Outside the blue light shield of the safe zone lay a hundred-meter-deep abyss.
Everyone in the underground world knew this, except for newcomers like Li Chonglou.
But the problem was, the man also knew there was nowhere to hide at the bottom of the abyss, and a hundred meters was only a few seconds away.
He shouldn't have lost him!
"He must have used some method to hide!"
The man, unwilling to believe it, leaped in. However, unlike Li Chonglou, his body stopped steadily less than a meter down and then descended at a constant speed.
Aeronautical control.
This was a mark of reaching the seventh level of cultivation.
Yet, after a minute, the man was completely bewildered. The hundred-meter-deep abyss wasn't that long, but he hadn't spotted Li Chonglou anywhere from top to bottom!
The bottom of the abyss was a river originating from an underground river. The water was fast-flowing. If Li Chonglou had jumped into the river and been swept away, he shouldn't have lost his trace!
"Could it be a feigned breath?"
The man's expression flickered. He suddenly realized that the "Blacks" in the underground world were, after all, evolved from humans, and much of their knowledge was shared.
Although the underground world lacked the treacherous social dynamics of the human world, they had passed down their ancestors' knowledge through generations, making their insights not much inferior to the human world.
Of course, this was more evident in those with higher cultivation levels.
The man's guess at that moment was accurate. At the same time, he understood that if one entered a state of suspended animation, they would be immobile. Suspended animation, in other words, was turning from a living being into an inanimate object.
With this thought, the man immediately released his divine sense, rapidly expanding outwards from the river beneath his feet, inch by inch.
Based on the river's flow, the man doubled the search area. However, even with this, he found nothing. There wasn't even a trace of disturbance anywhere.
"How did he do it!"
It was only now that the man realized he had actually lost him!
He, a dignified expert at the eighth level, had actually lost a person who hadn't even reached the seventh. If this news got out, it would surely become a laughingstock.
A surge of shame and anger rose from the depths of his heart. Terrifying internal energy raged outwards like a hurricane, turning even the hard cliff walls to dust!
The rapidly flowing river suddenly slowed, as the area beneath the man's feet, which was merely a river, had transformed into a small lake, with him at its center!
"Don't let me meet you again! Next time, you will surely die!"
A furious roar echoed all around, startling some forest birds within the safe zone, causing them to fly away with panicked haste!
At the same time, within Li Chonglou's bottle space.
"Elder An, what's the situation now? Is it working?"
Old Lin's face was filled with anxiety. It wasn't just him; the emotions of all the soul bodies present were similar, with everyone's gaze fixed on Elder An in the center of the crowd.
The atmosphere among them was rather subtle. While their faces showed anxiety, their eyes also held deep fatigue and worry.
Furthermore, everyone's complexion was extremely pale, and their bodies had become semi-transparent.
"This time, we'll leave it to fate. I can't say it's one hundred percent problem-free."
Elder An sighed softly. Unlike the others, his body was still as it was originally.
However, in response to Old Lin's question, he could only shake his head and sigh.
This time, he had truly used every method he could.
He had even revealed some of his trump cards.
Although the method of everyone combining their strength had been mentioned to Li Chonglou when they were in the soul bottle, he had not actually intended to use this ability.
Not to mention that it represented the most critical moment, Elder An knew very well that once this method was used, Li Chonglou would notice something.
But now that the underground world had suddenly appeared, the role of residual souls made this function no longer a last resort. In such a situation, he couldn't afford to worry about anything else.
But even more important was the suspended animation technique!
The man, having stayed in the underground world, had considerable knowledge and could even recognize the suspended animation technique, but he didn't know its preciousness!
You must know that in the outside world, this technique had long been lost to the martial arts world. Although various similar techniques circulated in the mortal world of China, Elder An could guarantee that none could compare to his!
At the edge of the cliff where the man had jumped, what appeared to be normal cliff walls actually contained a carved-out space.
Li Chonglou's ability to instantly escape the man's divine sense lock relied on this maneuver.
After he left the man's sight, Elder An controlled his body and quickly carved out a space over a meter wide in the cliff wall. Simultaneously, everyone in the bottle space instantly maximized their energy output.
This allowed Elder An to break through the shackles of the sixth level in a short period. First, he used his aerial control ability to contain all the excavated debris around him, then hid himself within it!
Furthermore, before that, he used a secret art to transfer his aura to another piece of debris and then rapidly threw it into the abyss.
This aura-transferring technique was extremely unstable and would instantly dissipate upon encountering external forces. This was why the man had suddenly lost Li Chonglou's trace.
Now, behind the debris, Li Chonglou was curled up, his eyes tightly shut, like an animal in hibernation.
But his expression was one of extreme comfort.
In this world of colorful light, Li Chonglou's consciousness transformed into a butterfly, lazily flying about.
"Where is this place? Why does it feel so comfortable..."
After handing over control of his body to Elder An, Li Chonglou's consciousness had suddenly fallen into unconsciousness.
At first, he worried if Elder An had any ulterior motives, until his consciousness was restored again.
Well, he was still a little suspicious of Elder An, after all, he hadn't been informed beforehand. However, under such circumstances, the comfort he felt in this colorful space made him voluntarily ignore his worries.
This was a feeling Li Chonglou had experienced for the first time. It was like returning to the womb, a sense of security inexplicably arising in his heart, reducing his perception of danger by dozens of times.
However, he had flown for a long time and only saw a uniform landscape, which began to bore him.
"Where exactly is this place? What did Elder An do to me?"
Perhaps boredom had made his consciousness clearer, and Li Chonglou began to recall everything that had happened before.
Before handing over control of his body, Elder An had told him not to believe anything that happened next and to return no matter what.
"You must return," Li Chonglou remembered this sentence deeply. Elder An had repeated it several times with what seemed like the most serious tone.
It was just that Elder An had not explained why he said this.