Embers of Sword

Chapter 497 Old Friend
Blood and qi permeated the air, and a dark mist swirled around.

Xie Xuanyi rode his sword to the front of the main hall, his expression grim as he looked at the scene before him… This secret hall had been completely cleared out, with the Yinshan evil cultivators licking away at its remnants like lice. Half an hour ago, this place should have housed priceless treasures, but now those treasures had been taken, and even the secret hall's protective barriers had been destroyed.

He saw the figure of the White Crane Taoist, but he didn't see the "black clothes" that Song Yu, the junior sister of the Longevity Hall, had seen.

The main hall reeked of blood.

Someone crushed the precious pill...

These evil cultivators from Yinshan love to drink blood, and this chaotic scene is disturbing to behold.

Xie Xuanyi took a light breath.

He stepped into the main hall with a cold face, and the sword energy in his brow cave had already begun to roar.

"Come back so soon?"

Swish!
A head suddenly emerged from the blood mist.

Zhong Sha sniffed curiously and said in confusion, "You have a familiar blood smell on you, it's from that ship... Didn't you go to find the 'Plague Taoist'?"

Xie Xuanyi frowned slightly.

He recognized the simple-minded head in front of him... Bai Gui had a mentally challenged disciple named Zhong Sha, who possessed immense strength but lacked intelligence.

"No rudeness."

The White Crane Taoist spoke softly and clapped his hands gently.

The enormous head obediently retracted, and Zhong Sha withdrew from the blood mist, then obediently squatted down beside his senior brother.

"The grand formation of the secret tomb has been activated?"

Renzuka spoke slowly, reverting to his previous gentle and refined demeanor.

He glanced in the direction the man in black had left, then back in the direction Xie Xuanyi had come from, and said calmly, "It seems you've been transported to another dimension..."

"..."

Xie Xuanyi fell silent.

In that brief moment, he had already understood what had happened in the hall.

There were obvious signs of battle all around, and faint traces of lotus sword energy still lingered at the broken pillars.

It seems that the "black-clad" figure I saw in Song Yu's divine sea had been traveling with the evil cultivators of Yinshan, and had just been separated from them briefly for some reason.

Lu Yuzhen used some unknown means to fabricate an "existence" that was almost identical to himself... Now Renzuka mistakenly identified himself as that "black-clad" being.

This seems like a good thing.

Although Xie Xuanyi didn't mind starting a war...

But maintaining this identity is clearly more advantageous.

The sword energy in the brow cave gradually dissipated.

Xie Xuanyi concealed the murderous intent in his eyes with the "Faces of All Beings" expression and responded coldly.

"……Um."

Taking advantage of the opportunity.

He examined the White Crane Daoist before him again... Ten years ago, Renzuka had done a great deal of hard work in the Battle of the North Sea. Although this guy was a disciple of Bai Gui, he had comprehended the unique "Bone Dao Realm" of the Southern Frontier. Back then, Renzuka planted a banner in the North Sea and firmly suppressed one side of the great formation set up by Bai Gui. Although the Annihilation Dao Realm was powerful enough, it ultimately failed to break through Bai Gui's great formation.

Ten years have passed.

Ren Zhong's cultivation level has advanced further, and Xie Xuanyi can sense that Ren Zhong's spiritual aura is approaching perfection.

This could be a powerful cultivator at the eighteenth level of the Yin God realm.

If the White Ghost does not obtain the "Dao Stele" and is unable to complete the missing Dao... then in a few years, the White Crane Daoist will cultivate to the twentieth realm of Yin Spirit and become one of the new "Three Saints".

"Is it my imagination?"

Renzuka looked at the man in black before him and suddenly smiled, saying, "I feel like you've changed..."

"..."

Xie Xuanyi remained expressionless, coldly staring at Ren Zhong.

Although the "black-clad" person Lu Yuzhen fabricated was exactly like herself, their styles of doing things were inevitably different...

He wasn't sure if he had given himself away.

A wisp of thought sank into the sea of ​​consciousness.

The sword energy can be drawn at any time.

"Did you go to the 'Bingyou' ship to commit murder?"

Renzuka narrowed his eyes and grinned, "I smell fresh blood... Are there still survivors on the Bingyou?"

"Now...it's gone."

Xie Xuanyi's expression remained unchanged.

But those words gently touched a chord deep within my heart.

He didn't want to recall the self-destruction of the Bingyou ship, nor did he want to recall Song Yu's desperate face stained with blood.

