Chapter 398 - Misty Outlines
The Misty Mountains ascended before Song Song like icy peaks. At least, that was what the outlines covered in white mist looked like.
Song Song stood at the foot of the mountain range, her hands folded behind her back, eyes fixed on the jagged peaks that vanished into rolling layers of pale mist. The setting sun hung low behind the range, but its light seemed… weaker here. Dimmed. As if the mountains drank from it.
The air was colder than it should have been, she observed.
There was some kind of Yin-Qi suction force here.
Was that why Liu Feng had brought that bimbo, Ye An?
Liu Feng had explained to everyone in the team what he knew about the place and had even gone into detail about his experience the last time he was here.
Song Song had come because she was bored with all the killing.
It used to be much more fun when there were consequences for the endeavor. Now, sending an enemy to die on the front lines was so… boring. Nobody rebutted her, nor did they try to do anything behind her back.
She liked the taste of the forbidden fruit, but it was now too readily available and it was no longer so forbidden, losing some of its excitement.
Anyway, she was here to get away from the boring bureaucracy of everything.
No wind moved through the trees. No insects sang. Even the ground felt muted beneath her boots, as though sound itself hesitated to exist too loudly in this place.
It was very eerie.
She narrowed her eyes, glancing at the woman who had kind of ruined this journey for her, Ye An. Song Song finding out that a traitorous whelp like that bitch had surpassed her cultivation had truly ruined her good mood.
But that woman was especially sensitive to Yin Qi. Did she sense anything strange?
If she didn't say anything, Song Song was going to suggest to Liu Feng that they kill her here.
The mist did not drift like ordinary fog. It coiled and folded inward on itself in slow, deliberate spirals. Watching it too long made Song Song feel as though it were breathing.
Jiang Yeming and Tingfeng shifted behind her.
The others did not.
There was something oppressive about the atmosphere, not overtly hostile, not violent. Just aware. Like standing before a closed door, knowing something waited on the other side.
The sun dipped lower.
“Are you sure it is a good idea to enter at night?” Song Song asked.
“It doesn't matter. When inside the Misty Mountains, whether it is day or night doesn't matter,” Liu Feng said, his voice strangely cautious. He usually didn't reveal his emotions like this. “But from my memory, it seems like the range of the mist covering the ground has extended about four carriage lengths.”
The sun's final rays brushed the mountain peaks, but instead of igniting them gold, the light fractured and thinned, swallowed by the haze. For a fleeting moment, the entire range seemed less like stone and more like a silhouette cut out against a darkening sky.
“Let’s go,” Liu Feng murmured behind her.
Song Song stepped forward first.
The mist swallowed them almost immediately.
Sound dulled.
Distance lost meaning, and it kind of felt like when Liu Feng used his spatial technique.
The world shrank to pale gray and the faint outlines of those nearest to her. Her spiritual sense stretched outward, brushing against something vast and cold that withdrew just as quickly.
Then a voice echoed through the fog.
“Ah," it sounded calm and amused.
The mist parted slightly ahead of them. Song Song sensed that at least the team was not separated.
A figure stood there, its shape blurred at the edges as though it refused to be fully seen. Its presence felt wrong, like ink spilled into water, spreading quietly without resistance.
“Surprising that for some of you, this is not your first time here. Unlike that fool who likes counting his steps, I prefer giving my opponents a fighting chance,” the figure said lightly. “So, you can ask me three questions.”
Everyone on the team instinctively turned toward Liu Feng, quietly choosing him to take the lead.
Liu Feng didn't hesitate and took two steps forward.
But this was calculated, because he had warned them not to say or do things carelessly here.
“What are you and the other creatures here?” Liu Feng asked.
“Your kind has taken the habit of calling us demons and devils, but just consider us players from another world, sealed here due to some meddling humans,” said the creature calmly, like a teacher answering a student's question.
Liu Feng waited in silence for the other party to say more, but they didn't. He frowned but did not voice anything out of caution.
“Who created this place?” he asked.
“It was more of a collaborative effort than something you can point at a single person, but one of those people was a descendant of the one you know as the Four Way Immortal. Sadly, that bloodline has long since forgotten the schemes their ancestor orchestrated many millennia ago,” answered the creature.
He was either trying to make him anxious or telling him something important.
“Then what is the challenge that you need us to complete?” Liu Feng asked. It was clear by the glint in his eyes that he wanted to ask many other things, but the group needed an advantage in the upcoming trial.
“Some of us rather enjoy games from our previous lives," it said.
Song Song’s fingers twitched.
“Board games. Strategy games. Power games. Of course, they're all from our world, so it is unlikely for people here to know them and they have to deduce the rules mid-play,” it explained.
A pause.
“But I chose something simpler.”
The mist around it thickened, curling upward like a curtain rising.
“Something both worlds have in common.”
Its form sharpened just enough for her to glimpse a faint smile.
“Riddles.”
The word seemed to hang unnaturally in the air, vibrating faintly.
Song Song’s expression did not change.
But her heart beat once, slow and steady.
She was calm. Knowing this game couldn't be won with simple murder.
The mist thickened, and the demon’s presence sharpened.
“Three riddles,” it said lightly. “Answer them correctly… and you may proceed.”
A faint ripple passed through the air.
Liu Feng didn’t move, but Song Song saw it, the subtle stillness in him and the calculation behind his eyes.
A flicker of invisible dice rolled somewhere in the unseen.
“First riddle,” the demon’s voice echoed, “I can heal what hurts, or make it worse. I can fly when you’re happy, and crawl when you wait. You can’t hold me, but you always feel me. What am I?”
Silence fell.
Song Song’s thoughts moved quickly. What the hell was this supposed to mean? Was the answer mood? Or perhaps an itch during a serious moment? It could also be a hangover.
