He... Why Didn't He Run?

A night of passing cups, and time always went quickly. It was rare for Fan Domain's core people to gather. They did not go so far as to get drunk, but they drank with real satisfaction. Drinking did not have to end in drunkenness. A light buzz was the most alluring. Until dawn. Eternal Night faded. Just as the sky began to pale, Chen Fan took Quehou, Shao Qiu, and several members of Fan Domain's Shadow Pavilion aboard the high-speed rail bound for the Guandong Plain. Chen Fan sat in the carriage, lightly rubbing his temples, and looked out at the Jiangbei Wasteland flashing away behind them. After sleeping off the wine, his head was pounding a little. Only when he took a Heart-Clearing Pill did he feel somewhat better. He did not like drinking. He had never thought wine tasted good. It was hot and choking. But with the right people, it was still a real pleasure. "Young Master." Quehou, beside him, looked around the carriage with some excitement. "Will we be staying on the Guandong Plain for a long time?" He had not been back to Fan Domain in a long time. Fan Domain had truly changed a great deal. It even felt faintly unfamiliar. This carriage, for instance, was no longer the crude thing it had once been. Several seats and armrests had been built, and the interior had been fitted out for comfort. In the past, tough and durable had been enough. Now, on that foundation, they had begun to think about comfort. Seeing that, he knew Fan Domain had been developing well of late. Otherwise there would have been no leisure to consider comfort. "Three or four days." Chen Fan looked out the window and said offhandedly, "Laying copper pipes, altars, and the like takes time. I'll also see how they handle the ghost-creature corpses over on Defense Line No. 7 each day, and whether a trade route can be set up." Fan Domain had a building called the Sacrificial Tower. It could not be upgraded. Its effect was equally plain. Sacrificing corpses to the Sacrificial Tower yielded all kinds of materials, rare treasures, building blueprints, and the like. Fan Domain did not have many ghost-creature corpses. The main reason was that one shot from a God-Slaying Cannon smashed a corpse to powder. It could not be sacrificed at all. He would go to Defense Line No. 7 and see whether the corpses there could still keep a certain wholeness. If they could keep a certain wholeness, Fan Domain could buy the batch and sacrifice them at the Sacrificial Tower, adding once more to Fan Domain's foundation. "3.39 billion ghost stones." He murmured it. He had drunk yesterday, but the decision had been made while he was sober. He was not going to wake and take it back. Once this trip to the Guandong Plain was over, the plan would have to begin. The Jiangbei Defense Line had cost 800 million ghost stones. It was already the project that had cost Fan Domain the most. Covering the New Continent would take a full 3.39 billion ghost stones, the largest project Fan Domain had yet opened, and there was no second. A work that large pressed hard on Fan Domain. If any accident came, it could easily grow too big to handle. So until the project ended, Fan Domain had to seek stability. He would not wait until every ghost stone was gathered before breaking ground. He could start as soon as he returned. Laying ghost fire took time as well. Lay ghost fire on one side, dig ghost stones on the other. Two lines at once, and compress the time as short as it would go. Six hours later. Fan Domain's high-speed rail ran south through Jiangnan, crossed the Guanxi Plain, entered the Guandong Plain, and slowly stopped before Defense Line No. 7. It was midafternoon. After a stir along Defense Line No. 7, a white-haired old man led several subordinates out of the crowd and walked quickly toward the rail. After several months, they were seeing this rail again. Chen Fan took a mask from his robe, held it up, then thought better of it and tossed it aside. There was not much point. These people had never heard his name. Even if they saw his face, they would not know who he was. Once word of Fan Domain reached this place, they would know who he was even without knowing his face. After the rail came to a steady stop, he stepped down and stood on land thick with the air of death. Dust veiled the whole sky. Only Defense Line No. 7, thirty meters high and nearly without end, stood guard along the coast of the Guandong Plain. "This is..." Seventh Elder had already come up quickly. When he saw Shao Qiu following behind the man, he understood at once. This person's place in that unknown power was clearly higher than Shao Qiu's, and by a great deal. "Nameless." Chen Fan looked at Seventh Elder and said calmly, "A name is only a code. The rainy season is only days away. Defense Line