Ning wanted to not spend any more time here. He still had to spend some time in the tomb where he delivered the spider and that would take a chunk of his time.
However, he could never get himself to deprive someone else of their chance to say goodbye to someone they cared about. That was what he would wish others did for him as well.
“Alright,” he sighed as he accepted the task. “Tell me about this other beast.”
Ning listened to the spider tell him a general location of where the next beast was. The other beast was a Redskin Lava Lizard, that could be found in the city of Freegold of the Blackfire empire.
Ning thought for a moment to remember where this place was and looked through his map. This was a place that used to be called Travan City back when he used to roam the place. Now, every other name on the map was new to him.
In just 1800 years, the world had changed to a point where it was unrecognizable to him once more.
“Let’s go. We will come by in five days,” Ning said. Dahlia nodded and followed Ning before the two of them were back outside.
Ning flew into the air and brought out a chariot-like flying machine that he had made himself. Once Dahlia was ready, he let it fly.
“How far is it?” she asked.
“The Freegold city? Dozens of thousands of kilometers,” Ning said.
“Eh? Won’t that take us forever if we fly with this?” She asked.
“Yes. It should take us around 4 days, I would say,” Ning said.
“What? Let’s just teleport there,” Dahlia said.
Ning smirked. “I thought you said I was useless without my system. So, I won’t use it at all. You will have to sit through this entire journey,” Ning said.
“Wow. So petty. I thought you were supposed to be thousands of years older than me,” Dahlia said. “Mom and grandma will love to hear about this when I return.”
“Tsk.” Ning clicked his tongue. No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to win against this kid. Still, he was going to stick to the chariot which he could speed up to reach the city in about 2 days. He had to spend his time somewhere.
After nearly 3 days of monotonous journey, and multiple insistence of Dahlia to teleport to the city, the two of them finally arrived there.
Ning took back the chariot without notice, and Dahlia started freefalling while screaming. She started flying the next second, but that one second of the scream was worth it for all the torture Ning had felt mentally for these last couple of days.
“Why are you so childish?” Dahlia shouted angrily.
“Who says I’m old?” Ning said. “I barely started living.”
He smiled and floated down towards the city. The city was different from what he had remembered. He didn’t remember there being a wall around it, or the city being this large either. Most of the farmlands had turned to house spaces as well, and one of the mountains to the right of the city was missing and had been turned to what looked like sect grounds.
Ning landed outside the city gate and was suddenly confronted by guards and soldiers from inside the city.
“That’s a mighty welcome,” he said with a chuckle when he saw them point their weapons at him.
“Who are you, stranger? We will attack if you don’t answer,” the guards said.
“Ooh, must be quite a sensitive time. What’s going on? Are you fighting with some other sect or city?” Ning asked.
The guards didn’t answer at all but only got more defensive. Ning shook his head and directly released his divine sense that covers dozens of kilometers. He looked through every place in the city, including the city lord’s manor.
“Hmm… I don’t see him anywhere,” Ning said.
“He’s not here?” Dahlia asked with surprise. “What about that sect?”
“I was about to check that next,” Ning said and concentrated his divine sense on the sect that was at the place.
He alerted a lot of different people but still couldn’t see signs of anything.
“Still nothing,” he said with a surprise.
“Did the spider give us the wrong information?” Dahlia asked.
“I don’t see why he would,” Ning said, but his confusion only increased. ‘Did the spider tell me when it saw the lizard?’ Ning thought.
As far as he could remember, the spider had said it met the lizard on one of the recent Grider family explorations. It had taken time out of the vacation to go meet its brother.
That was only a few dozen years ago.
As Ning was thinking of it all, many unique figures started flying towards him and landed in front of them. The figures consisted of many elders and high-level figures from the city.
“A young man and a young woman?” one of them asked in surprise. He then turned towards the guards that were already there and asked, “Where is the senior that sent out his divine sense just now?”
“Th-That’s him,” the guards were barely able to form a sentence as the fear of Ning’s divine sense still remained in their minds.
“The young man? But he’s so young though,” the man spoke.
“That was definitely him, sect leader,” one of the guards answered.
“Hmm… senior, was it really you who sent his divine sense into the city and sect?” the sect leader asked.
“Yes, it was I,” Ning said. “I was looking for someone and this was the last place I heard he was here. So I decided to check, but it seems he’s not here.”
“Who might it be that you are looking for, senior?” the sect leader asked nervously.
“The one I’m looking for is a Lava Lizard that I was told would be found here. Do you have any clue as to where it is?” Ning asked.
The sect leader’s eyes went wide.
“Senior… our sect guardian, the Lava Lizard, is dead.”