Cold, viscous, suffocating.
His consciousness seemed to sink into a lightless deep sea, entangled and torn apart by endless darkness and frigid curses. Every struggle brought searing agony to his soul.
"Ugh..." Ling Feng suddenly opened his eyes. A violent cough tugged at the wound on his chest, as though countless red-hot poisoned needles were stabbing into him at once! He gasped for air as the salty, fishy sea breeze filled his lungs, carrying the chill of surviving a catastrophe.
What met his eyes was a gray, murky sky. Leaden clouds hung low, as if they could be touched. The endless roar of waves crashing against the shore sounded in his ears, monotonous yet powerful. Beneath him lay cold, coarse sand mixed with shattered shells and wet seaweed.
He struggled to prop himself up and surveyed his surroundings. This was an unfamiliar beach, winding and rugged, surrounded by jagged rocks. Beyond the shore stood a lush, primeval forest that stretched all the way to the mountains at the edge of his vision. The air was thick with water-element energy and... an indescribable fluctuation carrying ancient pressure.
Where was this...?
The violent currents from Hell Road's collapse flashed through his mind like fragments of a shattered nightmare. Rakshasa's curse, Tang San's blood sword, fractured space, endless darkness... In the end, it seemed that a massive blood-red rock fragment had carried him and Hu Liena through a chaotic energy storm...
Hu Liena!
Ling Feng's heart clenched! Enduring the agonizing pain in his chest and the tearing sensation from the curse deep within his soul, he anxiously swept his gaze around. Finally, beside a huge reef polished smooth by the waves more than ten meters away, he saw that familiar figure.
Hu Liena lay on her side on the beach, her ink-black hair