After the Core Dragon retreated, the lakebed fell into an eerie silence.
Those still alive stood frozen in place, staring in disbelief as the enormous golden shadow vanished into the depths of the sand. A moment later, someone was the first to react and turned to flee. Then everyone began fleeing—toward the surface, into the distance, anywhere that could take them away from this land of death.
No one dared remain any longer.
Lin Qin stood beside a stone pillar, watching those people swim upward in panic.
He withdrew his gaze and continued searching.
There were still many Xuanhuang Stones on the lakebed.
Half an hour later, five more Xuanhuang Stones had been added to his Space Ring.
Together with the previous eight, he now had thirteen.
This haul already surpassed that of the vast majority of those who had entered.
The deeper he went, the more Xuanhuang Stones there were, and the larger they became. Some were as large as washbasins, embedded in the sand and radiating dazzling golden light. But Lin Qin did not touch them—not because he did not want to, but because danger often lurked around the larger Xuanhuang Stones.
He had personally seen someone reach for a Xuanhuang Stone as large as a millstone, only for a strange fish to shoot out from beneath the sand and bite off half his body.
He had personally seen another person try to avoid those dangers, only for what seemed like an ordinary stone pillar to suddenly come alive. It was not a stone pillar at all, but a creature disguised as rock. It opened its massive mouth and swallowed that person whole.
He had also seen people fighting over a huge Xuanhuang Stone when they triggered some kind of restriction on the lakebed, drawing countless tiny golden