The morning sun struggled to pierce the thick, ash laden clouds that hovered over the capital of the House of Night. The aftermath of the grand banquet still hung heavily in the air. The streets of the inner citadel were unusually quiet.

  Li Yu and Demon Lord Malos walked through the massive bronze gates of the Sunless Hall and they were ready to depart. True to his word, Li Yu had no intention of lingering here for long. He had helped secure the survival of Vespera’s family, witnessed their successful reclamation of the capital and enjoyed a meal in their house.

  He had observed a bit of how they were ruling and while it wasn’t exactly how he would do it, he saw no reason to interfere. Things were different here, the people were different, the customs were different. The style of ruling was different here and he knew he didn’t have the right mentality for it.

  However, he filed it into the back of his mind in case he ever ended up in a leadership role. That there wasn’t one perfect way to do it. That it depended on the place, the people and many other circumstances. With that knowledge filed away, his business here was concluded.

  Waiting for them at the outer courtyard were Queen Morrigan and Princess Vespera. The Vanguard soldiers stationed nearby stood at rigid attention. They didn't dare to even breathe too loudly in the presence of the human who sat at the Queen's right hand and the eccentric scholar who was undeniably a Sovereign of the demonic realms.

  "You are leaving so soon," Morrigan said. She offered a respectful bow that was perfectly calibrated. To the observing guards, it looked like a bow meant for Malos but Li Yu knew the true weight of her gaze was directed entirely at him. "The House of Night has barely begun to show its hospitality."

  "The hospitality was more than enough, Your Majesty," Li Yu smiled. "I am a wanderer at heart. Staying in one place for too long makes my joints ache. Besides, you have a kingdom to rebuild. I can’t help you there and would only get in the way."

  Vespera stepped forward. "The lesser warlords to the south and east have sent envoys offering tribute, but we are rejecting any new territories. We have our home back and our family is gathering. That is enough. We will not be expanding anymore. At least not any time soon."

  "A wise decision," Li Yu nodded approvingly. "Rebuild your foundation first. Overextending now would just invite trouble from scavengers. They won’t always fear your backers. And remember the one condition we discussed."

  "We will not march on the human territories," Morrigan affirmed without hesitation. She touched the spot on her robes where she kept the communication token Li Yu had given her. "The House of Night will remain a neutral border against humanity. You have my word. And my life."

  She spoke the last three words softly enough that only Li Yu and Vespera could hear.

  "Good," Li Yu said. It wasn’t much but it was what he could currently do for humanity here. Morrigan hesitated for a moment. Her regal expression shifted into something more thoughtful as she looked out toward the unforgiving horizon of the demonic world.

  "Before you depart, there is something you should know." the Queen said softly. "The boundaries between this realm and the others have always been erratic but lately, an unusual number of spatial rifts have been appearing across zones. It seems to be a natural shift, a cyclical thinning of the veil."

  Li Yu raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

  "Some are merely volatile tears that lead into the void but others are more stable." Morrigan explained. "If you are hoping to find a direct path back to your home in the human realms, this instability might be your greatest opportunity. Encountering the right rift could lead you straight home."

  Li Yu remained silent for a long moment.

  "If a rift opens and it leads back, I'll take it," Li Yu said. "But I won't spend my days chasing shadows across the wasteland hoping for a door to open. I have a new realm of power to explore and a vast world in front of me. It will be up to fate, then. Even if I were to chase them, I wouldn’t know how. And they would have to lead back to my world as well."

  Morrigan smiled knowingly. "Fate is a fickle master but it seems to favor you. Safe travels, Li Yu."

  "Try not to destroy any more agricultural zones while I'm gone," Li Yu told Vespera with a teasing grin. He had told them that the demons could use some help. It is quite a disaster out there. The royal family had agreed to send out more experts to help.

  "I make no promises," the princess smirked and offered him a warrior's salute.

  With their farewells concluded, Li Yu and Malos turned and walked down the path. They left the recovering capital of the House of Night behind them. For the first day after that, they simply walked.

  The pace was incredibly slow compared to what either of them was capable of. Malos spent the first few hours of the journey happily cataloging the "loot" he had acquired at the banquet.

  "I traded two of my finest river stones for a silver goblet and a rather exquisite bone carving knife," Malos announced proudly. He held the goblet up to the dull sunlight. "The chieftain of the Blood Ape tribe thought he was getting the better end of the deal. He perceived my stones as profound artifacts. I knew I would eventually encounter other visionaries that shared my understanding."

