The sun hung high in the sky when Yan Ling's eyes stopped spinning from the violent teleportation that they encountered when they entered the spatial vortex. She gave her cheeks a quick clap to focus her mind, the scent of roasted meat and fatty soup drifting into her nose and temporarily pulling on her attention.

She swept her surroundings with a quick glance after she finished focusing her mind, finding herself lying amidst a few cardboard boxes tucked away in what seemed to be a back alley. The scent of food came from a door not far from her, and judging from the various bags filled with slightly rotten food around her, it seemed like the building right next to her might be a restaurant. Her brows couldn't help but furrow when she didn't see Liang Chen or Yumao in the area around her, nor could she sense them in the surrounding area, a soft curse escaping her lips.

"Crap, Little Freak ended up somewhere else. Knowing how easy it is for him to cause trouble, he'll probably end up knee-deep in bloody shit before the day's over."

Yan Ling knew no one better at creating havoc than Liang Chen, she was certain that he was even better than her at it. The fact that this made everyday fun and that she found it to be one of his charm points was something she wouldn't say out loud, she couldn't let Liang Chen get too cocky after all.

The sounds of exclamation from the city around her quickly caused Yan Ling to raise her head, the interspatial cruiser they had ridden on starting to appear out of a spatial ripple above the city. Seeing the interspatial cruiser descending toward the city, Yan Ling couldn't help but mutter another curse.

"Ah fuck, of course it would appear like this."

She quickly sprung up from her lying position and once again used her wind to scan the city around her, making sure that there were no powerful cultivators in the area. Once she was certain that the area was clear, she created a violent gust of wind around her, blowing a thick cloud of dust and trash high into the air.

She then jumped into the air, launching herself even higher with several more gusts of wind, the cloud of dust obscuring her from the people in the city. Just to be on the safe side, she created a veil of rippling water around her body, further obscuring her appearance just in case anyone managed to see through the dust and trash. She quickly reached the side of the interspatial cruiser and swiftly stored it into her interspatial ring, pushing her hands apart to spread out the veil of water and the cloud of dust.

As the water and trash fell to the ground as a dense rain, Yan Ling rapidly descended, still using the dust and water as a cover to hide her own appearance. She landed in another alley a bit away from the one she had jumped up from, making sure that no one was able to see her as she quickly changed and put on a new robe, a worn and dull brown one with a hood she could use to cover herself. Once she finished changing, she stepped out of the alley, muttering to herself while pretending to curiously glance at the dense rain and falling trash.

"Alright then, let's figure out where we are and how to meet up with the Little Freak before he goes overboard on something."

Yan Ling walked through the streets, which were wide enough to fit at least three horse-carriage yet were still packed densely with people in some places. The houses and streets were built differently from what she was used to, the streets all curving slightly as they seemed to spiral around the entire city, connected by countless small alleys that caused the roads to resemble a spiderweb that spanned the entire city.

The houses themselves were shaped like circles with multiple edges, the buildings closer to the city center were larger and had more edges than the other houses so Yan Ling guessed that the number of edges might be a way to differentiate between status. She spotted groups of people wearing armor and carrying weapons patrolling through the streets as she got closer to the center of the city, their armor emblazoned with the image of a shield featuring a porcupine. She didn't know exactly who these people were, but she guessed that they might be guards so she stopped moving closer to the center of the city.

She eventually reached a rather large square plaza, a tall fountain featuring a porcupine spewing water from each of its spines serving as the centerpiece of the plaza. She saw more people that seemed to be guards in the plaza, but all of them were standing around the statue, seemingly guarding it and preventing others from getting too close. Yan Ling swept the plaza with a swift gaze before walking over to a street vendor whose stall was currently empty, pretending to eye the vegetable skewers while concocting a quick lie.

"Excuse me, Sir, but would you mind telling me the name of this city? I'm trying to write down as much as possible about the various places I wander, makes it easier to get back there in the future."

