If one sailed east from the mouth of the Great Eastern River across the shallow sea there they would, after crossing several hundred kilometers of ocean, arrive at the southern end of a series of large and mountainous islands stretching an even greater distance broadly northeastward. These islands had been known, in the days of the old world, as the Sunfire Islands. This name combined references to the grand sunrises visible above the waters of the great ocean to the east and to the many resident volcanoes that periodically reshaped these islands beneath curtains of fire.

The resulting terrain combined fertile volcanic soils, abundant cool water ocean resources, and towering peaks, and had attracted many cultivators. Those that utilized the heat unleashed by the volcanoes to power violent and aggressive cultivation paths had been especially prominent.

In those days, a great many sects called this land home. Most were small and little known, confined to the narrow fertile valleys where the slopes could be tamed for rice growth with small populations to call upon for students. These were now almost entirely forgotten, even their names lost. A few, however, had been mighty.

Claiming the few large fertile plains the islands contained, they had grown strong from the multitudes the dense rice paddies the rich soils sustained. These sects had storied histories, had fostered valiant cultivators, and when the plague came had fought hard on behalf of the orthodox alliance. Most were notably martial in their focus, and these sects were believed to have left mighty legacies behind even after the plague overran the islands and the demonic cultivators used them as a beachhead for their push to invade the last remaining heartland of the orthodox.

At least, those potential remains served as the excuse Qing Liao used to justify his journey over the waves to the east. Personally, he was far more interested in the rare plants and animals known to reside upon the islands, including a rabbit, an otter, and several different forms of weasel. Previous exploration had taught him that variation was a valuable teacher in his research into the fundamental properties of hide and fur. As he now witnessed the world through partially integrated senses, this ought to prove only more truthful than before. Either way, there had been few objections to the journey, for the Sunfire Islands had been previously prosperous and the libraries of Mother's Gift yet preserved much of their history.

Results, in the first two months of his expedition, had provided him with a considerable natural bounty – including an entirely unexpected serow with a uniquely shaded coat found on the high slopes he considered a gift from the Celestial Mother – but had been disappointing with regard to artifacts. Liao had discovered that the islands were well-named, and that their fiery origins worked hard to bury the legacies of the past.

Volcanoes buried huge portions of the islands in thick layers of ash. They also triggered landslides, earthquakes, floods, and fires. He had passed over many places that had been marked on the map as probably once the home of sects, but even those lying on mountaintops had been erased by the violent changes to the terrain. Sometimes even entire mountains were gone.

The first of the major coastal plains, which he reached after several weeks of walking slowly eastward, was in more or less the expected location, but proved to be a complete loss. Old maps showed dense farmland wrapped around a horseshoe-shaped bay with a broad island at its mouth. Liao discovered that the entire bay had vanished, filled in by a combination of silt, mud, and volcanic ash. What had once been a wide expanse of open water was now a massive salt marsh full of remarkably angry and aggressive crabs.

Once, the Ascendant Spear Sect had called this place home, but whatever they had left behind was scattered across hundreds of square kilometers and buried beneath many meters of muck. In the entire plain, not even a single trace of construction remained.

Liao, taking advantage of the recently concluded spring migration, found the salt marsh a glorious space for hunting and during his passage across shot an impressive number of shorebirds, including many kinds he'd never previously seen. In terms of artifacts, he found essentially nothing. The vast swamp yielded a handful of finger-sized pottery scraps sufficient to prove people had once lived here, but that was all.

The second of the plains, once home to the Endless Mysteries Sect, lay only a day's travel further east. Liao, looking down on the expanse from a mountaintop in between the two flatlands, decided to detour north. While the sect appeared to have been flooded out and replaced by an immense mix of sand dunes and mudflats much the same as its neighbor, there was something profoundly wrong with the region that he could feel even from a great distance away. The lowland region where the sect had once been radiated an awful, deathly qi that coated the air above it in a strange haze and produced bizarre growth patterns near the boundary, as if the plants were trying to lean away from its touch. Even the demons seemed to be avoiding the area, though numerous red spots could be observed haunting its edges, leftovers from battles fought long ago.

Sayaana, sharing this vision of desolation, suggested that some sort of deadly formation must remain at least partly active in the area. Though that suggested artifacts or other treasures might well remain in place, Liao decided probing an unknown formation was not worth the risk. He would fill his storage bands elsewhere.

Subsequent steady traveling through the central mountains that formed the spine of the islands went well. Liao bagged two different breeds of unique monkey, much further north than he'd ever previously encountered such creatures, and variant island versions of badger, raccoon dog, and wolf with unique pelage combinations in all cases. He also managed to recover a small bag's worth of minor artifacts, mostly jewelry and cut stones, from collapsed shrines to the sages that the local people seem to have preferred to place near mountaintops. He also found remarkable ropes, still preserved after over twenty-six centuries, wrapped around equally ancient trees, sometimes with bells and spearheads attached. These were nothing remarkable or anything Mother's Gift could not produce itself, but they made it clear that the islands had hosted craftsmen who were potent in the art of manipulating qi.

