Seven days.
When Lü Zheng returned covered in wounds, Su Che was not in the Hall of Spiritual Flourishing.
He had failed.
Things had gone smoothly at first. The instant Lü Zheng appeared, the Second Prince had clearly been stunned.
After all, rumors within the Longevity Sect placed Lü Zheng in a superposition of life and death.
Some said he was dead; others said that, bolstered by Yang Sui's secret art, he had come back to life.
But none of that mattered. Like a leopard pouncing upon its prey, Lü Zheng unleashed the self-taught fist technique he had grasped without a master, charged with furious rage.
Threads of faint, flickering Yin Fire mingled within the lightning. This terrifying Harmonizing Yin and Yang fist technique allowed Lü Zheng to seize the upper hand in an instant.
Yet Lü Zheng still lost.
The Second Prince was stronger than he had imagined, and two Divine Communion experts stood guard at the Second Prince's side.
When the Second Prince activated his protective artifact and the two Divine Communion experts each cast their spells...
The initiative Lü Zheng had seized lost its effect, and what followed was a bitter battle.
A bitter battle in the truest sense.
Lü Zheng lost an eye. A huge gash split open his chest and abdomen. One of his kidneys had been charred to cinders from the inside out by the enemy's devil fire. A bloody wound ran across his back, torn open by a toothed tentacle that had grown from his lung.
Half a lung, like a blood eagle spreading its wings, flew five or six steps before falling to the ground...
Lü Zheng had not come away empty-handed, either.
He shattered one Divine Communion guard's protective artifact, thrust two fingers deep into the man's mouth, and pulled up