The Boreal Empire was a vast, sparsely populated land, a rugged tapestry of dense, pine-filled forests, jagged mountain ranges, and windswept plains. Small towns and villages dotted the landscape, hardy settlements built around logging, mining, or trapping.
Li Yu had traveled around a bit of this empire before with Cyra but now, things looked bleaked. Like a dark curtain was being pulled over this land, as though hope was being squeezed out.
It was to one such town, a remote logging settlement named Pinehaven, that Li Yu and Cyra first came.
From the air, it looked unnervingly still. As they drew closer, a deep, unsettling silence began to make itself known. It was a silence that was more than just a lack of noise; it was a profound and unnatural absence. There were no noises at all, no smoke curling from the chimneys of the log cabins, no distant echo of axes biting into wood. The entire town was utterly, completely still.
They landed in the center of the town, a muddy, open space that served as its main square. A chilling wind whistled through the gaps between the roughly-hewn buildings, causing a nearby tavern sign to creak back and forth on its rusty hinges. The sound was unnervingly loud in the otherwise dead quiet.
"This is another one," Cyra said, her voice a low murmur that was heavy with grim confirmation. "The silence is the same."
"I don't sense anyone," Li Yu confirmed, his own spiritual sense having already swept across the entire town in an instant, probing into every home, every shed, every corner. "Not a single living soul."
They began to walk, their footsteps echoing in the empty streets. They pushed open the door to a small cabin. Inside, a half-eaten meal of stew and black bread sat on a table, a thin layer of dust covering the cold, congealed food. A child's wooden toy, a carved wolf, lay on its side on the floor, as if dropped in a moment of sudden surprise. There were no signs of a struggle, no overturned furniture, no bloodstains. The people were simply… gone.
They checked another house, and then another. Each one told the same impossible story. Clothes were still neatly folded in chests, tools were hung carefully on walls, beds were made. It was as if every man, woman, and child in the town of Pinehaven had vanished into thin air in the middle of a perfectly ordinary day. The only clue was the one they couldn't find: the people themselves.
They left the silent, haunting town and flew on. For the next several hours, they investigated, their initial unease slowly curdling into a cold, growing dread. The disappearances were utterly random. They found a mining outpost nestled deep in a mountain pass, its forges cold, its ore carts abandoned, its hardened miners vanished without a trace. Yet, less than fifty miles away, they found a farming village that was still populated.
However, even the populated towns were not normal. Life did not simply go on. Every town and city in the north was under the princes' lockdown. The farming village was tense and fearful, with patrols of soldiers in the princes' colors marching through the streets, their expressions grim.
The villagers scurried about their essential tasks, their heads down, refusing to make eye contact, a palpable fear hanging over them. The contrast was not between peace and emptiness; it was between a tense, occupied prison and a silent, empty tomb.
Li Yu and Cyra tried to find a connection. Were the disappearances limited to towns of a certain size? No, they found both tiny hamlets and moderately-sized towns that had been wiped clean. Were they targeting a specific resource? No, logging camps, mining outposts, and trapping villages had all been affected. Was it political? That seemed unlikely; the affected settlements were so remote that they had little to no involvement in the Queen's war with the princes.
"There's no pattern at all," Cyra said, her voice tight with frustration as they hovered above another silent, empty town. "It's completely random."
"It seems that way," Li Yu agreed. "Let's acknowledge for now that there is no obvious pattern, but we should still try to see if one emerges. The randomness itself might be a clue. Or perhaps we'll find a subtle connection we're overlooking."
They decided to head east, toward the border where the princes' invasion had first begun. "Let's head that way," Li Yu reasoned. "That's where the conflict started. If this is all connected, the answers should be closer to the source."
They turned east, their flight low and fast. As they traveled, a new, more horrifying trend began to emerge. The disappearances became more frequent, and the scale grew larger. They were no longer finding just small, remote villages that had been emptied.
They came across a large, fortified trading town, one that should have been home to several thousand people, and found it just as silent and empty as the first village. The marketplace was still filled with stalls, their goods laid out for sale, now gathering dust in the wind. The town guard's barracks were empty, weapons still racked and armor still on its stands.
Finally, as dusk began to settle, they arrived at the outskirts of a city. It was a proper city, with stone walls, multi-story buildings, and grand plazas. And it, too, was completely, utterly silent. The sheer scale of it was breathtakingly horrifying. An entire city, home to tens of thousands of people, had been spirited away.
They landed in the grand, central plaza, the last rays of the setting sun casting long, lonely shadows across the empty stone. The silence was absolute, a crushing weight that seemed to press in on them from all sides.
"Jian Xuan was right," Li Yu said, his voice a low, grim murmur that barely disturbed the oppressive quiet. "They aren't just taking small groups. They're harvesting on an industrial scale." A cold dread filled him as he looked around at the silent metropolis. "If they've gathered this many people… if they have enough for their needs… that portal, or summoning, or whatever it is, might happen sooner than we think."
They decided to rest for the night in a hidden alcove atop the city's tallest watchtower, to consolidate what they had learned and decide on their next move. As the twin moons rose in the dark sky, casting a pale, ghostly light over the empty city, Li Yu kept his spiritual sense extended, a silent, vigilant watch over their surroundings.
Hours passed. Then, he felt it. A subtle disturbance in the air, far to the west. It was an aircraft, a dark, unmarked transport ship, flying low and fast under the cover of darkness. It was the first sign of active, organized movement they had seen in days.
His spiritual sense shot out further, crossing the distance in an instant to probe the ship. What he saw made his blood run cold. The main cargo hold of the ship was packed with people, hundreds of them, all lying unconscious in neat rows. They were almost all mortals, their bodies frail and unprotected. Sprinkled throughout the crowd were a few cultivators, but they were all in the Qi Condensation realm, their spiritual energy barely a flicker.
"Cyra," he said, his voice sharp and urgent. "We have a lead."
They shot into the air, their auras still completely suppressed. This was their first real clue in a long time, and they were not going to let it go. They began to follow the aircraft, keeping a safe distance of several miles, two invisible ghosts tailing their quarry through the night sky.
The ship flew on a direct, unwavering course. It passed over the eastern border city where their initial battle with the princes' forces had taken place, and continued on, heading into a desolate, jagged mountain range that was marked on their maps as completely uninhabited.
They followed it deep into the mountains, a labyrinth of dark, imposing peaks and deep, shadowed valleys. Then, as the aircraft flew towards a sheer, unremarkable cliff face, it simply… disappeared. It didn't crash. It didn't explode.
There was no flash of light, no ripple of energy. One moment, the ship was a solid, physical object flying through the air. The next, it was gone, as if it had flown through a pane of glass into another world.
Li Yu and Cyra came to a halt, hovering in the air before the spot where the ship had vanished. They extended their spiritual senses, probing the empty air and the solid rock face in front of them. It took a moment, but then they felt it: the subtle, humming distortion of a massive, powerful, and incredibly well-hidden concealment formation, spread across the entire face of the mountain.
They looked at each other, a grim understanding passing between them. On the other side of that rock face lay the enemy. They had found the viper's den.