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Novel: [The Primordial Law]
Volume 6: [Battle for the True Inheritance]
Chapter 33 (574): [Emergency Recall]
(33rd of Volume 6)
Translator: Shadow Knight AK
Editor: Shadow Knight AK
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Tu Mian Gou's gaze shifted dramatically as he spotted the silver crown in Li Weiyi's hand.
He snatched it eagerly, examining it closely before channeling Spiritual Qi into it.
Dense Ghost Scriptures shimmered across the crown's surface.
"This is impossible! Where did this come from?" Tu Mian Gou exclaimed, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.
Li Weiyi replied, "I encountered a Ghost Marquis while patrolling Old Ye Prefecture. I knocked it off his head."
"Old Ye Prefecture?" Tu Mian Gou repeated in disbelief, "This is the Silver Arsenic Crown, also known as the Yin God Crown, forged from silver arsenic iron."
"Only Ghost Marquises serving directly under the Void Ruin Ghost Emperor's army are authorized to wear it. Corpse Marquises aren't qualified, nor are Bone Marquises, or any other miscellaneous marquises. In other words, Jingzhe, you encountered the Ghost Emperor's personal guard."
Li Weiyi's expression turned solemn.
Xu Daoqing rose, walked over, and took the Silver Arsenic Crown to examine it.
"Cave Ruins Ghost City lies at least four hundred thousand li away - a forbidden zone where true light cannot penetrate, separated by countless mountains and rivers. How could the Ghost Emperor's personal guard appear on the Seven Vengeful Plains?"
"Exactly," Tu Mian Gou said, "The Cave Ruins Ghost City rarely interferes with matters in these outer regions. They leave the Great Kings of the Dead Army to govern their territories independently, requiring only regular tributes every sixty-year cycle. This is suspicious and must be reported immediately."
The haunting sound of a Sentinel's whistle echoed through the air.
Li Weiyi and his companions peered through the outpost's formation.
Liu Ye, the whistle blower, stood in the swirling snow alongside four other Sentinel Spirits and Sentinels.
Li Weiyi, Tu Mian Gou, and Xu Daoqing immediately donned white masks and activated their Spiritual Qi Fields to conceal their presence.
After Tu Mian Gou verified the newcomers' waist tokens, he deactivated the formation.
Liu Ye stepped forward: "The brothers we met at the foot of the mountain, are here for the rotation."
"Weren't we supposed to stay for six months?" Li Weiyi asked, "It's only been three months!"
The Sentinel Spirit Captain leading the rotating team bowed respectfully to the four mysterious and powerful Shaoyang Guards before presenting a handwritten order from the Deputy Sentinel Lord.
"There seems to be an emergency requiring your Shaoyang Guard's immediate attention. We've been ordered to take over Ye City Outpost."
Xu Daoqing personally inspected the waist tokens of the four newcomers and verified their secret passphrase.
With the handover complete, they began packing their belongings, preparing to travel tens of thousands of miles to the central Space Teleportation Formation headquarters.
"Captain, what about this batch of pills?" Tu Mian Gou asked.
"I'm not refining them anymore. They're not going to work anyway," Xu Daoqing replied, dumping the medicinal ingredients from the bronze cauldron and storing the cauldron in his Cosmic Pouch.
Pill refinement was merely a hobby for him, still in the research and learning phase.
Space Teleportation Formations were extremely rare, often shared by over a dozen outposts.
Each journey between an outpost and a Teleportation Formation was a dangerous trek, a life-or-death ordeal.
They had to suppress their Spiritual Qi fluctuations, relying solely on their legs to traverse the terrain while avoiding dangerous zones.
Such journeys often took ten days to half a month.
The four returned to the Immortal Haze (Xianxia) Sect Camp at Cave Void (Dongxu) Camp half a month later.
At the Teleportation Hall, they each left a drop of blood for verification, had their Cosmic Pouches inspected, and were scanned by the Celestial Mirror.
As they stepped out of the hall, before Li Weiyi could retrieve Tang Wanzhou, the Deputy Sentinel Lord's voice echoed in their minds: "All Shaoyang Guard members report to the Camp Hall immediately."
A year after their arrival, the Immortal Haze (Xianxia) Sect's camp had grown noticeably quieter.
Most Sentinels and Sentinel Spirits had been dispatched to guard outposts and gain practical experience.
When the four arrived at Azure Jade Plaza atop the mountain, they discovered they were the last Shaoyang Guard members to return.
