Hearing Hermes' complaint, Zhong Kui retorted, "Try running around Qin without knowledge of this land."

Alex rubbed his head and admitted that the man was fully right.

​​

They didn't know anything about this place, and their lack of knowledge could land them in a troublesome situation.

"Where should we go from here on?" Alex politely asked the demon hunter.

"East of here is the sacred kingdom, so you cannot go there, or you will basically be pursued by a city in which half of the people are Copper Immortals or above..."

Alex listened attentively to the man's next words.

"To go the Ministry of Waters, we need to cross into the sea through Qiantang, a city southeast of here."

"Let's move then, we should be quick before they reach our previous locations and start tracing our steps," Hermes stated with a stern face.

However, Zhong Kui said, "The Underworld carriers have had an extremely busy time south of here, where immense flooding has covered the valleys in the middle of the Yangtze and the Yellow River in water."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Unnatural developments in weather and an increased concentration of yin qi due to mortal deaths, I think there might be a ghost king behind these strange weather events," Zhong Kui's already scary face took an even more sinister tournure.

At the mention of 'ghost king', Alex shivered.

He thought they were weak creatures, but they almost killed him.

In spite of the danger, Hermes proclaimed, "So what? As long as they're not a heavenly court member, we'll cleanly take care of them."

"I suppose you're right, that is the only way to circumvent the close perimeter of the sacred kingdom," The demon hunter nodded and rubbed his thin and brittle goatee.

Since they decided on their next destination, they went back to sleep.

As the dead commander of the Underworld armies, Zhong Kui did not need to sleep, hence, he just kept a watchful eye on the tent throughout the night.

_________

-The next morning-

The two gods woke up and performed their morning rituals.

"Sirs, would you like to have breakfast?" The tribespeople invited them to eat.

"Excuse us, we might have to move immediately, but we thank you for your offer."

However, as they prepared to leave, Alex's eyes remained glued to a certain object at the outskirts of the small settlement of the nomadic tribe.

Over a tall twig, they hung a rectangular piece of beige ceramic.

On the ceramic tile, strange and archaic engravements exhibited themselves.

With his eyesight, he immediately noticed the similarities between an object in his possession and the tile.

Taking out his own tile, it read 'The third testament'.

As he approached this one, the text became clearer.

'Annals of a long life - Abandonment - The fifth testament'

His eyes moved around and deciphered the paragraph underneath.

'I have lived a long life, and in that one, I have had countless masters, and under my training, countless disciples. Of them, my very best disciple was Yudi, who smoothly rose as a ruler of the immortals and the mortals.

If there is anyone that I hope can find my testaments, it is you, Yudi.'

The text was shorter and less vague than the last time.

"Yudi? The Jade Emperor?" Yudi was the Chinese title of the Jade Emperor.

'Lao Zi trained the Jade Emperor?' Alex suddenly had an idea.

Lao Zi wished for the Emperor to read his testaments, and the latter now had a conflict with him and Hermes.

Therefore, if he could somehow deliver these testaments to the ruler, perhaps they could explain themselves and clear up this misunderstanding, and then, finish their mission.

A tribesman approached him and said, "We have found that unbreakable piece of stone in a cave that we used to freeze meat, we don't know what to do with it, do you want to take it, Sir?"

"Yes, I'd appreciate that."

The tribesman went off to speak with the chief of the tribe and then returned with a nod of approval from the latter.

This was an unexpected gain, but he wasn't going to complain.

Taking the crypt in his hand, he closely examined it once again.

There was a strange feature that was common to the two pieces other than the writing.

Embedded into the stones, pieces of metal were visible.

'These aren't perfectly rectangular either..' Alex stuck the two pieces together and found that they were like pieces of a puzzle.

"Alexei-boy, what are you doing? We're departing!"

Hermes had left the tribe earlier, and came back, with the...dragon behind him.

The tribespeople screamed out in fear, whereas Alex facepalmed.

Zhong Kui loudly laughed, but strangely, it seemed like the mortal tribespeople couldn't see him.

"Get on, you two," Hermes had a change of opinions, and now really liked riding the dragon.

The two obliged, and under the revering gazes of the mortals underneath, they blasted off into the sky, in a southern direction.

"You said the place was in constant flooding? Should we help the residents?" Alex inquired with the demon hunter.

Unexpectedly, Zhong Kui shook his head.

"If you were traveling under normal circumstances, I'd be more than glad for you to do that, but the heavenly court sends over its strongest forces to mediate disasters and investigate possible supernatural causes,"

Zhong Kui glared at him and resumed.

"Therefore, if we are too slow, we might meet with gods like Nezha or Hou Yi, and they're both some of the fearsome opponents you could have."

"Don't be so pessimistic, we already know we're in the trouble," Hermes sighed and remarked.

As they rode through, the snowy steppes transformed into a lush, mountainous region.

"Hermes, can you land here?" Alex had a strange request.

Hermes shrugged and obeyed.

Then, Alex took out a bronze-like tool from his luggage.

It was his camera.

'I haven't used this in a while...'

Did the camera lose plot relevance?

Alex took out a silver-like film and inserted it into the slit of the camera.

He pointed it towards a well-lit area of the mountains and waited.

The mountains were colossal, yet they weren't overbearing, as the vegetation cast on them a lively and protecting aura.

After waiting because of the long exposure, he took out the film.

Other than the lack of color, the picture turned out very pleasant-looking.

"Let's go!"

What could this group of three immortals, possibly face in the south?