Chapter 485: Chapter 286: The Mastermind Behind the Scenes, Seeing Hengwan Again

Then, the unknown cave residence slowly fell silent once more, descending into a deathly stillness.

The figure entered meditation once again, forming hand seals and cultivating. Demonic Qi converged and churned, its surging currents flickering with an endless black light. Accompanied by shrill roars, the scene was exceptionally grim and terrifying.

The Soul Lamp floating before him, burning with a green, ghostly flame, wobbled and drifted down, landing in front of the black-robed figure. Its flame was dim, flickering erratically.

It made the scene all the more strange and sinister.

If anyone with extensive knowledge had been present, they would have realized that this was, in fact, a Demon Technique!

This person was a Demon Cultivator!

The very target the Song Territory had been striving to eliminate!

An unknown amount of time passed before a Communication Jade Talisman shot in from outside, passing through the cave residence’s Restriction as if unopposed and hovering before the black-robed figure.

SWISH!

The person’s eyes snapped open. He made no other movement, his pair of pale, vacant eyes staring straight ahead as his Divine Sense surged out and penetrated the Jade Talisman.

The next moment, a gray mist roiled within those pale, vacant eyes, radiating an incomparable, sinister chill!

CRACK! BANG!

The Jade Talisman, unable to withstand such power, exploded!

"The audacity! A mere Late Stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, relying on nothing but a bit of status and the influence of her backers, dares to threaten me again and again? Does she really think I’m a pushover?!"

"If I weren’t so weak right now, forced to live under someone else’s thumb and lay low, I... I’d flay that wretched bitch alive, pull out her tendons, and perform Soul Extraction and Refining!"

A violent aura swelled around him as the black-robed figure began to laugh, his fury reaching its peak.

Then, with a grim expression, he took out a Jade Talisman, inscribed a message, added a Restriction, and with a flick of his hand, sent it shooting away.

BZZZZ...

The Communication Jade Talisman flew off, and before long, it arrived at the misty shore of a vast lake. Rows of cave residences lined the area, and the Spiritual Qi was abundant.

After circling once, it dropped down into one of the cave residences and vanished.

...

Lin Changheng knew nothing of all this.

He never would have imagined that the strange mark on his body had come from a Demon Cultivator who was a fugitive with no place to call his own in the Song Territory.

He had no idea where he could have picked it up, let alone the reason for it.

However, from the cold, venomous remnant left behind after dispelling the mark, he had sensed a trace of Demonic Qi!

Although he had never personally dealt with or even met a Demon Cultivator, his previous experience refining the Vajra Bodhi Wood for Wu Jiu was, in essence, a process of dispelling Demonic Qi. As such, he was quite familiar with how it manifested.

He had recognized it in an instant!

Realizing this gave him a headache. He had no idea how he had gotten entangled with a Demon Cultivator.

But he wasn’t anxious. The mark was gone, and with it, the burden on his mind. He just had to be more careful. When the time came for his Divine Light to shine, it was anyone’s guess who would be in the light and who would be left in the shadows.

Next, Lin Changheng collected his thoughts and emerged from his seclusion. He once again disguised his face and figure, left the Golden Sand Marketplace, and flew straight toward a specific destination.

...

「Half a month later.」

What appeared before Lin Changheng was not the scenic Jade Belt Lake, but a towering Immortal City!

Floating Immortal City!

He hadn’t returned directly to the Jade Belt Lake Dojo because he had calculated that Floating Immortal City was about to hold a large-scale auction.

Small-scale auctions were basically useless to Lin Changheng now; only at a large-scale auction like this would truly good items appear!

Even some Core Formation Cultivators would attend, proving that the items up for auction were sufficiently appealing—a result intentionally orchestrated by the Immortal City.

After entering the Immortal City, seeing that he still had time to spare, Lin Changheng went directly to the Huang Family’s Huangliang Residence. He ordered some Spirit Wine and Spiritual Food to enjoy at his leisure, and at the same time, opened all five of his senses to start gathering useful information.

Immortal Taverns were the easiest places to gather information, but with the good and bad all mixed together, one had to be careful to discern the truth.

This had become Lin Changheng’s standard operating procedure after emerging from seclusion, a way to avoid misjudging the state of the Cultivation Realm and becoming disconnected after long periods of isolation.

When he was at Jade Belt Lake, he would either ask the Pill Seeking Cultivators for news or communicate with friends through letters to gather information, ensuring he generally had a good grasp of the situation.

This time, Lin Changheng was taking the opportunity to gather it himself.

He was particularly interested in the details of the Wilderness Beast Tide and the conflict between the two sects.

These matters concerned the entire future development and direction of the Song Territory.

"What?"

But a moment later, his chopsticks froze mid-air.

A glint flashed in his eyes!

He had just overheard news of the Song-Jin War. A great many cultivators were discussing it, their faces flushed with excitement.

Moreover, the cultivators of the Song Country had launched a surprise campaign, and the results were spectacular!

’They’ve started fighting? Has this been planned for a long time?’

After sitting there for the better part of the afternoon, Lin Changheng managed to gather a few more scattered pieces of information.

They were more detailed.

For example, the vanguard of the Song Country cultivators surprisingly included cultivators from the Five Great Sects and other Daoist Sects.

Cultivators from both the Profound Ice Valley and Yellow Maple Cliff were among them.

This led everyone to wonder more and more: was the war between the two sects... truly just an act, a performance put on for the Jin Country?

Was it all to make the High Tier Cultivators of the Jin Country lower their guard? ’Our own house may be a mess, but our neighbor’s is just as chaotic. What’s there to be wary of?’

But in reality, the Song Territory had been secretly preparing for war, just waiting for the chance to strike deep into enemy territory!

A world of mutual deceit, truly.

...

Lin Changheng now also understood why the Purple Extreme Sect had quietly transferred away a batch of its Foundation Establishment Cultivators. This was the reason.

And the Purple Extreme Sect’s seemingly excessive crackdown on the Tribulation Cultivator gangs at Jade Belt Lake now also had an explanation.

As the Song-Jin War progressed, the Purple Extreme Sect’s garrison and forces of control were bound to be significantly weakened, as troops would have to be dispatched to the battlefront in the Jin Country.

The forces left behind would likely be insufficient. Various hidden powers, catching wind of the situation, would inevitably emerge, and chaos would reign once more!

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