The Nine-Zhang Stone Gate towered beneath the mountains, a ball of white light flickering in and out of sight beside the Lotus Platform.
Zhao Ling set her saber on the ground and cupped the ball of light in both hands to collect the drifting golden sand. Curiosity in her almond-shaped eyes, she asked quietly:
"Qingmo, was Xie Jinhuan talking to himself just now?"
Linghu Qingmo was helping beside her. When Xie Jinhuan had gone through the stone gate to investigate, he had told the two of them to wait at the entrance. She had not heard anything either, but she had indeed noticed Xie Jinhuan muttering toward the round hole in the Lotus Platform, sometimes with his arms folded, sometimes with his hands on his hips. After thinking for a moment, she said:
"He was probably analyzing things. He used to do that occasionally too..."
"Oh, I thought he'd used Open the Heavenly Eye and seen something..."
This was Zhao Ling's first visit to an ancient ruin like this. Although it was empty and nothing seemed unusual, she still felt a little nervous.
Meanwhile, outside the stone gate.
The armored oddity with disheveled hair lay unconscious on the ground.
Xie Jinhuan crouched beside him, trying to study the physical structure of this half-demon.
Although he had encountered several of his kind before, they had all been modified, and he had killed them on the spot. The Directorate of Celestial Observation could dissect their bodies, but could not study how their Qi circulated.
Now, Xie Jinhuan pressed a finger to the oddity's brow and examined his body. He discovered that its finer details differed considerably from a human's. It looked rather like a product of grafting: Divine Beast Genes had been mixed into human genes, giving him some bloodline Divine Abilities.