"Think you have us at your mercy? What nerve! What a fine mouthful of jokes!"
Before Yan Ping could speak, a youth of the Yan Clan, his face as pale as powder and his lips red above white teeth, could no longer restrain a sneer.
He stamped on the bright yellow True Qi beneath his feet, emerged from the crowd, and flew straight toward Chen Heng, who sat cross-legged on the central stone pillar.
His name was Yan Jia. His cultivation had already reached Foundation Establishment, First Stage—the realm of Qi Sea Generation. With his wealthy family and abundance of treasures, he possessed considerable fighting strength and stood out even among this group.
Chen Heng was merely a Qi Refining cultivator. Whatever tricks he possessed, Yan Ping considered sending a true Foundation Establishment cultivator like Yan Jia to test his mettle more than sufficient.
The only uncertainty was what means of preserving his life Xie Tan of the Flower God Manor had given him. They could not afford to neglect that possibility...
At that moment.
Yan Jia had already entered the towering stone forest. Tall stone peaks like swords and halberds surrounded him, stretching several miles across the wilderness, dense and strange, sinister and deep.
The stone forest was pitch-black within. Together with the shrill cries of the cold, desolate wind threading through crevices large and small-resentful and yearning, weeping and pleading-it sent a fierce chill down the listener's back.
Yan Jia withdrew his gaze from the jagged stone forest beneath him, his brows slightly furrowed. In truth, he felt somewhat unnerved, as though countless wronged souls and vicious ghosts lurked silently below, ready to reach out with ghostly hands at the slightest lapse and drag him into that ink-thick darkness.
He quietly swallowed and forced down the inexplicable dread