Chu Xinghui’s heart suddenly settled down.

The man in black nearby finally made a move.

He slowly, step by step, walked up to Chu Xinghui.

Chu Xinghui drew his spirit sword, expressionless as he faced the newcomer.

The man in black did not fear the sword in his hand. His eyes first scanned Chu Xinghui’s face, then slowly moved to Xie Liufeng lying in the coffin, and finally looked back at Chu Xinghui, asking: “Do you know him?”

Did Yue Yao not tell this person about his relationship with Xie Liufeng?

Chu Xinghui thought for a moment but did not answer.

“Did the senior send Yue Yao to bring me here just to say nonsense?” he said.

The man in black smiled ambiguously: “Sharp tongue indeed.”

Chu Xinghui looked at him: “Better than senior hiding things and saying useless words all along.”

The man in black snorted coldly.

He stopped wasting time and got to the point: “There are six stone pillars here, each needing a sacrificial item.”

Chu Xinghui guessed: “Senior wants me to be one of the sacrifices?”

The man in black shook his head: “Of course, I won’t waste a young friend like you on such trivial matters. I have plotted for over a hundred years and collected all six sacrifices. The Sword Sovereign is powerful and elusive, I didn’t know how to lure him, but this time he came himself.”

“The last step was to find your identity and capture you. Coincidentally, the last sacrifice I captured knows how to lead you here. Heaven really helps me.”

He glanced at Yue Yao lying on the ground not far away, his tone tinged with complex amusement: “Found a good sacrifice indeed, solving two hard problems at once.”

Hearing this last sentence, Chu Xinghui couldn’t help but frown.

Had Yue Yao already… become a sacrifice?

But from his time with her before, except for her strange mood, she didn’t seem controlled.

If Yue Yao was a sacrifice… then who were the other five? What had they been sacrificed for?

Calmly, Chu Xinghui kept asking: “Senior goes to such lengths, even offending the Beiyue Sword Sect and Bihai Taohua Island. What exactly is your intention?”

The man in black stared gloomily at Chu Xinghui for a while: “Trying to trick me?”

Chu Xinghui said lightly: “Senior jokes. There are only the two of us awake here. Even if I overheard something, what could I do? Do you think I can escape today? Then you trust me more than I trust myself.”

The man in black thought for a moment and spoke again: “I don’t mind telling you. The Sword Sovereign’s bones, refined by ascension, plus the fate of the Heavenly Dao’s child… what else could it be? Naturally, ascension.”

Chu Xinghui didn’t believe him: “As far as I know, the ascension path between this world and the upper realm isn’t closed. I see your cultivation is profound, if you want to ascend, just cultivate ascension. Why bother with such crooked ways?”

The man in black sneered sarcastically: “You’ve seen it yourself — I committed so many heinous crimes against heaven and earth, how could I pass the ascension lightning tribulation?”

A lie.

Chu Xinghui instinctively felt ascension was not the man in black’s goal, but since he said this, the man would not reveal more.

Seeing Chu Xinghui silent, the man in black stretched out his hand.

Chu Xinghui suddenly interrupted him again: “Senior, there’s one more thing I don’t understand.”

After wasting so much time, the man in black was annoyed: “What else?”

Chu Xinghui stared at him and slowly pointed out his origin: “I heard that the cultivators of Bihai Taohua Island don’t value cultivation levels, and ascension is not part of raising cultivation.”

Hearing this, the man in black was silent for a moment.

His whole face was hidden under the black robe, Chu Xinghui could not see his expression but felt his aura intensify.

Chu Xinghui gripped his spirit sword tighter.

The man in black sneered, revealing clear killing intent: “You talk too much, truly a waste of time.”

Chu Xinghui stayed alert to his attack and immediately raised his sword to meet him.

The two exchanged two swift moves.

That mention of “Bihai Taohua Island” was a trick to test him.

Chu Xinghui was not sure about this person’s origin, he only guessed because he saw Yue Yao’s unusual reaction to him.

Although the man in the black robe did not respond obviously, his current behavior made Chu’s guess somewhat credible.

The gap in cultivation between the two was too great. Chu Xinghui barely withstood a few moves but still lost and was struck by a palm from the man in the black robe.

Chu Xinghui half-kneeling on the ground, covered his chest and spat out a mouthful of blood.

He looked up and glanced at the man in the black robe not far away.

Perhaps because he was indeed useful to his plan, the man in the black robe did not use his full strength and seemed to be holding back something.

Sensing the smell of blood, a faint movement immediately came from the nearby coffin.

Before the man in the black robe noticed, Chu Xinghui kicked the coffin and closed the lid on Xie Liufeng’s coffin, signaling him not to intervene yet.

He could still bear this kind of pressure now and wanted to try the tricks of the man in the black robe a bit more.

He quickly stood up and fought the man again at the same spot.

This person seemed to be a magic cultivator, but the spells he used were strange and did not come from common magic sects.

Moreover… his spiritual power was very mixed. If there really was only one person opposite, Chu Xinghui almost could not believe that these spiritual attacks all came from the same person.

Sensing his spiritual power was about to run out, Chu Xinghui slowly led the man toward Xie Liufeng’s coffin.

