Night.
Moonlight, like water, spilled across the wilderness.
Inside the stone statue, Qi Yun's eyes, which had been shut for a year, suddenly snapped open in the absolute darkness.
No divine light escaped his pupils. There was only a darkness as profound as an ancient well, and a hint of serenity born from a long silence finally broken.
CRACK—
It wasn't the sound of subtle fracturing, but of an entire outer shell peeling away!
The grayish-brown "stone skin" broke off in large chunks along the pre-existing fine cracks, crumbling as it hit the ground and turning into ordinary rubble and dust.
In its place, a person was revealed.
His deep blue Daoist robe was just as it was, unstained by a single speck of dust.
His face was still youthful, his complexion pale from a long absence of sunlight, but beneath his skin, his qi and blood surged like a tidal wave.
Qi Yun slowly, somewhat stiffly, turned his neck, his bones letting out a faint "CRACKLE."
