The terrifying explosive energy slowly dissipated, revealing before Qin Fengming and Gu Changtian a valley entrance where the barrier had completely vanished. The undamaged stone path wound and twisted ahead, disappearing into the mist-shrouded valley.
If not for the remnants of the immense energy still surging at the valley entrance, one would surely have felt that no terrifying attack had occurred here.
What Qin Fengming and Gu Changtian did not know was that, just as the two of them joined forces to destroy the barrier at the valley entrance, astonished and enraged roars rang out from four caves ten miles away from their location:
"Who dares to be so bold as to destroy that barrier!"
Though the four cries had come from different people, their meaning was astonishingly identical.
As the four astonished and enraged shouts rang out, the statues standing within the four caves, which had already been flickering with phosphorescent light, suddenly flashed wildly.
Fine streams of energy, like flashes of lightning, abruptly shone out from the stone walls and converged toward the statues.
Amid the flickering phosphorescent light, strands of energy sank into the statues and vanished within them.
Had Qin Fengming been present, he would naturally have recognized that the strands sinking into the statues were streaks of restriction runes.
As the numerous runes sank into the statues, extremely faint cracking sounds immediately issued from them. Fine fissures simultaneously appeared across the bodies of the four statues.
Just as the shouts from the four statues faded, a layer of gray-black debris, like sand and gravel, fell from their bodies. Four tall cultivators appeared within the four caves.
If the four cultivators stood together, anyone who saw them would immediately notice that, whether in appearance, cultivation, or aura, the four were exactly identical.
All four cultivators wore