Yingzi and His Companions in Peril

The Li Lineage.

Li Xiao and the others returned from the White Tiger Sect. The moment they stepped off the flying shuttle, Li Kuangfeng shot Li Xiao a meaningful glance.

Li Xiao sighed and said helplessly, "Grandpa, I know. I promise I won't let anything slip."

Ever since they left the White Tiger Sect, Li Kuangfeng had given him a thorough tongue-lashing, saying that he had lost every last scrap of face.

On the way back to the Li Lineage, Li Kuangfeng had feared that Li Xiao would fail to keep his mouth shut and spread word of his affair with Nangong Meng throughout the lineage, so he had threatened Li Xiao again and warned him repeatedly, afraid that his reputation would be ruined in his later years.

"You dared to do it but won't admit it. What kind of man are you?" Li Xiao muttered under his breath.

"Greetings, Young Master."

The moment Li Xiao stepped through the entrance, a group of Li Lineage disciples hurried forward to salute him.

Li Xiao nodded, indicating that they could dispense with the formalities.

"Xiao'er, you're back." Li Yijian came forward to welcome him.

"Ancestor." Li Xiao saluted him.

Li Yijian gave Li Kuangfeng a meaningful look, then raised his eyebrows at Li Xiao and asked,

"Did you gain anything on this trip?"

Watching the ancestor's comical expression, Li Xiao chuckled inwardly.

The ancestor clearly knows something.

Then Li Xiao gave Li Yijian a look that said they both understood and replied with a perfectly straight face,

"Yes. How could the Li Lineage go out and return empty-handed?"

Empty-handed? Not a chance. We even stole someone away. That was quite a haul.

"Good, good." Li Yijian stroked his long beard and chuckled.

Li Xiao nodded, then glanced toward the Shadow Killing Pavilion and asked in puzzlement, "Where's Yingzi?"

It had not been long since he sent his voice transmission, but given Yingzi and the others' abilities, they should have returned by now. Why could he not sense their presence?

Beside him, a disciple stepped forward and answered, "Young Master, Yingzi went out and hasn't returned yet."

At those words, Li Xiao frowned, his heart sinking.

That shouldn't be. A mere young master of the Black Tortoise Sect, caught completely off guard-they should have succeeded. Did something unexpected happen?

At that thought, Li Xiao decided to visit the Black Tortoise Sect himself. He immediately said to Li Kuangfeng and the others beside him,

"Ancestor, Grandpa, I'm going to the Black Tortoise Sect. Yingzi and the others may have run into trouble."

Li Kuangfeng froze at his words, then understood.

On their way to the White Tiger Sect, they had heard from Li Dan that two people had blocked the road, costing the Li Lineage quite a few disciples. Now that Li Xiao mentioned this, had Yingzi been dispatched? To kill people at the Black Tortoise Sect? This grandson of his really did repay every grudge.

In all these years, he had never heard of the Four Symbols Sects being reduced to such a sorry state.

Li Kuangfeng suppressed his shock and said to Li Xiao, "Go, then. Be careful. A top-tier sect still has some deep reserves."

Li Xiao nodded in agreement, then tore open space and headed toward the Black Tortoise Sect.

At the same time.

Outside the Black Tortoise Sect, Yingzi led more than a dozen Shadow Killing Pavilion subordinates in another raid on the sect.

Their movements were uncanny. They struck in unison from behind the Black Tortoise Sect disciples, blades rising and falling as streams of blood gushed from the disciples' chests. The disciples had no power to resist; even as their pupils lost focus, they still did not know how they had died.

Once this was done, the Shadow Killing Pavilion members pushed deeper in and repeated the process. In a short time, fifty or sixty Black Tortoise Sect disciples lay in pools of blood.

The Black Tortoise Sect's forbidden grounds.

In the depths of a bottomless pool, a short old man with white hair and beard and a gleaming scalp lay quietly on the bottom.

The next moment, the old man's eyes snapped open. A column of water surged toward the surface like a tornado. Above the pool, the old man stood steadily on the water with a cane in hand, his clouded eyes piercingly sharp.

The outside world knew nothing yet of what had happened within the forbidden grounds.

Inside the Black Tortoise Sect, the Shadow Killing Pavilion members had just finished off another group of disciples when they suddenly heard a shout.

"Elders, it's them!"

The next moment, the Black Tortoise Sect elders rushed over at the shout. Their faces filled with fury at the sight of their disciples' corpses strewn across the ground.

"Kill them!"

Seeing the Black Tortoise Sect members bearing down on them, Yingzi's heart sank. He immediately barked to the Shadow Killing Pavilion members around him,

"Retreat, now!"

Damn it, we got greedy for kills this time. We should have left long ago. Reinforcements came too fast.

Yingzi and the others hurriedly tried to tear open space, intending to flee far away.

But when they acted, they found that no matter how they circulated their power, space did not ripple at all.

Yingzi's expression changed as a sense of danger welled up inside him. "We're done for. Space has been sealed. How is that possible?"

He discovered that the space all around the Black Tortoise Sect had been sealed. Not one of the dozens of Shadow Killing Pavilion members had managed to escape.

What exactly is going on? Shouldn't sealing space be an ability exclusive to the peak saint realm? Apart from the Young Master, could there be someone else in the Upper Realm at the peak saint realm?

At that thought, a bad feeling rose in Yingzi's heart.

While the Shadow Killing Pavilion members reeled in shock, the Black Tortoise Sect disciples and elders also seemed surprised by what had happened.

Xiao Zhen, the Black Tortoise Sect's sect master, looked around, seemingly thinking of something.

Joy rose in his heart, and he could hardly conceal the excitement on his face. The next moment, a screen of light enveloped the entire Black Tortoise Sect, and an enormous phantom of a black tortoise appeared within it.

"The f-first ancestor... It's the first ancestor!" Xiao Zhen, the Black Tortoise Sect's sect master, stared at the screen of light in disbelief, growing even more certain.