The twisted trunks of the forest swallowed up Li Yang and Mei Kongxu the moment they stepped into the forest, meandering vines forming curtains around them. What was likely once a large street was now just moss-covered earth with a few errant mushrooms growing, the air so humid that drops of condensation covered practically every available surface.

"Hee... Once it was ravaged by fire and lightning, but it's growing quite splendidly now, isn't it?"

The Pristine Tyrant specialized in the laws of lightning and fire, each step of his ravaged the surroundings and left the land uninhabitable, Li Yang had even seen a bit of this for himself. But now the years had passed and that ruination had vanished without a trace and become a verdant wilderness. It truly spoke about the tenaciousness of nature, refusing to stay down even after a powerhouse tried to trample it.

"So how is it, any visions yet?"

Li Yang glanced down at Mei Kongxu as he spoke, she seemed to fare much better after the white aura seeping out from him repressed her own black aura, but she still looked quite far from good. But she did her best to hide the signs that she still wasn't feeling good, putting up a cold exterior that was crumbling already while she was putting it up.

"No... But there's something in that direction, I can feel it."

She stretched out an arm as she spoke, pointing down the road and towards the unseen centre of the city. She didn't specify that she was pointing at the city centre, but Li Yang was confident that she was pointing towards it, because he could also feel something.

"The city centre, huh? Yeah, there's certainly a pleasant sensation coming from there, kinda smells like a barbeque."

It was a strange sensation indeed, it was like a hungry stomach pointing you towards a delectable meal you didn't even know existed. Mei Kongxu's eyebrows twisted slightly at his way of putting it so she probably wasn't experiencing the same sensation. But Li Yang ignored that, and also made sure to ignore her light squirming, and continued to walk forward.

In truth, Mei Kongxu was probably capable of walking on her own right now. As long as he placed a hand on her shoulder or even held her hand, he felt that the white aura would continue to repress the black aura, there was really no need to carry her in this princess carry. But her body was soft, she smelled good, and he couldn't see himself ever getting a chance like this again, so there was no way he wouldn't take advantage of by playing the fool that couldn't see the obvious.

So, he continued to carry her through the overgrown ruins, the refreshing scent of nature all around them. And whether or not it had anything to do with the history of these ruins, there wasn't a single animal or Demonic beast present in the area, rendering it nearly completely silent. And it was exactly this overwhelming silence that allowed Li Yang's ears to pick up something that made his feet halt.

"You hear that? I think they're footsteps, just really damn subdued. What do you think, want to go see a ghost?"

The sounds really were incredibly soft, probably due to the moss that covered the ground, but he still felt like he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps softly echo around between the twisted trees. Most people would probably think back to the rumour and head in the opposite direction of the sound, but Li Yang was never one to do what most people did.

He asked Mei Kongxu for her opinion, but he didn't actually wait for her to answer before he changed direction and headed towards the source of the sound. The array still suppressed his movements, but with him adapting to it over time he had managed to reduce the time between each step to just half a minute, and that was without him activating his bloodline or illusory tail.

He slowly made his way through the openings between the trees, pushing aside curtains of vine and droopy branches. Looking at how narrow some of the places he squeezed through were, he guessed that he was currently making his way through some back alleys or the like, quickly reaching a circular clearing that was probably a small plaza once.

Something that looked like a moss-covered angel with three haloes stood at the centre of the clearing, probably a fountain that had managed to escape destruction as the city fell to ruins. And the source of the sound he had followed was currently walking around the overgrown fountain, Li Yang tilting his head slightly.

"Huh, you look a lot more corporeal than you'd expect from a ghost. Figures that you shouldn't trust rumours."

The being walking around the fountain was just an old woman, her back slightly bent and her head full of faded black hair. The woman, who was clad in a strange type of clothing that looked like it was no more than a simple white sheet wrapped around her body, didn't jump in surprise when Li Yang spoke out. She simply turned over to look in his direction, revealing a face that was strangely enough covered in diagonal wrinkles, as well as a pair of eyes that were completely white and devoid of light.

