The appearance of this little doll in Compassion City immediately drew attention.
Firstly, his attire was exceptionally refined. The fabric, clearly of considerable expense, was soft Xue Duan, subtly embroidered with auspicious characters for fortune and longevity in dark silver thread using a double-sided light and shadow needlework. Around his neck hung a gold and jade peace lock, indicating he was no ordinary child.
His dark, intelligent eyes flickered like two black jade gems, and his cherry lips were naturally rosy. He was even more adorable and handsome than the immortal youths depicted in paintings.
As previously mentioned, those who resided in Compassion City were predominantly nuns or those preparing to join the order. Thus, men were rarely seen within its walls, with most of the inhabitants being women.
The sudden appearance of such a beautiful, small child wandering alone quickly ignited their maternal instincts, making them yearn to cradle him in their arms. His current lost and searching gaze only intensified this feeling, making them wonder how a parent could be so careless as to leave such a precious treasure unattended.
Secondly, he was guarded by a long sword sheathed behind him. The sword was peculiar; it was crystal clear and pure white throughout, yet it emitted no pressure or spiritual energy, appearing more like an exquisite work of art. No one could discern its rank.
In such situations, it was either truly an ordinary sword, or its rank was so high that none present could ascertain it.
The former was impossible, as it floated. Could a mere mortal sword float and protect someone on its own?
This child was none other than Le Bao. He had temporarily lost sight of his father and the others who had accompanied them to Compassion City.
Had his father abandoned him?
Le Bao thought sorrowfully.
To explain how this happened—
As their flying boat approached Compassion City, a powerful shockwave suddenly emanated from Fengdu, even affecting their flight.
Fu Wanyan's brow furrowed, "What is that?!"
They all rushed to the bow of the ship, gazing into the distance. In the direction of Fengdu, the city's boundary marker instantly unfurled a vast "net."
The "net" encompassed an area of a hundred li, while fiery red waves of light blazed towards their eyes, akin to myriad rays of dawn rising from flat ground.
Lu Ziyin shielded his eyes, his eyes wide, and exclaimed, "It's Fengdu's protective city barrier!"
They looked at Lu Ziyin, awaiting his explanation.
As the young master of the Lu family from the Southern Sea, Lu Ziyin had naturally reviewed relevant information before his journey and familiarized himself with potential dangers.
Normally, ordinary people had no chance to witness Fengdu's protective city barrier being deployed. They didn't know what luck they had encountered, as upon arriving at Compassion City, they witnessed a scene rarely seen in a century.
He quickly stated, "Fengdu City's protective city barrier has clearly activated itself. A powerful force erupted within, colliding with the boundary marker without restraint, thus triggering the protective city barrier, which has the effect of weakening and amplifying."
*Boom—*
The protective city barrier was struck forcefully again. Its originally invisible barrier was compressed, causing large, hexagonal power blocks resembling a honeycomb to bulge out, only to be pushed back and retracted.
The wind and atmosphere around them instantly changed. A biting cold wind blew, and tragic, floating clouds drifted.
The sound of the wind pierced their ears, forcing them to slow their forward progress. But this was not all; in the next moment, four beams of power simultaneously shot towards the sky from Fengdu City.
Pillars of red, purple, green, and cyan light pierced the clouds from four directions. The wind was fierce, the sky high, painting the scene in a riot of four colors.
"Fengdu's four ghost cities—Yu Yi, Nan Jiao, Mei Gu, and Shuo Fang—have simultaneously issued an emergency summons. What urgent matter has occurred in Fengdu?" Lu Ziyin was astonished.
Cheng Hong brushed aside his wind-chilled sleeves, his gaze fixed upwards towards Shuo Fang, "It must be something... that poses a threat to them."
"I see a place covered in demonic and monstrous energy, shrouded in dense, red clouds, it seems to be in Shuo Fang?" Yan Tianjiao's phoenix eyes widened slightly, his blood-red lips pursed.
Fu Wanyan's cultivation was not high, so she could not perceive or see much. Unsure of what they were discussing, she took out a "Wind Shadow Stone," about the size of a fist, from her Qiankun bag.
The "Wind Shadow Stone" was a stone capable of capturing images from the wind and solidifying them. With a graceful, butterfly-like sweep of her hand, she quickly formed seals and tossed the "Wind Shadow Stone" into the air.
