Building a sect from scratch.

The wind and snow grew heavier, but Niohuru's barrier remained shut out. The white snow reflected the crimson flames in the distance, illuminating the once pitch-black night.

"Swiss, swish -"

A sound of surging snow rang out, drawing the players' attention to their surroundings. They quickly spotted a snowdrift not far away.

"That thing crawled in!"

Sure enough, the snowdrift shook, and soon two dark arms emerged from the snow.

Its dark brown skin clung tightly to its bones, and its long, sharp claws groped aimlessly in mid-air.

Before the thing could emerge, Chakota shouted and skillfully pushed several fireballs over. The fireballs were similar in color to the real fire in the distance, both with a light golden halo. They thumped into the bulging snowdrift and the two arms that emerged from it.

The fireball burst into flames upon contact with the monster, melting the thick layer of ice and snow on the ground almost instantly, revealing a deep crater. From the crater emerged the half-humanoid monster. Unlike the human sacrifice in the secret realm of Central Continent, this monster had a head, but no eyeballs; the eye sockets were empty, and the exposed bone of the eye sockets was even visible.

All anyone could see was half of the monster's body writhing back and forth in the pit, its arms struggling violently as if grabbing at something. Then, Chakta's true fire engulfed it and shot into the sky, becoming a flame several meters high, just like the ones in the distance.

Worried that the players would be frightened, Chakota gently comforted them, "Don't worry, Hu Buyu's barrier is very reliable. It's just that the underground barrier is not as good. Occasionally a few Soul Eaters can sneak in, but there won't be too many, only about three or five. It will be peaceful in the middle of the night."

Nietzsche, watching the "Soul Eater" silently roaring and gradually melting in the flames, asked with a complex expression, "Do you...do you do this every day?"

Chakota replied, “They will be quiet for three months during the three Yang months. On other days, only during the new moon and full moon are they like corpses. Otherwise, they are like this almost every day.”

"How can there be so many Soul Eaters?"

“Nobody knows,” Chakota shook his head and said, “They seem to appear out of thin air, yet they keep appearing endlessly. To this day, nobody knows how they are born.”

One player speculated, "Maybe it's someone from the Sword Sect who transformed?"

Chakota immediately denied it: "Impossible. Over the years, we have killed far more than tens of thousands of Soul Eaters. The Sword Sect does not have that many people. Besides, there is the Soul Eater Rift blocking the way. How could they possibly get through?"

Another player asked in confusion, "If this place is so unsafe, why don't you move away?"

"It's hard to leave one's homeland; how can one just leave so easily? Even if one leaves Liuzhou, where can one go?"

Niuhelu said.

Nietzsche tried to persuade the NPC: "Come to our Central Continent! Our Taiyin Sect doesn't just have Chang'an City! We have other cities too! Like our newly built Martial King City! We're really short of people!"

However, before Niohuru could say anything, Chakota shook his head and said, "The Hubuyu clan has lived in Liuzhou for a thousand years and will not leave easily."

"Ugh!"

Upon hearing this, Nietzsche sighed in disappointment.

Taking advantage of the situation, the Jade Emperor said, "Why don't we leave the corpses here with Hu Bu and his family today, and then try to cross the Soul-Devouring Rift tomorrow?"

Wu Ke said impatiently, "Can't we go today? This task is going to be delayed for another day!"

The Jade Emperor spread his hands: "It's so dark outside, and there are Soul Eaters everywhere. How are you going to get there? You can only wait until dawn!"

Although Wu Ke knew the Jade Emperor was right, he still rolled his eyes and said, "It's so annoying! This game is always one-to-one with the outside world, which makes the pace incredibly slow and not fun at all!"

This time, it was the Jade Emperor's turn to complain: "But you didn't say that when we were doing dungeons together!" In the team chat, everyone got excited when it came to complaining about the game, and they came up with a whole bunch of witty remarks: "This game is really slow-paced! I wanted to quit several times, but after playing this, playing other games is just so unrealistic and tasteless! There's no way around it! I can only come back to playing 'Ten Continents Chronicle'!"

"Absolutely! This game is trash! It ruined my youth and cheated me out of my money!"

"Wake up! They just launched the in-game store feature a day ago!"

"That's a trash game too!"

"We just have to put up with it! Who told them to be so dominant!"

"It's big, can you bear with it?"

"Do not apply formulas haphazardly!"

……

Having agreed on a time, everyone shamelessly stayed at Chakota's house, planning to check on the situation in the Rift Valley the next day.

Niohru was very wary. Although he left the Chakota family, he did not remove the barrier, even calling it "protecting the guest."

Those like Wu Ke, who didn't think too much, didn't feel anything, but Nietzsche and the Jade Emperor exchanged a glance and a knowing look when no one was looking.

The Jade Emperor privately messaged Nietzsche: "It's alright, I'm free tomorrow, I can stay here and cultivate. Anyway, I haven't taken on any missions, I can catch up on sleep when you guys log on tomorrow!"

Nietzsche refused without hesitation, replying, "No need, no need! That would be too much trouble for you! Besides, I don't think there should be any major problems. At worst, I'll just die, but I'll just go back to the Moon Palace after I die!"

The Jade Emperor: "Indeed, since I can be resurrected anyway, everything is fine. However, I did plan to cultivate tonight! I've fallen behind too much recently, and if I don't cultivate now, I won't be able to catch up!"

Nietzsche: "Then you can't possibly cultivate all night! This game's cultivation system is outrageous! You can cultivate for half a day and still not see any results! People like you who can concentrate on cultivation in a game, I call them gods! They're amazing!"

The Jade Emperor: "Don't worry, I'll handle it! Just confirm with them!"

While the two were chatting privately, Nietzsche was also arranging everyone's schedule for the next day in the group chat. In order not to make sure that others would forget, she also specially compiled a brief schedule and sent it to the group.

It's called an itinerary, but it's really just a specific schedule of activities. For example, we'll meet at 1 PM to go to the Soul Devouring Rift, then gather materials and figure out how to get through the rift, and so on.

After glancing at the group notification, Huangzhucao immediately typed: "Team Leader! I have something to do at one o'clock! I have class tomorrow afternoon!"

The Jade Emperor also typed, "I have one too!"

Nietzsche asked, "What time do you two finish class?"

"I'll go at three o'clock!"

"4:30!"

Nietzsche thought for a moment and asked, "Let's arrange it for five o'clock then. Everyone who can log on early should log on early. We'll go scout out the location beforehand and see if there's any feasible way to get through the Soul Devouring Rift, okay?"

"That can!"

(End of this chapter)