Whoosh!
Above the vast, dense forest, a streak of blood-red light flickered in and out of sight, racing over mountains and rivers. Suddenly, it shuddered violently and plummeted toward the ground.
A soft bang rang out.
In the valley below, the bloody light smashed straight through a rock standing beside a river. Fragments tumbled into the water, throwing up great splashes.
"Hmm?"
Inside a hidden cave deep in the valley, a lean man in black robes blurred into motion and swiftly appeared near the river.
Then he froze.
The rock that had stood there was long gone, leaving behind a dark pit more than thirty feet deep.
At the bottom of the pit, a blood-red infant the size of a fist flickered, looking as though he might vanish completely at any moment!
"You're... Senior Wan Sicheng of Longevity Valley?!"
Shock filled the black-robed man's face. He hurriedly raised his hand and drew the blood-red infant into his palm.
In his palm, Wan Sicheng's false nascent soul looked utterly listless. Though his body was tiny, his features remained faintly discernible. Even the beard on his chin was vaguely visible, making him look exactly like Wan Sicheng himself.
His injuries were too severe, and he had burned his divine soul. He was already an arrow at the end of its flight. Clinging to his final breath, he had fled here precisely to find this black-robed man and send word to the Tai Sui Gate!
"Wei... Wei Chen..."
Wan Sicheng's false nascent soul flickered faintly. An exceedingly weak divine sense transmission emerged, sounding in broken fragments within Wei Chen's sea of consciousness. "I let my guard down, and the Eight Great Households actually produced two false nascent souls."
"And... that old woman Wu Liu actually restored her vitality. She seemed to have taken