  "You aggressively flared your peerless aura until the man was sweating blood and then you shoved the rocks into his hands," Li Yu pointed out dryly. "He didn't think it was a good deal, Malos. He thought he was paying a ransom to keep his head attached to his neck."

  "Semantics," Malos waved his hand dismissively. "You too lack vision. The barter system is built entirely on perceived value. He perceived that my rocks were more valuable than his goblet. A flawless exchange. I am becoming quite the merchant. Perhaps I should become a roaming merchant instead of a roaming traveler."

  By the afternoon of their second day on the road, the sparse dirt paths gave way to a wider, heavily trafficked thoroughfare that cut through a desolate canyon. It was here that they began to notice a drastic change in the atmosphere.

  The roads were usually empty, save for the occasional heavily armed caravan or predatory beast. Today, however, the path was crowded. Dozens of groups of cultivators and demonic entities were rushing in the same direction. There were packs of scaled hounds carrying cloaked riders. Human rogue cultivators flying on swords and massive, lumbering stone trolls jogging with single minded purpose.

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  Everyone was heading north and everyone looked greedy. Li Yu and Malos paused at a makeshift roadside watering hole. It was just a muddy spring surrounded by a few crude wooden benches. A group of four avian demons with razor sharp feathers were aggressively gulping down water while arguing amongst themselves.

  "I'm telling you, if we don't pick up the pace, the sects will seal the entrance!" One of the avian demons squawked. His feathers ruffled with anxiety. "They say the outer seals are already cracking!"

  "Let them crack," another replied while wiping mud from his beak. "The first ones through the door always trigger the death traps anyway. We wait for the major warlords to clear the arrays, then we slip in and loot the outer courtyards."

  Li Yu walked over and pulled a few spirit stones from his ring. He tossed them in front of the avian demons. The clatter of the stones instantly bought their undivided attention.

  "Friends," Li Yu said politely. "My companion and I have been traveling and haven't heard the news. What entrance are you talking about? Where is everyone rushing to?"

  The avian demon snatched up the stones with blinding speed. He looked at Li Yu’s aura, then at Malos’s completely hidden Qi and let out a harsh, clicking laugh.

  "You two must have been sleeping under a rock for the last week," the demon sneered. However, the payment kept him relatively civil. "An ancient ruin surfaced up north in the Whispering Wastes. It just breached the surface of the earth."

  "Ruins surface from time to time I hear." Li Yu noted.

  "Not like this one," the second demon leaned in. His eyes were wide with greed. "It’s a complete and untouched demonic inheritance ground. The architecture matches the texts describing the ancient 'Gore Forged Clan.’ They were masters of body refinement and blood arts before they were wiped out. The rumors say their entire clan armory and their supreme inheritance techniques are sealed inside."

  "It’s going to open soon," the first demon added as he stood up and prepared to leave. "Every warlord, sect master and greedy rogue that has heard is gathering there. If you two are only at the Core Formation realm, I suggest you turn around. That place is going to be a bloodbath."

  The demons took flight and joined the massive rush of travelers heading north. Li Yu turned to look at Malos. The Demon Lord’s eyes were practically sparkling with delight.

  "An ancient inheritance ground from the Gore Forged Clan," Malos whispered. A wide, manic grin spread across his face. "Thousands of greedy fools and demons gather in one place to fight over rusty swords and moldy scrolls. The betrayals. The dramatic speeches. The tragic deaths. Li Yu... the chaos of it all."

  "You want to go," Li Yu stated. It wasn't a question.

  "Want to? Li Yu, this is the pinnacle of mortal experience!" Malos grabbed Li Yu by the shoulders and gave him a firm shake. "A treasure hunt! We must go! We will blend in with the rabble, watch the arrogant young masters threaten each other and perhaps I can trade some of my river stones for an ancient blood artifact!"

  Li Yu couldn't help but laugh at the Sovereign's enthusiasm. "I don't have a specific direction I need to go anyway. I suppose exploring an ancient ruin is as good a way as any to stretch my legs. But if it's in the Whispering Wastes, that's at least a month's journey on foot. By the time we get there at our current pace, the ruins will be picked clean and everyone will have gone home."

  Malos let go of Li Yu's shoulders and stroked his chin thoughtfully. He looked down at the dirt road and then up at the sky. He was clearly weighing his options.