He did not act tough and deliberately exposed a flaw.

The man in the black robe immediately seized the opportunity, grabbed Chu Xinghui’s arm, and tried to take him away directly.

At the critical moment, Chu Xinghui kicked the coffin again.

Suddenly, a slanting sword light shot across and sliced off the man in the black robe’s grasp on Chu’s arm entirely.

The severed arm fell to the ground, without a trace of flesh or blood, just a piece of blackened bone wrapped in a sleeve.

Xie Liufeng pushed open the coffin lid, sat up from the coffin, lowered his eyes, and leisurely straightened his clothes: “It’s not good to mess with my people in front of me, is it?”

Although he had received hints before, seeing Xie Liufeng intact now, Chu Xinghui couldn’t help but call out to him: “Xie Liufeng!”

Xie Liufeng looked up with a smiling face and replied: “Mm, here I am. Don’t be afraid.”

Chu Xinghui carefully stared at him, confirmed he looked fine, then lowered his head to look at the bone on the ground.

…If the man in the black robe was all like this, no wonder he wrapped himself so tightly.

What kind of dark magic could cause such a state?

The man in the black robe looked at his severed arm, then at Xie Liufeng who had just come out of the coffin, with a tone full of shock and anger: “You… you’re not dead?”

The preparations he had made were obviously aimed at problems with Xie Liufeng’s soul. As long as Xie Liufeng entered here, there would be no mistakes.

Xie Liufeng held his sword to shield Chu Xinghui and placed the spirit sword against the man in the black robe’s neck: “Sorry, I’m tough to kill.”

The man in the black robe looked at Xie Liufeng incredulously for a long time, then suddenly had a flash of insight and turned his cold gaze to Chu Xinghui behind him: “Did you dual cultivate with him?”

Xie Liufeng’s brow twitched, and he instinctively wanted to defend their innocence.

Chu Xinghui grabbed him to stop him from speaking and prompted: “So what if we did?”

The man in the black robe was silent for a while, then sighed heavily: “No wonder. In that case, I miscalculated, I didn’t expect you two to come together.”

After that, he did not speak again.

Seeing he was unwilling to provide more information, Xie Liufeng planned to send him off directly.

Chu Xinghui stopped him first.

He glanced at Yue Yao, who was unconscious nearby, recalled the oddity he had noticed before, and asked for her sake: “Where is Cultivator Biyun?”

Cultivator Biyun was the current leader of the Bihai Taohua Island in Bihai and also Yue Yao’s missing master.

The man in the black robe sneered hoarsely: “That female cultivator who obstructed my grand plan—I killed her long ago. What are the chances she could have survived after being missing for so many years? It’s naive and foolish for anyone to believe I have any clue about her. If that little girl is lucky enough to wake up, tell her not to waste her time.”

With that, Chu Xinghui did not ask more.

Xie Liufeng finally asked the man in the black robe: “Do you have any last words, fellow Cultivator?”

The man in the black robe remained silent.

Xie Liufeng moved the spirit sword slightly, trying to cut his throat directly, but heard the sound of sword rubbing against bone.

Xie Liufeng: “…”

He had forgotten that this person’s body was abnormal.

He could only change tactics and used a burst of spiritual power to scatter the entire skeleton before him.

The black-robed bones scattered all over the ground, and a black mist-like thing crawled out from the bones, fleeing quickly into the distance.

Xie Liufeng acted swiftly and caught most of the black mist, but a small portion still escaped.

He did not continue the chase but studied the black mist: “Soul fragments, spiritual power, resentment… mixed with something else. The composition is quite complicated.”

Chu Xinghui frowned: “What exactly is this thing?”

Xie Liufeng thought for a moment and explained: “You took the mission at Hanshui Marsh before, you should have some impression of the evil spirits there.”

Chu Xinghui understood his meaning: “Resentment-fueled?”

Xie Liufeng nodded: “This person’s current existence was no different from that evil spirit… To completely kill him, we probably have to find the source of his power first.”

In this light, the man in the black robe’s previous talk of ascension was nonsense.

He had become this kind of thing, without a complete soul, unable to possess others—how could he possibly ascend?

Xie Liufeng sighed, used spiritual power to cleanse his hand that touched the black mist, then skillfully reached out to take Chu Xinghui’s hand: “This matter needs long-term consideration. Let’s go home first.”

Chu Xinghui suddenly refused to let him hold his hand.

He called out his name: “Xie Liufeng.”

Xie Liufeng looked at him with gentle eyes: “What’s wrong?”

Chu Xinghui stepped forward and tightly hugged him.

Xie Liufeng held his waist and quickly explained: “I just wanted to see what he was up to, didn’t expect Yue Yao to trick you here. Did I scare you?”

Chu Xinghui didn’t answer and continued holding him tightly.

Xie Liufeng was about to say something to comfort him when suddenly Chu Xinghui let out a hiss.

Chu Xinghui turned his head in his arms and bit the soft flesh where his neck met his shoulder.

Xie Liufeng hugged him and laughed and cried at the same time: “Hey hey hey, you’re a dog, why are you biting me?”

Chu Xinghui bit him hard again.

 

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