Last time Yang Kai had come here, it was this person who had led him to meet the Ancestor of Feng Yun Pass.
"Greetings, Senior Yuan." Yang Kai cupped his fists and bowed.
Yuan Xingge gave a slight nod, his expression grave. "What brings you here on urgent business?"
Personnel moving between passes always signaled that something significant had occurred, so upon receiving the report, he had rushed over immediately.
Yang Kai said, "There is something I wish to ask."
"Go ahead."
"Thirty thousand years ago, when Da Yan Pass fell—were there any anomalies with the teleportation grand formation here at Feng Yun Pass?"
"Thirty thousand years ago…" Yuan Xingge was rendered speechless. "I've only been at Feng Yun Pass for a little over ten thousand years."
Something that happened thirty thousand years ago? How would he know? That was far too long ago. Thirty thousand years ago, he probably hadn't even been born yet.
"Are there any elders in the pass who were around thirty thousand years ago?"
"There are… but they may not know about matters here."
Everyone had their own affairs to attend to—who would be monitoring the teleportation formation continuously? Unless they had been stationed here the entire time during that period.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Yuan Xingge asked, "Is this matter important?"
Yang Kai nodded solemnly. "Very important."
Yuan Xingge turned around. "Come with me. I'll take you to see the Ancestor."
Asking others about this would likely be of little use. It would be best to consult the Ancestor, who had certainly been guarding Feng Yun Pass for well over thirty thousand years.
Before long, in that secluded corner of Feng Yun Pass where the Ancestor's Small Universe manifested—a place of green mountains and clear waters—Yang Kai once again laid eyes upon the Ancestor of Feng Yun Pass, who was herding cattle as before.
Thanks to the Laughing Ancestor's earlier hint, Yang Kai made a point of observing carefully this time and indeed noticed that one of the old bull's horns was slightly broken. He secretly surmised that this must be an extraordinarily powerful Bull Demon.
After all, anything the Laughing Ancestor had taken note of was sure to be remarkable.
Perhaps sensing Yang Kai's gaze lingering on its ribcage, the old bull raised its head from grazing and let out a low moo at him.
Yuan Xingge stepped forward and whispered a few words to the Ancestor. The Ancestor nodded, then looked up at Yang Kai and asked, "Why do you suddenly want to investigate events from thirty thousand years ago?"
Yang Kai cupped his fists. "Reporting to the Ancestor—the Da Yan Core has been lost."
The moment these words left his lips, Yuan Xingge's expression shifted slightly, though this was not entirely unexpected. After all, the Mo Clan had occupied Da Yan for over thirty thousand years—there was no way they would have left the Core behind.
But what did the loss of the Core have to do with the teleportation formation at Feng Yun Pass thirty thousand years ago?
Before they could ask, Yang Kai explained, "I suspect that when Da Yan Pass fell thirty thousand years ago, a Da Yan soldier took the Core, intending to transport it to Feng Yun Pass."
The Ancestor regarded him with interest. "What makes you think so?"
Yang Kai replied earnestly, "If I were a Da Yan soldier—thirty thousand years ago, with the Ancestor fighting a desperate battle, strength failing, comrades dying, the pass on the brink of collapse—the only thing I could do would be to find a way to preserve the Da Yan Core. And the only way to preserve it would be to send it through the teleportation formation to a nearby pass."
The Ancestor nodded. "Mm, that makes sense. Continue."
"The two passes neighboring Da Yan were Feng Yun Pass and Qing Xu Pass. Given the urgency of the situation, they would certainly have chosen whichever of the two was closest."
"Then why Feng Yun Pass rather than Qing Xu Pass?"
Yang Kai said, "After we recaptured Da Yan, I oversaw the reconstruction of the teleportation grand formation. It took considerable effort to repair it completely, but when the final teleportation to Feng Yun Pass was attempted, something went wrong. It seemed as though some kind of force within the transmission corridor was interfering, preventing the two locations from connecting properly. I had no choice but to enter the corridor myself, break through the obstruction, and pierce the passage open so the formation could function. Senior Yuan should be aware of this."
Yuan Xingge, standing nearby, nodded slightly.
When the Da Yan teleportation formation had locked onto this end, the gateway had opened, but nothing had come through on the other side. They had waited for a very long time before Yang Kai finally teleported over.
Nothing like that had ever happened before, so the soldiers on duty had reported the incident urgently. Yuan Xingge and Tian Lu, the Northern Army Corps Commander of Feng Yun Pass, had gone together to investigate.
In the end, they had awaited Yang Kai's arrival.
At the time, Yang Kai himself hadn't been able to figure out why the teleportation had malfunctioned. Though he had ventured deep into the transmission corridor to investigate, he never found the cause.
Aside from that first attempt, all subsequent teleportations had proceeded without anomaly, so Yang Kai had stopped paying attention to the matter, assuming it was simply because the corridor between the two locations had gone unused for so long.
But looking at it now, perhaps that wasn't the case at all.
Something inside the transmission corridor could very well have been disrupting its stability. That was why, even though the coordinates had been locked and the gateway had opened, the connection between the two locations could never be established.
Had the Laughing Ancestor not brought up the matter of the Da Yan Core, Yang Kai would never have considered this angle. Two events that seemed entirely unrelated might actually be closely connected.
The Ancestor seemed to grasp his meaning as well, and spoke: "So you suspect the Da Yan Core was lost within the spatial rift, and the force disrupting the corridor between the two locations was the energy emanating from that very Core?"
Yang Kai nodded. "That's highly possible."
No one knew what the actual situation had been thirty thousand years ago. Events from that far in the past were impossible to investigate thoroughly—anyone who had known the truth had likely perished long ago, their Dao extinguished.
But if Yang Kai's conjecture was correct, then thirty thousand years ago, a Da Yan soldier must have seized the Core at that critical moment, intending to send it through the teleportation formation to Feng Yun Pass. However, the moment the formation activated, Mo Clan powerhouses had breached Da Yan.
In the very instant the Core was being transmitted, those Mo Clan powerhouses had also destroyed the spatial formation. Under the resulting spatial chaos, the Core had been lost in the rifts between dimensions—unseen for thirty thousand years.