Liang Chen descended Sky Piercer mountain and rapidly left the forest that surrounded it. He once again followed the path he previously took to the Nightshield sect, moving at a somewhat leisurely pace so that he wouldn't arrive at the sect too quickly. His eyes were mostly closed as he walked, most of his mind focused on continuing to merge the law of the void into his body and soul cultivation. The more parts of him he could merge with that law before he attempted to sneak into the dungeon, the more confident he would be in his odds should things go awry.
He reached the Earthen Embrace city that would take him to the Nightshield sect after three days, once again not wasting any time in the city and directly teleporting to the Nightshield sect. He made his way across the empty plain and entered Dusk's Ascension city, once again getting bombarded by various greetings as he headed for the spatial formation that would take him to the Duskshield hall.
"Respectful greetings, Senior Brother San. I see that Mistress Ping and the others are not with you this time, did you leave them with Mistress Ping's mother so that you can focus on the competition?"
"Wonderful day to you, Senior Brother San! Good luck in the competition, I know that you can secure a good spot this time!"
"Good afternoon, Senior Brother San, please make sure that you get some rest before the tri-monthly competition, being too stressed about it won't be good for you."
The tri-monthly competition was a very important event to the Nightshield sect, especially now that most of the elders and senior disciples were basically hostages of the Dawn's Blade Alliance. Liang Chen maintained his Zong San disguise, cheerfully greeting those that called out to him, even stopping and chatting with some of them.
These people were considered lower disciples who were unable to become true cultivators by some of the other Nightshield sect disciples, but those that thought so were actually a minority, most others treating them as completely normal disciples. It was a rather pleasant cultivation environment, focusing on competition while also fostering friendly bonds between most disciples.
Liang Chen spent almost three hours walking through the city and chatting before he got to the spatial array that brought him up to the Duskshield hall. The moment he stepped out of the small house containing the array, he could feel the lively and somewhat tense atmosphere surrounding the city in the distance. He didn't recognize the two guards standing in front of the building this time, but one of them pointed at the city with his thumb after seeing Liang Chen's expression.
"Lively, isn't she? All the disciples remaining in the sect have gathered there for the tri-monthly competition, just about every house is packed to the brim. The disciples from the lower island are also swarming here in vast numbers, won't take long for a bunch of camps to surround the entire city I reckon. Everyone's been a bit on edge ever since we've been forced to ally with the Dawn's Blade Alliance so this is a good chance to unwind, they really needed it."
Liang Chen gave a short nod of his head, he could already spot a few tents set up around the city, disciples clad in the robes of the sect eagerly cultivating to pass the time. Liang Chen said his farewells to the guards and headed to the city, greeting a few people as he made his way to his house, entering it and closing the doors behind him.
The only thing that greeted him when he closed the doors was silence. The house was automatically heated due to an array that ran throughout the entire city, but Liang Chen couldn't help but feel that it was slightly chilly. He was never good at being alone, no one liked to be lonely after all. But right now Liang Chen had no one around him, even Yumao was gone for the moment, so he was really all alone.
Liang Chen slapped both of his cheeks and pushed away the negative emotions, his eyes growing determined again. He walked through the house until he reached the small cultivation room, a simple room containing only a single stone bed covered in runes and lines that spilled over onto the floor and stretched up the walls.
Every house in this city had one such room, with the houses closer to the center having a better version of the room. The room served only one purpose, to draw upon the energy of the array that covered the entire hovering island and divert some of the energy it constantly gathered up, allowing the cultivator to use it for cultivation.
Liang Chen sat down on the bed and crossed his legs, activating the array and causing all the runes and lines covering the room to emit a faint green glow. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, the amount of Qi in the room rapidly increasing thanks to the active array. He tapped into his law of time and utilized the dense Qi to support his increase of the flow of time, the speed of time within the room quickly becoming 12 times faster than on the outside.
Liang Chen's cultivation had reached the middle stage of the Soaring Immortal realm and his bloodline had been greatly strengthened after he fused with the Void Born blood. If he wanted to cultivate in some other place he could constantly increase the flow of time around him to eight times the normal speed, but the array here allowed him to nearly double that.
There was still a month until the tri-monthly, meaning that Liang Chen had an entire year to focus on his cultivation and on increasing his strength. This was the terror of the laws of time, this was Yan Ling's greatest fear and one of her main motivators to leaving with the Nine Star Demon God.
Liang Chen split up his focus, one part focusing on continuing to fuse the law of void into his soul and body, one part focusing on cultivating his soul, and one part focusing on deepening his understanding of not just his own laws but also his own battle techniques. Yan Ling was doing her best to increase her own strength to chase after him, but Liang Chen was also doing everything in his power to increase his own strength to make sure that he could achieve his goals and not lag behind Yang Ling.
