An unsteady ball of flames zoomed across a desolate landscape.

Like a siren, the ball of flames rang its presence as a deafening whistle. It flew almost fifty meters above the ground and its lashing streaks of volatile fire left ashen marks where it passed.

In a few instances, Li Ao could smell the roasted insects within the cracked ground.

‘’I can’t see anything!’’

Riding upon Meteorite, surrounded by flames, Li Ao put his sleeves over his charred brows to peek through.

Not only could he not see anything, he couldn’t hear anything as well. He could only smell, and the only smell he recognized was his charred beard and the ever-increasing insects.

Pushing the weight down his thighs, Li Ao took a squatting posture. The tip of his fiery sword tilted up and began to rise.

As his form of orange light turned more and more into a meteorite, Li Ao found his balance waning. Strong lashes of wind and Qi pressed his form down—the flames dimmed, their blares overcome by the howling gales of air pressure.

Then again, he didn’t expect to go steady above a hundred and fifty meters. Qi had a certain way of changing nature—so did its lack of thereof.

In a Qi-rich environment like the capital, he could temporarily control the wind Qi and rise even higher, perhaps to a thousand meters, though it was up to debate how to attain speeds enough to reach that high.

In an environment like this where not an ounce of clean Qi prospered, he was hard pressed against the natural friction to fly in a relaxed manner.

Sighing, stretching his constrained Divine Sense out to observe, he dove back to fifty-meter altitude and kept on his pace. For some reason, the weird weight on his shoulder remained at this height.

In the midst of Li Ao’s experimentative movements and pondering, Bubbles hung from his front pocket and took in the world outside the flames.

She was a special kind of being, and she didn’t have a traditional sight to herself. She saw everything as certain geometrical shapes and heat. She could memorize unique shapes, heat signatures, and attribute the names given by her brother to remember them.

Hence, the insanely fluctuating temperature of the flames didn’t really obscure her observations. They had no ‘inherent shape’, after all.

Her natural sight extended way past the flames and the plains. Yet this sight, along with her entire attention, was turned inside.

Within her contained small being, trembling and quivering, a bigger presence urged her to go away. A warm, beating force pushed her insides in and out of her wobbling form.

Bubbles, however, didn’t understand it.

She quivered herself, bubbled, transmitting her confusion.

She didn’t receive any answer to them. The response from her mama was static. It was a loop, a set-up response that she couldn’t comprehend as unnatural.

Only, she could sense the pain.

Shriveling within Li Ao’s pouch, ignoring the increasing heat signatures appearing one kilometer in front of them, she began to transmit even more of her ‘self’ to the other side.

And Li Ao only raised a brow at her minute warning.

‘’One kilometer?’’

He patted her with his empty hand and revealed a tiny hole through the flaming barrier.

‘’What is the somethings you say, Bubbles?’’

The gray clouds came to sight, then the black and brown land, but Li Ao failed to see anything.

Then he heard a thud, and his head flung forward.

‘’Oooooh shit!—’’

His feet dragging the sword, Li Ao rotated in the air, thrown off balance by a bouncing might.

Cheeks stretched, he circulated his Qi and Blood, then managed to steady himself two centimeters off the ground.

His nose met a fried cockroach.

He sniffed.

It somehow smelled tasty?

Retracting his neck, Li Ao dispersed Meteorite's flames into thin motes of light. It took him a moment.

He saw a giant black shape lying two hundred meters away. Its beating chest spew out a fountain of purple and red blood.

‘’...a demon?’’

The ‘thing’ was a gigantic torso with three feet, one where the head was supposed to be, and the other two upon the buttocks. They shriveled at each spurt of blood, trembling.

Li Ao found his heart beating faster than usual.

Eyes narrowed, he patted the disgruntled Bubbles and slowly rode his sword towards the dying demon.

He made a sharp stop at fifty-meter distance.

The thing had a rather intimidating aura—each of the legs were muscular beyond reason. Veins popped out of them like strands of wild fur.

The chest had no hair, and near the crotch a straight line of them appeared as wriggling worms.

But, apart from the fearsome appearance, the miserable wound made the entire thing a rather pitiful and displeasing sight.

A giant, round hole gave way to ground in the middle —still burning near the edges.

To kill a Peak-Foundation Establishment Demon like this, Li Ao supposed, he would have to give his all in any usual fight.

The question was, then, how.

But then again, Li Ao didn’t think about it deeply at that moment. At the horizon, he could see a couple more black shapes approaching.

These somethings Bubbles mentioned were all demons, no exception, and Li Ao felt a faint dread at the sight of the rolling group of a dozen mismatched limbs.