"The ghost you're looking for has already left this place, there was no longer any point in that poor soul staying here, it had to move onwards so that it could reach the promised meeting. That is why it was born, after all."

Her voice, while it did indeed sound extremely old, felt almost like the sound of a gently running river when it reached Li Yang's ears. It was as if just listening to it was enough to put the soul at ease, she also filled Li Yang with a strange sensation as he looked at her, as if she wasn't real to begin with. But even so, he didn't miss what she said.

"Oh, so you're saying that there actually used to be a ghost here? An honest to god lingering soul and not a wraith?"

Ghosts and wraiths were different from each other. A ghost was said to be a single lingering soul retaining its personality, wandering around to accomplish something. It wasn't quite on the level of a soul-cultivator searching for a place to store his soul after his body was destroyed, it was just any soul with unfinished business refusing to move on.

Wraiths, on the other hand, were beings born in places where large swathes of living beings died. The small soul remnants that remained after death would all gather together and eventually form a completely soul-based Demonic beast, a wraith, a being that only sought to devour more souls to increase its own strength.

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The old woman didn't nod her head to Li Yang's question, but she also didn't shake her head in rejection either.

"It might not fit your definition of a ghost, but there did, in fact, once exist an illusory being like that here. Perhaps you'll meet one day, for better or for worse."

Not a wraith, but not quite a ghost either, and it seemed to even be able to leave this place. It sounded like a rather curious entity, so Li Yang thought that he wouldn't have anything against meeting such a thing, it might turn out surprisingly fun. But at the same time, the way the woman spoke about it told him a thing or two about what he could expect from this meeting.

"Alright...Cryptic stuff, not really my cup of tea. I'd ask you who you are, but I'm getting the vibes that you'll respond with cryptic stuff again, so I'll have to bid you a good day here."

Cryptic statements would only give him more questions at this moment, and he really would like to avoid becoming the type of person who only ended up coming up with more questions as he travelled about. If that could be avoided then it would be fine, so he truly was turning around to leave, but the woman stopped him with a polite question.

"Please wait, would you mind waiting for a few minutes so that I can finish my drawing?"

She took half a step forward as she spoke, a completely normal pencil and a somewhat large book appearing in her grasp. Li Yang halted his steps, Mei Kongxu still laying in his hands, her teeth grit as she endured whatever she was experiencing. He glanced at the book and the pencil for a second, his gaze eventually drifting towards the old woman's eyes.

"Drawing? With those eyes?"

There was no mistaking it, she was definitely completely blind with eyes like that. She might be able to use some Qi to perceive her surroundings, but that alone wasn't enough if you wanted to draw a proper painting, it would miss a fair few details. But the woman didn't seem to mind that at all and simply smiled, once again hitting Li Yang with her cryptic speech.

"True, my eyes don't work, but I can still see far more than most. So would you allow me to finish my picture?"

She opened the book as she spoke, lingering on the first page for long enough that Li Yang could tell what she had drawn. And what she had drawn was just a large and perfectly spherical orb covered in tiny markings that seemed to represent people, animals, nature, all sorts of things.

She stuck her finger into the pages and flipped them open to the nearest blank one, which just so happened to have another painting on the page right next to it. The image on that page seemed to depict a massive black ocean, but that ocean was covered in thousands of minute crimson cracks, each one that seemed to form a jagged maw twisted into a malevolently excited grin. His brows furrowed for a second, but in the end, he nodded his head.

"Alright, I'll bite."

Perhaps it was the strange sensation her body radiated or the refreshing sensation her voice carried when it reached his ears, Li Yang himself wasn't completely sure why he accepted her offer. Perhaps he just wanted to see what she would draw, what her empty eyes saw when they looked at him.

