Yin-Yang Pavilion Garden of Gathering Shadows.
In an ancient underground palace thirty meters underground.
A gray-robed man with a wolf's head and a human body was frowning and staring intently at the Yin-Yang Pavilion in front of him.
"So, you really can't deliver any of the Light Soul Water this year?"
"Lord Blue Dawn, the Light Soul Water has indeed been completely taken by that mysterious person. Now that you want us to hand it over, we truly have no choice," the Pavilion Master said helplessly.
"Who exactly is this mysterious person?" the wolf-headed man Blue Dawn, asked in a deep voice.
"We don't know either. All we know is that its strength is extremely high, and its power and speed are terrifying. Although it doesn't have any magical power, its pure destructive power is too fierce. We simply don't have time to react, and we have no way to resist." The Pavilion Master had already heard Lin Hui's instructions and truthfully stated the actual situation. He was just worried that there might be mysterious methods among the higher-ups to detect the truth.
This is the only way to maximize the chances of getting away with it.
"Since that's the case, I can't explain it to the branch court. You'll have to clarify things with them yourself. When the agreement was signed back then, it was agreed that you would provide Light Soul Water as the price for joining my Benevolence and Righteousness Court. In return, my Benevolence and Righteousness Court would secretly protect you. But now..." Envoy Blue Dawn shook his head, turned around with considerable disappointment, and prepared to leave.
"Protection? What kind of protection can Benevolence and Righteousness Court provide for my Yin-Yang Pavilion?" The brainwashed Yin-Yang Pavilion's face turned ugly, and he retorted directly. "Since signing the contract, whenever we encounter trouble, we handle it ourselves. Benevolence and Righteousness Court has never even shown a trace of its presence from beginning to end." "You think you can stay here peacefully for so many years without worrying about being attacked by Heaven and Earth Temple and Great Golden Cloud Temple? What's the reason?" Blue Dawn laughed angrily.
"Words are meaningless. You try to claim credit for things that never happened. You're all just mediocre people." For some reason, the Yin-Yang Pavilion's mouth was unusually foul today.
"Insolence!" Finally, Blue Dawn flew into a rage, his hand gripping the jade ruler at his waist.
" Ximen Jiu! Are you tired of living?!"
"I'm tired of living, what? You want to fight me?!" The Yin-Yang Pavilion smiled sinisterly, his hands swirling with a faint gray mist. He became the Pavilion Master precisely because of his extremely fast spellcasting speed, almost able to cast spells instantly.
The other mages were far inferior to him in their super-fast spellcasting ability, coupled with his immortal body, which allowed him to maintain his position for decades. "Good, good, good!!" Blue Dawn was about to pull out the jade ruler without saying another word, but he stopped halfway through and put it back in.
"Something's definitely up to no good. It seems you have ulterior motives today. Speak frankly, why are you deliberately provoking me?"
"Quite clever." Suddenly, a cold male voice rang out from beside the two of them.
The sound was so close that Blue Dawn trembled all over, almost drawing his magic weapon again in an instant.
But at the crucial moment, he restrained his impulse and secretly channeled his magic power, ready to act at any time.
"Who are you? Are you the true source of why the Yin-Yang Pavilion can't hand over the Light Soul Water?" Blue Dawn's mind raced, and she guessed. "More or less."
Lin Hui appeared silently to the right of the two, surrounded by distorted air currents that made it impossible to clearly determine his physical outline or remember his facial features.
All that could be seen was a burly man wearing a black mask, carrying a sword and dressed in white, standing there quietly.
"So that's how it is. Yin-Yang Pavilion is a force under the Benevolence and Righteousness Court. Your sudden attack suggests you're trying to make trouble for us?" Blue Dawn's expression darkened.
"That's somewhat true, but it depends on your actual strength and capabilities. Otherwise, there's no point in asking whether you can pass or not," Lin Hui said casually.
Swish!
Before he finished speaking, Blue Dawn retreated rapidly, rushing straight towards the exit of the underground palace.
Its speed was the fastest Lin Hui had ever seen since he arrived here.
In the blink of an eye, Blue Dawn had already covered a hundred meters and rushed to the exit gate.
But the next moment, a light sword sound suddenly rang out.
Lin Hui followed closely behind, drawing his Wish-Fulfilling sword and chasing after him from behind.
BOOM!!
Blue Dawn countered with a backhand strike.
An unimaginable force surged into his body, breaking his arm and slamming him against the door, where he sank heavily. Just as Lin Hui was about to grab him and brainwash him, with a "poof, "Blue Dawn in front of him suddenly exploded, turning into a blurry, grayish-black, gritty fluid.
Immediately afterwards, the fluid rapidly condensed, transforming into a giant white wolf over six meters long and over three meters tall.
Waaah!~~~~
It roared and leaped up, pressing down heavily on Lin Hui.
The sharp claws, combined with the terrifying impact of the limbs, slammed into Lin Hui's front like a heavy truck. Boom!
Lin Hui remained motionless, gripped his sword with one hand, and delivered a vicious blow to his face.
The loud slap made the entire underground palace tremble violently.
The white wolf was whipped by the immense force, its trajectory changing from a straight line to an arc, flying horizontally and crashing into the ceiling of the underground palace, shattering a stone slab.
It was completely embedded in the wall, its upper body stuck and unable to move.
Large amounts of blood flowed down its fur and legs.
"Again!"
Blue Dawn roared inside the wall, his body exploding once more into gray sand and mist.
After circling for a moment, he quickly conjured up a brand new, unharmed white wolf.
But the next moment, what greeted him was a terrifying longsword slapping down from the side.
