The sound of the stream was loud.
But the seven of them were quieter than the stream.
On the second day after Tang Hao left, they made camp beside a shallow brook on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest.
No one mentioned what had happened that night.
That one-sided slaughter, that mountain-like back that could not be shaken, weighed heavily on everyone's heart like a nightmare they could not wake from.
Jiang Tieyi leaned against a large boulder, his right arm crookedly secured with wooden sticks and strips of cloth.
Four ribs were broken, and his internal organs had shifted slightly.
When Chu Yao examined his injuries, he grimaced in pain and sucked in cold breaths.
"Don't move!"
Chu Yao cursed at him once.
He moved again.
"I told you not to move!"
Chu Yao pressed down on his shoulder and cursed at him three more times.
Half of Mo Qianye's body was covered in bruises, spreading from his left shoulder to his waist in a dark, rusty purple.
He sat farthest from the campfire, motionless like a charred log struck by lightning.
Yan Wuji's Ice Domain had been forcibly shattered, and the power of mystical ice had backlashed through his meridians.
Now, whenever he circulated his Soul Power, his organs ached as though pierced by needles. He could only sit cross-legged and regulate his breathing with difficulty.
Ye Linglong's spiritual power had been shaken by the force of the punches, and the ringing in her ears had yet to fade.
For once, she did not wear her usual keep-out posture. She merely curled up beside Ling Shuang, pale-faced.
Ling Shuang's injury to her left leg was not serious.
But when her Heavenly Net Immortal Vine—the vines she regarded as her own life—had been pulverized by a single