Yise cast the metal-attribute Hardening Art to block the beast's attack. Metal countered wind. Moreover, it was generally accepted that wind lacked power as a standalone attribute. Yet despite that common knowledge, the wind blades raked upward, tearing through his metal-hardened defenses.

In an instant, his robes were shredded and cuts scored the skin his armor did not cover. They failed to cut through his spirit bones, so the wounds were not deep, but the exchange was startling nonetheless. Wind that could cut even metal!

Rather than coming from a single direction, the whirlwind spiraled around his entire body. It was an attack that rendered defensive ritual implements virtually useless. A Foundation Establishment demonic beast clearly had a trick or two of its own. Yise readily acknowledged his opponent's ability.

Once its attack succeeded, Feathered Man pressed him furiously. Wind blades flew at him from the front while whirlwinds rose from below. Yise chose evasion over defense and increased the Dream-Saving Cloud's speed. They looked like two birds circling in parallel within the gorge.

He launched the primordial energy he had painstakingly maintained using Lord Hae Il's method, but the beast's Foundation Establishment Perfection divine sense detected it, and it dodged with ease.

Firebolt, Earthen Spear, and Water Arrow Art flew out in succession. But not a single projectile could hit the demonic beast as it flew like the wind.

'Without a shadow, I can't pin it down with the Dokkaebi Shadow-Gathering Demonic Art, either.'

The sky was a shadowless domain. Yise reviewed every means at his disposal, searching for a way to counter it, but nothing readily came to mind. He had never considered an enemy faster than himself, one he could not land an attack on. After all, he had been confident he could rival even a Core Formation Cultivator in speed.

Yise barely dodged a wind blade aimed at his head. A shallow cut opened at his temple, and blood ran down his jaw. Its divine sense reached farther than his. The slightest lapse in vigilance brought a potentially fatal attack.

During Qi Refining, Cultivators had always been far more troublesome opponents than Demons. Yet the first Foundation Establishment demonic beast he had encountered since advancing felt even more difficult than a Cultivator.

Feathered Man twisted in midair, then struck him and shot past in a flash. The raptor's body closed in within the blink of an eye, delivered its impact, and pulled away again. A moment later, the shock shook his dantian, and blood surged from his mouth. He had not seen the attack. By the time he sensed the wind, the beast had already struck him and retreated far away.

'Should I retreat?'

If he could find no way through, withdrawal was an option. If the beast chased him above the cliff, the land would be his battlefield. He was confident he could break its wings in an instant and turn it into a whole chicken.

'It's too early to give up.'

Its attacks were certainly threatening, but not lethal. Their excellent mobility came at the cost of power. Among the enemies he had faced were some who had seemed even more daunting than this.

Yise flew toward the cliff. Clinging to it like a pine growing from the rock face, he planted the Twin-Banner Spirit-Domain Sealing Standard perpendicular to the cliff. A barrier could unfold anywhere there was space to inscribe its formation; it did not have to be on the ground.

In an instant, the Demonic Energy-sealing barrier expanded as though to swallow Wind Prison Gorge. Feathered Man, which had been launching wind blades with each beat of its wings, faltered. The Demonic Energy within its body had abruptly stopped moving.

"What trick. Human."

Instead of answering, Yise raised the hand bearing the Yellow Grand Parasol and unleashed the fire-attribute Firefall Art. Meteors wreathed in flame rained down from the middle of the sky like a meteor shower.

He had thought that would suffice, but even with its Demonic Energy sealed, the beast batted the meteors away through physical prowess alone. Yise deflected one of the fiery meteors that came flying back at him to the side.

BOOM!

The explosion washed over him, scorching the hems of his robes.

'It really is no ordinary beast.'

Once again, he acknowledged his opponent's ability. To possess such strength even with its Demonic Energy sealed!

Yise sent the Dream-Saving Cloud shooting forward and closed right in. The beast was still fast, but with its Demonic Energy sealed, its speed was well within his reach. Spiritual energy within the Black Phosphor Axe slashed toward Feathered Man's breast. It hurriedly tried to evade with a backward somersault, but wherever the spiritual energy grazed it, its flesh split and blood spurted.

Its next movement resembled a water snake swimming. A desperate counterattack followed, its lone leg driving toward his dantian. At that moment, however, Yise's defensive ritual implement, the Lightning-Reflecting Armor, shone.

CRACKLE!

Lightning-attribute energy raced up Feathered Man's avian foot and swept through its entire body. Heat shimmered, and the beast's skin turned black.

Feathered Man veered away in an almost convulsive flight. It headed toward the supernatural treasure on the cliff: the spot where the Twin-Banner Spirit-Domain Sealing Standard was planted. Belatedly realizing that the treasure had brought Wind Prison Gorge under its domain, the beast flew to attack it.

Yise pursued at once, but Feathered Man's desperate flight carried it narrowly clear of his attacks. Just as it prepared to dive at the Twin-Banner Spirit-Domain Sealing Standard with its charred foot, Yise pulled the standard free with the Telekinesis Art and drove it straight into the exposed inner breast meat of its open wound.

CRUNCH!

A satisfying, dull sound rang out as the bannered spear punched through its flesh. Until now, he had never used it offensively for fear of damaging it, but it was fundamentally a spear. Since reaching Foundation Establishment, he had kept its point honed so he could use it as a hidden trump card whenever necessary.

