At the edge of the black desert, in the shade cast by a massive rock resembling black glass.
Ling Qingzhu slowly opened her eyes.
What met her gaze was a dim, lead-gray sky that seemed eternally unable to clear, along with a bizarre "sun" hanging within it, radiating a ghastly pale, lifeless light. The air was thin and foul, thick with the stench of burning and sulfur. Every breath sent a searing pain through her throat.
She moved her body and discovered that she was lying naked beside the cold black rock, her smooth, delicate skin pressed directly against the coarse sand and gravel, causing waves of discomfort. Yet her expression was surprisingly calm.
Just a few hours earlier, when she had fallen from the spatial vortex and crashed violently onto this silent black desert, she had experienced a brief moment of panic and despair. Her cultivation had been sealed, her spiritual energy dormant, and even the strength of her body suppressed to that of an ordinary person. Even the clothes on her body had been shredded to pieces by the spatial turbulence. Any woman would be terrified to find herself naked in such a completely unfamiliar, bizarre, lifeless world.
But Ling Qingzhu was still Ling Qingzhu. The most outstanding disciple of Nine Heavens Taiqing Palace's younger generation, her will far surpassed that of ordinary people. After her brief panic, she forced herself to calm down.
"This place... is completely different from the Tian Xuan Continent." She looked around, a trace of gravity flashing through her cold eyes. "Spiritual energy is almost nonexistent, and the laws... are terrifyingly dormant. My cultivation has been completely suppressed and sealed."
She tried to mobilize the Yuan Power within her body, only to find that the strength she had once wielded as easily as