“Whoosh!”
With a blood sacrifice combined with the law energy of martial cultivators at the Five Seas Realm, the Three-Headed Snake Blood Soul shot out from the bracelet. When Director Yang performed the blood sacrifice, the Three-Headed Snake Blood Soul that emerged was only a slender wisp—about as thick as a bowl’s rim and six or seven meters long, very insubstantial.
But under the activation of Yin Ershi Si (Hidden Twenty-Four), the blood soul leaping from the bracelet grew to more than ten meters long, as thick as a bucket, its body extremely solid, scales as if cast in metal. The entire courtyard was permeated with the aura of blood.
The blood soul, bearing three heads, dueled with the ghost general wielding the Fengzui Dao (Phoenix Beak Blade) and in just a short moment, swallowed the foe whole.
“Boom!”
The Three-Headed Snake Blood Soul suddenly surged outward. The opposing Thirty-Three Chinese-character Departing Spirit Battle Formation instantly collapsed, and all thirty-three Qingyi (blue-robed) eunuchs were thrown flying, over half of them dying on the spot. Yin Ershi Si activated even stronger law energy to stimulate the Three-Headed Snake bracelet.
In an instant, the blood in the corpses on the ground turned into streams of blood aura, continuously flowing into the bracelet on her wrist. The color of the blood jade bracelet grew even redder. Li Weiyi’s eyes filled with astonishment.
After Yin Ershi Si reabsorbed the Three-Headed Snake Blood Soul into her bracelet, she noticed the gaze fixed upon her by Li Weiyi.
She quickly said, “As expected, it’s only a blood soul comparable to the level of Blood Soul from the Third Realm of the Five Seas, but against a group wielding a Thirty-Three Character Departing Spirit Battle Formation formed by Spring Surge Realm warriors, it is more than sufficient.” The more she explained, the less Li Weiyi believed.
“Then why don’t you return the bracelet to me?”
“This blood sacrifice... as expected, it consumes blood aura and seriously injures the body. I don’t know how long it will take to make up for it...”
Yin Ershi Si’s face showed signs of weakness, turning dramatically pale. Li Weiyi said, “Do you think I know nothing about blood sacrifice artifacts? The stronger the enemy, the longer the fight—and the greater the consumption of blood aura.
Yet you managed to shatter the formation in just one exchange. Is that really enough to consume so much?” Having been caught, Yin Ershi Si’s small face flushed with an embarrassed smile as she hid the bracelet deep within her sleeve.
“Rest assured, leave the Guangyan Pill to me and I will definitely gather enough money. You seven bugs... some of you are not ordinary. Five of you joining forces could easily leave even a Five Seas Realm cultivator defenseless.”
In her heart she was extremely surprised! The seven Feng-Chi Moth Emperors often sneaked into the medicine room to steal medicinal herbs; she had seen them several times. Until now, how could Yin Ershi Si have ever expected that the seemingly weak-minded Li Weiyi, possessing seven ferocious insects, would actually be so formidable?
Shi Chuanyu glanced over and, seeing Li Weiyi and Yin Ershi Si looking at him together, his hopes dashed completely.
“Bang!”
Taking advantage of the wind, Yin Ershi Si dashed away and struck him squarely in the chest with one palm. Shi Chuanyu’s body flew out, crashing through a pavilion and getting buried in the rubble.
“Splat!”
Li Weiyi fell from the sky, a sword thrust through his heart, nailing him to the ground.
“You... you truly have no idea what kind of storm you have gotten yourselves into... it will all end badly for you…”
Even as blood continuously gushed from his mouth, as his lips curled into a sneer, Shi Chuanyu seemed to foresee the fate that awaited Li Weiyi and Yin Ershi Si. Li Weiyi’s expression turned grim… He then began to search through the corpses.
The Changlin Gang was extremely wealthy, easily able to produce over a hundred thousand silver coins—more than any other faction. After he examined the three gang leaders one by one, Li Weiyi then detained a Spring Surge Realm martial cultivator and hurried to the backyard in search of the faction’s storehouse. Of course, he knew time was short.
They couldn’t stay here for long, so he only made a rough sweep, not conducting any in-depth search. Arriving at the backyard dungeon, Li Weiyi indeed saw that a large number of young maidens and children were confined here, each wearing shackles on their feet.
