A long while passed.
Beyond the gate, all activity on the island had died away, and even the odors that had permeated the area had dissipated completely.
Only after sensing the airflow, so faint it was almost nonexistent, did Lian Youming emerge from meditation.
Warm air squeezed in.
Day had broken.
He looked at the carving before him with a somewhat peculiar expression.
Each arm in the carving was slightly different. The angles at which they had been carved differed, so that when viewed from different directions, the Yama-Subduing Demon Venerable's hand seals kept changing.
Though no daylight reached this place, a faint firelight still filtered through the gap in the door.
Under its illumination, these wondrous changes arose.
Seeing that day had broken, Lian Youming was no longer in any hurry.
As for the deity on the wall, though he found it astonishing, his present circumstances left him little inclination to study it. He simply quieted his breathing, closed his eyes, and sat resting his mind as he waited for an opportunity.
But before he had sat for long, Lian Youming gradually noticed that the strange man beside him seemed to be doing something peculiar.
The man's body was restrained, his shoulder blades pierced, and Pulse Gate Nails had been driven into vital points all over him. No matter how he regulated his breathing, he would likely struggle to gather any strength. Yet Lian Youming noticed that he, too, was looking at the Yama-Subduing Demon Venerable on the wall, his lips moving soundlessly as though silently reciting some scripture or mantra.
"Was this... a visualization method?"
Not only were his lips moving, but all ten fingers of this mysterious master's hands were also trembling slightly without pause.
From Lian Youming's own understanding, the man should have been forming some