His Majesty just left the palace in person, without telling anyone?
Zhou Xuancheng's hands clenched slightly within his wide sleeves, but his face showed no sign of anything amiss.
He snorted coldly, his expression indifferent, and said, "Gentlemen, do not make wild guesses. The elder has been in seclusion in the deep palace, cultivating in tranquility, and has never stepped out of the palace."
"What exactly happened in this desolate mountain? I myself sensed the unusual movements of heaven and earth and was ordered to come and investigate. I have no information to provide."
His seemingly impeccable words clearly failed to convince the crowd.
But at this critical juncture, no one dares to break ties with the royal family.
Just then, the Cangyun Sect elder standing beside the pile of rocks on the other side suddenly let out a low cry of surprise and uncertainty.
There's something here.
The Cangyun Sect expert bent down and carefully picked up a tattered, blood-stained piece of a pale blue Daoist robe from the scorched mud at the edge of the pit.
Upon seeing the familiar dark pattern on the fabric, the Cangyun Sect elder's fingers trembled violently, and his eyes instantly filled with blood. "This is... a fragment of Elder Chen Xuanhai's personal Daoist robe!"
"Elder Chen's life tablet... suddenly shattered at the camp just now!"
boom!
The moment these words were spoken, the atmosphere in the room froze.
Chen Xuanhai is dead?
A powerful elder of the Cangyun Sect, holding a position at the Divine Sea Realm Sixth Layer, was actually killed in this desolate mountain!
Before anyone could recover from this shocking news...
Standing at the back, Puppet Sect Elder Qi Yuanshan's body suddenly stiffened like iron.
His gaze was fixed on a thin, dark thread half-buried in the gravel and mud.
That is...
Specially made extremely yin-type silk.
Moreover, on that broken thread, there was an inscription of dark green snake-shaped characters unique to Han Kui's own life-refining technique.
Qi Yuanshan's mind went blank instantly.
Han Kui!
Half an hour ago, Han Kui confidently assured the Holy Son that he would leave the city, kill Chu Yunfei who had left the palace alone, and return with his head to report back.
But now...
Not only did an epic battle erupt here Late Divine Sea Realm, but even Chen Xuanhai, Divine Sea Realm Sixth Layer, perished here.
Han Kui's personal puppet threads broke here.
Where is Han Kui?
What about that indestructible, poisonous corpse war puppet that he had painstakingly built up over decades?
Qi Yuanshan felt as if his heart was being gripped tightly by an invisible hand, and an indescribable chill shot up his spine to the top of his head.
Han Kui failed.
Not only did they fail, but nine times out of ten they were completely annihilated, leaving no trace of their bodies.
But how is that possible?!
Chu Yunfei was merely a young junior at the Heavenly Origin Realm. Even if he possessed some unorthodox methods, it was impossible for him to kill Han Kui and Chen Xuanhai simultaneously.
The only explanation...
Qi Yuanshan suddenly raised his head, his originally sinister eyes instantly turning bloodshot as he stared intently at Zhou Xuancheng, the royal retainer.
Bureau.
This is a trap.
It was a deadly trap set up by the Great Qian Imperial Family specifically for the Cangyun Sect and the Puppet Sect.
No wonder Chu Yunfei dared to swagger out of the east gate of the palace alone at this time.
No wonder there were no royal attendants following him.
It was all bait.
It was the Great Qian Imperial Family that secretly dispatched experts who controlled the Imperial Dao Dragon Qi, and even the clan elder Ling Changkong himself was secretly protecting them. Using Chu Yunfei as bait, they ruthlessly suppressed and killed the two sect elders who had chased them out of the city.
"Such ruthless methods... what a magnificent Great Qian Imperial Family!"
Qi Yuanshan roared madly in his heart, his face contorted with extreme anger and fear.
He gritted his teeth and swallowed the blood back down, managing not to have an attack on the spot.
Don't act impulsively.
Han Kui is dead, and the war puppets have been destroyed. If they were to break ties with the royal family here, their Puppet Sect might not even be able to leave the capital.
The night wind howled, stirring up clouds of charred dust.
On this desolate and lifeless ruin, several powerful cultivators at the Divine Sea Realm from various sects looked at each other, each with their own thoughts.
But in everyone's eyes, there surged an undisguised turmoil and a chilling cold.
Chen Xuanhai has fallen.
The Imperial Dao Dragon Qi of the Great Qian Imperial Family suddenly appeared in the wilderness.
This series of unexpected events was like a scalding boulder crashing into the already turbulent surface of the imperial city.
With the Seven Sects Grand Competition just around the corner, the world of the Great Qian Imperial City is about to be turned upside down...
