"..."
Ao Yu hid behind a broken, moss-covered stone pillar, instinctively covering her mouth.
Her throat shifted as she struggled to swallow, as though trying to gulp down the terror surging up within her.
Anyone who was not a fool would have known that the scene before her meant she had stumbled upon something momentous.
Yet alongside that terror,
an even greater bewilderment quietly rose from the depths of her heart.
If she had seen correctly,
was the man brutally murdering her cousin Ao Yu not Ao Shun, the Second Crown Prince of the West Sea Dragon Palace?!
Why had he appeared here, and why was he doing this?!
And those words he had just spoken...
The struggle for the Immortal Ranks. The victor became king; the defeated became outlaws.
Could there have been more to what happened back then?!
Had Ao Shun framed Ao Yu, and now come to kill him to silence him?
Watching Ao Yu's vitality dwindle as he hovered on the brink of death,
she quietly clenched her teeth, a flicker of conflict passing through her eyes.
Though her heart could not bear it and she wanted to rush out and do something, the sight of the Dragon Palace guards beside Ao Shun, their auras chilling and sinister, instantly brought her back to her senses.
I'm only in the Myriad-Forms Heaven Initial Realm. Bullying that useless cousin of mine is one thing... how could I possibly stand against these people?
I need to get back up first.
With that thought, she held her breath and silently rose, intending to slip away along the murky current.
But at that very moment,
an ugly face suddenly appeared before her.
"Croak!"
"What the-"
She cried out instinctively, then immediately covered her mouth again.
Damn it!
Sure enough,
in an