Meanwhile, the golden array patterns inside the White-Robed Cave had vanished. The entire cavern was pitch-black, filled with the foul stench of scorched raw flesh. Shen Luo was nowhere to be seen on the dim ground; only a shapeless mass of flesh lay sprawled there.
The surface of that mass was covered in a charred black shell, with wisps of white smoke still rising from it. Even if it was not fully cooked, it was at least seven or eight parts of the way there.
But at that moment, the mass of flesh suddenly moved.
A crisp crack rang out, especially clear within the empty cavern.
Immediately afterward, a fissure split open in the shell covering the blackened flesh, and jade-green light shone through it.
Crack, crack...
One shattering sound followed another as the split suddenly spread like a spiderweb. Emerald light gleamed from every one of those cracks.
Suddenly, a large gap burst open in the black shell. A hand as white as jade reached out from the shell of flesh, slender as dry bones yet translucent like warm jade, its golden bones even visible within.
After the hand emerged, it suddenly pressed against the ground. A gaunt spine then rose up, smashing the black flesh shell apart completely. An incomparably emaciated naked figure sat up from within—it was Shen Luo.
At this moment, he looked like a famine victim, so thin that he was little more than skin and bones. Yet his skin emitted a faint translucent luster, while the skeleton visible beneath it seemed to have been plated with gold, gleaming with golden light.
At his Dantian, the last Grand Purity Pill he had swallowed still glowed faintly with jade-green light.
Shen Luo raised his head with some difficulty, suddenly wrinkled his nose, and drew in a