In the opulent yet relaxing tea room, the city lord lightly scratched his head, confused by the strangeness of the four cultivators' response before him, yet unable to identify the reason for it.
Fortunately, to his relief, Hui Lang took the initiative, quickly changing the subject.
"City Lord Leung, you are aware of why we are here, are you not?" Old Hui asked with a firm and serious gaze.
Aotian, Rihai, and Cang Song looked at him calmly, as if they were evaluating his answer, or perhaps not even caring about what he was actually saying.
Deep down, however, the four were eagerly hoping that the talkative city lord would reveal everything he knew of his own accord, without holding anything back or noticing any issue with them.
"Haha… err… well, I believe so," the city lord laughed nervously, shrinking his neck like an ordinary, insecure man.
But the four were not deceived by his appearance, nor by the aura of a mere Nascent Soul cultivator that the man was giving off.
They might not have fully understood how things worked in that small world, but in a city where even pedestrians could reach the Nascent Soul realm, the notion that the city lord himself was only at that realm was utterly absurd.
In the outside world, such a scene would be absurd, as city lords there, for the most part, could barely restrain the urge to brazenly display how strong they were. Thus, seeing a city lord hiding his cultivation and showing weakness made them unconsciously look at Cang Song and wonder whether there was some kinship between them.
Poor Cang Song, who was staring at the city lord with shining eyes and a strange sense of camaraderie, suddenly felt the gazes of his companions fall upon him.
Turning his head and meeting the strange looks of the three, his mouth twitched, and he couldn't help but feel offended for some reason, imagining that they were having rather unpleasant thoughts about him.
Ignoring the exchange of glances before him, with a nervous smile, the city lord quickly formulated his response.
"Two months ago, some cultivators discovered the entrance to a trial site. When this information reached me, I immediately sealed the location and sent a letter to the great Dragon God City."
"The reply reached my hands a month ago, clarifying that the fellow Daoists would arrive today. Thus, I imagine that the two fellow Daoists are escorting these two young ones to participate in the trial."
City Lord Leung Tinhou explained as his expression grew more serious, and at the end, he gave a faint smile to Aotian and Rihai, who were the only ones who appeared youthful in the room, which was indeed the case.
But if one were to consider the ages that powerful cultivators could truly reach, even with Cang Song being over seventy and Hui Lang already past a hundred, they were still, in fact, extremely young.
"Hmm… good, you did well." Hui Lang nodded seriously in approval of the city lord's actions. He then placed his teacup on the table and slowly stood up. "That being the case, if there is nothing more City Lord Leung wishes to report, we will not waste time and will depart immediately."
He stated firmly, while Aotian and the other two followed his lead and also stood up, maintaining calm expressions.
"Cough!" Leung Tinhou, who had paused to take a sip of tea, was caught off guard by the sudden action and choked. Widening his eyes, he quickly swallowed the tea still in his throat, set the cup down, and sprang from his chair in alarm. "Ah! So fast?! But you just arrived!" he exclaimed, confused.
"As we said, we do not intend to waste time. Please, City Lord, prepare transportation and a guide," Hui Lang merely stated, demanding with a distant gaze, as if he did not care about the city lord's opinion.
He knew very little about the matters he was dealing with, but he understood that dragon seeds were glorified figures, and even the city lord showed humility before such an identity. Thus, he imagined that those who carried such an identity should have lofty attitudes, perhaps even arrogant and tyrannical.
As he did not possess such a temperament, he chose to adopt a distant and indifferent posture, something that should not stand out too much.
Regarding the haste to depart, it was clear that it stemmed from the fear that the true dragon seeds might arrive and ruin their plans. One did not need to be a genius to realize that a trial site should be a land of opportunities, possibly connected to the sect's mission of taking control of the small world, so they would seize upon it without hesitation.
Moreover, it was already far too late to retreat. He had arrived there trying to fish for information, assuming an apparently legendary identity—something he never imagined would bring trouble so quickly, within mere hours.
Now, he could not simply say, "Hey, City Lord, sorry, I am not the dragon seed whose arrival you mentioned as a secret matter."
If he did such a thing, Leung Tinhou would undoubtedly wipe away his smile and capture them immediately. He might not be able to harm them, but imprisoning them might not be a problem.
Thus, the only option left was to press forward.
Aotian, Rihai, Hui Lang, and Cang Song could not communicate through sound transmission in front of the city lord, as the risk of interception was real, even if low, considering that he might not dare to do so in the face of their false dragon seed identity.
But taking such a risk was unnecessary. Even without sound transmission, they agreed with and perfectly understood Hui Lang's urgency and ideas.
"W-Well, in that case, I will personally escort you. Come, I'll take you all to my private ship." Leung Tinhou seemed helpless in the face of their haste, which prevented him from properly hosting them and making connections, but he could only nod as he guided them outside.
