Chapter 268 Axe Beak and Ancient Brass Candlestick

Ash Valley, as the name implied, was a gray valley.

Fierce winds howled through the empty gorge, blowing fine stone dust through the air.

The ground, the stone walls, and even the dust-shrouded sky—as far as the eye could see, everything was a bleak, ashen gray.

The rolling hills resembled frozen waves, surging layer by layer from the edge of the horizon before solidifying into a hard, dead mass—a life-devouring gray that fell solidly before them.

Xia Nan reached out and lightly ran his hand along the nearby gray rock wall, feeling the cold, coarse texture against his fingertips.

He couldn't help but compare the dead gray of this valley to the rocks in the Goblin Lair and the lime staining the "Faded-Fire Coin".

It was indeed the exact same color.

"Are you familiar with this valley?" he asked Leon casually.

"This is my first time here too." The young man looked incredibly nervous, his body so tense it was practically rigid. His hands gripped his old iron sword tightly. "Mr. Xia Nan, please be careful."

"I heard a group of dangerous monsters lives here. Ever since I can remember, I've been warned that Ash Valley is a forbidden zone. Not even the most mischievous kids in the village dare to come close."

Xia Nan nodded thoughtfully. He suddenly noticed a faint mist drifting through the air and frowned. "Have you heard the adults in the village mention this kind of mist in the valley?"

The white mist was so thin that Leon only noticed it after Xia Nan pointed it out.

He simply shook his head, indicating he didn't know anything about it.

The description of the [Annealed Old Coin] on his Attribute Panel was on Xia Nan's mind. He had been staying in Ash Valley Village for days, yet he still had no clue about the help Verol claimed he could find here.

Now, however, his curiosity was piqued.

Recalling what Leon had said about the monsters living in the valley, he waved to the young man beside him. "Stay close. We're going a bit deeper."

The two continued further in.

The environment inside Ash Valley wasn't much different from what Xia Nan had imagined.

There was almost no vegetation in sight, and gray rocks filled every corner of his vision.

They didn't see a single living creature. Only the piercing howl of the wind echoed faintly between the stone walls.

What caught his attention was that as they ventured deeper into the valley, the initially faint mist in the air began to thicken.

Xia Nan didn't sense any abnormal concentration of magic particles in it. This mist was fundamentally different from the one in the Misty Forest.

It wasn't a manifestation of dense magic particles, but rather a "natural phenomenon" of the valley.

'Is it really natural?' he thought, sensing something slightly off. But since he hadn't discovered anything unusual yet, it was best not to jump to conclusions.

Suddenly, a flash of unusual brownish-white caught his eye amid the dead gray landscape.

It was a broken stone pillar pointing straight toward the gray sky, looking as if it had once supported a magnificent dome.

Now, it sat abruptly in the depths of the valley, its faint silhouette looming through the thick mist.

It was the ruins of a massive structure.

Centered around that lone pillar lay a scattered expanse of collapsed, weathered building materials. Bricks, wooden boards, hanging fabrics... perhaps they all once boasted vibrant colors, but now the valley had stained them with an indelible, pallid gray.

Only a few items, inherently sturdy enough to withstand the scouring river of time, retained some semblance of their original appearance.

There was a broken, giant stone hand large enough to crush a normal person's head. Its pinky was missing, and only half of its ring finger remained, but the exquisite skill of the carver still shone through the three remaining fingers. Contorted and spread helplessly toward the sky, they perfectly captured an overwhelming sense of despair.

Not far away lay half of a shattered plaster face, leaning diagonally against a broken wall. Its single remaining hollow eye stared out at the valley. The gentle smile at the corner of its mouth, which should have been captivating, looked incredibly eerie and empty against the cracks and dead gray of its surface.

Xia Nan's brows drew together tightly as his gaze swept across the ruins. "Have you ever heard the adults in the village talk about these things?"

"No, Mr. Xia Nan, nothing at all." Leon followed closely behind him, his face growing even paler under the shrouding mist.

After all, he was only a fifteen-year-old boy who had lived in a remote village his entire life. Their recent experience in the Goblin Lair had already dealt him a massive shock.

