Several dozen miles outside the prefectural city, there was a secluded bamboo forest.
It was so quiet here it was almost lifeless. Only the occasional wind passing through the bamboo leaves made a soft, rustling whisper. Few people ever came here.
However, upon stepping into this bamboo forest, an indescribable chill would rush at one’s face, and the gruesome sight before one’s eyes would instantly make one’s scalp tingle.
On the ground, pale white bones lay scattered in disorder. Over each set of bones was draped a brocade robe.
The brocade robes were brilliantly colored—red like congealed blood, cyan like ghostly mist, blue like a cold pool in the dead of night.
Although these brocade robes differed in color, the patterns embroidered on them were exactly the same.
At the very center of each robe was a huge black bird emblem, dazzling to the extreme.
Xuanniao Guards!
Before this ground covered with the remains of Xuanniao Guards, deep within the dense bamboo forest, four figures appeared faintly, standing in an irregular formation.
The next moment, the figure at the center of the four suddenly erupted with a fierce, sharp aura.
“Not good, retreat quickly!”
A harsh shout instantly shattered the surrounding dead silence.
Before the words even faded, this person transformed into a dazzling streak of light, so fast that the eye could not follow.
In the blink of an eye, he had already vanished into this gloomy bamboo forest.
Seeing this, the other three showed no hesitation. They immediately flew after the figure who had disappeared first at top speed.
In an instant, as the four figures fled in panic, the scene was left with only the bamboo forest rustling in the breeze.
And the silent, lifeless bones of the Xuanniao Guards on the ground, quietly telling of the carnage that had occurred.
In the span of merely a dozen breaths, a dazzling purple light burst forth in the sky without warning.
In an instant, this mysterious purple light illuminated the eerie bamboo forest.
Immediately after, this resplendent purple glow, like a surging, raging flood,
poured down from the high heavens with an irresistible, domineering force.
Wherever the purple glow reached, wild winds rose, bamboo leaves scattered, and in the blink of an eye, the entire bamboo forest was swept up completely.
It was as if it wanted to wrap all secrets within this dazzling sea of purple light.
Then, those scattered, gruesome remains of the Xuanniao Guards,
within this sea of purple light, disappeared completely.
At first glance, everything had returned to its former calm.
But upon closer inspection, a faint, barely perceptible ripple still lingered in the air.
It was as if hinting that a mysterious person, in an extremely mysterious and powerful manner,
had quietly gathered up all these bones exposed to the air, one by one.
And this mysterious figure was none other than Lu Xuan, who had hurried over from the prefectural city.
The purple light flashed and vanished. A rift instantly tore open in the void.
A figure leisurely stepped out from within, quietly suspended in midair.
His black robe fluttered gently in the wind, and an indescribably powerful aura emanated from him.
Who else could it be but Lu Xuan?
Lu Xuan’s eyes were deep as an abyss. In their shifting gaze, it seemed endless worlds were hidden.
He stood with his hands behind his back, gazing toward the distant horizon, his eyes filled with certainty and confidence.
The route by which those four had fled in panic was already known to Lu Xuan.
Even if they fled to the ends of the earth, they could never escape Lu Xuan’s grasp.
Before Lu Xuan floated a wisp of faint, barely perceptible aura.
This wisp of aura was as delicate as a thread of silk in the wind—a moment’s inattention and it would dissipate into the air.
However, this wisp of aura was tightly wrapped in a wheel of purple flame.
The purple flame leaped and surged, its light radiating a piercing pressure, firmly suppressing that wisp of aura so it could not break free.
This seemingly inconspicuous aura actually concealed a mystery—it was precisely the mysterious power lodged within Earth Envoy Yuan Feng.
With this wisp of aura, Lu Xuan could track down the person behind it within a radius of a hundred miles.
Ten miles away, the four were like shooting stars chasing the moon, speeding across the boundless sky, fleeing forward without pause.
Just then, a crisp female voice came from among the four, accurately reaching the ears of the other three through the howling wind.
“Tang Yun, just what did you see?!”
The man flying at the very front heard this question, yet his speed did not slow at all—instead, it became even faster than before.
“Enough nonsense, Jiang Yan!” the man responded loudly, his tone full of anxiety and tension.
“Lu Xuan—we cannot fight him head-on!”
“We might die!”
Before the words even faded, before Jiang Yan and the other two could ponder the meaning of these words,
suddenly!
The four of them seemed to simultaneously sense some fatal threat. Their desperately fleeing figures abruptly halted in midair.
It was as if time had frozen. All of them stopped dead in their tracks.
At this moment, the four wore expressions of utter shock, their eyes filled with astonishment, staring straight ahead.
There, in the void ahead, a young figure had somehow quietly appeared at some point.
The young man stood quietly in the air, arms crossed over his chest. His robe fluttered gently in the wind, and his expression was calm and composed.
Yet his very presence was like an insurmountable chasm, forcibly blocking the path of these four.
Standing at the very front of the four, Tang Yun’s gaze fell upon the young man’s face.