Rage flared within him, and without hesitation he beheaded the Spring Surge Realm cultivator who was showing the way with a single sword strike. Looking into the pitiful eyes of those in the dungeon, Li Weiyi felt momentarily at a loss.
Even if the dungeon were opened to set them free, they wouldn’t be able to survive on their own—they would eventually either starve or fall prey to vicious people. The suffering in the mortal world could not be alleviated by the strength of one person alone.
Returning to the ground and rushing to the front courtyard, Li Weiyi saw that the seven Feng-Chi Moth Emperors had already cleared out all the living captives, ensuring that no secret would be exposed. Yin Ershi Si, meanwhile, had opened all thirty-two giant crates on the eight vehicles; from inside the boxes, purple electric radiance leaked out.
On the ground, dense electric patterns like earthworms had appeared. Just as Li Weiyi approached, electric lines flew toward him. A tingling, numb sensation prickled his skin.
He quickly stepped back two paces to put some distance between himself and the threat. Inside the boxes were chunks resembling purple-red ice crystals, their internal light dazzling and filled with countless glaring flashes of lightning interweaving within. Li Weiyi clearly felt that these things contained unimaginable, terrifying destructive power.
Yin Ershi Si retreated even further than Li Weiyi.
“Lei Fa Xuan Bing—how could it be these things? What is the Sui Sect planning?”
“These things feel extremely dangerous. What are they meant to be used for?”
Li Weiyi asked. He had only been in this world for a few months, and so there were still too many unknowns. Yin Ershi Si replied, “It’s for breaking formations and attacking cities.
Lei Fa Xuan Bing is collected from the eight hundred-li Thunder Sea and counts as a nemesis to formations. If even one piece in these boxes were to release its energy, it could annihilate every building in this hundred-acre mansion. Do not come close—the seal runes on the box have been broken by me, making them extremely unstable.
Even a slight jostle might trigger them.” Li Weiyi quickly retreated several more steps and then asked, “Have the Qingyi eunuchs been interrogated?”
“No need. They must be from Longmen.”
Yin Ershi Si continued, “Lei Fa Xuan Bing is the treasured jewel of the Lei Xiao Sect. It seems that the top forces over in the Eastern Lands believe that the Southern Lands aren’t chaotic enough, so they want to add fuel to the fire and cause us to infight and self-consume.
Sui Sect is ambitiously in tune with that idea.” Longmen and Lei Xiao Sect—one is a prestigious faction in the Eastern Lands with tens of millions of households, and the other is a prominent sect of similar scale. Li Weiyi finally started to understand what Shi Chuanyu’s dying words meant.
To be involved in such a grand struggle between superpowers was extremely dangerous indeed. Yin Ershi Si said, “Release all those maidens and children, and then activate the Lei Fa Xuan Bing to erase every trace that we were ever here.”
Li Weiyi’s gaze drifted toward an observation tower belonging to the City Defense Camp located about three li away, a tower dozens of zhang tall. He clearly saw a lean, emaciated figure, as dry as a monkey, who leapt straight from the ground to the top of the tower with ghostly speed.
Standing atop the tower, the gaunt, monkey-like figure looked around for something. When Li Weiyi recognized the features, his face suddenly turned grim. At the same time, the Six Desires Talisman on his chest began to flash, emitting scorching heat.
“Hurry, let’s go!”
Li Weiyi commanded. Following his gaze, Yin Ershi Si saw a scrawny, stick-like figure descending from the top of the observation tower and heading in their direction.
“It’s Shi Liuyu! It must be through the Six Desires Talisman. He can sense my approximate location through it, and he’ll be here in no time.”
Li Weiyi’s face grew extremely grim as he quickly considered his countermeasures, then shoved Yin Ershi Si aside.
“You go. I’ll hold him off here.”
Yin Ershi Si, of course, knew exactly what kind of person Shi Liuyu was. The notorious pervert of the Southern Lands, yet his cultivation was terrifying indeed—he was the top-ranked leader of the Earth Wolf King Army.
“Let’s leave together.”
She grabbed onto Li Weiyi.
“No, you’re not thinking straight—I simply can’t get out of here. Besides, if we try to run back to the Coffin Sea Pavilion now, too much will be exposed! I’ll hold him while you go fetch reinforcements. Don’t just stand there. When he arrives, you’ll be my weak spot.”
Li Weiyi pushed her along the path, driving her toward the door.
“Alright, I’ll be right behind you.”
