The residents of the small town had clearly also prepared to join the ranks of the scavengers — or perhaps that was precisely why they had settled here in the first place.
At the same time, they were anything but friendly toward the outsiders staying at the inn. Cold gazes swept over them from time to time, making it obvious that they viewed the travelers as prey too.
Compared with the far more numerous townsfolk, the smaller and disorganized group of adventurers and mercenaries gripped their machetes and long swords tighter, clustering together instinctively.
Even though they knew full well that the townsfolk harbored ill intent, the sea of hostile faces outside made these fellow outsiders feel slightly safer by comparison.
Fortunately, before the Spirit Tide began, the two groups merely glared at each other without escalating into anything worse.
Then, a peculiar wave of fluctuation rippled outward, sending a chill through everyone present.
Leilin and the other few wizards sensed it even more clearly.
"It's starting…" Leilin gazed up at the moon, which was now wreathed in a faint luminous halo.
Through the Chip's detection, he could see that the proportion of a cold, yin-type energy in the air was climbing sharply. The area around the small town was already shrouded by a barrier that resembled a domain.
"A Morning Star domain? No! It's still fundamentally lacking — at best, it's a pseudo-domain conjured by Third-rank Wizards!"
The moment this barrier appeared, Leilin's pupils contracted, but he quickly relaxed.
"It's… it's appearing…" At that moment, a trembling voice rose — whether from excitement or terror, it was hard to tell.
Leilin followed the crowd's gaze. Countless streams of light, like a shower of meteors, converged into a brilliant river that slowly flowed past the outskirts of the town.
Each streak of light trailed a shimmering luminous fringe as it sliced across the sky. With Leilin's keen eyesight, he could clearly make out what lay within each glow.
A yellow leather shoe with its laces strewn haphazardly to one side, though the toe had been polished to a brilliant shine. A pair of small white wings sprouted from its sides, carrying it through the air.
Behind the shoe came a black walking stick, apparently carved from some kind of vine. A pair of wings beneath its handle propelled it along in flight as well.
"What… are these things…" Leilin's expression turned peculiar.
Next, he saw a ragdoll, a battered set of table and chairs, and various items like shop counter vases drift past.
"A grand reunion of junk?" He was somewhat speechless, but he still ordered the Chip to record the scene along with energy fluctuation monitoring data.
After this river of discarded relics flowed by, the smile vanished from Leilin's face.
Behind the stream of light, a pale white line had appeared, flickering in and out of visibility, gradually drawing closer.
As it neared, he could see that it was composed of countless blank-faced figures with long black hair, all dressed in pure white garments, drifting along behind the light river.
Perhaps "walking" was not the right word — beneath their feet was a mass of mist, and they glided forward through the void as if floating.
Click-clack! Click-clack! The sound of chattering teeth rang out. The adventurers and mercenaries beside Leilin had heard of this phenomenon before, but they were still so terrified that their legs shook and their teeth chattered uncontrollably.
By contrast, the townsfolk had apparently experienced this before. Though their faces were deathly pale, they managed to hold themselves together and avoid making a spectacle of themselves.
A dense mass of figures surged past the town like a mighty tide.
Leilin stood at the edge, the Chip furiously recording data, his expression grave: "So many spirits. Something tremendously significant must have happened in this area once — and it was connected to high-energy radiation…"
In truth, many anomalous phenomena across the Central Continent were caused by battles between powerful wizards or by radiation pollution. Such effects could persist for thousands upon thousands of years without dissipating, instead continuing to expand outward and encroach upon human territory.
Naturally, the prevention and treatment of such pollution was a major research课题 for many powerful factions.
The white phantoms were a mix of men and women, old and young, but all were expressionless with disheveled hair hanging over their faces — some even obscuring their eyes — as they crept slowly in a single direction.
Even Leilin felt his scalp tingle at this eerie spectacle.
The soul was an inherently strange and intangible thing. If he wanted to understand more, he had to press on.
"Hm?"
At that moment, the pair of grandparents he had been observing with spiritual perception also made a move.
Upon seeing the vast tide of spirits, the old wizard's face lit up with unmistakable excitement. He pulled a yellowed notebook from his robes and kept comparing its contents to the scene before him, then stealthily slipped out of the town.
Meanwhile, the other Second-rank Wizards exchanged glances, each claiming a different corner and beginning to pull materials from their robes to set up some kind of arrangement.
