The Taotie giant shadow's enormous maw, which had been about to bite into Qing Chen's pseudo-domain, suddenly snapped shut, and it turned toward the farther reaches of the Northwestern Circuit.
That was the direction of Hezhou in the Northwestern Circuit, the Taotie Yuan-Devouring Sect's headquarters, where the sect had sealed the Foreign Race Heavenly Gate wonder.
Zhu Ritian's gaze abruptly deepened.
Almost at the same moment, Qing Chen also turned toward the rising black light, surprise in his eyes.
He had not arranged that, but the aura of those fluctuations shared the same origin as Zhu Ritian's devouring rules domain.
Zhu Ritian's gaze snapped back to Qing Chen's face. His divine sense seemed intent on seeing straight through Qing Chen, from his flesh to his divine soul. It did not seem to be this man's scheme either.
Yet precisely because of this, genuine killing intent appeared in Zhu Ritian's eyes.
Someone must have set this up.
Someone had used Faneng Temple, Xue Wuming, and Qing Chen's cutting edge to draw him out of the Taotie Yuan-Devouring Sect's mountain headquarters in Hezhou.
This was a strategy to lure the tiger away from the mountain.
From Xue Wuming being publicly subdued by Qing Chen, to his own arrival at Faneng Temple's Snow Valley, to the fluctuations from the Taotie Foreign Race Heavenly Gate now-every juncture fit together far too neatly!
So neatly that it seemed a hidden hand in the shadows had long since calculated everyone's disposition.
They had calculated that Xue Wuming would not swallow this humiliation, and that he, Zhu Ritian, would protect his own.
They had also calculated that someone like Qing Chen would inevitably make the greatest possible uproar over Faneng Temple, and had therefore fanned the waves.
A thousand thoughts raced through Zhu Ritian's mind, and he