Han Feng looked at the winding stone steps before him and the slightly distorted space at their end, a faint smile appearing on his face.
"Let's wait for someone to come receive us," he said to the few youngsters behind him, who were curiously surveying their surroundings.
Hearing this, Xiao Yan could not suppress his curiosity. He stepped forward, stretched out his palm, and lightly pressed it against the seemingly empty spatial barrier.
Bzzzt—!
An astonishing rebounding force surged violently from the spatial barrier, fiercely knocking Xiao Yan's hand away.
"What a sturdy spatial barrier!" Xiao Yan shook his slightly numb hand, surprise flashing through his eyes.
"Hehe, the successive Valley Masters of Flame Valley have personally reinforced this spatial barrier. It can withstand the full-force attack of a Dou Venerable. An ordinary Dou Ancestor has no chance of breaking it."
Before Xiao Yan's words had faded, an elderly laugh with a hearty note came from beyond the spatial barrier.
"This old man has been discourteous, making the Young Pavilion Master Han wait for so long."
Before the voice had finished speaking, the impregnable spatial barrier rippled like water, slowly parting on its own to form a passage wide enough for several people to walk abreast.
A short, thin old man with fiery crimson hair and simple hemp clothing slowly emerged from the passage. He cupped his hands politely toward Han Feng and his group.
He looked unremarkable, yet when his eyes opened and closed, firelight seemed to flow within them. A vast aura belonging to a Dou Venerable ran as deep as the sea.
He was Tang Zhen, the current Valley Master of Flame Valley.
"I've troubled Young Pavilion Master Han to make this trip personally." Tang Zhen's gaze lingered on Han Feng for a moment, and inwardly, he