Approach

Sect Master Wang knew this well, so she sent a voice transmission to the others. She put it tactfully, but her meaning was clear.

They needed to find a route that would let them escape quickly. If the enemy's Golden Core cultivators led their forces straight toward them, they would be better off fleeing far away.

The area was subject to a flight restriction. Even Golden Core cultivators might not fly much faster than they could run on the ground, which gave Sect Master Wang and the others some hope of escape.

Before they left, the Affairs Hall had given both the Feng Lineage ancestor and Sect Master Wang a jade slip. Each recorded the location of a temporary passage into the inner valley.

There were thirteen such passages in all, assigned to cultivators in different regions. In a desperate moment, they were their only retreat: a way to teleport back to the inner valley.

But the sect masters and lineage heads of these small factions did not know that, although they could teleport back, they would arrive inside cages scattered throughout the inner valley.

How could Falling Star Valley allow them to teleport back freely? If they were killed and their teleportation jade slips fell into the hands of another race, the restrictions guarding the inner valley would effectively be breached.

So anyone who used a teleportation jade slip to return would find themselves trapped in an unbreakable cage.

Within that cramped space, their cultivation would be suppressed until barely any remained.

They would be released one by one only after their identities had been verified again. Otherwise, they might as well have delivered themselves into a net.

The orders Lin Xinghe had given the disciples guarding the cages, however, went well beyond a simple identity check.

They were