Landfall!

The middle-aged man and the young architect exchanged a glance, both catching the excitement in each other's eyes. "This way, please." "I'll lead the way!" *** The Guandong Plain and the Guanxi Plain. These were two vast expanses of land, either of which was larger than the four regions of Jiangbei combined. The two plains were separated by an "abandoned defense line." This defense line was called Zhenggui Pass. It spanned a total of 237 kilometers. Long since abandoned, a winding wall that could only be described as a natural chasm had stood upon the plains for who knew how many centuries. The wall had almost entirely collapsed, leaving behind only desolate ruins that had lost virtually all defensive value. The Guandong Plain was commonly referred to as Inside the Pass, while the Guanxi Plain was known as Outside the Pass. Just as the people of Guanxi looked down on Jiangbei, those of Guandong looked down on the people Outside the Pass. North of the Guandong Plain lay the Guanxi Plain. North of the Guanxi Plain was Jiangnan. And continuing north past Jiangnan brought one to Jiangbei—the home base of Fan Domain. Lately, Jiangbei had developed at a breakneck pace, driving the prosperity of all four regions along with it. The four regions of Jiangbei had once been hindered by the Great River, but trade that was once painfully inconvenient had become exceptionally brisk in recent days thanks to the completion of Fan Domain's high-speed rail. It wasn't merely the smaller factions benefiting from this. Even destitute commoners could now board the high-speed train to Jiangnan and find work offering decent monthly wages. However, the opening of the high-speed rail brought other consequences in its wake. For instance, many people in Jiangnan were cursing up a storm. The moment those outsiders arrived in Jiangnan, their first words to employers were, "Master, whatever monthly wage you offer a Jiangnan local, I'll work for one ghost stone less!" As a direct result, Jiangnan's wages—which had previously been somewhat higher than those of other regions—plummeted rapidly until they leveled out across the board. Only then did the influx of migrants slightly abate. Locals who had once enjoyed comfortable lives were forced into the same wage bracket as everyone else. Jiangnan's various factions, on the other hand, were grinning from ear to ear. The work was identical to before, but labor costs were considerably lower, which naturally delighted them. None profited more than Medicine King Valley. Medicine King Valley was thriving remarkably well. Their pill shops had spread across the four regions, and by offering superior pills at lower prices, they had established a near-monopoly over the entire medicinal market of the four Jiangbei regions. This forced other alchemy factions to either pivot their business or become Medicine King Valley's... pill workshops. Indeed, Medicine King Valley had offered them terms: "Retain your original organizational structure." "Your autonomy will be recognized." "You will receive large monthly orders to ensure you continue earning ghost stones." While they earned less than before, the work was vastly easier. They no longer had to worry about market trends—they simply refined pills. There was no need to seek buyers, as Medicine King Valley bought up everything. There was only one new inspection procedure: the "substandard pills" that used to slip into the open market were now completely filtered out. Now, across the four regions of Jiangbei, only a single alchemy power reigned supreme: Medicine King Valley. Through an almost reckless strategy of burning immense amounts of ghost stones over a few short months, Medicine King Valley had thoroughly established its brand. Nowadays, whenever any faction or rogue cultivator needed pills, Medicine King Valley was the very first name that came to mind. Furthermore, purchasing a single pill from Medicine King Valley earned loyalty points, which could be redeemed for all manner of rare treasures, firmly securing customer retention. Fan Domain was advancing at incredible speed, and its growth was propelling many affiliated factions forward alongside it. "Father." Qi Feng, the Young Valley Master of Medicine King Valley, set down the Fan Domain Bulletin in his hands and chuckled. "Jiangnan's Stove Fire Sect was once an armament-refining faction that rivaled our Medicine King Valley. Lately, they've been mimicking our methods, slashing prices to seize market share. "However... it seems they burned through their funds too aggressively. All their shops are unable to sustain themselves, and their sect master has already begun selling off clan assets. If this continues, forget about expanding—they might not even survive this year's rainy season." "Tsk." The Valley Master of Medicine King Valley was advanced in years, but good fortune brought renewed vigor. Lately, he looked as though he had experienced a sudden rejuvenation, his face glowing with vitality, his laughter ringing