SKREEEEE!

Instead of human speech, a beast's scream echoed thunderously through the gorge. Yise flew within striking distance of Feathered Man.

SKREE! SKREEEE!

The beast frantically tried to pull away and fly higher, but its body would not move. Yise was continuously drawing the Twin-Banner Spirit-Domain Sealing Standard toward himself with the Telekinesis Art.

Normally, the Telekinesis Art did not work on living beings such as Cultivators or Demons. But matters were different when an inanimate standard was embedded in their body. The beast could only flail, unable even to understand why it was restrained.

Yise and Feathered Man came together. Its beak shot toward his throat. He swung the Yellow Grand Parasol into its beak, then brought the Black Phosphor Axe down at its head as its eyes rolled back.

Dokkaebi Shadow-Gathering Demonic Art.

Thousand-Catty Strike.

His Black Phosphor Axe fell in a picture-perfect arc and struck the exact center of Feathered Man's head.

CRUNCH!

Its skull burst apart in an instant. Bone and flesh scattered in every direction. The hunt was over. Wind Prison Gorge had a new master.

'As long as I stay calm, I can hunt even beasts at Foundation Establishment Perfection.'

Updating his assessment of his own strength, Yise shook the blood off the Twin-Banner Spirit-Domain Sealing Standard and put it in his storage pouch. He had wondered whether he would have any use for it after learning to wield primordial energy, but a supernatural treasure certainly proved useful.

The giant bird's body spiraled down into the gorge. He watched it fall. This was a place with a strange natural phenomenon: simply standing still allowed the gorge's updrafts to lift a person into the air. Yet apparently they did not lift everything indiscriminately.

Wind paths.

Having named them thus, Yise pushed deep inside against the wind, toward Feathered Man's corpse. After descending far into the gorge, his feet touched the ground. Updrafts surged through earth split wide like drought-stricken land, while only the very center was still. It was as quiet as the eye of a typhoon.

Standing before Feathered Man's corpse, he could feel that this was where wind-attribute ambient energy was most abundant. He exorcised Feathered Man, devoured its Demonic Energy, and placed the carcass in his Sealing Album. Then he walked toward the enormous nest that had kept catching his eye.

A single egg lay there, so large he could have believed a phoenix had laid it. It looked three feet tall. Suspecting it was Feathered Man's egg, Yise approached to examine it. He could clearly sense internal reserves inside the shell.

'An egg pancake made from that could easily feed ten people.'

Eggs were not an ingredient Yise particularly liked. They held far too many unpleasant memories. Still, when eaten fresh, eggs naturally had an excellent spirit-gathering effect. It would make a fine ingredient for immortal cuisine. He placed it in the Heaven-and-Earth Pouch.

Feathered Man's nest stood at the very center of the wind spirit ground. Yise sat cross-legged where the egg had been and began training in the Wind-Breaking Qi-Shattering Art, reveling in the wind's energy.

The Wind-Breaking Qi-Shattering Art was a cultivation method that included two Qi Refining spells and one Foundation Establishment spell.

Following-Wind Steps, which allowed the body to move as lightly as the wind.

Wind Blade, which condensed currents of air into blades and launched them.

Levitation Art, which held the body suspended in the air and formed the basis of a flight technique.

He intended to raise both the cultivation method and all three spells to around the fifth star here. If his cultivation progressed quickly, he would aim to master them fully. If it seemed likely to take too long, he could stop here again on the way back after finishing his mission.

Yise slowly closed his eyes. In place of his physical vision, only the sixth sense spread by his divine sense remained beyond the darkness.

* * *

By the time the cultivation method and spells reached his target of the fifth star, thirty tally marks had been inscribed beside him with spiritual energy. The training itself had not been difficult, but judging that further progress would take some time, he rose.

Traveling farther north from Wind Prison Gorge, he saw vast ruins emerge beyond the ridges of the wasteland. Other Heaven, the Fallen Heavenly Realm. A mysterious island said to have once drifted through the sky. What might it have looked like in its peaceful heyday?

Yise tried to picture it, but imagining a city glittering like the stars amid the wasteland before him was difficult. As in the inner depths of the secret realm, collapsed traces of a former city lay scattered everywhere. Yet its appearance differed from the secret realm's. Everything in sight had already been plundered and taken away. Only empty frameworks and crumbled masonry remained.

'A teleportation formation in a place like this would hardly have survived intact.'

Once he ventured farther into Other Heaven, however, his guess proved wrong. The teleportation formation had not been installed using formation implements or formation discs. Instead, enormous recessed carvings turned an entire space deep within Other Heaven's underground waterways into a formation. Its design also differed from modern methods; at a glance, it looked like nothing more than decorative patterns on an ordinary structure. Even the stone in which it was carved was unremarkable.

["The Northern Continent is famous for its cold. Dress warmly before you go."]

Recalling Hae Il's advice, Yise put on a winter outer robe padded with cotton from the Jeong Empire. He wondered what cold could possibly matter to a Cultivator, but he had always been good at heeding others' advice. Once ready, he inserted the black ruler into the central slot, and light enveloped him.

A moment later, a snowfield unfolded before his eyes, along with cold so bitter it chilled even his spirit bones. Faced with the majestic snowy landscape stretching endlessly before him, Yise let out an involuntary exclamation of wonder.