No. 7 may be a level-six city wall, but it has no means of recovery." "I've come to add a means of recovery to Defense Line No. 7, so the line can stand firmer." "This..." Seventh Elder was briefly startled. Then his voice even shook. "Every member of Defense Line No. 7 is at your—" "Enough." Chen Fan said quietly, "Spare the courtesies. Take me up onto the wall. I'm actually a bit pressed for time." On the wall. This was the first time Chen Fan had climbed Defense Line No. 7. He stood on the wall and saw a blue sea without a visible edge, smelled the stinking sea wind, and watched gulls pass now and then. The sea was romantic. It was also full of death. At different moments, it showed a different air. Right now, in his eyes, this sea was filled with death. Looking out, he could hardly see a single corpse, and yet he seemed to see countless corpses. Chen Fan gazed toward the far end of the sea. He was thinking that there ought to be a Thunderstorm Sea on the other side as well. The Thunderstorm Sea was like a circle, holding the whole Eternal Night Continent in its middle. Perhaps it was a prison. Perhaps it was protection. He looked around. The soldiers still on Defense Line No. 7 were watching him, curious and afraid at once. "Stop looking. Disperse!" Seventh Elder, noticing, hurriedly waved at those around them, signaling them to scatter. His authority on Defense Line No. 7 was clearly high. One order, and the surroundings were soon empty. Only then did Seventh Elder explain, a little embarrassed. "Please don't take offense, sir. They rarely see great figures. This is the first time a great figure has come in person to Defense Line No. 7. They find it curious." "A great figure?" Chen Fan suddenly laughed and softly repeated the words. Since when had he, Chen Fan, become a great figure too? Was he great enough? No. Not great enough. Only when he could wholly master his own life and death would he count as a great figure. Right now there were people who did not much want him alive—or rather, there were ghosts. Only when the Ghost Clan was utterly destroyed could he be called a great figure. "Bring a horse." He said it quietly. The words had barely fallen when someone beside him led over a Skeleton Horse. Chen Fan said nothing more. He swung into the saddle and galloped along the wall. At every interval he set an altar, and laid copper pipe after copper pipe. The pipes sank into the wall. Linked to the altars, they could restore damaged stretches of wall through the altars. An extremely inconspicuous structure, yet it could greatly raise the wall's speed of recovery. He also connected the cannon towers to ghost fire. Then no one would need to load ghost stones by hand. What had been semi-automatic was evolved, all at once, into fully automatic. Three days later. Chen Fan stood somewhat wearily beside Fan Domain's high-speed rail, while Seventh Elder brought the core members of Defense Line No. 7 to see him off. In those three days, Chen Fan had completely refitted Defense Line No. 7. If the refitted line met another ghost-tide attack on the scale of the last rainy season, it was basically impossible for it to fall again. The help was not small. It had solved Defense Line No. 7's problem at the root. "Sir." Seventh Elder's eyes were red, and his voice shook. "I don't know how to thank you. But I want you to know, sir, that you have saved the lives of all 670,000 members of Defense Line No. 7, high and low." "You have saved the Guandong Plain, and the millions of people still alive." Chen Fan stood on the barren ground and looked toward Defense Line No. 7. For three days he had rushed along the line and rarely stopped, and he had seen many people. Now, before he left, countless people stood at the foot of the wall to see him off. At a glance, the foot of Defense Line No. 7 was packed solid. Every face carried a kind of indifference, the indifference of people who had already seen through life and death. Yet a thread of hope floated in their pupils. Everyone here was a dead man. But now they seemed to have come alive again. He paused a moment, then said quietly, "I've observed that the main cannon towers of Defense Line No. 7 are Sword Rain Cannon Towers. Ghost creatures that die beneath this kind of tower can keep their corpses nearly whole. How do you usually handle ghost-creature corpses?" Defense Line No. 7 produced quite a few ghost-creature corpses every day. "Skin them, take the bones, dig out the ghost stones." Seventh Elder did not know why the man before him was asking, but he answered at once. "Some ghost hide and ghost bone can be used as ghost material, for refining artifacts, refining pills, or constructing buildings." "In the past, these things were sold together with the ghost-creature corpses to the various