Abyssal Imprint

Inside the stone chamber, the pure power of order seemed drawn by an invisible force, streaming into his mouth and nose in wisps, flowing down his meridians to nourish his body and divine soul, which were somewhat fatigued from the successive battles and the purification of the heart core.

The mixed energies within him, along with the minute alien energies that had invaded during battle, were forced from his body and silently dissipated within the gray-gold radiance. His mind swiftly settled into calm.

Venerable Lingfeng stood with his sword at the inner side of the stone chamber entrance, roughly twenty feet from Chu Ming.

This distance ensured that Chu Ming would not be disturbed while allowing him to react at once should anything go wrong.

Outside the stone chamber, on the platform.

The stern man from the Northern Abyss Frost Domain, Elder Hanche, stood shoulder to shoulder with the aloof woman Shuang Ning at the western edge of the platform, their backs to the Order Resonance Chamber.

Frost silently spread beneath their feet, forming a curved, crystal-clear ice barrier. Its chill was restrained, yet it blocked more than half of all fluctuations in aura coming from the western cavern passage.

"Junior Sister Shuang, regulate your breathing for a while and keep watch on the east," Hanche said quietly. His voice remained icy, but his gaze softened for an instant as it fell upon Shuang Ning. Having trained under the same sect for centuries, their tacit understanding had long seeped into their bones.

Shuang Ning nodded slightly, swallowed an ice-blue pill, and sat down cross-legged. Yet her divine sense stretched toward the eastern passage like threads of ice.

Her face was still somewhat pale. Suppressing the backlash from the heart core abyss earlier had cost her greatly, but her eyes remained