Chapter 346: A Precious Treasure Claimed

The strange phenomenon in heaven and earth drew the attention of several cultivators.

Having only just fled with great difficulty to the cave estate's exit, they found themselves transfixed by that stroke of pale gold.

"A Spirit-Transformation Perfected Master has fallen..."

To be more specific: Zhang Xuanyan was dead.

This should have been cause for celebration, but the several cultivators couldn't manage a smile at all — indeed, they were so frightened their very features were twitching.

"Run!"

Someone or other let out a scream.

Before a demon emperor on par with late-stage Spirit-Transformation, one's life was no longer one's own to command.

The only thing they could hope for was that Zhang Xuanyan had gravely wounded the creature before dying.

That Gold-Eyed Lion Emperor had, without a sound, grown to a level like this — more like a heaven's-favored prodigy than the human prodigies themselves.

The several of them shot out of the cave estate, not daring to linger for even a moment.

Summoning their path infants and taking to the air, they fled with everything they had for who knew how long, and only upon finding no demon in pursuit behind them did they finally, utterly spent, drop down toward that towering archway.

And at this moment—

Shen Yi was holding the things he'd turned up off Zhang Xuanyan's body, studying them carefully together with the Qingqiu Old Ancestor.

"Reporting to my lord, this is a map of the entire cave estate."

"Worthy of the immortal sects — to have prepared something this detailed, advancing step by careful step. How could those rogue cultivators, blundering blindly this way and that, ever compare?"

At this, Shen Yi arched a brow slightly.

He felt somewhat affronted.

Still, he looked carefully at the annotations on that map, finding that Xuanguang Cave had long since surveyed the whole of the steward's cave estate, exploring nearly every structure in orderly fashion, from the outside inward.

The reason they still hadn't given up on this place...

Shen Yi's gaze settled on one utterly insignificant spot — a small…