Chapter 83

In front of the ancestral hall of the Teruno sect.

A chilling, black aura seeped out from the cracks in the bricks, crawled along the ground over the stone steps, and then coiled up the pillars of the corridor.

Several disciples' ankles were covered in a layer of black, their legs went numb, and they fell to the ground on the spot.

A fellow disciple tried to drag someone away, but as soon as his hand touched the sleeve, black energy began to rise from his fingertips.

"Don't touch it, use your vital energy to force it away!"

Lu Guang swung his axe to the ground, the blade cleaving into the cracks in the bricks, and the vital energy spread along the ground, cutting off the wisps of black energy.

The two elders took the opportunity to drag the disciple into the ancestral hall.

The door to the Ancestral Hall was not closed.

Inside the gate are the ancestral tablets of past masters, and three old lamps of the sect hang under the beam, their flames now reduced to the size of beans.

This is the last complete array eye of the Zhaoye Sect, and also the core of the great array.

As long as the three lights are still on, those who hide inside can hold out a little longer.

Lu Guang did not retreat inside; he stood guard outside the door, axe in his right hand.

"The thoughts of an ant, no matter how hard it tries, are nothing more than a grain of sand in a flood, struggling in vain."

Several dozen feet away, Nie Chenzhou stood on the old steps of the mountain gate.

He didn't make a move; he just watched.

See how the black energy penetrates the root of the mountain, how it bypasses the remaining array patterns of the Zhaoye Sect, and how it leaves ghost faces on people's bodies.

He treated the Manchu disciples as live animals to test their skills.

A stick of incense still lingered at Nie Chenzhou's feet.

The incense stick was nearly ten feet long, and the fire burned very slowly; at this rate, it would take a whole day to burn out.

This is what Nie Chenzhou used for keeping track of time.

The incense had burned halfway when the people from Beiyang Prefecture should have arrived by now.

Once the incense has burned out, the reinforcements from the prefectural government and neighboring prefectures should enter the country.

Nie Chenzhou had spoken arrogantly before, but he never looked down on the Yan Kingdom's court. He had calculated every step before he came.

"Bang!!!"

Lu Guang suddenly rushed forward, and the paving stones beneath his feet exploded with a loud bang.

With a death wish, the sect leader raised his axe and brought it down on Nie Chenzhou's head.

Nie Chenzhou turned to the side.

The axe blade grazed his sleeve and landed on the old steps.

"boom!"

Half of the stone steps collapsed.

Lu Guang used the counter-force of his horizontal axe to sweep out, and Nie Chenzhou took another step back, still not retaliating.

An axe.

Two axes.

Three axe blows.

Lu Guang chased after him, slashing out for more than ten zhang (approximately 33 meters), each strike faster than the last.

Nie Chenzhou only dodged, never blocked; his moon-white robes swayed gently amidst the axe flashes, always falling just half an inch short.

Lu Guang abruptly withdrew his axe.

Nie Chenzhou also stopped.

"Why did you stop chopping?"

Lu Guang's chest heaved, blood continuously spilling from the corner of his mouth. "Why didn't you make a move?"

Nie Chenzhou lowered his head and straightened his cuffs.

"The City Destroyer Realm is rare. If you die too soon, the Three Fragrances Reversal Formation will lose a good bait."

Lu Guang wiped the blood from his mouth, a hint of helplessness flashing in his eyes, which he quickly suppressed, replaced by anger: "If my Zhaoye Sect is destroyed today, you won't live more than three days!"

"Who gave you your confidence?"

Nie Chenzhou raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Your injuries weren't healed by the Ghost Face Token. Let me guess... there's a powerful figure behind this?"

Nie Chenzhou held up three fingers.

"There are only three things in Yan that I can be wary of right now."

"Grand Secretary Yang Qinghe is in Chengtian Prefecture, far from here. The Grand Marshal of the State is guarding Hanmen Pass. As for the Inner Chancellor Feng Ruan, that old eunuch is in the capital. Without Li Youchan's decree, he won't even leave Chengtian Prefecture."

