Chapter 149: The Ghost King's Suspicion

Strange to say, before this, Bai had been tightly surrounded by the scoundrel Xu's subordinates while awaiting Xu's arrival. However, just as everyone was staring fixedly at Bai, an intensely bright light suddenly appeared beneath his feet, forming a circle that enveloped him entirely. The rising light revealed complex and shifting runes, writhing and curling like fist-sized tadpoles.

After a flash of blinding light, Bai vanished entirely from everyone's sight. When the scoundrel Xu finally arrived, he found only a group of men standing around in a daze.

Stepping forward to inspect the area, the scoundrel Xu gathered some clues in his mind. He had seen formations and runes before, and right there beneath his feet, the circular trace resembling melted snow with carved characters left behind bore a strong resemblance to the formation scripts he had previously encountered, though this sequence of characters appeared far more ancient.

The scoundrel Xu ordered his subordinates to keep the matter strictly confidential. Having given a military pledge to capture this person, he now realized that the target's abilities clearly surpassed his own. It seemed he would need to enlist the help of a formation expert from his ranks to trap the target before making any further plans.

As for Bai, who had escaped, he was currently panting heavily. His cultivation was in a dormant blank period, leaving him powerless to confront those people, yet he retained absolute confidence in his mastery of formations. However, lacking any cultivation base, he had had no choice but to bite the bullet, forcing out his own vital essence to serve as the foundation of the formation and thereby drive its operation and activation.

Especially with teleportation arrays of this kind, forcibly controlling and activating them without a cultivation base or proper material preparations would inevitably invite a backlash from the formation itself. If not for his profound attainments in the art of formations and the self-researched survival method of using vital essence to provide energy, he might very well have been done to death by the scoundrel Xu and his lackeys.

Every time he executed a forced teleportation, his body would remain weak for a period and highly unstable. On top of that, already injured, he had gone on to force a divination, which was nothing short of adding frost to snow for his already battered body.

Perhaps Bai possessed an obstinate obsession; regarding this unfathomable situation, he was pathologically stubborn. Following the second divination, Bai collapsed directly to the ground unconscious. Meanwhile, far away in the Wusha Sect, Bai Qi was still pondering how to seek counsel from this mysterious Bai.

Shifting the focus to the Ghost King Sect...

Upon parting ways with Xie Tu, Xie Sha returned directly to her own sect's peak, the Evil Sect. She did not inform either the Ghost King or the Demon King of her return, and naturally gave repeated instructions to her subordinates not to leak the news to outsiders, claiming instead that she was injured and required quiet seclusion to recuperate for a time. She did this because she understood that there were bound to be Ghost King's informants around her; even within the same sect, given the Ghost King's suspicious nature, Xie Tu could only feign injury, presenting herself to her subordinates with a haggard face and depleted vitality.

Just as Xie Tu had anticipated, two days after she informed her subordinates of her need to recuperate, the Ghost King received the news: the Evil King had returned!

Upon learning of this, the Ghost King naturally understood the meaning behind Xie Tu's actions. Since she had been missing for two full months and reports from hidden agents indicated she was injured, he decided to let her recover in peace first; as for the underlying matters, they would naturally come to light in due time. However, a doubt lingered in the Ghost King's mind: had Xie Tu truly entered that place?

Recalling events from two months ago, he had secretly trailed and watched Xie Tu. Yet, while she was fighting a brat from the Wusha Sect, he had suddenly sensed another aura lurking in the shadows, apparently having discovered his presence as well. Whether that person knew his identity, however, was another matter. Later on, following Xie Tu's aura down into the underground of the Binhe River valley, he had seen that stinky brat from the Wusha Sect actually together with Xie Tu and had intended to step out and kill him, only to sense once again the presence of that mysterious individual nearby. Furthermore, judging by his senses, the other party's strength was by no means inferior to his own.

At first, he had assumed it was some blind busybody from the Wusha Sect prying in the shadows. Soon, however, he realized that the opponent's aura did not match anyone he had ever fought from the Wusha Sect, but was instead completely unfamiliar. Moreover, he could sense that the faint attribute radiating from that aura made his entire body feel deeply uneasy, as if he had encountered his natural nemesis.

Ghost King Gui Dai had immediately concealed himself, deciding to set aside the matter of Xie Tu and the other fellow for the moment.

However, in a moment of inattention, Xie Tu and that brat had vanished from his field of vision, and he had nearly come to blows with the mysterious person.

Ever since then, Gui Dai had stopped worrying about Xie Tu and instead focused entirely on the appearance of this mysterious figure. Yet, ever since that incident beneath the river, he had never laid eyes on the person again. Whether the other party was driven by mere curiosity or harbored other motives, the ability of such a high-level expert to appear silently right beside him constituted a tangible threat to Gui Dai, the master of the Ghost King Sect. It was an invisible threat, and given his life experiences and ups and downs, Gui Dai's heart refused to tolerate it. Either he would have absolute clarity about the situation, or... he would eliminate it!

As the master of three sects, the Ghost King naturally weighed things deeply. While overseeing the development of the Night Alliance, he also secretly deployed networks of intelligence to track down the person whose attributes could restrain his own. Such a power ought to belong to some hidden family or faction; after all, in Gui Dai's view, no one in the Nine Provinces and Eight Desolations possessed the ability to suppress him. Of course, that was not absolute—perhaps the changes in all things in this world defied fixed constants.

Just as Gui Dai received a secret message from his subordinate, Xie Tu also sent a message to Bai Qi. The method of transmission relied on an exquisite red bell Xie Tu had given Bai Qi before her departure; only when she infused her spiritual will into her own bell would the bell in Bai Qi's possession ring, otherwise it was merely a lump of ordinary metal.

In the secret chamber beneath her boudoir, Xie Tu shook the bell. Bai Qi, staying with Liu Xiaojie in the Wusha Sect, felt the bell resting against his chest vibrate. It rang three times, conveying the message that they would meet at the agreed location in three days. Bai Qi shook his bell once in response to signify that he had received it.

Down in the secret chamber, Xie Tu's heart was surging with intense emotion, and this feeling was growing more and more palpable.

Yet, a sudden thought crossed her mind. Back when she had not yet become the master of the Evil Sect, her mind had been controlled by Gui Dai, and she had disguised herself as an injured woman, only to be rescued by the Third Elder of the Wusha Sect. Regrettably, thinking back now on the cruel and fatal events that followed, she still felt deep remorse, for she had been entirely helpless and manipulated by Gui Dai. She wondered how the people of the Wusha Sect would eventually react when the truth about her and Bai Qi came to light, and the thought of how to handle it gave her a massive headache. Expecting them to listen to her explanations was about as likely as the sun rising from the west.

Then, changing her perspective, Xie Tu thought of Bai Qi and decided to trust him. With Bai Qi's capabilities, he would surely be able to resolve this matter, and the people of the Wusha Sect would ultimately understand.