393 Foundation 4

Lu Family Mansion, Autumn Moon County Capital.

A couple of tall men and women dressed in gray robes sat in an inn across the street. The woman in the middle wore a mask embroidered with snake-like patterns, only exposing her clear eyes.

She was staring at the Lu Family Mansion.

"This is the base of Lu Sheng's family?"

"Yes. I heard they just moved from the Great Song." A man next to her nodded. 

Neither's lips were moving. They sent their already tiny voices directly, which even a master True Qi cultivator couldn't detect, let alone ordinary mortals. And even if someone did, they wouldn't associate the voices with the two.

"Divine Bell tried to intercept him a while back, but failed miserably, and was killed. How dumb of her.

"She should have expected some hidden tricks from someone that could destroy the Devil Abyss' seal. Facing him directly in that situation would only end in mutual destruction, even if she did win." The woman shook her head while laughing.

"Milady is correct. Divine Bell was only recently favored by His Imperial Majesty, and was too arrogant in her planning," the man said in a low voice.

"I like to follow a rule from the Human World when trying to accomplish something. If you can finish it with only 10% of the effort required, why waste your time to use more?" The woman laughed softly.

"Milady means…?" The man raised his head and waited for his order.

"We go in, capture all of Lu Sheng's relatives, set a trap, then lure him into an ambush. We wouldn't lose much even if we fail." The woman smiled.

"A brilliant plan, Milady." The man's face was filled with honest admiration.

"Let's go."

She stood up and slowly walked toward the gate of Lu Family Mansion.

Four or five others followed her. As they approached, black mist loomed around them. While invisible to mortals, anyone with any amount of cultivation would easily notice that it was Devil Qi.

The woman walked up to the gate and pushed open the door under the perplexed gaze of the guard.

"Bam!!"

When the gate was slammed open from the outside, Lu Qingqing was playing in the courtyard. A nearby Lu Hongying seemed to be training as she constantly swung her spear around.

A couple servants and maids also passed by, and stared confusedly at the gate, unaware of the reason why it had suddenly opened.

"Good evening, everyone, I am Divine Sound. The head of this noble household asked me to bring everyone here to a wonderful place." The woman's voice was delicate and soft as if she put no strength behind it, but her speech still shocked everyone within the mansion.

"We will be on our way now." Divine Sound reached out her right palm and abruptly grabbed at Lu Qingqing and the others. 

"Puff!"

With a flash of red light, Divine Bell, along with everyone behind her, instantly disappeared as if they had never been there.

Lu Hongying and everyone else had bewildered expressions on their faces, completely unaware what had just happened.

Countless rays of gold light appeared on the ground of the courtyard. Thin golden wires weaved together, and a vast amount of strange symbols appeared in the air. Three dark-purple crystals popped out and each drew a thin black line, forming a perfect triangle.

A short and shriveled old man appeared inside of the triangle.

Three fierce-looking men in red-lined white robes slowly landed outside of the mansion and walked in with a brisk pace.

"Elder Ping." All three respectfully cupped their fists at the elderly man. 

"Sorry for all the trouble. When Sect Master Lu requested for the use of this formation, I thought it was only a precaution. I didn't expect it to actually come in handy." The elderly man shook his head and smiled. "Arranging this Spirit Shift Formation wasn't easy."

"Of course. We never thought it would be used, either," one of the men in the white robes agreed with a smile. 

The elderly man smiled. "I'll get a cup of tea and check the Secret Area later. Oh, and where is the destination of the teleportation again?

"Elder, that depends on the strength of the attacker. Usually, it is set to the Jinpu Mountain within the secret area. Of course, it might be even further if they possessed very pure Devil Qi. The formation was designed to counter the Devil World, after all," the man explained.

"It actually was Jinpu Mountain??" The elderly man blanked out as he heard this.

***

Thousand Sun Sect, the Secret Area.

On a mountain covered in snow and ice.

An immense white dragon at least thousands of meters long lazily coiled itself on a smaller mountain peak, trying to hug it as close as possible.

Then, keeping its original position, it opened its mouth toward the sky and waited for food to fall down from above. 

"Haven't gotten food in so long…" The white dragon had lived in this desolate place for a long time, at least two or three thousand years. The Jinpu Mountain was where the Thousand Sun Sect executed the most ruthless criminals, while the dragon was the voluntary 'custodian', or jailer.

