Tan Huai tentatively asked, “To save someone?”
Liu Lixue didn’t craft poisons or harm lives. Most of his pills were for enhancing cultivation or saving lives. Judging by the aura surrounding that man, his cultivation level was unfathomable, indicating his immense strength. Liu Lixue’s pills wouldn’t significantly impact his own cultivation.
That left saving someone as the only plausible reason.
Sang Dai took out a few pills from her own spatial pouch and handed them over. “Young Master Liu gave me a few bottles of pills before. I haven’t used them yet; let’s give these to him first.”
“Alright.”
Sang Dai and Tan Huai exchanged a glance, neither knowing what to say.
Tan Huai spoke in a low voice. “I apologize. My suggestion to visit the City Lord’s Manor came with selfish intentions to investigate this matter. My motives caused Young Master Liu to suffer harm.”
Su Xuan responded gravely, “It’s unrelated to you. We were planning to investigate anyway. That man’s target was Liu Lixue’s pills. Even if we hadn’t sought him out, he would have come for us.”
Liu Lixue’s life was not in danger. As a healer, he was well-versed in protecting his vital acupoints. Though his injuries were severe, they were mostly superficial wounds. Unlike Sang Dai and Su Xuan, he didn’t fight recklessly.
Still feeling guilty, Tan Huai could only think of ways to help.
“I’ll keep watch over Young Master Liu tonight. You two should rest.”
But Sang Dai looked at him and asked, “Master Tan Huai, I still have something to ask you.”
Tan Huai was taken aback and instinctively replied, “What is it, Miss Sang?”
Sang Dai asked, “Do you know about the agreement between the six of them?”
Tan Huai’s hand, which was turning the prayer beads, paused. Su Xuan also glanced over.
Sang Dai repeated, “Tan Huai, do you know anything about their matters? Did your master ever tell you about this?”
Tan Huai lowered his gaze slightly, his Adam’s apple moving as he slowly turned the prayer beads.
“Tan Huai?”
“…Yes, I know some.”
“Please, tell me.”
Sang Dai’s tone was resolute, clearly determined to get an answer.
Tan Huai raised his eyelids slightly and met their gazes.
Realizing he couldn’t avoid the subject and seeing no reason to hide it from the two of them, he slowly began to speak:
“My parents died when I was six. Immortal Lord Ying Heng passed through Fan Dong while eradicating evil and stayed at my house for the night. I once shared a meal with him.”
“At the dining table, they spoke of past events. I overheard a few things—they met at the Heroes Conference. The final Heroes Conference was held at Linglong Town, with Wu Hanshu as the steward. Ying Heng, my parents, and your parents were all there to attend. My parents met and fell in love at the Conference, and it seems your parents did as well.”
Sang Dai asked, “So they became friends because they shared similar values at the Heroes Conference?”
“Yes,” Tan Huai replied. “Kindred spirits are hard to find. The six of them were very close and seemed to have experienced a lot together. After your parents married, they secluded themselves. My parents settled in Fan Dong. At that time, I overheard them mention a ‘century-long agreement.’”
Sang Dai asked, “What kind of agreement?”
Tan Huai answered, “To reunite at Linglong Town when the flowers bloom.”
Sang Dai immediately thought of the potted flower she had seen in Wu Hanshu’s room.
“That flower takes a hundred years to bloom?”
“Actually, it takes three hundred years.”
Sang Dai was still perplexed. “Why set a three-hundred-year agreement? If they were friends, wouldn’t they naturally want to meet whenever they wished?”
“Miss Sang, that’s the part I don’t understand either. It seemed they didn’t dare meet each other. Your parents lived in seclusion and never emerged. My parents rarely appeared in public. Immortal Lord Ying Heng resided on the peak of Tianque Mountain, only coming down to eradicate evil. Even Wu Hanshu, who used to be so carefree and unrestrained, gradually became reclusive, staying within the City Lord’s Manor.”
