About an hour after Max and the general had left, a figure emerged from a narrow crack in the cave wall.
It was a young monk dressed in a simple cassock, his round face flushed and his belly protruding slightly with every hurried breath he took. His eyes darted nervously around the now-quiet valley, and a long sigh of relief escaped his lips as he wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead.
"That was far too close," he muttered under his breath, his voice carrying the lingering tremor of fear. "If I hadn't suppressed my energy using that secret technique, I would have been discovered by that man."
He paused, his brows furrowing as he recalled the scene he had just witnessed. "But who was that person? To be able to subdue the spirit of the Yin Cave so effortlessly… that kind of power isn't something an ordinary cultivator could ever wield."
