Jun Li let out a deep sigh. "Finally…" Sitting lazily against a tree, she carefully scrutinized a map she had been following for well over a week now, barely able to make out its details in the rainy dark of the night.

  Enduring its vagaries was troublesome in the extreme, but she had finally laid eyes on one of its depicted landmarks.

  Above, an umbrella of crystalized blood loomed over Jun Li, shielding her from the raindrops that irregularly made their way through the tree above. The pace with which she became used to forming such tools was remarkable, to the point that she felt forced to chalk it up to some inherited instinct.

  Ahead, swathed in the darkness of night, was an immense mountain, far taller than those that surrounded it, and so wide as to give the illusion of being 'short', despite its true stature. Even from as far away as she was, the mountain's silhouette blocked Jun Li's vision of the stars and clouds, blackening the horizon ahead.

  From time to time, lightning would strike down through the stormy night and illuminate the mountain like flashes of daylight. In those moments, Jun Li could see the surface of the mountain and the thousands of buildings that covered its surface, embedded into the mountain in an irregular lattice of discreet districts and neighborhoods.

  Over the past hour, Jun Li had watched as individual specks of light flickered to life over the mountain's surface, the early night brought by the terrible storm overhead causing an irregular wave of illumination to sweep over the city ahead as the denizens made their own daylight.

  She sat there for some time, watching as the mountain that once consumed the horizon entirely, slowly became a horizon of its own, its lights growing in number and intensity until it resembled a cloud of fireflies, nestled amidst the roots of a mangrove.

  "Tinglu City, huh? This place should have a proper branch of the Alchemist's Association…" An emotion between relief and excitement settled into Jun Li's heart. 'Finally, I should be able to make some noise here, more than enough for Uncle Zhu to track me down.'

  Her first instinct was to wait for daylight, compelled by some vague compulsion of human nature that made the turning of night to day feel like a signal for new beginnings. However, one of the lights of the city drew her attention, the size and warmth catching her eye in a way she couldn't ignore.

  "Ah…? A fire?" In the distance, one of those pockmarked neighborhoods was lit up brighter than the others, glowing brightly against the tall walls of its naturally demarcated bounds.

  At first, it was localized to one edge of the district, but the fire quickly spread out to consume more, illuminating tall buildings, wide gardens, and plazas. Though her eyes weren't keen enough to spot individuals from so far away, Jun Li could tell that the fires didn't spread as one mass, but as a horde of sparks, each one growing into its own flame, before joining the inferno.

  'That's… intentional.' Jun Li sat up and felt the umbrella attached to her back rise with her, its distant heft unbalancing her somewhat. 'A raid of some sort?' Her eyes looked back and forth through the nearby foliage for a moment. "I, uh… Sorry, Little Yun! I'll be going on without you, as usual!"

  Snapping the umbrella off her back, Jun Li stuck it into the ground before dashing off. When Little Yun rounded a tree to look, it saw nothing and only heard the distant sound of Jun Li's movement technique.

  After looking towards the umbrella for a moment, it followed along behind Jun Li, far outpaced though it was.

  … … … … … …

  With each execution of her Cloudburst technique, greatly empowered by her completed Viscera Tempering, Jun Li was buffeted with rain as she passed through the air, colliding so heavily with the downpour at her speed that her momentum died far faster than normal.

  Exerting herself to the fullest for the first time since the Earth Dragon's Grave, Jun Li felt with clarity that she had entirely recovered from the injuries she had sustained in the fight with Gao Feng.

  The recovery of her injuries to skin and muscle was aided greatly by the nature of her blood and the vigor imparted by her Viscera Tempering, and luckily, the injuries to her teeth were not to the point of anything breaking or shattering.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  For multiple minutes, Jun Li cycled through falling through the air and exploding forward with her technique, covering the distance of dozens of li it took to reach the edge of the mountain-city.

  Falling to the earth one last time before reaching the city, Jun Li activated the Glass Cloud Art and manipulated it at her feet, landing on the technique of her left foot, and striking her right foot against the ground in a way that distorted the cloud beneath it, forcing it into the shape of a wheel.

  Rotating the cloudy wheel beneath her feet, Jun Li soared up the initially steep mountain, manipulating the cloud of Qi beneath her other foot into the same wheeled shape. Within only a moment, the steep ground vanished from below, the surface of the mountain seeming to have been sheared off, leaving an even and walkable surface.

