Qing Lu had lived for a very long time, so long that he could no longer remember the specific years. He only remembered how the sky of Central Province had changed from azure to gray-white, from gray-white to dim yellow, and finally to its current deathly, stagnant state.
He had seen too many changes and weathered too many storms. He believed there was nothing left that could surprise him.
But at this moment, he was truly surprised.
His divine sense could not retreat; he was trapped within this space.
This was not right.
What object from the outer provinces could possibly trap him?
He was a Sky-Monitoring Four-Direction Envoy of Central Province, Eastern Qing Lu. His status was so high—how could a mere object from the outer provinces bind him?
Qing Lu quickly glanced at the thing he was clutching.
A little peach tree spirit, her hair disheveled and her face twisted in a snarl. She had already been marked by him and refined; she was a sacrifice he had personally selected.
Plant demon tribes were never known for their combat prowess, yet she was desperately biting his arm with everything she had. Her eyes were fierce, like a cub driven to a dead end—knowing she would die, yet determined to tear a piece of flesh from her enemy before the end.
A laughable thing.
Qing Lu frowned and applied pressure with his fingers.
With a crisp crack, Tao Tuantuan's neck was snapped.
Her head tilted to the side, her eyes still open. The green light reflected in her pupils was slowly fading away.
Qing Lu let go.
Tao Tuantuan's body fell. Jian Huaishuang was quick, lunging forward to catch her before she hit the ground.
He looked down at her; Tao Tuantuan's face was distorted and hideous, a complete departure from the calm expression she usually wore.
Chen Zhou stood up from the ground, looked up at Qing Lu who was possessing Wan Xiu's body, and offered a smile and a wave.
“Hi.”
Qing Lu looked down at him, his gaze icy.
“What kind of thing are you?”
Chen Zhou tilted his head. “Oh, it seems Lord Zhu Pan didn't mention me to you.”
Qing Lu's brow furrowed.
Zhu Pan?
How could that old man be involved with a minor character from the outer provinces?
Chen Zhou continued, “It doesn't matter if you don't know me, Lord Qing Lu. I don't know you either. But since you're here, don't be in such a hurry to leave.”
With that, Chen Zhou waved his hand.
Gray-white death qi surged from his body, transforming into countless tiny specks of bone meal. The bone meal condensed in the air as skeleton ghost servants stepped out of the void one after another.
A massive, pale swarm filled the air like a plague of locusts, charging straight at Qing Lu.
Qing Lu watched the skeletons, his expression blank.
He was not worried.
Wan Xiu was a vessel he had specifically created for himself to descend upon the outer provinces, fused with a godhead. Between ranked beings and unranked beings, there lay an insurmountable chasm.
He could clearly sense that while the skeletons were numerous, they were all low-level creations—a mere rabble. What could they possibly do to him?
The only thing he cared about were the two words Chen Zhou had just mentioned.
Zhu Pan.
This minor character from the outer provinces seemed very familiar with Zhu Pan.
Qing Lu's gaze swept over the nearby Bone Snake and black Jiao. He could tell these were divine creations.
The aura was familiar; they seemed to be the Spirit of the Horn Constellation and Wing Constellation Spirit he had personally refined.
However, after the Wing Constellation Spirit was taken by Zhu Pan, it had somehow appeared here. Who had taught this person the method to control them?
And then there was the technique that could restrict a true god's divine sense—the domain that trapped him.
Such things should have been sealed away by Sky-Monitoring after the Battle of Qingtian and kept within Central Province.
Sky-Monitoring would never allow anything that posed a threat to them to be held by others. How could such a method still be circulating in the outer provinces?
Unless someone within Sky-Monitoring had taken the item and given it to him.
The more Qing Lu thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong.
What exactly was that old man Zhu Pan planning?
But he didn't have time to think further because the skeletons had already reached him.
Qing Lu snorted coldly. The green light intensified, acting like a giant broom that swept the skeletons away, clearing them instantly.
But in the next second, even more skeletons stepped out of the void to fill the gap, charging forward relentlessly, unafraid of death.
Qing Lu's expression darkened.
He glanced at the giant colored stone beneath his feet, then at the three monarch corpses and the countless hundred corpse patchworks drifting in from the ley line.
Regardless of this minor character's origin or his relationship with Zhu Pan, the priority was to collect these sacrifices.
This was a plan ten thousand years in the making; there could be no mistakes.
Qing Lu raised his hand, fingers splayed. Green threads erupted from his fingertips, shooting toward the three monarch corpses and all the hundred corpse patchworks.
The threads pierced the chests of the corpses and began to absorb them frantically.
The underground space began to shake violently. Cracks appeared in the rock ceiling above, and rubble tumbled down. The emerald light in the ley line flashed wildly, flickering before suddenly going dim.
Qing Lu's body began to swell. Green light radiated from within him, illuminating the entire underground space until it became a sea of green.
However, his vessel could not withstand it. Cracks began to appear across Wan Xiu's body like a parched riverbed. The green light flowing within the cracks was as scalding as lava.
Qing Lu didn't care. If the vessel broke, it broke; he could always make another.
As long as these sacrifices were secured, anything was worth it.
Chen Zhou commanded all his ghost servants to swarm forward again, hacking wildly at Wan Xiu's crack-riddled body.
Qing Lu looked down, his eyes contemptuous. “An unranked being dares to harm a ranked god?”
Chen Zhou wasn't worried at all. He summoned another batch of skeleton ghost servants to replace those swept away by the green light.
Chen Zhou also knew that it was indeed difficult for unranked beings to cause any real damage to a ranked god.
But he had a godhead. The inner godhead of the Oasis Goddess amplified two of his skills.
Domain of Defiled Earth and Withering Venom.
Every attack from a skeleton ghost servant left a faint layer of black toxin on Qing Lu.
Once or twice was nothing, but what about a thousand or ten thousand times?
As Qing Lu absorbed the sacrifices, he soon noticed something was wrong.
He felt the circulation of divine power within him becoming sluggish. Every cycle required ten times more effort than usual.
He looked down at his arm. Along the edges of the cracks, a faint gray-white color had appeared, and the green light was growing dim.
He was poisoned?
Dammit, the opponent possessed a godhead as well.
And this aura...
Qing Lu sensed it carefully, and his expression became even more unsightly.
He was very familiar with this aura.
A long, long time ago, Zhu Pan had deployed a creation in Gloomlight Province. The aura of that creation was identical to the aura of the godhead within Chen Zhou.
The Oasis Goddess—an ancient deity personally slain by Zhu Pan during the Battle of Qingtian.
Her godhead had been taken by Zhu Pan, refined, and turned into a creation that was then deployed to Gloomlight Province for some unknown purpose.
That was something from ten thousand years ago.
Qing Lu laughed from sheer anger.
No wonder.
He had a godhead, understood divine techniques, could control divine creations, and could even use secret techniques that only Central Province's Sky-Monitoring possessed.
What else could he be but a creation out of Central Province?
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