Yan Yong tumbled out of the Wandering Soul Palace and wove through several twisting, pitch-black passages before finally arriving at Wandering Soul Mountain.
Seeing the pink crystal mountain, Yan Yong exhaled a long breath of turbid air. Now that he was far from Fang Yuan, the pressure and fear in his heart dissipated somewhat.
He trudged across the mountain for quite some time before he was finally discovered by his clansmen.
"Ah, great and noble Patriarch, our hero—here you are!" Some of the stone people immediately cheered.
"Please allow me to kiss your toes, to express my adoration!" Some of the stone people dropped to their knees on the ground.
"Great hero, great hero! Your courage is taller than the sky, your daring deeper than the earth!" Small stone people came in droves, cheering along the sides of the path.
Yan Yong smiled, but no one knew the bitterness behind it.
The cheers in his ears were so boisterous, so many clansmen crowded around him, and yet he felt an incomparable loneliness.
He looked at the stone people beside him. These stone people whose faces were brimming with smiles—in three months, most of them would probably all be dead. Worked to death digging the canal. But what could he do?
In the eyes of the other stone people, the victory at Wandering Soul Mountain was something magnificent, something worthy of celebration. Only he understood that this was nothing more than a game manipulated behind the scenes by that Immortal.
This cruel and cold truth made him painfully aware of just how shallow, how pale, how laughably powerless the stone people's sacrifices and these grueling, glorious victories truly were.
The more victories he led his clansmen to win, the deeper his fear of Fang Yuan grew.
"That Immortal—he is a devil! His heart is colder than ours stone people's, and his power vaster than the mountains. I am so feeble—what can I do? Resistance means death. I admit my cowardice. I truly am afraid of death. I haven't slept enough yet. I'm only a hundred and eighty years old."
Every time Yan Yong thought of Fang Yuan's appearance, his heart was filled with dread.
His not-yet-extinguished conscience tormented him.
He knew: he was about to push nearly all of his clansmen to their deaths with his own hands. His conscience lashed him with every word of praise his clansmen uttered, each one like a whip tearing his heart to shreds.
"Noble, beloved Patriarch, you've finally returned! Everyone has been waiting for you." The stone people parted to form a path, letting Yan Yong ascend to the high ground without obstruction.
"My clansmen! Over these three days, our tribe has grown many times larger! Our expedition has yielded brilliant results. But such victories are still far from enough. Are you willing to walk with me, to keep going—to march toward a brighter tomorrow?" From his elevated vantage, Yan Yong raised his voice and called out.
The stone people roared with every ounce of their strength, expressing their hundred and twenty percent support for Yan Yong.
Yan Yong nodded. He had anticipated this scene long ago.
Among the stone people, there had been no shortage of dissenters or wise old stone people. But in the course of numerous fierce battles, they had all "heroically" sacrificed themselves.
The stone people who remained were mostly newborns with simple minds, easy to sway. As for the older stone people, nearly all of them were die-hard supporters of Yan Yong—or even fanatical worshippers.
Yan Yong waited patiently for the cheering to subside before speaking again. "Over these past three days, I have been thinking in solitude about how to deal with the Immortal who escaped. It was only after the Immortal obtained Immortal Essence that he was able to rally those demon fox armies and wield such terrifying combat power. He must have retreated to the marshlands in the north, or the fire pit in the east to recover. We cannot allow him to restore his strength."
"Our Patriarch speaks truly!"
"Our Patriarch is far too wise! We must not let that despicable Immortal accumulate Immortal Essence!"
"When that damned demon recovers his strength, he'll certainly come after us stone people again!"
"But what can we do? The marshlands and the fire pit are both incredibly dangerous—even we stone people can't stay in them for long. And both places are so vast, who knows where the Immortal ran off to."
The stone people clamored, talking over one another.
Yan Yong cut through the chatter and shouted, "Therefore, I have thought of the only solution! We must fill both the marshlands and the fire pit with earth! That way, the Immortal will have nowhere to accumulate Immortal Essence!"
"Heavens, what a mad idea!" Several stone people cried out in shock at once.
"My great Patriarch, the marshlands are so vast and overwhelming, and the fire pit radiates deadly heat—how could we possibly fill them with earth? It's impossible!" An old stone person objected.
Yan Yong gave this old stone person a long, deep look, quietly filing him away in his memory.
For this stone person to dare object meant his devotion was still insufficient. In the future, Yan Yong would assign him the heaviest labor and work him to death.
Just then, another old stone person spoke. "We shouldn't brute-force this. I've thought of a plan—perhaps we can dig a great canal and divert the floodwaters into the fire pit. The forces of water and fire would cancel each other out, which would save a great deal of effort."
Yan Yong's killing intent intensified.
This old stone person was far more intelligent than the last one who had defied him, and thus far more dangerous.
He decided then and there that in the future, he would assign this old stone person to a defensive post and have the demon fox army cut him down, eliminating this liability as quickly as possible.
Yan Yong offered the old stone person a lukewarm compliment before raising his voice once more. "My plan is exactly this! We must dig the great canal as quickly as possible—let the floodwaters pour in, let the fires be quenched, and leave the Immortal with nowhere to accumulate Immortal Essence! In fact, before the old Patriarch Bai Shi passed away, he taught me as well. He said that the floodwaters in the north and the fires in the east were both created by that evil male Immortal—they are the source of his power. It is much like how we stone people consume earth."
"So the old Patriarch Bai Shi foresaw this all along."