In a high-level martial arts game, a wife is given to you at the start.

On the morning of the eighth day, as the first rays of sunlight pierced the thin mist at the edge of the wasteland, Lin Qiye, who was walking at the forefront, suddenly stopped in his tracks.

Luo Sheng, following behind him, felt a pang of anxiety and instinctively hugged Lin Xi tightly. "What's wrong?"

Lin Qiye did not answer immediately. He squinted slightly, gazing towards the horizon. There, on the edge of the gray-yellow wasteland, appeared an extremely faint, unusual color.

It wasn't the gray of rocks, nor the yellow of sand, but a... faint green.

And then, a faint, moist scent of fresh water drifted in on the morning breeze.

"There seems to be some vegetation ahead." Shuang'er noticed it too, her cool voice carrying a subtle, almost imperceptible fluctuation.

"It's not just vegetation." Lin Qiye took a deep breath, feeling the long-lost moisture. "There's a water source, and... the flow of source energy is much more stable than here."

Hope, like a glimpse of green on a barren plain, quietly sprouted in everyone's heart. The weary group unconsciously quickened their pace.

After walking for about half an hour, the scene before us gradually became clear.

The wasteland ended here, with a gentle slope sloping downwards. At the bottom of the slope, a river several meters wide meandered, its waters not swift, a clear pale green that shimmered in the sunlight. The banks were no longer barren saline or sandy soil, but covered with a layer of low but tenacious grass, interspersed with clumps of low shrubs, their leaves a healthy dark green.

Further away, on the opposite bank of the river, the terrain gradually rises, forming a rolling hill. On the hills, the outlines of trees are faintly visible; although not dense, they are indeed large tracts of woodland.

The breath of life is palpable.

"We...we've made it out of the wasteland?" The Barbarian Princess's voice was hoarse and filled with disbelief.

Qingyin held Lin Yao in her arms, her eyes slightly red. Even Shuang'er, who was usually calm, couldn't help but smile slightly.

Lin Qiye walked to the riverbank, squatted down, and scooped up a handful of water. The water was cool and refreshing, with a faint sweetness, and there was no pollution or strange smell. He carefully examined it and confirmed it was safe.

"Rest where you are." He stood up and gave the order, "Fetch water, wash up, and give the children a bath too. Stay alert, don't let your guard down."

The women immediately sprang into action. All the weariness and toil of the past few days seemed worthwhile at this moment. The children, still young and innocent, splashed and laughed joyfully in the cool river water, bringing the first glimmer of life to this new world.

Lin Qiye did not participate in the rest. He walked alone to a high rock by the river, his sharp gaze sweeping across the hills on the opposite bank and into the distance.

Rivers, grasslands, forests… all of this indicates that this area has moved outside the core range of the Canggu Mountains' energy radiation, and the ecosystem is recovering. However, this doesn't mean it's absolutely safe. Where there are plants and water sources, there are often more organisms, including predators.

His perception, like invisible tentacles, extended towards the opposite bank. In the woods on the hills, there were traces of small animals, and the fluctuations of primal energy were faint and natural. Further away, there seemed to be some more…

Lin Qiye stood on a high rock by the river, his gaze sweeping over the undulating hills and fixed on the horizon.

There, the silhouette of an unimaginable megacity pierces the morning sky.

The city wall, over a hundred feet high, was constructed entirely of massive, greyish-white stone blocks, their surfaces smooth as mirrors, reflecting a cold, hard luster in the rising sun. The wall wasn't vertical, but rather extended upwards in an extremely gentle, almost perfect arc, finally converging high above the horizon and disappearing into the swirling clouds. The entire city resembled an inverted giant bowl, or a towering bamboo shoot rising from the ground, standing silently between heaven and earth, exuding an aura of antiquity, solemnity, and inviolability.

On the city walls, countless fine runes could be faintly seen, flowing like blood vessels within the stone, occasionally flashing with a very faint blue light before disappearing. Even more unsettling was the faint, indescribable fluctuation of Origin Qi emanating from the direction of that colossal city—it wasn't the aura of a powerful individual, but rather the entire city itself, like a slowly pulsating, gigantic Origin Qi heart covering hundreds of miles in radius, each invisible "expansion" and "contraction" stirring up the tides of Origin Qi in this world.

Just then, a deep, rhythmic rumble came from behind the hills to the side, accompanied by a slight tremor in the ground.

Lin Qiye's gaze shifted.

At the bend in the hills, a sizable group emerged.

At the heart of the group were five enormous pack animals. These were creatures resembling a hybrid of lizard and rhinoceros, covered in thick, dark brown bony plates, their limbs as thick as palace pillars, each step leaving deep footprints in the soft ground. Large metal collars encircled their short, thick necks, connecting them to flatbed trailers pulled behind them, constructed from single massive logs. The trailers were piled high with tightly bound goods, covered with tarpaulins, obscuring their contents, but emitting a complex odor of minerals, herbs, and some kind of animal fat.

A group of about thirty or forty people surrounded the pack animals. Most of them were guards dressed in coarse cloth short jackets, carrying spears or machetes, with dark skin, wary eyes, and a fierce demeanor that came from years of traversing the wilderness. In the middle of the procession were several smaller, canopied carriages with closed windows and low-hanging curtains.

Leading the way was a burly man riding a mount resembling a ground dragon. He wore half-body leather armor, his bare arms revealing bulging muscles, and a gruesome scar ran diagonally from his left forehead to his jaw. A thick-backed broadsword, as wide as a door panel, hung at his waist, its blade grooved in dark red blood. At this moment, he was directing his mount while turning back to shout something at a carriage in the middle of the procession, his expression quite impatient.

At the rear of the procession, several guards were shouting and using long poles to drive away several pack animals that were trying to break away from the group and go to the river to drink.

The caravan was traveling along a worn, barely visible dirt road towards the giant city. Judging from their route, they would pass in front of the section of the riverbank where Lin Qiye was.

Lin Qiye jumped off the rock and returned to the riverside clearing where his family was temporarily resting.

"There's a large city ahead," he said briefly to Luo Sheng and the others who had gathered around. "There's also a caravan heading that way. I'll go check on them. You stay here, remain vigilant, and don't reveal yourselves easily."