lineages.

The Emperor had personally granted her access to the Jade Seeding Method, supplying her with resources and support. Once she reached the stage of heart refinement, he began sending her on missions.

These details had been relayed to Li Yuan piece by piece, via the ever-chattering little black crow.