Qin Keqing picked up the thread. "Then we attack directly. I'll take men to seal the exits from the ruins, and Old Ancestor Yang can press in from the front."
"We can't." Zhou Xuan shook his head.
Qin Keqing's words caught in her throat.
"He's hiding deep in the earth veins beneath the ruins. The resentful qi is so concentrated that a Nascent Soul Cultivator wouldn't last a single incense stick inside. And there's a one-way Teleportation Array in the ruins, built by the Central Province Immortal Alliance. If we beat the grass and startle the snake, he'll slip into it and vanish."
Yang Wudi interjected, "I'll go. My Spirit Transformation cultivation can withstand the resentful qi."
"You can withstand it, but you won't find him."
Zhou Xuan traced a circle on the Geomantic Map.
"The earth veins beneath the ruins stretch for hundreds of li, with over a thousand branching passages. He wraps himself in a Resentment Husk, blending his aura into the surroundings. You won't be able to find him in there."
Yang Wudi fell silent.
The explanation was blunt, and accurate.
Ye Changqing rubbed his fingers together and picked up Zhou Xuan's point. "So you mean we have to lure him out."
"Lure him out, or force him to reveal his position."
Zhou Xuan laid three facts on the table.
First: someone had precisely severed the core of the Spirit Sword Pavilion's Demon-Suppressing Grand Formation from outside, using a Spatial Secret Art unique to the Central Province.
Second: the Resentment Husk Hideous Demons Zhao Ji had created shared an energy frequency with vow power, allowing them to bypass the defensive recognition of the Divine Statue within the city.
Third: every time a Hideous Demon entered the city, the Divine Statue's Recognition Threshold shifted slightly. After four attacks,