“Brother, those evil god projections have all gathered in Jiuyuan City!”
Within the secret realm carved out by the Ghost Moon Fox, Yu Chan’s voice echoed beside his ear.
Li Muyang, who was fiercely battling in the game, furrowed his brow. For a brief moment, he was distracted, leaving an opening amidst the heated combat.
In the next second, he was struck by the radiant golden False Buddha and sent flying.
The sinister laughter of the Otherworldly Demon God reverberated within the palace.
“Jiang Xiaoyu! Oh Jiang Xiaoyu! You truly know how to surprise me!”
“Relying on your half-baked battle prowess, you’ve managed to push me to this state… No wonder you’re Fairy Qinghe’s brother!”
“I acknowledge your strength!”
The Otherworldly Demon God let out a shrill laugh, while its half-shattered golden form rapidly healed, flesh regenerating once more.
Amidst showers of golden Buddha blood, Li Muyang tried to sustain his relentless storm-like offensive, while simultaneously commanding five puppets to attack the golden body of the False Buddha.
However, the brief flaw earlier had already allowed the besieged False Buddha to break free from its restraints.
After the collapse of Li Muyang’s meticulously orchestrated Puppet Formation, the fragile scale of victory tilted immediately in the False Buddha’s favor.
Li Muyang made a strenuous attempt to recover, but it was already beyond salvaging.
Ten minutes later, all of Li Muyang’s puppets were obliterated by the False Buddha, and he too was crushed beneath the massive hand of the golden figure.
[You have died. Game failed.]
The familiar failure cutscene popped up in his view. Li Muyang sighed helplessly, feeling a trace of regret.
This was the closest he had ever come to victory—he had already drained nine-tenths of the False Buddha’s health bar, leaving only a tiny fraction left.
The False Buddha had nearly been pushed to the brink of defeat, forced into its most dangerous berserk mode.
In this state, the False Buddha was terrifyingly fierce, yet equally fragile. A little more endurance would have sufficed to finish it off.
However, the fleeting opening he showed had been keenly seized upon by the False Buddha, which in turn shattered his already depleted Puppet Formation.
Following defeat, Li Muyang refrained from immediately reloading the save file. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
Inside the secret realm, he saw Yu Chan, her face full of worry, while Liu Lian’er and the Third Miss had also arrived upon receiving word.
Seeing her brother awaken, Yu Chan immediately raised her hand and conjured a water mirror, within which emerged images of the current scene outside Jiuyuan City in the mortal world.
Previously gathered around Demon Sword City, the group of evil gods had now begun lurking near Jiuyuan City, clearly searching for something.
The arrival of the evil gods threw the citizens of Jiuyuan City into a frenzy of fear and panic, causing them to flee from the remote little town.
On the borders of Jiuyuan City’s territory, many flying boats and banners stood tall—a collection of major sects from the cultivation world nearby had gathered, following the trail of the evil god projections. They observed the dreadful gods vigilantly, fearing what chaos they might bring to the area.
Yet the evil god projections within the water mirror displayed an unusual behavior—they showed no intent to attack any surrounding living creatures.
Despite the proximity of Tianjiao City, a major stronghold filled with numerous cultivators, the evil god projections seemed indifferent and focused solely on searching the forests near Jiuyuan City.
Li Muyang observed the scene through the water mirror and frowned slightly.
“…These evil gods truly have tracked me down.”
Back in Demon Sword City, he had already realized that the evil god projections were hunting him and were capable of tracking his location.
Now, even though he had stayed still in the secret realm near Jiuyuan City for a while, the evil god projections had already arrived outside the realm.
“Persistent as ghosts…”
Li Muyang sighed and looked toward Yu Chan, asking, “Can these evil god projections locate the entrance to the secret realm?”
In theory, as long as the evil gods couldn’t enter the secret realm, they wouldn’t pose a direct threat to Li Muyang while inside.
Yu Chan shook her head and replied, “They cannot enter, but my mother said the evil god projections have sealed off the surrounding space.”
“My mother is currently weakened and cannot send us far away. If we leave the secret realm now, we will immediately appear amidst the encirclement of these evil gods…”
The situation Yu Chan described made Li Muyang’s brows furrow even deeper.
The Ghost Moon Fox possessed a bronze mirror capable of teleporting people out of the secret realm.
If the Ghost Moon Fox expended its power, it could even send people over great distances.
However, due to the Ghost Moon Fox’s current need for recuperation, it was unable to employ the bronze mirror. Were Li Muyang and the others to leave now, they would face the evil god projections directly…
“These evil gods are indeed troublesome,” Li Muyang muttered with a frown. “They seem hell-bent on pursuing me.”
Despite the abundance of Evil Vein descendants across the world—not to mention those in the Ancient Resentment Well—there were others on the Tianyuan Continent, such as Nie Yubing and Shen Yan.
Yet from the very start, these evil gods had been singularly focused on relentlessly chasing Li Muyang… Jiang Xiaoyu hadn’t even done anything a thousand years ago to provoke them!
Why were these evil gods haunting him like mad dogs?
Li Muyang couldn’t grasp the origin of the evil gods’ obsession with him.
Through Yu Chan’s water mirror, he carefully scrutinized the scene for a moment and frowned.
“I’ll have to think of a way to draw these evil gods away later.”
If the evil gods continued to camp around the secret realm’s entrance, even if Li Muyang cleared the game and found a way to heal Yan Xiaoru, he wouldn’t be able to leave to save her.
It wasn’t feasible to discard yet another body…
This elderly body was already the last one with a compatibility rate exceeding 90%.
Li Muyang felt a slight headache setting in.
Just then, a fleeting scene in the water mirror made Li Muyang suddenly focus.
“Yu Chan! Wait a moment, just now… Show me that scene again.”
Yu Chan adjusted the water mirror’s perspective. Li Muyang scrutinized the edge of the mirror, where at Jiuyuan City’s borders, cultivators’ tunneling lights streaked across the sky.
The tunneling lights of these cultivators weren’t particularly noteworthy.
But on the ground at the edge of the water mirror’s view, Li Muyang spotted a group of individuals walking.
Their mannerisms resembled ordinary civilians strolling down the road, devoid of any ability for flight or teleportation, indistinguishable from the other mortals on the official path.
Yet Li Muyang instantly recognized their identities.
“…The Immortal Artifact Masters have come to Jiuyuan City?!”
Li Muyang’s furrowed brow deepened as he stared at the Immortal Artifact Masters who had appeared in the mirror.
Leading the group was an elderly man who, though not bearing a lamp, was undoubtedly Wei Suyi.
Behind Wei Suyi followed the white-haired Ghost Mansion Seven Xie Liuyun, then Dou Sujiu Tuo Ba Lie and Jing Muan Yan Qing Hui.
The most peculiar individual was the eccentric Daoist Dong Xuanzi, who had somehow joined this group as well.
At Dong Xuanzi’s side was the now stoic and expressionless young man, Guan Xiaoshun.
—These people from Demon Sword City had all come to Jiuyuan City?
Why were they here?
Had Wei Suyi’s calculation methods truly uncovered Jiang Xiaoyu’s roots, leading them to chase him down all the way to Jiuyuan City?
Li Muyang hesitated briefly before asking Yu Chan.
“Yu Chan, if these Immortal Artifact Masters were to act together, could they break open the secret realm’s entrance?”
Previously, Yan Xiaoru and Chou Yuyan had joined forces to forcibly open the secret realm’s entrance.
And if Yan Xiaoru and Chou Yuyan could achieve it, then this group of Immortal Artifact Masters should be capable of it too…