Terror at the exit, Golden Cultivator the benefactor; [Heaven-in-a-Pot] transformed, tallying the spoils! (10,000 words × 6)

"What?! The [Sixty-Year Secret Realm] actually collapsed?!"

"Heavens! It opens once every sixty years, but I've never heard of it collapsing ahead of time!"

"No wonder the [Purple Pole Sect], the [Extreme South Palace], and the two great aristocratic clans mobilized so many people this time. Did they know something would happen?"

"What an eye-opener! A real eye-opener! You might not see a secret realm collapse like this in five hundred years, or even a thousand!"

Discussions and startled cries rose from the cultivators. For a time, the riverside descended into noisy confusion.

By then, Lin Changheng had quietly changed his clothes and mingled with the fleeing crowd. His aura was unsteady from his considerable expenditure, and he had steeled himself to inflict several moderately serious wounds on his own body, making him look like just another bedraggled survivor.

As he flew out through the secret realm's entrance, he clearly felt four overwhelmingly powerful strands of divine sense sweep over him like searchlights.

Fortunately, his injuries were real and his aura was weak. Amid a group of frightened, wounded cultivators, he stood out little and attracted no lingering scrutiny.

What made his heart sink, however, was that not one of these escaped cultivators immediately flew away! Perhaps they were still shaken, perhaps their wounds were too severe, or perhaps they were intimidated by the four True Persons present.

They all remained on the riverbank or in midair, taking pills to heal themselves, whispering to acquaintances with lingering fear, or looking around blankly.

Many of those waiting outside-mostly representatives of major merchant associations or individuals seeking resources-also approached cultivators who might have made gains, striking up conversations about purchases.

This left Lin Changheng afraid to act rashly.

Leaving alone now would only make him conspicuous and might draw particular attention from