Without further hesitation, Yin Ershi Si dispelled the formation and dashed out the door. Only then did the eight deformed martial cultivators from the Aberrant Race guarding outside realize what had taken place inside the mansion. Li Weiyi advanced with his sword drawn, flashing several times as he moved and beheaded them all.
He retracted his sword afterward and pushed the two bronze doors fully open. Li Weiyi gathered all sorts of magical implements from his body, including the Feng-Chi Moth Emperor and the corpses of the three Five Seas Realm martial cultivators, stowing them away into his Blood Mud Space.
Then, without pausing or hesitating, he strode to the dungeon in the back courtyard. With his sword, he shattered the iron locks on the dungeon doors and freed over a hundred maidens and children inside. … Shi Liuyu, clad in a loose gray cloth robe—looking like a monkey in human clothes—arrived at the mansion’s main entrance.
Seeing the eight corpses strewn across the stone steps, he knew he had finally found the right place. He truly had a connection with the Six Desires Talisman, but it was a subtle link that could only roughly detect a direction. If the distance were too great or if there were too many obstacles, the sense would vanish.
Before he had even stepped into the door, several ragged-looking maidens and children burst forth from inside. Shi Liuyu’s eyes lit up. He grabbed one of the plumper girls and roughly squeezed her two handfuls, provoking a chorus of shrill screams and cries of pain.
Only then did he satisfy himself and let her go. He strode into the courtyard and found Li Weiyi seated under an eave, holding a long sword and methodically cutting the shackles from the feet of a group of maidens and children. Each time he severed a shackle, one of them quickly fled from the mansion.
“How can a Law King like you, a top-tier talent of a full Jiazi cycle, bully these poor souls?”
Shi Liuyu remarked, though Li Weiyi didn’t even bother to look up.
“I killed dozens of them, saving over a hundred people—I feel like I got the better end of it!”
Li Weiyi replied. Only after Li Weiyi had finished cutting off every shackle and freed everyone did Shi Liuyu walk over.
“You did a good deed, but now it’s time for you to be a bad person. Tell me—where are the people from the Nine Li Hidden Sect?”
Li Weiyi said, “I don’t know.”
“Stop fooling around with me, kid—you’re still too green.”
In an instant, Shi Liuyu’s eyes turned icy cold as chilling frost radiated from his body, forming a layer of ice over Li Weiyi’s skin. Li Weiyi’s entire body went numb, as if about to be frozen to death. In a trembling voice, he pleaded, “I really don’t know.
If the Nine Li Hidden Sect were that easy to expose, would the Sui Sect really be unable to get even a trace of them for a thousand years? Someone of the rank of the Nine Li Tribe leader would surely know their true strength, wouldn’t he?”
Shi Liuyu’s eyes narrowed with suspicion as he pondered before asking, “Where exactly is the Nine Li Hidden Sect? What are their strengths like? And why are you here?”
Once Li Weiyi’s body recovered and he could move freely again, he drew on his law energy to melt the icy layer on his skin. With calm composure, he said, “The Nine Li Hidden Sect had investigated me, learned about the grudge between me and the Changlin Gang, and thus arranged this trial.
Fortunately, I’m on good terms with the Cang Li Tribe, so they didn’t doubt my identity.” Shi Liuyu had been watching Li Weiyi’s gaze and expression all along. He couldn’t help but think that the kid had astounding guts and temperament.
If it had been any other martial cultivator—even not of the Spring Surge Realm but even many of the Five Seas Realm—once his intense gaze landed on them, they would immediately fall to their knees in terror, unable to speak clearly.
Shi Liuyu had no idea about the grudge between Li Weiyi and the Changlin Gang; the mere Changlin Gang simply didn’t catch his interest. He said, “What exactly does this trial mean?”
“Every year, the nine divisions of Nine Li select a total of twenty-six prodigious youths and send them to the Nine Li Hidden Sect. Only five of them have what it takes to survive and become disciples of the Hidden Sect. The trial is their method of screening and elimination,” Li Weiyi explained.
“Really that brutal?”
Shi Liuyu mentally took note of this information, perhaps to help deduce the Hidden Sect’s strength. Blood gushed from Li Weiyi’s mouth as he coughed dryly a few times.