Chi Haohan, Chang Yujian, Lu Qing, Nangong, Qing Zijin, The Scholar, Pipa Maiden, and Qiu Cheng, the young man from the Ink Moon (Moyue) Clan, all stood clad in white robes, enveloped in swirling Spiritual Qi or radiant Spiritual Light.
Their extraordinary presence - some handsome, others dignified, and still others strikingly beautiful - made them resemble a gathering of young Immortals from the heavens, conversing and laughing harmoniously.
After half a year of shared experiences, including three months of guarding the Nether Realm together and risking their lives to assist one another, the initially unfamiliar group had gradually lowered their defenses and forged nascent friendships.
Even the habitually taciturn Nangong and the ice-cold Qing Zijin occasionally exchanged a few words, their faces sometimes softening with rare, captivating smiles.
Since joining the Shaoyang Division, their cultivation had advanced rapidly, and their spirits burned with renewed fervor.
"Daoist Xu and the others are back!"
"Why are you so late? We've been waiting for three days."
"Brother Xu, how about a game of Go tonight?"
"Liu Ye, let's grab a drink at the night market. Being cooped up in the Nether Realm has left me too tense - I need to unwind."
The group gathered, chatting and laughing, asking each other about their experiences in the Nether Realm and their progress in cultivation.
Among the Shaoyang Guards, identities were not concealed, and they addressed each other by their seasonal titles.
Tu Mian Gou's eyes gleamed with curiosity as he whispered to Li Weiyi beside him, "Brother Li, the Shaoyang Division is supposed to have twenty-four Shaoyang Guards. Why do we only ever see twelve of them?"
Li Weiyi's expression turned serious as he replied telepathically, "The Shaoyang Division is divided into two groups: the open guards and the hidden guards. As the youngest, with the lowest cultivation level, weakest strength, and least mature temperament, I don't know much about this. Only the Holy Commander knows the full details."
"I see," Tu Mian Gou murmured, his gaze darkening as he pondered this revelation.
Chang Yujian approached, first bowing respectfully to Tu Mian Gou before turning to Li Weiyi.
"Brother Weiyi," he asked, "how it it? Have you broken through the shackles of Immortal Realm?"
Li Weiyi sighed and shook his head.
Tu Mian Gou offered Li Weiyi a few words of comfort before joining the other Shaoyang Guards, quickly becoming one of them.
Chang Yujian also offered encouragement: "Don't worry. With your innate talent for Psychic Power, your combat prowess in the same realm rivals even the True Disciples of the Ancient Sect. In the Demon Kingdom, Holy Spiritual Kings and Holy Spiritual Master hold a status far beyond ordinary Transcendents. The path of Spiritual Masters grows increasingly extraordinary as one ascends, rivaling even the Martial-Mystic Dao."
Li Weiyi gave a bitter smile, neither affirming nor denying.
He countered, "What about you? Have you reached the peak of the First Realm?"
Chang Yujian replied, "It's not that easy. I've only just finished refining a cluster of Dragon Soul Origin Light. I still have a long way to go to reach the peak."
The higher one's cultivation level, the faster they could refine Dragon Soul Origin Light.
Tang Wanzhou, in the Second Realm, took half a year to refine a single cluster. Chang Yujian, in the First Realm, required nearly a full year.
"A high-ranking figure from the Demon Kingdom knows you're at Cave Void Camp," Chang Yujian whispered telepathically.
"There's no way to hide it. The camp is swarming with Demon Kingdom Martial-Mystic Cultivators, many of them direct subordinates of that person. It's impossible to keep it secret."
Li Weiyi didn't need to guess who "that person" was - it was likely the Crown Prince of the Demon Kingdom.
The Crown Prince wasn't targeting him personally.
Li Weiyi was far from being a threat worthy of the Crown Prince's attention.
The Demon Kingdom's true goal was to use him as a means to find Yu Yaozi.
Could a Dao Seed Realm Martial-Mystic Cultivator really lead them to a weakened Crown Prince?
No one believed such a thing.
This was likely just a casual move by the Crown Prince, or perhaps even the work of Demon Kingdom officials under the Eastern Palace, trying to curry favor by targeting Li Weiyi as a convenient scapegoat.
Chang Yujian, a Martial-Mystic Cultivator from the Demon Kingdom, volunteered this information because the Chang Clan and the Crown Prince of the Demon Kingdom had been locked in bitter rivalry for millennia, engaging in both open conflict and hidden schemes.
