Chapter 24: Return (Part 2)

Changing into disguises, Ning Wu and Xie Linshu did not continue to the next location. Instead, they chose a nearby small city to rest.

After all, even iron men pursuing efficiency could not withstand this kind of high pressure forever. When it was time to relax, they had to relax.

Yet things went against their wishes. On the second day after entering the city, Ning Wu woke up and saw a row of cultivators appearing above the city. Facing them in confrontation was the city lord of this city.

Even Soul Transformation pressure had been released, so they were clearly not discussing anything pleasant.

“Those should be cultivators from Scarlet Sun Holy Land.”

Xie Linshu, who was in another room, had also noticed the situation above.

“It’s already affected the Western Region too?”

During the gaps between Ning Wu and Xie Linshu teaming up to farm instances, they had more or less heard about the current situation in the Shattered Star Realm. In the past, the main battlefields caught up in turbulence were usually in the other three regions, weren’t they?

Moreover, the city lord of this small Western Region city was only at the peak of Nascent Soul. For the other side to be able to dispatch a team of Soul Transformation cultivators, what they were after was not limited to this.

“After resolving this matter, it’s about time for us to go back.”

Ning Wu sensed the fundamental reason behind the changes. The Wuji Island alliance was no longer satisfied with probing only to a limited extent. He could even boldly guess that the headquarters of Wuding Island might already have appeared in the various provinces of the Western Region at this very moment.

“Mm.”

Hearing this, Xie Linshu nodded. If even the Western Region was already like this, then the Heavenly Sword Sect, which had been the main target all along, was definitely in an even more serious situation.

The city lord of this small city failed to negotiate with these people. His only choice was to fight. It was not that he had never thought about escaping, but there were five Soul Transformation cultivators opposite him. Before he could even run, he would be gone. Either way, it was death. Better to fight for it.

The pain he had imagined did not come. Instead, two young cultivators raised their hands and neutralized the other party’s attack.

“What are you—”

Before the leading Scarlet Sun Holy Land cultivator could finish speaking, he was gone. The few people behind him reacted and instantly teleported away without even thinking.

Someone who could effortlessly insta-kill a cultivator at the third layer of Soul Transformation was not someone they could defeat even if they attacked together.

In the end, before they could flee far, they were killed by Xie Linshu’s strike.

A moment ago, this had still been a crisis of city extermination. In the blink of an eye, it was resolved just like that.

“Many thanks to you two seniors for saving us.”

The small city’s lord hurriedly thanked them.

“We won’t continue staying here. They’ll come back again. You need to seek aid from the Tianyuan Imperial Dynasty as soon as possible.”

Ning Wu turned and reminded him.

In the Western Region, the force with the greatest ruling power was the Tianyuan Imperial Dynasty. Because it followed the force model of a unified nation, its territory within the Western Region was extremely vast, and other forces, great and small, all had some degree of connection with the imperial dynasty.

After solving the problem, Ning Wu and Xie Linshu headed straight for the large city nearest to this small city, preparing to use a cross-region teleportation array to return.

The Blood Hall was in the Southern Region, and the Heavenly Sword Sect was in the Eastern Region, so the two of them parted ways there.

There were not many cross-region teleportation array points in each region. Ning Wu chose a large city in the central area of the Southern Region as his teleportation destination.

In any case, after the Blood Hall reappeared, during the integration and gathering of the Southern Region’s forces, it had already shifted more than half of its power from the dark into the light.

Over the years, it had also established countless data points in various provinces. Inside this kind of large city, there would be more than one or two Body Integration cultivators stationed. Now that an all-out war had not begun, the greatest impact was still on small and medium-sized cities.

Ning Wu emerged from the teleportation array in Sun-Moon City. The city was peaceful and harmonious. He casually went to a place inside the city that bought and sold information to look up the current situation in the Southern Region.

In the three or four years he had been away from the Southern Region, Wuding Island had truly clashed with the Blood Hall only four times. All four involved battles at the Body Integration level and affected a significant area.

The most serious among them was the battle between the Second Hall Master, who was also at the peak of Body Integration, and the Wuding Island Lord.

Although neither side had truly gone all-out, signs of a feud to the death had already appeared.

Over the most recent half year, the most turbulent area had been the northern part of the Southern Region.

After understanding all this, Ning Wu left the city, took out his immortal ship, and headed for the city closest to Sun-Moon City that could directly teleport back to the Blood Hall.

