A quarter of an hour later.
In the dense forest on the outskirts of the valley, branches and leaves shook wildly.
Crash—
A series of hurried whooshes cut through the air.
More than a dozen black-clad figures leaped from tree to tree. They moved swiftly, landing without making a sound.
The group moved at incredible speed, rushing into the valley in the blink of an eye.
At their head was a young man dressed in white with black patterns. He had handsome features, narrow eyes, and a sinister expression.
His complexion was pale, and his gaze was as cold as ice.
A layer of faint, ghostly green fire curled around him.
His aura was weighty and steady, and the pressure he exuded far surpassed that of ordinary Qi Refining cultivators.
He was none other than Liao Jun, young master of the Ghost Fire Sect, at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage.
Among his peers, he was one of the top-tier geniuses.
A black-clad man hurried into the pile of corpses and quickly examined each body.
After only a few breaths, he immediately returned and dropped to one knee, his expression grave.
"Young master!"
"Every member of the hunting squad we sent out has been killed. Not a single one survived!"
Liao Jun swept his gaze across the valley floor.
Corpses covered the ground, and blood had turned the earth to mud.
More than twenty elite members of the sect lay sprawled across the ground.
Every wound was a clean, through-and-through injury. One strike, one kill.
His narrow eyes instantly narrowed, and a chill surged in their depths.
His expression darkened by the second.
"They're all dead?"
"Twenty-three disciples. Three at the eighth layer, one at the ninth."
"A squad of elites went to hunt down six Azure Cloud Outer Sect disciples who were all badly wounded and near death."
"And they were completely wiped out?"
Absurd.
Outrageous.
Impossible.
The highest cultivation among those six Azure Cloud disciples had been no more than the eighth layer of Qi Refining, and they had already been exhausted and gravely wounded.
The six of them couldn't have killed the entire squad in a counterattack.
They couldn't even have seriously wounded the squad.
Liao Jun sensed the traces of spiritual energy lingering around them. The air held nothing but faint fluctuations from Qi Refining spells.
There wasn't the slightest trace of spiritual pressure at the Foundation Establishment level.
He was instantly certain.
"Someone intervened in secret and killed members of my Ghost Fire Sect."
At the thought, killing intent boiled in Liao Jun's eyes.
"You dared to ambush my people while they were carrying out a mission for the Ghost Fire Sect."
"No matter who you are."
"You're dead."
Liao Jun formed a seal with one hand.
Hum—
Ghostly green fire danced at his fingertips.
An extremely covert demonic cultivation technique was activated in an instant.
It was the Ghost Fire Sect's inherited secret art: Blood Soul Contract Induction.
All Ghost Fire Sect disciples sent out to carry out hunting, infiltration, or scouting missions had a hidden blood contract mark planted in their bodies beforehand.
Under normal circumstances, it did nothing. It wouldn't affect cultivation or expose their identities.
But if an outsider killed one of the disciples,
a wisp of the dead disciple's soul would automatically leave the corpse before death and attach itself to the killer, beyond anyone's control.
It was silent and undetectable.
No matter how high the other party's cultivation was, they couldn't discover it right away.
Blood Soul Contract Induction was a secret technique specifically designed to track that wisp.
Liao Jun closed his eyes and spread out his divine sense.
He searched the area layer by layer, within a radius of ten li.
A few breaths later,
he opened his eyes, his expression dark.
"I can't sense it."
The black-clad man beside him tensed. "Young master, could the other party have completely erased the wisp?"
Liao Jun shook his head, his voice icy.
"It can't be erased."
"The soul mark of the Blood Soul Contract isn't so easily removed."
Blood Soul Contract Induction could actively search only within a radius of ten li.
Beyond ten li, it couldn't pinpoint a target.
But the true terror of this secret art didn't lie in active tracking.
It lay in its passive lock-on.
That wisp of soul could lie dormant inside a person's body for three years.
For the next three years, as long as the killer came within one li of a Ghost Fire Sect disciple,
anyone cultivating Ghost Fire techniques would automatically sense them.
They would lock onto the enemy and hunt them down with pinpoint accuracy.
Compared to the sect's resource-intensive methods of reconstructing a scene or tracking an aura, it was a hundred times more convenient.
