The bitter voice caused Xu Qing to reel mentally as memories that weren’t his bubbled up within him. They were fragmented and didn’t connect, almost like random puzzle pieces. Many were missing, and as a result, Xu Qing couldn’t really piece them together into a meaningful whole. However, there was one thing that came through very clearly.

Many, many years ago, before the gods came to Revered Ancient, back in the time of Ancient time, the Firemoon Darkheaven people… weren’t called by that name. Their species had a different name. They were… the Darkheaven Archmage people. They were both the subordinates of and among the greatest allies of Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity. And there was no species that received more support from humankind. They had a very close relationship with humans, and had worked hard to support Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity as he ascended the throne and conquered Revered Ancient.

Back during those times, their leader, who was called the antemage, and Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity were the closest of friends. During the days before they both reached their peak, they were comrades and confidants. Both had saved the other’s life on multiple occasions.1

The antemage was shockingly powerful, and was called Dark Serenity’s right-hand man. He had performed great services in the effort to unify Revered Ancient. The antemage’s only son had even been given his name by Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity.

Those memory fragments flashed through Xu Qing’s senses, shaking him to the core. His eyes opened, and they were full of surprise.

“Firemoon Darkheaven people,” he murmured. “Darkheaven Archmage people….”

Xu Qing struggled to control his breathing. Whether it was back in the imperial capital or here in Firemoon Darkheaven territory, he had never seen any mention of history like this. Now that he thought about it, all the historical records he had studied only went back to the time of Emperor Eastglory. There wasn’t anything further back than that. It was almost as if the two species’ interactions in the time of Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity had been erased.

Apparently, nobody had thought about it or had cared enough to look into the matter. Perhaps it made sense that there was no information. But it was still strange.

Understandings were influenced!And what else could influence two entire species over such a long time… other than the power of a god?

Xu Qing suddenly thought about the Firemoon Darkheavens’ three gods.

Finally, he looked down at the skull he’d fished out. The memory fragments he’d just witnessed were difficult to reconcile, but at the very least, they gave him food for thought about the Ninedawns Forbidden Lands.

Whoever spoke those words talked about ‘father-mage.’ The ‘father-mage’ must be that good friend of Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity, who was the antemage of the time. And the speaker was his son, whose name was Ninedawns…. Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity gave him that name. And this place is called the Ninedawns Forbidden Lands.

Xu Qing’s heart started to race.

Don’t tell me… there actually isn’t any animal called ninedawns! Rather… Ninedawns was the son of the antemage of the Darkheaven Archmage people? In that case, what did he mean when he said that he ‘let down our Darkheaven Archmage people’…? 2

Xu Qing looked down at the muck and felt like he could almost see all the way down to that sealed cave.

Is that mountain of bone ash all that remains of Ninedawns’ corpse?

For the first time, he was curious to know more about the Ninedawns Forbidden Lands.

After a short time, he cleared his thoughts and checked the violet crystal. Floating within the crystal was a skull that pulsed with mysterious light.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed. He looked up at the bronze incense burner and quickly made a decision. With the wave of his hand, he dispelled the smoke coming from the incense burner. The barrier it had created disappeared. The gray fog surged in.

But then something very unusual happened. Though it still caused terrifying pressure to weigh down on his godsource and cultivation base, when it came to his fleshly body and soul, the invasion was significantly reduced! That said, he still felt something like the tug of karma, and it was even stronger than before. It made him feel like he was so connected to this place that he could never leave it.

After sensing all of that, Xu Qing’s eyes glittered. He pointed at the incense burner, and the smoke emerged again, creating the same barrier from before. Once again, his cultivation base and godsource were active.

The gray fog is from Ninedawns, and it’s incredibly domineering. It can reject all other types of essence, and prevent any cultivators who enter this area from leaving. But after absorbing that skull, the gray fog doesn’t oppose me as virulently. Does it mean… that it now recognizes me as having some of the same origin?

