The sun slowly set.
The last rays of sunlight shimmered on the river as a multi-deck ship sped downstream.
"Inspector Jiang, why did you stop drinking?" Zhong Yue asked Jiang Ning.
"She's probably stopped watching us," Jiang Ning said.
At those words, Zhong Yue and Ye Zhengqi secretly breathed sighs of relief.
The reason neither of them had objected when Jiang Ning handed over the spoils was that he had sent them a private message.
They understood, too, that the balance of power was against them.
If they clashed with the Qingyang Sect, they would gain nothing and put themselves in danger.
The Qingyang Sect was a great reclusive sect with an entire Grotto-Heaven World to itself.
No great reclusive sect was to be taken lightly.
Every one of them had endured since the Primordial Era, with complete legacies, many old monsters, and beings who could rival immortals and gods.
Some might even harbor true immortals.
Though the world's conditions had changed, those smaller worlds separate from the greater world were difficult to affect.
Small worlds such as Upper Yang Grotto-Heaven possessed complete laws of their own.
Qingyang Grotto-Heaven was even more so.
That was why the three of them knew the old woman who had appeared must be a sect elder, a being who could rival immortals and gods.
Even in the outside world, where her Primordial Era path to immortality meant her every move could no longer draw upon the power of heaven and earth, and where her spiritual energy was limited, she remained formidable.
Her combat strength would drop an entire level.
Even so, they were no match for her.
In the outside world, only the very strongest grandmasters of the second rank, or martial artists who had reached the pinnacle of the first rank, could contend