The Azure Wood Sect.
Atop that collapsed mountain peak.
Zhou Yongchang slowly withdrew the palm pressed against Xu Xuan's dantian.
That shell had now lost all its spiritual energy, its Dao foundation emptied.
Only a husk with a trace of lingering warmth remained, slumped limply on the ground.
The pitch-black rune in his palm, which had radiated an ominous devouring intent, had already vanished.
Zhou Yongchang closed his eyes in concentration, his aura rising and falling like the tides.
He carefully sensed the power newly merged into his body.
Although Xu Xuan had detonated his Dao foundation, before that, he had absorbed enough of its source essence.
An unprecedented sense of strength filled his limbs and bones, even stirring that firmly sealed gate to the Purple Mansion.
A look of almost intoxicated satisfaction could not help appearing on his face.
This feeling was even more wonderful than he had expected!
Yet his intoxication lasted only a few breaths.
His eyes snapped open, brilliant light bursting from them.
It was immediately replaced by a trace of startled suspicion and gloom.
His powerful divine sense swept across the entire Azure Wood Sect grounds like an invisible storm.
It even spread toward more distant territories!
"Something's wrong!"
Zhou Yongchang's expression abruptly darkened.
"Why has the Longevity Wood's aura vanished completely?!"
He searched again and again for that Innate Spiritual Root, the Longevity Wood, whose life was bound to his own.
Yet it seemed to have evaporated from the world, leaving not the slightest trace he could detect!
"What a junior! What a Xu Chen!"
Zhou Yongchang's hair and beard bristled slightly as anger erupted from him, making even the surrounding air grow still.
"To think that, even under the combined suppression of myself and the three patriarchs, you could hoodwink the heavens and