The Demonic Cult's Spy

Li Fan was taken aback. He sneaked into the cell to check and found that it was indeed full of women! Moreover, they were all at the Qi Refining Stage, with obvious differences in height and build. There was definitely no Amao among them.

Li Fan woke the eldest of the group and asked in a low voice, "Are you members of the Golden Scale Isle Huan Family? Don't be afraid, I've been sent by Huan Delang to rescue you."

Upon hearing this, the girl nodded, tears streaming down her face.

"Is it just you few? Where are the other men in your family?"

The girl shook her head. "They're all dead."

"They're all dead!" Li Fan exclaimed in surprise. Just as he was about to ask another question, his Gu Guan Method suddenly stirred, and he sensed that a master of the True Person realm was approaching. He immediately darted to a corner, pulled out his Gui Xu Dao Yi, and covered himself with it to become invisible.

A moment later, a figure slipped into the warehouse just like him, walked up to the girls, and said, "Don't be afraid, I've been asked to rescue you. Are there just a few of you?"

It was pitch black, and the Huan family woman couldn't see clearly either, so she repeated, "... all the men of the Huan family are dead."

"All the men are dead?" The figure was taken aback. "Wasn't it said that the young master of the Huan family was still in Yingzhou?"

The girl suddenly broke down, crying out, "He's not a member of the Huan family! I've said it so many times! He's not from my family! Why won't you believe me!"

Li Fan and the figure were both startled, but the girl's scream was too loud and alerted the people outside.

"What's going on? What's gotten into him again?" Golden Core cultivator from Penglai walked into the warehouse.

But the figure waved his hand, and two silver beads jumped out from his sleeve. Then, with a flash of light, he slit the throat and disemboweled the Golden Core cultivator who had just entered, cutting him in a T-shape. The man collapsed to the ground, spitting blood and dying instantly.

Two sword pellets!

The Huan family girl was frightened and covered her mouth, shrinking into a ball.

"... Aren't you a member of the Huan family?" But the figure sighed, looked at her, made a hand gesture, and said, "Now that you've been discovered, I can't let you live."

Therefore, Li Fan knew he could no longer hide his skills.

With a flick of his wrists and a press of the sword sheath, the Moon Soul was unsheathed!

In the next instant, the cramped and dimly lit warehouse was filled with flashes of light and the gleam of Sword Light!

In the blink of an eye, the tinkling sounds, like jade beads falling onto a plate, echoed hundreds of times!

The Huan family's young girl covered her eyes, blood spurting from between her fingers, and screamed loudly.

A slash of Sword Light slipped through the net and headed straight for her face, but it was cut off halfway through. At least it only blinded her eyes and didn't completely sever her head.

"What's going on?!"

Hearing the screams, the Golden Core cultivators outside immediately rushed to the warehouse to check. However, the two in the lead were blasted apart by a burst of sword energy that swept out of the warehouse before they reached the door. They were torn into pieces, their fragments mingling and scattered everywhere.

Immediately, a man in black, his left arm severed at the elbow and his right arm at the shoulder, emerged, his body covered in bruises. Because his face had also been drenched by the rain of swords, and his mouth, nose, and tongue were mangled, he could only wave his severed arm, spitting blood, and letting out indistinct roars.

The three Golden Core cultivators from Penglai and the group of Spirit Race behind them were horrified by the man's miserable state and quickly took out their weapons and magic treasures to be on guard. However, they were caught off guard when the blood that the man in black had splashed Fourth Department suddenly turned into a rain of swords, which shot out in all directions in an instant. In the blink of an eye, the unsuspecting people around them were torn to pieces by the swords, and the scene was filled with a bloody mist and rivers of blood!

Then, the heavily injured man in black did not hesitate and leaped into the sea to escape.

Li Fan didn't give chase. Although he had a slight advantage in the sword duel thanks to the Moon Soul's assistance, he hadn't actually gained the upper hand. This was because the man in black was a rare master, possessing at least eighteen lotus petals protecting his body! Moreover, the man activated these petals the moment he heard the sword box being opened, demonstrating his rich combat experience!

Therefore, even though Li Fan used the Moon Soul to launch a sneak attack, he was unable to kill him with the first sword strike. He also had to protect the Huan family members beside him, so he had to settle for second best and change his strategy from killing the person instantly to slaying him with his sword.

At that time, Li Fan used the Ruyi Sword Scripture control the Moon Soul and clashed with the two sword pellets of the man in black. The three flying swords were of the third rank and Nascent Soul Stage level, and the Sword Light was like a rain of silver shuttles, slashing and colliding wildly.

