As Yun Hui walked along the corridor, a shadow suddenly flickered across his vision.
Startled, he quickly turned around—only to find that it wasn’t a stranger, but his colleague: Lao Lang.
“What’s with you? You look lost,” Lao Lang frowned.
“Nothing, just had sothing on my mind,” Yun Hui shook his head and pulled himself together. “Why are you here?”
Lao Lang didn’t pay much attention to Yun Hui’s odd behavior and said, “Just patrolling the area to see if that guy who ambushed us earlier is still lurking around.”
That person had snuck into the Crouching Dragon Estate during a ti of low security and attempted to ambush Mr. Blind. It was very possible he was still hiding, waiting for another chance.
“Oh right, I contacted Kunpeng Manor earlier,” Lao Lang leaned against the wall, lit his large pipe, and continued, “Two logistics personnel are still stationed there. The situation on their end is the sa as ours.”
Just more useless information, Yun Hui thought.
He leaned against the wall next to Lao Lang, looking quietly out at the courtyard. Lao Lang glanced at him and suddenly asked, “Want a puff?”
Yun Hui shook his head. “I’ll pass… You really shouldn’t smoke so much just because you’re a demon.”
Lao Lang simply chuckled without saying much.
Then, Lao Lang pulled out a necklace from around his neck. The pendant attached to it held a tiny photo. Yun Hui had worked with Lao Lang for over a year and had only seen the photo twice before.
“Thinking about your nephew again?” Yun Hui asked curiously.
He rembered Lao Lang ntioning he had a sister, but she’d passed away long ago, leaving behind a son and daughter. Lao Lang rarely spoke about them.
“Just looking,” Lao Lang muttered, puffing on his pipe as the white smoke curled dreamily under the corridor’s orange lights.
Watching quietly, Yun Hui suddenly said, “Gim a puff.”
…
Smoke slowly drifted from a burner. Inside, purple sandalwood was burning—ant to calm and focus the mind.
But the white-haired man seed annoyed by the scent—or maybe his mood was just foul—so he flicked his finger, sending a gust of wind that instantly extinguished the sandalwood.
The bottle of vintage wine taken from the national treasury still sat unopened on the table.
“This country finally has a few peaceful years,” he looked at Mr. Blind and said slowly, “Peace isn’t such a bad thing… So, what do you need to do?”
Mr. Blind coughed lightly, then said, “According to intelligence, the last known locations where the Daoist and Demon factions vanished revealed a massive stone pillar. If my guess is right, six more will appear in the near future.”
“Seven in total?”
Mr. Blind nodded. “It’s probably the ‘Seven-Star Spirit Revival Array’ I once created. By planting seven stone pillars at key ley line nodes, they form a special area—like flipping a switch that activates the flow of spiritual energy from the earth.”
“It’s that easy to trigger a spiritual revival?” the white-haired man asked in surprise.
Mr. Blind shook his head. “Actually, the world runs on simple principles… Open a faucet and water flows. Give a seed sunlight and water and it grows. Humans survive with food and water. It’s all simple.”
The white-haired man also shook his head. “But creating that first faucet still took ages.”
Mr. Blind nodded seriously. “Once the array is complete, it’ll continuously draw out the hidden spiritual energy from the earth—like bleeding it dry. And it’s a rather aggressive array…”
“Why did you co up with sothing so dangerous?” the man asked, narrowing his eyes.
Mr. Blind gave a bitter smile. “I was young and reckless.”
The man frowned. “Where are the other six nodes?”
“When I tried activating the array back then, it destroyed the original node at Mt. Tai. Decades later, the ley lines have naturally healed, but the node has clearly shifted… To calculate the other six, I’ll need ti. Even this one node alone has countless combinations. We’ll need the second stone pillar to appear before I can pinpoint the rest.”
“So we still have to wait for another one to show up…” the man nodded.
At that mont, a phone rang—it was the rugged, military-grade phone issued by the Managent Bureau. He checked the ssage: just a text.
“The Managent Bureau team is almost here,” he told Mr. Blind. “We’ll give you full support going forward.”
Then he suddenly slamd his palm onto the wine bottle on the table—not to smash it, but to press it into the floor.
A deep hole opened beneath the bottle.
He smiled. “Since we’ve got serious work to do, let’s open it afterward. Maybe a bit of earth energy will age the wine nicely.”
Mr. Blind dipped his finger in water and wrote sothing on the table.
The white-haired man looked. It was a na. Curious, he frowned at Mr. Blind.
“If spiritual energy really does revive, and we fail…” Mr. Blind said softly, “Then search the whole country for this person.”
“And then?”
Mr. Blind didn’t answer. He just wiped away the water marks with his hand.
The man’s expression darkened.
…
…
Rumble—!
A tremor suddenly shook the ground.
Daoist Araki jolted like a startled bird. Having been rescued by Ming Tushan, he had been ditating and recovering inside the turtle shell.
“Did that thing find us?” Araki’s face darkened.
Still ditating, Ming Tushan slowly opened his eyes. “Calm down, Araki. We just hit a rock underground.”
Their turtle shell had been tunneling beneath this strange place. It was only natural to bump into rocks. Araki finally relaxed, though his expression remained tense.