out long before he came into view. Stroking his beard, his face was radiant with smiles. "Those who learn from me will thrive; those who merely copy me will perish. They only grasped the surface. "By the way, didn't we promise to hand over fifteen percent of our profits to Fan Domain? A quarter has already passed. Take the account books and deliver this quarter's profits to Fan Domain in person. As long as Fan Domain stands, no one will dare lay a finger on our Medicine King Valley." Immense wealth required formidable strength to protect. It was like a reckless child carrying an exotic treasure through a bustling market: within three paces, the treasure would vanish, and whether the child survived would depend entirely on the benevolence of the thief. Medicine King Valley's own strength was insufficient to guard such fortune. Turning wealth into true foundation took time. Yet under Fan Domain's protection, nobody dared make a move against them. "Understood," Qi Feng said with a grin. "Domain Master Chen probably can't even fathom how many ghost stones we've made over these three months. Even a mere fifteen percent of our net profit comes out to a staggering three hundred and twenty thousand ghost stones! It might just give Domain Master Chen quite a shock. Monopolies truly are extraordinarily lucrative." The Valley Master sighed with feeling. "This is only the beginning. Once the market is fully developed, our revenue will grow even higher. Still, whether that's enough to shock Fan Domain remains to be seen. Fan Domain's high-speed rail runs packed day and night throughout the four regions of Jiangbei, raking in wealth hand over fist. What they make in a single day might already exceed that figure. Before this, I never even knew ordinary folks had a demand for 'tourism.'" Indeed, beyond the pill market, Medicine King Valley had recently developed a scenic resort centered around their Gold-Swallowing Toad. Ordinary folks had never even heard of exotic beasts, let alone seen one, and visitors flocked to the attraction in an endless stream. The general populace held a rather pessimistic outlook. Too many had died around them; too many friends and kin were gone. No one knew whether they would survive the next rainy season. The meager ghost stones in their pockets were nowhere near enough to become cultivators, nor could they purchase a building. Unable to resist the cruelty of this world, they preferred to experience what it had to offer before meeting their end. They had lacked the opportunity in the past, but now they had one. Thus, the moment the high-speed rail began operation, countless commoners chose to travel and sightsee, visiting places they previously could never have dreamed of reaching. They went to see what the fabled Dead Sea looked like and to gaze upon other corners of the world. That way, even if they perished during the next rainy season, they would leave with fewer regrets—and it would all have been worth it. Naturally, the most brazen in exploiting this trend was the Gongyang clan. In the past, the factions of the four Jiangbei regions had an unwritten rule: whenever a faction raised the "Death Flag," anyone daring to provoke them would face the savage vengeance of their entire clan. Every time a faction traveled under a raised Death Flag, it commanded the awe and attention of countless powers, projecting immense majesty. Qi Feng's greatest youthful dream had once been to march under Medicine King Valley's Death Flag, soaking in that thrilling prestige. Years ago, Gongyang of Jiangnan had marched eight hundred li under the flag to rescue his wife, a deed that became a legendary tale across the land. Yet over the past few months, the Gongyang clan's Death Flag had appeared frequently across Jiangnan. The clan had launched a new service called the "Death Flag Experience." Anyone who registered and paid a set amount of ghost stones could march behind the Gongyang clan's Death Flag with a trade caravan, experiencing that grandeur firsthand. A surprisingly large number of people were willing to pay for it. Though this diluted the credibility of the Gongyang clan's Death Flag, no one cared. The Gongyang clan had no further need to fly the flag anyway. The world knew that Gongyang Yue, the sole daughter of the clan head, was betrothed to Qi Yue of Fan Domain and would soon wed. With the clan effectively bound by marriage to Fan Domain, nobody would dare provoke them. In the past, the various factions of Jiangnan had placed great weight on reputation and face. But with Fan Domain's rise, Medicine King Valley put its guardian beast on display for public viewing, while the Gongyang clan's Death Flag fluttered freely across the wastelands for hire. That sense of face had gradually been discarded. If it brought in ghost stones, what was pride really worth? It was not just Fan Domain; many factions across the four regions were developing rapidly on the tailwinds of Fan Domain's ascent. In the process, numerous factions inevitably