  "It pains me to break the immersion of our humble traveler routine," Malos sighed dramatically. "But some things are simply too grand to miss the opening act. We shall make an exception. Just this once."

  Malos took a step back. The ambient light of the canyon seemed to bend and warp, pulling toward his gray robes as if he had become a gravitational singularity.

  Li Yu watched closely. He had reached the Divine Transformation realm, giving him a much deeper understanding of the laws of the world, but the casual way Malos manipulated reality was still breathtaking. The Demon Lord didn't use hand seals or chant incantations. He simply raised a pale hand and hooked his fingers in the empty air.

  With a sound like tearing silk, the fabric of space ripped open. A swirling, violet void appeared before them. It wasn't a chaotic and unpredictable rift like the ones Queen Morrigan had spoken of. This was perfectly stable. It was a surgically precise doorway forged by having advanced knowledge of space.

  "After you, my friend," Malos gestured toward the tear with a polite bow.

  Li Yu stepped through the portal and Malos followed instantly. The spatial tear snapped shut behind them and left the dusty canyon road empty once more. The transition was instantaneous. One moment, Li Yu was standing in a rocky canyon; the next, his boots crunched against coarse, gray sand.

  The Whispering Wastes earned their name. A constant, howling wind blew across the desolate landscape. With it, carried the sound of what seemed like thousands of murmuring voices. But the wind wasn't the most overwhelming sensory input.

  It was the sheer volume of people.

  Malos had deposited them on a high dune overlooking an enormous canyon sized crater. At the dead center of the crater, jutting out of the earth like a skeletal hand reaching for the heavens, was the entrance to the ancient ruins. Massive pillars of dark crimson stone supported a gate sealed by a swirling vortex of blood red Qi. The architecture was brutal, jagged and radiated a heavy and ancient oppression.

  But it was the area surrounding the crater that was truly staggering.

  In the week since the ruins had been discovered, a massive and sprawling makeshift town had spontaneously erupted into existence. Thousands of tents, pavilions and temporary wooden structures formed a thick ring around the crater's edge. There were some nicer ones that were clearly made by refined artifacts as well.

  It was a chaotic tapestry of factions. Li Yu could see the banners of dozens of different demonic groups snapping in the wind. There were heavily fortified encampments guarded by massive beasts, and smaller, shabbier sections packed with independent rogue cultivators. Black markets had already sprung up. Merchants were shouting from the backs of giant tortoises and selling guaranteed survival talismans along with overpriced healing pills.

  The air was thick with the smell of roasting meat, sweat, sulfur and the tense, crackling energy of thousands of heavily armed individuals waiting for things to start.

  "Magnificent," Malos breathed out. He stood at the edge of the dune and looked down at the encampment like a child looking at a festival. "Just look at them, Li Yu. The tension! You can practically taste the impending violence. Over there, look! Those two rival sects are glaring at each other. They will definitely murder each other before the gate even opens. I haven’t been to one of these since I was in my youth. But even then I had visions of what was going to happen. However, it was still extremely exciting then because I was so weak. I had to think and plan all of my next steps carefully. What a time it was to be alive then!"

  Li Yu nodded, his eyes scanning the massive crowd. There were thousands of Foundation Establishment and Core Formation cultivators. They were mostly serving as cannon fodder or hopeful opportunists. But there were also dozens of powerful Nascent Soul auras anchoring the larger faction tents. He even felt the faint, suppressed ripples of a few Soul Formation experts hiding among the masses. They were waiting to strike when the true treasures were revealed.

  "It's a powder keg," Li Yu agreed. His hands rested comfortably in his pockets. "The moment that red seal drops, this entire town is going to turn into a warzone."

  "Then we must be a part of it all. The unknown chaos, I can’t believe I get to be a part of it." Malos declared. He was already marching down the dune toward the chaotic shantytown. "Come along, Li Yu! We need to find a place to set up camp and I need to see if the local merchants accept painted river stones!"

  Li Yu let out a soft sigh and a smile touched his lips. He followed the eccentric Demon Lord down into the sea of tents. They navigated through the muddy and newly formed streets. They were dodging arguing mercenaries and massive beasts of burden.

  They eventually found a small and unclaimed patch of dirt near the outer edge of the crater. Malos effortlessly pulled a travel pavilion from his spatial ring and set it up in moments. It was modest and blended perfectly with the hundreds of other rogue cultivators waiting for their chance at glory.

  They sat beneath the canopy of their pavilion and watched the swirling blood red vortex of the ruin's gate in the distance.