Chapter 41

Fu Hong, who had once again been completely ignored by the two beside him: "..."

The two interacted as though no one else were there. Sitting cross-legged, Fu Hong looked dazed, feeling like nothing more than a superfluous patch of air.

As they neared the altar, Yin Fan put away the Blazing Cold Sword, and the three concealed their auras as they approached.

They had little choice. If he and Yin Fan appeared directly before Cang Xiao and the others, a fight would likely break out immediately, which was not their purpose.

"This altar??"

Wu Fei and Yin Fan froze at the sight of the altar. They exchanged a glance, each understanding what the other was thinking.

Wasn't the enormous altar surrounded by the righteous sect leaders and the Devil Domain's other three Devil Venerables the very one they had seen beneath the whirlpool?

The altar's peculiar engraved patterns, the thick, imposing stone pillars at its four corners, and the reliefs of divine and ferocious beasts upon them were all exactly the same as what they had seen before.

A trace of gravity entered Wu Fei's eyes. He examined it closely, his gaze suddenly stopping on the altar's steps. Slowly shaking his head, he said, "It's not the same one. The altar deep beneath the sea had nine steps, but this one only has seven..."

But there had to be some connection between the two altars.

At his words, Yin Fan suddenly remembered that when they had left the altar that day, Wu Fei had walked down, while he had jumped straight off, paying no attention whatsoever to how many steps there were...

Keenly detecting something amiss in Wu Fei's expression, he asked, "Senior Brother, have you noticed something?"

Wu Fei gazed at the altar, his tone somewhat grave. "This altar seems to conceal a dangerous and eerie aura. Merely standing here is already making my Exquisite Heart extremely uncomfortable."

The Exquisite Heart was utterly pure and untainted, and most sensitive to evil auras.

The ghostly energy in the inheritance tomb and the gray mist in the mysterious space beneath the ancestral hall had both made Wu Fei's Exquisite Heart uncomfortable, but the aura concealed within the altar before him surpassed both.

"Let's wait and see for now," Wu Fei said, his brows slightly furrowed and his expression indescribably grave.

The various sect leaders stood before the altar, while the Devil Domain's three Devil Venerables stood apart on its other side.

And the most suspicious person present was the female disciple standing beside Cang Xiao-none other than Liu Yuexuan, just as Wu Fei and Yin Fan had previously suspected.

Wu Fei pondered inwardly. It seemed highly likely that this matter with the altar was connected to Liu Yuexuan.

Ever since they had emerged from the inheritance tomb, everything Liu Yuexuan did had carried a sense of strangeness. For instance, when she tampered with Yin Fan's Dao Comprehension Tea, how had she known that drinking it would expose his identity as a Devil Cultivator?

"Junior Brother Jing, you've been fellow disciples with Liu Yuexuan for years. Have you noticed any differences between her now and before?" Wu Fei asked, looking at Yin Fan.

The Liu Yuexuan before them was not only different from the one Wu Fei had previously seen, but also completely different from the blackened Liu Yuexuan in the book.

Yin Fan narrowed his eyes slightly and thought for a moment. "Her temperament has changed drastically. It's almost as though she's become a different person."

Just then, there was movement by the altar. After saying something to Cang Xiao, Liu Yuexuan approached the altar holding a gourd-shaped Spirit Artifact.

Everyone watched intently.

The gourd opened, and dense blood qi suddenly spread out, even forming phantom images of Demon Beasts above Liu Yuexuan as she held it.

"What's in that gourd?" Yin Fan frowned.

"The essence blood of ninety-nine kinds of ferocious beasts." Watching those phantom images, Wu Fei felt his ominous premonition grow ever stronger. With a slight movement of his hand, he summoned the Silent Dust Pearl.

The essence blood of ninety-nine kinds of ferocious beasts clearly could not have been gathered in a short time. Rather, it seemed to have been planned long ago.

Like the altar Wu Fei and Yin Fan had fallen onto, this altar also had a shallow depression in its center, and peculiar patterns were carved across its entire surface.

Just as Liu Yuexuan was about to pour out the essence blood, a voice suddenly interrupted him.

"Sect Leader Cang, shouldn't you explain to us exactly what this altar can summon?" the Blood-Sealing Devil Venerable, who governed the Southern Domain among the Devil Domain's four Devil Venerables, suddenly asked.

"What if this is your scheme, and you intend to catch all of us Devil Cultivators in one net once the altar is activated..."

Cang Xiao said, "How could we righteous cultivators do such a thing?"

The Blood-Sealing Devil Venerable sneered. "Who knows? You can even stand by and watch others massacre a city!"

"You..." One hot-tempered sect leader stepped forward, only to be stopped by Cang Xiao.

Cang Xiao said, "We stand here for the same purpose: to eliminate Yin Fan. Others may not understand the prophecy of the Heavenly Secrets Fate Disc, but you Devil Venerables should know its significance well."

The Heavenly Secrets Fate Disc's prophecy?

Wu Fei's gaze gradually darkened. In the original novel, the Heavenly Secrets Fate Disc had only ever produced one prophecy. Yet from what Cang Xiao was saying now, it had actually produced a new one...

As for Yin Fan, whom they were discussing eliminating, his eyes held mockery, and the devil qi around him was poised to erupt.

At the mention of the Heavenly Secrets Fate Disc, the Blood-Sealing Devil Venerable's expression also changed. "In that case, why leave something as important as activating the altar to a Golden Core Stage junior?"

"Devil Venerable, you may not know this, but this disciple of our Heavenly Sword Sect was the one who discovered the altar, and only she knows how to activate it," Cang Xiao explained.

Only then did Blood-Sealing and the other Devil Venerables let the matter rest.

At Cang Xiao's signal, Liu Yuexuan resumed what she had been interrupted doing.

Accompanied by waves of beastly roars, essence blood gurgled out of the gourd and fell into the altar's center. It slowly spread along the peculiar patterns, which lit up with blood-red light.

Listening to the unwilling, resentful roars of the phantom images, Wu Fei could not help frowning.

Yin Fan said, "This essence blood seems filled with resentment..."

Whatever was summoned by an altar activated with essence blood like this...

At this sight, the other sect leaders finally noticed something amiss as well and felt deeply uneasy. Someone asked Cang Xiao, "Sect Leader Cang, just what does this altar summon?"

They only knew that the Heavenly Secrets Fate Disc had produced a new prophecy, not its specific contents.

"The Heavenly Secrets Fate Disc has given a new prophecy." Cang Xiao swept his gaze over everyone. "Yin Fan's fall to the devil path stems from his unstable Dao heart. He is defying heaven and must be eliminated as soon as possible, or he will bring about a catastrophe that overturns the cultivation world. What this altar summons is something capable of suppressing him."