The stone door trembled beneath Chen Wuya's palm, then fell silent again. The crack hung frozen in midair, and dust no longer trickled down. He withdrew his hand, his knuckles white.
Mo Feng immediately activated the mechanism device. Its light screen lit up and scanned the structure beyond the door. An image appeared: a forked passageway, with faint lingering energy in the left branch, tinted a dark red.
"Demonic qi," Bai Zhi said softly.
She stood half a step behind Chen Wuya, one hand still pressed to her abdomen. Her breathing had grown more hurried than before. The Water-Repelling Pearl rested against her skin; it was not hot, but its pulses had quickened.
Chen Wuya said nothing. Lowering his head, he looked at the hand he had used to push the door. A thin layer of gray dust coated his palm, impossible to wipe away, like ink that had seeped into his skin. He scraped it with his nail, leaving a faint black mark on his fingertip.
The system suddenly vibrated:
[Residual Northern Abyss Altar marker detected. Source direction: within three hundred li to the northeast.]
Mo Feng looked up. "They've been here."
"More than that." Chen Wuya wiped the dust from his palm. "They came for what's inside. They weren't breaking through the formation—they were meeting someone."
Bai Zhi frowned. "Meeting who?"
"I don't know." Chen Wuya shook his head. "But the chains behind the door were broken from the inside. Someone got in before us, then someone outside cut off their retreat."
Mo Feng brought up a map, and the mechanism device projected the outline of an icefield. A red dot flickered in the northeastern corner, its frequency synchronized with the residual mark on Chen Wuya's palm.
"This is the marker's signal source," he said. "They're