Ji Nanhong stood on the stone platform, experimentally jumping a few times. There wasn't the slightest pain in her foot bones anymore. The dual cultivation technique was truly miraculous - in just a few hours, her fractured bones had completely healed, more effective than even the most expensive medicinal treatments.
"Let's go," Ji Nanhong said as she leaped upwards, her body soaring over ten meters to grab onto the bone chain hanging from above. Her gaze remained fixed on the shadow on the stone wall, as did Chen Guan's. After observing no reaction from the shadow, both of them simultaneously sighed in relief.
Ji Nanhong tied a rope to the bone chain and threw the other end to Chen Guan. Grasping the rope, Chen Guan followed Ji Nanhong up the bone chain, periodically glancing at the shadow until he was certain it wasn't reacting, finally allowing himself to relax.
As they climbed halfway up the chain, the glowing characters reappeared. Chen Guan looked down again, and what he saw made his scalp tingle. "The shadow is gone," he said, stopping his ascent to warn Ji Nanhong above him.
Ji Nanhong immediately assumed a combat stance and looked down at the stone wall, confirming that the shadow had indeed vanished from its surface. Their eyes darted around frantically, scanning every visible area, but the shadow was nowhere to be found.
"Move!" Chen Guan gritted his teeth, urging Ji Nanhong to keep climbing. It was too late to do anything else now. They climbed desperately upwards, hearts filled with terror at the thought of the shadow emerging from the darkness to claim their lives.
Trembling with fear, they continued until reaching a stone platform just dozens of meters below the crevice's exit. Still, the shadow made no appearance. Once on the platform, they wasted no time scaling the cliff face until finally emerging from the fissure, both exhaling deeply in relief.
The horde of Shituos had disappeared, and there was no sign of the elite squad or Qin Ziyu's group. After nearly ten hours, it made sense they would have left.
"Let's return to base first," Ji Nanhong said, her demeanor shifting noticeably after exiting the fissure - less gentle, more commanding. As they departed, Chen Guan cast one last look at the fissure, but the shadow still hadn't appeared.
This was Chen Guan's first visit to the base, but something felt off. Old Bird had mentioned the base previously housed only a few dozen people, with more arriving recently, yet now it stood completely deserted, just empty wooden huts and tents.
Chen Guan looked to Ji Nanhong and saw her brows furrowed in equal confusion. As they puzzled over the situation, a woman emerged from one of the huts. Spotting Ji Nanhong, she first froze in shock, then rushed over excitedly: "Captain! You're alive! They said you died in Shituo Forest - I knew that woman was lying!"
"What woman? Where is everyone?" Ji Nanhong's frown deepened.
"That woman Wang Lian, a newcomer, claimed you'd died in Shituo Forest. And worst of all, our entire team backed her up! Infuriating!" the woman explained the situation. Content originally comes from novel⁂fire.net
Chen Guan grew increasingly disturbed as he listened. That Wang Lian had survived Shituo Forest was surprising enough, but Gongsun Zhuo had also made it out alive. Together with Qin Ziyu, they'd come to the elite team's base and essentially taken command, leading the team to hunt other Legendary-grade Mystical Spirits.
Most shocking was that Wang Lian appeared to be the mastermind behind it all, with even Qin Ziyu willingly submitting to her leadership. In the roughly ten hours since Chen Guan and Ji Nanhong had fallen into the fissure, Wang Lian's group had already slain three Legendary-grade Mystical Spirits and were now pursuing the last one - the Great Black Heaven Demon Statue.
Only the injured remained at base to recuperate; everyone else had joined Wang Lian's expedition.
"Wang Lian had another card up her sleeve," Chen Guan mused. He'd never trusted her, but never imagined her methods could be this formidable. That someone like Qin Ziyu could be manipulated under such circumstances was impressive even to Chen Guan.
"It seems the sequence Wang Lian mentioned for killing the Legendary-grade Mystical Spirits was false - there might not even be a sequence at all," Chen Guan realized, having suspected this underground. Obtaining The Epang Scripture might not require slaying those spirits at all.
The Epang Scripture was created by the Ancestral Emperor for Epang - this place was likely just her training ground. Why would the requirements be so harsh?
Ji Nanhong listened with a cold smile. "Wang Lian... so the Wang family has arrived."
"The Tianqiu Wang family?" Chen Guan had asked Wang Lian before, but she'd denied any connection.
"The Tianqiu Wang family is just a general term. The Wang family has too many branches - Tianqiu can't represent them all," Ji Nanhong explained, seeing Chen Guan's confusion. "The Wang surname originated from defeated royal families who changed their names. Even after the Ancestral Emperor unified the land, many royal descendants from the six kingdoms adopted the Wang surname. The Tianqiu Wang family is just one notable branch among many."
"Beyond Tianqiu, many Wang clans united to form an underground organization seeking to overthrow the Ancestral Emperor's rule. They never succeeded. Only after the Ancestral Emperor entered the Sky Secret Realm did they emerge from the shadows."
"But even without the Ancestral Emperor, they failed to become the new rulers. The organization faced suppression from the new Ancestral Court and the Ten Heavenly Kings, remaining powerless to this day, only capable of minor schemes." Ji Nanhong's tone dripped with disdain for the Wang organization. "Let's go see what remarkable skills this Wang Lian from the Wang family possesses."
Chen Guan thought to himself, "Women and their stubborn pride. You've been on this island a year without killing a single Legendary-grade Mystical Spirit, while Wang Lian took down three in under ten hours. Her abilities clearly surpass yours." But he kept this to himself, recognizing that Wang Lian's superior information gave her an advantage.
"Wang Lian now commands the elite team and has slain three Legendary-grade Mystical Spirits, surely gaining substantial benefits. Dealing with her now won't be easy," Chen Guan realized.