The underground rumbled and shook without end. The entire cliffside walkway swayed violently as shattered stones mixed with rotten wood chips rattled down into the sinking dark river below, vanishing completely before even the slightest ripple could spread.
The baleful mist that had blanketed the river's surface seemed drawn by an invisible force, all of it reversing course and pouring into the cold iron stone gate. The small black shadows that had been prowling and watching over the river only moments ago did not even have time to shriek when they touched that strange suction. Their bodies crumbled inch by inch, turning into a torrent of pure baleful energy that flowed into the darkness beyond the gate.
Within just a few breaths, every sinister phenomenon around them had faded away. Yet this deathly calm was even more chilling than the siege from before.
The youth stood frozen in place. The cracked beast-bone talisman in his palm had lost every trace of its glow, crumbling into a handful of gray-white powder that scattered through his fingers in the wind. His face was pale as paper, his lips trembling faintly, and the last trace of hope in his eyes shattered completely. So from beginning to end, the bone talisman's guidance and his sect's rescue had all been a trap laid by an ancient remnant formation. The days he had survived by sheer luck, the sect members he had desperately waited for, the chance at life he had clung to with all his strength—every bit of it had been bait deliberately left behind by the formation master's remnant soul.
"My master and the others... none of them are alive, are they?" The youth's voice was dry and hoarse, carrying the bewilderment that followed utter collapse.
The old man in blue robes looked at