216: Chapter 216 Before the restriction dissipated, undercurrents were already surging.

The aura of this Formation talisman bore a striking resemblance to the instant transmission array disk of Kunlun, yet it felt more archaic—clearly a spatial Divine Ability passed down from ancient times.

Venerable Hantian, that old man, certainly still had quite a few good things hidden away.

The two stepped into the light gate one after another. The light gate closed silently behind them, and the Immortal Cave returned to silence, leaving only the two rough pottery teacups on the stone table, still radiating a faint residual warmth.

The moment they passed through the light gate, the scenery before them changed abruptly.

Beneath their feet lay a Gobi desert, desolate to the extreme. Fragments of stone and gravel covered the entire land. Occasionally, one could see a few withered dwarf shrubs stuck crookedly in the crevices of the rocks, their branches long since stripped of all bark by the wind and sand, leaving only pale, wooden skeletons that emitted faint whimpering sounds in the wind.

The sky hung low, with heavy clouds, yet they could not obscure the sunlight that should have been scorching at midday.

Whether due to the terrain or some invisible force at work, the entire world was shrouded in a dim, yellowish hue.

About a hundred zhang in front of the two, a stone wall stood abruptly between heaven and earth.

The stone wall was several tens of zhang high and extended laterally for several miles, as if it had been cleaved down from the sky by a giant axe and slashed obliquely into the earth.

The surface of the stone wall was covered with gullies of varying depths, each one a mark left by the wind and sand carving it over thousands of years, layered one upon another, silently recounting the passage of time.

The stone wall radiated an extremely dense and ancient power of Restriction.

That power did not repel external approach, but acted like an invisible barrier, firmly sealing everything behind the stone wall; Divine Sense could not penetrate it, and one's gaze could not reach it.

Jiang Changge walked to the stone wall and raised his hand to gently press against the void.

Sure enough, a layer of light film, so faint it was almost invisible, rippled with a tiny tremor between his fingertips and the stone wall, vanishing in an instant like a dragonfly skimming the water.

He could feel that this layer of Restriction was decaying at an extremely slow speed, like a solid block of ice gradually melting under the warm spring sun. Although the change could not yet be seen with the naked eye, the strength of the obstruction was already a fraction weaker than it had been just moments ago.

"How is it?" Venerable Hantian walked to his side with his hands behind his back.

"Less than two days left." Jiang Changge withdrew his hand, his tone firm.

Upon hearing this, a trace of approval flashed in Venerable Hantian's eyes.

When he first discovered the Nine-Orifice Stone Forest years ago, he had to test it repeatedly several times before he dared to determine the pattern of the Restriction's loosening. Yet, this Lord of Kunlun before him had arrived at the same conclusion with just a casual probe.

This discernment was truly worthy of his performance in seeing through that piece of Immortal Dao Origin at Bafang Pavilion.

"Then we shall wait two days." Venerable Hantian sat cross-legged on a relatively flat boulder, took out a teapot from his sleeve, and without even starting a fire, the water in the pot began to boil on its own.

Jiang Changge sat down on another stone opposite him, casting his gaze toward the unknown land shrouded by the Restriction behind the stone wall.

Although he appeared composed on the surface, he was already silently calculating the potential rewards he might obtain from signing in.

Last time, signing in at the Purple Bamboo Forest had yielded the Supreme Magic Treasure, Xuanhuang; signing in at the Cave of Years had yielded Immortal Springs and Immortal Stones. It seemed the Rank of this Nine-Orifice Stone Forest should not be low either; the hundred-fold critical hit reward surely wouldn't be bad.

Meanwhile, during the two days that Jiang Changge and Venerable Hantian were leisurely waiting for the Restriction to loosen on the Gobi desert, Huaiyang City—and indeed the entire southern Central Plains—had been turned upside down.

The weight of the three words "life-substitution talisman" far exceeded Jiang Changge's expectations when he had casually mentioned it back then.

