The lingering toll of the ancient bell faded completely among the mountains of the secret realm. The forest currents, which had been thrown into turmoil by Zhong Yin's bell toll, gradually settled as well.
The tiny motes of spiritual light drifting across the mountains slowly descended, landing on the verdant weeds and weathered stones. They made the entire valley seem even more tranquil. But in Lin Chen's eyes, there was not the slightest sense of safety in this silence. Instead, it was like a thin shell of ice, concealing turbulent, unfathomable currents beneath.
He stood where he was, his fingertips still tingling faintly from his earlier contact with the bell's resonance. The spiritual energy within him was also slowly circulating back to normal. He did not hurry forward. Lowering his eyes slightly, he quietly spread out his divine sense, fine as a spiderweb, probing every movement within a hundred yards, inch by inch.
Ever since entering this secret realm, he had kept the Dark Shadow trailing him in mind. His pursuer was extraordinarily patient, never making a move to draw attention. Like a parasite clinging to the bone, he silently followed, waiting for an opportunity to act. The ancient bell had just rung out across the wilderness, and the formations, spiritual energy, and terrain throughout the secret realm had all shifted subtly. This was precisely when someone lurking in the shadows could most easily take advantage of the changes to move and conceal his tracks—and when he was most likely to set a trap.
Lin Chen's divine sense swept over the jagged rocks, the shadowy thickets, and the trickling streams, but detected not the slightest trace of another person.
Yet the cleaner the area seemed, the more uncanny it felt.
Lin Chen's brow creased slightly as he slowly opened his eyes. Having cultivated the Great Dao of Defying Fate, he sensed danger far better than cultivators of the same rank, even surpassing many veteran powerhouses with profound cultivation. At that moment, the heavy sense of danger in his heart had not faded. Instead, as the bell's toll ended and the secret realm fell silent, it grew clearer and more oppressive by the moment.
"Quite the talent for hiding."
He murmured softly, his tone calm and unruffled. After experiencing countless life-and-death games, he had long grown accustomed to having enemies lurking in the dark. Panic was the most useless emotion of all.
No longer fixating on finding the hidden enemy, Lin Chen lifted his gaze toward the deepest part of the valley.
The place where Zhong Yin's bell toll had originated no longer looked hazy and shrouded in mist. The bell's resonance had completely swept the fog away, revealing a grand yet dilapidated stone platform in full at the heart of the mountains.
The platform covered a vast area and was built entirely from dark blue-gray primordial rock. Its surface was pitted with gullies worn by time, its winding cracks crossing and intertwining like the patterns on an ancient beast. Countless obscure runes were carved around its sides. The lines intersected and linked end to end; despite being worn by countless ages, they still held a faint glimmer of Daoist resonance, ebbing and flowing with an ancient, imposing air.
Even more astonishingly, the entire platform floated several feet above the ground. It had no supports and touched no earth, held aloft solely by the formation power it still retained. Four broken stone pillars stood at its corners. The ancient-beast statues that should have crowned them had long since crumbled, leaving only half-formed remains that still exuded an immense aura of suppression.
The bell toll that had just shaken the entire secret realm had issued from a recessed bell slot at the very center of the platform. Now the slot was empty, with only a faint golden afterglow lingering within it.
"The Primordial Suppression Bell has long since been lost. Only the formation platform remains, yet it can still draw out the Daoist resonance of the secret realm. This is no ordinary ruin."
Lin Chen raised a foot and slowly walked toward the platform. The weeds beneath him were soft and damp, and the spiritual energy in the forest grew purer and denser. Each breath he drew made the spiritual energy in his body circulate faster of its own accord.
The closer he got to the platform, the heavier the pressure of heaven and earth became.
An invisible force of confinement enveloped the surroundings. Ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators would probably struggle even to stand here, their spiritual energy suppressed beyond measure. But when this pressure fell upon Lin Chen, it only made the air around him pause slightly.
The Ancestral Seal of Defying Fate within him glimmered quietly. Its gentle yet overbearing Daoist resonance flowed around him, easily dissolving the platform's suppressive force. The primordial formation that others feared was, to him, no more than an ordinary constraint.
When he reached the foot of the platform, Lin Chen looked up and examined it closely, his gaze slowly passing over every ancient rune carved into its surface.
These patterns were no mere decorations. They formed a complete ancient Heaven-Locking Array. The formation was incomplete, and countless nodes had long since vanished over the ages. Yet the remaining lines still linked together, forming a world of their own. They sealed the energy of the entire valley and cut it off from outside scrutiny.
No wonder that ever since he entered the valley, all sounds and fluctuations of spiritual energy from the outside world had been completely cut off. Even the communication jade talismans used by great sects had become useless here.
"An array seals the domain and conceals the secrets of heaven." Lin Chen murmured softly. "Did the ancient powerhouses set up this formation to protect an opportunity, or to suppress something?"
No one could answer that question.
The secret realm's ruins were far too ancient. Their legacy had long since been severed, leaving behind only broken mountains and rivers, along with mysteries yet unsolved. Countless cultivators had ventured here over the years, but none had ever fully uncovered the origins of the ancient platform.