Time quickly passed, the city growing more and more lively as the day of the competition came closer. The streets were packed at all hours of the day, some of the vendors keeping their stalls and shops open all throughout the night. But none of this had anything to do with Liang Chen, who was fully immersed in his own world, his strength and understanding slowly rising. And before anyone knew it, one month passed and Liang Chen opened his eyes. The tri-monthly competition had arrived.
Liang Chen stood up and left the house, taking a deep breath and sensing the atmosphere that was so tense it was practically palpable. A sea of people was busily making its way out of the city, heading to the grand arena that was located about 50 kilometers to the west of the city. The sun had just barely risen, but none of the people present looked the least bit tired, their eyes blazing with determination and excitement.
Liang Chen's eyes were far colder and more subdued compared to the people around him, his feet locked in place as he quietly stood outside the house and watched the crowd move past him. He watched them for nearly two hours before the sea of people slowly shrank, almost everyone had already reached the arena by this point. It was at this time that Liang Chen started to move, following the last few people out of the city.
But rather than head west with them, he hung behind a bit and then split off, heading east towards the hook-like mountain located not far from the city. The mountain was surrounded by a barren plain, a single metal door entrenched into the bottom of the side of the mountain that faced the city.
Liang Chen didn't head directly to the mountain, walking in a roundabout manner until he reached the back of the mountain. He then ascended the mountain up to the halfway point and then started to make his way around it, his body somewhat crouched as he moved quickly yet silently.
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He stopped when he reached the side of the mountain and created a platform of hardened wind he could stand on, allowing him to take a few steps into empty air. From his new position, he could see the side of the entrance that led into the mountain, his gaze landing on a woman leaning against the mountain-wall next to the door. A silver halberd was leaning against the shoulder of the woman, her gaze occasionally drifting towards the west, as if she could picture the spectacle of the competition.
Liang Chen already knew that both the strongest disciples remaining in the sect had to personally oversee the tri-monthly competition, and their underlings were guaranteed to want to take part in it for the rewards. As such, this was the time where the dungeon had the laxest guard, it was the best time for Liang Chen to infiltrate.
Liang Chen narrowed his eyes and swiped his interspatial ring, a white bow appearing in his grasp. He acquired two of these bows, whose only redeeming features were their toughness, back on Tripartite God planet. One had shattered in his battle against Qian Liao, the previous Lord of Justice, so this was the last one he had on him.
He slowly pulled back the bowstring, the wind around him gathering at his fingertips and forming a hollow arrow. The hollow arrow was quickly filled by a white mist that flowed out from Liang Chen's fingertips, causing the arrow to take on a mist-like appearance. Liang Chen gathered a bit more power in the arrow before releasing it, quickly grabbing onto the bowstring again to prevent it from causing too much sound.
The arrow silently whizzed through the air as it headed for the guard, the hollow shell evaporating when the arrow was about 10 meters away from her. The wind that formed the hollow shell blew the white gas forward, dispersing it so much that it turned practically invisible. The gas blew over the woman, who took in a few breaths with her nose as she seemed to detect the faint scent of peaches. But shortly after she took in the breaths, her eyes rolled back and her body collapsed to the ground, a few soft breaths escaping her as she fell asleep.
The platform of air beneath Liang Chen vanished and he descended to the ground like a leaf, silently touching the ground and rushing forward. He propped the unconscious guard against the wall again, using a bit of lightning to affect her nerves so that they locked up her knees and torso so that she would remain standing even after he left.
He removed her interspatial ring and wiped away the imprint she had placed on it, scouring through it until he found the key to the dungeon. He then placed the ring back on her finger, not too worried about the imprint he had removed. By the time she woke up and noticed it, he hoped to be far away from the Nightshield sect, or to have already hidden amongst the other disciples.
He unlocked the dungeon and opened the door, a surprisingly soft and delicate scent of plum's tickling his nose. He stepped into the dungeon, which was plainly shaped like a long hallway that went deep into the mountain. Both sides of the hallway were lined with metal bars at first, the bars slowly giving way to metal or stone doors as one got deeper into the dungeon.
Liang Chen used the Heaven Altering Mask to take on the appearance of the sleeping guard, walking into the dungeon with his hands behind his back and a leisure gait. His head lazily moved around as he walked, peering into the various cells hidden behind metal bars. The people locked up in the cells at the very front of the dungeon were all disciples of the sect that had broken some minor rules and had been locked up for a short while to learn their lesson, the actual prisoners were all further back.
Liang Chen's steps slowly took him deeper into the dungeon, the metal bars giving way to metal doors with slits in them so that the guard could check up on the prisoners. Liang Chen used Zhong San's memories to figure out where the Storm Wolf sect disciples were locked up, sliding aside the barrier that blocked the slit on the first door of their cells.
