“You call this… a treasure vault?”
As she watched the massive city gradually descending from the sky, Ye Bai glanced at the Life Tree Branch in her hand, her mind filled with questions.
She hadn’t expected such a grand spectacle. Now, the floating city in the sky resembled a kite, while the Life Tree Branch in her hand felt like the other end of the kite’s string.
The scene was fantastical yet not quite fantastical enough—or perhaps it was simply too fantastical to describe.
When it came to cities suspended in the sky, Ye Bai’s first thought was naturally the ancient Sky City of the colossal dragons. However, the Sky City had a distinctly rugged architectural style, suited to the dragons’ massive frames. Even from a distance, the city above bore no resemblance to the dragons’ aesthetic.
“Is this the city built by the Divine King?” Ye Bai couldn’t help but ask.
“Perhaps. The city is still some distance away, so I can’t ‘see’ any details, but I can confirm that the Divine King’s treasure vault is hidden within it.” The paper figure on the Life Tree’s leaf spoke with a subtle difference in tone, one Ye Bai recognized as suppressed excitement. “The other key is nearby. Let’s enter the city first. Once we’re close enough, I should be able to sense its exact location.”
Ye Bai nodded. The paper figure had mentioned earlier that among the three keys, the first two were crucial, while the last one had to be obtained at the very end. It turned out that the final key was right at the ‘entrance’ of the treasure vault.
Suddenly, the paper figure spoke again: “Undead are approaching.”
“Undead?”
The next moment, Ye Bai’s sharp hearing picked up the sound of approaching hoofbeats.
If she equipped the Tome of Death now, she could easily control the incoming undead with the ‘Undead Sovereign’ trait. But she hadn’t forgotten the warning from the Queen when she was last sent out of the dream—there were pursuers with traces of necrotic and holy energy.
With the treasure vault’s descent causing such a massive disturbance—an entire city falling from the sky—it wasn’t just Ye Bai who could see it. Those unknown enemies would surely notice as well. The undead appearing here were undoubtedly connected to those pursuers.
If she used the Tome of Death, she might control the undead, but it would also broadcast her location to the pursuers in real time.
With the Divine King’s treasure vault about to land and the final key still to be obtained, getting delayed by enemies now would be a terrible trade-off.
Besides, dealing with undead didn’t always require the Tome of Death.
In the faint mist, a towering knight emerged in an instant, riding a nightmare steed wreathed in black smoke. Clad head to toe in armor, only the twin flames of its soul in its eye sockets stood out starkly.
[Death Knight], a high-tier undead creature between levels 60 and 70, was one of the most formidable units in the undead legion. Its strength was determined by its power in life, but even at its weakest, it was an elite-tier entity with exceptional physical and magical resistance, high mobility, and mastery over various powerful aura-based spells.
Undead were weakened during the day, but for true high-tier undead, the effect was negligible.
Stopping about ten meters away, the Death Knight silently observed Ye Bai, who was perched atop her donkey.
Ye Bai, wearing the [Perfect Mask], remained still. Autofis, with its ability to obscure magical presence, didn’t move either. As for the paper figure on the Life Tree’s leaf—whether it moved or not, no one would notice.
“……”
“……”
After a brief silence, the Death Knight’s soul flames flickered once before it gave up trying to understand why this fellow undead’s nightmare steed was so… small. Then, it seemed to gesture toward Ye Bai, transmitting a mental command only undead could comprehend.
Ye Bai, of course, couldn’t hear it—but she could guess the gist. She reached out and patted Autofis’s neck.
Autofis blinked, instantly understanding, and with a wiggle of its rear, it trotted off to the side with Ye Bai in tow.
The Death Knight sat motionless on its nightmare steed, its soul flames flickering again. Eventually, it abandoned trying to figure out why this ‘fellow undead’ was so inept at following directions and tugged on the reins, continuing its patrol elsewhere.
After the encounter with the Death Knight, Ye Bai glanced up at the city in the sky—larger than even the current White Night City—and a new thought struck her. “If I move, will it move with me?”
“……” The question genuinely stumped the paper figure. He had never considered the idea of dragging the treasure vault around.
After a pause, he finally snapped out of it and grasped Ye Bai’s meaning. “Perhaps… it really would. Short-distance movement might not make much difference. Maybe we should look for a nearby teleportation array?”
“That’s what I was thinking too,” Ye Bai replied, her gaze briefly flickering to the two full stacks of 40 rare-grade Source Crystals in her bag.
……
Three days earlier, in Fort Saint Lori, a fully armed army had set out from the stronghold.