Drawing in a deep breath of dense primordial spiritual energy, Lin Chen lightly leaped into the air and landed steadily on the platform's timeworn, weighty surface.
The instant his foot touched the platform, a faint hum sounded again.
The silent platform suddenly trembled. The ancient runes covering it lit up with a faint blue-green glow, and layers of radiance coursed along the grooves, spreading outward. The lifeless formation patterns seemed to awaken completely in that moment.
The breeze abruptly stilled, and every drifting mote of spiritual light froze in midair.
An ancient, primordial aura, laden with the weight of countless years, burst from deep within the platform and swept across the surroundings.
Lin Chen stood at the center of the platform, straight-backed and unmoving as a mountain, calmly observing the changes in the formation.
He could clearly sense that the awakened formation was not designed to kill, but to draw in and gather. The pure spiritual energy and drifting Daoist resonance scattered throughout the secret realm's depths were being forcibly pulled over, continuously converging at the platform's center.
A spiral-shaped groove on the platform's central surface slowly lit up. Its depths were pitch-black and seemingly bottomless, and a faint suction came from within.
At the same time, the Ancestral Seal of Defying Fate, which had long lain dormant inside him, began to pulse much faster.
A warm power rose from deep within his dantian and flowed through his meridians, spreading throughout his body. The profound patterns on the Ancestral Seal grew faintly hot, and he felt a strong resonance stirring within him. This connection was unmistakable, far stronger than anything he had sensed in any other part of the secret realm. It was as if something beneath the platform shared the same origin as the Ancestral Seal of Defying Fate.
"So that's how it is."
Lin Chen understood at once.
Throughout his journey here, the Ancestral Seal's response had been faint and elusive, leaving him unable to pinpoint its source. Only now, after he had stepped into the platform's core and activated the formation, had that mysterious connection become unmistakably clear.
This entire platform was a marker guiding him here. The true opportunity lay deep beneath it.
Just as he was about to bend down and examine the depth of the groove, a faint rustle of wind suddenly came from the woods at the edge of the platform.
The sound was slight and broken, blending into the hum of the formation well enough to fool ninety-nine out of a hundred cultivators.
But Lin Chen's senses were exceptionally sharp.
He paused, and his aura instantly drew inward. All the spiritual energy that had been circulating around him sank into his body. He became like a silent piece of ancient stone, blending into his surroundings.
He had come.
Lin Chen was not surprised in the slightest.
The Dark Shadow who had followed him all this way had finally made his move.
His pursuer had been remarkably patient. He had waited until Lin Chen stepped onto the platform and activated the formation, when most of his attention was drawn to the opportunity below, before finally choosing to strike. Clearly, he understood how to wait for the right moment. He knew this was when Lin Chen was least on guard and most likely to show an opening.
The next second, a pitch-black figure suddenly shot out from the gloomy thicket on the western side of the platform.
The man was wrapped from head to toe in a loose black cloak. The fabric was unusual, completely concealing his spiritual energy and aura. Not a flaw could be seen, save for a pair of cold, lifeless eyes beneath the hood. Without a trace of emotion, they fixed on Lin Chen at the center of the platform like a venomous snake that had lain in wait for years.
The man had concealed his cultivation exceptionally well. No overwhelming spiritual energy leaked from him, yet every movement carried an utterly concentrated killing intent.
There was no probing, no exchange of words.
The instant he appeared, the black-cloaked man produced a slender black blade from his palm. Its surface was dull, reflecting neither the sky nor a glimmer of light. It was clearly a sinister weapon made for assassination, and wisps of deathly energy coiled around it. A single touch could injure a cultivator's very essence.
Whoosh—
A shrill sound tore through the silence.
The black blade, wrapped in concentrated killing intent and icy deathly energy, became a streak of darkness as it skimmed across the platform. It moved at terrifying speed, reaching to within three inches of Lin Chen in the blink of an eye.
The strike was swift and vicious, its angle exceptionally cunning, aimed straight at the fatal point in his throat. The assassin was clearly a veteran of countless battles. Every ounce of force and every angle had been perfectly judged.
An ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator would have found this sudden, deadly strike difficult to evade, even if prepared.
Yet in the face of the lightning-fast assassination, Lin Chen merely raised his eyelids. He neither dodged nor retreated, simply turning his right hand over and closing his five fingers around the blade.
Crack!
A sharp snap rang out.
The black blade, powerful enough to badly injure a peak Foundation Establishment cultivator, was caught effortlessly in his bare hand. It hung frozen in midair, unable to advance another inch.
The icy deathly energy coiling around the blade surged wildly, trying to invade Lin Chen's meridians through his palm and corrode his spiritual energy. But the moment it touched his skin, an invisible Daoist resonance crushed and dissolved it instantly, without raising the slightest ripple.
The black-cloaked man's body stiffened beneath his cloak. For the first time, genuine astonishment flickered in those lifeless eyes.