“Of course it is brutal. I nearly died during this trial. The Changlin Gang is full of experts, and there were also a bunch of eunuchs… Law King, what is that thing? It looks rather dangerous…”
He pointed toward the eight vehicle frames. Shi Liuyu had already gone over to inspect them and angrily rebuked, “Did you tamper with the runes on the boxes?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Li Weiyi feigned ignorance. Shi Liuyu ground his teeth in fury, “Don’t worry about it! As for that thing, you better stop prying into it and get back to answering my questions!”
Shi Liuyu had long heard that the Lei Xiao Sect was supplying several batches of Lei Fa Xuan Bing to the Sui Sect, to aid them in breaking the formations of the Nine Li Academy, the Provincial Governor’s Mansion, and the various clan mansions.
But he hadn’t expected that the Sui Sect would be so unreliable—a single Spring Surge Realm fighter nearly destroyed the Lei Fa Xuan Bing. Aren’t they not even sending Five Seas Realm guardians? Li Weiyi said, “When I go to the Nine Li Hidden Sect, I’ll have a black cloth bag over my head, sealing off my five senses.
The same goes for when I exit the Hidden Sect; by the time I remove the bag, I’ll already be outside the main altar of the Changlin Gang.”
“That was what I anticipated,” said Shi Liuyu with a nod, then asked, “How long does it take from the Nine Li Hidden Sect to here?”
“Hmm, it’s hard to say. With the black cloth bag on, perception might be skewed—I estimate it should be around five to seven days… maybe roughly that!”
Li Weiyi replied. Shi Liuyu didn’t fully trust Li Weiyi, collecting the information while weighing its veracity, and continued, “Then exactly where is the Nine Li Hidden Sect?”
“I don’t know.”
Seeing the steely glare on Shi Liuyu’s eyes, and as his brow began to glow with determination, Li Weiyi quickly added, “I’ve implanted a Death Spirit Flame inside my skull. Don’t you dare use your mind power. Otherwise, I’ll die right here on the spot, and you’ll be left with no information at all.
It’s a lose-lose for both of us!”
“Ha-ha, don’t worry. I’m not going to scare you.”
Shi Liuyu flashed a set of gleaming white teeth as he coldly sneered, “You’d better not lie to me! If what you say differs in even half a word from what Li Qing said, I’ll toss you into a wolf’s den where you’ll neither be able to live nor die properly.”
Li Weiyi pretended to be frightened, racking his brain and suddenly recalling something, “The Nine Li Hidden Sect might be located in the Realm of the Departing Spirits—beyond the Meng Mountain Range. Because that area is shrouded in perpetual darkness, filled with heavy yin energy, and is often haunted by Departing Spirits.”
Shi Liuyu fell silent for a moment in thought, then his eyes suddenly lit up.
“A thousand years ago, the Nine Li Tribe occupied the land of the Nine Provinces; eight of those provinces were swallowed by the Realm of the Departed. If the Nine Li Hidden Sect truly exists and manages to evade the Sui Sect’s eyes, it could very well be hidden in one of those eight provinces… Ha-ha, so that’s it, so that’s it… Now, are there any other details? Speak quickly!”
Suddenly…
“Swish!”
A streak of residual afterimages shot in from outside the door, coming to a halt at the center of the courtyard. Once its form settled, it gradually became clear—a martial cultivator in his twenties with a Pure Immortal Body, clad in the true-transmission robe of the Sui Sect.
His law energy was bright and profound, marking him unmistakably as a Five Seas Realm expert. Wang Dao, one of the top three young talents in the Sui Sect’s Wang Family, looked at the sea of corpses with a piercing gaze as he swept his eyes across Shi Liuyu and Li Weiyi.
In a cold tone he said, “Junior Sister, there’s been an incident!” Li Weiyi had already heard the clatter of vehicle frames, the sound of beast hooves, and a multitude of footsteps from outside. Knowing that Yang Qingxi had returned, he quietly said in Shi Liuyu’s ear, “Law King, it’s been less than two months.
Don’t forget the reward you promised.”
“Swish! Swish…”
One after another, residual images burst forth at extreme speed, seemingly teleporting into the mansion. Among them were renowned young prodigies as well as elder, patriarch-level individuals. Each exuded an imposing aura, wielding magical implements as they surrounded the two men.
“Rumble, rumble!”
A colossal, elephant-sized Silver-Horned Deer Beast drove a magnificent palace-like chariot straight through the mansion’s main entrance.
(The chapter ends.)