The procession crossed the drawbridge, passed through the war trenches, traversed the barren farmlands, and moved past the dilapidated shantytowns, where pairs of fearful yet curious eyes occasionally peeked out from the low shelters.
Under their watch, Codos led the way, flanked by silver-armored Holy Knights, crimson-robed Arcane Scholars, and over twenty massive carts carrying unknown cargo.
This, the most formidable human army on the continent, marched toward the colossal city in the sky, seemingly ready to embark on a heroic conquest.
Yet, after three days of following the city’s path—just as they were about to reach it before its full descent—
“Lord Codos… th-that city just moved!”
Hadn’t it been moving all along?
At his subordinate’s exclamation, Codos’s first reaction was confusion. Then he looked up—and his face froze.
Before, the city had been steadily and predictably growing larger, its landing time even roughly calculable. But now, right before his eyes, the city had abruptly shifted to another part of the sky in an instant.
Such a drastic change meant it had relocated by thousands of miles from its original landing point.
What in the world was happening? Codos was baffled. His ancestors had long since detected the Divine King’s legacy descending and had dispatched countless Death Knights to patrol the area, ensuring no living soul slipped through. Had they missed something?
“Heh…”
At that moment, an indifferent sneer echoed from one of the massive crates at the center of the formation, surrounded by protective forces.
A radiant energy, laced with an icy aura of death, emanated from the crate, distorting the surrounding space as a colossal magic circle materialized beneath the formation.
"All personnel, hold your positions!" Hearing the voice of the Ancestor, Codos immediately barked the order.
The next moment, the space beneath their feet shifted, and the entire formation was teleported elsewhere.
When they looked up again, the floating city in the sky had returned to the same distance as before.
The sudden displacement of the airborne city had been countered by the Ancestor's spatial magic, allowing them to catch up.
Codos exhaled sharply and commanded those around him, "Continue the advance."
"Yes!"
The soldiers snapped out of their daze from the teleportation and responded in unison, resisting the urge to cast curious glances at the enormous crates.
But just as the formation prepared to move forward—
"My lord—" A series of sharp gasps arose.
Above them, the city shifted again like a painting being dragged across a canvas, instantly reappearing in another direction.
Upon closer inspection, it was the same position it had occupied before the previous displacement.
It was as if the colossal city had briefly flickered to another part of the sky before snapping back.
"Hmph…"
After a brief silence, a cold snort rang out. Another magic circle flared beneath the army’s feet, spatial forces twisting as they were teleported back to their previous location.
At the same time, Ye Bai stepped out of a teleportation array. The energy of one Source Crystal had been depleted after two long-distance jumps, but she still had thirty-nine more of the same quality in her pack.
"Lucky me, finding a well-preserved two-way teleportation array."
Surveying the unfamiliar ruins, she mused, "Nameless, check if there are any other teleportation arrays nearby. I wonder if I can burn through ten Source Crystals in two days—that should be enough to shake off those pursuers, right?"
...
"Damn thief! How did she evade the Death Knights’ sweep without using the Death Relic?!"
"Useless! All of you, useless!"
In the darkness, Codos stood alone before the massive wooden crate, listening as the Ancestor’s hoarse roars seeped through the coffin lid, making the entire structure tremble. For a moment, he feared the Ancestor might throw open the lid and sit up.
But upon closer listening, the fury carried an unmistakable undercurrent of exhaustion and frailty.
After all, even if the Ancestor was a demigod who had ascended during the Obscure Era, a legendary Archmage, performing over five large-scale teleportations daily for two straight days would drain any spellcaster.
And these weren’t short jumps—the cumulative distance covered in those two days spanned nearly a third of the continent. That they hadn’t lost the erratic, drifting city entirely was already a testament to the Ancestor’s immense power.
"Tomorrow marks the end! No matter how much it shifts, nothing can stop its final descent!"
Hearing the Ancestor’s furious mutterings from within the coffin, Codos hurriedly voiced his agreement.
Half an hour later, dawn broke.
The grand, floating city now hovered infinitely close to the ground, its once-illusory form almost fully solidified, as if one could step right into it.
"Clatter, clatter…"
Not daring to delay, Codos led the vanguard in a swift charge toward the city. After all their teleportations and forced marches, they were now less than a hundred meters away.
Whoosh!
The next instant, their horses’ hooves landed on flat ground—only for everything before them to dissipate like a mirage.
Meanwhile, in another region, Ye Bai emerged from her final timed teleportation and found herself face-to-face with the colossal city.