Now, trapped in a dangerous environment he had been warned against since childhood and faced with such a bizarre scene, the fact that Leon could still think straight and answer Xia Nan's questions was his absolute limit.

Seeing the young man's expression, Xia Nan didn't press him. He figured he would ask the village elders for more details about these ruins when they returned.

Suddenly, his gaze paused.

He took two steps forward and flipped aside a small stone slab covering the ground.

He crouched down.

A moment later, he picked up a dilapidated candlestick from the dirt, also coated in lime.

He unhooked the waterskin from his waist and washed it down with fresh water.

The candlestick was much larger than the half coin, and Xia Nan only had so much drinking water on him. In the end, he only managed to wash off some of the stone powder from its surface, revealing a few of its details.

Its base was shaped like six twisted copper leaves. The bowl-shaped wax pool above it had melted and warped from prolonged exposure to high heat, curling inward like a withered petal.

The main stem consisted of three copper strips twisted into a spiral. There was an obvious dent in the middle, as if it had been deformed by a heavy impact. The candle holder at the top was a serrated ring flaring outward, though the ash covering it hid any trace of where wax tears might have once dripped.

Xia Nan carefully examined this exquisite creation, which completely clashed with the aesthetic of Ash Valley and Ash Valley Village, deliberately focusing his attention on it.

Then, just as expected, translucent text burst forth in the void once again:

...

[Ancient Brass Candlestick]

Type: Candlestick

Level: /

Description:

An old brass candlestick that briefly chased away the darkness in a certain corner, illuminating the weary faces of travelers and a long-forgotten tome.

Note:

"Great and merciful Lord, the fire has gradually faded..."

—Anonymous Nun of the Ash Ember Church

...

'This "Ash Ember Church" again?' Xia Nan murmured inwardly, his eyes quickly scanning the Attribute Panel.

He had seen those exact words on the [Faded-Fire Coin] before. Now they had appeared again on a candlestick in the ruins of Ash Valley, clearly proving Leon's hypothesis correct.

That half coin had indeed been scavenged from Ash Valley by the goblins. The coin and the candlestick shared the same origin.

But...

Xia Nan carefully recalled the information on the Attribute Panels for both items, pondering their unique, highly exotic designs as he tried to cross-reference his findings with the knowledge in his head.

He drew a complete blank.

Given his predecessor's background as a country boy, being able to fluently read and write Common was already impressive enough. His knowledge regarding Transcendent Tier powers was virtually nonexistent.

Xia Nan only knew the name of the previous king of the Servia Kingdom because he had crammed the information after transmigrating.

He had been in this world for over a year now, and while he had learned a fair bit in his spare time, his knowledge was at best on par with an ordinary person's.

Unless he had coincidentally read related records, it was impossible for him to deduce the origins of these items based solely on their appearance or a few ambiguous words.

He had no choice but to stow the candlestick in his backpack, firmly committing the suspicious words to memory in hopes of learning more when he asked the villagers later.

Furthermore, the current situation gave Xia Nan a bizarre, highly familiar sense of déjà vu.

The same remote environment far from the crowds, the same dilapidated structures that seemed to have appeared out of thin air in a mismatched setting, the same jarringly out-of-place artifacts...

'Could this be another Secret Realm?' he wondered.

His mind drifted back to that dark cave occupied by the massive snake corpse, and the Gilded Gourd Dewdrop that had provided him with precious attributes.

A ripple of anticipation stirred within Xia Nan.

His dark eyes shot another glance into the depths of Ash Valley, attempting to pierce the thickening mist and glimpse the truth hidden within.

"Crack."

Suddenly, his razor-sharp Perception caught an extremely faint noise.

Focusing his mind, he instantly pinpointed the direction the sound came from.

As his eyes shifted slightly, several tall figures, perfectly concealed within the mist, entered his line of sight.

"Stay alert," Xia Nan said suddenly. The unexpected voice made Leon, already highly on edge in the dead silence, jolt in surprise.

His eyes trembled, but before he could open his mouth to speak—

The next second, the same high, drawn-out wolf howl that had once echoed through the Goblin Lair swallowed his consciousness.

