Zhou Xuan's sword hand did not move.
Blood still seeped from the wound in his left shoulder, and waves of burning pain surged through his meridians where resentful qi had invaded them.
Taiyi Divine Power circulated slowly inside him, suppressing the gray-black threads trying to corrode his organs.
That hand hovered at the edge of the vortex.
It was very pale. A Purple-Gold Ring adorned one of its sharply defined fingers, refracting a shimmering glow in the eerie blue light.
The hand had reached across an immense distance.
Zhou Xuan stood motionless. Taiyi Divine Power quietly flowed into his eyes, and beneath his divine eye, the energy structure within the spatial vortex became clear.
The passage was already unstable. After Zhao Ji's death, most of the resentful qi sustaining the Stone Gate had been cut off. The remaining energy could hold out for another hundred breaths at most.
The other party had chosen this moment to reach through. Zhou Xuan judged that they meant to leave him something.
If a powerful cultivator capable of projecting their physical body across regions stood on the other side, a single blast of divine will would have sufficed.
Within a breath, the hand turned over.
Its five fingers spread, revealing a Jade Thumb Ring resting in its palm. Pale golden patterns flowed over the ring's surface, with no apparent offensive power.
Clack.
The Jade Thumb Ring was tossed out. It flew thirty feet and landed at the edge of the dried-up Blood Pool, bounced twice, then rolled to a stop beside Zhou Xuan's feet.
The hand withdrew.
The spatial vortex shook violently. The eerie blue light twisted out of shape, and the formation patterns covering the Stone Gate rapidly dimmed. The passage was collapsing.
Zhou Xuan stared at the Stone Gate until the glow