You Can Die Now

"This concludes the auction. All items will be delivered shortly!"

At last, the thrilling auction, with all its twists and turns, came to an end. The chief steward bowed and withdrew backstage.

After collecting his Simu Suppression Furnace and spirit fire crystal core, Ling Yun did not linger. He turned and left the Heavenly Treasure Tower.

The crowds that had packed the area outside the Heavenly Treasure Tower had thinned considerably.

Moving like a phantom, Ling Yun wound his way toward a less crowded area. A cold light flashed in his eyes as he sensed a faint, concealed presence following him.

"Someone really did follow me."

Though Ling Yun moved like a ghost, he made no deliberate effort to conceal his presence. Naturally, he had done so on purpose.

"Is this how it goes? Kill a man and seize his treasures?"

He snorted inwardly and slowly came to a stop.

Looking around, Ling Yun folded his arms across his chest and said calmly, "You've followed me for so long. You can come out now, can't you?"

His tone betrayed no emotion as he waited quietly. But the person hiding in the shadows still did not appear, leaving Ling Yun somewhat helpless.

"Since you won't come out, don't blame me for showing no mercy."

Ling Yun sneered, and his divine sense spread in all directions like a tide, instantly leaving everything hidden in the shadows with nowhere to hide.

Suddenly, he turned around and fixed his eyes on one spot.

The next moment, pale sword light leaped forth and slashed at a patch of empty space. A disheveled figure was forced out, hastily dodging the sword light.

"It's you?"

Looking at the woman who had revealed herself, Ling Yun was a little surprised, yet he also found it understandable.

Indeed, the person secretly following Ling Yun was none other than Jiang Lian, who had competed with him at the auction!

Forced to reveal herself, Jiang Lian wore an icy expression, her eyes seemingly steeped in poison as she glared at Ling Yun.

"Hand over the Simu Suppression Furnace and the Crimson Gold Spirit Fire, and I'll spare your life," Jiang Lian said in a chilling tone.

Ling Yun shook his head and said mockingly, "After losing a fair contest of wealth at the auction, would a renowned alchemist of Myriad Phenomena City really resort to such methods?"

Remembering how Jiang Lian had suddenly stopped bidding at the end, what was there for Ling Yun not to understand? She simply wanted to kill him and seize his treasures. That way, she could obtain auction items worth hundreds of thousands of spirit stones without spending a single cent.

"Auntie, aren't you getting ahead of yourself?"

Ling Yun drove the knife in without mercy.

"I'm not joking with you. If you don't hand them over willingly, tonight will be the day you die."

Jiang Lian shook her head mockingly, no longer showing any of the integrity of a top alchemist.

As expected, on the path of cultivation, taking others' possessions and killing them is all too common.

Ling Yun thought, unwilling to waste any more words on Jiang Lian.

"Hmm? No wonder. You're waiting for someone."

Suddenly, Ling Yun sensed several unfamiliar presences approaching him. Within a few breaths, they had surrounded him.

Ling Yun's expression turned cold, and his gaze toward Jiang Lian filled with intense killing intent.

Looking at the surrounded Ling Yun, Jiang Lian wore an expression of pure satisfaction. "You snatched two of my treasures. Let's see how you escape now."

Ling Yun could not be bothered to look at her, instead turning his attention to the newcomers.

Three men and one woman. Together with Jiang Lian, they were all at Core Formation Realm Perfection!

"Senior sister, is the Crimson Gold Spirit Fire you mentioned in his hands?" a bald man among the four asked.

Jiang Lian nodded slightly. "Of course I wouldn't lie to you. I originally planned to buy it at the auction myself, but he snatched it from under my nose."

"Hehehe..." The other woman could not help laughing, her affected, coquettish manner making Ling Yun's eyes sting and filling him with disgust.

"Hey, you rat hiding your head and showing your tail, you're about to die. Aren't you going to take off that big black robe and feel the evening breeze of this world one last time?"

The affected woman called out to Ling Yun.

"Enough. Too much nonsense. Hurry up and get the Crimson Gold Spirit Fire. Even though it's a spirit fire that has lost its origin, I'm sure Master will be very interested in it," another person said.

"Then, senior sister, you can use it to atone for your crime and return to the sect with us. Master will forgive you too."

He was speaking to Jiang Lian.

Jiang Lian's face filled with excitement when she heard this, and her body could not help trembling.

Her eyes burned as she stared at Ling Yun. "You can die now..."

In an instant, the five Core Formation Realm Perfection experts attacked Ling Yun with fierce force, divine abilities and spells raining down one after another.

