At the edge of Mistveil Valley, ancient trees towered into the sky.
Everyone sat or stood, all breathing a sigh of relief for the moment.
Black Mountain lay sprawled on the ground, chest heaving, eyes fixed on the sky, as though trying to confirm just what was different about it.
Red Wind crouched beside a tree root with a back turned to the others, head lowered to carefully inspect the patch between the buttocks where fur would never grow again, even reaching out to feel it.
Mm, still just as smooth.
Xie Changsheng was soothing the gray donkey with a pained expression. Faint snippets like "Darling, you're not hurt, are you?" and "Quick, let me take a look" could be heard.
Zhou Yan had retrieved his folding fan and stood a few steps away, gently waving it, though the hand holding it trembled slightly.
Luo Qingyin leaned against a blue-gray stone, gazing at the mist filling the valley, her thoughts unknown.
Lu Hong and Lin You stood a little farther away, quickly exchanging words in lowered voices about nothing more than "How do we report this when we get back?" and "Will the elders believe us?"
No one mentioned what had just happened.
The scent of plants and soil drifted through the air, along with a little of the silence of those who had survived a calamity.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
The Small World had been completely destroyed. Never mind that they were only in the Nascent Soul Realm-even someone at Spirit Transformation who failed to find a passage would be trapped in endless turbulent currents of the void, with an end little better than those falling floating islands.
If Hui Ming had not opened the passage at the last moment...
Luo Qingyin sighed softly. "Hui Ming... what