powers of the Guandong Plain, and they handled the sales to the Guanxi Plain." "But now..." "When Defense Line No. 7 fell in the last rainy season, not three in ten people on the Guandong Plain survived. The powers that remained all fled. No merchant guilds come and go now. Of these things, we only still keep the ghost hide and ghost bone. The ghost-creature corpses and the like were all thrown away." "Good." Chen Fan gave a slight nod. "In the days ahead, several rails will constantly travel between the Guandong Plain and our power. What you need to do is haul this ghost hide, ghost bone, and the ghost-creature corpses onto the rails." "And I will pay you in ghost stones." "The exact price will be settled after I return. Someone will come and settle the terms with you. It won't be too high. We're actually rather short of ghost stones ourselves. But I won't let you take a loss." "No need. No need." At those words Seventh Elder waved his hands in haste, refusing. "Sir, the one thousand Soul-Devouring Sculptures you sent have already helped Defense Line No. 7 a great deal. And now you, the lord of a power, have come in person..." His voice cut off. Seventh Elder suddenly froze where he stood. He seemed to have said the wrong thing. "Seventh Elder." Chen Fan suddenly smiled. "I never said I was the one in charge." "This..." Seventh Elder gave a helpless, bitter smile. "Sir, the air about you, and your every word and act, really don't seem like those of your power's architect. And a trade this large—an architect would not dare decide it on his own, on the spot." "But, whatever the case." "Sir, just take these ghost-creature corpses. The old ones were useless, so we threw them away. But the rainy season is upon us, so there will certainly be no lack of them. The corpses we collect from now on, we will haul entirely onto the rail." "Not a single ghost stone." "You have already helped me a great deal. Now that I have a chance to repay you, how could I take ghost stones?" He had followed the whole way. He knew too well the air a man of power carried: the air of making a decision, not of wondering whether to report upward first. Chen Fan smiled and said nothing more. He turned and walked toward the rail. "Then it's settled like this." "Just send people to arrange it." "There will be ghost stones, but not too many. I'm going." In those three days, he had also extended the high-speed rail of the Guandong Plain, making sure the tracks could branch many times and reach every stretch of the ninety-seven-kilometer Defense Line No. 7, so the corpses could be collected at the greatest efficiency. This was the point of building Fan Domain's high-speed rail. Without the rail, hauling millions, even tens of millions, of ghost-creature corpses to Fan Domain by cart, Skeleton Horse, or flying boat would be no small work at all. Fan Domain currently had one hundred fully equipped flying boats. It looked like a great many. There were even Mustard Seed Chambers inside. But put them to work, and one run might not earn as many ghost stones as the round trip consumed. Another advantage of Fan Domain's high-speed rail was that it was extremely cost-effective. Using it consumed almost nothing. Cheap and tough. Those two tags were always great weapons. Add handy, and it would be a divine artifact. The rail slowly started. Before long it vanished from sight. Chen Fan was gone, cleanly and without lingering. Seventh Elder stood where he was. Only when he had watched the rail disappear at the end of his sight did he murmur, "These people... truly gave everything they had." He could tell they were not people of the Guanxi Plain. First, the accent was wrong. Second, at the rail's speed, it should not have taken long to reach the Guandong Plain from the Guanxi Plain. Yet when the rail arrived, its exterior was travel-worn, and the fatigue in their eyes when they got down showed they had clearly been traveling a long time. At the rail's speed, to need to travel that long, the other party was clearly in an extremely distant region. In other words, even if Defense Line No. 7 fell, it might not affect them much. And even so, they had already sent support. Before the rainy season arrived, the lord of a power had even come specially to Defense Line No. 7 to reinforce the line for them. There was already no greater kindness than this. A kindness any greater would be called a grudge. "Pass the order down." Seventh Elder drew a deep breath and looked, somewhat dazed, at the people behind him. "From now on, when you dig out the ghost stones, keep the corpses as whole as you can. Collect every ghost-creature corpse." "We've finally got the chance to do a little something. Don't mess it up." He looked at the people behind him. The eyes of these core members of Defense Line