The somewhat chubby and blonde shopkeep turned his gaze onto Yan Ling, his gaze momentarily sweeping over her dull and somewhat worn robe that seemed to have seen its fair share of bad weather. He put on a friendly smile and picked up one of the skewers, waving it around like a wand as he spoke.

"Ain't no problem missy! This 'ere's called Shield's Spine, un of da bigger cities we'v got 'ere, some even call it da heart of da country. This skewer 'ere can be considered da regional specialty, you ougtha try it."

The man had a rather thick accent, forcing Yan Ling to take a second to piece together the meaning of some of his words. She then searched her memories for anything about a city called Shield's Spine, but was forced to continue asking after her search came up blank.

"Oh, the regional specialty you say? What is it made of? Oh, and which sect or clan controls this city, should I make sure to get friendly with them?"

Yan Ling fished out some normal jewelry from her interspatial ring, pretending to be a somewhat naive wanderer as she handed it over instead of money. The shopkeeper happily accepted the gaudy golden necklace and handed Yan Ling three skewers, placing seven more on a warm metal plate placed on his stand, grilling them as he explained.

"Ey'r made of fruits an root vegetable's that we grow ere' in the area, picked em from da farm just this mornin, farmer's a buddy o' mine ye see. Ey'r real healthy and good for ye, da vegetables used are specially known to give ye da kick you need in da bedroom, ey'll get ye going all night. An' yah, ye really oughta get in da good graces o' the sect that runs this place, the Dawn's Spine, dey control pretty much ever'thing within several hundreds o' kilometers."

Yan Ling ignored the man's remark about the specialty of the vegetables while giving one of the skewers a light nibble, judging it not as good as Liang Chen's homemade food. But when the man mentioned the name of the sect that controlled this city, her pupils shrank slightly, the man was luckily busy flipping the skewers, so he failed to notice the change in her pupils.

Yan Ling actually knew about the Dawn's Spine sect, her father had taught her about it in the past. Just like the name suggested, it was part of the Dawn's Blade Alliance, it was located fairly close to the center of the Dawn's Blade Alliance territory even. Yan Ling couldn't help but be somewhat troubled now, she now knew that she was at least on her own home planet, she even knew which direction to head to return home, but she was as deep in enemy territory as one came. Should anyone learn that she was the daughter of the Storm Wolf sect master, there was no telling how many people would try to hunt her down.

Yan Ling furrowed her brows slightly, but she didn't leave straight away, she waited for the vendor to finish grilling and handing over the seven skewers before she turned around and left. If she were to leave before he did so, there was a chance that he might call out to her, causing a scene and drawing the attention of others, something she wanted to avoid right now.

Yan Ling made her way through the city, using the wind and moisture in the air to figure out the path to the southern exit. Dawn's Spine was the sect controlling the southern part of the Dawn's Blade Alliance territory, heading straight south and across the Sun Swallowing Ocean would be the fastest way to return to her own continent.

Yan Ling excelled in grasping the outlay of her surroundings thanks to not only her law of wind and law of water, but also her infantile law of space, so she quickly found the exit to the city and stepped onto a flattened road that stretched into the distance. A plain filled with a few rolling hills and a few farms stretched out on the right side of the road while a small lake bordering a somewhat small pine forest stretched out on the other side of the road, both locations technically considered part of the city, one of the reasons it was known to be one of the larger ones in the country.

Yan Ling started to walk down the road, not daring to take out the interspatial cruiser before she reached the Sun Swallowing Ocean. Part of the reason was that she was worried about it running out of fuel, but the main reason was that the cruiser would be easily spotted once she used it, and there was no telling what the sects might send out once they discovered something like the cruiser flying through their territory. As such, Yan Ling had no choice but to walk for the time being, not even daring to bring out Lan Yun while she was moving.

Yan Ling ended up being relatively lucky, it seemed like there weren't too many people moving between cities right now, the roads she ended up traveling on being mostly empty. She spotted four cities or villages while moving, but chose to circumvent them rather than risk moving through them. She still had some of the food that Liang Chen prepared, and she could hunt for food if there was a need to, so she had no reason to head into any city.

