Xu Changqing's gaze fell upon the small black coffin, and his heart sank slightly.
This coffin was a size smaller than ordinary coffins, roughly three feet long and one foot wide. It was black as ink from top to bottom, neither wood nor stone, cold to the touch and as hard as Ten-Thousand-Year Mystic Iron.
The coffin's surface was covered in twisted, ancient inscriptions, resembling both primordial runes and withered vines tangled together.
Under the spiritual radiance of the Portable Space, a faint dark-red glow seeped from deep within the patterns, like old bloodstains that had long since congealed.
Some damp dark-red mud still clung to the coffin's edges, carrying the damp, frigid chill unique to deep waters. Dense deathly aura coiled around it.
This deathly aura differed from the rotten stench of ordinary corpses. Instead, it carried an ancient, heavy pressure that Xu Changqing did not dare take lightly.
He studied it closely, then his pupils contracted.
The inscriptions on the coffin, the feel of its material, even the flavor of its deathly aura—all were seventy percent similar to that black coffin he had encountered in the Nether River before.
In many respects, they were cast from the same mold, as though they came from the same source.
Xu Changqing murmured, "The black coffin in the Nether River... the small coffin from the Immortal Sect's Black Lake..."
Rules existed within the Portable Space. So long as he wished it, any foreign object would be suppressed.
This coffin was naturally no exception. Without hesitation, he raised a hand and pressed down on the lid.
The moment his fingertips touched the lid, he could clearly feel the resistance coming from it. With a little force, a soft crack rang out, and the lid slowly slid open.
There was no expected corpse