From the rear flank, True Lord Hundred Battles bared his teeth. "So if you deal with her, you'll become utterly alone?"
Yang Zhu actually did not deny it. "When Shangqing fell back then, who knew there was someone who thought the same as I did?"
Juduoluo and the others all felt it strongly: Yang Zhu's words were not directed at anyone present, nor was he talking to himself. Rather, he was expressing his stance to some existence deep within the void.
The three surrounding him exchanged glances again, then fell silent together.
At a time like this, there was no longer any need for them to overstep their authority over how to handle matters.
Sure enough, before silence could spread completely, someone in the void gave a soft sigh:
"Little Lord Yang's words deeply pleased me."
This voice had intruded suddenly. Upon hearing it, Juduoluo and the other two stood solemnly. "Patriarch!"
Yang Zhu slowly turned around. In the depths of the murky void, a figure gradually emerged from the darkness. He wore a long black robe, his hair gathered into a topknot and secured with a jade hairpin. His skin was pale and smooth, almost like jade, and the light stubble beneath his chin lent some mature, unrestrained bearing to what had otherwise been an excessively youthful face.
Both men remained fairly calm, yet when their gazes met, Juduoluo and the others discovered that their eyes were astonishingly alike. Both had deep, bottomless eyes, as though unfathomable vortices lay concealed within them.
In the end, Yang Zhu broke the increasingly bizarre atmosphere with a booming laugh:
"Xie Kangling, so you too have come to this day!"
"Little Lord Yang, you and I are much the same."
Yang Zhu's laughter stopped abruptly. He pointed back at himself. "You're speaking to