No. 7 were full of smiles, sweeping away the gloom of ordinary days. Clearly, with the Soul-Devouring Sculptures and a reinforced Defense Line No. 7, everyone was full of confidence. This year's rainy season would absolutely be no problem. And there was one more fixed trade channel, another source of ghost stones for the days ahead. Better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. This trade channel was teaching them to fish. Defense Line No. 7 was getting better and better. Naturally they were glad. Seeing it, Seventh Elder smiled too. He could not help turning to look east, and murmured in a daze, "I wonder how things are on the Eternal Night Front. The rainy season is coming again. I wonder whether the front can hold this year." The Eternal Night Front fell only in the rainy season. In the rainy season, the ghost tide's assault was extremely fierce, almost impossible to resist. If the Eternal Night defense line had not yet fallen during the rainy season, a year of safety would follow. Before the next rainy season, it was almost impossible for it to be taken. That also meant that once the rainy season descended, every defense line on the Eternal Night Continent would be under enormous pressure of its own. The ghost tides each of them had to face were all extremely terrible. Eternal Night Calendar, Year 380, the thirty-first day of the tenth month. Near dusk. Fan Domain's high-speed rail, returning from the Guandong Plain, was racing across the Jiangbei Wasteland, heading straight for Nameless Mountain. Outside the window, pattering rain struck the carriage. Threads of coolness seeped in. It was raining. This year's rainy season had come again. No one knew how the rainy season formed, and no one knew what effects it truly had. They only knew that different ghost creatures changed in different ways during the rainy season. The flesh worm ghosts that only tumbled with the wind, for example, could be seen only in the rainy season. The false human ghosts, for another, lost all reason the moment the rainy season came, and began breeding without cease. But one thing was clear. Once the rainy season arrived, the number of ghost creatures surged, and they became extremely violent. Like a buff the world itself laid on the ghost tide. "And humanity's buff?" Chen Fan sat by the window, looking at the sheets of black cloud over the Jiangbei Wasteland, his thoughts drifting. There seemed to be no summer, autumn, or winter that specially added a buff for humans. For example, when summer came, the cost of humans constructing buildings might be halved. It did not sound fair at all. As the rail pressed deeper into the wasteland, the black clouds over the Jiangbei Wasteland began to thicken, sink, and roll at a speed visible to the eye, as if the firmament were slowly collapsing. The color of the cloud layer was rapidly turning from gray to pure black. Lightning could faintly be seen flashing inside, yet the thunder was slow to come. The pattering rain began to fall. The change came with no buffer at all. One moment it was still a pattering rain. The next, the sky seemed suddenly torn open. Hundreds of millions of lines of rain were caught by the wind that suddenly roared up over the Jiangbei Wasteland, condensed into furious white whips, and lashed the earth and the rail. Almost in an instant, the storm descended. The patter outside became, in an instant, the roar of a downpour swallowing everything. The wasteland beyond the carriage blurred completely. Nameless Mountain, which had still been faintly visible, spread and bled away like ink dropped into water. Inside the carriage rose an extremely dense drumming. It was rain striking the surface of the carriage. The seal was good, but they could still smell the scent that belonged only to the rainy season. The rail beneath them began to accelerate. It crossed the storm over the Jiangbei Wasteland at extreme speed. Let the rain charge and slash; it did not budge, and drove straight toward Nameless Mountain. Like a silver-gray blade tearing the Jiangbei Wasteland apart. Shao Qiu stood to one side, looking out the window, his expression complicated. "Domain Lord, how... did you all survive that rainy season two years ago?" Merely standing in the carriage, he could clearly feel the terror of the rainy season. And in the rainy season before Fan Domain was founded, Fan Domain had no such scale. Just nine people. They had held through the whole rainy season by sheer force. After that rainy season ended, Fan Domain truly rose. Slaying the Ghost King astonished the world at a stroke, and they developed straight on into the colossus that now spanned several regions. "That time." Chen Fan looked out the window, his thoughts drifting. Only after a long while did he laugh softly. "That