Tan Huai smiled bitterly at this point and added, “You said your parents died shortly after you were born—that was 132 years ago. My parents also died that same year. Ten years later, Immortal Lord Ying Heng became embroiled in the destruction of the Guixu Spiritual Vein. Among the six of them, four died, one went missing, and one lived in despair. I don’t think this is a coincidence.”
Su Xuan stood up, his glazed eyes fixed on Tan Huai. “So when you sneaked into Wu Hanshu’s manor as a child, it wasn’t just to hide from your master?”
“Correct,” Tan Huai admitted without hesitation. “It was to investigate what happened back then. But Wu Hanshu was highly vigilant, and I couldn’t get close to him.”
At this point, some things became clear.
Tan Huai turned to meet Sang Dai’s gaze, lowering his voice slightly. “Miss Sang, what exactly happened all those years ago that caused six close friends to fear meeting one another? This might be our breakthrough.”
“Investigate Wu Hanshu, correct?”
“Yes. The person behind all this is far too powerful. We can only start with Wu Hanshu.”
Sang Dai agreed, her thoughts aligned with his. “I understand. This matter involves my master. I’ll investigate it together with Master Tan Huai.”
Tan Huai clasped his hands together and bowed sincerely. “Then I must trouble Miss Sang.”
“Master Tan Huai is too kind,” Sang Dai replied politely before shifting her gaze to Su Xuan.
“Su Xuan, what about you? What were you about to say?”
Sang Dai knew Su Xuan too well. When he returned earlier, his face was cold and frightening, his expression grim. Whatever he had to say must be something important—something grave enough to disturb even Su Xuan.
Faced with their probing gazes, Su Xuan glanced at Liu Lixue, who lay motionless, his body riddled with bloodied wounds from the vine’s sharp thorns.
Tan Huai cautiously asked, “Beast King, is it something very serious?”
“Look here.”
Su Xuan spoke in a calm voice, bending down to lift Liu Lixue’s wrist.
The wounds left by the vines were still visible on his wrist, but from the punctures, golden spiritual energy was oozing out, intertwined with thick, heavy black aura.
Sang Dai and Tan Huai’s expressions instantly turned cold and grim. The night had been too dark earlier, and neither of them had noticed the black aura emanating from Liu Lixue’s wounds.
Su Xuan picked up one of the vines Tan Huai had brought back. Though the vine seemed slightly withered, the thorns on it remained sharp and rigid.
Without hesitation, he jabbed the vine into his own wrist.
“Su Xuan!”
“Beast King!”
Both of them were startled and instinctively stepped forward.
Su Xuan pulled out the vine, and then…
The broken vine pulsed briefly. A dense black aura surged through its branches, making the withered vine seem as though it had come to life.
Just as it was about to revive, Su Xuan withdrew the vine and burned it with Hellfire.
The small fox raised his wrist. The cold, pale skin was now marked by dark patterns that slithered toward the puncture wound. Wisps of faint black aura mixed with his spiritual energy seeped out from the wound.
Sang Dai was shocked. “What is this thing…”
Su Xuan said in a cold tone, “This is what I wanted to talk about.”
Tan Huai was confused. “…What?”
Su Xuan asked, “The cultivation world has existed for tens of thousands of years. Are there any records of a cultivator being able to tear through space and travel thousands of miles in an instant without the use of formations or teleportation?”
Sang Dai and Tan Huai both shook their heads. “…None.”
Su Xuan continued, “But he can. When I fought him earlier, the black aura surrounding him was almost identical to the black aura emerging from Liu Lixue’s wound. I deliberately brought back some vines, and testing them has confirmed this connection.”
An overlooked, almost unthinkable idea began to emerge.
Sang Dai murmured, “The heavens have laws. All beings in the cultivation world must follow its rules. Even a fully transcended Tribulation-stage cultivator cannot ignore spatial barriers and travel thousands of miles at will. How can he do it?”
Tan Huai added quietly, “…It suggests he is not a cultivator and is not bound by the laws of the heavens.”
Sang Dai continued, “I couldn’t discern his cultivation level at all. When I fought him, it felt like he was a bottomless pit that never grew tired. I couldn’t even sense any spiritual energy fluctuations from him…”
Tan Huai supplemented, “…Perhaps he isn’t using spiritual energy.”