Tang Yun’s pupils violently contracted, and a look of deep wariness appeared on his face.
The corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily. His teeth clenched tight, as if every word weighed a thousand pounds, he forced two words out of his throat with difficulty.
“Lu… Xuan!”
These two words, one syllable at a time, seemed to drain all of Tang Yun’s strength.
Almost every syllable carried Tang Yun’s uncontrollable shock and fear.
This alone was enough to show that Lu Xuan’s sudden appearance had made Tang Yun’s heart surge like a stormy sea, rising and falling violently.
Lu Xuan’s gaze was exceptionally cold. His expression was calm, yet it carried an invisible pressure that made one’s blood run cold.
Then, Lu Xuan’s eyes swept indifferently over the four, as if gazing down at a group of insignificant ants.
The four opposite him also locked their gazes tightly onto Lu Xuan. For a moment, the atmosphere at the scene instantly froze.
The three men and one woman in the air had extraordinarily imposing auras, yet before Lu Xuan, they seemed especially insignificant.
Standing at the very front, Tang Yun looked to be around thirty years old.
He wore a robe of azure waves and white clouds silk, his sleeves fluttering, his bearing outstanding.
Yet at this moment, Tang Yun’s face was covered in solemnity, even faintly revealing a trace of panic.
Behind him stood a woman who appeared to be around forty.
The woman exuded a mature, seductive charm. Every frown and smile was full of allure.
A striking red dress tightly wrapped her figure. The fabric was boldly cut, perfectly outlining her curvaceous, alluring body.
The light, thin skirt swayed gently in the wind, as dazzling as a blazing flame, and also like a wildly blooming red rose, capable of capturing one’s soul.
The woman’s eyes were extremely seductive, yet inadvertently, a faint, barely noticeable eerie red glow flickered within them.
The corners of her mouth curved slightly upward, carrying a faint, ambiguous smile that revealed an unfathomable meaning.
However, this woman, like Tang Yun, also quietly carried a few more degrees of vigilance in her gaze toward Lu Xuan, as if facing a great enemy.
As for the other two men, both appeared to be middle-aged men around fifty or sixty.
The two wore identical loose black brocade robes, the hems stirring slightly in the wind, and wore hair crowns, appearing rather solemn.
But the faces of these two were cold as iron, expressionless, like millennium-old ice that would never thaw.
What was especially eerie was that their gazes seemed hollow, lacking the animation and vitality a human should have.
Like two shells whose souls had been sucked out, the cold, gloomy aura emanating from them made one’s blood run cold.
“He is Lu Xuan!”
Tang Yun’s voice was low and hoarse, as if reminding himself, and also as if warning the three around him.
Lu Xuan’s name was like a heavy hammer, viciously smashing into the hearts of the other three.
These three naturally knew the great name “Lu Xuan” thoroughly.
They had long since obtained information about Lu Xuan from the mouths of those dead Xuanniao Guards.
The one responsible for exterminating the Wen family this time was precisely the now-famous Lu Xuan—the newly appointed Deputy Commissioner of the Xuanniao Guards.
Rumor had it that this Lu Xuan’s strength was unfathomable, already possessing the power of the major accomplishment stage of the Divine Mansion realm.
The air seemed to freeze at this moment. The breathing of all four became heavy.
If this Lu Xuan before them were merely at the major accomplishment stage of the Divine Mansion realm, then the few of them would not be so wary.
Among the four, Tang Yun and Jiang Yan were both True Persons at the major accomplishment stage of the Divine Mansion realm, existences with one foot already in the perfect accomplishment stage of the Divine Mansion realm.
The other two men also possessed the strength of the minor accomplishment stage of the Divine Mansion realm.
With such a powerful lineup, even against a True Person at the perfect accomplishment stage of the Divine Mansion realm, the four of them would not regard them with any concern.
But just now, at the moment they were stopped, Tang Yun had already secretly transmitted a message to them.
Lu Xuan!
Suspected Void Piercing True Lord!
What kind of joke was this?!
This was simply absurd to the extreme!
However, everyone was very clear that Tang Yun was absolutely not the kind of person to joke.
At this moment, Lu Xuan’s expression was very calm. His unruffled gaze unhurriedly swept over the four one by one. “You… came looking for me?”
It was clearly just a simple question, and Lu Xuan’s voice was extremely simple as well.
Yet falling into the ears of these four, it seemed to contain the weight of a thousand pounds, an invisible pressure rushing at their faces.
Fine cold sweat quietly seeped onto Tang Yun’s forehead. Bean-sized beads of sweat rolled down along his temples.
The smile at the corner of the red-dressed woman’s mouth instantly froze, and her fingers unconsciously tightened slightly.
As for the other two black-robed middle-aged men, although their faces remained expressionless,
the originally cold, gloomy aura around them became even more chilling, faintly revealing a trace of tension.
Their spiritual sense power was poised, ready to erupt into battle at any moment.
Seeing the other side silent, Lu Xuan’s eyes were instantly shrouded in thick killing intent.
“Hmph!”