"This is a pretty country," Sayaana remarked as they stared out at the vista from the top of one of the clear mountaintops. "The fires make it wild. Soon, all the remains of the old world will be gone."

Liao did not share the same level of joy that the remnant soul did at this rewilding. People had lived here in great numbers, once. It seemed regrettable that they should be forgotten. Still, he agreed in large part. "This is not a good land for humans," he noted softly. "Even mighty cultivators cannot tame the deep fires of the earth." He had asked about volcanoes prior to departure and received a lengthy lecture on the subject from Su Yi, who studied them as part of her formation work. "Grass is transient here, quickly reclaimed by forest." That insight took little knowledge to recognize. Though the rumbling earth opened land for potential use in farming, had there been anyone to till it, it also closed such fields again swiftly. "To live here would demand a constant battle with the world."

Cultivators could, would, win that battle, Liao knew well. They had done so all across the mainland, a legacy still detectable in the form of the endless terraces that reshaped countless hillsides, but there was always a cost. Here, any terraces that had once been, and he suspected they had been numerous, had been erased by shaking earth. He did not think rice farmers would be well served by such continual disturbance.

Throughout the journey, Liao and Sayaana kept their eyes open in the search for hidden lands. They had no expectation of stumbling across a gateway at random, the odds against such a thing were insurmountable, but instead they sought out any evidence that scouts roamed the mountains and left behind clues of their own that such agents might follow. Smoke, blazes carved into trees, and even the occasional flag planted in some high place could potentially draw attention while offering up no qi. Sayaana had used such tricks during her period of wandering many times. Such moves had the potential to lure in demonic cultivators, but this risk was minimal. Liao retained confidence in his ability to evade observation in the alpine forest, and the skies had been clear for the whole journey. The icy quartet had removed themselves to parts unknown, and it seemed no other demonic cultivator expressed interest in the islands.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

This neglect, Liao soon realized, could be sourced to the absence of any survivors. Islands compressed distance, making it easier for demons to gather and converge. Whatever places of refuge the islands once possessed, it appeared they had all been discovered and destroyed long since. Evidence of this was present. They found one valley where the ground was covered in black tar. There, vision blurred, and balance shifted between every step. Life avoided that place, and Liao discovered he had to battle nausea, something not experienced in over a century, after simply walking close to the river at the center.

"A hidden land was shattered here," Sayaana declared as they exited that devastated span. "A thousand years ago, maybe." Despite the substantial gulf of time elapsed, the region had not yet recovered from the catastrophic damage to the spatial dao. Damaged soil could regain strength quickly, so long as water persisted, but the same could not be said of foundational qi structures. Liao found the damaged space deeply distressing, a scar carved into the soul of the world.

They moved on quickly after that encounter, hoping to discover a source of better news.

They found only more forest.

Liao took some solace in the ease with which he was able to traverse these lands. The terrain was rough, with much up and down, but it did not hinder him at all. He could move through the underbrush almost effortlessly, and when that thickened, simply walked across the treetop canopy instead. Such encounters were rare, for the forests were heavily browsed by deer and boar alike and regularly cleansed by fire. Even the truly dense growth was broken up by swift running narrow rivers that carved paths everywhere through the mountains.

Beyond that, demons were rare. It was the repeat of a lesson he had been taught by the beaver flood thousands of times over. Monstrously tough though they were, the demons lacked the strength to endure the worst of the formidable forces nature's violence might unleash. On the Sunfire Islands, where such events were common, time had greatly diminished their numbers. During one particular day, tramping up and down the mountains, Liao had the singular experience of walking from sunup to sundown without encountering a single, red-shaded ghoul. At other times, he diverted along his path to eliminate the one or two demons he encountered as the kilometers passed beneath his feet, leaving the wake of his passage clear. With no other eyes upon the island such trimming seemed a useful idle activity.

It would not make any real difference of course, he knew that well and sadly. Even if he slew ten ghouls every day it would not amount to more than a few thousand every year, and hundreds of millions of plague-formed demons remained. It was not even possible to find some small, isolated patch and cleanse it entirely. The demons would inevitably return to any source or echo of vital qi. Even distant islands were not spared, for the creatures would trek vast distances beneath the ocean following the plague's call.

That reality, that only the active protection of formations could spare any place no matter how small, was bitterly frustrating. However, it was not without possibilities. Their attraction to qi meant the demons were easily lured. Once their traitorous cultivator masters were gone, they could easily be lured to the slaughter.

Carefully stalking some portion of the demons he came across allowed Liao to gain a good grasp of the distribution of demons across the mountains. They were widespread, though they congregated in the valley bottoms rather than on the sharp slopes of the volcano-forged peaks. No area was truly clear of their presence, thin though it might be.

At least, that remained true until he unexpectedly encountered a gap.

