Seeing the red-haired elder depart, Bei Bei walked over and curled his lips. "That old geezer—staying in the Material Plane has narrowed his vision. What a fool, actually volunteering to refine a Divine Spark."
"Not foolish—clever," Lin Lei said with a smile. "The Awklan Plane has an enormous population and produces a vast number of god-level experts. He probably knows quite a bit about the Infernal Realm, the Netherworld, the Celestial Realm, and so on. Unless you can reach the level of a Six-Star or Seven-Star Demon, life in the Infernal Realm is nothing but suffering. That old geezer just now stands at the very peak here in the Awklan Plane, where he can enjoy life in comfort. Why would he ever want to go to a Supreme Plane?"
Bei Bei was taken aback, then nodded. "That makes sense."
"Hey, Boss—about the Awklan Plane, have you told Grandpa Belute?"
"Of course I told him," Lin Lei said with a smile. "Right now, your Grandpa Belute's clone on the Yulan Continent is at my Dragonblood Castle, staying together with my divine clone. I've told him everything that's happened here... Lord Belute is also using his influence to monitor whether any news of the Crimson Rhombus Diamond surfaces in places like the Life Sovereign Realm."
Bei Bei nodded. "Right, we definitely need to keep an eye on it."
The Crimson Rhombus Diamond—Lin Lei dreamed of obtaining it!
While the Crimson Rhombus Diamond was very likely somewhere in the Awklan Plane, it couldn't be ruled out that Brodie had taken it to another plane entirely.
So Lin Lei could only ask Belute for help. Belute had many friends, and keeping tabs on this kind of intelligence was no great difficulty. But over the past few days, even Belute hadn't turned up any news of the Crimson Rhombus Diamond.
The residents of the Misty Continent and the Beast God Continent went about their lives as usual, unchanged by the arrival of the gods. The various Grand Completion Highgods and those ten-thousand-plus Highgods had indeed begun examining humans, elves, dwarves, magical beasts, and other forms of life—but they did so carefully, without harming a single one.
As for Lin Lei—
He never let up his vigilance over the entire plane. Any unusual movement whatsoever from those Highgods or Grand Completion experts would immediately draw his attention.
With his Soul Power surpassing even that of a Sovereign, none of the Grand Completion experts detected his surveillance.
Under this intensive search, time continued to slip away.
In the blink of an eye, two months had passed.
Mengya Mountain Outpost.
"Lord Baruch." The red-haired elder had come again.
Lin Lei and Bei Bei both looked over.
"Lord Baruch, I've obtained new information about the Crimson Rhombus Diamond," the red-haired elder said quickly.
"Oh?" Bei Bei sneered. "Over these two months, you've brought us 'new information' dozens of times. You even found a dozen Crimson Rhombus Diamonds."
Over these two months, the Blood Blade had indeed found over a dozen Crimson Rhombus Diamonds. But before any of them even arrived, Lin Lei's divine sense had already detected the fakes, and he'd written them all off without exception.
"I can't tell real from fake myself," the red-haired elder said with an awkward smile, then hurried on. "But this time, the information really does seem credible."
"Go on," Lin Lei said flatly.
"Yes." The red-haired elder nodded eagerly. "About thirty-odd years ago, a mage who was on a training expedition near the edge of the Misty Forest spotted two powerful figures flying through the air. They appeared to be a married couple. The woman was wearing a necklace, and set into that necklace was a Crimson Rhombus Diamond."
Lin Lei's and Bei Bei's eyes lit up.
Thirty-odd years ago? A couple? Flying through the air?
"What happened to the couple?" Lin Lei asked quickly.
"The mage only saw the couple hover briefly in midair, as if discussing something. Then they flew off deeper into the Misty Forest. That's all he knew." The red-haired elder shook his head.
"You may leave," Lin Lei said.
"Yes." The red-haired elder bowed respectfully and withdrew.
Lin Lei and Bei Bei both furrowed their brows.
"Boss, this doesn't look good," Bei Bei said.
"It doesn't," Lin Lei agreed, worry settling in. "Brodie and his wife heading to the depths of the Misty Forest—they were obviously flying toward the teleportation array. They probably used it to leave the Awklan Plane. If Brodie and his wife really did leave with the Crimson Rhombus Diamond, that's a serious problem. Finding them would be like searching for a needle in a haystack."
The message left by the plane guardian had said the couple was heading for the Life Sovereign Realm.
But the Life Sovereign Realm was incomprehensibly vast.
And couldn't the two of them simply use another teleportation array within the Life Sovereign Realm to transfer to yet another plane?
How would they ever find them?
"But there's another possibility," Bei Bei muttered. "Them flying deeper into the Misty Forest doesn't necessarily mean they were taking the Crimson Rhombus Diamond with them. The other possibility is that they hid it inside some creature in the Misty Forest."
Lin Lei's eyes lit up.
"That's possible." A spark of hope flickered in his heart, but he immediately sighed inwardly.
The Misty Forest spanned millions of miles and was home to countless magical beasts and creatures of ancient lineages. Searching it would be no simple task.
"Hm? The Temple of Light—the Goddess of Light actually went to meet Clementine of her own accord? Is something special going on?" Lin Lei had been maintaining his divine sense across the entire plane, so he naturally noticed this development.
In the center of the Misty Continent lay a lake a hundred miles across known as the Light Lake. At its center sat a small island roughly ten miles in diameter—called Light Island, or the Holy Island. It served as the headquarters of the Misty Continent's largest religious organization, and the Goddess of Light's Temple was built right there.
At the heart of the Holy Island stood the Temple of Light, divided into nine stories above ground and nine stories below.
Ever since the Light Grand Completion expert Clementine had descended upon this place with his entourage, the Goddess of Light had suffered a few bitter indignities. She hastily offered Clementine the top floor of the Temple of Light's nine above-ground stories for his residence, while she herself relocated to the sixth floor underground.