```
Time rewound to three minutes earlier.
It coincided with the moment Pei Jinye was refining the Lotus Petals.
In a place isolated from the Star Ring's detection, a virtual sea in a dark forest, formed by a spiritual network, suddenly rippled.
Waves surged into huge breakers.
Gigantic human-shaped stone avatars rose from the sea bed, with water cascading down, revealing the number [023] at their base. After a moment, the statues opened their eyes, and a voice, whose gender could not be discerned, echoed through heaven and earth,
"Stop pretending, everyone. There was a disturbance in the Dark Sea just now, and I don't believe you didn't notice it."
The sea surface began to quiver.
Three more stone avatars appeared one after another.
"Could it be the appearance of the key that caused the disturbance in the Dark Sea?" asked the statue numbered [099].
