"Mm..."
Jiang Wang felt his consciousness sinking, falling toward that lightless, bottomless Abyss.
Zhu Biqiong, stamped into a mirror-flower silhouette, was nowhere to be seen.
Zhuo Qingru, Chen Zhitao, Fu Yanqing, the densely packed army of the Human Race—all vanished beyond his abruptly severed field of vision.
He had drawn his sword without thinking, and even after thinking it through, he would still have done the same.
Who was that person who had stepped out of the water mirror? What did they want? How powerful were they...? He did not know.
He only knew that Zhu Biqiong was his friend.
So he drew his sword!
And was crushed.
It had happened too fast—so fast that he had not even had time to react.
Battle-hardened as he was, he had mobilized all his strength at the very first instant. Yet before that casually descending palm, he had not even had time to summon his immortal consciousness!
Divine light extinguished; Dao Essence returned to the sea.
His body and mind sank together, his hands empty.
Darkness snuffed out every source of light—and hope, naturally, as well.
Jiang Wang did not think he was dead, because before "dying," he had heard Zhu Biqiong's voice.
So shrill and crazed... it was a Zhu Biqiong he had never known.
Time had no meaning, and neither did he feel pain. Even "feeling" itself was fading away.
Then, in the endless darkness, "color" suddenly appeared—something beyond darkness: pervasive white mist.
He seemed to be falling amid the white fog. Looking up, he saw wisps of vapor curling like drifting ribbons, while higher above lay boundless darkness.
The mist before his eyes drifted hazily, gradually thickening like dense clouds.
Jiang Wang felt himself trapped within the clouds.
Or rather, a cloud-bed had caught him before his senses returned.