fell behind and were weeded out—an unavoidable outcome. *** Hope Island. On this vast island far out at sea, more than a thousand li from Fan Domain, night was gradually falling. Chen Fan climbed out of the high-speed rail exit and walked with Weiwei into the temporary camp erected on the beach. They had constructed a new exit right by the sands; the original rail exit had been on the mountaintop, and trekking down the mountain every time was far too troublesome. The temporary camp was rather crude, consisting merely of four thirty-meter-tall walls. All were Level 3 city walls, and each wall was mounted with three Level 10 God-Slaying Cannons. Inside the camp stood ghost fires and wooden cabins. Small as it was, it had all the essentials. "Whew..." Chen Fan sat atop the city wall, leaning back in his chair with a touch of fatigue as he gazed into the distance, his thoughts drifting. He and Weiwei had spent the entire day excavating the undersea tunnel, but they were still a long way from the Thunderstorm Sea. Digging a tunnel all the way through to the New Continent would likely take another two months under normal conditions—barring any unforeseen mishaps. Dusk had deepened, though the Eternal Night had not yet fully fallen. He could faintly discern the distant, chasm-like expanse of the Thunderstorm Sea. Stretching beyond sight, it seemed to cut off the rest of the world entirely. Just as Wang Mazi had said, their fleet had sailed along the edge of the Thunderstorm Sea for a full month without ever seeing an end to it, before finally gritting their teeth and plunging straight into the storm with fatal resolve, miraculously emerging alive on the other side. Although Chen Fan could see the Thunderstorm Sea from afar, he could only make out its faint silhouette: oppressive, low-hanging black clouds and lightning flashing endlessly within them, never ceasing. According to Wang Mazi, the Thunderstorm Sea teemed with ghost creatures drifting on the water's surface. What was more, they were not confined to the darkness—even before night fell, the creatures in the sea churned endlessly like dumplings in a boiling pot. This was the first time they had encountered ghost creatures appearing before the Eternal Night had even descended. Even pseudo-human ghosts could only emerge at twilight. "Young Master." Que Hou, equally exhausted from the day's labor, sat down beside him and brewed a pot of tea. Following Chen Fan's gaze toward the distant Thunderstorm Sea, he hesitated before asking, "Do you think... this Thunderstorm Sea wraps around the entire Eternal Night Continent?" "It's possible." Chen Fan gave a slight nod. In truth, the likelihood was quite high. "Then..." Que Hou paused before continuing, "According to Wang Mazi, the ghost creatures inside the Thunderstorm Sea are all in agony, as if enduring torment. Could it be that the Thunderstorm Sea is actually a protective barrier for the Eternal Night Continent, shielding it and preventing other ghost creatures from charging through? For instance... where did the ghost creatures that slaughtered the New Continent go? Could they have been swallowed up by the Thunderstorm Sea on their way to the Eternal Night Continent, trapped inside and unable to reach our lands?" "That's also possible." Chen Fan nodded again. He possessed far too little information, so any possibility remained open. Que Hou's theory was plausible, but it was just as likely that there had been deserters from the ghost tide who had refused to attack the Eternal Night Continent and attempted to flee, only to blunder into the Thunderstorm Sea and find themselves trapped and tortured day and night. Anything was possible. The only thing he knew for certain was that the Eternal Night Continent stood in grave peril. The situation was dire, as evidenced by the fact that no one had visited Jiangbei in all this time. Ever since "that person" had departed, the Jiangbei defense line had been left completely unattended, yet no one had ever come to inspect it. This proved that the front lines were under immense strain—so overwhelmed that they could no longer spare a thought for their precarious rear. At a time like this, he could not pin his hopes on anyone else. He had to rely solely on himself. He had to seal off the Jiangbei defense line with his own strength while building an enormous, highly secure sanctuary in Jiangbei to ensure his survival through the Eternal Night, no matter what might happen in the future. And the prerequisite for all of this was what he was doing right now. He needed the ghost stones from the New Continent. Desperately. "No, that's not right either..." Que Hou muttered softly to himself. "If the ghost creatures that wiped out the New Continent intended to attack the Eternal Night Continent and got trapped in the Thunderstorm Sea, they should have carried the ghost stones with them when they left. They wouldn't have left them scattered all over the place. What on earth is that Thunderstorm Sea, then... and