In their eyes, no matter how heaven-defying Ling Yun's power was, he could not escape death!

"Heh, yes-you can die now."

Facing the inescapable attacks that sealed heaven and locked down earth, Ling Yun's expression did not change. He raised his hand slightly, and a palm imprint condensed entirely from dense Spiritual Yuan shot forth with a roar.

The palm imprint was not a divine ability, but it was even more terrifying than theirs. Explosions thundered out, while Ling Yun, protected by Spiritual Yuan, remained as unmoving as a mountain.

Jiang Lian and the others' divine abilities, meanwhile, completely dissipated, failing to affect Ling Yun in the slightest!

"Uh..."

Jiang Lian's scalp went numb, and a deathly stillness filled her heart.

"What the hell!"

The others could not help roaring.

"Time to be on your way."

Ling Yun's black robe billowed around him. Like a death god come to claim their lives, he spoke in a mild voice.

Their pupils contracted sharply, and almost in the next instant, they fled in five different directions without a moment's hesitation.

A spiritual light flashed in Ling Yun's hand. The Three-Inch Flying Immortal danced around his arm, then transformed into five streaks of pale sword light and flew away.

"Exactly five flying swords, one life for each sword!"

Ling Yun counted in his head. Soon, scream after scream rang out unexpectedly in the night from far away.

Clang-

Before long, the Three-Inch Flying Immortal returned. Not a drop of blood stained the five flying swords, but a fierce killing intent still lingered on them.

That was the presence left on the flying swords after they had killed!

Ling Yun's expression remained unchanged. He put away the Three-Inch Flying Immortal, then went to harvest the battlefield one by one.

Before long, Ling Yun had burned the five corpses to ashes with Fire Serpent Talismans. All that remained were five storage rings radiating spiritual light, which he clutched in his hand.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. A bit stupid, weren't you? If you're not absolutely sure, don't attack an ordinary-looking stranger, all right?"

In a good mood, Ling Yun grumbled, then vanished into the night.

Not long afterward, Myriad Phenomena City's guards arrived at the scene of the battle. Seeing that the surroundings had been reduced to ruins, they frowned deeply.

"How are they getting more and more brazen? We've said it already: fighting is forbidden on the streets of Myriad Phenomena City!"

The captain of the guards shouted angrily.

Ling Yun returned all the way to the Royal Mausoleum.

After a day of preparations, the pill furnace and the various spirit herbs for practice were ready.

But he did not begin immediately. Instead, he looked at the five rings he had just obtained.

With their owners dead, most of the ownership restrictions on the five rings had dissipated. Ling Yun forcibly erased their marks without the slightest effort.

"The Pill Empyrean Sect?"

Ling Yun sent his divine sense into one of the storage rings, and a token immediately caught his attention.

"Is this... an identity token of the Pill Empyrean Sect, one of the five great powers of the Eastern Desolation?"

For a moment, Ling Yun was somewhat dumbstruck.

"I didn't expect to have killed more members of the five great powers. This won't draw out another old fellow at the Primordial Spirit Realm, will it?"

For the moment, Ling Yun was glad he had been meticulous.

"Hmm, they didn't have any life-saving trump cards given to them by someone at the Primordial Spirit Realm. Their master probably didn't dote on them enough. Forget it, they can't trace it back to me anyway."

Ling Yun thought no more about it and destroyed all five of their identity tokens to prevent any accidents.

Then he began counting their possessions.

"Jiang Lian's goes without saying. She had over a hundred thousand spirit stones and a demonic beast egg."

Ling Yun had little interest in the demonic beast egg and turned his attention to the remaining rings.

"Each one's richer than the last."

A moment later, Ling Yun let out a deep sigh.

The five of them had over a million spirit stones between them! That was even more than he had earned selling talismans.

"As expected of disciples and members of a great power."

Ling Yun showed no restraint, transferring them all into his own storage ring. The savings he had just spent were instantly replenished.

Then he discovered another special item.

"A half-damaged jade pendant?"

Ling Yun picked up a jade pendant with only half of it remaining and examined it carefully under the moonlight.

"Dong... Li?"

Ling Yun studied it closely before finally making out the half-missing characters on the jade pendant.

"What a wondrous presence..."

Ling Yun sensed the warm, lustrous glow emanating from the ordinary-looking jade pendant and felt somewhat surprised.

After studying it for a long time without making anything of it, he gave up rather than waste more time and plunged headfirst into the ocean of alchemy.