When in a strange environment, having discovered enemies waiting in ambush nearby, and with dead weight tagging along—what was the best course of action?

Normally, one might mentally prepare for battle while quietly retreating with the dead weight until they reached a safe zone, or wait for the enemy to lose patience and attack first.

But for Xia Nan, there was no need to overthink it.

His acute Perception allowed him to instantly determine the rough number and strength of the ambushing enemies. The absurd mobility granted by [Fang Hunt] meant that, as long as he wished it, the dynamic of hidden enemies and exposed prey could be flipped in an instant.

There was no need to feign civility with the enemy, test his acting skills, or retreat to formulate another plan.

Since he had confirmed the enemy's numbers and strength were well within his ability to handle, he just had to kill them all.

And so, the ferocious, pitch-black Winter Wolf transformed into an icy gale from the highlands, tearing through the mist with a piercing howl.

Death and fear descended in blood and shadow.

Who was the enemy?

Five flightless birds walking upright, standing roughly over two meters tall.

They looked like living, moving boulders of gray rock.

Their small, coarse feathers layered over each other like gray slate, darkening from light gray to deep ash to perfectly mimic wind-eroded rocks. It allowed them to blend seamlessly with the jagged, dismal stone walls.

Their legs, covered in thick grayish-black hide, were abnormally robust, and their massive claws hooked outward to help them find footing in the crevices of steep rocky slopes.

By comparison, the two pairs of wings pressed tight against their sides looked comically small. They obviously couldn't support flight and only served to maintain balance.

But the most striking feature on their bodies, the one that allowed Xia Nan to recognize them at a glance, was the heavy, massive beak protruding from their heads.

Unlike the light, curved beaks of other birds, these looked like primitive great axes roughly hewn from solid stone. The upper edge formed a cold, hard arc that dropped steeply from the base to the tip, creating an axe blade, while the lower edge was thick and blunt, acting as an anvil to bear tremendous force.

—Axe Beak, Challenge Rating 1/4.

The five standing before Xia Nan were likely some sort of Axe Beak subspecies that had evolved to adapt to the rock-strewn environment of Ash Valley.

Compared to the varieties domesticated as mounts on the plains, their color and size had changed considerably.

Perhaps their combat capabilities were stronger, and their temperaments far more violent?

It didn't matter.

If Xia Nan were a professor or expert in biological research, he might have been interested in the creature's evolutionary process.

But in reality, he was just an ordinary Adventurer in a strange environment who had suddenly found himself ambushed by enemies reeking of greedy malice.

What happened next was only logical.

First, almost at the exact same moment the wolf's howl echoed off the stone walls—

The black wolf snapped the neck of the Axe Beak closest to them.

Scarlet blood spewed from the severed neck. Before the droplets could even hit the ground, the effect of the [Fang Hunt] Feat [Night Mother's Gaze] plunged the four remaining Axe Beaks into an instant state of terror.

The greedy, bloodthirsty gleam in their avian eyes vanished, replaced by the sheer panic and helplessness of facing a natural predator.

Their massive bodies, which could easily peck a human to death, now scrambled away in a panicked and comical retreat, scattering like four wing-flapping chickens.

Xia Nan didn't spare a single one.

Iron-gray sword light churned the mist, flashing four times across Ash Valley, followed by the echoing thuds of beaks hitting the ground.

The four "axe-beaked bird-goblins" were slaughtered one by one.

He waved over Leon, who was standing frozen in shock not far away.

Xia Nan glanced up at the sky and saw the sun setting; night was falling.

He took another deep look into the mist-shrouded depths of Ash Valley. It was getting late, and this place clearly held some secrets. Who knew what changes nightfall might bring? With the boy tagging along, he couldn't fight at his full potential either.

It wouldn't be too late to come back and explore tomorrow when the sun was up.

Having made his decision, he wasn't in a hurry to leave just yet.

Instead, he turned his head, studying the Axe Beak corpses on the ground thoughtfully, and asked the dumbfounded Leon, "Tell me... which parts of these chickens do you think taste the best?"

"Hmm, the thigh meat is definitely good. The wings and breast should be decent too."

"By the way, are you guys used to eating offal around here?"