“To report to the elders, Jiang Ran's corpse was just found by the Cangyun Sect's people. His death was extremely gruesome—his limbs were completely shattered, his head was violently stomped to pieces with brute force, and even the Fifth Realm protective treasure he wore, the Mystic Spirit Bell, was reduced to fragments!”
“The Cangyun Sect's Grand Elder has gone mad with rage and is leading his people to search the entire city!”
Upon hearing the report, the two Ninth Realm elders felt as if they had been struck by lightning, freezing completely in place.
His head stomped to pieces, his limbs crippled, and a Fifth Realm treasure shattered by brute force.
“Tonight, the Young Sect Master went out to meet Jiang Ran. Now Jiang Ran is dead, and the moment the Young Sect Master returned, he was asking about the village slaughter of the past in a complete daze...”
The dark-faced elder furrowed his brows, his expression incredibly grim.
At this moment, all the clues finally connected.
The person who had killed Jiang Ran and shaken the Young Sect Master's Dao Heart was not only terrifyingly strong enough to fight above their realm and slay an immortal master, but...
They also definitely knew the absolute truth of what happened two hundred years ago!
“I will head to the scene to see if I can intercept them or find some clues,” the white-haired elder snorted coldly, his face darkening severely.
The dark-faced elder nodded in agreement. “Leave the Young Sect Master's safety to me. Go quickly, do not delay, and return as soon as possible!”
Before his voice could fade, the white-haired elder's figure flickered slightly, vanishing into thin air in the blink of an eye.
A moment later, in Rocky Valley, thirty miles outside the Great Li Imperial City.
The white-haired elder stepped out of the void, landing steadily at the edge of a muddy pit.
However, as he took in the scene before him, the flesh on his old face twitched violently, and his brows knit tightly together.
A massive area of extremely violent battle traces was left behind. Hard, grayish-white boulders lay shattered all over the ground, and deep craters had been smashed into the earth.
A few traces of blood that had not been fully washed away by the rain still lingered in the muddy water, but other than that, the entire valley was dead silent, with no sign of the killer.
The white-haired elder closed his eyes, and his vast divine sense swept through a hundred-mile radius inch by inch like a rising tide.
A moment later, he opened his eyes, his gaze filled with unbelievable horror.
“How is this possible...”
There was no residual spiritual energy.
Reasonably speaking, to so cleanly and swiftly slaughter a top-tier genius at the early stage of the Fifth Realm like Jiang Ran, even if a high-level cultivator had done it, they would have definitely left behind very strong spiritual energy fluctuations in the air from five-elements spells or sword-controlling arts.
Yet right now, the air in Rocky Valley was so clean it was as if nothing had ever happened.
Could it be that the killer was truly just a martial artist who had beaten Jiang Ran to death purely with mundane martial arts?
But when did the crude martial artists of this world ever possess such heaven-defying combat power?
This was akin to pinning the common sense of the cultivation world to the ground and rubbing it raw.
The white-haired elder felt a massive headache coming on.
If a cultivator had done it, he could have tracked them all the way by following the lingering traces of spiritual energy.
But the opponent just had to be a freak with no spiritual energy. Once a martial artist's blood qi erupted, it would rapidly disperse into the world without leaving a single trace. How was he supposed to investigate this?
After wandering around the scene for a long time to no avail, the white-haired elder could only curse inwardly and leave with gritted teeth.
...
Meanwhile, the culprit, Su Yueli, had long since distanced herself from the imperial city.
She sped forward under the cover of night, possessing absolutely no interest in staying to watch the Immortal Path Tournament. It mattered not to her who claimed the title of champion.
Now that Jiang Ran had been dealt with and her karma with Shen Qing'an was resolved, she had no intention of lingering in a place of trouble like the Great Li Imperial City.
She chose only the most remote wilderness paths along the way, heading straight for the border region of the Great Li Dynasty.
The Great Li Imperial City was extremely far from the border. Even with her current terrifying cultivation at the Eleventh Realm, Delusion Breaker, it took her five full days of traveling at top speed.
On the evening of the fifth day, a towering yet highly dilapidated giant black stone city faintly appeared on the horizon ahead, named Hanwu City.
This place was close to the border between the two kingdoms, where the laws of Great Li grew exceedingly weak.
Due to being on the brink of war for a long time, the public order in this area was highly chaotic. The city was a mixed bag, gathering a large number of fugitives, outlaws, and loose cultivators who did dirty work.
Of course, such a lawless, neglected territory was often accompanied by a fully functional underground trading network.
Within the city lay a massive underground market. The local outlaws never called it a black market, but instead referred to it as the “Dark Fiend Domain.”
Su Yueli halted her steps in a dense forest outside the city, patting several space rings in her bosom.
These were the spoils she had obtained from casually killing the Cangyun Sect disciples earlier and from slapping Jiang Ran to death just recently.
They were stuffed with spirit stones, technique jade slips, and various talismans used by cultivators. However, as she possessed a body with blocked meridians and no spiritual root, keeping these things was no different from holding onto scrap metal—she had absolutely no use for them.
“I've been stuck at the Eleventh Realm for some time now, and the gate to the Twelfth Realm ahead remains obscured by a layer of mist. I need to get rid of these cultivator goods and exchange them for high-level blood qi herbs or body-tempering ancient medicines that martial artists can use, before I continue to push forward.”
With this thought, Su Yueli tightened the white carved mask on her face and threw on a loose black robe, completely concealing her blood qi and figure before stepping into the hidden Dark Fiend Domain.
The moment she stepped into this underground area, a thick stench of blood and a wave of clamor rushed over her.
The scene here was incredibly chaotic.
The sides of the streets were lined with unauthorized private stalls, packed with blood-stained magic treasures of unknown origin, poisons, and the relics of deceased loose cultivators.
The passersby were all wrapped up tightly, warily watching one another with fierce gazes. It was purely a lawless place that believed in the law of the jungle.
Su Yueli wandered around for a bit before finally stopping in front of a pawnshop stall that appeared to be of considerable size and backed by a deep background.
The boss behind the stall was a pot-bellied, middle-aged man, his small eyes glittering with the shrewdness and slickness unique to merchants.
Seeing a customer stop, the boss immediately welcomed her with a chuckle and took the initiative to strike up a conversation: “This young lady looks like a new face. Are you looking to buy some insidious magic treasures for self-defense, or do you have some shady goods in your hands that you wish to sell?”
“Rest assured, as long as the items are good enough, we take everything here, and we never ask about their origin.”
Su Yueli nodded, reaching into her long sleeve to pull out several simple space rings and tossing them onto the counter.
“Sell these, or directly exchange them for high-level blood qi herbs and body-tempering divine items that martial artists can use.”
“As long as the age of the herbs is old enough and the quantity is sufficient, you will not lack benefits.” Su Yueli deliberately altered her voice, making it sound cold and merciless.
The fat boss's eyes instantly lit up, and he hurriedly reached out to grab the five space rings.
He smoothly channeled a sliver of spiritual energy to peer inside. However, the moment he clearly saw the special sect restrictions and engraved insignia hidden inside the space rings, his fat, jovial face froze instantly.
The smile on the fat boss's face vanished without a trace, and his brow furrowed.
He looked up at Su Yueli and lowered his voice: “Th-this guest... these items of yours... belong to disciples of the Cangyun Sect?”
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