Escort Complete

After crossing several mountain ranges, Tang Yue drew the Totem Pearl from her keeping.

The life energy stored within was nearly spent — the Skyreach Serpent had to be released.

The moment the pearl came free, a vast surge of mist came billowing out.

The fog was a deep blue-black. Mo Fan had deliberately retreated to a safe distance to watch, but the mist spread with stunning speed, swallowing the ground where he stood before he could react. Visibility dropped to nothing. He could no longer see a single thing around him.

Lost in the murk, he sensed something stirring in the pitch-black void ahead.

Then came a wave of cold — something pressing against him, shouldering him steadily further back.

He reached out and touched it: nothing but ice-cold scales. The realization hit him all at once — the enormous creature's body had uncoiled all the way to where he was standing. Mo Fan bolted, scrambling in blind terror up onto a higher outcrop of rock.

From that vantage point he looked down.

It was an ocean of blue-black mist swallowing the better part of an entire mountainside. Within it, a colossal body surged and rolled at intervals — scales packed across its hide as dense and solid as a wall of shields, the vivid serpentine patterns sprawling down its flanks like a mural carved into the face of a cliff.

Before, there had at least been a building between them. A floor-to-ceiling window. Now there was nothing. A chill reached straight into his soul, and Mo Fan found he could barely bring himself to look.

He didn't know how much time passed before the blue-black mist finally thinned and dispersed, revealing a breathtaking expanse of coiled body dominating the entire mountainside.

The serpent's length wound and curved in every direction — looping through the hollows between peaks, winding around boulders, draping down sheer cliff faces like a cascade. The whole mountain seemed to groan under the weight, as though it might buckle at any moment.

Mo Fan had climbed onto the high outcrop to give the Skyreach Serpent room. He hadn't counted on this — no matter where he directed his gaze now, the serpent filled every inch of his field of vision. The sheer scale of it struck him like a physical blow.

"Mo Fan, jump over here — the big one will take us to the cave." Tang Yue stood atop the Skyreach Serpent's massive head, utterly fearless, waving him over.

"I, uh — I think I've done my part escorting it this far," Mo Fan managed, his voice failing him.

There is a kind of fear that grips you when you stand on a lone jutting rock with serpents writhing beneath in every direction — something close to despair. But what gripped Mo Fan now was different. There was only one serpent below, and yet a single serpent of this magnitude — one colossal body filling the entire landscape — was more soul-crushing than ten thousand ordinary ones writhing in an abyss. A small, helpless dread had taken over every corner of his mind.

"Get over here, or I'll have the big one come fetch you," Tang Yue called.

The words had barely left her mouth before Mo Fan launched himself off the rock, landing on the enormous serpent's head with the color drained completely from his face.

Just the head alone was large enough to build a basketball court on. Its two impossibly large eyes fixed on him, and Mo Fan forgot how to breathe.

"Relax — it knows you helped it through the worst of it. It won't hold a grudge about you stepping on its head," Tang Yue said, laughing brightly at his expression.

*So there really is something in this world that can bring Mo Fan to his knees.* She tucked that away for later. If he ever got out of line, all she had to do was let the big one out. Guaranteed to make him fall right into line.

"Ssssssssssss—!"

The Skyreach Serpent flicked its tongue, and Mo Fan found himself staring at what looked like an enormous red carpet undulating through the air right in front of him. He nearly sat down on the spot — on the serpent's head.

"It's thanking you," Tang Yue said, still smiling.

"Oh… d-don't… don't mention it…" Mo Fan replied, his face frozen stiff.

"Let's go, big one. You're safe now." Tang Yue had claimed her preferred spot between the serpent's eyes, perched right on its forehead and swinging her pale, snow-white legs without a care in the world.

Mo Fan squeezed his eyes shut.

The Skyreach Serpent moved the way a landslide does — grinding everything in its path beneath it. Ridgelines that would have been impassable terrain to a human were mere surface irregularities to this creature; its body glided across the mountainscape without so much as a ripple.

From the vantage point of the serpent's head, Mo Fan watched peak after peak blur past in the blink of an eye. And yet by the serpent's own standards, this was barely a stroll — its body swayed at an almost drowsy, unhurried rhythm.

Mountain after mountain fell behind them. Then, at last, a truly colossal peak appeared in the distance.

That was their destination. He supposed that what ordinary humans called mountains amounted to little more than loose stones for the Skyreach Serpent. Only something like this — a vast, unbroken expanse of white, looming peaks — could truly deserve the name.

The cave entrance was easy enough to spot, set into the midpoint of the white giant's flank. The serpent scaled the sheer cliff face and reached the cave mouth in moments.

A cave large enough to house a Skyreach Serpent needs no further elaboration on its scale. Truthfully, Mo Fan had no desire to go inside. The passage was dark and enormous, and what dwelt within was anyone's guess. The tunnels reportedly branched like a labyrinth, threading beneath untold mountain ranges and boring deep into the underground world. You could easily believe an entire Clan of cave-dwelling Demon-Beasts had made their home in there.

"All right, big one — rest and recover here. We need to head back." Tang Yue stood on the cliff face beside the entrance — only at that height could she meet the serpent's gaze at eye level.

"Ssss, ssss, ssss—!" The Skyreach Serpent's crimson tongue flickered. It seemed to understand every word she said.

"Oh — I'll need some of your blood," Tang Yue added.

The Skyreach Serpent slowly curved its head back along the length of its own body until it reached a point midway down, then drove its fangs into itself, opening two gaping wounds. It drew a mouthful of its own blood and held it there.

"That's — that's more than enough," Tang Yue said quickly, waving both hands.

Mo Fan watched it all, caught somewhere between laughter and despair. *Uncommonly generous, this Totem — that 'little bit' of blood it just gave could fill Tang Yue's bathtub.*

"What do you need its blood for?" he asked.

"The plague is getting worse. The source of the infection should be somewhere in its blood — if we bring a sample back, maybe we can extract a serum that works as a cure," Tang Yue said.

Even now, the plague had never truly left her mind. With the Skyreach Serpent safely delivered, she had to turn her attention back to it. The serpent's toxin originated in its blood — if the plague truly traced back to this creature, then the blood itself might hold the key to an antidote.

"Hold on — we barely made it out alive, and now you want to go back?" Mo Fan stared at her, half-laughing.

"What else can we do? We can't just ignore the plague. And we don't need to charge back in — the Palace Guards will be catching up to us before long. We just let them bring us in," Tang Yue said.

"…Is there a less suicidal way to handle this? I'm worried they'll use the chance to settle some old scores," Mo Fan said.

"There's no time. Every minute that plague keeps spreading, another person could be infected. Let's just hope the blood does something."

"If it works, that proves the serpent caused the plague in the first place — which gives Zhu Meng's people even more reason to go after it."