In such a cramped room, with people so close together, even the Golden Avoidance Technique was useless. Moreover, Li Fan was missing one sword pellet. Although he managed to seize the initiative and make a few more moves, ultimately shattering two sword pellets and breaking the black-clad man's protective lotus technique, and his sword aura sliced the man into a human stump, leaving him unrecognizable, the man still managed to escape using his escape technique.

Li Fan was also hit, probably by seven or eight sword strikes. However, he still had the Gui Xu Dao Yi, the Guardian Armor, the Divine Sect Protective Suit, the Carbon Skin, and the Steel Bones of the Qiongqi Dao Body, stacking up a lot of passive resistances. Although the sword wounds were quite deep and he was in a lot of pain, even the passive effect of the Fatal Clone was not triggered, allowing him to hold on until Yuepo shattered the other two sword pellets.

Moon Soul scattered the two silver pellets into pieces on the ground, completely unharmed. He even leisurely strolled around outside, saying, "I've learned this move; it's the Blood Sea Sword Howl from the Blood Talisman Sword. Why do you always encounter masters of the Divine Cult wherever you go...?"

Li Fan had no time to chat with it. He swallowed the Moon Soul, took a Golden Core from his pocket, and stuffed it into the mouth of the Huan family woman who had been blinded and was lying on the ground groaning. "Keep it in your mouth! You won't die!"

Then he quickly put away his outer robes, revealing the armor of his lower guardian, and ran to the group of Spirit Race merchants outside the warehouse. Since he had already been slashed seven or eight times and his wounds were still bleeding profusely, he didn't need to disguise himself.

In just a moment, a cultivator passing by noticed something was wrong; two azure Sword Light descended.

"What happened?!" "Who attacked us?!"

Li Fan immediately unleashed his superb acting skills, stretching out his leg like a zombie and pointing outwards, shouting, "The Demonic Cult!"

Then he rolled his eyes and pretended to be dead.

"What! Could it be a spy from the Demonic Cult?!"

"His blood hasn't calmed down! Chase him!"

The first two cultivators to arrive released a flaming talisman resembling Azure Dragon as a distress signal, and then leaped into the water one after the other, using water magic to pursue the 'Demon Sect'.

Li Fan gritted his teeth and quickly got up, throwing off his armor in a few moments. He stuffed a handful of Donghua Changchun Pill into his mouth and used the Motian Huasheng Dafa to quickly heal his wounds. After changing into clean clothes, he saw a group of Spirit Race protectors rushing towards the warehouse and immediately jumped out.

"Come on! Hold on! What's the rush this late at night? Let's have a fight!"

Penglai Island is only a small place, and the children are so talkative. When the Spirit Race saw that this 'red-haired' guy was still awake in the middle of the night and even jumped out to block their way, they were really annoyed.

"Get out of the way... Elder Li, please make way. There's Azure Dragon Talisman ahead; something must have happened, and we need to rush to its aid."

"Something happened? What happened?" Li Fan seized the opportunity to join in. "Are they going to fight? I'm going too!"

The Spirit Race's protectors couldn't move him, so they had no choice but to let him follow. When the group arrived near the warehouse, they found that two more Inner Sect True Persons had arrived and were examining the traces of the battle.

"Oh dear, what's going on? Didn't we say we shouldn't kill each other? Why are we fighting like this? Brother Derun, Brother Dezai! Do you need my help?"

It took Li Fan three seconds to remember who these two people were, then he loudly pushed aside the spirit general next to him and squeezed to the front.

The two cultivators of the "De" generation who arrived shortly after were both entry-level disciples of the Shenzhen Palace in the arithmetic stage. They had also been acquainted with Li Fan before, and since they were all on his side, they were quite friendly. They nodded to him and said, "We didn't know either. We just finished our tutoring class and saw a fellow disciple's Azure Dragon Talisman requesting help, so we came over."

Holy crap, you guys even have tutoring classes? What time is it...?

Li Fan was stunned for a moment, then hurriedly offered, "Me too, me too! That guy from the Gaozhen Palace slapped me so hard he blew up my room, that's why I came out to wander around. I saw the commotion here and came over. What's going on? Did the Outer Sect Disciple and the Spirit Race have some kind of infighting?"

Upon hearing this, Derun and Dezai exchanged glances with the guardians of the Spirit Race on the other side. The guardians glared angrily at Li Fan, but were too intimidated by the sea of blood on the ground to speak out.

Derun paused for a moment, "It's unlikely, but it's hard to say. Let's see if there are any survivors first..."

"Okay, okay, I'll go check the warehouse!" Li Fan rushed off.

The two were caught off guard and couldn't stop him. "Brother Li! Be careful, there might be an ambush!"

However, Li Fan had already rushed in, exclaiming, "Oh! There are survivors here! Are you alright, young lady?"

