Chapter 413 (2/2)

When they once again arrived at a dead end, they saw a human skeleton. Not sure how long this had been here but this must be a stronger person. At least a middle-ranked totemic warrior or above. A regular person’s skeleton would break easily.

From this skeleton’s position, the person had raised his/her arms to the skies before death, as if roaring at the heavens in defiance. Although the person had long lost his flesh and was just skin and bones, Shao Xuan could still see that he had died an unwilling death.

“The number of Xia people coming to look for Gongjia Mountain has dwindled. It’s because most of the people who came searching died. There were too few people who succeeded,” said Gongjia Heng.

That was just the first skeleton. After that, Shao Xuan encountered more skeletons. Someone even carved writings on the walls but perhaps due to the weather, they were illegible by now. These people’s last words would never be known, and no one would know who they were. If they were lucky, their identities could be found on their rusty weapons. However, weapons with too much rust rendered the embellishments illegible too. Then no matter how powerful and mighty these people were, after death, no one knew who they were.

Shao Xuan looked at the rusty weapons on the ground. Then, he got up and with a solemn face, told Gongjia Heng, “We have to hurry. Or we’ll just return to where we came from. We don’t have much food left.”

“Mm, if this doesn’t work out, I can come next time.” Although that was what he said, Gongjia Heng still felt like the goal was right under his nose. He just couldn’t see it. How could he return like that? He couldn’t blame these people who died. Some of them were just stubborn, refusing to return although they had far exceeded their physical abilities. Most of them probably starved to death here.

It was sad!

“Can you do a reading yet?” asked Gongjia Heng.

Shao Xuan shook his head.

The anticipation in his eyes turned to disappointment. Then, he seemed to laugh at himself. It felt stupid. Didn’t the Xia people always rely on themselves? How could he place hope on another person? That person was an outsider.

He looked at the sky. “We’ll stop and continue tomorrow. He could make guesses based on the sunlight and shadows on the ground, plus the qualities of the rock around him. However, this was still too slow. If he kept using this method, he might just starve.

Sitting on the ground, Gongjia Heng carefully took out a piece of dried meat and sipped some water in his flask. He thought about what to do next.

Shao Xuan was thinking too. He had seen some broken skeletons here. This probably meant they had been cannibalised by other people. People could do very shocking things when they were at a dead end. Shao Xuan understood that the ones who would go looking for the mountain had a specific mindset too. Cannibalism was understandable.

Shao Xuan did not want to starve to death here, nor did he want to eat human meat here. It was fine if they could not find the place. He would rather return. However, they still had to do their best since they had already arrived.

He didn’t know why his knot divinations kept failing. He could only use other methods.

He used his senses to feel his surroundings. The death brought by the core seed was everywhere around him. However, it was difficult to confirm its position.

Could he determine its location using his mind’s totemic flames? No. This was the Xia people’s territory and unrelated to the Flaming Horn people. Their totemic flames were useless here.

Shao Xuan was about to calm the totemic power within him when he realised there were threads of power concentrating in his chest. He opened his eyes to see a bit of light there.

He fished the Elder’s Bone out to realise all four bone ornaments were on fire. There was no wind right now but the flames were all flickering in one direction!

Gongjia Heng had his eyes closed, deep in thought. When he noticed some movement, he opened his eyes to see flames in Shao Xuan’s hands. And the flames were flickering in one direction.

“That’s…”

“We’ll head in that direction tomorrow.” Shao Xuan put the bone ornaments behind his clothes again. As he calmed the totemic power in him, the flames died.

Gongjia Heng’s eyes brightened. He knew the kid would have a solution!

Initially, he was thinking of returning but now he had hope again.

On the next day, they waited till noon to leave. They continued heading in the direction of the ornaments’ flames. At the same time, after some time, Gongjia Heng also quickly calculated on his own to check if it was right.

When they passed by a place, Gongjia Heng suddenly yelled and stopped. “Wait!”

“What’s the matter?”

Previously, the flames had been pointing in this direction. Shao Xuan was about to take his ornaments out to check again but Heng had fished out a bronze nail and stabbed it into the ground. He looked at the sky. “This sun in the sky is the real one, right?”

Shao Xuan nodded.

After his confirmation, Gongjia HEng looked at the shadow of the nail on the ground, made some measurements, then looked at one of the cliff faces. Based on his guesses, he walked over.

The cliff face wasn’t far away but Gongjia Heng felt like every step was too heavy. That ten meters took him one minute to walk over. His throat was dry, his eyes filled with shock.

When he finally arrived at the face, Gongjia Heng looked at the seemingly regular wall. He placed both palms on it and roared, using all his energy to push.

Grrrrr-----