It had been so ti since they escaped, yet no other survivors had appeared. Chances were, other elites from the Daoist and Demon Worlds had perished in that terrifying disaster…
A grim thought.
“A chunk of mythril… and a large one at that?” Ming Tushan suddenly said.
Apparently, the “rock” they had hit was this massive piece of mythril.
Mithril wasn’t very useful in the Daoist World of Divine Land, but it was said to be extrely popular among the Magician Associations of the Western world, even traded by the gram, making it highly precious.
However, after that terrifying attack, Araki had long lost the desire to search for treasures here… Most likely, the others inside the tortoiseshell had also given up on such thoughts.
“Strange.” At that mont, Hanyang Zhenren suddenly frowned.
“Daoist Hanyang, have you discovered sothing?” asked Daoist Baijie.
Hanyang Zhenren hesitated. “Everyone, we discovered many rare spiritual materials in the forest, all seemingly native to Divine Land… So why did we find such a large piece of mithril here?”
This question stunned everyone.
They had co to this strange place initially due to the jade pillars radiating imnse spiritual energy. Upon landing, they saw the forest was filled with countless rare treasures, instinctively assuming this was an unknown hidden realm within Divine Land. Who would’ve thought they’d find sothing from the Western transcendent world?
“That strange little girl called us ‘subscribers’… saying we were to buy the collected items,” Daoist Baijie recalled what the entity had said after appearing.
“Yu Sanniang!” Hanyang Zhenren’s heart stirred. “Could this place be…”
“Hard to say,” Daoist Baijie shook his head.
At that mont, Ming Tushan spoke. “Everyone, this old man has a sudden idea. How about we discuss it?”
“Please share, Fellow Daoist Tushan,” Daoist Baijie urged.
Ming Tushan said, “Every place should have a boundary. If this place is also a secret realm, then it must have limits. What if we keep diving underground—might we eventually reach the edge?”
“You an… if we find that boundary, we might be able to break through the space of this secret realm and escape?” Hanyang Zhenren quickly understood.
“Exactly.” Ming Tushan nodded. “What do you all think?”
After a mont of silence, Daoist Baijie finally said, “Right now, we have no better option. We might as well try… Daoist Tushan, I’ll trouble you with the next step. But…”
Daoist Baijie suddenly changed tone. “I wish to return to the surface for a look.”
“President!”
Hanyang Zhenren and Daoist Araki looked at Daoist Baijie in confusion.
Daoist Baijie calmly said, “Hanyang, I leave these two items to you. If anything happens to , please bring them to Kunlun.”
He removed a jade ring from his hand and a small cloth pouch from his waist, placing them in Hanyang Zhenren’s hands.
“This ring is…” Hanyang Zhenren was shocked.
He recognized the ring—it was the symbol of the Kunlun Sect Leader. As for the pouch, it was Daoist Baijie’s personal item, containing a small spatial domain capable of storing many things.
In that mont, Hanyang Zhenren fully understood Daoist Baijie’s intentions.
The others also caught on quickly.
Was he staying behind to search for survivors…?
They had only just escaped from that creature’s grasp…
“President, you’re a pillar of the Daoist World in Divine Land—you mustn’t take such a risk!” Daoist Araki tried to dissuade him.
“Saving even one more life matters… You are still young and have a long path ahead.” Daoist Baijie shook his head. “No need to persuade . My mind is made up. If you can find a way out, that would be best.”
As soon as he said this, Daoist Baijie decisively left the tortoiseshell and flew away.
The group remained silent.
Ming Tushan sighed. “Everyone, I will begin diving underground. Please… don’t let down Mister Baijie.”
Searching for survivors was likely only one of his goals. The other… was probably to buy ti.
If the tortoiseshell diving beneath the earth were discovered again, they likely wouldn’t be so lucky a second ti.
When Daoist Baijie erged from underground, he almost thought he had lost his way… if not for the many corpses of demons and Daoists scattered on the ground.
This place had clearly suffered a devastating blow, yet sohow, not much ti had passed and everything had already been restored.
Daoist Baijie could distinguish between illusion and reality… Which ant only one thing—soone had manipulated the area in a short ti to make it appear as it once was.
No known thod could achieve this.
Daoist Baijie’s heart sank… Just what kind of terrifying existence were they truly facing?
Setting aside the bodies, Daoist Baijie searched as best he could for survivors—or demons. But as ti passed, what he felt instead was a deep despair.
Among the fallen were once-mighty legends, lifelong powerhouses, demon leaders, and promising young talents.
The tragedy reminded Baijie of the Dragon Fiend disaster at Mt. Tai decades ago… The toll on both worlds had been severe. It had taken decades to slowly recover.
Daoist Baijie, tears flowing, dragged one body after another, burying them one by one in a forest clearing.
“Dust to dust, soil to soil. May you all continue your pursuit of the Dao in the next life.”
Daoist Baijie sighed deeply before each burial mound.
But just then, a faint sound startled him—he focused his senses and saw a hand erging from beneath an ancient tree!
Excitent flashed across Daoist Baijie’s face… Soone was still alive!
( End of Chapter)
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