A few days later.
The human realm.
Looking at the bare Purple Cloud Sect's base, Ye Fan and the little demon girl were dumbfounded...
What?
Where did such a large sect go?
Why was it bare???
If it were just people missing or signs of destruction to the buildings, it could be understood as an attack on the sect.
Although Ye Fan didn't wish for such a thing to happen, it was at least within his comprehension.
But had they ever seen a sect fight that stripped the very land bare?
It was clear that this was no sect battle.
Something big had happened, beyond their understanding!
And most likely, it wasn't good news!
So Ye Fan and the little demon girl boarded a flying ship and headed towards the imperial city.
With the Purple Cloud Sect gone, the royal family should know something, right?
A few days later.
Standing in the imperial palace, the two were again dumbfounded...
The imperial palace was still there, but there were noticeably fewer people.
They had gone to many places and seen that the entire palace was empty.
One or two palaces being empty might be understandable...
But with all the palaces empty, it couldn't be that the entire royal family had moved, could it?
Just then, a small eunuch approached them.
The eunuch looked strange.
His body was contorted into an unbelievable shape, completely beyond the scope of human physiology!
It was less like a person walking towards them and more like a wriggling blob...
"Young Master Ye has arrived... Hehehe!" When he got close, the eunuch looked up and greeted them, "This servant has been waiting for you for a long time, hehehe!"
The eunuch's hat had fallen off midway, revealing a forehead that took up more than half of his face.
Sparse hair scattered in different directions.
As if each strand had a mind of its own.
His two eyes were of different sizes.
The larger right eyeball was rolling upwards, while the left eyeball was looking down.
His nose bone seemed to be broken, and his entire nose was crooked in a zigzag.
His nostrils stubbornly pointed upwards, with one of them blowing a snot bubble.
His mouth was very large, almost reaching his ears.
One side was tightly shut, while the other seemed to be stretched open by something, revealing colorful, large teeth within.
At first glance, he resembled a balloon squeezed in the middle...
As he spoke, saliva dripped continuously from his mouth...
Well...
It seemed to be quite a lot.
After just one sentence, a large cupful of saliva had flowed down...
Most bizarrely, his face was faintly covered with a layer of pale green scales...
The little demon girl jumped in surprise and hid behind Ye Fan.
For her, who was so particular about appearances, this creature was too ugly...
Ye Fan was also a bit confused.
He had visited the imperial palace several times before, and it had seemed normal then?
The figures of those two elders involuntarily appeared in Ye Fan's mind.
Finally... had they fallen into the clutches of those two?
This scene seemed incredibly bizarre.
But thinking of those two elders, it suddenly seemed quite normal...
"Where did all the people in the imperial palace go?" However, Ye Fan knew this was not the time to dwell on these matters. "And what happened to the Purple Cloud Sect disappearing?"
"Before, the two senior experts sent a message, and then His Majesty took people away," the little eunuch replied quickly, his expression then becoming confused. "The Purple Cloud Sect disappeared? I haven't heard of that!"
"Then do you know where they went?" Ye Fan asked again.
"I don't know," the little eunuch shook his head. "But before leaving, His Majesty left a letter, saying to give it to you if I saw you from now on."
As he spoke, the little eunuch took out a letter from his sleeve.
However, a large amount of saliva dripped out halfway, almost soaking the envelope through...
Ye Fan forced himself to suppress his disgust, took the envelope, and took out the letter.
After reading it, Ye Fan couldn't help but frown.
Although Liang Dekui's handwriting was crooked, it was still somewhat legible.
However, what he wrote was incoherent, and it was impossible to understand what he was trying to convey...
Ye Fan and the little demon girl stared at the letter again and again, and finally managed to understand a little.
Roughly speaking, one day Master Xie Yan and the Second Elder sent word, asking Liang Dekui to bring people over.
Then they told Liang Dekui to arrange for someone to call Ye Fan along as well.