time, our luck was pretty good." The rainy season had descended. When darkness swept the whole Jiangbei Wasteland, countless ghost creatures long sunk in silence would wake again beneath the storm's baptism. When the rail slowly stopped inside Nameless Mountain, Eternal Night arrived on schedule. Extremely viscous darkness rapidly covered the whole Jiangbei Wasteland. Deafening thunder began to rise, one peal after another, without cease. Chen Fan walked toward the high-speed rail and looked in the direction of the Port. Nameless Mountain blocked his view. He could not see. But he knew the Heaven-Reaching Pillars set there had already begun storing energy again. In the darkness, the Jiangbei Defense Line began to move slowly. It no longer stood on the Jiangbei coastline. It wrapped Nameless Mountain, the Port, Sunset City, Fan City, and Jiangbei City all inside it. The Jiangbei Defense Line, 170 kilometers long, was not responsible at this moment for holding Jiangbei. It was responsible for protecting Fan Domain. The equivalent of firing a cannon at a mosquito. However many ghost creatures there were in the rainy season, however they rampaged, they could not do the fully equipped Jiangbei Defense Line the slightest harm. They could not even make the altars activate. He had spent a full 800 million ghost stones building the Jiangbei Defense Line. If it could not even get through an ordinary rainy season, then all his work had been for nothing. After returning to Nameless Mountain, Chen Fan went straight to the wooden cabin and slept. These past days truly had been tiring. The members of Fan Domain, likewise, made no great stir over the rainy season. They went on as usual, busy with the work in their hands. If it were before, the arrival of the rainy season was a major matter. But since they had joined Fan Domain, the rainy season's arrival... aside from the rain being heavier and the weather colder, there did not seem to be anything special about it. He slept very soundly that night. Perhaps because nothing was pressing on his heart. Thinking about what he would give thanks for after he woke tomorrow, he gradually entered his dreams. Elsewhere. Jiangbei City. "Quick, quick, quick!" The wall of Jiangbei City was extremely noisy. Burly men in the clothing of the Jiangbei Li Family, orderly amid the chaos, were hauling crate after crate of ghost stones up onto the wall, preparing to resist the rainy season as they had last time. "The cannon towers over here still haven't been restocked with ghost stones. Xiao Qi, you're in charge of filling this stretch." "Understood, Family Head." Xiao Qi's urgent voice answered. The pudgy man called the Li Family Head was inspecting every part of the wall. The rainy season had come. Jiangbei City's defensive buildings had to be properly ready. He used to be the market master of Jiangbei Market. Later, for reasons everyone knew, by a twist of chance he became the strongest power in Jiangbei City. Not only did he become city lord of Jiangbei City, he also renamed his Jiangbei Market the Jiangbei Li Family. He had leapt up at a bound, and possessed a family of his own. This was fate. Just then, endless darkness poured down from the nine heavens. Eternal Night descended. Almost at the same moment, he felt the ground faintly shaking. His face changed sharply. He rushed to the edge of the wall and looked out into darkness so thick he could not see his fingers before him. The commotion was even greater than the flesh-worm ghost tide's assault on the city in the rainy season before last. Eternal Night had only just descended, and already there was this much noise. This year's rainy season might be hard to get through. He did not know how long passed. The sky was about to brighten. When Eternal Night began to recede quickly, the Li Family Head, his pupils full of bloodshot veins, stood somewhat blankly at the city's edge, looking into the dark. From the way the Jiangbei Wasteland had quaked last night, he had thought a terrifying ghost tide would come. The result: he had not seen a single ghost creature all night. Not one. In the rainy season, ghost creatures would charge the ghost fire. Yet he had not seen a single one. Even the members of the Jiangbei Li Family who had kept watch on the city all night were looking at one another, utterly blank. This was a situation they had never met. For a moment, unease rose in countless hearts. Could it be that, in the rainy season, these ghost tides were preparing to gather, and would only launch the assault once their numbers were great enough? But very soon, as Eternal Night fully receded, that thread of unease vanished in an instant. Far away, city walls a full twenty meters high, like a natural chasm, extended out of the Jiangbei Wasteland and wrapped their