"Bianxuan, it's you!" Cao Yiyan's face turned livid.
Back when he had been in the capital, he had shared a tacit understanding with the Brahma Sect and even received considerable support from them. He had never imagined that, in the end, it would be Bianxuan of that very sect who intercepted him.
"Bianxuan, your master and I have quite a friendship. Are you now determined to forge a mortal feud with me and the Kingdom of Ying?" Cao Yiyan said gravely. "I still have a hundred thousand troops. The situation has not yet reached that point..."
"Benefactor Cao, say no more." Bianxuan gave a long sigh. "At this point, your brazen uprising has plunged living beings into misery and brought disaster upon well over a million common people. You have become an irreconcilable enemy of Great Zheng."
"Of your former friends, who with any conscience would not sever ties with you?"
"Even setting Great Zheng aside, for the sake of the people under heaven, our Brahma Sect cannot let you leave... Have I made myself clear enough?"
"You scoundrel!" Cao Yiyan shrieked.
"Young Master Cao, secret passages are useful, but they have one fatal weakness: they extend only a few miles, at most reaching a short distance beyond the city." Bianxuan did not grow angry. He merely sighed.
"By imperial decree, a hundred thousand troops have gathered outside the capital, dividing the area along the walls into search sectors. There are countless agents and sentries. Their hunt will miss nothing. Even without us, do you realize you would be discovered, surrounded, and killed within a few miles?"
At these words, Cao Yiyan's face went deathly pale. He knew something of Daoist arts, too, and when he looked around, he saw the armies' baleful aura layered upon layer, enclosing him like