My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting-Chapter 135 – Taming General Mammoth, Advancing to The Sixth Rank - Part 1

Chapter 135 – Taming General Mammoth, Advancing to The Sixth Rank - Part 1

After the rain in Autumnlake, the pale moonlight rippled across every water-filled pothole.

Because of the threat of roving soldiers, every household shut its doors early, making the streets particularly quiet. In that silence, there was a subtle chill in the air—one that made Li Yuan long for the warm blankets at home, for Yan Yu, Xue Ning, Sheng’er, Ping’an, and his goddaughter Nian Nian.

During this outing, Li Yuan had only brought the two white finches; the small sparrow with a beaded neck remained behind to watch over the household.

At that moment, his gaze shifted to that of the sparrow; then he couldn’t help but smile. Standing right beside it was a big crow.

The small sparrow clutched the roof ridge with its claws, and the crow had assumed the exact same pose. The two were lined up perfectly, looking unexpectedly harmonious.

“When Sheng’er grows up, I really need to ask her what’s going on here,” Li Yuan muttered to himself as he watched.

Off in the distance, a gentle light glimmered from one of the inner rooms, where his two wives had taken the children to bed.

Meanwhile, a clanging noise came from elsewhere in the compound. Tang Nian was crouched beneath a large puppet, tinkering with ssomething. Stacks of paper sat under the eaves next to her, covered in drawings, diagrams, and complicated equations.

Suddenly, the puppet let out a series of toot-toot-toot sounds and began spewing white smoke. The next instant, it exploded, sending an arm hurtling through the air like a rocket and blasting a gaping hole in the nearby wall.

Tang Nian quickly rolled aside to avoid the flying metal limb. She stayed away from the wreckage, since the shattered joint was still sizzling ominously.

Sure enough, a moment later there was a cacophony of crashing noises as more hidden components shot out, like a burst of concealed weapons.

Only once everything settled did she walk over to gather up the remains of the arm and the scattered parts. In the moonlight, her figure looked lonely and somewhat forlorn.

Before long, however, a graceful woman hurried over. It was Yan Yu. When their eyes met, both glanced at the gaping hole in the wall.

Tang Nian lowered her head, bracing for a lecture. After all, who else would have blown things up in the middle of the night?

But Yan Yu simply brushed the dust off Tang Nian’s clothing and took her hand, asking gently, “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Tang Nian sniffed, then quietly said, “I...I broke the wall.”

Yan Yu just smiled. “Silly girl. A hundred walls or a thousand, it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re safe.”

Tang Nian pictured another woman she once knew—a woman who had devoted herself completely to crafting puppets, disappearing for days at a time. That woman had been kind to her, though Tang Nian could sense her regrets in their conversations. In the end, she never got to say goodbye.

Sometimes, pain didn’t strike you in the moment; it would leave you feeling lost at first. But as time went on, it would slowly seep in, becoming the kind of hurt that cut deep into your bones.

That woman, Tang Nian’s mother, had been nothing like the one standing before her now. If her mother could see how deeply she’d devoted herself to the study of puppetcraft, she would have been overjoyed.

“Did you make that?” Yan Yu asked, looking up at the towering puppet. Without waiting for an answer, she grinned. “It’s splendid. I’m so happy for you.”

She gently rubbed Tang Nian’s palms and spoke in a warm, gentle voice. “Don’t push yourself too hard. Go back to your room and get some rest soon. I’ll have Xiao Lan bring you a bowl of iced sour plum soup. This manor has an icehouse with plenty of ice stored up.”

Yawning delicately, Yan Yu then sauntered off, hips swaying in a way that exuded a soft, feminine allure.

After her back disappeared behind a corner, Tang Nian murmured, “Thank you...”

Watching from a distance, Li Yuan smiled. Yan Yu never let him down. No matter what happened, she always protected the warmth of this home, and that was precisely what he wished to preserve.

Even if he advanced to sixth rank, it would only grant him another hundred years of life. But what was that compared to eternal youth? As long as the world itself endured, so would he—millions, even billions of years. By then, his body might remain youthful, but the weight of countless ages would still press on his heart.

In that vast, lonely future, beyond worldly desires and endless quests for power, it was this simple warmth of family that would keep his heart from growing old.

