The floor was pitch-black.
A layer of soil covered it.
Lush grass pushed through the cracks, taller than a person.
Something had crawled across the walls. It looked enormous, with claw marks over two meters long.
Dead silence.
"Fellow Daoist Xu, your emperor's scheme to imprison me has worked. What a pity he didn't tell you."
Ji Huairang spoke in a low voice.
"Lu Chaowu's lifelong wish is to fight the strong. He'd never stoop to a dull trick like this. Besides, he couldn't pull it off," Xu Yuan said.
That was true.
Once someone reached Ji Huairang's level, a single fight was usually enough to judge an opponent's fighting style and, from that, get a rough sense of their character.
Lu Chaowu would have loved nothing more than a fight to the death with him.
But—
There was something else worth noting in Xu Yuan's words.
"So your mastery of Imago runs deeper than His Majesty the Human Emperor's?"
Ji Huairang's voice dripped with mockery.
"No need to probe me. I only want you to know that none of this is an Imago," Xu Yuan said.
"Yet there isn't a trace of any other fluctuation. I've fought countless battles in the Truth Void, and I've never seen anything like this," Ji Huairang said.
"Neither have we in the Three Realms," Xu Yuan said.
Their voices echoed through the palace.
The echoes bounced back and forth several times before slowly fading.
Dead silence.
As soon as the Conversation stopped, the whole world seemed to sink into an endless, deathly hush.
"Let's take a look outside."
"Go!"
They passed through the corridor and landed outside the hall, then looked up together.
There was no sky.
High overhead stretched a brick-and-tile ceiling.
Palace buildings of every size surrounded them, with carved beams