“Time,” Liu Feng answered calmly.
The mist trembled faintly.
The demon hummed. “Correct.”
narrowed her
No celebration. No pause.
It continued.
“Second riddle. I move without feet and pass without leaving. I steal today and hand you tomorrow. No matter how you chase me, I’m always ahead. What am I?”
This time, the answer felt obvious.
“Time,” Liu Feng said without hesitation.
The mist recoiled slightly, slowly beginning to reveal the creature's form.
“…Correct.”
Song Song narrowed her eyes.
Two riddles with the same answer? What was this?
The demon’s tone lost some of its amusement.
“Now for the third riddle. I’m the one thing everyone spends, but nobody can earn back. You can waste me, save me, or lose me, but you can’t stop me. What am I?”
Song Song inhaled and was about to answer. “Ti–”
Liu Feng lifted his hand as a signal to stop her.
“Time,” he said first.
The mist stilled completely and for a moment, there was nothing.
Then the mist-covered demonic figure clicked its tongue.
“Unfair,” it complained.
The fog parted wider, revealing it properly.
Its form was elongated and wrong, like a shadow forced into three dimensions. Its limbs were too long, bending at joints that didn’t align with anatomy. Its face, if it could be called that, was smooth and pale, with dark fissures running through it like cracked porcelain skin. Its eyes were not eyes, but hollow voids filled with faint, swirling script.
“You already deduced the rules of this place,” it said, almost petulant. “You recognized the pattern after the first answer. That makes repetition trivial.”
Liu Feng’s expression did not change.
The creature sighed dramatically.
“You humans,” it muttered. “Always trying to outthink the framework.”
It drifted closer, mist folding around it like obedient silk.
“Power is meaningless against us,” it added conversationally. “You could shatter mountains, tear apart the sky, and it would not harm us.”
Song Song felt her Qi stir instinctively.
The demon tilted its head.
“In our world, death is not caused by force. It is a strange concept to us that someone can cease to exist simply because they were struck hard enough.”
A faint ripple of amusement passed through it.
“We die only if defeated in a game. Even once.”
The words settled heavily in the mist.
Song Song glanced at Liu Feng.
He merely nodded faintly, as if confirming something he already suspected.
What kind of world produces creatures like this? she wondered. It was no doubt a very boring world.
Liu Feng, meanwhile, seemed more intrigued than disturbed.
“A world where concepts outweigh matter,” he said quietly. “How inconvenient.”
The demon narrowed its hollow gaze.
Liu Feng turned toward the rest of the group.
“We’ve been manipulated,” he said calmly.
Song Song frowned slightly.
“What do you mean?” Song San asked.
“Someone with a divination technique nudged our path,” Liu Feng continued. “Guided probabilities. Ensured we would arrive here at precisely this time.”
The demon’s form rippled faintly.
“And you’re certain of that?” Ye An asked, watching him carefully. Her freezing presence didn’t have much of an effect here, which meant this place was suppressing her Extreme Physique.
It made Song Song feel like throwing up just at the thought that a place like this might have a solution to Ye An's problem with her Extreme Physique.
“Yes,” Liu Feng looked back toward the demon. “And for confirming it… Thank you.”
The mist shifted uneasily.
“What?” Song Song blinked.
How had he reached that conclusion so quickly?
She retraced the steps in her mind with all the riddles, the pattern, the timing, and the creature’s complaints. But she couldn’t see the full chain he had followed.
Still, she did not question him aloud.
If Liu Feng said they had been led here, then she trusted him.
And the Misty Mountains were merely the board for the game between Liu Feng and this unknown existence, and Song Song did not believe he would lose when he was in his element.
“Wait, now that Liu Feng defeated your challenge, are you going to die?” Song Song asked.
The creature didn't even look at her, finding Song Song and everyone else insignificant, she could feel it. Which pissed her off to no end. But this wasn't someone she could take on by simply attacking, and sadly, she was not confident in solving riddles to defeat the creature at its own game.
“Death is never an absolute concept for us. And just as we were summoned to this world through a ritual, we can be summoned back from the dead. But do not worry we killed the human who summoned us back then, as we were forced into a game,” said the creature.
Liu Feng's eyes flickered with a glint that was impossible for others to notice, but Song Song had spent enough time around him to realize that her partner had discovered something significant. The tension in his shoulders eased.
Heh. They had already won, Song Song thought, and her confidence grew.
She had almost forgotten how comforting it was to have someone like Liu Feng on her team. He was no longer involved in running the Sect, having said there was no need for him there, as he was only useful at subtle tactics.
If this were any other time, after finishing with this ordeal, Song Song would have invited Liu Feng again to stand in on the important meetings that decided the fates of millions or even the entire human race on this continent.
But now that even some icy bitch like Ye An had surpassed her, Song Song no longer planned to waste time managing a Sect. Which was something she had always treated more as a hobby, as she never truly cared about it.
When she returned, she planned to focus solely on cultivation and refining her techniques, supplementing them with Liu Feng’s help and entering a semi-closed-door cultivation.
“Is there some kind of regulatory system that processes your death? For example, after you ‘die,’ your being gets processed into Qi that is then spread into the world, in a way that would guarantee a more permanent death?” Liu Feng said.
“Smart, but that is something the contract I made with a certain man specifies that I can’t disclose,” the creature said, almost confirming that Liu Feng was right, or at least on the right track to understanding how this all worked.
Song Song no longer bothered staring at them and instead observed the space around her, as she could no longer quite follow the terminology they were discussing.
The only thing she was worried about was that someone might be manipulating things behind the scenes, as she got that feeling from what Liu Feng and the creature were talking about.