"Elder Qian," Zhou Zixing said gravely, "we must be extremely cautious about dismantling the wood. Those Black Shadows are lurking in the darkness, waiting for us to reveal a weakness. If we rashly send people out to tear things down, they may never return."
His gaze swept over the endless darkness around them, and a rare trace of wariness appeared in his eyes. As a Xiantian Master, he had not felt this kind of walking-on-thin-ice tension in a very long time.
He had watched Chen Mo and Ouyang Nan fight the Black Shadows earlier as well.
Although he had not personally taken part, the battle had still been extremely dangerous. In particular, the Black Shadows could hide in the dark and launch Sneak Attacks. Even for a Xiantian Second Order Master like him, he was not certain he could handle Black Shadows lunging out of the darkness.
Especially if there were many Black Shadows—if two or more of them Sneak Attacked him, he might be killed as well.
Qian Ying nodded too. He had been thinking about how to handle this matter, countless plans flashing through his mind before he rejected every one of them.
Send Houtian Martial Artists? That would be sending them to their deaths. Go himself? What if a Black Shadow tied him down while other Black Shadows emerged? Do nothing? Once the flames went out, that would also be a dead end.
Looking at the houses surrounding the plaza, faintly visible at the edge of the firelight like silent tombs, he felt a headache coming on. Those wooden structures were clearly right before him, within reach, yet it felt as though an insurmountable gulf lay between them.
How could they avoid the Black Shadows' Sneak Attacks in this pitch-black darkness and gather enough wood?
He Turned