The Decisive Blow and the Unveiling of Deceit

He hesitated no longer, decisively crushing the jade tablet clutched in his hand!

Boom!

A scorching golden pillar of light, blazing like the great sun and imbued with pure, righteous power, shot skyward, carrying the full might of a peak Purple Mansion cultivator’s strike as it slammed relentlessly into the descending blood-red rune net.

Yet, this golden pillar, potent enough to raze mountains and purge malevolent spirits, merely rippled violently upon striking the viscous, writhing blood net. Like a clay ox sinking into the sea, it was rapidly corroded and consumed by the boundless, foul, and deathly aura, vanishing in mere moments without a trace and failing to budge the net in the slightest.

The very space around them had been utterly sealed by this bizarre, malevolent power!

For the first time, a clear expression of astonishment and solemn gravity settled upon the leading cultivator’s face. Behind him, his two companions instantly blanched, cold sweat drenching their heavy robes.

They were acutely aware of the devastating power behind their leader’s recent strike, yet it had proven utterly incapable of breaching this malevolent formation?!

“You possess a modicum of insight, I’ll grant you that,” the hoarse, overlapping voice echoed once more, laced with a cat-and-mouse amusement and mockery. “Your reaction was commendable enough. Alas, it’s too late.”

Shadowy chains had already coiled around the bodies of the three patrol envoys.

The spiritual light around their forms flickered violently, yet it proved utterly incapable of preventing the foul aura from infiltrating their meridians and corrupting their Dantians!

Their flying swords wailed mournfully, their spiritual light rapidly dimming. A sharp crack echoed from the bronze mirror, its surface spiderwebbed with countless fissures.

The leading cultivator’s eyes were bloodshot, and he attempted to self-detonate. Yet, he discovered that even his very soul was inextricably bound by the chains, rendering him unable to smoothly channel his internal magic power to unleash the Demonic Disintegration Art.

Even the last vestiges of his power to resist were being swiftly siphoned away.

“What… what exactly is your purpose?!” he rasped, the question tearing painfully from his throat.

“Purpose?” The voice chuckled, as if mocking his naivete. “Naturally, we intend to borrow your bodies. The Immortal Alliance’s guise is quite convenient for our endeavors, wouldn’t you agree?”

The three patrol envoys exchanged a look, each seeing in the other’s eyes not only boundless despair but also a final, unwavering resolve.

In the next instant, almost simultaneously, with an immense surge of willpower, they forced their tongues to crush a wax pill, long hidden in their molars.

It was a ‘Nirvana Pill,’ a specialized concoction from the Immortal Alliance’s Pill Hall. This unique poison, once released, would instantly merge with their spiritual energy, obliterate their souls, and corrode their very blood and flesh. Its purpose was to ensure complete annihilation of body and soul upon capture, denying their enemies any opportunity for soul-searching or humiliation.

Yet—

The agonizing pain of body and soul annihilation they had anticipated never arrived.

The wax pill shattered, revealing nothing within! No, not nothing; rather, the terrifying poison, potent enough to slay immortals and butcher demons, had, at some unknown point and entirely without their knowledge, transformed into mere sugar pellets!

“How could this be?!” a young patrol envoy finally cried out, the blood draining from his face.

“Hahahaha!”

The owner of the mysterious voice erupted into uncontrollable laughter, as though witnessing the most ludicrous farce.

“How adorably foolish! If such a miraculous poison truly existed—one that could instantly obliterate a cultivator’s very being upon ingestion—would the Immortal Alliance ever deign to waste it on the likes of you?”

“They would have long since secretly laced the spiritual springs of those outwardly compliant, inwardly defiant sects with it!”

“This was merely a test of loyalty, and some of you actually fell for it?! Such imbeciles, one truly wonders how many resources your masters squandered nurturing you to this level of cultivation. No wonder your masters sold you out!”

“Do you know why you fell so effortlessly into our snare?”

The hoarse, genderless voice continued, its tone growing increasingly mocking. “Had we confronted you directly, we might have had reason to fear a Purple Mansion peak cultivator such as yourself, if only by a fraction. Alas…”

The voice suddenly turned chilling, imbued with a bone-deep malice and an unspeakable sense of superiority. “You are all nothing more than domesticated hounds, raised for a purpose. When your masters decide to cast you aside, even we, mere vermin who have festered in the gutters for years, are fortunate enough to feast upon the flesh and blood of such ‘divine hounds’.”

Mid-air, three jade tablets materialized, their form identical to the ancestral tablets found in mortal shrines.

