The voice came without warning, seeming close enough to touch. Startled, the Yellow-Robed Elder tapped his foot against the ground without a second thought and burrowed into the earth with the astonishing speed of a great mud loach.
Rustling sounds came from underground, shifting left and right, their location impossible to pin down.
"You actually dared use earth-traversing arts in front of me. You have some courage."
The voice in the mist carried an inscrutable tone, with what seemed a trace of mockery.
Dozens of zhang underground, having already fled several hundred zhang, the Yellow-Robed Elder heard those words with perfect clarity. Then the soil, normally soft as tofu under his earth-traversing art, abruptly contracted. Every inch became tougher than metal.
A terrifying force pressed in from every direction, threatening to crush him into meat paste.
The Yellow-Robed Elder's muscles and bones crackled violently. His blood raced, his face swelled a bruised purple, and he felt as though his body would burst apart in the next instant.
Just as his vision darkened and he was about to lose consciousness, a powerful suction seized him and dragged his entire body out of the earth.
With a whoosh, he shot out like an arrow and landed at someone's feet.
Dizzy and utterly terrified, the Yellow-Robed Elder struggled to raise his eyes. He saw a man with an honest-looking face and a complexion as sallow as earth, dressed in coarse gray hemp clothes, looking just like an old farmer at a village entrance. The man was smiling down at him.
One glance was enough to leave the Yellow-Robed Elder gaping, his body shaking like chaff in a sieve, as though he had seen a fiend from the depths of the Nine Hells.
"Oh? You know me?" The old farmer rubbed his rough face