Chapter 5635

“No rush,” Sylvia replied. “Crowds are thick right now. We should wait. If you’ve other affairs, see to them first.”

Jared gave a crisp nod. “Very well. Stay here and wait for me. I’ll scout a bit farther.”

“Be careful, Mr. Chance.” She spoke the words like a gentle tether.

He inclined his head once more and vanished into the night-cooled air.

This time, he followed the route the middle-aged cultivator had described, cutting through bramble, mist, and moonlit granite. Half an hour later, he stepped into a secluded gorge, its silence so deep it felt as though the valley itself had forgotten the world.

The farther Jared ventured, the more the crowd thinned. At last, only a few veteran cultivators remained-grim silhouettes whose very breath hummed with restrained power, sweeping the broken landscape as though prying secrets from dust.

Among them stood a white-haired elder. Every measured shift of his robe suggested the authority of a senior master from some storied sect, the sort of man to whom halls of disciples bowed without being told.