Inside the quiet chamber, Xie Zhaolin pressed the newly acquired jade slip map to her brow, letting a torrent of information flood into her sea of consciousness.
The directions of mountains and rivers, danger zones marked with colors and symbols, distribution points of spirit herbs and mineral veins, warning areas where high-ranked beasts had been spotted recently, and even hazy markers of suspected ancient ruins or unstable spatial zones… it was all laid out before her.
"The Endless Beast Plains…" she murmured softly, her fingertip tracing across the phantom map as she planned out several possible routes.
In her past life she'd dominated the Demon Realm, but when it came to perilous lands within the Cultivation Realm, her knowledge wasn't deep. The Endless Beast Plains were unfamiliar territory.
This detailed map was, without a doubt, one of her greatest advantages right now.
She marked a few areas where spirit items that aided Core Formation might grow, and she crossed out those labeled as fourth-rank beast nests or suspected spatial rifts, turning them into absolute forbidden zones. Only after she'd gone through countless simulations, confirming several routes that were both safer and efficient, did she pull out of her consciousness and slowly open her eyes.
Outside, the sky was already brightening with dawn.
She packed up everything neatly, double-checked to make sure she hadn't missed anything, then got up and left the chamber. At the front desk, she simply returned the room.
The innkeeper greeted her with far more respect than yesterday, but she didn't care in the slightest. She took the change in spirit stones, then walked out of the inn without looking back.
Morning had come, and Tianxing City was waking up. The streets grew busier with every passing moment. She kept her plain gray cloak on, hood low, blending into the crowd of people leaving the city and headed northwest. At the gates, there were cultivators on duty, but the checks on those leaving weren't strict. After paying a small exit tax, she stepped smoothly out of the great city.
Xie Zhaolin didn't immediately summon her flying artifact. Instead, she walked a while, spreading her divine sense as wide as she could, carefully probing the environment.
After making sure there were no suspicious pursuers, she finally patted her storage pouch and released the new artifact she'd bought, a fast little Qingye Shuttle.
With a flash of light, she rode it into the skies, turning into a streak of green that sped northwest, straight toward the Endless Beast Plains. She wasn't the only one. Along the way, she occasionally spotted other streaks of light flying from different directions, all converging toward the same ancient land of danger and opportunity.
What surprised her was how quiet the entire day and night of travel turned out to be. She hadn't run into any of the usual ambushes or robbery attempts she'd expected. Maybe it was because her Qingye Shuttle wasn't high grade and made her look poor, or maybe it was just plain luck. Either way, by the time she saw the horizon split apart by that massive green barrier, her journey had been smooth.
As she drew closer, the "barrier" became clearer. It wasn't an actual barrier. It was a violent transformation of land and vegetation. Behind her were hills, plains, and forests that, while rich in spiritual energy, still looked normal enough.
But ahead, it was like an invisible line had been drawn. Past that line, every tree grew enormous and thick, towering dozens of zhang high with canopies that blotted out the sun.
Strange vines, ferns, and flowers she'd never seen before sprawled in wild colors, some even glowing faintly. The air was choked with a dense mix of soil, rot, beastly aura, and something ancient and boundless. The spiritual energy here was richer, but also more violent and chaotic. Taking it in carelessly would disturb one's mind.
This was the edge of the Endless Beast Plains.
At this point, the sky, once busy with streaks of light, grew thin.
Most cultivators descended, choosing to walk or fly low. Flying too high would make them easy prey for aerial beasts.
Xie Zhaolin lowered her Qingye Shuttle to a high slope.
With a thought, the spirit beast pouch at her waist glowed, and five beast souls appeared at her side. The moment they emerged, they grew restless, greedily sucking in the beastly aura of this wilderness. They looked almost delighted, like they'd come home.
Without her needing to order them, they spread out to scout ahead and guard her flanks, becoming her eyes and her first line of defense.
The deeper she went, the denser the vegetation grew. The huge canopies shattered the light into fragments. After just a few li, she spotted her first corpse. A pile of white bones half-buried under rotting leaves and vines. The clothes had long decayed, and the storage pouch beside it was cracked and dry. Whoever it was had died here years ago.
Not far away, she found the skeleton of some beast, tangled together with the human bones like they'd killed each other. The further she went, the more scenes like this she saw. Broken artifacts, shattered talismans, scattered bones…
This silent forest was filled with echoes of brutal battles. Some of the remains were fresh, still bloodstained.
Xie Zhaolin's face didn't change, but her guard grew sharper. After walking a while longer, the trees suddenly parted, and the world opened up.
A massive sea of flowers bloomed before her. The colors were dazzling, petals as big as plates, glowing in purples, blues, and golds. The sight was breathtaking. A thick, cloying fragrance filled the air. One breath was enough to make her feel light-headed, like she was drifting into a dream. It looked like a paradise, completely at odds with the dangerous land around it.
But her steps froze instantly.
"Bewitching Beast Yam…" Her mind snapped to the map's warnings. "And such a huge patch of it."
The jade slip had marked this very place. The flowers gave off an invisible fragrance that corroded the mind, luring victims into the depths. Once inside, the roots hidden below would lash out, inject paralyzing toxins, and drain the prey into fertilizer.
Her sharp eyes caught the proof at the edges.
A few beast corpses lay half-buried among the flowers. Their pelts were intact, but their eyes were glassy and vacant. The blossoms were slowly wrapping and dissolving their bodies. Farther in, she saw faint glimmers of human artifacts, half-swallowed by petals.
The five beast souls bristled with agitation, crouching low, growling warnings at the flower field. Their instincts screamed danger.
Xie Zhaolin didn't hesitate. She cut off her breath, sealed her pores, and shielded her mind with spiritual power to block the invasive fragrance. But just then, a sudden, overwhelming force shoved her from behind—straight into the deadly flowers!