  As she rode along this uplifted 'mountain wall,' towards the burning district she had seen prior, Jun Li looked about, and saw that the wall she was gliding across was part of the irregular lattice that separated each of the pockmarked sites she had seen from afar. 'How much work could it have taken to carve the mountain like this…?'

  All around, individual neighborhoods lit up like starry skies, illuminating the space around Jun Li in a way she had never seen at such an hour. Dozens crowded each street in bustling activity, and very few bothered to direct their attention to the smoke rising from higher up the mountain.

  'Can't let myself get distracted, I might miss out if I'm late…' She set her idle thoughts aside quickly. Luckily, the burning district she had seen was quite close to the city's edge, and even without being able to lay eyes on it directly, the smoke flowed up like a beacon, telling her where to go.

  Flying over the rocky wall that separated the burning district, Jun Li finally saw the true nature of this place for the first time. Grand buildings, immaculate gardens, and beautiful parks with no evidence of being frequented all stretched out before her eyes, under the hazy orange glow.

  This estate reminded her, for a moment, of the Zhao Kingdom's palace. In terms of beauty and mortal wealth at least, they were equals.

  Landing at the edge of the estate, Jun Li immediately sensed Killing Intent leveled her way, the density of which forced a smile onto her face. 'As expected…!'

  When her eyes moved to the source of the Killing Intent, Jun Li saw two figures in red, looking her way. They were a few dozen meters away, standing at the edge of a building, looming over a trio of corpses. Weapons laid in both the hands of the corpses and those of the duo in red.

  The two held long, thin sabers limply at their sides, neither stowed nor stanced.

  Without hesitation, Jun Li walked towards the two in red, getting a better look at them as she did. Their lower halves were baggy, with baggy and voluminous pants covered in folded layers of fabric, the likes of which could easily conceal any number of weapons.

  Their torsos, on the other hand, had a sleek silhouette, wrapped entirely in red bindings that concealed every part of their body, from their fingers to their faces. 'Even their eyes are covered, I wonder how they see out of that stuff… some sort of Array must be at work in those bindings.'

  "Hey there!" Jun Li called out as she approached, wiping the rain out of her brows. "What's going on around here anyway? I saw a fire and figured I'd check it out." As suspicious and strange as it might sound, Jun Li spoke truthfully. Only, she left out why exactly she felt compelled to 'check it out.'

  Even as Jun Li got within ten meters of the duo, they said nothing, only gazing her way silently, seemingly peering through their bindings with palpable, silent malice. "Hmm? You two seem a bit quiet. Did I say something to upset you?"

  Though Jun Li's words were respectably amiable, the atmosphere between the three was anything but, and Jun Li traced her Spatial Ring, only to remember she lacked any weapon of decent quality at the moment.

  "I see…" A masculine voice spoke out, walking out from behind the building that the duo stood at the corner of. "You two did well to inform me of this; it would have been foolish for you to attack alone." The man who appeared spoke to the duo of wrapped individuals as if there had been some manner of two-way communication.

  When he stepped between the two and looked towards Jun Li, she got a good look at him. He resembled his subordinates, his torso wrapped in red bindings, and his lower half having a baggy complexity, but unlike them, he wore an open-chested robe overtop of his bindings, and a conical hat coiled with red script distinguished his silhouette further.

  "Young Miss… May I ask what business you have here? It seems a poor time to visit." He spoke evenly, but his gaze bore into Jun Li in a way that made it unnecessary for him to issue explicit threats.

  "Well… I saw a fire from outside the city, so I thought I'd see what's going on." Jun Li raised a hand to her chin, and as she spoke, she internally gauged her opponent. "Now that I've seen things from up close, I think I have a good idea."

  "I see." The man in the conical hat narrowed his eyes for a moment, intuiting Jun Li's intention. "Then, you will be moving on, I assume?"

  "I didn't say that." Invisibly, Jun Li controlled the blood beneath the skin of her hands, hardening it in concert with the silver she had implanted in the Earth Dragon's Grave, forming a plate along the back and knuckles of her hand, harder than steel.

  Even without any direct display of hostility, the man knew Jun Li's intent. 'Another arrogant travelling Cultivator, not even fifty years old and thinks she's invincible…' Letting out a sigh, the man in the conical hat spoke calmly.

  "Kill her."