The moment his eyes peered into the cell, his expression sank and turned grim. He could see the Storm Wolf sect disciples in the cell, but none of them were alive. They were chained to the walls using chains covered in faint golden runes that seemed to seal their cultivation, they were all so skinny that they were practically just bones, multiple scars crisscrossing across their bodies. There was one long cut on their throats so they seemed to have been executed, Liang Chen guessed that it might have something to do with the disturbance here that he heard about.
Liang Chen closed the slit of the door and made his way to the next cell, they were all divided across 12 cells, with Yan Ying supposedly only sharing his cell with one other person. But the person that Yan Ying shared his cell with was the one person Liang Chen would not expect him to share a cell with, Qing Lan Yong.
Liang Chen opened slit after slit, but the only thing that greeted him was more and more death, all the remaining disciples having their throat slit. But what Liang Chen didn't know was that after he showed himself after returning to the planet, the Nightshield sect no longer had a need for these prisoners, they could use the array surrounding the planet to find him. So when they got the chance, they executed the prisoners that remained, reducing the Storm Wolf sect to a mere three people.
Liang Chen quickly reached the last cell, the one that Yan Ying and Qing Lan Yong supposedly shared. He took a breath and slid away the barrier blocking the slit, preparing himself for the worst. But when he peered into the darkness, he couldn't help but start slightly, the cell was almost completely empty.
Liang Chen quickly unlocked the door and entered the cell, which only contained some broken shackles and splatters of blood that contained a few bone splinters. Liang Chen's expression grew serious when he saw the blood splatters and the bone splinters, but his attention was suddenly drawn to the corner of the cell by a familiar energy.
He quickly reached the corner and crouched down, a black feather that was half-submerged into a black spot appearing in his vision. He pulled out the feather, the black spot dissipating once the feather was removed, revealing a single word scratched into the floor of the cell.
"Escaped."
Liang Chen moved his gaze between the word and the feather, the corners of his mouth slowly curving upwards. The feather radiated a faint energy that he was exceedingly familiar with, it was the aura of Yumao. And looking at the word carved into the floor, Liang Chen quickly guessed at what might have happened here. It seemed like Yumao detected Yan Ying's aura while he was searching for Yan Ling, and knowing that Liang Chen was close to Yan Ying he ended up deciding to save him. With his ability to move through the darkness and sneak around, it wouldn't be hard for him to sneak into this dungeon.
Liang Chen let out a soft breath of relief, at least Yan Ling's brother was still alive, she hadn't lost her entire family. Liang Chen stood up and left the cell, closing it behind him and heading to the other cells. He picked up the corpses of the other disciples and stored them into his interspatial ring, offering them a silent prayer. They had all died because of him, the least he could do was to give them a proper burial and pray for their souls to safely reach reincarnation. Perhaps they would have enough luck in their next lives to not get involved with a scourge like him.
He quickly finished storing away all the corpses and closed the dungeon cells behind him. Now that he knew that Yan Ying wasn't here, he could stop pretending to be Zhong San and leave the Nightshield sect. He headed for the exit of the dungeon, but his steps stopped just as he left the dungeon, his pupils shrinking.
Sitting on the ground a bit to the side of the dungeon entrance, in such a position that he couldn't see her before he actually left the dungeon, was a young woman. She was clad in a silver robe and had fiery crimson hair that was slightly curly and hung down to a bit below her shoulders. She had soft features that instilled a certain calmness in anyone that looked at her, but both her eyes were completely white, without any light in them. But the strangest thing about the woman was that Liang Chen could feel that time around her was somewhat strange, it felt chaotic and disorderly. The woman smiled sweetly at Liang Chen, her empty eyes momentarily drifting to the interspatial ring on his finger.
"You've always been soft like that, darling. But then again, that's what we like about you. You know how hard it is for me to see anything about the two of you, is Sister Ling'er in there as well?"
The woman stood up from her seated position and stretched her curvy and enticing body, not an ounce of wariness in her. But Liang Chen still took a step back as she stood up, his body tensing up slightly. He could feel it, this woman was dangerous, very dangerous. The woman finished stretching her body, still smiling sweetly at Liang Chen. But as she continued to talk, a flash of realization appeared in her eyes and a very soft sigh escaped her, her expression shifting from sweet to forlorn and finally to dignified.
"What's the matter, are you worried that I'll scold you since you disregarded orders and charged in head-first? Come on you kn... Oh, right, you're not that him, I mixed you up again. That you has already dissipated, he will never come to pass. Ha~h. Greetings, Scourge King Liang Chen, I am Chen Dairong of the Sealing God sect. No matter what might have been or could have been, I'm afraid that I must kill you here."