Chapter 43: Chick
As he packed it up, Kian stared at the map until the blood-circle seemed to pulse in his peripheral vision, a phantom heartbeat against the worn leather.
Dragon Horn Island. Blood Demon Origin. The words themselves felt ominous and adventurous. But Kian had to agree, it made his heart pump.
A map to an unknown land, how could he not be curious?
He folded the skin-map along its creases and tucked it into his pack, his jaw tight.
Feimei could step through that door right now if he asked her to. The pull was there, she’d said so herself. But Kian had learned a lesson from his recent experiences: being reckless was stupid.
Dream of immortality today, die tomorrow!
Kian clearly was not willing.
He closed his eyes and let the cart’s rocking pull him under a lull.
The spirit muttered: "Really naive and inexperienced of the cultivation world! Humph! You will learn to sleep with one eye open once you live for a while."
"Old man, I have always slept with one eyes open."
Kian shook his head with a smile.
Sleep came fast, a black tide with no dreams, and when he opened them again the world had changed.
Woooh~~!
The ox cart stood still at the crest of a limestone ridge where the forest broke apart into a field of wind-hollowed boulders. Dawn was just cracking the horizon, a seam of pale gold splitting the dark, and the air tasted thin and cold and sharp as blade-oil.
Jiao Yin was already awake, gripping the cart rail on her knees, her lips parted. Beyond her shoulder, the land dropped away into a vast basin.
A city sprawled across the valley floor like a sleeping beast made of stone and light.
Kian’s eyes followed it, then his ears heard the bustle of commerce.
It was not a mortal city.
Kian knew that before his Qi even stirred. The walls rose fifty feet in seamless black granite, etched from foundation to parapet with defensive arrays that flickered in the early light like heat over coals.
Six gates pierced the walls at even intervals, and even at this hour, the eastern gate churned with motion—ox-drawn wagons hauling spirit-beast carcasses, palanquins borne by golems of polished clay, a steady stream of robed figures on foot and sword.
A floating platform drifted past the carriage, a bunch of laughter ringing out.
Kian watched the scene, awestruck.
The merchant climbed down from his seat and stretched until his spine popped.
"Mulberry Gate City," he said, spitting tobacco into the weeds. "Biggest trade hub between the Hugan range and the eastern wastes. You can buy anything here if your pockets are deep enough." He squinted at Kian, then at the leather sack of spirit stones. "Looks like yours are."
"Don’t look at the sun or you’ll hurt your eyes," Kian said, sighing at the vastness of the city.
Was it bigger than New York?
Definitely not.
Was it so much more livelier?
At least, Kian felt that was the case.
Watching wooden ships, carriages, throngs of mortals and arrogant flying cultivators had a totally different feel from back on Earth.
Here, everything felt to contain more... life.
Mia stirred beside him, her hair a mess, and Jia came awake with a groggy curse.
Feimei had already risen, her red eyes scanning the city below with the quiet intensity Kian knew her to have.
No one said anything for a long moment.
Then...
Kian swung his legs off the cart and stood.
His joints popped, but the weariness from the past days had settled into something manageable.
"Let’s go," he said, and the girls gathered their things.
Soon, they were among the crowd pushing to enter the city.
The eastern gate swallowed them into its shadow, and up close the defensive arrays weren’t just flickering—they were like true walls rising to the sky, living script that crawled across the black granite like centipedes made of light.
Kian felt his Qi stir in response, a prickle at the base of his skull that faded the moment they passed under the arch.
A guard in lacquered armor stopped them with a raised palm. "Two low-grade stones per head. Mortals pay the same. No exceptions."
His eyes, flat and bored, flicked over the sisters and paused on Feimei’s red gaze for half a beat before skittering away to Kian.
Kian counted out fourteen stones from his pouch and dropped them into the guard’s outstretched box.
The man grunted and waved them through.
The city hit Kian like a physical force. Sound first—hawkers screaming prices, a blacksmith’s hammer ringing on something that wasn’t iron, the wet thump of meat being cleaved somewhere close.
Then smell: roasted chestnuts and spirit-beast offal, incense so thick it coated his tongue, the metallic tang of old blood from an alley he chose not to look down.
"Wow, look over there guys," Jia said, exclaiming in surprise.
Kian turned to look.
A man walked past with the head of a rooster, his comb bright red and his eyes bead-black, arguing with a woman whose arms were covered in living tattoos that slithered and rearranged themselves as she gestured.
Beyond them, a cultivator with wings—actual wings, feathered in copper and gold—perched on a rooftop, preening flight feathers with a curved dagger.
Jia grabbed Kian’s sleeve without seeming to notice.
The merchant, who had followed Kian’s party, explained: "The city doesn’t actually have as many cultivators as the Hugan Sect. But this is the gateway, so, most cultivators who come to the city hang out here."
"That chicken... person is a cultivator?" Jiao Yin yelped.
The chicken man turned to look at them, scaring the girls shitless.
Kian just waved at the man.
The chicken-man cocked his head. Then, smiling, he winked. One beady black eye closed and opened with deliberate theatricality.
Jia’s grip on Kian’s sleeve tightened. "Is it flirting?"
Kian took a deep breath, then said: "Come on, let’s go in!!"
Jia stifled a laugh as he pulled her away, almost running in fear.