Lord of the Desert

Chapter 428 Footprints
Two days later, it was the twenty-seventh day of the first lunar month.

Early in the morning, the first rays of dawn sunlight shine on a leeward rock somewhere.

The warm and distant touch gradually scooped up the deep-lying consciousness; the crossing of boundaries was like the bursting of a bubble; with a popping sound, the perception suddenly became clear.

There is a hazy light outside the eyelids.

The wind that passed through my clothes brought with it the chill of winter. It blew from the remaining snow in the mountains and flowed among the leaves and branches of the pine trees, making a rustling sound like a flood of ice overhead.

My cheek was itchy, so I raised my hand and scratched it lightly, causing the joints all over my body to crackle. I took a deep breath and completely recovered from the meditation.

Hong Fan opened his eyes.

Memories return along with the worries of the world.

He remembered the intermittent flight of 2,500 miles from Xijing to the southwest yesterday, and the new green plains he saw when he passed Pang County flashed through his mind again.

It is still more than two thousand miles away from Maoyan City.

Following his mortal habits, Hong Fan washed himself with boiled snow, then went down the steep rock wall to catch a half-grown mountain goat, roasted it and had a full meal before taking off.

The cruising speed is stable at 200 kilometers per hour.

The wild mountain lies like a beast, galloping past, and its name is unknown.

Hong Fan looked at them half-absentmindedly, and couldn't help thinking about his conversation with Xu Guinian.

Although the Martial Saint is very powerful, his lifespan is only about three hundred years at most. It is obvious that he does not have the ability to regulate the behavior of Yuanci and Tianren warriors for a long time.

Only God can do this.

And this kind of regulation is by no means a mechanical prohibition on the high-level combat forces of each race from participating in the war and slaughter - many battles recorded in the history books of Dahua have not lacked the presence of top warriors.

So is this all scripted?

Hong Fan felt depressed and had an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.

If the level of participation in a battle is already predetermined, what about the scale and timing of the battle?
Going further down, life and death, victory and defeat, gains and losses of territory, as well as the existence and activities of the Fantian Society, what do they represent in front of the lofty throne?
Hong Fan's mind was filled with a myriad of thoughts. He had imagined the game of racial interests, the appreciation of animal fighting performances, the harvest of biological breeding, and other possibilities, but what ultimately lingered in his mind was the defense of Jinhai three years ago.

At that time, the Snake People's leader, Chi Lin, performed a blood sacrifice on the battlefield to gain Yuanci-level combat power. Was this considered breaking the rules or taking advantage of a loophole in the rules?
As a new Yuanci, does Gu Yi Xin already know the key points?
Or has he rushed into the war without knowing it, and what will be the consequences?
Hong Fan was heavy-hearted. He flew intermittently for half an hour and reunited with Kunwu Mountain, where he had "wrestled" before.

Going south along the snow line of the mountain range, he soon saw Qingzhang Mountain, the northwest dividing line between Shengzhou and the three counties of Huaiyang.

This is a giant mountain range that runs east-west with a maximum altitude of over 6,000 meters. The northern foothills have a smooth curve, from the green fields at the bottom to the top, passing through forests, grass slopes and several different ecological zones, and finally ending at the tense pure white peak.

Shengzhou was right in front of him, and Hong Fan raised his head and accelerated.

The oncoming storm was extremely cold, like melting ice.

Ascend in altitude and travel along the pass between the two peaks.

Beside Hong Fan, the glacier was ancient and mottled, and its age was hard to tell. It appeared to be flowing from top to bottom, like a raging wave that had set out from ancient times and had lasted for thousands of years.

The peaks and pine forests were left behind by the wind and clouds.

South of Qingzhang, there is no one, no city, no trees, no forests, only a desolate wilderness with no human traces.

Far away in the west, thunderstorm clouds seemed to hang at the end of the world like stickers, flickering silently.

Hong Fan had just flown through the mountains at high speed against the wind, which consumed a lot of his true energy, so he dispersed the propellers on both sides and glided with the wind, recovering to idle speed.

Shengzhou is vast, with boundless fields all around, and it is difficult to locate it.

Fortunately, Hong Fan had memorized the map well, and using the Qingzhang Mountain behind him as a reference, he flew due east.

The sky and the earth are like two long axes, rolling up and down, with a flying boat floating in the middle.

In this way, the scenery repeated itself for half an hour and finally changed.

On the horizon of the Far East, several silver threads fell from the barren mountain tops and flowed towards the even more barren sky.

This must be Qiaojiang without a doubt.

Hongfan lowered its altitude and turned south along the river.

Three hundred miles later, the land gradually turned greener; at the edge of the wasteland stood a big city.

This is Yingyang City. Although it is only slightly larger than Jinhai City, it is already the second largest city in the west of Shengzhou Valley.

Flying across the city, Hong Fan could see that the carriages and horses fleeing from the north were blocking the south gate. At the same time, there was an endless stream of people retreating from the east of the city to Feiyan Pass.

On all sides of the city, ant-like black dots were busy, not preparing but dismantling the city defense equipment.

Obviously, this big city hanging outside Feiyan Pass has been abandoned.

Yingyang City is a full 500 miles away from Tiewa Pass. It has only been five days since the latter was breached. The civilians in the south of the pass have not been able to evacuate here, let alone the Maoyan area, which was the first to be hit and did not even know the exact time of its fall...

Thinking of this, Hong Fan became more anxious.

As a genius on the list, he was both famous and good at fighting. He knew that landing would cause trouble, so he went straight south without stopping.

After flying levelly along the border of the wasteland for half an hour, Hong Fan saw Longsha Mountain to the left of Tiewa Pass.

