"It's nothing. Some fool who doesn't know his place has given chase," Ma Liang said flatly.
"To think there's such a death-seeking imbecile. Allow this subordinate to deal with him," Yang Lu said respectfully.
"The pursuer's cultivation is no weakling. You may not find it so easy to claim victory," Ma Liang replied, shaking his head.
"If this person is that strong, could it be the one from the Jiaochi Clan? What an odd coincidence," Yang Lu said, momentarily taken aback upon hearing this, before something clicked in his mind and a strange look crossed his face.
"Oh? You know who's chasing us?" Ma Liang glanced at Yang Lu with a trace of interest.
"If this subordinate isn't mistaken, the man should be none other than the Jiaochi Clan's renowned first Grand Supreme Elder. His strength is said to rival our own as True Spirits, and his fame is great enough to rank among the top five of the entire Spirit Realm," Yang Lu said with a measure of gravity.
"Top five? No wonder he'd dare give chase alone. In that case, let's give him a proper welcome — and refine his spiritual essence into the main spirit of the Blood Seal of Ten Thousand Spirits," Ma Liang said with a cold snort.
With a flick of his sleeve, a blood-red seal no larger than an inch shot out, vanished in a flash, and dissolved into a streak of blood-light that plunged into the void and disappeared without a trace.
Beside him, Yang Lu's expression shifted ever so slightly at the sight of the blood-red seal.
He knew all too well how fearsome this treasure was. During his earlier battle against Ma Liang alongside the other two True Spirits, he had experienced its devastating power firsthand.
If even the three of them combined had been unable to withstand the seal's terrifying might, they would never have been forced to resort to the desperate gambit of the Chains of Laws — a technique that wounded its users as much as its targets.
While Yang Lu was still shuddering at the memory, a peal of thunder rang out from the sky behind them. A white-bone flying chariot over a dozen zhang long materialized amid countless arcs of silver lightning. After a few flickers, it appeared with a thunderous boom less than a hundred zhang away in the void, then ground to a sudden halt in midair.
At the front of the white-bone chariot stood a gaunt, lanky elder of the Jiaochi Clan.
His head was crowned with a mass of ashen-white hair, and his eyes glowed an eerie jade-green. Both arms were crossed before him, each adorned with over a dozen bone rings of varying sizes. On either shoulder, a half-banner of bone several feet tall fluttered in the wind, its surface a murky gray in which countless ghostly shapes flickered in and out of view, accompanied by waves of wailing and howling.
"A True Spirit?"
The Jiaochi elder on the white-bone chariot swept his gaze over the two figures opposite him. His pupils contracted sharply as they fixed on Yang Lu, and he let out a cry of surprise.
"Oh, your eyes are sharp indeed — identifying my identity at a glance," Yang Lu replied expressionlessly, though he too was somewhat taken aback.
"If this honored one is a True Spirit, why has he been slaughtering freely within our clan's forbidden territory? He even destroyed our intercontinental teleportation array," the Jiaochi elder said, his expression shifting between dark and light for a moment before settling into something more composed.
"It's simple. Your clansmen lacked the sense to know better and dared to offend my master. They could only atone with their lives," Yang Lu replied lightly.
"Master?"
This time the Jiaochi elder was genuinely stunned. His gaze darted and then settled on Ma Liang. As his eyes swept over the other's black robes and somewhat pale face, a flash of insight struck his mind — he recalled a piece of news he had only recently received. His heart sank with a jolt, yet not the slightest change showed on his face. Instead, he suddenly put on a smile.
"So it was our clan's juniors who offended the two of you first. In that case, allow me to offer our clan's apologies. Let us consider the matter settled. I have urgent business to attend to and won't linger here any longer. I'll take my leave now."
Before the words had even fully left his mouth, the Jiaochi elder tapped a foot lightly. Beneath him, the bone chariot crackled with lightning and, surrounded by surging arcs of electricity, began to fly backward.
"Heh heh. Since you've come, there's no need to leave," Yang Lu said with a savage grin, stepping forward without a moment's hesitation. At the same time, he made a grasping motion in the empty air, and the massive black axe materialized between his five fingers. With a flick, he slashed it viciously forward.
*Whoosh.*
A dark, billowing blade-light shot from the black axe and unfurled into a wave of black that surged straight toward the bone chariot.
The Jiaochi elder's face darkened at the sight. He gave a slight shake of one arm, and a bone ring snapped off, swelling to an enormous size in the space of a heartbeat while its surface blazed with countless gray-white runes. It hurtled forward to meet the black blade-light head-on.
A heaven-shaking, earth-shattering boom erupted.
The bone ring shrank back to its original size and ricocheted away, while the black blade-light completely disintegrated under the impact.
Yet the white-bone chariot's retreat was utterly unaffected, and it vanished over a thousand zhang away in a single flash.