A cold snort suddenly exploded, carrying an indescribable pressure rolling in, shaking the surrounding air to trembling.
Lu Xuan’s right hand slowly raised. Between his five fingers, purple light flickered, like countless fine stars converging, emitting a dangerous aura that made one’s heart palpitate.
“Die.”
Lu Xuan lightly spat out a single word, his voice icy cold, without a trace of warmth.
Since the other side was unwilling to speak, Lu Xuan could not be bothered to waste time with them.
In his heart, facing these enemies of unknown identity, there was only one solution—and that was death!
In an instant, heaven and earth changed color!
The originally clear sky was suddenly torn apart by an invisible force. The wind and clouds seemed stirred by a pair of giant hands, churning madly without pause.
At the very center of the vast, boundless firmament, a mysterious purple void vortex slowly emerged, radiating a terrifying heaven-and-earth pressure.
“Boom—!”
Waves of profound, indescribable purple rainbow light spewed forth from the purple void vortex.
Each strand of purple light was a full ten thousand zhang long, like the wrathful rays of heaven, carrying the might to destroy heaven and earth, bearing straight down on the four.
Wherever the purple light passed, countless spaces were shattered.
All things in heaven and earth, before this mysterious power, seemed small and fragile, as if they might turn to dust at any moment.
The faces of the four opposite Lu Xuan changed drastically. They had never imagined Lu Xuan’s strength could be powerful to such a degree.
Before that terrifying purple rainbow light even approached, it already made the four feel their whole bodies tremble, as if even their Divine Mansions would be crushed to pieces.
At this moment, the four finally understood just what kind of terrifying existence they were facing.
“Flee!”
Tang Yun roared, his voice carrying unprecedented panic.
However, before his words faded, the purple rainbow light completely engulfed the four.
In heaven and earth, only that endless purple light remained, and Lu Xuan’s extremely cold figure.
The wind and clouds gradually returned to their original state. The purple light dissipated, and heaven and earth returned to calm.
And those four had long since been annihilated into nothingness, without even a trace left behind.
After completing all this, Lu Xuan’s brow furrowed slightly. His gaze locked tightly onto the place where the four had disappeared, a flicker of doubt passing through his eyes.
Just now, Lu Xuan had captured four streams of mysterious power.
These four streams of power were extremely bizarre, as if they had broken the shackles of space, forcibly breaking through the heaven-and-earth seal he had set up.
Lu Xuan could not help but feel suspicious—could it be that these four were not dead?
Far away in the Heavenly Capital!
In a mysterious secret realm that transcended the world, hidden within a void space.
A streak of white radiance flew past at lightning speed, leaving behind a fleeting flash of light and shadow.
Immediately after, that mysterious white radiance slowly came to a halt. Its light gradually converged and condensed, and it slowly outlined a human form.
After the light fully dispersed, what appeared was a man.
At this moment, the man suddenly clutched his chest, his face contorted in pain, his features tightly knitted together.
In his slowly opening eyes, besides the lingering extreme pain, there was unexpectedly the relief of having survived a calamity.
And this person was none other than Tang Yun, who had just been struck to ashes by Lu Xuan.
“Something’s wrong!”
“This Lu Xuan is absolutely not a Void Piercing True Lord!”
Tang Yun’s voice could not help but tremble, his words full of doubt and lingering fear.
“That purple void vortex just now—it seems it was not a Void Piercing True Lord’s heaven-and-earth law domain either!”
“Otherwise!”
Tang Yun could not help but clench his fists, murmuring to himself with lingering fear, “Even if I am a Sun Spirit Envoy, I would absolutely have no chance of returning to the ancestral land’s extreme realm again.”
The existence of a Void Piercing True Lord, once they unleash their heaven-and-earth dharma form, would form a domain of heaven-and-earth laws.
Within this domain of heaven-and-earth laws, the Void Piercing True Lord is the true sovereign of heaven and earth.
With a single thought, words become law!
The power of all things in the world is under their control. Below a Void Piercing True Lord, no matter who comes, it is difficult to escape the domain of heaven-and-earth laws.
Yet now, he had actually escaped death from Lu Xuan’s attack and returned to the ancestral land’s extreme realm.
It was the power of the ancestral artifact that had brought his residual spiritual sense back from right under Lu Xuan’s nose.
This undoubtedly proved that Lu Xuan’s martial arts realm was not as he had previously guessed.
Tang Yun’s earlier strand of spiritual sense had witnessed Lu Xuan’s words becoming law, easily saving Earth Envoy Yuan Feng.
That was why he had regarded Lu Xuan as a Void Piercing True Lord.
Just as Tang Yun’s thoughts were churning, suddenly, an old, dignified voice sounded out of thin air, as if drifting over from the depths of the secret realm.
“Tang Yun, how did you trigger the power of the ancestral artifact?”
“Didn’t you go to the Eastern Domain?”
“Has something happened on the Wen family’s side?”
Hearing this familiar voice, Tang Yun’s face instantly tensed up, his expression becoming extremely grave.
He did not dare delay in the slightest. He immediately rushed toward the direction from which the voice came.
