Chapter 4711 — I Want to Take a Look

"That may be so, but I still want to take a look," Wei Zhao said after a moment's thought.

He was not a man easily bewitched or swayed—not merely because his divine sense was powerful, but above all because his will was tough enough; otherwise he could never have held out long enough to escape from under the Old Sect of the Western Hills in the first place.

This time he was utterly certain: the mountain of the Heavenly Dao before him was the place he wanted to go. He could not say why, only that he must.

"This…" Huo Yudie looked at him strangely, at a loss. She had said so much, and still had not talked him out of it. They were partners of a temporary party, it was true, but this was a matter only Wei Zhao could decide; further words from her would be useless.

"How about you wait for me here?" Wei Zhao said after thinking it over. The offer actually made him a little ashamed—after all, they had agreed to seek the Thunder Mystic Vine together, and now he meant to break off midway for the Heavenly Dao Mountain. It was not just a waste of time; the crux was that he might very well never come back, which amounted to standing Huo Yudie up…

"All right, I'll go with you," Huo Yudie said suddenly.

"You too? That won't do!" This unaccountable sentence gave Wei Zhao a great fright. If he let her accompany him and it cost her her life, that was a burden he could not bear.

"Why won't it do? You can go, so why can't I? What sort of reasoning is that?" Huo Yudie shot him a look.

All that she had said just now had been meant not only to dissuade Wei Zhao but to dissuade herself as well, for she too felt this inexplicable urge. Now that she could not talk Wei Zhao out of it, and could not obtain the Thunder Mystic Vine on her own, she might as well follow him to the Heavenly Dao Mountain and have a look—it was not as though they were certain to die.

"Uh…" Wei Zhao was speechless. After a long, searching look at Huo Yudie, he nodded. "All right, then. We'll go together—and be careful."

"Mm." Huo Yudie nodded firmly.

Once their minds were made up, the two changed course at once for the Heavenly Dao Mountain. As the distance shrank, an indefinable sense of wonder rose in both their hearts.

From afar it had been nothing much. Even knowing this was the Heavenly Dao Mountain, it had looked unremarkable at a distance; but now, drawing near, the scene was utterly different from before.

The mountain was far more dilapidated than it had appeared—verging on collapse. Had it not leaned against the cliff wall of the ten-thousand-year Grand Canyon on one side, it would likely have come crashing down long ago.

And that was not even the strangest part. What truly made the flesh creep was the faint shroud of blood-red mist around the Heavenly Dao Mountain.

Wei Zhao had roamed the Southern Continent long enough to have seen every sort: sea mist, miasma, and the like. But blood-red mist was a first. Knowing this was an ancient battlefield where countless mighty beings of old were buried, any normal person would instinctively associate such mist with fresh blood—yet there was no smell of blood here.

After so long, it would be only natural for the smell of blood to have dissipated. In fact, if it still lingered now, that would be the truly eerie thing.

Yet for some reason, the feel of this blood-red mist made Wei Zhao instinctively recall a sight he had seen before: the blood-colored moon.

Whatever else might be said, at least this blood-red mist shrouding the Heavenly Dao Mountain was exactly the same as the blood-colored layer that had once enveloped the waning moon—quite possibly the very same substance, though there was no way to verify it.

Suppressing his alarm and doubt, Wei Zhao—and Huo Yudie no less—felt that inexplicable urge now a hundred times stronger than before; it all but urged them onward without a moment's pause. Let their steps slow by the least fraction, and it hammered at the heart, making them quicken their pace without thinking.

Wei Zhao himself was all right—his mind stayed as clear as before. But Huo Yudie's gaze had gone somewhat fixed. At first she had followed cautiously behind him; now she had plainly overtaken him and was striding swiftly ahead.

Seeing her steps grow faster and faster until she had broken into a jog, Wei Zhao was alarmed and hurried to catch up and pull her back.

The feeling was simply too wrong. He even regretted it a little—if anything happened to Huo Yudie here, he would be absolutely to blame.

The blood-red mist was close at hand. Wei Zhao quickened his pace to catch up, but before he could seize her, Huo Yudie's figure suddenly darted forward—she had used a movement technique with all her strength, and in an instant she had plunged into the blood-red mist.

Wei Zhao was stunned for a moment; the next instant he had chased in after her. Then his body gave a violent shudder—before he could make out the scene before him, a mighty torrent of consciousness came flooding in, overwhelming heaven and earth, and chaotic images flashed rapidly through his mind.

The scene was familiar. When he had encountered that lingering obsession of the giant electric eel, just such a flood of memory fragments had poured in. He had never expected to meet with such a thing again.

Especially once those countless fragments came together and the whole sequence grew clear—what he saw in his mind gave Wei Zhao a great shock. It really was the giant electric eel!

He had been worrying about Huo Yudie's condition, but at the sight of the giant electric eel, Wei Zhao froze where he stood, his entire mind drawn helplessly into the memory fragments and unable to pull free.

Now at last he understood: the thing that had drawn him here by some unseen pull was most likely the obsession of this giant electric eel, resonating with the lingering obsession in his own mind.

Whether this giant electric eel was the same one he had met before, Wei Zhao could not tell—its size was about the same, and it was hard to distinguish by appearance alone. But one thing at least was certain: there must be some tie between him and this giant electric eel.

A moment later, the jumbled fragments of memory merged into one within his mind, and with a breath of ancient, savage wilderness rushing over him, the scene slowly unfolded.

The place was still the Heavenly Dao Mountain, yet looking about, all the other peaks seemed small beneath it; everywhere he looked were the utterly familiar sights of the desert—and there was no such ten-thousand-year Grand Canyon as the one that existed now!

So Huo Yudie had been right after all: in the past, this ten-thousand-year Grand Canyon truly had not existed.