Compared with Qingzhang Mountain, this mountain range is like a group of dwarfs, only two or three thousand meters high. Because it is close to the Ejiang River and is often covered with veil-like clouds, it got its name.

It was approaching noon.

Hong Fan found a valley to rest, suppressed his emotions, and ate. To the south was the war zone, and he had to be in the best condition to face the unknown. In the afternoon, he set out again, and half an hour later he found the first site of the insect plague following the stream.

This is a village with a population of about 100 to 200 people. There are several wide livestock pens built with stones on the periphery. At the entrance of the village grows a solitary large locust tree with lush branches and leaves, which must be over a hundred years old.

Hong Fan landed beside a tree and wanted to shout, "Is anyone there?" But hearing the silence in his ears and looking at the densely packed shallow holes on the dirt road made by the knife's feet, he felt his scalp tingling and he bit the sound and swallowed it back into his throat.

Walking along the stone fence, the ground on both sides was full of broken pits, like a row of shallow wounds dug with fingernails, and the shrubs and grass that originally lived there were gone.

Inside the village, knife-like climbing marks were visible on the earthen walls. More than 20 small earthen houses were intact in structure, but several large houses in the core area had collapsed and were damaged, with several large holes on the side walls that had been pierced by giant objects.

Hong Fan walked in quietly and checked one by one, and found that all the furniture, wooden pillars, window frames, plaques, hay beds, and even metal tools in the buildings had disappeared, and there was no trace of people or animals. Only scattered dried bloodstains remained.

The world is eerily silent.

He left the ruins, walked around the village, turned half a circle and returned to the village entrance, where he met the locust tree again.

At this time, an invisible wind blew, and there was silence among the broken walls. Only the rustling of leaves and branches of the locust trees sounded like a faint smile, which made people's goosebumps rise.

The SandWing soared into the sky.

Walking southwest along Longsha Mountain, the vegetation is sparse along the way.

Looking down from his high vantage point, Hong Fan could see large, continuous patches of khaki-colored baldness, as if a giant brush were scribbling on the earth.

Sticking close to the dark iron clouds, he followed the "footprints" left by the insect tide and moved forward. Within hundreds of miles, he encountered seven towns and villages of different sizes. Each of them was washed by an invisible torrent, and everything related to life was taken away.

It's getting late.

The setting sun stood sadly on the western fields.

Until the Longsha Mountain beside him shrank to the point of being invisible, Hong Fan saw from afar a black vein protruding from the earthy yellow skin.

That is the evil river.

It has a larger flow rate than the Yao River and is the final destination of most of the rivers in the west of Shengzhou Valley, but it is hated because it connects the territories of the human and insect races.

Lower your altitude and get closer to the water flow.

It was almost dark by now.

The moon on Mount Emei is withered and pale, like a bone needle hooking into the dark purple flesh in the night, and then reflected in the muddy river water, it looks like a wound that has dried up the blood.

Maoyan City is located next to the river.

Hong Fan flew along the E River for half an hour before finally finding this important border town - its area was less than half of Jinhai City, and it should have had a population of 40,000 to 50,000 not long ago. Judging from its architectural structure, it was about half a military city, with 40% of its space occupied by facilities such as military camps, playgrounds, arsenals, fortresses, and granaries.

But now there is no one here.

Circle around the city and take a closer look.

The city wall was fifty feet high, with a huge breach six or seven meters in diameter on the upper west side. The surrounding bricks and stones were shattered, and a destructive passage was opened up, plowing straight into the city for more than a hundred meters.

This is also the top destructive power in the Yuanci realm.

Hong Fan carefully landed on the roof of the city wall, and looked down at the entire city in the pitch-black night. He saw neither corpses nor weapons, and even few signs of fighting.

The wind whimpered past.

He stood silently facing the empty city, feeling death rolling in.

There was a buzzing sound high up.

Hong Fan looked in the direction of the sound and saw three strange-shaped flying insects approaching at high speed, almost blending into the night.

The sand thorns flashed continuously, killing the uninvited guests one by one.

This is a flying insect with a structure similar to that of a dragonfly. It is about the size of an adult rooster, with broad wings. Although it has no armor, it has a blade-like sharp mouthparts and four well-developed compound eyes, which obviously means it has excellent vision.

The real feeling of killing the enemy slightly filled Hong Fan's empty mind.

He forced himself to go into the city to investigate, but did not find any signs of a fight at the Yuanci level - this meant that Gu Yixin was not here when the insect tide attacked the city.

Good news as expected.

The leader of the gun was a native of Maoyan, and this was something that everyone in the world knew.

But Hong Fan was not sure whether he was from Maoyan City or a village outside the city - considering the other party's overly simple temperament, the answer was probably the latter.

So Gu Yixin is still alive.

So where is Gu Yi Xin now?

Hong Fan looked at the dead city in front of him, and hoped in his heart that he was doing nothing - perhaps his sworn brother had already retreated to Tiewa Pass with his family, or perhaps he had already joined up with the eldest princess's Shengyu Army before him.

But the possibility is too low.

Not to mention that mortals have limited speed when traveling, given Gu Yixin's emphasis on righteousness over life and his soft-heartedness, he would never allow one person or even a whole family to escape.

So the sky is so vast and the earth is so boundless, where should I look for someone?

Hong Fan sat cross-legged on the spot, fully understanding the helplessness of "a letter from home is worth ten thousand pieces of gold".

But no matter what, he had witnessed Duan Tiannan's death in the battle against Yunlan with his own eyes, and he was absolutely unwilling to endure the pain of being burned by flames again.

(End of this chapter)