Breaking the Deadlock

At that moment, a gust of yin wind swept through, and the firelight in the Ancestral Hall immediately began to sway violently.

In the firelight, Ling Yun fell silent for a moment before slowly shifting his gaze away from the corpse.

There was no trace of life, nor did its eyes suddenly fly open to attack him.

The coffin contained nothing more than an ordinary corpse. Though its face resembled his, that was all.

Since the key to the problem was not the coffin, where could it be?

Ling Yun's expression was cold as he recalled everything that had happened today, feeling as though he had overlooked some crucial piece of information.

Suddenly, his gaze fell upon the offering table before the coffin. It held several foods made from glutinous rice, along with an incense burner.

Incense burner... incense candles... incense candles!

Ling Yun's gaze suddenly sharpened as he stared fixedly at the three incense candles emitting wisps of green smoke.

Several hours had passed since he entered this place, yet after burning for so long, these incense candles had not changed at all!

To verify his suspicion, Ling Yun's hands flashed like lightning as he unhesitatingly struck down with his palm.

A layer of invisible air seemed to cover the space a few inches above the incense burner, but beneath Ling Yun's formidable strength, it held for less than half a second before collapsing with a bang.

Crack!

As the sound of shattering glass rang out, Ling Yun felt his head sink, and the space before his eyes abruptly shattered.

"Hm? I never expected this old man to misjudge things this time..." In his daze, Ling Yun seemed to hear an unfamiliar old man's voice by his ear.

Before he could ponder its meaning, the world before him solidified once more.

When Ling Yun came back to his senses, he found himself still seated at the wooden table in the Ancestral Hall, as though he had never moved.

The other four were seated nearby as well, but aside from Zhang Mu, the other three had ashen faces. They had clearly been dead for quite some time.

Was it an illusion, or reality?

Ling Yun looked at the three dead men without a hint of sorrow in his eyes. In a world like this, human lives were the cheapest things of all.

To survive, one could only rely on formidable strength or a powerful background.

Unfortunately, they possessed neither.

So, they died.

Just then, a fierce gust descended from overhead. Ling Yun's pupils contracted, and he slammed a palm onto the wooden table before him.

The entire table exploded with a bang, while Ling Yun borrowed the recoil to rapidly retreat backward.

Pfft!

A transparent, tentacle-like thing skimmed past Ling Yun's forehead, piercing a deep hole into the ground.

One could imagine that if he had not reacted quickly, the thing with a hole in it now would likely have been his head.

Ling Yun swayed, steadied himself once more, and looked upward with a grave expression.

Directly above where they had been sitting floated a transparent, strange creature resembling an octopus.

And the thing that had just attacked Ling Yun was one of its tentacles.

Having missed its strike, the strange creature seemed somewhat enraged. Its remaining tentacles whipped rapidly, then stabbed toward Ling Yun from every direction like sharp swords.

Faced with this certain-kill strike, Ling Yun did not flinch in the slightest. A dense Sha Qi flashed through his eyes.

He had already been irritated by this chain of events. This was the perfect chance to vent.

His thumb flicked the hilt at his waist.

Shing!

It was the sound of the blade scraping against its sheath.

The next instant, a dazzling flash of blade light swept out, and the strange creature's eight tentacles were severed almost simultaneously!

The Tiger Blade Technique was not only fierce and powerful—it was also supremely fast!

"Hah!" Ling Yun exhaled a breath of hot air, calming the surging blood and qi in his chest.

With his current physical condition, he could barely withstand using Burst Force from time to time.

"Waaah!"

At that moment, the heavily wounded strange creature let out a cry like that of an infant.

Its entire body curled into a ball as it crashed toward the overhead beam.

"Trying to run only now?" Ling Yun sneered. He crouched slightly, then kicked off with force.

Boom!

The ground exploded instantly, and Ling Yun shot high into the air, arriving directly above the strange creature!

"Die!"

His blade carried unmatched force as it descended, about to destroy it completely.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, a piercing whistle tore through the air. A streak of black light shot toward him, stabbing straight for the center of his brow!

Faced with this sudden attack, Ling Yun's pupils abruptly shrank. Unable to spare any thought for killing the strange creature, he instantly changed his blade's momentum and swept it upward.

Clang!

The moment the two collided, Ling Yun's expression changed. The force contained within that black light far exceeded his expectations!

Though he successfully knocked it away, he himself was sent flying by the impact.

With a boom, he smashed through the wall and hurtled straight into the distant darkness, where no sound came from him for a long while.

"I truly did not expect a mere Flesh Spawn to damage this old man's treasure."

At that moment, an old man's admiring voice sounded from the doorway.

Then, an old man and a young man slowly walked into the Ancestral Hall.

The old man in front wore a black robe. Under the dim firelight, his face was shriveled like a dried corpse, and a pair of dark green eyeballs turned faintly within his sunken sockets. He did not look human.

As for the youth following behind him, he was even stranger.

Every inch of exposed skin on his body was covered in bizarre red lines. The lines seemed alive, twitching from time to time.

Whenever they did, an expression of pain appeared on the youth's face.

The old man ignored the youth behind him. With a flick of his robes, a streak of black light flew from the corner and shot directly into his sleeve.

He then glanced at the octopus-like strange creature in the air, all of whose tentacles had been cut off, and a pained look flashed through his eyes.

"This time, I truly miscalculated. Wounded like this, who knows how much blood food it will take to recover."

The youth behind the old man suddenly spoke. "Master, where did that fellow come from? How was he able to escape from your Water Moon?"

Without turning his head, the old man replied calmly, "He was merely an ordinary martial man with a bit of brute strength and good luck. After taking a strike from the Dark Spirit Thorn, he must already be..."

Before the old man could finish, a stone the size of a human head came whistling through the gap in the wall.

Before it even drew near, a sharp pressure from the wind swept over them.

The old man's expression shifted slightly. A streak of black light flew from his sleeve again, instantly shattering the stone into pieces.

Yet the old man paid no attention to that. He merely stared at the hole in the distance, his expression uncertain.

Seeing that the situation was far from good, the youth hurriedly retreated behind the old man.

Thud! Thud! Thud...!

Heavy footsteps rang out. In the darkness, some unknown beast seemed to be slowly drawing near.