Derun and Dezai exchanged a glance, then entered the warehouse one after the other. Upon seeing the numerous sword marks inside and examining the corpses of the Golden Core disciples who had died at the entrance, their pupils contracted, and they were both stunned.

At their level, how could they not see what was happening? A single glance was enough to tell that it was a brutal sword duel among sword cultivators, and...

Deokjae picked up the silver fragment from the ground. "... Sword pellet."

Derun shook his head at him.

Just then, Li Fan ran out carrying the Huan family girl, shouting, "This girl is injured!"

The two cultivators immediately rushed over to check on her. "Her eyes were blinded by the Sword Light; she fainted from the pain." "Is she the only one?"

Li Fan also pretended to be serious, "Yeah, everyone else fainted, only one was injured, oh? She's still sucking on something..."

"... It's actually a Nine-Turn Mysterious Purple Gold Pill, no wonder it still has a breath left." "But why...?"

Before they could examine it closely, a tingling, electric shock-like sensation swept over their skin, making the hairs on their necks stand on end.

The three of them froze, turning their heads to look at the doorway.

A Daoist priest stood silently at the warehouse entrance, his black beard hanging down to his chest. He wore a white robe underneath a blue monastic robe, and his hair was tied up with a yellow wooden hairpin. He held a whisk in his left hand and made a hand seal with his right. His fingers were thin and long, but they looked like white bones wrapped in skin.

And so was he; his robes were extra large, fluttering even without wind, which only made the Daoist appear even thinner, literally skin and bones, without a trace of flesh and blood. Especially his eye sockets, which were empty and dark, like a skeleton, as if there was nothing there, except for two diamond-like pupils that flickered, emitting azure starlight.

Derun and Dezai turned their heads twice and bowed, prostrating themselves on the ground, not daring to get up and look directly at each other.

"Sect Leader."

The Lord of Penglai, the Supreme Zhenzhen Xianhua Daojun.

Holy crap, you dungeon boss just showing up like that is so unfair...

Li Fan also knelt on one knee, holding the Huan family girl in his arms, bowing respectfully. He could feel the bones in his back trembling involuntarily. It wasn't that he was afraid; it was probably the Tai Su Dao Body who were afraid. Fear is the instinctive salute of a creature to its superior predator.

The Manifestation Dao Lord stretched out his right hand, which was forming a hand seal, and flicked his index finger. Li Fan only felt a white screen appear before his eyes and subconsciously thought that he had been instantly killed.

But then his vision returned, and he found himself and Derun and Dezai still kneeling in the warehouse, but the Huan family girl he was holding was gone, as were the others in the warehouse. Moreover, the sword marks, corpses, bloodstains, and broken sword fragments on the ground had all been swept away.

Derun and Dezai raised their heads, exchanged a glance, and remained silent.

Li Fan asked curiously, "What exactly is going on? Was it the Sect Leader Daojun himself who arrived just now?"

"Well... Brother Li, this matter will be handled by the Zhenzhen Palace, so we don't need to worry about it anymore. We shouldn't mention it to anyone else either. Let's go back and rest."

The two cultivators clearly had something on their minds, but they were unwilling to say more and simply got up to take their leave.

"Okay, sure."

Li Fan watched the two True Immortals disappear into the light, then walked to the dock to take a look. The surrounding Spirit Race had also dispersed, and the bloodstains and corpses outside had been cleaned up. The Azure Dragon Talisman mark in the sky was gone, and the sea was calm and still, as if nothing had happened.

Hmm... there's something wrong with Penglai...

Li Fan frowned.

The Nine Heavens Nether River Formation blocked the way outside, allowing only Inner Sect masters and disciples who had received missions to enter and exit. The black-clad man who fought him possessed two sword pellets, the Eighteen Layers of Lotus Skill protecting his body, and the Blood Talisman Sword. Whether he was a spy from the Divine Sect who had infiltrated Penglai, or someone from Penglai who had stolen the Divine Sect's Heavenly Book, he was undoubtedly a renowned expert.

Furthermore, considering that Penglai Island originally only had the three palaces of Supreme True God, True High True, and True, and that only those who started with the character "Cheng" would receive focused training from the sect, and that many of Penglai's experts had been sent out recently due to numerous events, plus the sect leader personally coming out to clean up the mess...

Well, actually, there's no need to guess anymore. Derun and Dezai can probably tell that among the swordsmen here, one is Xia Chengming, an inner disciple of Zhizhen Palace who is ranked second on the list.

Li Fan touched the wound under his ribs. To be fair, that guy was actually quite formidable. Being ambushed at such close range, and failing to pinpoint Li Fan's location immediately, coupled with the disadvantage of his sword pellet, he was completely at a disadvantage, yet he still managed to escape.