The white-robed elder of the Heavenly Sword Sect took a deep breath, no longer intending to linger. He flipped his hand and took out a communication jade talisman engraved with the sect's top-secret mark, murmuring softly:
"Something terrible has happened... We must report to the sect leader immediately."
The next moment, several figures at the Divine Sea Realm, each with their own ulterior motives, soared into the air, filled with shock and unease, and frantically rushed back towards the imperial city.
at the same time.
The deep palace of the Great Qian, a dark and forbidden place.
A blood-stained figure in black robes staggered and fell from the void; it was none other than Ling Zhantian of death.
Instead of returning to the imperial palace, he used the royal white jade token to pass through nine layers of killing formations and silently escape into the forbidden ancient cave deep within the imperial palace.
The interior of the cave is a completely different world, so vast that it seems to have no boundaries.
Six towering stone pillars, each a hundred feet tall, stood around the perimeter, their surfaces covered with dense, blood-red runes.
Those runes were not static.
They wriggled slowly with the surging magma, like countless tiny bloodworms crawling along the stone pillar.
Below the cave, crimson magma churned endlessly, and waves of scorching heat rushed towards us one after another.
In the center of the magma, a pitch-black stone platform floats above the sea of fire.
On the stone platform, a colossal, mountain-like monster was fast asleep.
Its entire body was covered in crimson scales, its mane resembled a burning fire, and every rise and fall of its chest caused the surrounding magma to tremble slightly.
That is the guardian spirit beast of the Great Qian Imperial Family, the Crimson Flame Berserk Lion.
Ling Zhantian didn't even glance at it.
"Puff!"
The sword intent, suppressed for so long, finally broke through the blockade.
Ling Zhantian tilted his head back and spat out a mouthful of black blood, mixed with shattered internal organs. When it fell to the ground, it corroded the hard rock, leaving a charred mark.
His body swayed a few times before he collapsed heavily against the rock wall.
His robes were completely soaked in blood, and the gruesome sword wound on his chest continued to bleed.
This emperor, who ruled over the entire territory of the Great Qian Dynasty, was now barely alive.
If he hadn't used the Great Qian Dynasty's fortune to withstand most of the Great Qian energy at the last moment, and hadn't forcibly escaped with the Ancient Great Teleportation Talisman, he, the dignified Emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty, would have fallen to the sword of that ant in the Heavenly Origin Realm today.
"That damned little beast... how can he possess such terrifying power..."
Ling Zhantian's face was contorted, his eyes filled with resentment and lingering fear. Trembling, he pulled out two crystal-clear sixth-grade life-saving golden pills from his robes and wolfed them down.
Buzz.
Just as the medicinal effects began to take hold, a slight ripple appeared in the shadows of the cave.
A hunched figure stepped out silently.
It was none other than Ling Changkong, an elder of the royal family.
When Ling Changkong saw Ling Zhantian lying paralyzed in a Ling Zhantian of blood, his weathered old eyes widened suddenly, and his expression changed drastically.
" Zhantian? How did you get injured like this?!"
Ling Changkong took a step forward and instantly pressed his withered hand against Ling Zhantian's back.
With just one probe, Ling Changkong's hand trembled violently.
His meridians were shattered, his qi and blood were nearly depleted, and even his soul suffered a terrible injury once again.
These horrific injuries are several times more severe than those sustained in the battle against the Blood Baleful Intent Tower twenty years ago.
"What exactly happened?" Ling Changkong asked in a trembling voice.
Ling Zhantian remained silent, breathing heavily.
Ling Changkong's heart skipped a beat, as if he had thought of something, and his face instantly darkened:
"The extraordinary phenomenon that shook the city just now... was it your doing?"
"You went out of the city to find Chu Yunfei?"
Ling Zhantian's eyes flickered for a moment, then he gritted his teeth and nodded.
Ling Changkong's body trembled slightly, a mixture of anger and undisguised sorrow.
"You... you really did it to him?!"
" Zhantian, you're so foolish!"
Ling Changkong gripped his shoulders tightly, demanding sharply, "Where is he? Did you kill him?"
Upon hearing this, Ling Zhantian's lips twitched violently, his chest heaving with an overwhelming sense of humiliation that nearly caused him to vomit blood again.
He took a deep breath, his face grim.
"He... got away."
"That little beast... possesses a heaven-defying secret technique, which forcibly boosted his combat strength to the Divine Sea Realm Eighth Level... I was careless for a moment and almost fell to his sword."
Ling Zhantian ultimately didn't dare reveal the truth: he had used an ancestral life-saving talisman to escape with his life.
Even so, these words still struck Ling Changkong like a bolt from the blue.