how was that forbidden zone formed?" Chen Fan sat in his chair, lifted the piping-hot tea, and took a gentle sip before looking back toward the Thunderstorm Sea, which was gradually being swallowed by the night. He felt a sudden urge to erect a Heaven-Piercing Pillar inside that storm. Long ago, an architect named the Undying Heavenly Master had fallen on the ancient Jiangbei defense line. Before his death, he had failed to comprehend the yellow-grade architectural blueprint for the Heaven-Piercing Pillar. Once Chen Fan obtained it, he had constructed it: a colossal lightning rod capable of absorbing lightning and releasing it in moments of crisis to repel foes. Unfortunately, after the rainy season ended, although Jiangbei experienced a few rainfalls, none were violent tempests accompanied by thunder and lightning, leaving its absorption progress nearly at zero. But if... if he built a Heaven-Piercing Pillar within the Thunderstorm Sea, with the endless lightning raging there, its absorption progress would probably max out in less than the time it took to drink a cup of tea. Still, the pillar most likely could not withstand lightning of that intensity and would probably be shattered outright. After all, this was a forbidden zone capable of halting countless ghost creatures in their tracks. It was a wonder how Wang Mazi had ever managed to cross it in the first place—and make a return trip at that. Were Chen Fan asked to try it himself, he wouldn't dare. Though the idea was worth considering, building a Heaven-Piercing Pillar inside the Thunderstorm Sea presented immense hurdles: not to mention how to get there or who would dare go, where would they even place it? It couldn't very well float on the sea. Erecting it on the seabed might be barely feasible, but down there it wouldn't be able to absorb lightning. That pillar was hundreds of meters tall. Setting aside whether it could be built on a sea ship, even if it could, the day it was completed would be the day the ship sank to the bottom. Time slipped away, and nearly three months passed in the blink of an eye. It was now late August in the 379th year of the Eternal Night Calendar, the peak of midsummer heat. Half a year had passed since Fan Domain had slain the Ghost King, and a new rainy season was fast approaching. Progress on the undersea tunnel was far slower than they had anticipated. Deep beneath the sea, Weiwei was panting slightly as it dug tirelessly through the subterranean rock. Chen Fan sat behind it aboard the high-speed rail with a grim expression, laying down copper pipes. Their excavation speed had slowed many times over. The rock here was extraordinarily tough. Even with Weiwei's capabilities, digging was grueling work. The hardest stone they had previously encountered had been at Nameless Mountain, yet Weiwei's claws had easily gouged out massive chunks of rock there; here, every stroke was a struggle. Their current position was directly beneath the seabed of the Thunderstorm Sea. They were attempting to bypass this forbidden zone—a place utterly lethal to both humans and ghost creatures—by tunneling beneath it like stowaways. The rock under the Thunderstorm Sea was exceptionally hard, which naturally slowed their digging speed. But most critically of all... "Halt!" Chen Fan suddenly barked in a low voice. Weiwei instantly froze its forepaws. Ahead, behind the freshly gouged rock face, countless faintly glowing white lines emerged on the stone. Those were array patterns. They had encountered many of these along the way, and their only solution was to detour around them. Weiwei deftly shifted direction, steering as far clear of the array as possible. The undersea tunnel behind them was not straight; it twisted and wound in a serpentine path. Deep in the subterranean bedrock beneath the Thunderstorm Sea lay countless arrays. They were not large—nowhere near the scale of the Blood Sacrifice Great Array the Ghost King had used to break through—measuring only about ten meters across, but they were remarkably numerous. They encountered one almost every short distance they dug. Chen Fan had asked Weiwei about them before. Weiwei possessed unique methods for breaking arrays—or rather, not so unique at all: ordinary formations in front of Weiwei were shattered with a single paw swipe and swallowed into its gullet, much like the formation left behind by the Undying Heavenly Master to pass on his legacy. Weiwei had claimed it could break these too, but it would take a significant amount of time. Thus, Chen Fan had chosen to take detours. It wasn't merely to save time; an array that even Weiwei found difficult to shatter could hardly be a low-grade formation. It was entirely possible that the Thunderstorm Sea truly was protecting the Eternal Night Continent. If he destroyed these arrays, the Thunderstorm Sea might collapse, and the trapped ghost creatures would flood into the Eternal Night Continent. With his Jiangbei defense line not yet completed, he could not afford