Deep within a secret realm on Myriad Abyss Island, an elder in seclusion suddenly felt a violent tremor in his consciousness. His eyes snapped open, filled with an eerie, sinister light.
This elder was none other than the one the cultivators called the Elder Guangdu. His eyes crackled like lightning, his pair of long brows strikingly distinctive, and combined with his deeply sunken eye sockets and his sharp, hawkish nose, his features gave his face an intense, angular quality. Though his overall appearance spoke of considerable age, his spirit burned with a fierce vitality.
The elder quickly calculated with his fingers, and those long brows of his shot even higher, his forehead creasing into a tight frown.
"What has happened? My Gold and Silver Guardians have perished?" The Elder Guangdu had been deep in seclusion, but within the Gold and Silver Guardians' spiritual seas, he had planted a wisp of divine consciousness to monitor them. In some dim, instinctive way, he shared a life-and-death connection with them.
When the two guardians fell, that divine consciousness of his had taken a jarring blow, yanking him straight out of his meditative state.
Had he not taken certain precautions beforehand — had he been at some critical juncture in his cultivation — the shock could very well have dealt him catastrophic damage.
Even so, the spiritual sea within his mind churned with enormous turbulence. It took a long while before things gradually steadied.
"The two guardians had only just departed to reinforce the Eternal Sacred Land, hadn't they? The earlier intelligence said An Jia Ye had appeared at the Eternal Sacred Land. Could it be that wretch who took my two guardians' lives?" Suspicion flooded the Elder Guangdu's mind.
But after careful thought, something didn't quite add up.
The two guardians were individually slightly weaker than An Jia Ye, true — if caught alone, either one could very likely have been killed by him.
But with both guardians fighting together, their combined combat power would absolutely not fall short of An Jia Ye's. It might even have held a slight edge over him.
On top of that, the Eternal Sacred Land itself had two Divine Dao cultivators on hand.
Four Divine Dao cultivators — could they really have been no match for a mere An Jia Ye?
While the Elder Guangdu was wrestling with these doubts, he heard footsteps approaching from outside. The steps sounded hesitant, as though whoever was there was locked in some painful internal struggle.
"Enter!"
The Elder Guangdu, already irritable, simply projected his voice outward.
The person outside heard the Elder Guangdu's voice and immediately lit up with joy, calling out: "My lord, you are finally emerging from seclusion?"
The Elder Guangdu scowled and snapped in a low voice: "Get to the point."
This period of seclusion had not gone smoothly. Though he had not been interrupted outright, his cultivation progress had been far from satisfactory.
And the death of his Gold and Silver Guardians had dealt a further blow to his fighting spirit, making him painfully realize that this session of seclusion would most likely end in failure.
The person outside flinched at the sound of his tone. He could tell that Lord Guangdu's mood was far from pleasant. Had he chosen the wrong moment, disturbing the lord's cultivation?
Still, now was no time for dithering. He spoke up: "My lord, over the past several days, there have been reports that the situation at Pingsha Island has changed…"
"What? The situation at Pingsha Island has changed? How has it changed?" The Elder Guangdu could no longer sit still.
The campaign at Pingsha Island had been his own personal design. He had dispatched his most trusted subordinates to orchestrate it with his own hands. He had been confident there could be no problems.
The messenger's heart clenched, but he answered honestly: "At first, it was only intelligence trickling in. But today, cultivators who escaped from Pingsha Island have been arriving one after another. They bring confirmed news. The siege of Pingsha Island has failed — completely!"
"Completely failed?" The Elder Guangdu's voice turned to ice, dropping to a frigid cold.