It had taken care of many criminals before—by swallowing them whole. Everyone sent there had received the death sentence, and most of them were Devils.

He loved the taste of Devils. Devil Generals had the most meat on them, but were too soft. Devil Kings had the best texture, especially the female ones.

Devil Masters were harder to chew and digest. Even with the help of a Great Formation of Extreme Cold and Ice Drinking, they were a lot of trouble. He had only eaten two so far. 

As he reminisced about the delicacies he'd had in the past, the white dragon opened its mouth wider so that he wouldn't miss any food that could drop down.

After detailed calculations, he had determined that this was the exact coordinates of the teleportation matrix. If they sent food, it would drop there.

And all he needed to do was open his mouth. Saved him a lot of time.

Soon, something happened to the formation in the air.

"Puff!"

A tiny mess of something fell into the white dragon's mouth. He quickly closed it and chewed.

"Blurgh! Dirt again! Can you not send me trash every time!" The white dragon spat it out, a little annoyed.

What it didn't notice was three ashen-faced people floating in mid air, right where the dirt dropped. They all stared at him with hopelessness in their eyes. 

"This is… the Thousand Sun Sect's Secret Area...!!" Divine Sound's hand was still stuck in a grabbing motion, but her whole body had gone stiff.

The Secret Area might be heaven, a holy place, for humans. But for Devils, it was a poison-soaked place filled with death.

The six forbidden areas of the three major sects and three noble families were especially famous. The Thousand Sun Sect's Jinpu Mountain was among them.

Many terrifyingly powerful masters lived as hermits on the mountain. Every single one of them was an old monster that lived for who knew how long.

Divine Sound finally understood why Divine Bell had such a calm expression—she knew all along that she would fail too. 

"Hurry and leave before it notices us!" Divine Sound suppressed her anxiety and sent out her voice.

"To where?"

"Thousand Sun's Secret Area… We… where CAN we go?"

"Yeah, where?"

"Anywhere but here! If we can enter, we can get out! Jinpu Mountain is the most dangerous place inside the secret area, we can't stay here." 

Divine Bell was still a Devil King that had worked for a Devil Emperor for many years, and kept her calm despite the desperate situation.

"Really? My place is the most dangerous here?"

An unfamiliar voice joined the conversation of the terrified Devils.

Divine Sound's whole body stiffened as she slowly turned her head.

Unfortunately for her, she only saw the immense icy blue eyes of a dragon that filled her vision.

***

The Valley of the Deer King.

Streaks of black smoke floated around like creeks and crawled through every inch of the valley, trying to find any living beings they might have missed.

Since the Black Deer Tribe Chief was a mere Earth Prime, Lu Sheng didn't even bother to do anything himself, and let the avatar of King of Shadows take care of it. He easily dismantled the Black Deer Tribe's defenses. The black smoke all over the valley was also King of Shadows' idea.

As a Devil King, he forged an avatar that did not have a single sliver of Devil Qi to avoid the Great Yin. The avatar also reached Devil King level already. Even though it made his original body weaker by half, it also increased his chances of survival.

"Speaking of which, I came up with this avatar when I was sealed within the altar and was trying to escape through the cracks. Since the altar was extremely sensitive to Devil Qi, I came up with this as a way to trick it after a lot of thought. Wasn't really useful for the altar, but at least it's useful here."

"That's a good thing, right?" Lu Sheng smiled. "You have way more freedom compared to Elder Stone."

"Master is correct. But in my opinion, the Black Deer Tribe probably didn't establish a bond with their Divine Weapon. Otherwise, it should have reacted after we started the attack." King of Shadows waved his hand as he controlled the black smoke to clean the battlefield.

"Plausible. The Black Deer Tribe probably only received some radiation from the Divine Weapon and improved their bloodline, but didn't establish an actual bond with it." Lu Sheng nodded in agreement.

"Found it!" Xu Beila shouted in a low voice all of a sudden.

"Follow me, Sect Master!" He knew he was about to be rewarded. It was obvious Lu Sheng's first priority was to consume the Black Deer Tribe's Divine Weapon. Exterminating the Black Deer was only a matter of convenience.

They followed King of Shadows deeper into the valley. Both sides of the valley were filled with caves like honeycombs, and faint sounds of fighting between the Thousand Sun Sect disciples and the Black Deer Tribe members could be heard. There was still some resistance, but none of the three cared about it. Instead, they crossed the entire valley, and entered the deepest part of the tunnel.