to bear such consequences. Whatever the purpose of these arrays, it was best to leave them undisturbed for now. He was curious, but he knew how to rein in his curiosity and had no desire to wager his life just to see what breaking them would unleash. Consequently, the stretch of undersea tunnel beneath the Thunderstorm Sea had been extraordinarily difficult to dig, consuming the vast majority of their time. Two-thirds of their labor over the past three months had been squandered here. Fortunately, they were about to dig their way out of the Thunderstorm Sea and leave this zone behind. "Keep going," Chen Fan ordered in a hoarse voice, his eyes bloodshot as he stared intently at the ghost-skin map in his hands. To make headway over these past months, he had barely slept. Time was running out. Exploring the New Continent and collecting ghost stones would still take immense effort. Afterward, he would need to return to Jiangbei to open trade routes into the Guanxi Plain, sourcing more heavenly materials, earthly treasures, and higher-grade architectural blueprints. Only three and a half years remained of the four-year pact. Better early than late. He couldn't truly wait until the fourth year to finish the Jiangbei defense line; finishing earlier would provide far greater security, allowing him to construct auxiliary structures and recruit more personnel with ease. Just then, Weiwei stumbled, failing to check its momentum, and slammed heavily into the rock face ahead. Startled for a moment, it quickly turned around and let out an excited low rumble toward Chen Fan. "Well done, Weiwei!" Chen Fan grinned. The rock ahead was finally no longer as hard, which meant they had cleared the Thunderstorm Sea and officially entered the waters of the New Continent. He looked at the ghost-skin map in his hands. Hundreds of white dots of varying sizes were displayed across it, representing countless islands. Beyond them lay a single colossal white dot—the New Continent. They had arrived. They had successfully traversed the forbidden zone of the Thunderstorm Sea, creeping carefully beneath it like stowaways. Chen Fan pulled a storage ring from his robes, had Weiwei regurgitate all the excavated rock from its belly into the ring, and placed it back onto the high-speed rail behind them. The train was sent back to Hope Island, where Que Hou would empty it before sending the ring back. The storage ring had been a lifesaver; without it, disposing of all that displaced earth would have been an immense headache. "Que Hou," Chen Fan contacted Que Hou on Hope Island using a voice transmission talisman. "The rocks in this storage ring are all from beneath the Thunderstorm Sea. Store them in the island's warehouse along with the ones dug up previously." He had built a dedicated warehouse in the temporary camp on Hope Island specifically to store the rocks excavated from beneath the Thunderstorm Sea. Even though his panel indicated that these unyielding rocks were not heavenly materials or earthly treasures, anything so peculiar was bound to be valuable. Collecting them now might prove useful later. "Let's move!" With that done, Chen Fan grinned at the ghost-skin map and pointed forward. "Dig straight toward the New Continent; bypass the other islands. We make landfall!" Wang Mazi and his crew had never actually set foot on the New Continent itself; they had merely deduced from the state of several islands that the continent had likely been wiped out. As for the specifics, Wang Mazi had no idea. Chen Fan would be the very first human to step onto this land—or rather, the first human to do so since its destruction. *** Finally, after another month of tunneling, late September of the 379th year of the Eternal Night Calendar arrived. The tunnel suddenly angled upward at a ninety-degree vertical incline, turning from a tunnel into a deep shaft. Weiwei was a natural-born digger. Even excavating straight up from beneath the earth, it could wedge its hind legs and muscular tail against the sides of the shaft to suspend itself in midair and dig rapidly. A swipe of its foreclaws and a wide open maw, and the shaft extended another stretch toward the surface. At last! *Boom!* The earth shattered, and the moment long-lost sunlight spilled down, Chen Fan scrambled out from the underground depths. Before he even had time to observe his surroundings, within the span of a single blink, a ghost fire was placed, and four walls ten meters long and wide instantly rose from the ground! The walls were an astonishing Level 6. Within Fan Domain, there was not yet a single stretch of wall built entirely to Level 6. Against a defense of this caliber, even a Ghost King attacking with full force would only be scratching the surface. Constructing a single meter of Level 6 wall required a full 8,560 ghost stones, and these four walls had consumed over 340,000 ghost stones in total. The thirty-meter-tall ramparts rising from the earth almost instantly blocked his vision. The cost was exorbitant, yet