The Stewards' Return

Their Mysterious Heaven Sect steward robes were in tatters, stained with unknown filth and dried blood.

Their once reasonably sturdy bodies were now skin and bone. Their eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, and their skin clung tightly to their bones, tinged an unhealthy blue-gray.

At first glance, they looked no different from corpses that had just crawled out of their graves.

They were Steward Sun and Steward Zhao, whom Chen Xia had banished here from the Mysterious Heaven Sect with a Dark Teleportation Array.

"Senior Brother Sun, is—is this rift safe?"

In the darkness, Steward Zhao's voice was dry and hoarse, like two rough stones grinding together, heavy with indescribable exhaustion and fear.

His lips were cracked and bleeding. The arrogance had long since vanished from his eyes, leaving only the instinct to survive.

Steward Sun's cheeks had also sunk so deeply that his once-round face now had the absurd outline of a skull.

He scanned their surroundings warily. His eyes, made unnaturally large by his emaciation, were bloodshot and full of panic.

"Keep your voice down!" Steward Sun whispered, his breath barely audible. "Those Shadow Hounds have sharp ears—cough, cough—" Before he could finish, a violent coughing fit seized him, as though he might cough up his lungs.

During their time in the Dark Plane, they had endured hardships beyond imagining.

Hunger and thirst were their constant companions.

There was almost nothing here that mortals, or even low-level cultivators, could eat.

They had once risked chewing some faintly glowing moss. The chaotic energy within it had nearly burst Steward Zhao's meridians.

They had also tried drinking the thick black liquid pooled in hollows among the rocks. Steward Sun had vomited and suffered diarrhea so badly that it had nearly cost him half his life.

Most of the