Some Qi-Condensation, others Foundation Establishment, they clawed and stomped towards Li Ao’s position.

Li Ao, in response, circulated his Qi and Blood. The warm feeling poured out of his thighs into Meteorite.

With a blare, a giant barrier of revolving flames enveloped his body.

Then, beckoned, Meteorite thrust its tip up and shot towards the right.

Pouring more Qi without care, Li Ao’s speed increased further with each passing second. In five seconds, he was fifty-meters in the air and sailing towards the right of the incoming horde.

To his relief, the group didn’t follow him. Li Ao pushed a finger-sized hole open and watched the horde devour the fallen demon piece by piece.

The wretched limbs blasted each other away to tear apart the still-whimpering demon.

‘’...where the fuck did I land?’’

Now, that was the proper question...

*********

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As he felt again, traveling alone for long stretches of time was a boring business. Li Ao spent two weeks traversing the wasteland—once or twice he smashed through some poor demons, and more than a few times saw remnants of human weaponry.

Broken shields, swords, and a few weird carriages.

Other than them, nothing. It was him, and his silence.

Now, Bubbles was a different matter. She was cute, she was indeed capable of conversing, but talking with her was not exactly company.

You could ask her about the air or about how she felt, and indeed Li Ao did that many times, but that was the extent of it. Her attention span was short, her interest in the world was little—except challenges that might prove themselves worthy to conquer.

And in all matters except conquering, she exerted no effort to do them.

He had a few manuals on him to teach her common sense; human culture, etiquette, a few tidbits about Qi any child must learn, even cultivation—but with how reserved she acted now they proved no use to their awkward circumstance.

Holding her small form between two fingers, Li Ao shook her around the air.

‘’I’m bored! Aren’t you bored?’’

‘’No! Leave Bubbles alone!’’

‘’Huh...leave who?’’

‘’Leave Bubbles alone! Bubbles is listening!’’

‘’Oh no, she has become rebellious!’’

Holding back imaginary tears, Li Ao twirled her between his fingers and looked outside.

Since the flame barrier obstructed a certain percentage of means of prying, including Divine Sense, he worked hard to not inconvenience himself for later flights.

Now he could look out from a small square hatch of flames. Only, he couldn’t keep it open for long—the pushing winds hurt his eyes and messed with his hair.

‘’Three, four, five...that’s a lot.’’

Smiling, closing the hatch, Li Ao put Bubbles near his chest. Two seconds passed, then five consecutive thuds echoed outside of the barrier. His legs shook, the barrier rippled with each echo, then returned to its calm course.

A moment later, limbs numb, Li Ao dispersed the barrier and inspected his handiwork. Several eerie and warped humanoid forms laid paralyzed on the ground. Dust clouds from their sharp fall lingered around their bloody wounds.

‘’Seventh-stage Foundation Establishment...holy heavens.’’

‘’This is a new weapon, right?’’

Meteorite was way better than he imagined.

‘’And I still have around a hundred thousand...should I just take my blueprints from the shop?’’

Thinking of the same matter, excusing it for the same old idea of not being reliant on other people, Li Ao shook his head and took flight. In the course of his journey, he met more and more of these demons.

Four demons became two dozen, and two dozen became two hundred. Yet, none took much notice of him. They didn’t seem to be bothered by him.

Some chased him out of amusement or sport, that Li Ao could feel it. Demons, strange sort they were, only cared when he killed one of their own, at which point the entire horde of them rushed to devour its remains.

They didn’t fight between themselves even then. They only pushed and pulled each other, doing no harm other than some soft bruises.

These strange sights made Li Ao feel even queerer at heart. To those of open minds, this kind of voluntary abstaining from violence, especially in front of a cannibalistic benefit, could seem as empathy.

However, Li Ao knew it was nothing as such.

Flying through the air, Li Ao found his patience thinning rather quick.

The demons bothered him almost every few hours now.

‘’Should I turn around?’’ he thought. He thought about it many times.

The path seemed endless. There were even more demons, even stronger demons.

Not one Core Formation, that was a relief, but it was hard enough to navigate through three or four groups of them. If they kept increasing, and he did indeed stumble upon one, how well would he fare?

He had ample preparations, but cautiousness was a must to prove them useful.

His hesitation showed itself a few times more, and he attempted to turn back once. Only, when he did, taking the small bits of piercing Sunlight to his back, Bubbles trembled and slapped his chest.

‘’That path is too far from mama!’’

So he relented and pushed forward. He worked hard to quieten the flames, though he couldn’t, so he pushed his speed beyond the safe measure.

