The underground palace had a formation.
An exceedingly profound, exceedingly intricate formation.
Within the formation sat a man cross-legged.
His long hair draped over his shoulders as he sat with his head lowered. Most shocking of all were the seven sharp nails on the ground, driven through his flesh—through both thighs, his arms, and even one that had pierced up from beneath the earth, skewering his entire body and protruding sharply from the top of his head.
These nails were cast from bronze.
Their verdigris was dark and eerie.
If the bronze nails had not been deliberately antiqued, every one of them would have been an artifact thousands of years old.
What astonished Lin Xiaosu even more was the strand of straw amid this man's hair.
The straw's aura passed through the great formation, and it was unmistakably the kind of straw he knew best—the straw Mad Daoist used to make straw effigies.
The straw transformed into a Heaven-Burning Spear and descended from the void. Thirteen Spirit Enlightenment and even Rule Enlightenment experts had been reduced to ashes. One strand of straw—no, one Heaven-Burning Spear—had pierced a hundred meters into the earth and struck the forehead of the man within this formation.
Yet the spear had shattered outright!
The man was unharmed!
How terrifying was this man's cultivation?
Fortunately, he was within the great formation at present. Fortunately, bronze nails pierced every inch of his body...
That was likely why Mad Daoist could remain so calm despite knowing this man possessed peerless cultivation.
Mad Daoist lightly raised a hand, and a sound barrier formed. His gaze shifted over. "Kid, since this Folded Space has already opened, the passage to the Archaic Realm has formed as well. It cannot be closed. The people inside will surely emerge in an endless stream.