"Disciple, keep up!"
Chen Ye waved his right hand and shouted.
"Yes, Master!" The three little ones followed their master without hesitation, while Bai Susu and Bai Liuyue wielded their magical treasures to protect everyone.
At the last moment they were sucked into the rift.
Chen Ye instinctively looked back.
He witnessed Qin Jiaming standing lightly at the edge of the collapsing ruins, unaffected by the chaotic currents.
The girl’s eyes reflected the sky filled with the broken door’s white light, her lips curled slightly: "Big brother, don’t regret it~"
Then,
The girl and the bewildered old man turned into spots of white light, disappearing into the Celestial Abyss.
"Wait... was she also someone from twenty-three years ago?!"
Chen Ye realized belatedly.
But at this moment, the spacetime closed, the white light swallowing everything.
...
The sky spun, and the ears were left with deafening roaring and the tearing sounds of chaotic spacetime currents.
Endless bizarre light flickered before their eyes, unsure how long it had been, it seemed like just a brief moment, yet felt like truly crossing the vast span of twenty-three years.
"Bang!"
The surrounding space suddenly spat out, everyone fell heavily onto a hard rock like kites with broken strings.
"Cough cough..."
Chen Ye, both his divine soul and physical body strong, responded first, forcefully twisting his waist in mid-air to land steadily.
"Master, help!"
"Ah..."
"Um."
Then, the three little ones fell one after another, making peculiar sounds.
Chen Ye looked up to see Qing Jun flailing like a weight, falling down, while Jin’er turned pale, losing balance in mid-air.
Chen Ye shook his head helplessly, tapped his toe, and his figure soared like a great roc spreading its wings, catching the clawing Little Dragon Girl with his left hand; and with his right hand, he embraced the shrieking Jin’er, protectively holding them both.
"Oh my, you two little girls, can’t you learn to be more steady like your senior sister?"
Chen Ye chided while preparing to land with his arms around them.
But...
As he looked up, the black-haired girl was falling straight down!
"Zhiwei?!"
Chen Ye was truly startled.
The eldest disciple was usually dependable, but why at this crucial moment did her spiritual power lose control?
Seeing Zhiwei about to hit the ground, Chen Ye disregarded having already embraced two, hurriedly took a step forward, and opened his chest as a cushion.
With a "bang".
Zhiwei landed right into Chen Ye’s arms, instinctively wrapping her hands around her master’s neck, pressing against his chest.
"Are you alright? Did you get hurt when traversing spacetime?"
Chen Ye, bumped back by his three disciples, his arms full, looked down concernedly and asked his eldest disciple.
"Reply to Master..."
Zhiwei buried her face in Chen Ye’s clothes, emitting a faint fragrance of grass and wood, and when she looked up again, her elegant face resumed its usual calm demeanor, though her long eyelashes trembled slightly as if still scared,
"Disciple is fine. Just expended too much energy in that chaotic current, temporarily disrupted my blood flow, and lost my footing. I’m sorry for worrying Master."
"It’s alright, it’s alright. That chaotic current was indeed dangerous, even I felt dizzy."
Chen Ye breathed a sigh of relief, compassionately holding his three disciples tightly.
Squished beside him, Qing Jun and Jin’er both turned their heads in unison, their large eyes suspiciously staring at their senior sister.
"Stare—"
"Look—"
Bai Susu and Bai Liuyue also steadied their stances, a bit disheveled.
"Are we... out?"
Bai Liuyue leaned on his broken sword, looking around.
This wasn’t what he had expected.
He thought only Bai Susu and Chen Ye would be swept into the crack.
He and the three little ones could simply return the way they came.
Yet unexpectedly, they all came out together.
Upon careful reflection, it might be that after blowing up that door, the Celestial Abyss rift, which connected the two worlds, ceased to exist, thus ejecting them together.
Chen Ye raised his eyes and began to scrutinize his surroundings.
At first glance, his heart trembled.
The Celestial Abyss... had completely changed its appearance!
The clouds that perpetually shrouded the sky above the Celestial Abyss seemed to have been cleaved apart by a massive axe that opened up the heavens.
