A sharp pain gnawed at Ye Chen’s stomach as he dragged a bucket of gray rainwater across the broken terrace. Seven days had passed since Zhao Feng’s enforcers drove the spirit spikes into the bedrock, and the blockade had turned the Ruined Alchemy Peak into a silent prison.
Without rice or clean meat, Ye Chen’s mortal frame was running on fumes. His cracked ribs had mended into crooked ridges through the system’s steady repair cycle, but the persistent yellow haze on the mountain continued to leech moisture from his skin and strength from his limbs.
Inside the blasted pavilion, a cloud of orange smoke drifted lazily through the collapsed roof. Elder Mu sat cross legged before a battered clay brazier, waving a cracked palm leaf fan with manic rhythm while chanting under his breath about t
