Or rather, if the only five Ascended Stewards remaining on Chenping Continent had not touched any significant cause and effect, or forcibly channeled dao rhyme, then all of their lifespans should still be around ten thousand years.

But the current "lifespan" of Chenping Continent should not be that long.

"Realman Lingxuan ordered me to gather people to head to that enormous cave at the bottom of South Yu Lake, to attempt a rescue of those missing cultivators, and while ensuring our own safety, try to explore that cave."

Li Haowen said.

"So you came to me."

Bai Jinye said.

"You know just how terrible my connections are."

And Li Haowen merely said this calmly.

"That's true."

As if he deeply agreed with what Li Haowen had just said, Bai Jinye nodded.

Bai Jinye truly could not imagine who in the current cultivation world of Chenping Continent could possibly have a worse reputation than Li Haowen.

No, if one insisted on naming people with worse reputations than Li Haowen, there certainly were some, and quite a few at that.

It was just that most of those people were so-called "Evil Cultivators," either already dead, or currently being hunted down by the world, on their way to dying soon.

"So then, the ones going to the cave at the bottom of South Yu Lake are only Elder Li and myself, the two of us?"

Bai Jinye said.

"As for the remaining manpower, I'm afraid I'll need you, Elder Bai, to do the gathering."

Li Haowen said.

"Aside from me, isn't Elder Li also fairly familiar with a female cultivator from Xuan Sheng Sect?"

Bai Jinye said.

He Qingling's face instantly flashed across Li Haowen's mind.

At present, He Qingling's cultivation realm had also reached the peak of the Passable God Realm, and among the Guardians of the Dao on Du Cang Mountain, she could be counted within the second echelon in terms of cultivation realm.

"No."

Quickly, Li Haowen shook his head:

"Back then, I promised Patriarch Kong that I would do my best to support that disciple named He Qingling and look after her safety. The risk of going to that enormous cave this time is still too great."

"Understood."

Bai Jinye nodded:

"Then I'll go gather people right away."

The Guardians of the Dao on Du Cang Mountain did not merely need to cultivate; Du Cang Mountain itself would often assign them tasks to carry out.

After all, a cultivator who merely cultivates behind closed doors would be useless no matter how high their cultivation was.

Only after undergoing a certain amount of trials could one become a true cultivator.

...

Three days later.

Two thousand seven hundred li west of Du Cang Mountain.

South Yu Lake.

The current South Yu Lake could hardly be called a lake anymore.

Upon the lakebed, all that remained were the silt deposits and the ruins of the former South Yu dynasty's cities, buried within the mud.

However, the most conspicuous thing was indeed the enormous cave on the lakebed, dozens of feet in diameter, with a depth that seemed bottomless.

It looked as if it were echoing the pitch-black rift that stretched nearly a thousand li across the sky above.

A dozen or so cultivators clad in various daoist robes stood at the edge of the enormous cave in the center of the lakebed. Among them, a middle-aged man dressed in a pure white daoist robe with a black sword and a white sword hanging from his waist, as well as another young man wearing a pale golden daoist robe representing the Thunder Techniques of Lingxiao Temple's Nine Heavens Platform, stood at the cave's edge.

They were Li Haowen and Bai Jinye.

The gazes of these two Myriad Transformations Realm cultivators both looked down toward the bottom of the unfathomably deep, enormous cave.

Then Bai Jinye raised his hand and reached into the air slightly. A crystalline, translucent high-grade spirit stone appeared in his palm.

Following that, Bai Jinye extended his hand forward, feeling the frigid air currents surging up from below this bottomless cave, then tossed the crystalline high-grade spirit stone in his hand down into it.

Silence.

None of the dozen or so cultivators present made any sound, not even daring to breathe heavily.

They simply waited quietly together for the sound of the high-grade spirit stone hitting the bottom of the cave.

Yet after more than ten breaths of time had passed, still no sound came.

Among the dozen or so cultivators present, the one with the lowest cultivation realm was at least at the mid-Martial Spring Realm.

And the sensory abilities of Martial Spring Realm cultivators, such as hearing, could reach more than dozens of times the acuity of ordinary mortals.

As for Bai Jinye and Li Haowen, the two Myriad Transformations Realm cultivators standing at the very edge, their combined sensory and spiritual sense abilities allowed their hearing acuity to reach more than a thousand times that of ordinary mortals.

One could say that within a radius of ten li, the sound of even a single strand of hair falling to the ground could not escape the ears of Bai Jinye and Li Haowen.

Even so, after waiting a bit longer, Bai Jinye and Li Haowen looked at each other, then both shook their heads.

No movement.

They simply could not hear any sound of the spirit stone hitting the ground.

Just how deep was it?

No wonder the six-man squad sent down earlier had yet to return to this day.

Without cultivation above the Martial Spring Realm, and the ability to fly through the air, going into the depths of this cave was simply suicide.

"Let's prepare to descend into the cave, Elder Li."

Bai Jinye said.

Li Haowen nodded, then stood up and turned his gaze toward the cultivators behind him, who came from various cultivation sects across Chenping Continent, mostly Passable God Realm and Martial Spring Realm cultivators from the Five Great Sects.

The moment Li Haowen's gaze fell upon them, these cultivators all began to feel nervous.

They had never dealt with this "Li Godslayer" before.

They only knew that this "stray dog without a home" from Kongshan Sect's Yuanhua Mountain was an utter killing machine.

Finally, Li Haowen's gaze locked onto the two cultivators among the group who wore the daoist robes of Mirage Palace.

"You two, stay here and don't move. Wait for us to come back up. If we haven't emerged from this cave within seven days, immediately return to Du Cang Mountain and report to Realman Lingxuan, understand?"

Li Haowen said.

"Yes!"

The two Mirage Palace disciples bowed with clasped hands.

The reason he chose to leave these two Mirage Palace disciples outside was simple: the current Mirage Palace was far too weak, and even two Martial Spring Realm cultivators like these were especially precious in Mirage Palace's eyes.

Although Mirage Palace would absolutely not make a fuss over these two Martial Spring Realm cultivators, after all, casualties were a very normal thing.

Since someone had to stay outside to keep watch anyway, if he could conveniently do Mirage Palace a favor in the process, why not do it?

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