Now the question is what will happen if I fish out the rest of the skulls? If I was fully part of the same origin as the gray fog, would it oppose me at all? Maybe the tug of karma would still prevent me from leaving…. But what if I took the gray fog with me?

Xu Qing closed his eyes and began to make preparations.

A few days later, he opened his eyes. He could sense that the sundial was close to fully repaired, and could also tell that he was in the position to use Fishing the Moon in the Well again.

Without any hesitation, he moved to a spot that was, as best as he could remember, directly above the second skull. There, he performed an incantation gesture and produced the brown flame wisp again. He connected it to Crimson Mother’s flesh, and soon the golden drops of liquid were falling down and melting the muck.

Given his previous experience, success came very smoothly. Although he still needed to worry about damage to the sundial and also his own body, once the tunnel formed, he activated Fishing the Moon in the Well. Rumbling sounds filled heaven and earth as he fished the second skull out of the water.

Just as before, he consumed it. And just like before, the power of the violet crystal swept out and sealed it. Yet again, he was assailed by a storm of memories. This time there were slightly more memory fragments.

Xu Qing suppressed any thoughts of delving into the memories, and instead closed his eyes to rest and recuperate. It was in that manner that half a month passed.

He used the same method repeatedly, and though he met with a few failures, overall, he was successful.

The violet crystal now had four skulls in it, which increased his connection to the Ninedawns Forbidden Lands! In fact, that connection was so shockingly strong that he didn’t need the incense burner anymore. The gray fog was no longer trying to invade him, but rather, just flowed around him in an almost friendly fashion. The pressure on his godly elements and cultivation base was still there, but he was able to fight against it to a certain degree.

This was something completely unheard-of among the Firemoon Darkheaven people. In fact, if Master Stillwinter were here and saw what was happening, he would definitely be completely shocked. He might not even believe his eyes. It was downright freakish!

Unfortunately… this was Xu Qing’s limit. After the half month that had passed, the brown flame wisp eventually went out. Without a flame wisp, he couldn’t melt Crimson Mother’s flesh into golden liquid, and he couldn’t deal with the muck. Unless he came up with another method, getting more skulls would involve him personally digging through the muck to the cave.

After some consideration, he decided not to do that. As he connected more deeply with the origin of this place, he started to get the feeling that if he went down beneath the muck, the entity in that shrine might think he was actually Ninedawns…. And then he would end up trapped there. If that happened, he wouldn’t have any hope of ever escaping. As for how to get more skulls, he was currently out of ideas.

The memory fragments from the four skulls had clicked together in his mind, forming an image of history from countless years in the past. The curtain was being lifted on the secrets of gods.

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It was like a wind blowing from ancient times. It was the story of what happened after Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity left.

The antemage of the Darkheaven Archmage people refused the invitation of his good friend Dark Serenity to leave Revered Ancient. To leave his home.

Dealing with the gods had caused a very rare difference of opinion to occur between the two of them. When the Ancient Emperors left, and the broken face of the god arrived, heaven and earth went dark. Everything blurred. In addition to the broken face came a host of other terrifying gods. Almost overnight, the heavenly daos began to weep, and all living beings wailed in grief.

The gods that descended on Revered Ancient did different things. Some chose to protect various species they interacted with. Some went into hiding in the depths of the land. All of them brought catastrophe.

One of the gods that came with the broken face looked like a spider. That god had shocking personhood that surpassed most other gods. In that god’s presence, all other gods bowed their heads.

And hīs goal was clear. It was… the Darkheaven Archmage people. Hē wanted to enslave them and make them believers.

But the Darkheaven Archmages didn’t want to become slaves. And thus, under the leadership of the antemage, they waged a bitter war against the spider god and the other gods who came with hīm. It was a war in which blood rained from the sky and the lands shattered.

