The sun-bleached escarpment of Red Ridge overlooked the grand expanse of the Western Basin like the prow of a shattered stone ship.
From this vantage point, two thousand feet above the mortal plains, the full scope of the land-wide disaster laid itself bare before the expedition. For hundreds of li in every direction, the fertile river-bed valley of the Heavenly Mother River had transformed into a jagged mosaic of dead, yellow clay. The great river itself—once a vibrant ribbon of sapphire three miles wide, carrying thousands of merchant sampans and nourishing sixty walled prefectures—was reduced to a winding canyon of cracked silt, strewn with bleached boulders and the skeletal ribs of abandoned barges.
The hot wind whipping up from the gorge carried the bitter stench of dead riverweed, dried freshwater mussels, and scorched bitter-salt dust.
The All-Terrain Rolling Slime Barge had come to a gentle halt along the cliff edge.
Lin Xiao stepped down from the cabin onto the dry shale in his eighteen-year-old human scholar avatar. The dry gale caught his dark blue sleeves, whipping his robes against his slender frame. Beside him walked Sword Saint Gu Qingfeng. He leaned lightly upon his polished willow branch. Meanwhile, Tie Shan stood like an unmoving bronze pillar, his five-hundred-jin meteor hammer resting in the dust at his feet. Land-mapper Lu-Lu and his eight otter scouts scampered to the edge of the overlook, their sensitive whiskers twitching as they stared down into the vast, silent basin.
