Zhang Tie did not immediately push open the door.
He turned and walked back into the cave.
His divine sense spread out like water, sweeping across the surroundings.
More than ninety percent of the cultivators had vanished. Only a few bloodstains remained where they had been, and those left behind could hardly be called corpses—only scattered chunks.
Zhang Tie withdrew his divine sense, his expression unchanged.
The backlash from the witchcraft still coursed through his body like countless red-hot needles slowly scraping along his meridians.
His physical wounds had healed, but his cultivation had truly fallen by an entire major realm.
He could feel immortal power continuously leaking from his immortal aperture. He had to stabilize it immediately, or the decline would not stop.
Xuan Gu sat in a corner at the other end of the cave, more than a hundred zhang away. His gaze was exceedingly cautious, occasionally darting toward Zhang Tie's meditating figure before shifting to the Stone Statue door below.
Zhang Tie found a protruding rock that was relatively dry and not soaked in blood, then sat down cross-legged.
He closed his eyes, formed the hand seals for the Solidify Foundation Art, drew in his divine sense, and began cultivating.
Watching Zhang Tie enter meditation, Xuan Gu saw his body gradually become shrouded in an extremely faint gray glow. Only then did he loosen his tense back slightly. Even so, he merely changed into a more cautious sitting posture and began circulating his own cultivation technique. Most of his attention remained divided in two: one part on Zhang Tie, the other fixed on the Stone Statue door.
Time passed amid this deathly silent recovery.
At some point three months later, the gray glow surrounding Zhang Tie suddenly contracted inward and vanished completely into his body.
Stabilizing his