he felt not the slightest twinge of regret. Standing in the center of the camp, he surveyed the surrounding parapets and swiftly erected twenty max-level cannon towers atop the ramparts! Only after completing all of this did he hold his breath, listening intently. Outside the walls, there was only the rustling of the wind. Everything else was eerily silent, with no sign of movement whatsoever. Looking down at the ground enclosed within his camp, he saw it littered with ghost bones and scattered ghost stones. No one had gathered them; they lay exposed to wind and sun, weathered by the elements. After listening patiently for a long while and confirming there was no other movement, he led Weiwei up the ramparts. Standing atop the wall, Chen Fan rested his hands on the battlements and looked into the distance, letting the damp, salty sea breeze wash over him. His body slowly froze in place, his eyes wide with profound shock. For a long time, his heart could not calm. Only after a protracted silence did he murmur, "Just how many people died here...?" He was standing on the edge of the New Continent, along a coastline devoid of sand, formed entirely of bizarrely shaped reefs. The continent's interior stretched beyond the horizon. The landing site was a vast plain, devoid of mountains or forests—an unobstructed wasteland whose topography closely mirrored that of the Jiangbei wasteland, save for the absence of a Nameless Mountain. As far as the eye could see, the ground was strewn with ghost bones and ghost stones, tumbling occasionally in the wind. These had once been the corpses of ghost creatures, reduced to skeletal remains with the passage of time. Whenever a gust of wind lifted the dirt across the wasteland, more ghost bones were exposed beneath the surface. It was easy to imagine that far more bones and stones lay buried underground. Beyond that, his gaze settled upon several defense lines stretching endlessly across the wasteland—seven in total, less than a hundred meters apart, standing almost shoulder to shoulder. Naturally, the walls along these defense lines had long since collapsed completely; one could only deduce their past glory from the ruins of today. His gaze lingered on hundreds of colossal ghost skeletons. The wall beneath his feet was a Level 6 wall, thirty meters tall and already magnificent, yet those giant skeletons, even in death and collapsed upon the ground, still reached over a dozen meters in height. In life, they must have stood dozens of meters tall. When ghost creatures of that scale led a charge, the sheer psychological terror alone would crush an army before their raw power was even felt. With a heavy expression, Chen Fan stood on the wall and gazed down upon the scene. He had witnessed the final swan song of the ancient Jiangbei defense line through the jade slip left by the Undying Heavenly Master. That had been the most tragic battle he had ever seen, the largest ghost tide he had ever witnessed—far greater in scale than the ghost tide he had survived during the rainy season. Yet on that battlefield, he had never seen ghost creatures of such monstrous size. One could only imagine that the battle once waged here had been far more brutal than that of the ancient Jiangbei defense line. Seven defense lines spanning hundreds of li, using the earth as their canvas and the walls as their ink, had formed a brutal, hundreds-of-li-long battlefield. How many years had passed since then? Three thousand? Five thousand? No one knew. The wind and sand had erased every shred of information from this continent, washing away all traces of blood. Every li along those seven lines, one could faintly make out the hill-sized ruins of destroyed fortresses, their original grandeur discernible only from the rubble. Chen Fan led Weiwei out of the camp, leaning on his jade cane as he walked toward the nearest defense line, stepping over countless ghost bones to stand atop the ruined wall. The rampart was immense: judging from the debris, it had been a full thirty meters wide. Thirty meters wide... The Level 6 wall behind him was ten meters wide, already broad enough to race horse-drawn carriages. He had no idea what level a thirty-meter-wide wall would be, but it had to be far higher than Level 6—perhaps Level 8, or even Level 9. He looked down at the shattered debris beneath his feet, recognizing the wreckage of a cannon tower. Though he couldn't identify the type of cannon, the weathered patterns on the wreckage matched the engravings on the ruined wall. He walked forward until he reached the highest point of the first defense line's ruins, gazing across at the six lines behind it. Between the seven lines, vast numbers of ghost bones and stones lay scattered across the ground. But further beyond the seventh line, the bones and stones gradually thinned out. It was obvious: the ghost tide had breached all seven lines, surging unobstructed into the depths of the continent to carry out an absolute slaughter. There had been