entire Jiangbei City within them. "Hoo." Almost in an instant, the unease in the Li Family Head's chest was gone. He grinned. "Rainy season? Isn't this just bathing season?" He finally knew why the Jiangbei Wasteland had quaked after Eternal Night descended last night, and finally knew why he had not seen a single ghost creature. If one could have been seen, that would have been the real ghost. The next moment, excited roars rose along the wall as well. The news gradually spread through Jiangbei City, and soon excited screams burst out inside the city too. They finally did not have to worry that ghost creatures would breach the city in the rainy season. This rainy season, they would sleep more soundly than they ever had, more soundly even than in ordinary times. With the Jiangbei Defense Line protecting them, Jiangbei City was nearly impossible to take. "Thanks!" Hearing the excited voices from the city, the Li Family Head looked into the distance toward Fan Domain, put both hands to his mouth like a horn, and roared. Although he knew Domain Lord Chen certainly could not hear. Even if he heard, he would not care. Fan Domain was developing faster and faster, and had long forgotten him, the man Domain Lord Chen had once called Little Li. But that did not matter. The first night of the rainy season had passed. After the darkness receded, the sun gradually rose. The Guanxi Plain. The Holy Lord of the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land, who had not slept all night, sat at the tea table staring blankly at the letter in his hand. He had held this posture the entire night. "Holy Lord." The Great Elder pushed the door open, saw the Holy Lord still sitting there, and could not help frowning. "Holy Lord, you didn't stay up all night, did you? You are the Holy Lord of the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land, and this is the rainy season, a troubled time. Many matters need you to decide them. It won't do if you don't rest." "Where did you run off to last night?" "I went to sleep." The Holy Lord of the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land turned his head toward the Great Elder, expressionless. "Did sleep make you stupid? In the rainy season, you don't sleep at night. You make up the sleep by day." "You sleep at night during the rainy season?" "Guess whether ghost creatures sleep at night." The Great Elder suddenly froze, his old face flushing. To tell the truth, perhaps he really was getting old. He had forgotten. "Uh... Holy Lord..." "Don't Holy Lord me." The Holy Lord tossed the letter into the Great Elder's arms and said hoarsely, somewhat wearily, "Look at this letter." Only then did he lift a cup of tea and moisten his throat. The letter had been delivered into his hands when the rainy season was about to descend. The Great Elder lowered his head to the letter. The farther down he read, the tighter his brow drew. "The Jiangbei Sea-Suppressing Node shattered long ago. In the past, that person suppressed the Sea Prison with his life-bound aura." "That person has gone. The grace left behind is gradually thinning." "In about two years, the aura will disperse completely, the Sea Prison will collapse, and the myriad will come forth." "The Black Tide will surge back into the river mouth, swallow the fertile wilds, break Jiangbei, and countless living beings may perish, and the land be left without a trace of human life." "This... this..." A flash of shock passed through the Great Elder's eyes, and he said in some terror, "Can this news be true? How could Jiangbei's node already have shattered? All these years, Jiangbei hasn't had a single defense line!" "If the Jiangbei node had shattered, Jiangbei would have been drowned by the ghost tide long ago." Beneath the Eternal Night Continent there was a great array. Only where a node of the great array had shattered could the seabed ghost tide come ashore. In the region where the Guandong Plain's node had shattered, for example. Where a node had not shattered, the seabed ghost tide could not come ashore. He had always thought Jiangbei's node was intact. "It's true." The Holy Lord leaned back in his chair and wearily rubbed his temples. "This is news I obtained from a special channel." "What channel? Why don't I know of it?" "If I let you know everything, shall I just let you be Holy Lord?" "I was only asking..." The Holy Lord continued, "After I learned this, I finally understood why that person stayed at Nameless Mountain for so many years. That person was using his own aura to suppress the seabed ghost tide of Jiangbei. He left more than a hundred years ago, but he also left his aura behind. "Now that aura is about to disperse. "In two years, the seabed ghost tide of Jiangbei will come ashore. "Do you know? "When I received this