The elderly sword cultivator was about to turn and move on when the young cultivator beside him suddenly pointed at his forehead and stammered, "M-Master..."
The elderly sword cultivator frowned at his disciple's terrified expression and snapped, "What sort of behavior is this? Speak plainly!"
"Master... there's black smoke on your forehead!"
The young sword cultivator had barely finished speaking when the elderly sword cultivator's expression changed, his gaze fixing blankly on the young cultivator's forehead.
A wisp of black thread resembling smoke rose from the young cultivator's forehead. It shifted constantly before finally condensing into the character for "cause."
As though suddenly sensing something, the elderly sword cultivator touched his own forehead but discovered nothing.
"Master... that black smoke on your forehead has turned into the character for 'cause'!" the young sword cultivator said in terror.
The elderly sword cultivator's face turned ashen. He had already guessed what the character on his own forehead looked like, because he saw the same character for "cause" on the foreheads of everyone in their party.
The disciples looked at one another, seeing the eerie character for "cause" on each other's foreheads, its color like Blue-Ink. An uncanny feeling crept into their hearts, and their bodies instantly turned ice-cold.
"Is this a curse?" one disciple asked nervously.
"I feel like it is, but I've never seen a curse like this!"
His face ashen, the elderly sword cultivator studied the characters for "cause" that had mysteriously appeared on his disciples' foreheads, frowning as he considered where they might have encountered something unclean.
"Master... could there have been something wrong with that damned place where we just retrieved the Holy Sect's relics?" one disciple speculated.
The others immediately found this reasonable. The Divine Realm was incredibly eerie!
The elderly sword cultivator probed for a while