If it were a direct sword fight, or if they were on different grounds, and he launched a surprise attack first, he might be able to force Li Fan to unleash his second stage. If he also had powerful moves like the Blood Talisman Sword hidden away, he might even be able to exchange one of Li Fan's physical bodies with a bit of luck.

As Li Fan had predicted, the power rankings changed again the next day.

However, Xia Chengming is still ranked second among the Cheng generation. The change is in the De generation, as two De generation cultivators from the Gaozhen Palace have died.

Were they the first two cultivators to arrive at the scene and cast talismans? They probably stumbled upon this incident after their tutoring class. It's just unexpected that Xia Chengming is so powerful; even after being hacked to pieces, he still managed to kill two pursuers...

However, is the sect leader still protecting his own disciples? It seems he knew all along that they would use a demonic Cultivation Method like the Blood Talisman Sword? Could it be that his questioning of the Huan family woman was also at the sect leader's behest...?

The children huddled together, whispering, "I heard there was a fight last night Outer Sect and merchant ships from Yingzhou, and many people died."

"Did the business deal fall through?"

"Who knows? Zhenhai Real Person of the Taizhen Palace wasn't there to stop it last night, so the sect leader summoned him for questioning. I heard he was even reprimanded."

Taizhen Palace... Oh right, the person who sent the Huan family members here was Liu Chengzong of Yingzhou Taizhen Palace, who is now ranked fifth. He was also one of the three Nascent Soul Stage cultivators who wiped out the Huan family.

Could it be that the sect leader thinks he's the cultivator who fought Xia Chengming in the warehouse, and is taking the blame for him?

Yes, he should be responsible for guarding the remnants of the demonic cult within the Huan family, so why wasn't he in the warehouse last night? And what was he doing there?

Li Fan scratched his head. This was really troublesome. It seemed that Penglai was only officially settled on the surface, but the internal strife behind the scenes was also turbulent and extremely dangerous. Just the disciples of the "Cheng" generation alone were all outstanding individuals. Except for one who seemed to be lying low, none of them were simple.

Sigh, all this scheming and backstabbing, the straightforward, fair-weather combat of the Beichen Sword Sect is much more satisfying...

But now things are a bit troublesome. The Huan family members are all in the sect leader's hands, and Amao seems to have been mistakenly detained in Yingzhou. Moreover, last night, he may have inadvertently become embroiled in the factional struggle between the Penglai lineage led by the Zhenzhen Palace and the Yingzhou lineage led by the Xuanzhen Palace. If he were to leave the mountain hastily again, it would likely arouse suspicion and attract attention...

"Elder Li."

"Ah? Hmm? Ten, cough cough, it's Princess Xiao! Long time no see."

Li Fan turned his head and was surprised to find that it was Xiao Yushi greeting him.

For some reason, she was dressed unusually glamorous and alluring. Not only was her hair styled and she wore heavy makeup, adorned with Golden hairpin hairpins and jade ornaments, and dressed in flamboyant attire, but she also wore a mink cloak. She looked nothing like the widowed woman she had been just a few days ago. She even smiled gently, curtsied, and said, "I have prepared a small gift to express my gratitude for Elder Li's help."

Oh, it's probably the reward for driving away Cheng Chengzhi Gaozhen Palace. I wonder if there's still 100,000 guan this time.

"Oh, Princess, please come in, please come in." But upon entering, Li Fan saw that the courtyard was a complete mess, and the collapsed side hall hadn't even been repaired yet. He could only say embarrassedly, "Heh, heh, I'm sorry for being so rude. I'm just a rough man and I don't have anything good to offer you. I wonder how much cash you're giving this time, cough cough, as a gift?"

Xiao Yushi was taken aback when she saw Li Fan reach out his hand directly. "How about... we talk about it indoors?"

Why is the amount of money they gave so much?

So Li Fan considerately led her to the storeroom, "Do you have 100,000 strings of cash? Then just put it here."

Xiao Yushi stared blankly at the empty storeroom, momentarily dumbfounded. But looking at Li Fan, she bit her lip, took off her mink cloak and spread it on the ground, revealing a single layer of lily-pleated ice silk clothing underneath—the kind of 'decisive battle attire'. It was ethereal and dreamlike, revealing her curves, barely covering her breasts at the top, then clinging to her skin at the waist, exposing the fleshy curves of her abdomen and thighs. She then performed a curtsy, slowly kneeling down.

"I offer myself as your bedmate, please have mercy on me."

Li Fan, chin agape, murmured, "Oh... oh... cough cough, oh, um, oh, it really is 100,000 strings of cash delivered to our doorstep."