Generally, a Blood Hall cultivator at the protector level would be stationed there.

Sitting on the immortal ship, Ning Wu seriously studied the Origin-Shattering Mirror. Compared with when he had first left the Blood Hall, the marks on the mirror frame had completely disappeared, and the most fatal scratch on the mirror surface had been repaired by half.

This progress exceeded expectations. Ning Wu was very clear on just how difficult this thing was to repair. If it were not a special period, and if he had continued teaming up with Xie Linshu, then after another ten or so years, it could have been completely repaired.

After returning, he could only rely on his own continued cultivation and the various resources of the Blood Hall to nurture it.

Just as Ning Wu was comprehending the heart method engraved on the Origin-Shattering Mirror, the Wunian divine sense that had been maintaining its probing state sent back feedback. Ning Wu stood and looked downward.

This location was one of Sun-Moon City’s companion capitals. A super-large city like Sun-Moon City had four or five companion capitals around it. What drew Ning Wu’s attention was that hidden array stakes had been buried around this companion capital.

None of them had been activated, so cultivators without deep research into arrays would not care about them. Even if they did, they would not be able to verify anything, because these hidden stakes were located in places ordinary people could not access.

From this, it was clear that there were definitely moles among the upper levels of the companion capital. Otherwise, why would anyone be so cautious and careful with a perfectly ordinary array?

Moreover, among these hidden stakes, he also caught a trace of the aura belonging to Wuding secret arts.

The main reason Wuding Island was difficult to deal with was that the set of methods they possessed had been passed down from a mysterious island that could not be detected. Nothing else aside, in concealment and escape, they were absolutely top-class existences in the Shattered Star Realm.

Sun-Moon City was difficult to take directly, so they could only start with the companion capitals. The situations in the other companion capitals were probably about the same.

The only good news was that the other side also knew that being exposed too early would lead to suppression and eradication, so they were lying dormant and waiting for a suitable opportunity to act.

“The large cities of the Southern Region all have hidden hands lurking inside them. The Eastern Region and Northern Region are probably even worse.”

Open spears were easy to dodge, but hidden arrows were hard to guard against. This was exactly that. If an all-out war broke out in the future and these cities containing cross-province arrays could not be controlled, then even if they were seized back afterward, it would still affect the course of the war.

Ning Wu put away the immortal ship and entered the companion capital below.

It was called a companion capital, but both the scale of the city and its overall strength were greater than medium-sized cities in other provinces.

On the surface, Ning Wu wandered around the city. In reality, he had already used his Wunian divine sense to mark the locations of the hidden stakes.

For two straight days, he figured out the inspection frequency of every hidden stake, as well as several suspected moles.

Aside from these insiders who knew the truth, the remaining people knew that the places they guarded were important, but did not know what their actual use was.

Precisely because of this, Ning Wu was curious about how Wuding secret arts operated.

According to his observations, among these suspected moles, only one Wuding Island cultivator had truly cultivated the secret arts: Lin Song, the deputy city lord of the companion capital, at the fourth layer of Void Refining.

This person had always been in the companion capital, and there were no traces of impersonation. In other words, the other party had been from Wuding Island from the very beginning.

From the small, one could see the large. To a certain extent, Wuding Island, whose accurate location could not be found within the Shattered Star Realm, was hidden the deepest.

The other party’s cultivation realm was far too high, so Ning Wu could not directly use Wunian divine sense to read him. Thus, Ning Wu observed in secret. Lin Song would generally go to the direction of one random hidden stake every three days.

In places outsiders could not see, he would activate the secret arts to maintain the state of the array. Ning Wu studied very seriously each time. After two times, he had more or less grasped it. The root reason he could not completely replicate it lay in the most important heart method.

For this reason, Ning Wu took advantage of a dark and windy night to act, finding one hidden stake and damaging it through array methods, though not thoroughly.

As he expected, the panicked Lin Song hurried over. To ensure that the problem did not implicate the other hidden stakes, he performed the full set.

The opportunity was rare, so Ning Wu upheld the principle that whether he had learned it or not was unimportant; he would record it first, and there would be plenty of time in the future.

Lin Song stabilized the troublesome matter. When he came, he had already swept the area once with divine sense, but had found nothing. Yet his instincts and experience told him that this matter was definitely not simple. Sometimes, just because divine sense could not detect something did not mean nothing was there.