Moving through a series of narrow valleys running roughly eastward he discovered a complete absence of all agents of the plague. He stalked towards the sunrise for dozens of kilometers without sensing a single ghoul, something he confirmed visuals by cresting several ridges and periodically leaping atop towering trees. The red tinge of the plague remained ever-present, but the land had emptied out of embodied enemies.

This mystery spurred his strides and quickened his step.

He solved the puzzle hours later when, propelled by the rapid pace that the Stellar Flash Steps allowed a cultivator in the awareness integration realm, he caught up to the lagging end of this ongoing regional change in the behavior of the demons of the Sunfire Islands. Seen from afar, it shocked Liao to his core.

The demons were moving.

It was a rare thing to see even a single ghoul in motion. Usually, they were stationary, locked in place standing atop fragments of buried qi or simply without any reason to move at all. Only when drawn toward a source of vital qi did they engage in motion. Then, responding to the plague's call, they would lurch forward.

A great many demons, thousands at least, perhaps more, were moving east through the mountains toward the coast. Liao could feel their presence, the surge of activity, as he caught up to the back edge of this still-forming rush. He could also, moving up to high points, watch as the canopy shook and the air filled with dust while thousands of bodies pushed forcibly through dense vegetation.

East, all of them proceeded in that direction, vaguely directed toward the place on the map where the third wide plain and the Supreme Sword Sect, once the strongest by far of the island's orders, had once been found.

"A horde?" Liao asked Sayaana, confused by this unexpected demonic migration. The monsters moved at a walking pace, not yet driven by hunger or rage, but their march was steady and unceasing. Over time, they crossed unexpectedly substantial distances.

"Not big enough," the remnant soul, speaking from within his skull, countered. "Ten thousand, twenty thousand, it's too small to invade a hidden land, unless it's a tiny one, and they're moving too fast. A strong signal, not a weak leak. This isn't a horde, it's a hunt. I remember those."

"You mean there's someone out here in the wild? Unconcealed?" Liao had wandered the Ruined Wastes for a century and a half. In all that time he'd never encountered another living cultivator. Nor had he sensed their qi or found any evidence of their existence. Sayaana was, as far as either of them knew, the last cultivator who had managed to survive in the wild for any length of time, and that had been centuries ago. Time, all believed, hard only hardened the walls of the world.

"This is how they'd come after me, so, yes," the remnant soul agreed, sounding almost as surprised as Liao felt. Her joined qi felt hesitant, wrapped in unusual caution. It seemed she did not wish to witness her own history repeated.

That likelihood, the prospect of a cultivator hunted down and torn apart by demons, stirred something in Liao, something normally buried deep. Another person in the Ruined Wastes changed their nature. It changed the world, transformed it into something other than a devastated wilderness he wandered alone. This thought sparked hope and summoned tragedy all at once.

Rather than explore those implications, terrifyingly open-ended as they were, he turned his mind instead to the practical needs of the moment.

There were no demonic cultivators nearby. Liao was quite thoroughly certain about this. The plague, for the moment, had demons alone as its tools. They were numerous, and they would surely grow ever more concentrated as they approached their quarry, but his confidence in evading their eyes had grown with time and cultivation alike. There was nothing he could see to stop him from tracking this hunt all the way to its center.

In considering these things, Liao came to a decision without the use of conscious thought. He would penetrate this migratory demon wave and discover the truth hiding behind it. He did not consider further ahead than this, content to follow his intuition and to move forward to intercept whatever lay at the heart of the hunt. Advancing at a steady jog, a pace he could sustain indefinitely while covering a tremendous amount of ground, he raced across and out of the mountains.

Within hours he had passed through the outer bands of gathering demons and, alongside that red mass, beyond the reach of the mountains into the wide eastern plain. This land, once the stronghold of the Supreme Sword Sect, was a true wasteland, one of the first places in the Ruined Wastes he had encountered that truly fitted to that label.

Once, half a million people or more lived here, and a mighty sect nearly fifteen hundred cultivators strong raised up a great city surrounding the long and narrow bay. Battle had reduced it all to ash. Not only had the vegetation and the soil burned away beneath attacks of terrible power, but the very rocks had been set alight by the extraordinary temperatures unleashed during the death throes of the sect. Strange rock formations, resembling lava flows but composed of the wrong types of stone, covered the ground. Twisted pillars and warped walls, still bearing the ragged scars of ash that time had somehow failed to erase, marked the few structures the hammers of qi had not reduced to dust and powder.

Such a vast open and devastated space produced wide sight lines. Thankfully, rivers still ran through the ashen barrens, and without vegetation to hold back their power they cut deep into the base of the plain. Liao ran along the river surfaces, below the sight of demon eyes. Those few who dropped down the banks into his path, he slew swiftly and then continued on his way.

Jogging through the night, he reached the edge of the bay at dawn. There, he discovered thousands of demons in the process of marching into the sea. Climbing a tall hill on a south-extending peninsula, he stared out over the waters and discerned the hunt's destination through a combination of observation and geometry.

An island some tens of kilometers to the south, just barely visible from where he stood. That was the target of the demons.

It was time to go for a swim.

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