With a muffled thud, Blue Dawn was once again knocked to the ground, unable to get up even after several breaths.
"The difference in power is too great." The Yin-Yang Pavilion, who had already distanced himself, shook his head and sighed upon seeing this.
"I was easily suppressed, so Blue Dawn's strength is only slightly stronger than mine. It's no wonder he can't win."
"Master's brute strength is truly remarkable; I wonder how he developed it," Zhu Shanguo nodded in agreement.
At this moment, Blue Dawn was still unconvinced, but Lin Hui held him down with one hand, breaking his limbs every time he tried to recover.
This repeated itself more than ten times until finally, he stopped moving completely, sprawled on the ground, staring at the ceiling, now a mangled mess of rubble. "Sir, just give me a quick death..."
"I don't like killing, and we have no deep-seated hatred for each other, so why act like this?" Lin Hui said Wish-Fulfilling, holding the Ruyi scepter.
"... Kill me or not, let me go or not..." Blue Dawn helplessly got up and returned to human form.
"What exactly do you mean, senior? Can you give me a straight answer?"
"I have been in seclusion for many years. Now that I have emerged, I find the world has changed drastically, and there are many things I simply cannot understand. Since you are in the Benevolence and Righteousness Court, you should be well-informed. Why don't you answer my questions? After you have finished asking, I can let you leave." Lin Hui had roughly estimated the man's strength. His strength and speed were probably at the level of Internal-Force Martial Artist. And his ability to fully recover was actually very similar to the characteristics of the Mist Man.
First, transform into Mist state, and then condense it again to completely heal all injuries.
"Since you've gone into seclusion, you must be aware of the major changes that have occurred over the years," Blue Dawn said. "If these issues could be resolved easily, why would anyone bother to travel and struggle everywhere?"
"What major change? Tell me about it," Lin Hui said calmly.
"This..." Blue Dawn was truly dumbfounded. Faced with the situation, the Heavenly Court and the Underworld hadn't even sent any experts to investigate. They had simply watched helplessly as things deteriorated to this point!
Blue Dawn seemed to be filled with anger whenever this was mentioned.
He carefully explained what he disliked most about the Heavenly Court and the Underworld.
"Currently, the country is fragmented by warlords, in utter chaos. Foreign mages have seized the opportunity to invade, occupying territory and establishing concessions! But who caused all this? During that naval battle, our mage alliance initially held the upper hand, but later, the foreign mages summoned the celestial spirits behind them. When we tried to summon them in return, we were directly rejected by the Heavenly Court and the Underworld, receiving no response whatsoever."
Hearing this, Lin Hui understood somewhat.
It turns out that during the fight, even though their side had a greater chance of winning, a mishap occurred during the summoning process, causing both Heaven and the Underworld to become unresponsive.
As a result, their side suffered a crushing defeat. Most of the participating mages were slaughtered, with only a few clever ones managing to escape. This was the infamous Parrot Sea Incident that shocked the world.
Lin Hui knew about this battle, but on the surface, he didn't record anything about the mages; he only simply recorded the battle between ordinary people from both sides for comparison.
The textbook concludes that, due to the country's weak foundation, lack of unity, and insufficient combat experience, it was only natural that it would suffer a crushing defeat.
I never expected that this battle would be described in this way by the wolf-headed, human-bodied man before me.
"You mean, the foreign armies are backed by forces from Heaven and the Underworld?" Lin Hui said in a deep voice.
"Of course, there are their own celestial realms abroad too. This war has basically laid the foundation for the situation where, for many years to come, we can't even raise our heads when we encounter foreign mages," Blue Dawn sighed.
"How is it now? You should be able to summon them now, right?" Lin Hui recalled the scene he had witnessed the Daoist priest summoning the underworld generals and asked softly. "It's useless, it's still the same. I can summon some simple shadows, but not the stronger ones." Blue Dawn shook his head. Perhaps because Lin Hui was easy to talk to, he gradually became bolder.
"This senior doesn't seem to be a truly wicked person. Since you've taken over the Yin-Yang Pavilion, we have nothing more to say. We've become friends through this conflict; it's fate."
"What do you mean?" Lin Hui laughed upon hearing this seemingly contradictory statement.
"How could this junior dare to have any ill intentions? It's just that when I tried to escape just now, I sent a distress message to the organization. Now that the branch leader has learned of the situation here, he hopes to have a remote conversation with you, senior. What do you think, senior?" Blue Dawn asked cautiously.
Judging from their brief exchange, he clearly realized that the gap between himself and the senior in front of him was not just a matter of one or two minor realms, but at least a major realm difference.
Realizing this, he decisively stopped doing anything unnecessary and immediately sought help from behind.
And the result was exactly as he expected. The branch was quickly alarmed, and the level of handling the incident was rapidly escalated from his own envoy posting department to the level of the branch's head.
The court master personally intervened and quickly decided to have a good talk with this suddenly appearing senior expert.
Since the other party didn't intend to kill them from the start, it means they probably didn't have any malicious intent towards Benevolence and Righteousness Court. Now that there's room for negotiation, it's only natural to talk.
"Fine, you mean you can use special means to get your branch leader to speak with me right now?" Lin Hui raised an eyebrow.
"Indeed. This technique originally came from overseas mages. Due to the restrictions of the Heavenly Net, we were originally unable to create similar spells. However, after absorbing these overseas techniques, we were able to bypass the Heavenly Net," Blue Dawn quickly replied. "Please wait a moment, senior."
He quickly closed his eyes and adjusted his physical state.
A few breaths later, a faint blue glow began to appear on his body.
Soon, he opened his eyes again, and his eyes had turned into a pure sky blue, with no visible eyeballs or pupils.