Chương 16: The Fourth Ridge
The fourth ridge was far more deadly than previous ones.
The first three ridges had been populated more with trees than the steep rocky mountains that made up the Huangshan Mountains. It had been easy for Ruan Shanqiao to optimize travel. Optimization was especially important because she, Shanqiao, was not able to fly through the skies as Ruoxi and Yiyi was able to. In addition, neither Ruoxi nor Yiyi were able to fly at high speeds while protecting her from air friction and momentum.
However, this fourth ridge…
Shanqiao lifted her to look at the tops of the mountains hidden by clouds. They were less like mountains than they were like gigantic rocks. There were very few footholds that she could utilize the sleek slabs of stone. The portions of the mountain that was populated with green was steeper than she had imagined. Within a few seconds of surveying the mountains that laid in front of her, she had determined that it was near impossible to avoid having to climb some tracts of sheer rock walls.
"We could go around…" Ruoxi suggested. "It would definitely be less dangerous."
"No, we can't do that," she frowned in response. "It would take at least half the day to reach the end of this particular chains of mountains."
"What should we do, young miss?" Yiyi looked worriedly up at the steep wall in front of them. "We could fly you up slowly…"
"No, I've already considered the possibility," Shanqiao responded without hesitation. "It would exceed the amount of Yang energy and spirit energy combined that the two of you have to fly me past the mountains."
"Then?"
"Hm… Do you have rope?"
"I think so…" Ruoxi hurriedly pulled out a piece of rope from her space ring.
Shanqiao took the rope and using her sword she easily sliced it in half. She then tied one end of the first rope to the second one and tie the end of the second rope to the first. It created a noose which settled easily around her hips. Once it was tightened, she tied an additional knot to loose end of the rope. She swallowed nervously and looked at the other two girls.
"Grab the rope if I fall."
"Are… you sure?"
"Yes."
She had initially intended to tied the rope around Yiyi and Ruoxi's hip as well such that if any of them fell, the other two would be able save them by holding their own against the falling weight. Since she was the most likely to fall, of course, it was advantageous to her. However, she decided against this particular plan. Call it the lack of trust towards the two people who would be pulling her weight, but regardless, she felt unsafe entrusting her life to others.
"Let's go."
Without hesitation she started to scale the rock wall to the first slope. She easily reached the top and together, the three of them trekked up to the second wall.
As she looked around, Shanqiao realized there were more trees and other vegetation than she had originally thought.
'There's plenty of life up here…' she thought as she started scaling the second wall.
Shanqiao took a deep breath as she reached up to grab the edge of the cliff. Just as she grabbed it, the rocks under her left foot started crumbling. As her breath quickened, she quickly pulled herself up. Underneath her, there was the ominous sound of rocks falling.
"Young miss," Yiyi called from ahead. "There's a cliff ahead. It appears to continue ahead, we need to maneuver horizontally across the rock."
"We'll be fine," Shanqiao said with certainty.
'Perhaps it is rash of me to just charge ahead…' she thought to herself as she started to climb across.
Indeed it was rash. The climb she expected to be short and concise grew longer and longer. Her arms and legs trembled as she took step after step.
'What if I fall?' she thought as she looked down.
They were over an abyss darker than night. If she fell, she'd die for sure.
Suddenly, a roar sounded above them. Ruoxi, Yiyi, and Shanqiao's heads tilted upwards to see several shadows in the distance above them. After quite of bit of maneuvering and squinting, the shadows solidified into a white tiger lording over a the dark figure of a man.
Just the aura of the white tiger alone was clearly enough to suppress the vast majority of cultivators. But with the added pressure from the man, not only was Shanqiao shivering, but so was Ruoxi and Yiyi. Spider like shivers ran up and down their backs, and the horror on Ruoxi's face was mirrored on the other side by Yiyi.
The tiger roared again, this time sending rocks pouring down on them.
'Why are we the victims of this fight?' Shanqiao thought to herself as she watched the rocks slowly descend towards them.
"Shanqiao!" voices yelled from the side.
'Should I let go? Or?'
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