As it was a single-use item, the "Wind Shadow Stone" was considered a luxurious and expensive item among cultivation artifacts.
It hovered in the air, then projected a scene downwards, similar to a projector's function, but it was a live broadcast of the current event.
Beyond the ominous and terrifyingly bottomless black river, in a forbidden land, within the deathly silent and dark expanse covered by poisonous thorny forests, a luminous formation unfolded, winding along the terrain.
The inscribed characters on it were as numerous as insects and ants, their arrangement complex and irregular. Such a formation was almost a divine formation, one that defied the laws of heaven and earth, shattering established rules and causing all natural laws to rewrite a new set of principles for it.
Each person who witnessed this staggeringly vast natural formation felt a tremor of fear, as if a rustic suddenly encountered something extraordinary.
For not only could they not set up such a formation, but even attempting to deduce its direction would give them splitting headaches and cause their spiritual energy to backlash, leaving them seeing spots before their eyes.
Damn it!
Following this, a power that shook heaven and earth erupted completely. From their perspective, the poisonous thorny forest, forever shrouded in the shadow of death, was ripped open with a large gash in its center.
For a moment, they were stunned into silence, almost forgetting how to breathe.
Although they could not see clearly, in that instant, the surging, extraordinarily enlarged, towering spectral shadows, the flickering monstrous figures, and the chilling roars they emitted, evoked an illusion of witnessing the Netherworld's Naihe Bridge.
The dark clouds surging from above were edged with an ominous and evil red border, with only a vague, dark halo emanating from behind the thick cloud cover.
They saw… these "dark shadows" frozen like sculptures, bending, prostrating, and almost devoutly bowing to a single figure.
This scene was truly awe-inspiring.
What kind of person could command these concentrated dark powers, so strong they twisted the very air, to worship and submit to them as their master?
At this point, the "Wind Shadow Stone" gradually zoomed in from a high-altitude perspective, finally focusing on one person.
That person stood there, as if on the pinnacle of existence, their figure like that of a god or a demon. However, due to the enveloping dark mist, their features could not yet be fully discerned.
At this moment, the other party seemed to sense something.
A gaze that pierced all obstructions and space looked directly towards their direction.
In that moment, it was as if the muted earth erupted with sharp, hoarse, mad cries.
Their pupils, like abysses.
*Crack!* The "Wind Shadow Stone," unable to withstand the force, cracked in the middle and then exploded into powder with a bang.
All the astonishing, frightening, shocking, and puzzling images vanished, but the psychological impact they experienced did not diminish.
No one saw what that person looked like, for before the visual impact, the formless, terrifying pressure had already arrived.
*Cough—*
The "Wind Shadow Stone" was controlled by Fu Wanyan. Now that it was destroyed by an external force, she naturally suffered the backlash.
Staggering back a step, she clutched her chest, which was gripped by a sharp, dull pain, and gasped for breath.
"Are you alright?"
Lu Ziyin intended to help regulate her disturbed spiritual energy, but Fu Wanyan subtly evaded him. After composing herself, she said, "Thank you, I'm fine."
Seeing that she did not appear to be seriously injured, Lu Ziyin graciously withdrew his hand.
At this point, the gazes that had fallen upon them shifted away.
Yan Tianjiao's complexion was also a little pale. None of those present were unaffected by what had just happened.
He looked at Cheng Hong, "Who was that person? How could he so keenly detect the Wind Shadow Stone from such a distance?"
Lu Ziyin tightened his grip on his fan and said, "Shouldn't you be surprised that he destroyed the Wind Shadow Stone remotely?"
Cheng Hong's eyes seemed to hold unfathomable depths. He said, "It is the Lord of Demons..."
While they were gravely discussing the situation, a short distance away, the man in the white cloak’s breathing became ragged for a moment.
Le Bao, standing beside him, immediately noticed something was amiss.
"Father?"
The man let out a low sigh, "Le Bao, I have found him."
"Found him? Where is he?" Le Bao's eyes widened, and he quickly looked around.
He looked straight ahead, patting Le Bao's bobbing head, "He is in Fengdu, right... in the scene transmitted by the Wind Shadow Stone."
Le Bao was stunned into silence upon hearing this, "How could he..."
He had also seen those scenes just now, a virtual pandemonium. In such a dangerous environment, why would someone as insignificant as a small insect like him be there?
"Father, Father, then, then what should we do?!" He stammered in his urgency.