news, my first reaction was the Jiangbei Defense Line. Before the rainy season, Jiangbei Fan Domain built a Jiangbei Defense Line 170 kilometers long in Jiangbei. "Entirely level-five city walls. "Countless God-Slaying Cannons. "It caused a sensation across the entire Jiangxi Plain. At the time, countless people could not understand why Jiangbei Fan Domain would do this. The Jiangbei node had not shattered. Why pour in so many resources to build a Jiangbei Defense Line that could not be used at all? "I didn't understand either. "But I felt Chen Fan would not do useless work. So I began to inquire about the Jiangbei node. It took half a year. Yesterday I finally received this letter. "The Jiangbei node shattered long ago. It was that person's aura that had been holding Jiangbei all along. Otherwise there would long ago have been not a single living being in Jiangbei, and our Guanxi Plain would have been hard-pressed to escape death as well. "What shocked me most was this. "Jiangbei Fan Domain clearly knew this news long ago. "If I were sitting in Chen Fan's place, and the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land were in Jiangbei, my first reaction after learning this would be to run, the farther the better. But Chen Fan... "He didn't run. "He poured out everything he had and built a Jiangbei Defense Line 170 kilometers long." The Holy Lord leaned back in his chair in a daze, looked at the ceiling, and murmured, "How much daring is that? Since when did he know? "He... "Why didn't he run?" The Great Elder also fell silent where he stood, his expression complicated. If the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land were placed in that position, even if the Holy Lord did not run, he himself would have to run. This was certain death. Even if the Holy Lord had that daring, he did not have that foundation. Even if the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land ruined itself to the last coin, it still could not build a defense line. Building a defense line was not a problem one power ought to consider at all. It was a problem for the Eternal Night Hall. However strong a power was, it could not produce enough ghost stones to build a defense line. He did not know the foundations of those powers in the heartland of Eternal Night, but he felt that even those powers would find it extremely difficult to produce so many ghost stones at one stroke. Especially since this was not repairing a defense line. It was building a new one. Even with that many ghost stones, where would one find that many architects? The number of architects needed to build a defense line was not small. Nor was the time. A defense-line project that consumed time, labor, and wealth like this simply could not be completed by one power. But Jiangbei Fan Domain had done it. A Jiangbei Defense Line 170 kilometers long stood guard on the Jiangbei coastline. In the months before the rainy season descended, every day quite a few people took the high-speed rail to Jiangbei, to see with their own eyes the shock the Jiangbei Defense Line brought. The shock even came with a bit of heartache. This was equivalent to building, on land, a huge sea ship that could not move. However fine the ship, if it could not set out, it was wasted all the same. After a long while, the Holy Lord let out a long sigh, slowly closed his eyes, and said wearily, in a low voice, "Before last year's rainy season, Defense Line No. 7 asked us for aid. Many powers ignored it. I gritted my teeth and gave five million ghost stones." "Because I did not want to see Defense Line No. 7 fall." "I thought I was already very daring." "But..." "I truly never imagined there would be a power that, when the node of some region was lost, would simply build a defense line itself. This has completely gone beyond anything I understand." "Could it be..." the Great Elder said hesitantly, "could it be aid from the Eternal Night Hall? Otherwise the account doesn't add up, does it? Building a defense line of 170 kilometers, and entirely level-five city walls at that, would need at least two billion ghost stones, wouldn't it?" "Where did Fan Domain get that many ghost stones?" "The high-speed rail?" "The high-speed rail could work itself to death and still not earn that many ghost stones. The fare is only one ghost stone. How much can that earn?" "Impossible." The Holy Lord shook his head firmly. "The Jiangbei Defense Line has an extremely distinct feature exclusive to Fan Domain buildings. It is entirely Ghost Blood Patterns. Do you know how terrifying a thing that is?" "The Eternal Night Hall could not possibly build a defense line that was entirely Ghost Blood Patterns." "With resources like that—" "they could damn well build several defense lines!" "Defense Line No. 7 isn't entirely