Not a cultivator, not using spiritual energy—what was he, and what was he fighting with?
Both Sang Dai and Tan Huai turned to look at the black aura on Su Xuan’s wrist. The vine’s thorn had pierced into his wrist like a trigger, drawing out Su Xuan’s spiritual energy. But the golden spiritual energy was entangled with the black aura.
Tan Huai picked up another piece of the broken vine and jabbed it into his own wrist.
The thorn pierced his flesh, and Tan Huai’s spiritual energy was drawn out as the vine frantically consumed it.
Tan Huai endured the pain without pulling out the vine, while Sang Dai watched intently.
They saw it clearly.
What the vine was consuming wasn’t his spiritual energy. It was…
The black aura entwined with the spiritual energy.
“That’s enough.”
Su Xuan interrupted coldly, pulling out the broken vine and burning it to ashes with Hellfire.
“What… what is going on?” Tan Huai suddenly turned to Sang Dai, his voice trembling as he asked, “Miss Sang… I didn’t see wrong just now, did I? The vines… they didn’t harm you.”
When Sang Dai had drawn her sword, the vines had retreated swiftly.
They had been frantically trying to consume Liu Lixue and Tan Huai, yet the moment Sang Dai activated her spiritual energy, the vines seemed to sense something and fled into the ground.
Sang Dai also took a piece of the broken vine, rolled up her sleeve, and pricked herself with it.
Blood seeped out, and as the vine sensed it, it began to revive, drawing spiritual energy from Sang Dai’s flesh.
But unlike Su Xuan and Tan Huai earlier, her spiritual energy carried no trace of black aura. It was clean, pure, and golden. The vine seemed displeased, withdrawing its thorn on its own and returning to its withered state.
She was the only exception.
The vine was quickly snatched by Su Xuan and burned into ash again.
The room fell silent. No one spoke; the only sounds were their breathing.
Sang Dai stared blankly at the wound on her wrist.
Su Xuan held her wrist, healing the small puncture.
“What… what is that black aura? Why do all three of you have it in your spiritual energy, but I don’t?”
Sang Dai had never thought of herself as special. Aside from the title of an awakened Heaven-grade spiritual root cultivator, she had always seen herself as just another ordinary cultivator among the countless beings of the Four Realms.
She had never understood why the heavens wanted to kill her.
Now, it seemed there was some sort of answer.
Sang Dai raised her gaze, her eyes meeting the small fox’s.
[Dai Dai…]
His voice in her mind was soft, yet she could hear the fear in it.
For the first time, they realized that Sang Dai was different from the rest of them. There was something about her that none of them had.
“So… the heavens want to kill me because of this?”
The reason might not be this alone, but it was undoubtedly part of it.
Su Xuan leaned slightly forward to meet her eyes, his tone serious and solemn. “Dai Dai, the black aura surrounding that black-robed man seems to be the same. These vines like to devour it. When the vines prick a cultivator, they actively draw out the cultivator’s spiritual energy, and this black aura attaches itself to the spiritual energy. If I’m not mistaken, in the entire Four Realms, aside from you, all of our spiritual energy contains this black aura.”
Sang Dai closed her eyes, carefully recalling the fight with the black-robed man.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, her voice rising slightly. “I remember now.”
The power he used to tear open space wasn’t spiritual energy—it was this black aura.
His combat techniques didn’t rely on spiritual energy either; they were also driven by this black aura.
If there had been spiritual energy fluctuations, Sang Dai would have been able to sense his approximate cultivation level. After all, she was also a Grand Ascension-stage cultivator. But the black-robed man hadn’t used spiritual energy, which was why she couldn’t detect any spiritual energy fluctuations from him and mistakenly thought he was a supreme powerhouse.
He didn’t cultivate with spiritual energy, nor did he abide by the laws of the lower realms. He could tear open space and traverse thousands of miles by sheer will.
Sang Dai came to a conclusion:
“He doesn’t belong to the Four Realms. He isn’t human, ghost, demon, or spirit.”