Tsk!
Space rippled slightly, and Lin Ming's figure flashed, vanishing from high in the sky with Instantaneous Movement.
When he appeared again, he was already standing silently at the edge of the enormous plaza pit blasted open by the aftershocks of the battle below.
He landed in that deep pit, where the smell of blood and char still lingered, appearing beside Xiao Yi Xian, who was covered in blood and whose breath had reached its limit.
Seeing her wretched state, Lin Ming saw that Xiao Yi Xian's originally clean dress had been soaked through with blood and torn apart. Her exposed skin was covered in wounds and bruises, dried blood hung at the corner of her mouth, her face was as pale as paper, and her aura was so weak she seemed like a candle flickering in the wind.
At the sight, Lin Ming's heart seemed to be clenched hard by an invisible hand, sending a sharp stab of pain through him. His eyes, instead, became even calmer, deep as an ancient well or a cold pond, without the slightest ripple.
But anyone familiar with him would know that Lin Ming in this state of absolute calm was the most terrifying and the most heedless of consequences.
"Cough, cough..."
Perhaps sensing that utterly familiar aura, Xiao Yi Xian's long lashes trembled, and she opened her eyes with difficulty.
When she saw the face she had missed day and night so close before her, the corners of Xiao Yi Xian's bloodless, pale lips lifted with extreme effort, yet with incomparable sincerity, into a faint curve. She showed a complicated smile of joy, peace, and relief as she said softly:
"Lin Ming... you... you came out of seclusion."
Her voice was as thin as a mosquito's buzz, her breath as faint as