He retracted his fingers one by one, a smile playing on his lips:

"I know the location of these three better than you do. If it's not them, who else could possibly make me die within three days?"

Lu Guang did not answer.

He certainly has powerful backers.

However, Senior Shen has been away from Zhaoye Sect for over a month, and even he doesn't know when he will return.

"Waaah—"

Suddenly, a horn sounded from outside the mountain.

Lu Guang suddenly turned his head.

Outside the black veil, a row of lights illuminated the official road below the mountain.

The Beiyang Prefecture troops have arrived.

The armored soldiers lined up in three formations at the foot of the mountain, with the front row setting up crossbows to suppress the Yin. As the military command flag was lowered, hundreds of crossbow bolts were launched into the air simultaneously.

The arrow was pinned to the black cover.

The cinnabar exploded, forming a fiery red net.

The black cover dipped downwards for a moment.

The soldiers behind immediately threw out the Soul-Sealing Rope. The thick rope crossed the fire net, and the iron hook grabbed the edge of the black formation, dragging dozens of armored soldiers backward at the same time.

"rise!"

The shouts echoed through the mountains and fields.

A ring of ripples appeared on the surface of the black array.

But the good times didn't last long.

"Let go!"

Shi Qijiang's voice came from outside the mountains.

The guards hurriedly loosened the ropes, but two men were a step too slow. Black energy crawled over their gauntlets and was about to enter their arms when the temple servant drew his sword and cut the soul-sealing rope, pulling them back.

Shi Qijiang stood in front of the army formation and shouted towards the mountains:

"A demon from the north!"

"The four gates of Beiyang Prefecture are closed. The prefectural government and neighboring prefectures have all received urgent reports. If you retreat now and surrender, this prefecture may still give you a chance to turn the tide!"

Nie Chenzhou glanced outside the mountain and sneered, "An ant from the City Destruction Realm."

After saying that, he ignored it.

The local garrison troops couldn't break through the formation, and reinforcements couldn't get in. At least for now, their numbers posed no threat whatsoever.

Nie Chenzhou turned his attention back to Lu Guang.

He took a step forward.

With just one step, Lu Guang's shoulders sank, and then his legs were locked by the force of the formation, making it difficult even to lift his axe.

Nie Chenzhou continued to approach.

There were still three zhang (approximately 10 meters) between the two.

Lu Guanghuai stirred, and the Ghost Mask Token flew out on its own.

Nie Chenzhou raised his hand, and the token fell into his palm.

He first looked at the front, then flipped it over to the back, and only after confirming that the token had no cracks did a hint of satisfaction appear on his face.

"This item was not easy to create; keeping it in your hands would be a waste."

He held the token between two fingers and probed its depths with his divine sense to check for any damage inside.

The moment its ghostly aura entered, the back of the token suddenly lit up.

A very faint fingerprint appeared!

The imprint was so faint that it was almost invisible, as if someone had casually pressed it on the back while playing with the token.

But the moment it lit up, the entire Teruno-museum fell silent.

The mountain breeze lingered in the forest.

The black mist that was crawling along the pillars froze in mid-air.

The ghostly face below the disciple's ankle still had its mouth open, but it could no longer make a sound.

At the three key points of the formation at the foot of the mountain, the three sticks of black incense went out simultaneously.

There was no wind, yet Mars was extinguished!

Nie Chenzhou felt a chill run down his spine, and after realizing what was happening, he immediately tried to throw the token away.

But, it's too late.

A similar gray-white fingerprint appeared in the center of his forehead.

Nie Chenzhou suddenly took three steps back, his moon-white robe getting stained with black mud for the first time.

"This is…"

He raised his hand to wipe it.

The moment their fingertips touched the mark, the ghostly energy within them receded as if it had encountered something terrifying.

The smile on Nie Chenzhou's face disappeared.

Lu Guang was stunned for a moment.

He recalled that day in front of the mountain gate, when Senior Shen held the Ghost Face Token in his hand and looked it over for a while.