Ghost Blood Patterns either." "This can only have been built by Fan Domain itself. As for where the ghost stones came from... that I don't know. But I guess they may have dug up, in Jiangbei, ghost ore left behind on the Ancient Battlefield." "Impressive." The Holy Lord suddenly shook his head with a somewhat bitter smile. "If I had dug up that store of ghost ore, I might have just run. I absolutely would not have gone and built some defense line." "After all, a defense line is not finished once it is built. Later, whether starting it or maintaining it, both consume great quantities of ghost stones." "This responsibility should never have been borne by one power." "It's too heavy. It can't be carried." "And..." "Some time ago, quite a few people saw that when Fan Domain was laying the high-speed rail, they ran the tracks deep into the Guandong Plain. The outposts were not entered into the register, and people from the Guanxi Plain were not allowed to take the rail to the Guandong Plain." "These past few months, almost not a single merchant guild from the Guandong Plain has come to the Guanxi Plain. That means Defense Line No. 7 on the Guandong Plain may already have fallen in the last rainy season, and that many people on the Guandong Plain died then." "In the end, even if Defense Line No. 7 held, the losses were grievous." "Fan Domain building that rail deep into the Guandong Plain was also to support Defense Line No. 7. Last time, didn't quite a few people see an extremely long rail hauling a great many sculptures deep into the Guandong Plain?" "Those should have been the buildings Fan Domain sent to support Defense Line No. 7." "Don't you feel like a failure?" "Fan Domain is the strongest power in Jiangbei." "Our Immortal Slaughter Holy Land is one of the strongest powers on the Guanxi Plain." "Fan Domain has already begun to look out over the world, while we are still considering whether we can get through this year's rainy season in peace, and whether, after next year's rainy season ends, we can earn a few more ghost stones." "No." The Great Elder shook his head firmly. "The greater the responsibility, the greater the ability. That we could support Defense Line No. 7 with five million ghost stones is already impressive. We're trash. This is the limit of what we can do. That... the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land is one of the strongest powers on the Guanxi Plain. Doesn't it still have the words 'one of'?" The Holy Lord's expression gradually turned odd. The word "trash" was a bit glaring. But somehow, once he accepted it, he seemed gradually to lose that stuffy feeling in his chest. He had always set himself on the same footing as Chen Fan. The two of them were the overlords of Jiangbei and of Guanxi. Chen Fan was already looking out over the world, while he was still curled up in Guanxi. It made him suffer. But once he admitted he was trash, it seemed not to hurt anymore. "Seems so... What you said seems to make a bit of sense too," the Holy Lord said. "But you got that sentence wrong just now. Isn't it 'the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility'?" "Holy Lord, I ask you," the Great Elder said. "When the seabed ghost tide comes ashore two years from now, will you support the Jiangbei Defense Line or not?" "Isn't that inevitable?!" "Then that's right. Fan Domain took on the responsibility of guarding Jiangbei, and so it will receive support from every region. Isn't that 'the greater the responsibility, the greater the ability'?" "What kind of crooked reasoning is that? When Defense Line No. 7 called for aid, hardly any powers answered." The Great Elder said quietly, "That's because Defense Line No. 7 can't be moved. The Jiangbei Defense Line not only can move; Fan Domain also has a hundred fully equipped flying boats. If Fan Domain calls for aid, and even one power doesn't answer, I'll respect him as a stout fellow. Fan Domain clearly has not yet established contact with the Eternal Night Hall. When the Eternal Night Hall learns that a power built a defense line by itself, guess what the Eternal Night Hall will think. Won't they support him? Jiangbei Fan Domain took on the responsibility of guarding Jiangbei. Resources from every road will come drifting in like snowflakes, and then it will grow stronger and stronger. That is 'the greater the responsibility, the greater the ability.'" "Wait. Let me straighten this out. It's the first time I've heard this saying. I feel as if you're talking crooked reasoning, and yet it also seems to make a bit of sense." The Holy Lord of the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land thought, his brow tightly furrowed. "You mean that if we take on the responsibility of guarding Jiangbei, we'll grow stronger too?" "No. We'll die."