Who Should We Send?

"Fine, fine, you're always right. Then let's not investigate anymore, let's all go home and wait for the Annihilation Immortal to make a comeback!" Yun Qianxin's friend got annoyed and flung her sleeves, saying angrily.

"Hey, why are you being so unreasonable?"

"Where did I go wrong? I was just doing what you said, so how did I become unreasonable? Then explain it to me!"

"Isn't that just being unreasonable? You argue with me when I speak, and you don't answer my questions but just throw tantrums. Can't you be reasonable?"

"I'm throwing a tantrum? You're the one deliberately provoking me!"

"I started this? I..."

What started as a discussion quickly devolved into an argument between the two.

Lu Xunfeng felt a headache coming on and exchanged bewildered glances with the other cultivators.

Yun Qianxin quickly spoke up to stop them, saying, "You two shouldn't let this ruin your relationship. Let's discuss it carefully together and try to reach a consensus."

Lu Xunfeng rubbed his temples and said helplessly, "Everyone, I just said I would send people to investigate one by one, not that I would send disciples from each family. Don't be in such a hurry."

Upon hearing this, everyone turned to look at him, their faces filled with confusion.

"Who should we send?" someone asked.

Lu Xunfeng glanced at everyone present, but remained silent.

After a moment of silence, the crowd's gazes shifted from confusion to doubt, finally settling on a somewhat uncertain point as they pointed to themselves. "... Us?"

Lu Xunfeng remained silent, his gaze sweeping over them one by one.

Yun Qianxin then said, "I think Fellow Daoist Lu's suggestion is good. It's much safer for us to investigate ourselves than to send our disciples or followers. Moreover, we know more about the Qi of Execution Qi than they do, and we know what to investigate and how to investigate it. In every respect, it's more useful for us to go ourselves than to send others."

"That's true..." Some hesitated, "But I've recently felt like I'm about to break through to the mid-stage, and I was planning to go into seclusion... Who knows how long it will take to investigate this matter, and who knows how many follow-ups there will be after we find out..."

At this moment, Lu Xunfeng sighed and said, "Fellow Daoist Liang, do you still remember what your sect's tradition says?"

The Fellow Daoist Liang had spoken earlier also sighed helplessly, "Of course I remember, but, alas, I... alas! Never mind! Fellow Daoist Lu, let's do as you say, I have no objections."

"Does anyone have any other opinions?" Lu Xunfeng looked around, his gaze deep.

Although some of the others looked troubled and others appeared conflicted, none of them uttered any further objections.

Seeing this, Lu Xunfeng nodded and said earnestly, "It seems that none of you have forgotten the ancestral teachings of your respective lineages. I know that you all have your own difficulties, but now that the Annihilation Immortal has reappeared in the world, this is not just anyone's matter, but a major event for all of us spiritual cultivators! We have been blessed by the Heavenly Dao and have cultivated to our current level, which can be said to be a source of pride for the human race. Now that we are facing such a major crisis, we should naturally step forward. Otherwise, if one day the Annihilation Immortal gains complete power and all spiritual cultivators face annihilation, can we be spared? Or are you all confident that you can attain enlightenment and ascend to immortality before then?"

Upon hearing this, everyone fell silent again.

"What Fellow Daoist Lu says is quite right," Gongsun Jingge said.

Yun Qianxin then spoke up, making the final decision. "Since that's the case, and everyone has no objections, then this matter is settled. I will now give you the target's location. Please stay in touch, and I will update the location as needed."

"Okay, let's do it that way."

Having accepted the result, everyone agreed and set off in several different directions given by Yun Qianxin.

Those who hadn't yet obtained the new location waited in place for Yun Qianxin's instructions.

Two hours later, as dawn broke, the clouds above had descended to a very low altitude, no more than a thousand meters above the ground.

Only Lu Xunfeng, Yun Qianxin, and Gongsun Jingge remained Cloud Gathering City.

As the three were waiting for a new location to appear, a shocked and furious voice drifted from the distant horizon.

"Who destroyed my city?!"

The visitor was Duan Weixue, the city lord of Cloud Gathering City.

The Cloud Gathering City's protective array was a high-level, ancestral defensive array passed down through his Duan Household. It was an array that had absorbed his bloodline and recognized him as its master! Heaven knows how shocked he was when he was awakened from his seclusion by the sensation of the protective array being forcibly broken!

You must know that the strength of that city-protecting formation is so great that even a Void Return cultivator would find it difficult to budge it in the slightest. It would take dozens of powerful Void Return cultivators, under the meticulous research of a high-level formation master, to relentlessly and frantically attack the formation for several hours to achieve that!

How could that be!

No matter how unbelievable it seemed, the feeling that the great formation had been broken was very clear, leaving him no choice but to believe it. So he immediately ended his seclusion and left his cave abode to rush to Cloud Gathering City.

However, due to his excessive trust in the city's protective formation that had never had any problems, he only considered whether the location of his cave abode suited his own taste and never took into account the distance. As a result, he accidentally chose a cave abode that was too far away, and thus the journey took him quite a while.

All the way there, he was filled with nothing but frustration. Why did he choose such a faraway cave abode? He hadn't even told anyone the address! He'd even blocked all communications during his seclusion, completely activating the "Do Not Disturb" mode!

On the distant horizon, Lu Xunfeng and his companions saw Duan Weixue, dressed in a snow-white robe and wearing a Duan Weixue crown, rushing angrily toward them. In the blink of an eye, she arrived Cloud Gathering City.

When Duan Weixue witnessed the devastation of Cloud Gathering City, where not a single brick of the city wall remained, he collapsed to the ground, wailing, "My city! The city my great-grandfather passed down to me—wailing—"

This action left Lu Xunfeng and the other two looking at each other in bewilderment.

Yun Qianxin stepped forward and offered words of comfort, "Fellow Daoist Duan, please accept my condolences..."

Duan Weixue wiped her wet eyes with her sleeve, stood up, and looked at Yun Qianxin with a sorrowful expression. "Fellow Daoist Yun, can you tell me what exactly happened in Cloud Gathering City? Who broke the city's protective formation? Breaking the formation is one thing, but they also razed my Cloud Gathering City to the ground. What grudge do they hold against me? I've been in seclusion for so many years, what did I do to deserve this? Even a blood feud from past lives couldn't be greater than this..."

Lu Xunfeng, standing to the side, thought for a moment and realized that it wasn't entirely wrong to say they had a blood feud spanning lifetimes. After all, weren't they, the spiritual cultivators, and the Annihilation Immortal a blood feud spanning lifetimes?

Yun Qianxin opened her mouth, then closed it again. This was really a difficult thing to say; if she didn't say it properly, they might start fighting. As fellow Void Returning Realm, she wasn't confident she could stop Duan Weixue immediately.

Lu Xunfeng pretended to admire the scenery without making a sound.

Wow, what a rare sight this is – an endless expanse of sky, low-hanging clouds, lightning, Cloud Burst!

Seeing Duan Weixue turned to Gongsun Jingge, whom she knew better, and asked, "Brother Jingge, could you tell me the truth?"