Consort Chang Yulu, deeply favored by Yu Baxian, had cultivated her Essence to extraordinary depths over the past thousand years, reportedly now rivaling even the Crown Prince in strength.
Some claimed that if Yu Baxian hadn't diverted cultivation resources to Chang Yulu, the Crown Prince would have long since ascended to the level of Martial-Mystic Dao Heavenly Emperor.
Rumors also circulated that Yu Baxian cultivated Chang Yulu and the Chang Clan precisely to suppress the Crown Prince's unparalleled talent and brilliance.
'Kings do not share the same throne.'
Two Heavenly Emperors in a single kingdom would naturally bring unparalleled glory.
However, the emergence of two supreme voices and two conflicting supreme Laws might not be a blessing.
Benefits and drawbacks often coexist, depending on the ruler's temperament and the ambition of the rising contender.
"Don't worry," Chang Yujian assured him, "If any news from the Demon Kingdom reaches me, I'll inform you immediately."
Chang Yujian smiled, then spoke with disarming sincerity: "As long as we thwart that man's ambitions, it will benefit the Chang Clan. Throughout history, the losers in the Demon Kingdom's internal power struggles have suffered unspeakable fates - even the annihilation of their entire clan would be considered a dignified end... I apologize for burdening you with this, Brother Weiyi!"
"Thank you," Li Weiyi replied, appreciating Chang Yujian's bluntness.
Chang Yujian glanced at Tu Mian Gou in the distance.
"Has he shown any weaknesses?"
Li Weiyi shook his head slightly: "Not a single flaw."
The Shaoyang Division's investigation into the Hai Envoy of the Twelve Tai Yin Envoys had pointed all fingers at Tu Mian Gou.
The reason he had been recruited into the Shaoyang Division was to train him as a tool for delivering special messages to Chu Yutian.
As for whether Tu Mian Gou might expose the identities of Shaoyang Division members, there were two safeguards in place.
First, the identities of the division's members were already relatively easy to uncover; half of them had been correctly guessed by the current Sentinels and Sentinel Spirits.
Second, if Tu Mian Gou were to leak detailed intelligence about the Shaoyang Division, he would effectively be confessing his own involvement.
"The Deputy Sentinel Lord has arrived!" Chi Haohan's voice boomed like thunder.
The Twelve Shaoyang Guards immediately fell silent, bowing in unison as Liu Tianchen emerged from the Camp Hall.
Liu Tianchen surveyed them one by one.
"Your cultivation progress has been remarkably rapid. As expected of the elite talents from the Major Powers."
"Reporting to the Deputy Sentinel Lord, I have reached the mid-stage of the Third Realm," Chi Haohan declared confidently, certain that he could now hold his own against Tang Wanzhou, whom he had faced nine months prior.
Liu Tianchen replied, "Are you already growing complacent? Your opponents won't wait for you to catch up. Where is the Shaoyang Division's Holy Commander?"
"The Holy Commander is operating independently, her movements are secretive, making it difficult to contact her," the Scholar said.
Liu Tianchen replied, "You recruits have been in the camp for a year now. It's time for your first annual assessment."
"Deputy Sentinel Lord," Liu Ye said, "the Holy Commander said we don't need to participate in the Quarterly Assessments or the annual assessments. She has the final say."
Liu Tianchen explained, "The Shaoyang Division isn't usually required to take the annual assessment, but a rare opportunity has presented itself. The Wither-Flourish Zone on the border of the Void Ruins Ancient Kingdom is entering a weak cycle. This unique trial ground isn't accessible at any time; it only opens once every few decades. Before the Holy Commander returns, you should all consider whether you want to go."
"After all, it's extremely dangerous. If fewer than half of the Shaoyang Guard agree to participate, the matter will be dropped."
"If more than half agree, the remaining members will be required to participate unconditionally."
Qiu Cheng, a young man from the Ink Moon Clan, said coldly, "What's there to consider? I joined the Sentinel Spirit Army precisely because I knew the Cave Void Camp possessed a Void Divine Token from the Void Ruins Ancient Kingdom. With only five years left in the Hundred Realms Immortal Compitition, I urge you all to seize this opportunity. Anyone who cowers will face my wrath."
With that, Qiu Cheng turned and strode away, eagerly preparing supplies for entering the Void Ruins Ancient Kingdom, his eyes burning with excitement.
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END OF CHAPTER
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