Beiming Potian’s appearance brought along a tense atmosphere.
His deer was as red as blood with a pair of antlers growing from the top of its head. They were two meters long and as hard as blood metal. It arrogantly glared at everyone with disdain.
This was a Crimson Horned Deer that had cultivated for eight hundred years. Its fighting ability was comparable to a third to fourth-level Heaven’s Mandate.
Potian sitting on the deer had an even more oppressive aura. His greatsword stole the breath out of people.
“I heard Potian was cultivating the sixth-level of the Northern Profound Art but he’s out now, even if he hasn’t finished with it, I’m sure his cultivation has improved.”
The prodigies who wanted to go against Feng Feiyun quickly backed off. Who were they joking? There were three historical geniuses here; each fierce in their own way, especially Potian. They couldn’t interfere in this competition.
“Boom!” The water in the river suddenly rose upward. Two people from other shore flew over, one male, one female. The girl had four white wings and a white dress; her face shrouded behind a veil. Her hair was as long as a waterfall and gave off a transcending feeling.
The male was full of evil energy with the qi image of a nefarious city above him. People couldn’t help but falter.
“Dongfang Jingyue and Jingshui, the two top prodigies of the Yin Gou are also here.”
The crow was shocked for the second times. Too many heroes have gathered here already with four historical geniuses. Normally, even seeing one of them was difficult.
Ling Donglai couldn’t hide the happiness in his eyes. He stared intensely at Dongfang Jingyue: ‘She, she’s also here now.’ [1]
He couldn’t forget their incredible first meeting. Mists were everywhere then as he marched back with his army across the dragon lake. He heard an enchanting pipa melody on the river and followed the sound. He saw a beautiful lady sitting over yonder and playing her pipa.
She looked just like a goddess lost in the mortal world.
He thought that he would never like a woman but after seeing Dongfang Jingyue, he knew he had met his fated love in this life.
The song stopped and the woman disappeared. It took some investigation before he found out that she was the fourth daughter of the Yin Gou Clan, Dongfang Jingyue.
Ever since then, he would often go to the dragon lake in order to catch her by chance again. He was indeed successful but only watched from afar, not wanting to disturb her serenity, the pure lotus in the middle of the lake.
“Beiming Potian, you cultivate the heavy sword art, thinking that the heavier the sword, the more destructive power.” Jingshui stood face to face with Potian; his aura was not inferior in any way.
He was the only one here who could truly take on Potian.
“Heavy or not is up to a single thought of mine. I only need one slash to break all the arts in this world.” Potian replied.
His clan’s Northern Profound Art was the most powerful merit law in this world, especially its ice armor that was virtually peerless at the same cultivation level. Alas, this also played a role to the clan’s relatively weak offensive potential.
Strong defense, weak offense.
This wasn’t as obvious at lower cultivation. However, at a higher level, one would eventually find how important offense was.
Because of this, Potian cultivated the heavy sword dao in order to make up for this deficit.
Jingshui laughed in response: “I’ll take you on then, we’ll see to what level your heavy sword dao has reached.”
“I don’t want to fight you today, I’m here to kill.” The gigantic sword on his back issued a ringing noise. A murderous energy shot out from his body straight for Feiyun and Xiaoxiang.
Jingshui sightly shook his body and blocked out this murderous intent: “But I really want to fight today. You must entertain me.” [2]
Everyone could see that Potian was here to kill the demon’s son but Jingshui was purposely interfering. Did he just want to antagonize Potian?
“This Jingshui fella, why is he interfering? Is his head not working?” The prodigies under the Grand Chancellor were very annoyed since they were waiting for Potian to take care of Feng Feiyun but Jingshui jumped out of nowhere.
“Did too much water enter his head or something? Or is he helping the demon’s son?” A young king wondered. [3]
Potian revealed a frightening glare and said: “Jingshui, our battle prowess is even so we won’t be done for at least three days. If you really want to fight, I’ll visit your dragon lake on a future day.”
“No, I prefer today since we’re here already, come now.” Jingshui channeled his energy. The air around him condensed and trapped Potian inside.
At this moment, Potian had no choice but to fight.
The area around them became explosive. The first to make a move would definitely turn this into a long fight and involve everything in a hundred miles radius.
“Lucky me, ‘water head’ got here in time.’ Feiyun thought to himself. He then noticed Dongfang Jingyue’s pretty eyes glaring at him and Xiaoxiang. [4]
‘Sigh, they’re both Dongfang but why is one so much cuter than the other?’ He lamented. ‘This damned grandma must still be mad at me, why can’t she learn from her older brother? Look, ‘water head’ knows how to be such a good person.’
The sun was setting to the west and its rays were dimming down. Finally, there was a moon hanging above.
Meanwhile, no one was doing anything by the river shore. All were indirectly restrained by their opponents, not wanting to make the first move.
Night descended as the grasses fluttered with the biting wind that sounded like cries.
Suddenly, a ghost village appeared before the crowd and took everyone inside.
The scene changed too quickly. All of them were standing in a village lit up with lamps. All the prodigies were creeped out since they have heard about the rumors of this place. They came to satisfy their curiosity but never wanted to actually enter.
All along, only one Enlightened Being was able to come out after entering the village. However, this person never showed themselves again to the world. Who knows if he had died from being infected with something nefarious?
“Did the demon’s son just screwed all of us? I only wanted to come here for fun but we were standing right at the village. We’re gonna die here tonight.”
The youths have only visited the small town today so they didn’t know that this was the location of the ghost village. Even Ling Donglai and Potian had slightly shaken expression.
Feiyun was naturally aware of this but even if he were to say it, no one would believe him anyway. They would think that it was an attempt of running away.
Plus, he couldn’t leave under that situation either or everyone would instantly attack him at the first sight of movement.
“Damn it, what should we do now?” One person cried out.
There were more than twenty houses in this ghost village. All of them were lit up but no one was inside, not even a chicken or any livestock, no cricket chirping either.
This eerie silence devastated the mind.
Tree shadows were fluttering back and forth under the moonlight with rustling noises.
“Oh? Where did Gu Chuanfeng go?” Someone blurted out.
Chuanfeng and Sanwang were forced to kneel by Feiyun earlier by the river and were still there after the ghost village’s appearance. People saw them just now but in the next second, Chuanfeng was nowhere to be found. Only Sanwang was kneeling there.
This was too bizarre. Even Sanwang didn’t know what was going on.
“Did he run out of the village already?” Donglai became austere.
“You think it is that easy to enter and leave this place?” Feiyun sneered at him before taking out his stone saber. He used the Heavenly Phoenix Gaze and shot out two rays of fire in order to find something.
His eyes eventually fell on an old mulberry tree at the corner of the village and started digging under there with his saber.
No one knew what he was doing but all eyes were on him.
Potian and Jingshui also withdrew their battle auras and stared suspiciously over.
“Found it.” Feiyun dug a while until there was a pit in front of the tree.
Jingyue was quite curious and walked cutely over to tease him: “Idiot Feng, you found some treasure?”
“Gu Chuanfeng.” Feiyun lifted a corpse out of the ground. It was stained with blood with rotted clothing resembling the attire of a beggar. The flesh had decayed into black bits with bones visible in several areas.