"Move!" Elder Ma and the other two, along with Yellow Dragon Taoist, unleashed their true essence and instantly soared from the middle of the river.
Although the enormous vortex's powerful suction dragged the three downward, they were Astral Force experts, after all. By burning through their true essence, they forcibly broke free of the river's surface.
But when they looked back, thunderous rumbling continued beneath the river behind them, with towering waves and mud and sand following close on their heels, as though intent on swallowing them whole. The three looked back to find the riverbank in ruins. In the blink of an eye, more than half the cultists assisting along the banks and on the river had been killed or injured. The underground palace was gradually buried beneath river water and sediment, sinking out of sight.
Still shaken, the three immediately realized that the so-called Southeast dragon vein was nothing but a fraud-or rather, a diversion.
A trap laid by Emperor Taizu more than five hundred years ago!
At that thought, the three felt their innards burn. With a retch, Yellow Dragon Taoist actually spat out a mouthful of blood. Compared with the other two, he faced a far greater crisis. The Nine-Palace Dragon-Locking Formation he had painstakingly laid out
had originally been intended to destroy the dragon eye of the dragon's lair and harvest its fortune. But who could have imagined that this was a fake dragon vein, and that even the dragon's lair had been artificially fabricated? There was no genuine fortune at all, so what dragon was there to lock down?
Now the magic formation's power rebounded upon him, leaving him badly injured.
"Fake! It's all fake!" A trace of madness and despair flashed through Yellow Dragon Taoist's eyes as he roared, **"This is no ancient