Lin Lei and Bei Bei left Dragon Blood Castle in secret, and hardly anyone knew about it. At first, when Wotton and the others noticed Lin Lei wasn't around, they didn't think much of it — they assumed he was training in the miniature dimension chamber.
But after ten days or so, they learned from Dilia that Lin Lei and Bei Bei had actually gone out.
The ordinary guards and maids at Dragon Blood Castle didn't learn about it until even later.
Although the population of the Luo'ao Empire had plummeted after the Dead City incident and it no longer really deserved to be called an empire, it still had a fair number of citizens. Especially now, twenty years on, the population had grown considerably.
In a quiet little city within the Luo'ao Empire, the grandest mansion in the entire city was home to guards who stood ramrod straight, and even the maids didn't dare laugh or fool around.
A cold-faced middle-aged man in a lavish robe strode through the mansion.
"Lord Anlas!" The guards bowed with deep reverence.
Anlas nodded slightly and kept walking. Before long, he arrived at a secluded courtyard where a man in a robe embroidered with golden thread lay reclined in a chair, holding a book a full five centimeters thick.
"Lord Sadista!" Anlas bowed respectfully.
The man reading was none other than Sadista. He had been living on the Yulan Continent for nearly twenty years, keeping a low profile in this small city. But nothing that happened anywhere on the continent escaped his awareness. As for Anlas, he was one of the three mid-tier gods under Sadista's command.
"Anlas, is something the matter?" Sadista didn't look up from his book, his voice indifferent.
Anlas replied respectfully, "Lord Sadista, according to the people we've placed in Dragon Blood Castle, Lin Lei has already left. He's apparently been gone for quite some time." For someone with Sadista's methods, planting agents inside Dragon Blood Castle was no difficult feat.
The two places Sadista kept the closest watch on were the O'Brien Empire's imperial palace and Dragon Blood Castle.
He had planted agents in the palace to keep tabs on Adkins. After all, on the Yulan Continent, only two people gave Sadista pause — Adkins and Belutu. But Belutu's "Metal Castle" didn't accept outsiders at all.
Unable to plant agents there, Sadista had settled for the next best thing — Dragon Blood Castle.
There were two reasons for planting agents at Dragon Blood Castle. One was Belutu, and the other was the Dragon Blood Warriors and the Undying Warriors.
*Slam!* The brick-thick book snapped shut. Sadista turned to look at Anlas. "Lin Lei left Dragon Blood Castle? Did he leave alone?"
"No, he was with that God-Devouring Mouse called Bei Bei," Anlas replied respectfully.
"Hmph." Let out a reluctant snort. "This Lin Lei is always hanging around with that God-Devouring Mouse. Killing him is going to be troublesome." Sadista had not given up his intention of eliminating the descendants of the Four Divine Beast families.
"In less than a hundred years, this Lin Lei has already reached such a level. Among the Four Divine Beast families, that would count him as a top-tier genius — and this is without even going back for the ancestral shrine baptism. If he entered the shrine and underwent the baptism, a talent like him wouldn't take long at all to become yet another major force for the Azure Prefecture, and our family would gain another great enemy." Sadista's expression was grim.
He knew the legend of the Four Divine Beast families all too well.
"Lin Lei is already this powerful without the shrine baptism. The day he does return to the ancestral shrine, it really will be trouble," Anlas agreed, nodding.
"If the Azure Prefecture learned that a genius of this caliber still existed among the Four Divine Beast families in the Yulan Continent plane, they would spare no effort to bring this Lin Lei back." Sadista's voice was cold. "Everyone else in that Dragon Blood Castle — that Wotton, that Bark, and the rest — they're nothing more than mediocrities. Even if they returned to the Four Divine Beast families, they'd just be adding to the head count. They'd never produce anything remarkable. But this Lin Lei…"
Anlas nodded to himself as well.
Members of the Four Divine Beast families typically underwent the ancestral shrine baptism, which brought dramatic leaps in power. For someone like Lin Lei to be this strong without the baptism — once he returned and went through it, his future achievements would be a cause for real concern for Sadista.
After all, becoming a god independently in less than a hundred years. That alone spoke volumes about Lin Lei's potential.
"However, our primary purpose in coming here remains the Divine Tombs," Sadista said, frowning.
To enter the Divine Tombs, he could not afford to offend Belutu.
If he wanted to kill Lin Lei, but Lin Lei was with Bei Bei, Bei Bei would certainly remember the aura of anyone who killed Lin Lei. And from there… it would lead straight back to him, Sadista.
"No matter what, we cannot kill that God-Devouring Mouse called 'Bei Bei.'" Sadista understood this perfectly. Among Belutu's descendants, there was only this one God-Devouring Mouse. Belutu had even stationed two of his sons at Dragon Blood Castle to protect Bei Bei.
How much Belutu valued Bei Bei was plain to anyone.
If they killed Bei Bei, then…
Belutu's fury would be something even Sadista could not withstand.
"Besides, Belutu's backing is far from ordinary. If we truly made enemies of him, even our family would likely suffer a catastrophe." Sadista had only a vague idea of just how terrifying Belutu's background really was.
"To kill Lin Lei, we have to find the right moment — when he separates from that God-Devouring Mouse called 'Bei Bei,' when they're not together. Then we change our appearance, seize the opportunity, and kill Lin Lei!" A cold gleam flickered in Sadista's eyes. "Hmph, even if Lin Lei and Bei Bei share a soul bond, at most the enemy's appearance could be conveyed. The enemy's aura — that cannot be transferred."
Sadista wasn't the least bit worried that Belutu would discover him under these circumstances.
Because…
Even a being as powerful as a Highgod could not perceive what had happened in the past or would happen in the future. As long as Belutu couldn't trace the killer, what did Sadista have to fear?
"Now let me see where this Lin Lei is!" Sadista's divine sense swept outward in an instant, almost instantly blanketing the entire Yulan Continent. Naturally, he deliberately guided his awareness to avoid the Dark Forest and the capital of the O'Brien Empire.