The senior didn't say anything at the time, and the token was the same as before when he returned it.

Unexpectedly, the senior had left a backup plan back then.

Indeed, since the senior dared to do something like luring someone into a trap, how could he not have considered this point?

Lu Guang was still bleeding from his chest, but he smiled.

"Hahaha!"

It started as a single sound, but then the laughter grew louder and louder.

"Nie Chenzhou! I told you, you're going to die!"

Nie Chenzhou had no mind to respond.

He gathered ghostly energy at his fingertips and repeatedly brushed it across his brow. The gray-white fingerprints remained motionless, but instead, driven by the ghostly energy, they sank deeper into his flesh.

Lu Guang stopped fighting desperately this time and ran quickly back to the ancestral hall, shouting through the door:

"You think you can calculate it all clearly? You think you know everything? Then calculate it again, where is the person who left this fingerprint on you now!"

Lu Guang frowned after shouting. He didn't see Nie Chenzhou's exasperation, nor did he see the other party resorting to desperate measures.

"So this was your trump card."

Nie Chenzhou suddenly smiled, the surprise between his brows gradually fading. "No wonder you dared to betray me. I didn't expect there to be a powerful expert above the Cloud Breaking realm hidden within the Yan Kingdom. This is indeed useful information."

Lu Guang knew something was wrong.

As expected, Nie Chenzhou continued:

"I'm sorry to disappoint you. If it were the real body that came today, I would be quite afraid. But this body is nothing more than the remains of a ghost."

He sighed softly, "After all these years of training, it's a pity to perish here today."

As soon as he finished speaking, Nie Chenzhou's moon-white robe began to tear.

The skin and flesh beneath the robes peeled away layer by layer, revealing not sinews and bones, but intertwined black mist and ghostly spirits.

The ghosts had their eyes closed, their faces squeezed into empty shells, and as the fingerprints lit up, they turned to ashes one by one.

The next instant, the remains of the ghost exploded and scattered.

The black mist that had been pressing down on the Zhaoye Sect lost its support and began to swirl in all directions.

The remaining array in the Ancestral Hall lit up again, and white light spread outward from the threshold, crushing the ghost faces on the ground one by one.

Lu Guang stood in the center of the black mist, showing no sign of joy.

This is undoubtedly like releasing a tiger back into the mountains. With someone like this keeping an eye on him, Teruno Mune's days ahead are going to be troublesome.

Moreover, someone like Nie Chenzhou, even with his Cloud Breaking Realm strength and having set up an array beforehand, was still using life-saving measures.

These kinds of people are the hardest to kill.

......

Dozens of miles away.

In an abandoned post station.

A person sitting cross-legged suddenly opened their eyes.

Nie Chenzhou stood up from the straw mat, his face grim.

This is his true form.

"The measures to guard against Yang Qinghe were actually used ahead of schedule."

Nie Chenzhou was so angry that black smoke billowed from his body.

Then...

He suddenly looked down at his wrist.

A grayish-white finger mark appeared on my skin without me even noticing!

The remains have been discarded, but the mark has followed the divine thought and come here!

Nie Chenzhou stared at the finger mark for two breaths, his pupils almost shrinking to slits.

Once he realized what was happening, he didn't hesitate, pushed open the broken door, and headed north.

We can't stay in Yan Kingdom any longer, let's go back to Beizhen Continent first!

The Cloud Breaker Realm already possesses the ability to briefly fly, and when traveling, it far surpasses the ability to destroy cities.

Nie Chenzhou fled north, his figure flashing across the wilderness, several times faster than a superior Xuanma horse.

As the sun sets and the moon rises, dusk gradually falls.

An old road has been abandoned for many years, with weeds growing taller than knee-high along its sides.

Nie Chenzhou circled around a broken monument, and his fleeing steps suddenly stopped.

A person stood at the end of the old road.

Gray clothes.

Black hair.

Dusk fell behind him, casting a long shadow.

It felt like we had been waiting for a long time.