The antemage was a close friend of Dark Serenity, and was fearsomely powerful. His species was similarly spectacular. Cultivating mage arts was different from what ordinary cultivators did. They focused on shapeshifting. Some could transform into giant humanoids, others could transform into giant beasts.

The war shook heaven and earth. Countless Darkheaven Archmages died. As for the gods… it was the same with them. Many of them died, and their corpses fell onto the lands below.

In the end, the antemage sacrificed his life to mortally wound the spider god that all the other gods worshiped. That god was transformed into something called the God-Rejecting Mage Formation, which rejected all types of godly power. That formation’s power was sent out to cover the entire species as a protection. Just before dying, the antemage passed his title on to his son. He told him to use the faith of the Darkheaven Archmage people to fight against the gods!

That son’s name was Ninedawns.

Ninedawns felt great sorrow. However, that was a time period in which gods filled the world, and he hadn’t just accepted the title of antemage and the faith of his species. He had also accepted a great responsibility. And thus, he led all of the archmages of his species outside of the God-Rejecting Mage Formation and waged war on the gods. He never backed down. He never made the decision to simply go home.

To the Darkheaven Archmage people, there was no more qualified antemage than Ninedawns. As he and the other archmages fought the gods, time passed. Within the lands of the Darkheaven Archmages, inside of the God-Rejecting Mage Formation, their species had time to rest and recover.

A new generation of mage cultivators rose up, and one of them was spectacularly talented, and was a born leader. A new chief.

The antemage waged war for such a long time that he became little more than a legend. And the species began to change. That talented leader made a name for himself, and eventually became the grand steward of the Darkheaven Archmage people.

The antemage was in heaven, the steward of the mandate of heaven. The chief was in the mortal world, the steward of mortal authority. And thus, he came to be called the grand steward.

The memories ended there. Xu Qing opened his eyes, and his expression was complicated. That was because he had just recalled the information about Ninedawns that he had studied back at God Mountain.

“The top beast in the Mountain and Sea Region is called a ninedawns. It had a special place in Firemoon Darkheaven culture. Throughout the entire history of their species, there had only been one instance in which someone tamed a ninedawns. Specifically, it was the very first ancestral chief of the Firemoon Darkheavens, who was also the grand steward who led them to prominence. His mount was a ninedawns.”

1. I’m coining the one-word term antemage using the English prefix ‘ante’ from the Latin ‘before,’ to convey the idea of the ancestor or founder of the mages. There are lots of words in English that use ante as a prefix, such as Antebellum, antecedent, antechamber, or antediluvian. In any case, for a variety of reasons, it helps to have a one-word pithy term for this title, so ‘antemage’ it is. Ante can be pronounced in a variety of ways, including antuh, antay, and antee, depending on your preference. ☜ freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

2. Unlike English, the Chinese written script does not have upper- and lower-case. Because of that, it’s much easier to create intentional vagueness in the language between proper and common nouns. For instance, if you had a character named Giraffe, but also had giraffes in the setting, there would be no difference between the two in Chinese. But in English we do make that distinction. It’s further complicated by the fact that there are no plurals in Chinese. As a result, it’s very easy for the author to create a fantastical animal name that is later revealed to actually be the name of a person. Up to this point, I’ve been rendering ‘ninedawns’ as a lowercase, plural word because it was said to be a type of animal. In reality, we just found out it’s most properly rendered in upper case and in the singular form. Going forward, I will do my best to mix and match the two versions depending on the context. For instance, when it comes to dialogue from people who think that ‘ninedawns’ refers to a type of animal, I’ll use the lower case. But in the case of Xu Qing, who knows it’s the name of a person, I’ll capitalize it. That said, there could be instances in which Xu Qing is referring to the incorrect ‘animal’ version of the word, in which case I’ll render it accordingly. Things are further complicated by the fact that the author often uses that exact same term to refer to the physical location that has been referred to as the Ninedawns Forbidden Lands. Though the Chinese term is the same in all these instances, I will render them in the way that makes sense based on the context. ☜