Ever since the strange upheaval had fully erupted that night several decades ago,
the entire region had long since fallen into dead silence. No birds sang, no beasts roared, and no flowers or grass swayed.
The vegetation that had once withered, then bloomed anew as though it had returned to normal, had recently vanished as well, never to grow again.
Only the howling wind passed through the bare mountain ridges and dried-up riverbeds, letting out mournful wails like ghosts crying.
The scene seemed like a real-time projection of someone's condition.
Among the mountains and rivers, Stone Village, which the Xiang Family had rebuilt, had slowly become ruins eroded by accelerated time. Its wood and stone had decayed, and its traces had blurred.
Yet the most chilling sight was the long, narrow, pitch-black abyss at the center, once called the "Ancestral Abyss" by the Xiang Family.
It had now expanded to cover ten thousand zhang, like a ferocious giant eye upon the earth.
At every moment, it spewed outward and cyclically gathered dense Twilight Aura Dao rhythms. That aura was enough to make the souls of any cultivators beneath the Imperial Dao Realm tremble.
However, ever since the field here had undergone its mutation, this place had become exceedingly unusual over the past several decades. Even ordinary Quasi-Ninth cultivators who did not enter Scarlet Glow River could see nothing of note when observing from outside.
Much less could they discern the abyss at its deepest core.
Over the past twenty or thirty years, cultivators across the Southern Region and even Big Dipper had offered countless differing theories regarding how this forbidden land had formed.
Some said that during the century after the Xiang Family's return, they might have violated some taboo. Parts of their ancient records and inheritances had been lost,