The man was silent for a moment before saying, "Fengdu has activated its city-wide protective array. For now, we cannot enter. We can only rely on Compassion City's connections to get assistance from the ghost kings of the ghost cities to enter."
"But how long will that take?"
"I don't know."
"Father!"
"Le Bao, have you forgotten that I have a connection with him? He is safe for now..." He closed his eyes, his voice slowly continuing, "We will find him smoothly."
Later, the flying boat was suddenly caught by a strong gust of wind, and the spiritual energy in the air was cut off. At this moment, Lu Ziyin suddenly cried out, "Damn it, I forgot that Fengdu's protective city array prohibits aerial flight. It absorbs spiritual energy from the surroundings and interferes with any artifact carrying spiritual energy—"
This meant they were about to run out of spiritual energy and plummet to the ground.
At this moment, the man waved his hand, summoning a flying sword, and simultaneously pushed Le Bao out of the boat.
"Le Bao, you and Bai Luo go to Compassion City first. Father will find you and reunite later!"
"Father—"
The flying sword caught the falling Le Bao, its light shooting away like midday sun, transforming into a hazy white streak.
It reached Compassion City. Afterward, however, it did not return to its owner's side but chose to protect its young master.
As soon as Le Bao landed, he looked up, only to see the flying boat above being swept away by the currents, ultimately crashing uncontrollably into a mountain peak. Since there was no spiritual energy to maintain the boat's protective shield, it disintegrated into fragments, scattering into the river.
Le Bao believed his father had the means to escape.
Therefore, he stood at the entrance of Compassion City, waiting from night until day, and kept waiting, but his father never came to pick him up.
Father, where have you gone?
Have you forgotten that you have a son, hungry and waiting, in Compassion City for you to pick him up?
—
Fengdu.
After Gu Junshi subdued the group of traitors who had been modified for nearly seven years, their actions could no longer be concealed, alerting the principals of Fengdu's four ghost cities.
They were not dead; how could such significant energy fluctuations go unnoticed?
Soon, after the four cities issued a warning almost simultaneously, swarms of shadowy figures occupied the sky over the Black River from all directions.
Dark clouds pressed down, and the four ghost cities each occupied a position. They had always been independent and uncooperative, but at this moment, they shared a rare common goal.
However, they did not rashly attempt to breach the domineering territory of the poisonous thorny forest, as these thorny plants not only attacked ground creatures but also anything passing by them, including those flying overhead.
The poisonous thorns were not only toxic—their poison could dissolve the power within the bodies of ghost cultivators or spiritual cultivators—but they were also insidious. Just like weeds that are not uprooted and grow endlessly the following year, they fed on flesh and blood, as well as the cultivation of ghost energy and spiritual power. With just one corpse, they could breed countless descendants.
The large area that had been destroyed earlier was already beginning to recover. The sky was once again covered, so Gu Junshi and her "lackeys" below were not seen by the newly arrived ghost city cultivators.
But no one was blind; the unusual and astonishing aura emanating from that place was enough to make them vigilant and cautious.
"Could it be those banished mongrels from before causing trouble?" the ghost cultivators wondered in surprise.
"Is that possible? Don't we know their capabilities?"
"That's true, but could there be anything else powerful within the thorny forest? The power just now was enough to threaten the entire Fengdu, otherwise Fengdu's protective city array wouldn't have activated by itself!"
"Shall we test it?"
Just as these ghost cultivators were about to act, a cold, flowing light shot up from the thorny forest, and a figure in a wide robe floated in the air.
The suddenly appearing man made them tense for a moment, but seeing that he was alone, compared to their hundreds, their hearts that had been in their throats relaxed.
"Who are you?!"
The other party turned around. Under the moonlight, his ink-black robes draped his tall, upright form, exuding a noble and contemptuous aura like an uncrowned emperor. He drew a line across the Black River with a powerful finger, and the Black River instantly surged and roared, with monstrous waves reaching the sky.
He seemed to hold the entire world in disdain, and addressing the approaching throng, he stated word by word, "This is the boundary. Anyone who dares to step across it will be considered an enemy."
For a moment, they seemed mesmerized by his assertive demeanor, feeling a sense of unease and uncertainty.
"No, you, who are you?"
"My name is—Human Sovereign."
As soon as the words "Human Sovereign" were spoken.
Heaven and earth changed color.