Underground Silence

"Roar!"

The strange giant horse, its entire body wreathed in golden flames, let out a shrill, urgent neigh. Hooves treading upon rolling dark clouds, it leapt into the Lake Bottom Pit.

Jadeite Mountain Clan burst into several delighted laughs. Wild winds swept across the sky as he descended from above, swiftly vanishing into the Lake Bottom Pit as well.

Immediately afterward, dazzling spiritual radiance swept through the air. Figure after figure descended from the sky amid the encircling light, plunging one after another into the Lake Bottom Pit.

In the end, only the figure fat as a mountain of flesh remained standing in the night sky, looking down upon the so-called Emerald Heart Mine, now reduced to utter ruin.

This Gu Yan was clearly not the real Gu Yan.

Or rather, the real Gu Yan had long since undergone Soul Extraction and Refinement, becoming a... spirit pill.

Deceiving the heavens could alter all things... Crossing the Sea Under False Pretenses! Once the Divine Soul Aura—the mark of one's identity—had crossed the sea under false pretenses, changing one's appearance was naturally an exceedingly simple matter for Chu Mu.

Moreover, Gu Yan had also been an outsider, not especially familiar with the other cultivators involved in this plot. With the memories obtained through soul-searching, the disguise was naturally flawless, seamless as heaven's own weave.

Only...

Chu Mu surveyed the wreckage of the Emerald Heart Mine, his brows knitting slightly.

If he remembered correctly, before this attack, this Emerald Heart Mine had appeared heavily guarded. Yet whether the death-row prisoners laboring in the mine or the Jadeite Tribe disciples standing watch, they had seemingly all possessed only First Order cultivation? Even when the group had joined forces to destroy this so-called mine, not a single cultivator above the First Order had appeared, nor