After ten years apart, Ye Quanzhen of the Mountains and Waters Grotto Heaven looked rather bedraggled now.
She had lost one eye, and through the socket, her pale brain was visible.
One arm had been severed too.
Bolts of thunderfire steeped in eerie ghostly energy kept erupting at the wound.
Whenever her flesh stirred, trying to heal, the thunderfire erupted and ground it away.
Beyond that, she had many other injuries of varying sizes, with her gleaming golden viscera, bowels, sinews, and bones exposed in many places.
Yet although Ye Quanzhen looked bedraggled, she was in very high spirits.
When Wang Quan saw her, her eyes shone, and her face was filled with joy.
"You succeeded?"
"Yes!"
Ye Quanzhen smiled and nodded vigorously.
Then-her head fell off.
Unhurriedly, she set her head back on her neck, then held it in place and said happily, "Luckily, we had your experiences to draw on. That was how we managed to succeed."
"Otherwise, we would have failed again."
Three or four thousand legendary Grotto Heavens had forcibly established a safe zone in the Second Layer of the Underworld.
The dangers involved could not possibly be explained in a few words.
Wang Quan had no interest in the process either. As long as they succeeded, that was enough.
Ye Quanzhen did not care about Wang Quan's reaction either. Instead, she chattered on like an old woman, saying a great deal.
She spoke of the dangers, of how bizarre the Second Layer's ghosts and monsters were, and of how savage its ghost gods were.
She talked for a long time, then finally smiled. "But all of it was worth it."
"We succeeded."
Wang Quan nodded calmly.
Ye Quanzhen said happily, "I'm leaving."
"We'll return to the All-Under-Heaven Dao Court first to recover from our injuries,