So it's all a ruse? Hah, Old Song really thinks he's clever.
A head broke the surface of the water. Like Xiao Zhongzi just moments ago, it stayed hidden in the shadow of the sandbar, a cold, piercing gaze sweeping over the darkness on the far shore.
Letting the big fish slip right past my fingers… hmph. Still, this old temple really is hiding something strange.
The figure narrowed his eyes in thought. What's stranger is that man. How did he manage it. First kill Yuan Shuo, then drive Yuan Zhang to his death, and in the end frame someone else without leaving a single flaw? Too bad he was too deep in hiding; I never caught a glimpse of his face…
And if he doesn't seem to know the lay of the land here, yet strikes down a Nether General without hesitation… moreover, what Spirit Bamboo said… could he be from Hundred Ghosts? Now that would be interesting.
And even more interesting. Who exactly are the 'they' Old Song mentioned? An alliance? Who has the Underworld Monarch Sect joined forces with?
It felt like he had stumbled onto a vital thread that might lead to secrets far more important than whatever was hidden in this ancient temple.
After weighing everything in his mind, he decided to take a look at the Demon Thunder Monastery first. Using a secret technique, he contacted his sect brothers and passed the information along. Before their reply came, he cautiously slipped ashore and vanished into the dark, endless forest.
The Demon Thunder Temple wasn't large. Moving with the ease of someone of his divine speed, he took in the place at a glance and was done in less than ten minutes.
Fixing the temple's layout in his mind, he didn't linger. Slipping out of the monastery, he stopped about fifty paces away, at the edge of the forest. He sprang into the crown of a tall tree, his body melting into the dense foliage. Even a bird perched on the branch beside him would have noticed nothing amiss.
Just then, a reply came from his sect brothers: he was to keep watch around the temple. As for the news he had just passed on, they would handle the investigation themselves. It wasn't exactly a brilliant plan, but without the detailed intelligence the Underworld Monarch Sect possessed, they had little choice.
After a brief scan of the surroundings, he decided to make this very tree his hiding spot.
It was far too close to the temple to be a good place to hole up. Normally, that alone would make it unsuitable. But precisely because it was unsafe, no one would think to come here. That saved him a lot of trouble, and in any case, he had absolute confidence in his ability to conceal himself.
Using a secret art from his sect, he adjusted his breathing to a particular frequency, letting every pore of his body enter into a subtle exchange with the outside air until he seemed to merge with the tree itself. His mind drifted into a state between waking and sleeping, aware yet at rest.
The sun rose and set. Time passed, second by second. The temple remained eerily still, no one going in or out. Perched in the tree, the man kept his patience, holding his post for a full fifteen hours.
At dawn the next day, some disturbance in the world around him pulled him out of that delicate trance. Though his posture and even his breathing didn't change in the slightest. His eyes stayed shut, yet every movement within a radius of several li appeared clearly in his mind, down to the smallest detail.
It was the darkest moment before daybreak. At the corner of the temple's eaves, a shadow flickered so faintly it was almost imperceptible, then stilled again.
Such a change was invisible to the naked eye, but not to his inner senses. He could "see" it: an insubstantial, ghostlike figure slipping over the wall and vanishing inside.
Shadow-Devouring Great Technique! His heart gave a jolt. That confirmed one of his earlier suspicions.
This discovery greatly lifted his spirits. Judging the timing to be right, he slipped out of the tree crown where he'd been hidden for a full day and night. Keeping to the deep shade cast by the tree, he crept all the way to the temple's eaves. Just like the man who had gone in moments earlier, he slipped inside. But his movements were so smooth and natural they might have been even more refined than the other's.
He took care to keep himself at a distance that was neither too near nor too far from the first intruder.
This way, he could sense the man's position while making sure he himself remained undetected.
Even so, he couldn't tell exactly what the man was doing.
Main Hall… Drum Tower… Buddha Hall… the shadow moved through the ancient monastery as if wandering aimlessly, but on closer analysis, his path held some hidden logic.
The man who had been in the tree grew increasingly astonished. With each step the shadow took, the flow of primordial qi in and around the temple shifted in the faintest, subtlest ways. Changes that could only be felt by someone inside and concentrating fully.
Could he be unraveling the temple's secret? That's right. Spirit Bamboo, Hundred Ghosts… both masters in their craft!
Thinking of the shadow's reputation in the Tongxuan Realm, he felt he might have stumbled on a windfall. Excitement ran through him, but his mind stayed icy clear.
He began memorizing the man's route, marking the key points in his mind, all the while taking care not to give himself away. It was exhausting work, but he considered it worth the effort.
At last, the shadow ahead came to a halt, lingering motionless in a side hall in the fourth courtyard.
And yet, within the temple, the flow of primordial qi was growing more and more distinct.
The critical moment had come.
Sensing the shifts and pulls in the flow of qi mechanisms, he thought about alerting his sect brothers; but after a moment's hesitation, he decided to wait a little longer.
This was the critical moment. The changes in the temple's qi mechanisms were delicate, almost fragile; if he tried to contact them now, the disturbance might trigger some unexpected reaction.
He began to move in with great care.
The primordial qi was now so concentrated he could almost feel it brushing against his skin, though the area of fluctuation was steadily shrinking.
Without realizing it, he picked up his pace. The side hall was about two hundred paces away… then a hundred… fifty… thirty…
Calling on every ounce of his sect's stealth secret technique, he slipped forward through the shadows of halls, towers, and trees, silent as mist. At this range, he could even make out the other man's slightly heavy breathing.
He was waiting for the exact instant the primordial qi settled; when every mechanism had been completely unraveled. That would be the moment to send word to his sect and rush in.
