High above the valley, the wind and rain swirled into a vast hollow, showing the urgency of his approach. Then he stopped dead above the treetops ahead, holding his sword across himself as he warily surveyed the savage traces of battle.
His gaze slowly settled on the two standing opposite each other below.
Pei Ye looked up at that figure, and his heart sank heavily.
Blue robes, straw sandals, white hair, and an unsheathed sword in hand-the previous Sect Master of Kongtong, sixty-seventh on the Crane List, [Old Sword Forgets the Pine], Ji Changyun.
Three and a half double-hours earlier, on Sword-Belly Mountain, when no one could have imagined it, he had unleashed an all-out [Sword Sea Chapter] at the woman's back.
Even now, Pei Ye had had no time to consider the reasons behind it.
-If Ji Changyun stood with the Joy-in-Death Tower, he could never have uncovered those clues and truths, and Xi Tianji and Jiang Yitong would never have died at the rear cliff of the Law Enforcement Hall that day.
The last time he had seen Wu Dong and Sui Zaihua before they parted, the two officials had made it very clear: since Xiao Tingshu controlled Kongtong and colluded with the Joy-in-Death Tower, Ji Changyun, who had been shut out, was a powerful ally they could win over.
So when the woman had said he had appeared on Sword-Belly Mountain, Pei Ye had truly felt reassured.
Yet the reversal had caught him utterly unprepared.
Before he struck, he really had been on the verge of losing his life at those two men's hands.
Now he had thrown everything aside to pursue them here-then what of Lord Sui?
But now was no time to worry about others. Whatever twists lay behind it all, this old man already