The first to arrive in Huaiyang City were the forces of the three great Families of the Central Plains.

The Xiao Family's Shadow Guards were the first batch to arrive. These Cultivators, who had long hidden in the shadows and specialized in intelligence and tracking, scattered into various teahouses and wine shops as soon as they entered the city, quietly inquiring about the news of those two mysterious experts.

Someone found the Cultivators who had been watching the gambling match on the third floor of Bafang Pavilion that day and repeatedly questioned them about every detail that had occurred.

The young man in white had casually taken out a life-substitution talisman as a bet; the Grey-robed Elder had pointed a finger, causing the Sun Family's Second Young Master to open up a Heaven Rank High Grade spirit marrow; and then the two had vanished into thin air after gambling on the stones.

Every single incident was recorded by the Shadow Guards in Jade Slips and transmitted back to the main Xiao Family at the fastest speed.

The Mu Family people arrived a step later, but they were the ones with the largest display of force.

Three clan elders arrived together, all with Mahayana Stage cultivation, and the white-haired old woman leading them was at the Peak of the Mahayana Stage, only one step away from Undergoing Tribulation.

She did not secretly inquire like the Xiao Family's Shadow Guards, but instead directly paid a visit to Pavilion Master Guo Peng of the Bafang Pavilion branch.

The two talked in a secret room for about half an hour. When the old woman left, her expression was calm, and no emotional fluctuations could be seen, but the two clan elders behind her noticed that the knuckles holding her cane were a few shades whiter than usual.

The team sent by the Lin Family, led by a Mahayana Stage powerhouse, was the first to leave Huaiyang City.

After inquiring in the city for half a day and confirming that the two mysterious experts were no longer there, they decisively expanded their search range to the desolate mountains and wild forests within a radius of several thousand miles around Huaiyang City.

They searched the markets on both sides of the main street one by one, and even used some ancient tracking secret technique in an attempt to capture the spatial fluctuations left behind when Jiang Changge and Venerable Hantian departed.

The reaction of the Five Great Sacred Lands was even more swift and secretive.

The envoy from Zixiao Holy Land arrived the fastest. It was a young Cultivator dressed in purple robes, who looked to be barely in his twenties, yet his cultivation had already reached the Middle Stage of Body Integration.

He did not enter the city, but instead set up a sensing Formation on a mountain Peak outside Huaiyang City, then sat cross-legged in the center of the Formation, seemingly waiting for something.

The Lieyang Holy Land sent a red-robed elder, whose body radiated a scorching aura, causing even the air to slightly distort wherever he passed.

He directly found the Huaiyang City Lord, Zhao Guangbi, asked about the detailed situation of that day after revealing his identity, and then left the City Lord's mansion without saying another word.

— —

There was half a month left until the opening of the Xuanhuang Fortress.

On this day, three streaks of light tore across the sky above Huaiyang City. Their speed was neither fast nor slow, yet they were extremely steady; one look was enough to know they were not ordinary Loose Cultivators.

The guards at the city gate, who had long since become numb after being tossed about by various forces coming and going over the past few days, looked up for a glance, then lowered their heads again to continue checking the pedestrians entering the city.

There had been too many big shots coming and going in Huaiyang City these past few days—so many that even a Body Integration Stage powerhouse walking on the street might not necessarily attract a few side glances.

The streaks of light converged several hundred zhang outside the city gate, revealing three young figures.

The leader had a posture as upright as a pine, dressed in black tight-fitting attire, with a cold expression. A long sword with an icy blue body was slung diagonally across his waist, with silvery-white runes faintly flowing on the scabbard.

Half a step beside him was a young man in green Daoist robes, with a gentle and jade-like temperament. A bronze Pill Furnace the size of a palm hung at his waist; the furnace body was archaic, and faint golden firelight flickered at the furnace mouth.

Beside the two, a young man holding a long sword followed, his expression cold and aloof, with a faint aura of starlight lingering around his whole body.