They had wanted to attain the Divine Venerable realm, yet none of them knew just how far away they still were from becoming Divine Venerables.
Now they knew. A Divine Venerable's power truly far surpassed theirs.
They now had a concrete, clear goal. The Divine Venerable stood right before them, giving them a better subject to understand.
At a time like this, being killed by the Divine Venerable would be truly stifling and unbearable.
Under such circumstances, how could Senior Brother still face such peril with composure?
Unless he had something to rely on.
"Senior Brother, then let's go," Hu Chengxiang said solemnly.
"Junior Brother," Zhao Ruilin said with a smile, "don't think of a Divine Venerable as being quite so terrifying."
Hu Chengxiang gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
When one was utterly helpless, when one's life and death lay in another's hands, when one had no power to resist—that feeling was terrifying.
Chu Zhiyuan fell into thought.
The bond between Sect Master Zhao Ruilin and Hu Chengxiang, these martial brothers, was deeper than he had imagined.
Fiends treated others as provisions for cultivation, yet they too possessed feelings.
Those feelings ran deeper than he had imagined. They were not wholly indifferent, almost nonexistent.
And judging from the Divine Venerable's behavior, he was not simply cold and detached either. He was remarkably human.
This Evil Venerable differed somewhat from the Evil Venerable Chu Zhiyuan had encountered in the Lesser Beyond the Heavens.
Zhao Ruilin first returned to his small courtyard and changed into another set of clothes.
Then the two of them floated out of the valley.
Once outside the valley, Zhao Ruilin stopped atop the opposite mountain peak and turned back.
Looking down from the peak, the valley's existence was concealed by the formation, and nothing