For a week, he went without stop—

*********

Atop the Northern Gray Serpent, every two kilometers stood a tall tower. Each tower manned five men squads on every one of its fifteen floors—two scouts, two guards, and a beastfolk to fill in the diversity quota of the garrisoned army.

Over these towers laid the scenery of a great plain occupied by gray-brick structures. Most seemed to be older than a few decades.

Small houses, barracks, pitched military tents, then barns and makeshift nests for the beastfolk. They donned the vast plains behind the Gray Serpent, Protective Wall of the North, in a haphazard but loose manner. Whoever arranged it had taken great care to reduce any contact between both sides.

At the third hour of the noon, the manning scout of the half-day raised her eyes from these despondent buildings.

She held a black metallic helm in one palm, a drumstick in the other. To her left, on the cold stone, napped a dog-faced fellow, and to her right, beside a large red-tanned drum, three men sat chewing dried meat.

They all wore purple eyebags and bone-sprouting cheeks from exhaustion.

‘’What is that sound?’’

When she spoke up, the trio put a stop to their conversation. The reaction arrived like sudden lightning.

After all, no fellow was less paranoid than the other in the frontier.

Eyes bloodshot, hands on ears, palms over brows, the four of them shot around the tower’s walls and looked towards the northern horizon.

The humongous horde of demons still prowled around that place. A mass of black and grey, wriggling, raising dust clouds at their slightest movement. Still, they made no sound.

This lack of sound made the approaching whistle further unsettling.

‘’Whistle?’’

The dog-faced fellow snapped his eyes open and sniffed. ‘’I smell ash. A fire? Is it another ranged spell?’’

Hearing so, a guard and a scout rushed down the stairs toward the walls.

Shaking his sword-like head, the dog-fellow took another whiff. ‘’I smell a human.’’

‘’A tribesman? Another mind-reader?’’

‘’He said fire. Who uses fire among humans?’’

‘’...’’

Face pale, uncertain, the scout motioned at the dog-fellow.

Woofing, he walked forward and took another sniff.

‘’Human—he is behind the flames. He is also very fast—’’

“Holy Heavens!’’

As if on cue, a humongous wave of orange and scarlet stretched out towards them. The source of it, the horrible blaring ball of flames slammed through the horde of gathered demons.

A shower of blood, gore, and ash exploded upon impact.

Even some four kilometers away, they could hear the creaks and cracks of the crushed demons.

‘’That is way too fucking fast!’’

‘’Deploy the net! Activate the shield!’’

Putting on their helmets, the trio took on their drumsticks and rained frantic blows on the red drum.

Each strike sent a loud boom over to the next two towers, and when it reached another boom echoed out—until all the waking soldiers and beasts could hear was a series of horrific thumps. It took a while for the entire camp to rouse.

‘’Two kilometers! Where is Chief Chen!?’’

‘’He is out—’’

Among furious shouts and the approaching terror’s hot aura, several streaks of light shot out of the scattered buildings.

Each man and woman rode upon a flying sword or wore artificial wings made of Qi.

Apart from them, a middle-aged man flew out on his own.

He had no support but his own feet, and he shot at such speed that the shockwaves from his approach rolled out great clouds of dust into the eyes of the poor militias.

He wore a great leather armor padded with metals on the front, and on his back he carried a long gold spear. He had narrow eyes, a lonesome countenance, and a short but thin beard.

‘’Who is that fellow?’’

‘’We don’t know—no one recognizes his Qi signature.’’

‘’Then just catch him.’’

‘’...chief?’’

‘’Go on.’’

With a curt nod, Chief Chen flew over to the nearest tower’s top and inspected the approaching ball of flames. Somehow, he found the entire thing eerily off—a feeling was born in him that either this ball of flames was familiar, or it would bring him to something familiar.

But again, he didn’t regard that thought for too long.

With a wave of his hands, A grand formation of celestial lights shone up from the walls. Each tower lit up marine and aquamarine blue, and the colors rippled with the beatings of the drums.

In a moment, a great dome-shaped net appeared over the entire 38th section.

In the next moment, the ball of flames struck the net.

There was no grand firework or blow—the moment it came into touch, the flames snuffed out. A young man, eyes wide and tongue at loose, got swallowed by dozens of aquamarine tentacles.

His flying sword fell from his feet, his head struck first into the hard ground, and he rolled two hundred meters like a ball of hay until no more dirt could fill his mouth.

Coughing, spitting, and almost strangled to death, Li Ao looked up at the glint of a hundred blades pointing at his head.

Some fellows even hung upside-down from their flying swords to keep him at point.

When he took in the slithering snakes and the snorting hogs in his face, Li Ao let out a sharp breath.

Their breath stank!

‘’Uh, can you get away?’’