Absolute Resonance

Li Luo, Jiang Qing\'e, and the First Princess stood on a high wall, looking down at the mass of human bodies laid out before them. As the corruption level within the city dwindled, these people began to get some semblance of reason back.

But after regaining their minds, they were not celebrating. Rather, they were crying hard.

They were extremely exhausted, but they could not stop the wails, the wracking sobs that shook their bodies.

For the longest time, they had been subjected to the most ghastly of horrors and the most excruciating of tortures.

They had watched their own kin and even children infested with blood snakes, for the four-limbed demon-eye serpent to eat. Their insides had been liquified and their eyeballs eaten out, ending up as nothing more than bags of human skin. That memory would forever be seared into their minds.

They might be physically safe now, but nothing could rescue them from the prison of despair that had a mental hold on them.

There was not much consolation that Li Luo and the others could give them. Some wounds simply needed time to heal.

“The Others are really our greatest enemy, aren\'t they?" Li Luo asked sadly.

This was the cruelest sight that he had seen to date. Although the Others in the Umbra Cave were evil, they had not been allowed to prey on vulnerable humans. Cruelty was darkest against the weak.

No wonder so many Kings and Dukes had to be chosen via lottery to go to the Nobles\' Battlefield.

They had to stop the Others from coming to their world.

It was a noble duty to protect the entire human race. Or perhaps some of them were just doing it for their families.

All who went to that place of horrors deserved respect.

The First Princess was not as affected as the two of them. As the first princess of the Xia Kingdom, she was privy to more, and might have been mentally prepared for such horrors.

"When the cleansing points in Red Clay Province are all established, the surrounding nations might come to reestablish order. Things will be better then," the First Princess said comfortingly to Li Luo.

"Yeah. Okay. Let\'s go." Li Luo nodded. He had to shake off the melancholy quickly so he could remain in peak fighting form.

Jiang Qing\'e and the First Princess took one final look at the hellish garden, then turned and followed their youngest member.

The three left Riverguard City, following their map in the direction of Thunderpeal Mountain and making good haste along the way.

Thunderpeal Mountain was a few hundred kilometers away from Riverguard City, which would usually take them two to four hours to cover. But in the Red Clay Province, the corruption and infestation of Others forced them to proceed cautiously. They did not come across any more Heavenly Disaster-class Others like the four-limbed demon-eye serpent, but the sheer number of enemies slowed them down significantly.

By the time they reached the vicinity of Thunderpeal Mountain, it was already the next day.

They stood on a slope where they could get an unhindered view of the mountain.

Casting their eyes out, they were excited by the prospect of adventure in a new terrain, their youthful optimism asserting itself.

They could see their destination through a V-shaped gap in the mountain range, rising up far higher than its peers. The clouds at its peak crackled with lightning and rumbled with thunder.

Near that peak was a massive tree, completely silver in color. It was far from them, and yet they could see that its crown had expanded out enough to cover much of the peak itself.

Lightning bolts from the clouds cracked down on the leaves and were absorbed by the tree.

It was a magnificent sight.

"That\'s the Thunderpeal Tree? It\'d give our school\'s Tree of Resonant Power a good run for its money," Li Luo marveled.

"No wonder the Blackwind Empire royalty kept it for themselves," the First Princess said, mouth open in wonder as well. "What a treasure."

Jiang Qing\'e was just about to speak, but she suddenly stopped, pulling out her spirit mirror. "Seems like we just received an emergency mission?"

Li Luo and the First Princess checked their spirit mirrors and confirmed what she had said.

"Seems like a squad got lost around here... 50,000 points as reward," Li Luo read aloud. "Since we only got the mission when we arrived here, it\'s probably region-locked."

"A missing team, huh..." the First Princess said doubtfully. "All of us have spirit mirrors, and if there is any fatal danger, squads can just smash the mirror and escape. Why would a team disappear?"

Jiang Qing\'e and Li Luo looked at each other, then shook their heads.

"Looks like Thunderpeal Mountain could be more dangerous than we thought," Jiang Qing\'e said.

Li Luo looked up at the mountain range again. The natural thunder and energies here were dense, so much so that the corruption was barely able to enter this area. It was easy to be lulled into a false sense of security.

This mountain range was not as clean as it looked.

"In any case, let\'s go over and take a look," the First Princess said.

She was confident in her strength, so she was not too afraid.

Li Luo and Jiang Qing\'e nodded. They had come all the way here already, so they might as well poke around. And there was nowhere really safe in the Red Clay Province anyway.

At most, they would meet a strong enemy and fight it.

As long as they did not meet a Greater Heavenly Disaster-class, they should be able to face anything.

Their next course of action decided, they moved out again.

Just as they were about to enter the mountain itself, both the First Princess and Jiang Qing\'e suddenly stopped and turned to the right.

"Someone\'s here."

"Should be other squads."

"So we\'re not the only ones to get the emergency mission." Li Luo nodded.

He looked up to the right, and sure enough, he spotted a group coming towards them.

Six people, two squads.

Li Luo squinted and then his eyes widened in surprise. A familiar figure.

“Lu Ming?”