"They must be trying to use the power of the Spirit Tide to forge some mediocre Magical Items!"
Leilin's alchemical expertise had already reached the level of a grandmaster. One brief glance was enough for him to see through their intentions, and he let out a disdainful snort before losing interest.
After a moment's thought, he left an illusory double behind at his original spot while his true body slipped into a shadow crevice and followed the grandfather and grandson out of the town.
From the notebook the old man had just pulled out, he had glimpsed something truly remarkable.
"If it really is what I think it is… this just got interesting!"
A faint glimmer of light flashed in the depths of Leilin's eyes.
"Grandfather… do we… really have to go along with these spirits?" The grandson was merely an apprentice with a timid disposition. Gazing at the semi-transparent spirits tugging at the old wizard's sleeve in fear, his face had turned ghostly white.
"They're nothing more than the lowest-grade spirits. They're not even aggressive — what's there to be afraid of?" The old wizard scolded him, though a hint of helplessness flickered across his face.
His grandson had excellent talent in every respect — the only problem was that his courage was sorely lacking.
"But… we're going to plunge straight into the sea of spirits! If they notice something is off, they'll tear us to shreds!" The grandfather's reassurance did nothing to calm the boy; if anything, it only deepened his fear.
"If we don't enter the Soul Passage, how are we supposed to reach the tomb and obtain 'that thing'?"
A look of steely resolve appeared on the old man's face. He gripped his grandson's arm, pulled several scrolls from his robes, and tore them apart.
Hummm! Once the black scrolls split open, both of them were enveloped in a layer of dim, whitish light.
When the glow faded, the old man and the boy had both taken on a translucent, spectral appearance, emanating a fluctuation remarkably similar to that of the spirits themselves.
The hostile gazes that the spirits had been directing at the pair immediately vanished.
"There!" The semi-transparent old wizard patted his chest. "This is a wizardry passed down through our family. It can make these spirits temporarily regard us as one of their own…"
After seeing this, the boy finally relaxed and squeezed into the tide of spirits alongside the old man.
"Quite the unusual wizardry," a voice murmured from midair as a flash of light appeared and Leilin's figure materialized.
"It doesn't follow the traditional formulas of the Central Continent at all — it carries the strong flavor of some other world!" Watching the pair of wizards wading deeper and deeper into the ocean of spirits, Leilin's eyes burned with intense curiosity as he followed close behind.
Although the spirits were enormously numerous, the vast majority were extremely low-grade. Against the deliberate concealment of a Morning Star
It was only after merging into the tide of spirits that Leilin noticed the difference.
"
Here, even though one's eyes could see what was ahead, the actual distance might as well have been hundreds of thousands of miles.
And if one grasped the rules governing this passage, it could be exploited to accomplish things that most wizards could not even imagine.
The old man up ahead seemed thoroughly familiar with this place, pulling his grandson forward at a swift pace. Leilin's eyes shimmered with blue light as he trailed closely behind them.
"Using a spirit corridor to conceal something — this wizard must have been a Morning Star in life as well!"
As the path plunged deeper, Leilin's expression grew increasingly solemn. The route held many dangers that even he could not afford to ignore. Without someone leading the way up ahead, he was not certain he could have navigated it successfully.
Further along, the wandering spirits grew sparse, and a silver-white luminous path appeared underground. The old man led his grandson along this glowing trail.
Leilin halted in his tracks and saw that the old wizard ahead had arrived beneath a colossal walnut tree whose massive branching limbs formed an eerie three-pronged symbol.
Upon seeing this landmark-like formation, the old man was so overcome with emotion that he choked up, tears even streaming down his face: "We've finally found it — the ancestors' tomb!"
"Is this it?" The boy stared at the demon-like forked branches and the sinister silver halo of moonlight overhead and shrank back instinctively.
"Yes, this is it!" The old wizard was so ecstatic he could barely contain himself. "Our family's burial ground normally lies hidden within spatial rifts. Only once every several centuries, during the Spirit Tide, can it be reached through the Soul Passage…"
His eyes blazed with fervent light: "Inside the tomb, our ancestors left behind their Meditation Methods and magical artifacts. With those things, our family will be able to rise again…"
"If that's the case… then why didn't the ancestors just leave the items behind directly?" the boy asked, puzzled.
"I don't know either. All I know is that this tomb is our family's treasure — that much is certain!" A trace of confusion crossed the old man's face, but it was quickly swallowed by an even greater wave of fanaticism.