A Demon’s Paradise - Volume 1 Chapter 12 The Walls

Xia Moyin let out a deep breath as she looked at the scene in front of her.

The guard posts, the people, the city walls, the people.

‘Civilization!’

Over the past three days she had been running hard, barely taking in the scenery around her except for when she had to determine her position, but one thing had been glaringly obvious. She did not see another living breathing person for three days.

No houses, no towns, no people. Traveling across a plain where there was nothing other than herself that stood up taller than the grass was a very surreal and slightly creepy experience. Her relief from just seeing another person could not be expressed in words.

She shuffled over to the city gates and got in line, practically swaying on her feet. Running half the width of a country in three days, even with getting her mandatory twelve hours of sleep and all the training she got in her past life, took a toll on her body, especially since she was still a teenager.

Her robe was sprinkled with dust and snow from the mountains, her hair unkempt, and eye bags forming under her eyes.

Thankfully, however, she didn’t stick out too much. Almost everyone else in the line looked the exact same way, and some even worse. One guy had even set up a tent near the entrance.

The line was about forty people long and going extremely slow, one person going every ten minutes or so. They left their things with the guards, went into a room for about five minutes, came out got their stuff and went into the city.

As she got closer to the front of the line, she saw that the people went in looking normal, but when they came out they looked a bit messy, with their clothes looking as if they had been pulled on slightly and their hair looking like it had been through a tornado.

‘They must be letting them test if they could take the pressure before they go into the city…smart’

Some of them went inside the room, came out, got their luggage, and left shaking their heads and sighing. They obviously decided to leave because they either didn’t want to live with that pressure or changed their minds on living without spirit power.

The only reason why Black City had turned into such a big city with wanted criminals as citizens was precisely because the various powers weren’t really sure if they stormed the city that they would be able to take it over. An army without spirit power turned into a paper tiger to those who could rival real cultivators even without having any cultivation of their own.

Xia Moyin waited patiently for her turn, recovering from her trip and standing quietly at the back of the line. She had on the Moon Silk Robe with the hood up, and even though she hadn’t activated the Killer Lizard Mask, her petite figure and complete lack of ruckus made her practically invisible to the other people waiting to enter the city.

After about an hour of waiting she was a half of the way through the line and got a close up look at the City Walls and city gate. The walls were imposing and massive, stretching hundreds of meters into the sky. It was made completely of stone and mortar, dark gray and nearly ten feet thick. Small symbols were carved into the side of it, making up a giant array which reinforced the wall and made it automatically repair itself.

The gates were made of a dark stone, similar to obsidian, and indued with spirit power. The entire thing glittered darkly, spots of dark light erupting from the stone and reaching out into the air before dissipating and sinking back into its origin. The rock practically shimmered in the sun, an ominous and deadly air about it. Even though she couldn’t see the inside of the city from where she was standing, Xia Moyin could tell that this city wasn’t simple.

Her eyes narrowed slightly and a flash of interest spawned. If her memory wasn’t failing her, and it probably wasn’t, the shimmering was from the acc.u.mulation of spirit power, more specifically, Dark Spirit power.

Dark Spirit power came from the worst thoughts and actions of beings, from the death of the unwilling and grievances of the wicked. It was usually found in places where crimes had been committed, and where people had revealed the worst parts of themselves. She herself was very familiar with it, so much so that at one point in her life, her own body had shimmered, exactly like this stone.

‘Truly not simple…’

Xia Moyin was about to go forward and leave her spot to inspect the wall when a commotion came from behind her. A large gold gilded carriage pulled up, bypassing the line and going directly to the guard station, a fleet of guards following directly behind.