To make sure he could act the instant it happened, he shifted his position, moving forward two silent steps. But a strange feeling pricked at him. The flow of the qi mechanism here seemed to stall ever so slightly… at a single point… and that point...
A low chuckle sounded behind him. The voice was kept quiet, but it carried such force that the air around them seemed to vibrate in response.
He spun around. An instinctive but foolish move. Yet the crushing pressure surging up behind him was like a savage, unseen beast; he didn't dare keep his back turned to it.
It was the most direct, and most fatal, kind of threat.
As he turned, his pupils caught a pair of eyes, red as fresh blood.
Just then, the shifting flow of qi around him abruptly stopped. The constant, ceaseless changes in the temple's primordial qi cut off as if a blade had sliced through them. No movement, no aftershocks, nothing.
The man from the tree sensed the change instantly… and realized, almost at once, that he'd just made his second mistake.
That moment of pointless distraction delayed his escape technique by the smallest fraction. His body dissolved into an insubstantial haze in an instant, yet a crushing fist still caught him under the right ribs. The iron-rod force of the strike tore through flesh, and the violent impact sent his blood surging and boiling in his veins.
He spat out a mouthful of blood, his body flickering back into sight. Already staggering.
That single blow had twisted and torn who knew how many of his meridians. But the message behind the strike was even more devastating. His pupils shrank in fear.
Blood Demon Heart Transformation Art,… it's the Blood Demon Heart Transformation Art!
This was no half-trained "Blood God Calamity Finger" like Xiao Zhongzi's. This was the true, supreme demonic technique that crushed a foe's blood, devoured their soul, and gnawed at their spirit.
Its most infamous trait: when landed cleanly, it could vaporize a victim's blood in an instant. The shock to his mind, coupled with his weaker cultivation, meant that in the space of a heartbeat he'd already lost the equivalent of a hundred years' worth of strength.
And even then, his attacker gave him no time to breathe. The air itself groaned under the pressure of the next strike. It was as if countless grim, gaping maws had opened in the void, spewing a dense, metallic-smelling crimson mist that closed in around him like a curtain of blood.
The man from the tree let out a hoarse scream. Curling his body tight, he forced his way through the blood curtain. The air rang with a shrill tearing sound as countless clots of bloody smoke clung to him, instantly eating away the outer layer of his exposed skin and baring raw, red flesh beneath.
Every nerve and blood vessel in his body convulsed violently under the fierce corrosion, turning his once-masterful escape technique into nothing but a joke.
Wracked with injuries, his body shuddered in strange spasms, throwing off his balance. He slammed headlong into a courtyard wall barely two fathoms high.
The dull thud of impact had barely sounded before a sharp, air-splitting whistle ripped through him, tearing him to pieces.
His whole frame shook as a hole opened in his back straight through to his chest; strangely, without a single drop of blood.
With another ragged howl, and strength he didn't even know he still possessed, he smashed through the wall and staggered into the darkness.
But the fog pressing in on his mind was impossible to resist. The wounds front and back were a cold reminder that he could collapse and die at any moment.
Just then, a familiar whistle from his sect brothers rang out from a hundred li away, closing in at incredible speed.
And miraculously… the demon didn't give chase.
Clutching the wound in his chest, he tried to answer the call with a whistle of his own. But before the sound could leave his throat, a slender hand pressed gently against his back, sending a thread of cold straight into his organs. The chill froze the whistle in his throat.
That delicate palm struck just right, the true breath it carried impossible to identify, yet perfectly timed to sever every channel that sustained his life. A strangled "heh-heh" rasp escaped him as his body went into its final spasms.
And as his movements slowed to nothing, no fewer than five figures vaulted over the temple's courtyard wall and rushed inside.
A few breaths later, a shrill, piercing whistle shot into the sky. The sudden cry stirred the entire forest for hundreds of miles, sending countless roosting birds screaming into the air, blotting out the sun with their wings.
In that chaos, the vast sea of trees welcomed the coming of a new day.
At the very first note of the whistle, Yuan Nan was already racing toward the temple with his five Nether Generals in tow; though he still had no idea what had happened. But when they were only seven or eight li from the ancient temple, he caught sight of several figures streaking past high above its roof.
In that instant, he recognized several familiar and feared faces. His expression darkened.
"Nine Great Killers of Vermilion Hook Sect… how many of them came?"
Song Yuanchi, thinking more clearly, glanced at him with a grave look and murmured, "Great Elder, from the way they look, it seems they've taken a loss. Could it be there's someone formidable inside the temple?"
"Xiao Zhongzi?" Yuan Nan voiced the thought, but immediately shook his head. That half-baked fool wouldn't last ten steps against those killers.
He resolved to give chase. But the rarely seen assassins seemed to cool their heads in an instant. They cut off the whistle and vanished from sight, their traces hidden so completely that even Yuan Nan's cultivation couldn't track them.
Just as he was puzzling over it, a sudden sound split the air. A sword qi, whistling from far off in the sky. The rhythmic vibration in the atmosphere carried a presence he knew all too well, and it filled him with deep displeasure.
Turning his head, he saw the morning sky glowing red with the first light of dawn, and in it, more than a dozen sword lights cutting straight toward them.
At the tip of those sword lights, in the very front, was a face so familiar it seemed etched into his mind.
His eyes widened, and he muttered a curse through clenched teeth. Even across the distance of more than ten li, when his gaze locked with that stern-faced cultivator, the killing intent in their eyes was clear..
Just how many people know about this so-called "secret"? Song Yuanchi thought with an inward sigh. But outwardly, his voice was steady as he barked the order: "Enemies inbound. Positions!"