Xie Xuanyi paused slightly, then casually sent out a wisp of divine thought, projecting an image of the deck space of the Great Chu Treasure Ship. At the same time, he said coldly, "Your subordinates are not clean in their work. Don't let this happen again."

"Tsk..."

Renzuka crossed his arms and couldn't help but chuckle, "So you actually hid a magical treasure in the cracks of the deck? No wonder you were so desperate to guard that broken ship, you wanted to leave behind a spark... Well, this time it really was my fault."

He had no doubt about what the man in black said. Renzuka was extremely confident in his "aura sensing".

He could smell the fresh stench of the dead on the black-clad figure from the Bingyou ship… The massacre of the Da Chu treasure ship had been somewhat hasty in order to enter the palace to search for treasure.

It's understandable that some escaped the net.

The lingering aura at this moment is enough to prove that the man in black returned to the Bingyou ship and killed someone.

Moreover, the person he killed was a disciple of the Changshengzhai sect.

"correct……"

Renzuka suddenly spoke up: "Did you see the 'Plague Taoist' when you followed the direction I pointed earlier?"

The man in black returned.

Renzuka felt something was strange, but this strangeness did not fall on the person in black.

He was curious about how the grand array of this secret tomb operated...

What was that bloody smell of the "Plague Taoist" that I just smelled?

"No."

For things we don't understand.

Xie Xuanyi tried his best to answer concisely.

He said indifferently, "I returned to the location of 'Bingyou' shortly after I took up my sword... There are still people alive there, and after that, it's just as you see."

"So the grand formation really did distort the space of the secret tomb?"

Renzuka looked up at the dark sky and frowned, saying, "Damn it... I didn't hear a thing!"

The words fell to the ground.

A low, trembling sound then echoed from the ceiling...

Rumble, rumble!

A deafening clap of thunder sounded overhead, and Xie Xuanyi instinctively looked up, seeing a "familiar" source of light.

A faint glow emanated from above the main hall…

Similar to the two characters "Bai Ze" at the entrance to the Abyss, this radiance hung like a lantern. Using divine sense, one could see indistinct demonic script. Xie Xuanyi guessed that this was an object with a similar function to the two characters "Bai Ze." Although Ren Zhong and the black-clad figure had defeated the giant puppet of the secret palace and taken all the treasures, they hadn't realized the importance of this "source of light."

"somebody is coming!"

Amidst the roar, the White Crane Taoist suddenly frowned.

He gazed coldly out of the main hall.

Previously, it was said that the grand formation operated silently, but this time he clearly felt a dislocation of "space shifting." An invisible torrent swept through the void, and the entire hall seemed to be moving. Amidst the thunderous roar, he sensed more than one powerful aura—

"Formation!"

The White Crane Taoist spoke in a low voice, then suddenly flicked his sleeve.

The blood mist from the explosion of the Nine-Turn Vermilion Pill had already been completely consumed by the Yinshan disciples. At this moment, with a command, the Soul Banner was unleashed, and countless ghosts rose up with the wind.

Xie Xuanyi looked up at the familiar scene.

Ten years ago.

The White Demon formed this "Ten Thousand Souls Formation" and trapped himself on the shore of the North Sea.

Ten years later.

The White Demon's eldest disciple also formed the exact same formation.

Ironically...

He was now standing beside Ren Zhong, but the great formation was not directed at him.

The shadows in the distance were illuminated by the light and fire.

After the space was displaced and ruptured, Xie Xuanyi saw the second "secret palace" appear in the distance. The two palaces seemed to be lifted up out of thin air by the abyss, rotating and intersecting, and were seen for a very brief "fleeting glimpse" in the gap of the void.

Light and fire shone brightly, and they all appeared.

...They are all old friends.

The leader had his white hair tied up, wore a black robe, and had a solemn expression.

Behind him, the guards were heavily on guard... Hundred Flowers Valley, the Jiang family, the Martial Sect, and the Jade Purity Pavilion all drew their swords and stood ready for battle.

In the very center, an old man sat cross-legged, suspended in mid-air by a magical artifact, with a small crimson sword lying across his knees.

I saw the scene not far away.

Having already prepared for the worst, Renzuka's expression turned extremely grim.

"Zhou? Ye Zu?"

Hundreds of feet apart.

The people in the second secret hall also saw the scene here.

Dark clouds linger, and all souls set out.

Ye Qinglian looked at the black-clad figure standing calmly beside Master Baihe and exclaimed in shock, "Xie Zhen?"

(End of this chapter)