no one left to stop them. He could roughly guess the level of these walls: perhaps Level 10—max-level walls. That was why they had built seven lines rather than pooling all their resources into a single stronger rampart: the maximum level for city walls was likely Level 10. Yet if even Level 10 walls could not hold back the ghost tide, where lay any hope of survival? Or perhaps the requirements beyond Level 10 were simply too harsh, preventing the continent's architects from upgrading them to Level 11—or even comprehending the conditions for doing so. It was also possible that the resources needed to reach Level 11 were astronomically high. Whichever the case, one thing was certain: these seven defense lines had been vastly stronger than the ancient Jiangbei defense line. Had any one of these lines been placed in Jiangbei during the ancient era, Jiangbei would never have fallen. Yet here, seven lines had failed to hold. Weiwei followed behind him, stepping gingerly to land only on cleaner patches of ground, a look of utter misery on its face. It had thought all this hard work would lead them to a paradise filled with braised meats, only to end up in an enormous latrine. Why hadn't anyone dug holes before taking a dump? Defecating all over the place with zero regard for decency! Still, at least the waste was dried out, so it wasn't utterly repulsive. Standing at the highest point of the first defense line's ruins, Chen Fan looked deep into the continent. He was eager to see the other defense lines. Not only could he harvest massive quantities of ghost stones and exotic treasures, but more importantly, if he could glean crucial intelligence, he could prepare for the day the Eternal Night Continent faced its own most tragic battle. The undersea ghost tide making landfall in three and a half years would not be the ultimate test. The most tragic battle of the Eternal Night Continent would likely mirror what had happened to this continent: an overwhelming tide of ghost creatures cloaked in black mist, surging forward in an endless, fearless wave of infinite charges. Perhaps the moment the Thunderstorm Sea unsealed would be the moment the Eternal Night Continent met its apocalyptic battle. He did not know when that day would arrive, but he would be ready for it. Life or death, he was going all-in. If he lost, he would accept his fate. If he won, the Eternal Night Continent would forever after be renamed the Fan Domain Continent. Lingering no longer, he turned back to the temporary camp, pulled a voice transmission talisman from his robes, and issued several commands. The messages traveled via the Signal Towers installed in the undersea tunnel to Hope Island, and then through the tunnel's Signal Towers back to Fan Domain. Order after order was dispatched, and everyone in Fan Domain who received an instruction sprang into action. Meanwhile, Chen Fan stood within the camp and rapidly expanded its perimeter. Around the original camp, he erected a fortress city one thousand meters long and wide, all framed with Level 3 walls. Wooden cabins, Vehicle Workshops, warehouses, and other structures rose out of thin air. Over the next three and a half years, he intended to strip this continent bare of every ghost stone, ghost bone, and heavenly material, thoroughly exploring every corner. To accomplish that, he needed preparations. High-speed rail could not be constructed here; the build time was far too long. He needed faster, more convenient means of transportation. Skeleton Horses were too slow; relying on them to explore an entire continent would take until the year of the monkey. He required higher-grade vehicles. Upgrading the Vehicle Workshop to Level 6 required the heavenly material and earthly treasure known as "Ya Bone"—a treasure that had once been fairly rare for Fan Domain, but which they had by now managed to acquire several of. And the heavenly material required to upgrade it to Level 7 was... a Sea Embryo. In the past, he had none. Now, he possessed them. *** "Attention!" On Hope Island, Que Hou stood with a solemn expression, bellowing at the troop of monkeys before him, "Dress right, dress!" The next instant, the monkeys took brisk, shuffling steps, straightening their postures to stand neatly in formation. "Not bad." Que Hou nodded with satisfaction, placing a porcelain crock brimming with braised meats before the monkey king. "Take this down and divide it among your monkeys. Once you've eaten your fill, you hit the road." "Squeak-squeak!" The monkey king, initially excited, suddenly froze in place. Looking up at Que Hou, a flash of fear and panic crossed its eyes, and it began chattering frantically. "It means moving to a new place to live, not that I'm sending you to your deaths!" Que Hou curled his lip. "Eat your fill and get on the train. I'll be heading to the New Continent with you to await the Young Master's orders." Perhaps it was because his own name also had "Monkey" in it, but he had grown rather fond of the little beasts.