The light before them finally settled after a violent bout of shaking.
Lin Ming opened his eyes and found that he was no longer inside the ancient Stone Hall.
This was a desolate, boundless expanse. The sky was a murky dark yellow, like an old bronze mirror weathered by the years.
The earth was cracked and barren, with no grass in sight. Split clods of soil curled upward in layer after layer like fish scales, stretching all the way to the horizon.
There was wind in the air, but it was dry and scorching, whipping up yellow sand and dust that struck the face like blades.
Dressed in black, Lin Ming stood amid the yellow sands, his robes snapping in the wind.
He looked around, seeing nothing but bleak desolation. The heavens and earth were vast, yet the silence was terrifying.
This space was not large, at least far smaller than the ancient hall. Yet after taking only a dozen steps, he discovered that with every step, the scenery around him seemed to shift quietly, as though something was watching him from the shadows, circling him, waiting to strike.
He knew that he had entered one of the gates of the Eight-Gate Fierce Lock Formation.
This was the strongest of the eight gates, and the territory of the fiercest among those eight vicious beasts.
Lin Ming raised his head toward the sky. The murky yellow clouds slowly revolved, forming an enormous vortex.
At the center of the vortex seeped an intense, nauseating blood-soaked Sectarian Qi. It had already condensed into substance, winding through the clouds like countless dark-red threads of blood as it pressed downward in waves.
Lowering his gaze, Lin Ming looked at the ground. A dim red glow seeped from those cracked fissures, as though the earth itself