"Stop!"
A man's voice issued from within the carriage, and at once the beast-drawn carriage and their streaks of fleeing light halted in midair.
Then, as the red radiance faded, a group of stunningly beautiful young women materialized, all dressed in pale green palace robes, their jet-black hair coiled atop their heads, with twin swords sheathed on their backs.
These female cultivators stood in neat formation on either side of the beast carriage, each with lowered eyes and solemn expressions — every one of them at the Foundation Establishment stage.
"Strange! How can someone be casting a heaven-defying technique in a place like this? Judging by the way yin energy is converging, it's either a Yang-Converting Divine Art or a Soul-Returning Secret Art." A surprised voice drifted from the carriage shrouded in white light, and it had immediately identified the technique as a Soul-Returning Art by name.
"The celestial phenomenon is so extraordinary — couldn't it simply be the auspicious sign of a rare treasure manifesting?" A young woman's voice followed, icy and detached, yet unable to conceal the sweet, alluring quality of her voice.
"Heh! Do you think I can't tell the difference between a treasure manifesting and a heaven-defying technique?" The man sounded supremely confident, letting out a light chuckle.
"Hmph! That's just your word. Perhaps it really is the sign of a treasure appearing. Either way, I can't see any difference between the two." After a moment's silence, the woman's cold, dismissive grunt sounded again from within the carriage, utterly without courtesy.
"If you want to know whether it's real, why not go take a look? Whether it's Yang-Converting or Soul-Returning, the caster must possess at least Core Formation cultivation. Moreover, after casting such a technique, one's cultivation will suffer a severe regression — falling a full major realm is commonplace. I'm rather curious to see who is performing this art. If their cultivation is decent, we might as well recruit them. The Divine Condor Hall is still short a few Enforcement Envoys." The man seemed dote on the woman tremendously; rather than growing angry at her doubts, he simply followed her lead and continued in a genial tone.
"Fine. After flying in this carriage for nearly a month, I've grown rather stifled. A trip to the island might lift my spirits." The woman hesitated briefly, then agreed.
"Wait a moment — I'll drop the barrier now!"
As these words left his mouth, the white light around the carriage flickered and slowly dissipated, revealing those who sat within.
Inside the carriage sat a man and a woman, positioned at either end.
The man was a barefoot youth dressed in hemp robes, wearing a tall cap. He appeared to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a refined and scholarly countenance. Between his brows, faint golden light occasionally glimmered, betraying some unknown cultivation method he practiced.
Seated beside him was a girl of sixteen or seventeen.
She wore a white gauze garment, her skin smooth as jade, and her lustrous black hair fell like silk over her shoulders. Her beauty was extraordinary, almost otherworldly — yet her complexion was slightly pale, lacking a touch of rosy color, giving her the ethereal appearance of an immortal who had never tasted mortal food. She seemed like something out of a dream.
The girl leaned against one corner of the carriage, her elegant brows slightly furrowed, as if displeased about something. But once the barrier vanished, her expression shifted, and she rose gracefully, stepping down from the carriage.
The man watched her every movement with a gentle gaze. Seeing her descend, he smiled faintly and followed her out of the carriage.
"Fellow Daoist Wen, how confident are you that the Ghost Mist will appear nearby? As far as I know, as the most mysterious natural catastrophe of the Sea of Chaos Stars, the Ghost Mist's timing and location follow no discernible pattern." The girl glanced toward the small island and, without turning her head, asked a question that seemed entirely unrelated to their present situation.
The man, however, appeared entirely accustomed to this. He clasped his hands behind his back and answered with a smile: "The Ghost Mist truly has no fixed pattern. However, after considerable effort spent collecting detailed records of Ghost Mist appearances over several centuries, I discovered something rather interesting. A portion of the locations where the Ghost Mist appeared had recently experienced volcanic eruptions. Although it's not the case every time, at the very least one-third of the occurrences matched this pattern. And this particular sea region just happened to have two submarine volcanic eruptions in succession not long ago. The probability of the Ghost Mist appearing should be quite high."
When the peerless beauty heard this, a strange glint flashed in her beautiful eyes. After a brief hesitation, she slowly asked: "You spent so long bringing me all the way to this sea region — was it truly just to see the Ghost Mist? Ordinary cultivators run as fast as they can when they encounter it. Who would deliberately seek it out?"
"Why not? I've had nothing better to do lately, so why not come and see whether my calculations hold? If the Ghost Mist truly appears, do you think Wen wouldn't run?" The corners of the hemp-clad youth's mouth curved upward, revealing a composed, indifferent expression.
The girl fell silent for a time.
"Should we head over now? It seems their technique is at a critical juncture — would we be interrupting them?" After a moment, she pointed toward the celestial phenomenon above the small island and asked calmly.
"Interrupting? When I, Wen Tianren, wish to see a mere Core Formation cultivator, what is there to interrupt? If this person is so foolish as to speak out of turn, I'll simply eliminate them." The refined features of the hemp-clad man suddenly displayed a look of haughty arrogance, and he spoke without the slightest courtesy.
The woman looked at the young man before her and found herself momentarily speechless.
Still, his abilities were truly unfathomable. Although he had not yet condensed a Nascent Soul, compared to cultivators of the same rank, he was on an entirely different level.