Bai Yan was already extremely old, his life force precious and limited. The stone stele abruptly drained away a portion of it, leaving him afraid to act rashly again.
"Who's there? Show yourself!"
Bai Yan immediately shattered the surrounding void with his palms, leaving his ambusher nowhere to hide. Lu Ming suddenly appeared in the air and dove down, striking at Bai Yan with his palm.
"An impudent brat who doesn't know his own limits!"
Bai Yan hardly took a young junior seriously. A casual thrust of his finger would pulverize him. But as Lu Ming's palm swept toward him, a stone stele suddenly appeared in his palm and swelled, slamming straight into Bai Yan's finger, shattering it and draining away another considerable portion of his life force.
"You tricked me, brat!"
Bai Yan could immediately restore a shattered finger, but the life force drained away was incomparably precious. He vaguely sensed an inexplicable danger-not from that junior of the Primordial Soul Sect, but from that dark blue-green, ancient stone stele, which might threaten him with death.
As Qian Fengshan had said, Dao Ling Realm cultivators feared death most. They were only a single step away from Perfection and immortality, so naturally they cherished their lives even more. Since the Immortal-Origin War, cultivators of the Origin Realm had no longer been troubled by the Immortal Race of the Upper Realm. After reaching Perfection, their lives were so long that they were practically undying and indestructible.
Lu Ming held that terrifying stone stele. Although his own fighting strength fell far short of Bai Yan's, Bai Yan dared not gamble with his life force. A mighty Dao Ling Realm patriarch actually retreated without fighting, using Spatial Shift straight back to the Kunling Sect, where he immediately swallowed a large quantity of sacred