The woman smiled softly and moved the pencil to the book, immediately starting on the picture as her lightless eyes roamed over Li Yang and Mei Kongxu. And strangely enough, as the woman drew, the white aura released by Li Yang's hands grew a bit stronger, unnoticed by both Li Yang and Mei Kongxu. But the two also didn't notice that the black aura that had been repressed back into Mei Kongxu's body grew stronger at the same rate, maintaining an equilibrium with the white aura.

The woman's hand moved faster than Li Yang had expected, an image rapidly starting to form on the previously blank page. But looking at the image that took form, Li Yang couldn't help but tilt his head curiously. And that tilting only grew worse when the image was finally finished, even Mei Kongxu unconsciously tilted her head as she looked at it.

"You know, I was expecting something closer to a portrait. I'm not even entirely sure what I'm looking at right now."

The image that now covered the page depicted several hundred chunks floating about, their jagged edges suggesting that they could be put together to form a single whole. And rising up from beneath and behind these chunks were ten gargantuan snakes, or possibly wingless dragons, the ten entities surrounding the chunks in such a manner that they couldn't drift too far away from each other. It was quite nonsensical, and the way the woman spoke about it didn't make things much better so Li Yang couldn't help but mutter slightly in response.

"A portrait is just a reflection, this is a prospect into the truth. But what exactly this truth is, not even I know. The collapse of all life, a fallen star, a sorrowful beast, a betrayed monarch, the possibilities are as numerous as there are stars in the sky, perhaps only time itself will reveal the truth depicted here."

"Excellent, more cryptic stuff, exactly what I was hoping for."

She painted it, but not even she could understand what exactly she had put down onto the paper. If that was the case, then why did she want to paint it to begin with? Or perhaps she painted it so that she could eventually understand it, if that was the case then Li Yang could somewhat understand it. The old woman didn't mind his mutter and simply smiled, her expression containing a bit of pity and remembrance.

"That is often the nature of the truth, it is rarely what people hoped for, nor is it what they sought for. But thank you, now my collection of truths has taken another step towards completion, towards proper balance."

She bowed politely and then turned around, holding the book open and looking down at the newly filled-in page as she slowly walked away, her footsteps not producing a single sound. Li Yang looked at her slowly disappearing back with slightly furrowed brows, shrugging his shoulders in an uncertain manner when Mei Kongxu questioned him.

"You're not going to ask her more questions?"

"Felt pointless, didn't feel like I was going to get an answer. Or perhaps it felt like she wouldn't be able to answer anyway? She felt strange, I felt like I was looking at a blurry image that did its best to overlap with reality, but the divide between the two was still glaringly obvious. If actual ghosts, and not wraiths, really exist, then I wouldn't be surprised if they felt just like that."

Those were his honest thoughts about the woman he had just met. She didn't feel like his father or the other great elders of his sect, which existed in a different realm of strength. She simply felt like she existed on a different realm of reality, something akin to the moon reflected on the surface of the lake.

"A strange encounter in a dead city, really makes you think that the rumours might really be true, doesn't it? But oh well, we've still got our actual goal here so let's keep going."

He turned around while shrugging his shoulders and started to walk back using the same path he had taken to come here. If the others who visited this city saw the same woman, then he wouldn't have been surprised if rumours of a ghost spawned from it. But according to what she said, something like a ghost had truly been here at one point, and he didn't feel like she was lying to him.

Mei Kongxu squirmed lightly in his grasp as he turned around and started to walk, but Li Yang simply smirked in his usual way and outright rejected her when she gave the expected statement.

"I can walk on my own, you just need to stick close."

"Overruled. I told ya, the defeated should just accept the orders of the victor. So you just stay put there, dear Wifey."

Li Yang took things one step further as he walked back, moving his arms about a bit so that Mei Kongxu was rocked about like she was on a boat caught in the waves. She already wasn't feeling great so this certainly wasn't helping things, halting even the smallest smidgen of resistance she could muster as she was forced to focus fully on resisting the tearing and cracking sensation that seemed to fill the very depths of her body.