Not far away, Xiao Sheng and Niu Niu were still poring over books. Neither could cultivate the shadow blood technique, so they had abandoned martial training and turned to their studies instead. They used to play with Tang Nian all the time, but lately...they’d grown distant.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Li Yuan’s vision shifted back from his home in Gemhill County, then he reined his thoughts in. He could hear footsteps.

A cold wind swept through the narrow street outside. Inside, a single oil lamp flickered, throwing Li Yuan’s tall silhouette against the pale wall in a long, dancing shape.

The sound of footsteps grew clearer, coming from the far end of the drenched alleyway. Hidden behind a dark rooftop, the white finch pressed itself low.

Li Yuan’s mind snapped back to the present. His expression was calm as his right hand closed around the Dragon-Fanged Spear. He already knew who was on the way.

Over the past few days, he had formed a rough hypothesis about this ghost domain at the mass grave. Originally, it was just a pit for burying bodies, no strange activity until something happened to alter it. Every ghost domain was different, and in the case of this one, anyone who died in that pit would become a malicious spirit—or more likely, a ghost servant.

Yes, a ghost servant. If what Zhao Xiantong had once said about only one true ghost existing in a ghost domain, then the horrors in that pit were all just underlings of some more powerful presence. In Li Yuan’s mind, that seemed like the most plausible explanation.

They would return in the form they once had, drawing those they hated—or those who killed them—back into the mass grave. If any innocents were drawn in along the way, those innocents would perish as well. And once more people died, they would, in turn, rise and repeat the cycle. It was like a snowball rolling downhill, turning a 10,000-body pit into a 100,000-body pit, or worse.

Fortunately, this mass grave ghost domain seemed to have only awakened recently, and only a limited number of ghost-servants could leave at a time. Previously, there was just one; now, there were two. They only emerged once the previous ones returned. But if, with the passage of time, the grave started spewing out multiple ghost-servants all at once—and stronger ones, at that—who knew how many victims they might drag back? The consequences were unthinkable.

It wasn’t hard to imagine what that pit would eventually become, or how catastrophic it might be. Left unchecked, this ghost domain—hiding in some remote, out-of-the-way county—could well destroy the entire world.

These were simply Li Yuan’s theories, and he had other hypotheses he couldn’t verify yet.

Step, step, step... Boots splashed through the shallow puddles. They were close now.

Li Yuan slipped on his mask and peered outside, by the window.

Standing on the stone-paved street below, one tall figure and one shorter figure, General Mammoth and Zhao Xiantong.

Zhao Xiantong lifted his head, meeting Li Yuan’s eyes. He turned to General Mammoth with seething hatred.

“That’s him. He’s the one who stole the key to the Mountain Gang’s secret vault! I couldn’t stand against him. He chased me so relentlessly that I had to jump into a gorge, then circle back here!”

Li Yuan quietly observed a man he knew for certain to be dead, standing there just like the living. If not for Zhao Xiantong’s combat power still hovering in the 350~388 range, Li Yuan would’ve struggled to believe it himself. It made him uneasy, but at least the numbers gave him a clue.

Outside of the ghost domain, these ghost-servants only possess the power they had while alive. But inside the domain, they turned into intangible ghosts, impervious to normal attacks.

When Zhao Xiantong spoke, Li Yuan responded gruffly, “General Mammoth, the man next to you is already dead. He’s become a ghost-servant born from the mass grave. He’s here to drag you, and me, into that pit.”

“Nonsense!” Zhao Xiantong snarled. “General, let’s work together and take this trespasser down. The key is in his hand!”

Li Yuan spoke in a calm, measured tone. “You were pulled into that pit by a ghost-servant named Ming Shu, don’t you remember? I tried to save you, but, alas...” He let out a long sigh. “I was just a step too late.”

Zhao Xiantong froze. Instinctively, he started to say, “Nonsense! If not for you—” He was on the verge of blurting out the truth about Li Yuan throwing him into the mass grave, but abruptly stopped himself, realizing Li Yuan was baiting him. Quickly, he changed tack. “If you hadn’t stolen the key, Ming Shu wouldn’t have died! Then you chased me all this way...”