But on the seventh day of walking, while she was making her way through a rather dense cedar forest filled with gnarled and somewhat bent trees, her luck finally reached its end. She discovered someone at the early stage of the Primordial Immortal realm flying into the range of her senses, a formless energy sweeping over the area she was currently traveling through. The energy stopped on her body, the man who had flown into her senses also stopping and then quickly flying over to her.

Yan Ling quickly pulled back as the man pushed through the branches above and landed in front of her. The man that landed in front of her looked to be in his late twenties and had black hair that was tied into a bun despite obviously being too small for it, his skin was a healthy wheat-like color and his brown eyes swept over Yan Ling for a bit. He tugged on the eye-shaped pendant he wore around his neck, checking it for a second while inspecting Yan Ling, eventually speaking up.

"It's not reacting to you, but you don't resemble anyone of the people we're allied with. Your appearance is also a bit different, but close enough to the testimonies we've received, you're Yan Ling, no?"

Yan Ling's pupils instantly shrank when the man accurately guessed her identity, but what she didn't know was that he didn't really have anything more than a strong guess when he saw her, it was her reaction that allowed him to realize that he was right. The man gave Yan Ling a courteous bow but made sure that his vigilance didn't drop while doing so.

"Greetings, Miss Yan Ling, I am Jin Chang, a disciple of the Sealing God Empyrean. I will be straight with you, our master greatly values your talent for being able to awaken your bloodline and is willing to accept you as a disciple if you are willing to abandon the person known as Liang Chen. I can assure you, we will provide you with the best resources you can find in not only this universe but even in some of the major ones."

Jin Chang was thanking his luck right now, happy that he was the one of his fellow disciples who chose to head south after they received news of the disturbance taking place in Shield's Spine city. Yan Ling didn't even need to consider Jin Chang's proposal, there was no way she would abandon Liang Chen.

"Sorry, but I'd rather have him than your resources."

While rejecting Jin Chang, the gears in Yan Ling's mind were running wild, trying to figure out not only why the Sealing God Empyrean knew about her and her bloodline, but also why he had men on this planet and wanted her to abandon Liang Chen, it seemed like something big had happened while they were gone. Jin Chang wasn't entirely caught off guard by Yan Ling's immediate refusal, removing a flat metal plate from his interspatial ring.

"You know, we had a feeling that might be the case, so we prepared this for you. Here, this is the scene of Senior Sister Dairong catching Liang Chen, she was brought here just to catch him, so he didn't really have the chance to escape. If you choose to follow us and sign an oath, or hand over your bloodline, we can free him."

The metal plate lit up with a bright light and projected the scene of a battle above it, showing Liang Chen losing a battle against a woman. Yan Ling's gaze was intently locked on the scene, but Jin Chang was quietly praying on the inside. His words were half-truth and half-lie, it was true that they had summoned Senior Sister Dairong to deal with him, but she had yet to actually catch him, they had completely lost track of him after he killed Yu Jiang. The scene in the recording was nothing more than an illusion they had prepared to trick her.

There was also no chance of them releasing Liang Chen if they caught him, no matter what Yan Ling offered them, it was all just a ploy to either get her on their side or get their hands on her bloodline, which their Venerable Master desired. Yan Ling would either follow them right away, or her feelings for Yan Ling were so deep that she refused to abandon him, in which case the illusion would hopefully use her deep emotions against her, forcing her to hand over her bloodline or her freedom.

Sadly, the one they chose to use this plan against was Yan Ling, using it against her was just as dumb as it was using it against Liang Chen. Jin Chang suddenly felt the wind in the area getting restless, a breeze blowing past his head. The breeze was followed by a warm sensation flowing down the right side of his face, his eyes narrowing as he felt his right ear falling off, blood pouring out of the wound. He didn't tend to the wound, his gaze locked on the steely face of Yan Ling, which resembled a volcano on the verge of exploding, her voice not doing anything to mask the fury raging within her.

"He is mine, who the fuck do you think you are to take him? If you don't hand him over to me unharmed, I can promise you that I will drown every last one of you bastards in your own blood."