The door was left ajar, and dim yellow light seeped through the crack.
Tang San took a deep breath and shoved the door open—then, in the next instant, his pupils contracted sharply, and the golden glow of his Purple Demon Eye dimmed at once.
The sight inside sent him plunging into an icy abyss.
The door slammed against the wall with a deafening bang. The instant Tang San saw the scene within, his pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Three corpses lay sprawled across the floor. Their gray-black Clear Sky Sect uniforms had been soaked through with blood. They were the Fifth Elder, the Seventh Elder, and Niu Gao of the Defense Clan—the very people he had searched for so desperately.
The Seventh Elder's wide-open eyes still held the frozen shock of his final moments. The Fifth Elder's right hand remained clenched as though gripping a hammer, his knuckles white from exertion. At the edge of the bone-deep slash across Niu Gao's chest, traces of scorching crimson Soul Power still lingered.
"Elders..."
Tang San's voice sounded as though it had been scraped raw by sandpaper, hoarse beyond recognition.
He staggered forward, and his knees crashed heavily into the floor with a dull thud.
The past two years in the Clear Sky Sect flooded back to him—the Seventh Elder had been hot-tempered, yet he always secretly sent medicine for Tang San's wounds when he practiced the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer; the Fifth Elder had seemed stern, yet on cold nights, he would tuck Tang San's blanket around him.
During these days of the Soul Master Tournament, it had been those two figures standing like boulders before him, shielding him from Spirit Hall's veiled killing intent.
But now, every warm memory had frozen alongside the bloody scene before him.
Tears swirled wildly in his