"Noooo! Leave me!—THUD!"
Ryuk tossed Yao Lian onto the ground, and she landed hard, feeling the unforgiving earth against her backside.
Rubbing her sore butt, she glanced around, realizing she had been brought to the far end of the forest she had attempted to cross alone. This man had forcibly lifted her and deposited her here.
"Owww, why—" Before she could finish her sentence, a portal leading to the third trial suddenly opened, revealing the entrance to the Inner Pavilion.
"Haah....was someone else already here?" A whisper—barely more than a breath—slipped through the air, reaching the ears of those attuned enough to catch such a sound from a distance.
Although the distance was great, Ryuk, Iliantara, and Lucas all heard the muffled voice of a woman hiding within the gnarled bark of a tree, glancing in their direction.
"Finally! It's the Inner Pavilion!" Yao Lian broke the silence, her excitement evident as she yelled toward the Inner Pavilion, which appeared hazy from their vantage point.
Yet, she could sense the overwhelming surge of internal energy emanating from within, making her feel as though she was on the cusp of finally attaining what she had long sought.
"...Why is she so excited?" Esme tilted her head in confusion, observing Yao Lian's eager demeanor. Though her stance exuded ambition rather than childlike enthusiasm, it prompted Esme to turn to Ryuk for clarification.
Unlike Yao Lian's palpable excitement, Esme sensed something unsettling about the Inner Pavilion. The concentration of internal energy felt too dense and overwhelmingly raw.
"Can you feel it?" Ryuk ignored the others and turned his attention to Esme, who stood beside him, gripping his hand. The touch drew his focus back to the forefront, and with his finely honed senses, he recognized that a battle was unfolding within the Inner Pavilion.
From his careful assessment, he deduced that since the members of the Devereaux family were stationed outside the Jade Dominion as gatekeepers, it was implausible for any external forces to breach this place and instigate a fight.
[Activating]
"Did you feel that?" Iliantara suddenly uttered, standing with her gaze fixed on the portal. She sensed the intense battle raging on the other side but felt the density of energy behind her steadily decreasing. It was as if the vibrant energy signatures of the candidates engaged in combat with the monsters had begun to wane in a troubling manner.
"Is there some kind of monster?" Lucas asked calmly, perched on a rock. He too felt the energy signatures slowly dissipating within the forest. It struck him that a creature of significant power must have appeared, rapidly eliminating the candidates, given how swiftly the energy was vanishing one by one.
Those trapped in this place were cultivators adept at inter-energy, and they were meeting a grim fate. Their life force was being forcefully drained, akin to a relentless siphoning, as their energy was sucked out through their own meridians—radiating from their bodies like an invasive bloom—damaging their circulatory systems in the process.
For those with stronger constitutions, boasting thick meridians and many Qi points open, the consequences were severe but not fatal; it merely damaged their foundation. However, in an environment teeming with monsters, having one's body crippled was akin to a death sentence.
Those who fell victim to this energy drain were essentially signing their own death warrants, as the monsters would soon follow, claiming them as prey once their foundations were shattered. The weaker candidates, tragically, were not even granted the chance to fight back—the forced extraction of their energy spelled their doom.
Within mere moments, the once-vibrant forest had transformed into a silent graveyard, all without others being the wiser. A formation separated the deeper woods from the entrance point, shrouding the horrific massacre in isolation and ambiguity.
"A monster?" While standing next to Lucas, Iliantara glanced over at the man in the black suit. A little bit ago, he had seemed like a local from the Jade Dominion dressed in a robe, but now he was wearing a suit that made it obvious who he really was. This switch only raised her suspicions; ever since he changed into that suit, the sound around him was silenced.
All she had to sense his presence was her sharp eyesight.
"Lucas, what are you doing?" Iliantara thought about what she had just said moments ago. She suddenly noticed that Lucas was standing with his eyes fixed on that young master Rui Ke, as if he found something familiar.
"Nothing, just leaving this place." Lucas kept looking towards Ryuk, whom he had recognized a few moments earlier, but he refrained from pushing him further, given how it appeared that he himself didn't want to reveal his identity. Being cautious, he decided to also act uncaring.
Standing as he turned his gaze towards the inner pavilion's portal, before which his hands resting in his pockets moved forward, keeping his guard up since he was definitely interested in greetings, but not in a form of battle.