Meanwhile, Aotian raised an eyebrow at his words, thoughtful.
'A ship? A flying ship?'
'Aren't formations and forging suppressed in this world? How could he have a flying ship? Unless it came from outside or was built using this world's inheritances…'
He pondered as he cast a discreet glance at his own robes, which, in fact, concealed still-functioning formations.
'I imagine the world interferes with the creation of new things, but objects already created end up not suffering interference,' he reflected, not dwelling too much on it.
Soon, they passed through several corridors and finally emerged into a large, rather unsightly garden, with the soil completely churned up, where they immediately spotted an enormous wooden ship, with half of its hull sunk into the mud.
The ship, despite its rustic appearance, was about fifteen hundred feet long, making it a true colossus.
Aotian and his companions looked at the scene with confused expressions.
When the city lord had mentioned his private ship, they had imagined something far more luxurious than a huge, rough wooden vessel stuck in the mud.
Ding-ding-ding!
'Huh?' A sound reached their ears, and they quickly realized it came from the ship.
On the lower part of the hull visible to them, four enormous chains, whose ends seemed to be deeply embedded in the earth, suddenly shook, producing the sound. At the front of the ship, there was a fifth, and the sound seemed to come from the other side as well.
Aotian trusted his hearing and counted nine.
Nine powerful chains firmly anchoring the ship to the ground, which only increased their confusion, especially as to why they had swayed, since the wind could not move something so heavy.
"Let's board, it shouldn't take more than an hour to get there." The city lord turned to them and smiled.
Although they were confused about how the ship would move, considering there were no energetic fluctuations of formations coming from it, they didn't ask anything and simply followed the city lord in a short flight, until they landed on the deck of the enormous ship, which seemed quite desolate with only five people aboard.
The city lord smiled and then clapped his hands.
Clap-Clap!
The simple sound of his clapping echoed for a long time in that empty space, breaking the silence with its resonance.
Aotian narrowed his eyes attentively, prepared for what would come next.
And he waited, as the sound carried far, until it slowly faded away…
And then he waited a little longer as the seconds passed…
And waited…
Nothing happened.
Four pairs of eyes suddenly turned toward the city lord's back, who was standing in a confident pose, arms behind his back. The assured smile on his face slowly stiffened as he began to sweat, his brown eyes darting around, full of embarrassment.
"Haha… err… well, it happens sometimes, they're a bit hard of hearing, you know," he explained, giving an awkward smile as he scratched his head.
'They?' Aotian and the others were a little confused, but soon their eyes widened slightly.
Boom!
An intense tremor suddenly coursed through the ship, as nine colossal earthworms abruptly emerged from the ground and rose up around it.
Around their necks, iron collars were connected by chains to the ship's hull. The worms made no earth-shaking roar, only the movement of their immense bodies, which generated a heavy, continuous rumble.
As soon as they emerged, they turned their round, featureless faces toward Leung Tinhou, looking like simple, ordinary earthworms, just enormously oversized. Aotian couldn't even see their mouths, which made them seem almost cute and harmless.
But with their fifth-tier beast auras, they were anything but that.
"Ah! There they are," the city lord smiled with extreme relief upon seeing them, finally setting aside his embarrassment. Then, pointing forward majestically, he ordered without hesitation, "Girls, set sail!"
Upon receiving the order, the giant earthworms merely swayed their bodies slightly and then began to swim through the air, ascending.
The chains connected to their necks tightened, and the ship lurched forward. Then, under the terrifying strength of the nine worms, especially the leading one, which was the largest, the ship emerged from the muddy ground, rising into the skies.
Soon, propelled by the worms as they moved their serpentine bodies faster and faster, the ship gained speed and, in a short time, became nothing more than a fleeting glimmer slicing through the sky.
…
Outside the small world, in the vast desert where the gates of the mahayana mansion were located, at a great distance but still within the region also known as the forbidden area, there existed a decaying city.
There, people walked with their faces covered, heads lowered, exuding an atmosphere of suspicion and lifelessness.
Chaos, theft, fights, and death were everywhere in that city, as if common sense and civility could not exist in such a place.
That place had no name, being known only as the city of exiles, where only those who were wanted or who could no longer remain on the continent sought shelter in desperation.
Yet everyone knew that this was merely seeking a slow death instead of salvation, because if they didn't die at the hands of the city's other inhabitants, they might still suddenly disappear one day, never to be heard from again.
The entire forbidden desert was an area that swallowed people, and everyone knew it.
But it was in the city of exiles, on what seemed to be just another ordinary day of death and despair, that something unusual happened.
An enormous shadow covered the city, causing everyone walking the streets with lowered heads to raise them for the first time in what seemed like a very long time.
As they did, their eyes suddenly widened in horror.
Reflected in all of them was a single image.
A massive black ship, larger than the city itself, stained with red lights like lava, with a sinister dragon head at its prow.