He had followed Lin Chen in secret for days, observing him all along. He had believed he had already figured out Lin Chen's capabilities, and knew that although Lin Chen was only at Foundation Establishment, his strength was far beyond that of ordinary cultivators, it still had its limits. But catching the blade barehanded and easily neutralizing its deathly energy went far beyond what an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator could do.
"You've been skulking around and following me all this way. Finally decided to show yourself?"
Lin Chen looked calmly at the black-cloaked man. His voice was not loud, yet it carried a steady force that pierced the heart.
His five fingers tightened slightly.
Crack!
The extraordinarily hard black assassination blade instantly filled with fine cracks. A moment later, it shattered with a brittle snap, scattering into countless tiny fragments that drifted away on the wind.
The remaining blade energy and deathly aura dissipated completely. The blue-green formation patterns on the platform continued to flow, undisturbed by the fight.
The black-cloaked man quickly suppressed his shock and did not hesitate to linger. The moment his strike failed, he sprang backward. His figure blurred into a shadow, moving with uncanny, erratic footwork as he stepped across the fading images in the forest and tried to slip back into the darkness of the woods.
He knew the way of assassination: if the first strike failed, flee a thousand miles. Never get drawn into a fight.
But now that Lin Chen had seen through him, how could he let the man slip away so easily, only to hide in the shadows again and wait for another chance?
"Since you've come, you might as well stay."
As the words fell, Lin Chen lightly stepped on the platform.
There was no earth-shaking burst of spiritual energy and no complicated hand seals. He simply took a step, and his figure instantly crossed several yards, as if space itself had contracted, appearing directly in front of the black-cloaked man.
He lifted a hand and gently pushed out a palm strike wrapped in gentle yet overbearing spiritual energy.
The strike looked ordinary, without the slightest hint of power, yet it completely sealed off every avenue of escape. The formation power flowing around them was drawn in, and layers of blue-green light confined the area, trapping the black-cloaked man in a small space with nowhere to dodge and nowhere to flee.
The black-cloaked man's pupils contracted, and alarm bells rang in his heart.
At this critical moment, he gritted his teeth and roared. Dense black mist erupted around him, foul and bone-chilling, carrying a powerful corrosive force. It instantly enveloped him as he tried to use it to block the attack and escape.
But in the next instant, the gentle palm force descended.
The black mist vanished like snow beneath a flame. Every trace of its corrosive force was crushed.
Thud!
A muffled impact rang out.
The black-cloaked man took the full force of the strike. His body shuddered violently, and he flew backward as though hit by a sledgehammer, crashing down onto the blue-gray stone at the platform's edge.
The loose cloak split in several places. Blood surged within him, and he spat out a mouthful of black blood, clearly gravely wounded.
Yet the man's resilience was far beyond that of an ordinary person. Despite his severe injuries, he showed no panic, bracing himself against the ground as he tried to get back up and flee.
Just then, the entire platform suddenly began to shake violently.
Rumble—
A deafening roar came from deep underground. The blue-green formation patterns, which had been flowing steadily, suddenly blazed with light. Brilliant radiance shot into the sky, illuminating the entire valley.
The spiral-shaped groove at the platform's center opened up completely. A terrifying force of suction erupted from its pitch-black depths, replacing the faint pull that had come before.
Winds howled, spiritual energy ran wild, and the surrounding world lurched into turmoil.
Both the black-cloaked man on the ground, trying to flee, and Lin Chen at the edge of the platform suddenly felt their bodies sink. This sudden, terrifying force locked onto them, dragging their bodies uncontrollably toward the opening of the groove.
The power came from the primordial formation's source and was overwhelmingly domineering. No ordinary cultivator could resist it.
Lin Chen's expression shifted. He immediately channeled the Ancestral Seal of Defying Fate at full power, layering Daoist resonance around himself as he fought to hold his ground. Even so, the blue-gray stone beneath his feet was dragged hard enough to carve two shallow grooves into its surface.
The black-cloaked man, already gravely wounded with his spiritual energy in disarray, had no hope of resisting.
With a muffled groan, he was swept up by the gale like a kite with its strings cut and sent hurtling straight toward the pitch-black opening below.
In the chaos, the remnant of the cloak over the black-cloaked man's head was torn away by the wind and vanished.
A pale, eerie face, utterly devoid of color, was suddenly exposed to the light of day.
It was not the face of an ordinary person.
His features were stiff and rigid, his skin deathly gray, and his eyes black and hollow, without a trace of white. His whole face looked as though someone had carved it by force, radiating an uncanny, inhuman stillness.
Even more horrifying, a small, ink-black mark was clearly imprinted at the center of his brow.
The mark twisted and coiled in a bizarre pattern. It was unmistakably identical to the hidden lower-layer markings of the Double-Layer Chess Game that Lin Chen had always been wary of!
Just as Lin Chen's gaze sharpened and shock surged through his heart, a deep, ancient whisper suddenly came from the depths below. Vast and primordial, it seemed to cross ten thousand ages as it echoed through the entire platform:
"Fate Defier... you've finally entered the game..."
Before you continue