Song Qiuya stepped forward.
She did not cry or panic. She simply reached out and gently clasped Chen Lin's wrist.
"I'll go with you."
"No." Chen Lin shook his head. "Forming a Nascent Soul is no joke. The slightest distraction could ruin everything."
Song Qiuya's fingers tightened for a moment, then relaxed.
She stepped back, her voice soft. "Then come back alive."
"I will."
Back Hill.
Chen Lin sat alone on a massive rock at the summit.
Below him lay the myriad lights of Chen Family Village. In the distance, the vast night stretched beneath the Sun-Covering Cloudmist Formation.
He took out two Nascent Soul Fruits and studied them for a moment.
Then he put them into his mouth without hesitation.
The instant they reached his stomach, medicinal power so violent it nearly tore his meridians apart erupted within him-
He closed his eyes.
One month later.
The Pacific Ocean.
After thirty days of stillness, the ocean's surface began sinking without warning.
For hundreds of kilometers around, the seawater seemed to freeze beneath an invisible giant hand. First came utter stillness, then-collapse.
A mountain slowly emerged from the water.
No.
It was not a mountain.
It was a head.
The Primeval Giant Turtle, bearing a primeval jungle on its back, opened its blood-red eyes. Its pupils held none of the emotions of an intelligent creature, only the most primal, purest-
Hunger.
It turned its mountain-sized head, its enormous nostrils flaring.
West.
There was a familiar scent in that direction.
Rich, delicious spiritual energy, enough to half-fill its stomach.
The next moment, the giant beast began to walk.
Each step carried it dozens of kilometers. Behind it, the sea rose in waves a thousand meters high.
The uninhabited islands along its path collapsed entirely into the ocean depths from