The night deepened.
If they kept pushing forward, they would easily run into danger.
"Let's camp here!" Nie Li said, turning to Ye Ziyun.
Despite the pitch-black night, Ye Ziyun showed far more courage than an ordinary girl. Her clear eyes gazed into the depths of the dense forest, where a shadowy shape fell within her line of sight.
"What is that?" Ye Ziyun asked, puzzled.
"It looks like some kind of structure!" Nie Li said with a slight frown. It appeared to be a ruined building.
"Let's go take a look!" Ye Ziyun stepped toward it. Being alone with Nie Li still made her a little nervous—after all, it was her first time being with a boy in the dead of night. Even though she trusted that Nie Li wouldn't do anything to her, her heart couldn't help but pound. She tried her best to distract them both.
Nie Li followed behind Ye Ziyun as they walked over.
"This might have once been a statue!" Nie Li said. He couldn't tell what it had been carved to depict—it had already crumbled and collapsed.
Faint traces of a civilization from before the Dark Age lingered here.
"What are these characters?" Ye Ziyun asked, looking to Nie Li.
At the base of the statue stood a stone tablet. Nie Li brushed away the dust and, in the dim glow of moonlight, made out the text. "This is the writing of the Holy Empire. It reads: 'Those who obey me shall receive honor. Those who defy me shall perish.' What arrogant words!"
This must have been left behind by some tyrant. That tyrant's power and dominion must have once reached their zenith—but what of it? In the end, both he and his empire were swallowed by the surging tide of Demon Beasts. A generation's warlord ultimately crumbled into dust, leaving behind nothing but these broken ruins.
"Nie Li, how did you learn the writing of the Holy Empire?" Ye Ziyun asked, curiosity brimming in her eyes, because in the entire
"How did I learn it?" Nie Li gave a wry smile. He could hardly tell her that in his previous life, he had spent over a hundred years inside the Book of Time-Space Demon Spirit studying the languages, techniques, and scriptures of every era and empire across the Sacred Spirit Continent.
"If you don't want to tell me, just say so!" Ye Ziyun pouted.
Nie Li shrugged. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell her—it was that even if he did, she wouldn't understand.
Ye Ziyun circled the statue and was about to examine another stretch of ruins when she suddenly let out a sharp cry of "Ah!"
Nie Li saw that the ground beneath Ye Ziyun's feet was rapidly caving in. His expression changed and he cursed inwardly, launching himself toward her. But the ground collapsed further, and a powerful force of suction from below dragged them both down.
Below was a seemingly bottomless abyss.
How could such a place exist within Ancient Lan City? Nie Li held Ye Ziyun tightly against him, drew a sharp sword, and drove it into the stone wall beside them.
The blade pierced the rock with a crack—then snapped. The stone here was far too hard!
What on earth was this place? Nie Li tried to peer below, but everything was pitch black. He couldn't see a thing.
In that moment, while their descent briefly slowed, Ye Ziyun quickly pulled a rope from her Space Ring and looped it around a jutting section of the rock wall. With a thud, they caught themselves, dangling against the cliff face.
Ice Spider Demon Silk—no wonder it had such tremendous tensile strength!
Nie Li let out a breath of relief. Despite the pull of suction still rising from below, they had managed to stop, however tenuously.
"Nie Li, where is this?" Ye Ziyun said nervously. They were hanging in midair. The rock wall was far too smooth to climb, and below, there was no visible bottom.
"I don't know either!" Nie Li said with a bitter smile. He hadn't known that the ruins of Ancient Lan City contained a place like this. Even in his previous life, Ye Ziyun had never mentioned it.
They had stumbled into a hidden realm within Ancient Lan City!
Recalling what had just happened, Nie Li suddenly understood—the sentence he had read aloud was the "key" to entering this place!
"We can only go down!" Nie Li said. Going back up was impossible; the rock face was too slick to climb.
Nie Li looked up and saw, bathed in moonlight, Ye Ziyun's lively eyes, her delicately upturned lashes, her flawless, luminous skin—indescribably beautiful. Her pink lips looked as though they had been painted with a fine layer of rouge. In their current position, pressed tightly together, he could faintly feel the softness of her chest against him, and a wisp of a young girl's subtle fragrance drifted past.
Ye Ziyun, too, realized the compromising position they were in, and her cheeks flushed crimson.
"Don't move around! I'll go down first!" she blurted out quickly.
Seeing how flustered and self-conscious Ye Ziyun was, Nie Li couldn't help but think back to when the two of them had first grown close in his previous life. A deep tenderness rose from the bottom of his heart. Without a shred of tact, he wrapped one arm around Ye Ziyun's waist and offered a slight smile. "Hold on to me. We'll go down together."