The towering cliffs on both sides were riddled with holes, countless rocks crumbled and collapsed, smashing into the valley floor, creating abrupt mountains of scattered rocks.
The land was devastated, deep rift valleys crisscrossed the terrain, and dark red magma rolled in the depths of the rifts.
"Outside, it’s actually become a wasteland..."
Bai Liuyue murmured to himself. Although he had anticipated such power, seeing it with his own eyes still brought some degree of shock.
As for Bai Susu,
she tightly clenched the Jinque Xuanzhi in her hand, her gaze sweeping over the ruins of rocks, looking somber.
Father indeed did not come out.
She knew that it was ultimately just a projection from twenty-three years ago. With that door’s shattering, her father’s phantom had remained in the past, turning into dissipating white light.
But...
Chen Ye left a hint of uncertainty for her father; as long as they could find her father’s physical body, there was still hope!
"Chen Ye,"
Bai Susu suddenly spoke.
Chen Ye thought she was going to ask about Bai Li, and nodded:
"Hmm, once we leave the Celestial Abyss, I’ll infiltrate the Emotion Crossing Sect to see if I can find Brother Bai’s body."
"No."
Bai Susu shook her head, her brows slightly furrowed, expressing caution,
"I have a lingering feeling that Qin Jiaming is hiding something from us. If destroying the Celestial Abyss from twenty-three years ago required you to destroy that door, then how did the current Divine Son trigger the explosion of the Celestial Abyss?"
Although Chen Ye also didn’t trust Qin Jiaming,
he followed her advice along the way, and nothing unexpected happened, ultimately they returned to the present world successfully.
He sighed: "As long as the outcome is good, that time we had no other choice. What’s most important now is to leave the Celestial Abyss."
"Precisely."
Bai Liuyue also nodded in agreement,
"The core of the Celestial Abyss, with such a huge commotion, must have alarmed all the demon cultivators in the Qi Kingdom. The urgent task is to leave this troubled place."
In the distance beneath the sky, several strong escape lights, mixed with wind and rain of blood, could be seen patrolling around.
"Those are the inspection envoys from the Emotion Crossing Sect, and those demon path loose cultivators who have been lurking on the outskirts of the Celestial Abyss for years." Bai Susu’s eyes sharpened, and the Jinque Xuanzhi emitted a low, clear hum.
People die for wealth, birds die for food.
These demon cultivators clearly took this destructive explosion as a sign of some ancient ruins emerging.
They simply hesitated to act recklessly at this moment due to the fear of the nefarious beings within the Celestial Abyss.
"Let’s not stir up trouble, we should go."
Chen Ye picked up Tuoba You from the ground and quickly performed a spell with his other hand to begin concealing his qi.
And with Bai Liuyue and Bai Susu’s high cultivation level, it was easy to conceal themselves from ordinary demon cultivators.
The group’s presence seemed to blend completely into this wasteland, becoming part of the countless charred stones, silently retreating towards the outer area under the cover of the earth’s veins and scattered rocks.
Along the way, they encountered no fewer than a dozen groups of demon cultivators with bloodshot eyes.
Among them were several important figures of the Demon Sect in the late Foundation Establishment period.
They whistled past over Chen Ye and the others, their powerful divine senses scanning the ruins repeatedly, yet they couldn’t find the slightest clue.
After all...
The team led by Chen Ye was too grand; either it was led by a fake pill ancestor or the first genius of Lingyin, and Chen Ye himself was a late Foundation Establishment cultivator, proficient in the Qi Concealing Technique.
About half a day later.
The group returned to Chouyun Pass without incident.
Compared to the devastation of the Celestial Abyss, Chouyun Pass was relatively less affected, but nearly half of the city had turned to ruins.
"Be cautious, the atmosphere in this Chouyun Pass seems a bit off."
Bai Susu’s expression slightly tensed.
At this moment,
a large number of cultivators were outside the city,
most of them were repairing Chouyun Pass, but there were also some cultivators whose attire and appearance were very different from those of the Qi Kingdom’s cultivators, as if they had just arrived at Chouyun Pass.
"The aura of these people’s cultivation techniques is pure and vast, with imperial pressure. The explosion of the Celestial Abyss has already attracted members of the royal family from the Ruins Country!"