"What? What are you staring at?"
I spoke, my voice quiet, but the entire Gray Sea fell silent for an instant.
"What, you think going in to die is free? If I remember correctly, entering once costs a recommendation from a Core Elder, worth two thousand years of a peak Celestial Being Realm Core Elder's stipend, doesn't it?" My lips twisted. "It's one thing to piggyback on my entrance, but you actually dare give me attitude?"
An oppressive aura descended instantly.
There was no warning whatsoever.
Above the Gray Sea, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth within several miles seemed to be seized by an invisible hand and forced sharply downward.
The twenty or thirty cultivators at the great perfection of the Celestial Being Realm shuddered in unison, their knees buckling with a chorus of sounds.
Some grunted, others clenched their teeth. Sweat visibly beaded on the foreheads of those with weaker cultivation, and they could barely remain standing.
The two Void-Treading Realm cultivators fared little better.
Yan Shaman's fingers tightened abruptly around her ebony staff. The light-absorbing black bead atop it trembled violently, and two pits half a foot deep formed in the Gray Sea beneath her feet.
Ripples of laws radiated from Lan Zhenyuan in wave after wave as he desperately countered that invisible, crushing pressure. His face went from red to white, then from white to ashen.
Even the Void-Treading Realm cultivators were struggling; those in the Celestial Being Realm were almost on their knees.
Lan Zhenyuan and Yan Shaman exchanged a glance, then simultaneously harnessed the laws of heaven and earth to disperse the oppressive aura.
Yan Shaman struck the surface of the Gray Sea with her ebony staff, sending a ring of law ripples spreading from its base. Lan Zhenyuan pressed both hands against