Inside the residence.
Cheng Heng stood with his head bowed in the center of the quiet chamber. With a grave expression, he told Lu Ding everything: how the Yu Clan had ambushed him in the wild mountains of Dengzhou, and how he was about to enter seclusion to break through to the Vajra-Force Realm.
It had begun when Yu Kun coveted the Spirit Transformation Art in his possession and brought in his clan's grand elder, Yu Cang, and Kang Yang, an unaffiliated Vajra-Force Realm cultivator, to cross into another prefecture and surround him.
Cheng Heng went on to recount how he had killed the two Vajra-Force Realm cultivators, slain Yu Kun to silence him, and returned to the sect, where Sect Leader Shi Songquan had chosen to endure the matter for now. He left nothing out.
The affair entangled the grudges of powerful clans across prefectural borders and the deaths of two Vajra-Force Realm cultivators. If word got out, disaster would follow.
But Lu Ding was different.
He was the only person in the entire Cloudpiercing Sect who knew Cheng Heng's secret: that he cultivated seven kinds of true qi at once.
When Cheng Heng had first entered the sect, Lu Ding had seen through the secret within his dantian. Yet he had not seemed to care at all!
By the time he heard the whole account, Lu Ding's resolute face had darkened, and a cold glint flashed through his eyes.
"The Yu Clan of Dengzhou relied on its foundations to bully the weak. Over a petty grudge held by one of its juniors, it dared cross prefectural borders to ambush a disciple and elder of my Cloudpiercing Sect. What arrogance. They truly think no one else matters."
Lu Ding's voice was low, carrying the authority of a man long