"Hmm!" At those words, everyone's expression changed, and they looked toward the newcomers!
The man in the lead had a fair, beardless face and was quite handsome, but his hair and eyebrows were white as snow. He wore gray-white Daoist robes and carried five swords of varying lengths on his back. With that appearance, who else could he be but Bell Sword Mountain's Sword God, Dongling Daojian!
Two others followed him. One had a reddish-brown face, white hair and a white beard, and an imposing build clad in an outfit of some unknown beast hide. He looked truly majestic. The other wore Confucian robes and a tall hat, with a long beard hanging from his pale face. His bearing was refined and graceful, every inch a scholar-except that his looks did his audience no favors, wasting that fine set of robes.
Outside the passage they had emerged from stretched a long stone walkway leading beneath the enormous mountain of spirit stone. Nothing lay beneath the walkway but empty air. Countless runes glimmered with spiritual light across its surface; apparently, these rune formations supported the platform suspended in midair. More than a dozen other passages around the platform led to this central point. Dongling Daojian and his companions had emerged from another passage several dozen feet away.
"Ah! So it's Fellow Daoist Great Gong and Fellow Daoist Xuanmen!" The Confucian scholar and Dongling Daojian also noticed Great Gong Diamond, Liu Xian'er, and their two companions. Looking toward Great Gong Diamond and Buddha Xuanmen, the scholar exclaimed in surprise.
"It's you?" Great Gong Diamond naturally recognized the two of them as well and spoke in surprise.
"Greetings, fellow Daoists!" Buddha Xuanmen said courteously.
"Our respects to Great Confucian Tiangang, Beast God Heavenly Lord, and Senior Divine Sword!" Zhang Hong and Liu Xian'er