After the old marks sealed within the stone wall at the bottom of the abyss were revealed, Lin Chen sat cross-legged atop a cold, damp rock platform, still shrouded in the chilly moisture unique to the underground abyss. The aftershocks left by the collision of the two phantoms had yet to fade. Fine droplets seeped from the cracks in the rock wall from time to time, falling onto the rubble beneath him. Their tinkling echoes rang endlessly through the empty underground space, making the abyss floor seem ever more secluded and desolate.
He raised his hand and gently traced the faint golden patterns lingering on his palm with his fingertips. They had been left behind when the ancient markings seeped into him after he touched the sealed stone wall. The marks at the bottom of the abyss had endured the erosion of countless years. Most of their patterns had long been worn smooth by silt and time. Only the intertwined imprints of two phantoms had briefly appeared when his blood essence resonated with the Fate-Defying Ancestral Seal within him. In the rush earlier, he had caught only a glimpse of the truth. Much hidden information buried deep within the patterns still needed to be sorted through. The Fate-Defying Ancestral Seal lay dormant deep in his dantian, faintly heating up every so often as though answering the ancient mark of the same origin on the stone wall. A weak, warm current continuously flowed through his meridians and into every part of his body, driving away the biting chill of the abyss.
The black-clad elder accompanying him stood silently beside a pile of rubble some distance away, his gaze fixed on the dark passages around them as he kept watch for any disturbance. Rubble thrown up by the collision of the two