"All our fellow Daoists from the Setting Sun Sect have fallen?"
"That fiend Zhu Wuyan was actually so savage!"
"How did the Demonic Path learn the Setting Sun Sect's itinerary and set an ambush for them?"
Only after a long while did people finally begin speaking, one after another.
Some looked grim, others wore dark expressions, and still others showed shock and suspicion.
The four sects were supposed to carry out the mission together, yet before it had even begun, they had already lost an entire sect's cultivators.
This was a truly ill omen!
Wang Yu was wondering which members of the Setting Sun Sect had fallen, and whether anyone he knew was among them, when the Golden Cauldron Patriarch waved a hand and said:
"Whatever happened to the Setting Sun Sect, since you have made it here, this mission must proceed.
"As for Zhu Wuyan, a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator of the Demonic Path who dares run wild in Celestial River Prefecture, our Celestial River Three Sects will not let him leave alive. Fellow Daoist Kun of Sandless Valley has already taken action personally and is pursuing him.
"Now, everyone, follow me. I will tell you the details once we reach the mission site. To save time on the journey, I will take you there directly with my treasure artifact."
As soon as he finished speaking, golden light swirled between the burly man's brows, and a miniature golden cauldron flew out. It swayed in the wind and grew into a behemoth fifty or sixty feet across.
The giant cauldron hovered low in the air, its entire body gleaming gold. Raised inscriptions covered its surface, and with the slightest movement, they seemed to come alive, overlapping into an indistinct blur.
The burly man blurred and leaped straight into the giant