These three familiar jade tablets instantly shattered the last vestiges of the three patrol envoys’ mental defenses. The most vulnerable among them—the young man who had cried out earlier—let out an almost inhuman shriek of despair, and even the Purple Mansion cultivator’s face was etched with profound defeat.

These were their Natal Jade Tablets.

Their Natal Jade Tablets, which should have been securely stored within the Immortal Alliance.

The next moment, more shadowy figures emerged from the surrounding gloom.

Clad in wide, uniform black robes that utterly concealed their forms, their faces were hidden deep within cavernous hoods, making them appear as if they were coalesced shadows themselves.

When an occasional night breeze swept through, it would stir the hem of one figure’s robe. Yet, beneath, no human limb was revealed; instead, a dense black mist writhed and coiled, ceaselessly shifting its form.

Among them, a black-robed figure, whose form appeared marginally more substantial—the presumed leader—slowly lifted a hand similarly enveloped in the same black mist.

Cupped within his palm was a pitch-black, fleshy tumor, roughly the size of a baby’s fist, which pulsed and writhed with an unnerving, autonomous motion.

The tumor’s surface was riddled with countless tiny, frantically rotating, ghastly pale eyes.

At this very moment, those myriad eyes, packed densely across its surface, swiveled in chilling unison, fixing their cold, merciless gaze upon the three patrol envoys, who were tightly bound by chains and utterly consumed by despair.

Under the unblinking scrutiny of those countless evil eyes, the two Foundation Establishment realm patrol envoys couldn’t even manage a muffled groan; the sounds in their throats abruptly ceased, and the light in their eyes was instantly extinguished. The vitality around their forms visibly dissipated at a terrifying speed.

Only the peak Purple Mansion leader, relying on his profound cultivation, stubbornly clung to life.

The black-robed figure holding the fleshy tumor began to chant strange, cold, and blasphemous incantations.

“Aruk Sherilk Sat, Meriat Makob Chao…”

The language belonged to no known race of the mortal world; each syllable seemed to carry a power to corrode all things, causing anyone who heard it to feel their soul disoriented and their intellect clouded.

Following this, a bone-chilling, subtle sound, as if flesh and blood were being forcibly stripped and then reshaped, reverberated through the silent mountain wilderness… then quickly subsided into dead silence.

The blood-red rune net slowly dispersed, as if it had never appeared.

The mountain forest returned to its deathly stillness, and the moonlight remained clear and cold, as if the brief and terrifying assault had been merely an illusion.

On the spot, the three Immortal Alliance patrol envoys still stood ‘intact’ and ‘unharmed’; even their flying boat had returned to its original state, quietly hovering in the air.

As for the grotesque black-robed figures, they had vanished without a trace, as if they had evaporated, as if they had never existed.

However, upon closer inspection of the three ‘patrol envoys,’ one would notice their eyes were frighteningly vacant, devoid of any light, filled only with a dead, numb emptiness.

Although the aura around them was mimicked with astonishing lifelikeness, almost identical to before, a keen spiritual sense would detect a faint, cold stillness and inhuman malevolence subtly seeping through the perfect disguise, unable to be entirely concealed.

The leading ‘patrol envoy’ moved his neck with extreme slowness, a stiffness suggesting unfamiliarity with the body, and his bone joints emitted faint ‘crackling’ friction sounds.

He attempted to pull at the corners of his mouth, but could only stiffly raise one side while the other eerily drooped, contorting his face into an extremely discordant, chillingly grotesque expression.

“Mission… altered.”

He spoke, his voice identical to that of the previous stern cultivator, yet his tone was flat and devoid of inflection, each word sounding as if it had been retrieved from an ice cellar, cold and stiff.

If one listened closely, they might even detect a subtle, continuous, inhuman tremor hidden beneath the steady voice, as if something within this skin was stirring restlessly.

“Proceed to Wu Yin Imperial Palace… take control of the ‘seed’… eliminate all… suspected informants. Ensure… the opening of the ‘gate’… is foolproof.”

He issued his commands one word at a time, with eerie pauses between phrases.

The other two ‘patrol envoys’ offered no response, merely nodding in perfect, rigid synchronization, like puppets controlled by invisible strings.

The dark flying boat silently activated once more, transforming into a cold streak of light. No longer attempting to conceal its tracks, it sped directly towards the Wu Yin Imperial Palace with astonishing speed, slicing through the night sky and leaving behind a fleeting, pale vapor trail.

The night wind swept across the desolate ancient post road, stirring a few withered leaves and dust, which whirled and then gently settled.