This was also a tried-and-true trump card used by the major Devil Dao Sects when hunting their targets.
In simple terms,
Su Yun might have escaped today.
But for the next three years,
the moment he crossed paths with any Ghost Fire Sect disciple,
his identity and the mark of his enemy would be exposed in an instant.
A relentless hunt would follow, with no end in sight.
Liao Jun's expression remained cold. He felt no regret.
It didn't matter if the killer had escaped.
There were three years. Sooner or later, they would catch him.
Just then, another black-clad squad leader stepped forward and bowed to ask for instructions.
"Young master."
"Our hunting squad has been completely wiped out this time."
"The fighting here was intense, and the signal flare went up quite some time ago."
"The Azure Cloud Sect's higher-ups must have noticed the attack on their territory."
"It won't be long before a patrol from the Law Enforcement Hall arrives."
"We're still within Azure Cloud Sect territory. It's extremely dangerous."
"Once the patrol arrives, it'll be difficult for us to escape."
"I beg you, young master, to order everyone to withdraw at once!"
Liao Jun raised his eyes toward the depths of the Azure Cloud Sect's mountain range and nodded.
"Withdraw."
"Order every hunting squad to leave Azure Cloud territory."
"During this round of infiltration and hunting, we ambushed them again and again."
"We killed more than thirty Azure Cloud Sect Outer Sect disciples."
"It wasn't a wasted trip."
More than thirty young disciples.
To the Azure Cloud Sect, it might not seem like many, but it was still a painful loss.
A sect's future depended on generation after generation of young disciples.
The corner of Liao Jun's mouth curled into a sinister smile.
"Next time."
"When the Magneto Secret Realm in Spirit Province opens and the younger generations of the five great sects gather inside,"
"we'll kill another batch."
His gaze grew colder. "For a hundred years, the righteous sects led by the Azure Cloud Sect have prided themselves on being upright and honorable."
"They suppress the Devil Dao, hunt down demonic cultivators, seize resources, and block the Devil Dao's path forward."
"Our Devil Dao Sects have been forced into silence for a hundred years, forced to endure for a hundred years."
"A hundred years of oppression, a hundred years of blockade."
"But times have changed."
"It's our turn to collect a little interest on that century-old debt."
"The more righteous disciples who die, the better."
"Let their younger generation be broken and their geniuses wither in droves."
"Within a hundred years, the five great righteous sects of Spirit Province are bound to decline!"
Every black-clad man beside him lowered his head, their eyes blazing with fervor.
After a hundred years of endurance, the tide of the Devil Dao's counterattack was about to begin.
Liao Jun gave the ravaged valley one last glance, then turned and swept his sleeve.
"Let's go."
The group swiftly erased every trace of their presence, darted away, and vanished into the dense mountain forests.
Azure Cloud Hall.
The atmosphere inside the hall was heavy and oppressive.
Sect Master Li Mofan sat in the seat of honor, his expression grave and his brows tightly furrowed.
The seats on either side of the hall were arranged in orderly rows.
The elders of the four great sects, along with the executive elders from the Law Enforcement Hall, Outer Sect Hall, Inner Sect Hall, and Resource Hall, were all present.
Every senior member had gathered. Not a single person was absent.
The hall was silent, and tension gripped everyone.
After a long while, Li Mofan slowly spoke, his voice low.
"Everyone."
"Recently, disciples of our sect who went out have gone missing, been attacked, or returned seriously wounded."
"At first, I thought it was just ordinary Rogue Cultivators robbing them, spirit beasts causing trouble in the mountains, or accidents caused by infighting among fellow disciples."
"I thought they were merely isolated incidents."
"Until just now, when the Law Enforcement Hall sent back its latest findings."
He paused.
Li Mofan swept his gaze across the hall, his tone suddenly turning heavier.
"Recently, those secretly hunting our disciples within Azure Cloud Sect territory"
"weren't bandit cultivators, and they weren't brigands."
"They were demonic cultivators from the Ghost Fire Sect."
A low commotion instantly swept through the hall.
Everyone's expression changed.
"The Ghost Fire Sect?!"
"Those sinister Devil Dao bastards?!"
"They actually dared to sneak into our Azure Cloud territory and attack us?!"