The Real Mastermind

Gu Yang showed no pity for the fairer sex, casually flicking his right hand as if throwing away trash.

Bang!

The maid's graceful body was smashed fiercely against the hard rock wall like a torn ragdoll, accompanied by a series of bone-crushing sounds. She vomited mouthfuls of blood mixed with visceral fragments, sliding to the ground like a puddle of mud, completely losing all combat capability.

In just a single encounter.

One dead, one crippled.

The mine shaft once again fell into a suffocating dead silence, leaving only the whooshing sound of the erupting earth fire and the heavy, desperate panting of Deacon Wang.

Deacon Wang's legs gave way, and he fell directly to his knees on the scalding ground. His entire body trembled violently as he looked at this invincible gray silhouette that resembled a demon god.

He finally understood what kind of monster he had provoked.

Gu... Junior Brother Gu... No! Grandpa Gu!

Tears and snot streamed down his face as he frantically kowtowed on the ground, smashing his forehead until it was bloody with every knock. With trembling hands, he humbly raised the thousand-year cold jade box containing the Earth Vein Flame Marrow high above his head.

This is the Flame Marrow! I offer it all to you! Please, just let me go like a passing fart!

Gu Yang looked down at this maggot from above.

He did not take the items. His gray cloth shoes slowly crushed the scorched rocks beneath his feet as he walked step by step in front of Deacon Wang and leaned in slightly.

That idiot Han Feng would get lost even on the outskirts of the Ten Thousand Poisons Cave. Could he possibly get his hands on the inner circle's Bone-Corroding Spirit-Melting Powder?

The thick-soled gray cloth shoe stepped onto Deacon Wang's withered back of the hand—extremely slowly, yet feeling as heavy as a colossal boulder.

Crack!

Ah—!

A miserable shriek rang out. The fingers are connected to the heart, and the agonizing pain of shattered bones made his entire body convulse. The scalding poisonous smoke from the earth fire drilled into his throat, choking him into coughing up blood repeatedly.

But he did not dare to struggle, only able to lie prostrate at Gu Yang's feet like a dying wild dog.

Pushing everything onto a dead man, you certainly use this trick skillfully.

Gu Yang applied slight pressure with the tip of his foot, grinding those broken bones.

Last chance. Who gave you the poison?

The extreme agony and despair instantly destroyed Deacon Wang's last psychological defense.

A miserable smile, mixed with madness and resentment, suddenly bloomed on that wrinkled old face.

Cough, cough... Hahahaha!

As he coughed up black blood, he raised those muddy, bloodshot old eyes.

Do you really think... that piece of trash Han Feng has such heaven-defying capabilities?

The route map to the Ten Thousand Poisons Cave, the timing of the poisoning, and even the dirty money used to bribe me... all of it was secretly arranged by the Grand Elder's faction! The Grand Elder doesn't care whether an ant like you lives or dies! He calculated that your master is fiercely protective of her disciples, and he just wanted to use your life as the bleeding trough!

He stared fixedly at Gu Yang, as if wanting to see a trace of breakdown on this cold face.

As long as your meridians were shattered inch by inch, Shen Qingyue would definitely expend her origin essence to save you. What he wants is to drain Shen Qingyue's Nine Yin Origin!

In the shadows to the side, Zhao Yuelian lowered her eyes, her plump, charming body trembling slightly.

What a vicious, overt scheme.

Using a disciple's life to bait out a master's foundation.

However, Gu Yang's handsome and cold face did not show the expected anger and shock; he did not even furrow his brow.

Instead, a trace of extremely icy scrutiny flashed through his deep black eyes.

Like a sharp scalpel, it instantly dissected the most fatal inconsistency in this confession.

You are lying.

Gu Yang suddenly flicked the tip of his foot, kicking Deacon Wang over like a torn sack.

Bone-Corroding Spirit-Melting Powder brings certain death upon contact.

If I died on the spot, turning into a cold corpse, how could Zhao Wuji use me as bait to drain my master's origin?

Deacon Wang was kicked so hard he rolled twice on the rocks before suddenly freezing.

An extremely horrifying tremor instantly erupted in those muddy old eyes, his pupils shaking madly.

Gu Yang's icy voice echoed in the scorching mine shaft like a death knell.

Bone-Corroding Spirit-Melting Powder is a lethal poison that seals the throat at the sight of blood. Even an amount the size of a fingernail is enough to instantly turn a Qi Condensation cultivator into a puddle of pus. Yet I survived, and the poison just so happened to only cripple my cultivation and collapse my origin.

The sole of Gu Yang's boot ground extremely slowly against the bones of Deacon Wang's hand.

Since Zhao Wuji wanted to use me as bait to fish for the Nine Yin Origin, he would never allow the accident of the bait being directly poisoned to death. He didn't have the guts to walk a tightrope with the dosage—once I died, this scheme would become a dead end.

Deacon Wang panted heavily. The scalding poisonous smoke from the earth fire poured into his lungs, yet he remained completely oblivious to it.

Despair and fear, a hundred times more intense than facing the Great Sun True Fire, finally surged in those muddy old eyes.

You... how could you calculate even this...

He looked at Gu Yang as if looking at a monster. That extreme shudder of being seen through from the flesh all the way to the depths of the bone marrow completely shattered the cunning he was so proud of.

I'll speak... I'll tell you everything...

With trembling lips and a crying tone, he kowtowed madly as if grasping at the last straw.

That packet of Bone-Corroding Spirit-Melting Powder... was tampered with before it was handed to me!

Gu Yang's deep black eyes narrowed slightly, and the sole of his boot stepping on the broken bones stopped.

Deacon Wang swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva. As if recalling some extremely terrifying scene, his entire body shook like a sieve.

When I received the medicine, I realized that its originally berserk and mindless toxicity had actually been forcefully sliced into countless equal portions by an extremely terrifying power! That power was as thin as a gossamer thread, yet it revealed an extreme sharpness that seemed capable of cleaving spiritual energy in two...

His voice grew increasingly shrill, permeated with extreme fear.

It was like invisible, icy steel nails forcibly pinning the toxicity to your heart meridian, releasing it slowly like peeling silk from a cocoon! Even if that old thief Zhao Wuji cultivated for another five hundred years, he could absolutely never develop that kind of sharpness capable of severing everything!

Inside the mine shaft, the earth fire continued to erupt violently.

But these words made the surrounding high temperature, which was enough to melt gold and iron, bizarrely exude a bone-piercing icy chill.

Gu Yang stood with his hands behind his back, his eyes as cold and hard as iron.

As expected.

Zhao Wuji was nothing but a jumping clown pushed to the front stage.

Beneath the muddy waters of the Falling Cloud Sect, there still lay dormant a crossing-river dragon that would shatter an ordinary person to pieces with just a single glance.

Who left behind that sharpness? Who could silently infiltrate the heavy grounds of my Falling Cloud Sect's Pill Hall without the sect's grand defensive array detecting the slightest trace?

Deacon Wang hugged his head tightly, his ten fingers agonizingly tearing at his dry hair.

That night... I didn't see that person's face clearly at all... I only smelled an extremely pungent stench of blood, carrying the scent of rusty iron and blood...

His pupils began to dilate, and cold sweat frantically oozed from his forehead.