Lu Chen rose, brushed the dust from the hem of his robe, and turned his gaze toward the depths of the cave abode.
The cave abode was even more spacious than he had first realized.
Its outer reaches consisted of the stone cavern where the Mighty Demon Ape lived, piled with dry grass, animal hides, and scattered bones. A thick, bloody stench filled the air, and the ground was littered with the half-eaten remains of mutant beasts.
Lu Chen rummaged around the piles of grass for a while, finding only some mutant beast bones and broken weapons.
Those weapons were badly rusted, most reduced to shattered sword hilts. Clearly, they had belonged to human martial artists who had strayed into this place in the past.
Lu Chen frowned slightly.
The Mighty Demon Ape had occupied this place for years and possessed Organ-Nourishing Realm cultivation. There should have been more than this in its cave abode.
He continued deeper inside.
At the deepest point of the cave abode lay a dark pool, with cold vapor slowly rising from its surface. Most of the rock wall beside it had collapsed during the earlier battle, leaving rubble strewn everywhere.
As Lu Chen passed the rock wall, he suddenly stopped.
Air was blowing out through the gaps in the rubble.
The breeze carried none of the bloody stench of the Mighty Demon Ape's lair. Instead, it bore the musty odor of something long sealed away.
"Is there another space behind this?"
Lu Chen bent down and moved aside several pieces of rubble.
Soon, a perfectly straight gap appeared before him.
The rocks within the cave abode were all naturally formed, their edges rough and uneven. Yet this gap ran straight from top to bottom, and clear chisel marks remained on its surface.
It had