So he raised his hand and launched an indiscriminate attack. Ning Wu had hidden very well using Wunian divine sense, but when facing this kind of sweeping attack, he still had to dodge when he needed to dodge.

After failing to probe out anyone, Lin Song frowned. Could it be that he really was overthinking it?

“I think you’ve had too many peaceful days. You couldn’t even notice this.”

A third person suddenly appeared, locking onto Ning Wu’s direction and unleashing the strongest strike.

Damn it. When did another sneaky bastard show up?

Ning Wu activated Thirteen Plumes to neutralize the attack, but his tracks were also exposed. The newcomer was at the fifth layer of Void Refining.

“You couldn’t even discover a Soul Transformation junior.”

Although the newcomer’s words were a reprimand toward Lin Song, he himself was equally startled. If he had not suddenly visited tonight, he probably would not have known that this place was already being watched.

The two of them exchanged a glance and both clearly understood that they absolutely could not let the person before them escape today.

They had originally thought this would be an easy matter, but only after exchanging blows did they discover that the other party truly had ability. At the Soul Transformation realm, his divine sense was actually stronger than that of two mid Void Refining cultivators like them. No wonder he dared to appear alone.

Ning Wu fought one against two across realms and was forced to use the power of the blood seal.

“I originally wanted to return quietly, but a sneaky bastard suddenly popped out. In that case, neither of you should think about leaving alive.”

Ning Wu knew very well that once he used the Blood Hall’s arts and the other party knew his identity, they would be driven into desperate measures and directly notify the other moles in the companion capitals to cause trouble.

Therefore, he activated the blood seal and enveloped the two people opposite him within the blood-colored sword domain, with another layer of talismans sealing them in.

Through the Blood Scion token, he relayed an order with a single press to all blood seed disciples in the companion capital and throughout Sun-Moon City.

Tonight, if Ning Wu had not been discovered, he could still have issued orders for them to handle things secretly. Since he had been discovered, they could only cut through the tangled mess quickly and catch the other side off guard.

As soon as the Blood Scion token appeared, the shock in Lin Song and the other man’s eyes grew even stronger.

The Blood Scion of the Blood Hall whom the Island Lord had spent painstaking effort searching for had appeared right in front of the two of them just like this.

“Before we die, we’ll kill you too.”

They had not realized the consequences were this serious just now. Now that they understood they could not go back, they embraced the idea of both sides perishing together.

Trading the two of them for one Blood Scion of the Blood Hall was worth it.

Ning Wu did not respond. He had survived against a demonic beast at late Body Integration. Two Void Refining cultivators who could not even break through the Blood Scion robe were just fertilizer for his blood-colored sword domain.

The Blood Refining Great Art cast by Ning Wu, combined with the heaven-rank artifact Thirteen Plumes, sent blood fiend qi soaring into the sky.

From a distance, it looked like a blood moon hanging on the horizon.

The Blood Hall disciples inside the companion capital who had received the Blood Scion token’s transmission rushed to the scene. They saw Ning Wu, dressed in the Blood Scion robe, standing within the blood-colored sword domain. Beneath his feet were the corpses of two Void Refining cultivators whose blood energy had been completely extracted.

The sight shook the hearts of all those who had never seen the current Blood Scion before. Soul Transformation defying the odds to kill Void Refining—and two of them at that. Just how strong was he?

“Greetings, Blood Scion.”

“Seal off the companion capital and find the moles. Afterward, provide support according to Sun-Moon City’s arrangements.”

Ning Wu issued his orders. The orders he had sent through the Blood Scion token just now were mainly targeted at Sun-Moon City. Only by mobilizing the Body Integration cultivators inside the city could they control the other companion capitals at the earliest possible moment.

Now that his identity had already been exposed, there was no need to hide. He turned and returned from the companion capital to Sun-Moon City.

“Xin Feng, Left Protector of the Third Hall, greets the Blood Scion.”

When Xin Feng received the order transmitted through the Blood Scion token, he himself was utterly confused. Wasn’t the Blood Scion supposed to have been inside the Blood Hall all this time? How had he suddenly appeared here?

Shock was shock, but orders still had to be obeyed. Immediately, all the Void Refining and Body Integration cultivators in Sun-Moon City became busy. If they had not investigated, they would not have known. Once they did, they found that all six companion capitals had moles.

“Handle the matters in the companion capitals first. We’ll discuss everything else afterward.”

Ning Wu still wanted to follow the clues and look for other large cities that had been infiltrated.

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