Upon receiving the message, Liang Dekui set out with his people, and also sent someone to notify Ye Fan in the Ade Empire.
To be safe, Liang Dekui also left this letter and this little eunuch behind.
As for why they were asked to go, Liang Dekui didn't express it clearly...
This letter looked like it was written in a state of mental instability.
It was already quite impressive that Ye Fan and the little demon girl could decipher this information...
Fortunately, Liang Dekui did express the location at the end.
The Flying Dragon Empire.
A place called Sacred Mountain.
To be honest, Ye Fan and the little demon girl had never even heard of this place.
However, with the name of the country, they could inquire and search as they went.
Time flew by.
More than half a year passed.
Looking at Sacred Mountain before them, Ye Fan and the little demon girl almost cried...
They had put in a great deal of effort to find this cursed place!
Even getting lost and taking many detours along the way.
It was fortunate that the little demon girl's flying ship was powerful, its speed far exceeding Ye Fan's previous one by more than ten times.
They were also lucky to have encountered a merchant caravan that knew of Sacred Mountain.
Otherwise, they wouldn't know when they would have arrived here...
"Finally found it, damn it!"
Ye Fan cursed and led the little demon girl up the mountain.
On the way, Ye Fan and the others had also learned some basic information about Sacred Mountain from the merchant caravan.
To describe it in one word: strange.
According to the merchant caravan, people initially thought there was a powerful recluse on Sacred Mountain.
Then many cultivators came to pay homage.
But strangely, those people never returned after going up.
Once or twice might be understandable; perhaps they had good aptitude and were taken in as disciples by a powerful figure on the mountain.
But as more people went, it became very suspicious...
It couldn't be that everyone was exceptionally talented, could it?
After hundreds of such incidents, no one dared to go anymore...
Later, some powerful cultivators, out of curiosity, decided to investigate.
But after entering, there was no further news...
And that cultivator's realm was at the Integration stage!
From then on, Sacred Mountain became synonymous with terror!
Now, when people mentioned Sacred Mountain, images of man-eating beasts automatically came to mind...
It was quite frightening.
When the leader of the merchant caravan learned that Ye Fan and his companions were going to Sacred Mountain, he kindly advised them against it.
Seeing that he couldn't dissuade them, he had no choice but to give up.
Ye Fan, with the little demon girl, walked step by step towards the summit.
Initially, they had planned to fly directly up using the flying ship.
But for some reason, the flying ship couldn't fly here at all.
At first, Ye Fan suspected there were formations that prohibited flight.
But after wandering around the foot of the mountain for a while, he found no trace of any formations.
Another possibility was that some force was causing the prohibition of flight.
But the surrounding spiritual energy was ordinary, and Ye Fan detected no other power.
Combined with the terrifying rumors, Ye Fan decided to be cautious.
As for whether the two elders and Liang Dekui were indeed up there, Ye Fan was currently skeptical.
Let's talk about the two elders first.
Given their mental state, it was questionable whether they could accurately state a location.
And judging by the situation in the imperial palace earlier, Liang Dekui was likely not far from their mental state.
The accuracy of messages passed down among mental power users was highly debatable...
Furthermore.
Even if the two elders were indeed on the mountain.
If there was any danger, they might find it amusing...
To them, things that were amusing posed no danger.
If it were just danger, it would be fine, as Ye Fan didn't fear death now.
He was afraid of encountering situations where he couldn't die but would be incredibly annoyed.
For some reason, he had a strong premonition that Sacred Mountain held some trouble waiting for him...
However, the rest of the journey was surprisingly smooth.
They encountered no terrifying demonic beasts.
Nor did they meet any fearsome powerful cultivators.
The few people they occasionally met were all hurrying along with their heads down.
Ye Fan took a rough look.
Their cultivation levels varied, but they were all within the ordinary range.
The highest was only at the Nascent Soul stage.
More than half a day later, the two finally arrived safely at the mountain gate.