Chen Fan stood with a sheer drop below him, mere inches from falling into the abyss. Behind him, Bai Zhannian clung desperately to Chen Fan's leg, but to no avail.
"Brother Chen Fan, don't jump!" Bai Zhannian cried out.
Chen Fan was, after all, the most important person to Bai Zhannian.
Bai Zhannian stared, bewildered. "You're awake??? ... You scared me to death just now, do you know that..."
Bai Zhannian was on the verge of collapse. As someone from the Kunlun Secret Realm, he possessed strong resistance to such matters. He hadn't expected Chen Fan, who was at the Quasi-God realm, to fall victim.
"Fortunately, a dragon's roar saved me," Chen Fan said.
"Dragon's roar???" Bai Zhannian heard Chen Fan's words but had no idea what a dragon's roar was. He only knew that he had been desperately clinging to Chen Fan's leg earlier, without any logical thought. However, Chen Fan, at the Quasi-God level, was too strong to hold back. He could only try to cling on, perhaps to slow his descent slightly.
"It's alright, I'm awake. Where are we?" Chen Fan asked, noticing the surroundings were completely different.
"Right, Brother Chen Fan, this is the place after the other door in that room opened. It was truly desperate. Then those coffins moved strangely, initially blocking your path, and later pushing you towards the cliff."
"Interesting, quite interesting, young one." A voice echoed from the sky, the same voice as before.
"To leave the illusion so early. Not bad, not bad. A formidable junior." The voice in the sky reappeared, this time with greater solemnity.
"This must be the owner of the Chaotian Ancient Tomb..." Chen Fan whispered to Bai Zhannian as he listened to the voice.
"I'm not sure, but if it were you, Chen Fan, you could achieve such a realm alone, transmitting your voice across space," Bai Zhannian replied.
"Do you think I can't hear you whispering? I can perceive your hushed words through your lip movements... Yes, I am the owner of the tomb you speak of, Chaotian Zhenren!!!!" A colossal pressure descended.
"Peak Divine Realm!!!"
This was the simultaneous thought of Chen Fan and Bai Zhannian.
The pressure of the Peak Divine Realm made Bai Zhannian gasp for breath. Perhaps their ancestor's pressure was only slightly stronger than this.
"Junior, Chen Fan, respectfully request Chaotian Zhenren to reveal yourself!!" Upon feeling the pressure, Chen Fan did not kneel. He withstood the pressure, cupped his fists, and shouted into the void.
The voice in the void did not respond to Chen Fan, merely leaving behind a faint utterance.
"We will meet, remember to protect your life and that of your friend. My perception is never wrong. You should have eight Nine-Patterned Compasses by now, shouldn't you?!" The voice in the air returned, the pressure undiminished.
"Yes, junior indeed possesses eight Nine-Patterned Compasses," Chen Fan replied respectfully.
"Excellent. Take this."
As the words fell, the pressure vanished. In the void directly ahead, something resembling a compass shard appeared. Chen Fan's pocket resonated intensely with the eight Nine-Patterned Compasses.
"Buzz... Buzz... Buzz..."
"The ninth Nine-Patterned Compass!!!" Chen Fan shouted excitedly, taking out the eight compases from his bag and laying them out one by one. The ninth compass was drawn to them.
"Clang!" A metallic collision sound echoed, with no other disturbances. A complete Nine-Patterned Compass quickly reassembled and flew into Chen Fan's hand.
"Roar!!!!!" A sudden dragon's roar once again resonated through the heavens.
Bai Zhannian watched all this calmly, seemingly unfazed by the sound of the Nine-Patterned Compass.
"Brother Chen Fan, the dragon's roar you mentioned should be coming from this thing, right?" Bai Zhannian said, pursing his lips.
"Yes, exactly the same dragon's roar." Chen Fan felt a sense of security holding the Nine-Patterned Compass in his hand.
"Zhannian, perhaps what they call the Divine Realm is merely the end of martial arts, but it is definitely the beginning of something new. Do you believe it? I thought my strength was already top-tier in the world, but as I delve deeper, Su Yingxue, you, our ancestor, District Thirteen, or perhaps the entire world, holds infinite unknown possibilities..." Chen Fan finished speaking and looked at Bai Zhannian.
Bai Zhannian remained silent, perhaps he also felt Chen Fan was right. If there were no greater worlds, why would that rift need guarding? Why not simply defeat it? It's only because we haven't reached that level of strength yet...
"Clang clang clang!"
Why was there the sound of a drill here?
As the words faded, the stone wall before them collapsed with a bang, kicking up layers of dust.
"Cough cough cough..." The first person emerged from the rubble.
"The Order of the Undead Knights???"
---------
"Chen Fan?"
The first to appear was the trench coat man who had initially given Chen Fan the business card. Behind him stood over twenty cultivators at the peak Golden Core stage.
"How did you know we were here?" Chen Fan asked, full of confusion.
"Do you remember the business card I gave you?" The trench coat man grinned.
Chen Fan took out the business card from his pocket, a seemingly ordinary card.
"It looks ordinary."
"As a whole, it is an ordinary business card, but it's a new-age universal tracker. Your GPS will always locate us. Now, can I have it back? Oh, allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is Chris," the trench coat man said.
"Mr. Chris, you are indeed different from these other members of the Order of the Undead Knights. I look forward to our cooperation." Chen Fan smiled and extended his left hand, shaking Chris's firmly.
"Pleasure cooperating!"