At the border between the Azure Wave Archipelago and the Cold Mountain Archipelago, blue-black waves churned all year round.
Amid that boundless expanse of sea lay a solitary mortal island, barely a hundred li across.
The island was covered in utterly ordinary rocks, with the occasional piece of first-tier gray steel rock and a few withered yellow shrubs growing crookedly here and there.
Countless beast bones littered the ground, lending it an air of desolation and deathly silence.
Few people had ever ventured here. Any mortal who came would likely struggle to survive even a single day. Over time, it had become a paradise where demon beasts roamed unchecked.
At that moment, Qing Chen, whom the rogue cultivators of the Heavenly Illumination Archipelago regarded as a "madman," stood quietly atop a massive rock, dressed in a supreme-grade dark red spirit robe.
His gaze blazed like a torch as he stared straight at the place where sea met sky. His expression held a measure of cold severity, as though he had already been waiting there for a long time.
Suddenly, Qing Chen's expression shifted slightly, as if he had sensed something.
Just then, a rumble like muffled thunder came from the distant horizon;
a streak of golden escape light raced toward him like a flood dragon bursting from the sea, swift as wind and lightning.
The escape light moved so fast that even the ground faintly trembled wherever it passed.
Battle technique-Dragon Radiance Evasion! Qing Chen thought.
"Hall Lord Qing, what peculiar tastes you have, choosing a place so barren even birds won't shit here for our meeting." The voice arrived before its owner did.
A golden rainbow shot down like a meteor from the southeastern sky.
As it drew near, the golden rainbow abruptly dispersed, revealing an immensely burly, bald