Gui Yan and the others whirled around. Beneath the cliff wall opposite them, a slender figure had appeared at some unknown moment, holding a palace lantern that cast an eerie purple radiance. The lantern possessed an indescribable magic that seized the attention of all three at once; they had not even clearly seen her face.
"This lamp can seize souls!"
Gui Yan's heart tightened with alarm. He forcibly shifted his focus and looked toward the woman's face, but the dim seawater blurred the light. He could only vaguely make out delicate, lovely features and a pale-purple pattern at her brow, like an exquisite floral ornament. As if sensing Gui Yan's piercing gaze, she gave a faint smile.
In an instant, the mountain range and cliff walls collapsed, shattered stones raining down as blazing destructive force erupted. In the blink of an eye, everything went dark.
Clean and decisive, without a word of nonsense—she was clearly trying to kill them and silence them all!
In that brief moment of distraction, Gui Yan's demonic awareness shifted. He discovered that his two companions had vanished. Looking up again, he saw the palace lantern in the woman's hand suspended overhead, spinning round and round.
It was also a palace lantern, but it looked far more impressive than the Ghost Blood Shadowless Lamp the sword cultivator's avatar had seen before.
Beneath the purple glow, the palace lantern was octagonal in shape, with an upper and lower panel. The upper panel bore an ink-splashed painting, abstract and impossible to fathom at a glance. The lower panel depicted a mortal cityscape and the myriad conditions of worldly life. Suspended overhead, the scene painted upon the lower panel unfolded as it spun, its city growing ever larger until it descended over him.
In the turn of an eye,