The black mist of eternal night pressed down upon the earth, thick as ink that would not dissolve, completely obscuring the world without a glimmer of starlight or moonlight. Bone-chilling winds threaded through the rocky gullies, circling with mournful, sobbing howls, steeping every corner in deathly cold.
The clamor of the day's labor, the quarrels among prisoners of every race, and the clatter of broken stones had all faded away.
All of Purgatory fell utterly silent. Only the faint hum of slowly churning death energy remained between heaven and earth, mingled with the numb, subdued, exhausted breathing of thousands of imprisoned gods.
The two human Midgods who had narrowly endured the day's labor and escaped the torture of soul scourging held that secret act of salvation firmly in their hearts, not daring to forget it for a moment.
Using their Midgod divine senses, they slowly felt their way through the boundless black mist, searching carefully.
Guided by an exceedingly faint trace of divine sense that Shiheng had released during the day, they passed through layers of dense black mist, crossed heaps of sharp, jagged stones, and avoided the safe areas where other prisoners gathered to rest.
After a long trek, they finally reached the Chaotic Stone Perilous Lands, the most remote, death-energy-laden, and dangerous part of the entire labor zone.
The baleful energy here was intensely corrosive. Ordinary prisoners suffered stabbing pain in their divine souls after approaching for even a moment. For ten full years, no one had willingly set foot here. It was a deadly place everyone shunned.
This was precisely where the mysterious human expert Shiheng had dwelled and sat in meditation year after year.
There were no houses or buildings in the Demonic Grotto, no shelters from wind and rain.
Regardless of their cultivation, all prisoners