Setting out (4)

In the main hall next door, True Person Yu Qing's knuckles whitened slightly around his teacup. His chest heaved once before he forcibly suppressed his surging blood and qi with his profound cultivation.

His usually gentle, placid eyes were now as sharp as thousand-year-old ice, towering waves of shock and fury churning in their depths.

He had indeed heard scattered fragments about "Second Martial Uncle's trip to the Dark Domain" when Shen Yuxi muttered in his unsettled moments, but he had not given them much thought then.

Now, linking those fragments with the "prophecy" he had just heard, a cold, cruel truth surfaced: in that seemingly predetermined "future," the Profound Heaven Sect faced far more than a temporary setback. It faced a meticulously planned death trap, every part linked to the next!

If the events in the Sunken Sea Secret Realm truly unfolded as Shen Yuxi had "seen," completely alienating the Profound Heaven Sect from the other sects, then when the demonic cultivators struck again, the sect would be left isolated and helpless. Retribution, ambushes, and even the destruction of the sect would become irreversible outcomes.

The "future" Shen Yuxi spoke of was far more dangerous and troublesome than he had imagined.

Pine-needle incense still curled through the hall, yet it no longer brought the slightest peace of mind. Every wisp of pale smoke seemed to have become an invisible shackle or a crushing mountain, weighing so heavily on the two highly accomplished True Persons that they could scarcely breathe. The atmosphere was as oppressive as the deathly stillness before a storm.

Fortunately, Shen Yuxi had more to say—

"But the plot's gone so far off the rails by now that even its own mother wouldn't recognize it," Shen Yuxi said, rubbing his throbbing temples as he tried to untangle