Late-Stage Persecutory Delusion

He didn't look at Gu Yang, but stared intently at the ground beneath Gu Yang's feet, and the three-foot distance between Gu Yang and that stalk of Nine-Leaf Yang Return Grass.

It was too close.

And too quiet.

Would a ruthless character who could lay down a chain of Yin Lightning formations and drive iron corpses to kill people just stand so carelessly next to a treasure, waiting for them to catch him?

"Look at his feet."

Daoist Xueku lowered his voice, his tone sinister. "His toes are touching the ground, his heels slightly raised. This is clearly a posture ready to strike. But he didn't take the grass; instead, he is standing... behind it."

Hearing this, Mo Bufan's pupils slightly shrank. Forcibly suppressing the fury in his heart, he followed Daoist Xueku's gaze.

Indeed.

The position Gu Yang stood in was extremely tricky.

With his back against the shadows of the rock wall, the Nine-Leaf Yang Return Grass was right beside him, yet he seemed to be isolated by something, hesitating to reach out and pluck it.

"It's a trap."

Mo Bufan calmed down, cold sweat instantly soaking his clothes.

"It's not that he doesn't want to take it, he doesn't dare to."

Daoist Xueku sneered, thinking he had seen through everything. "There must be a deadly restriction around that grass. He's waiting for us to go over so we can block the disaster for him, or... he's waiting for us to step into his attack range."

Gu Yang looked at the unpredictable expressions on the faces of the group opposite him, and his mouth twitched.

Smart.

He mentally gave Daoist Xueku a thumbs up.

Not only was his imagination top-notch, but his paranoia was also terminal.

Gu Yang didn't speak. He just tilted his head slightly, his gaze intentionally or unintentionally glancing at an empty space thirty feet in front of the group.

Then, extremely subtly, as if feeling guilty, he shrank the hand playing with a black stone back into his sleeve.

This subtle movement was instantly caught by Daoist Xueku.

"He's looking over there!"

Alarm bells rang in Daoist Xueku's heart. "There must be Yin Lightning buried there! He's waiting for us to step forward!"

"Retreat!"

Daoist Xueku made a prompt decision. With a wave of his large sleeve, he led Mo Bufan and the remaining disciples to retreat in unison.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

The crowd retreated all the way to the entrance of the karst cave, their backs against that narrow corridor, before finally feeling a trace of security.

The field of vision here was wide; they could attack if they advanced, and defend if they retreated.

Even if there was a monstrous trap ahead, the explosion wouldn't reach here.

"That's right."

Gu Yang looked at the position they retreated to, the smile in his eyes finally no longer concealed, turning into tangible pity.

That position.

It was precisely the center of the optimal firing range of the mechanism to cut off the retreat—the Bone-Corroding Soul-Melting Light—specially set up by the Evernight Empress to prevent tomb raiders from escaping.

The so-called safe zone was actually a true slaughterhouse.

"What's wrong?"

Gu Yang straightened his body, patted the dust off his hands, and spoke in a frivolous tone:

"Weren't you just shouting about killing me? Why are you all acting like frightened quails now?"

"A provocation?"

Mo Bufan coldly snorted, standing behind Daoist Xueku, summoning a blood-colored jade talisman in his hand, his face full of ferocity. "Trying to lure us over? Keep dreaming!"

"Who exactly are you?"

"Little brother, let's not beat around the bush."

Daoist Xueku spoke sinisterly, the black iron shield in his hand glowing brightly. "There's a restriction placed around this Nine-Leaf Yang Return Grass, isn't there? You want to use us to do your dirty work, using our lives to fill the formation core?"

"Tsk."

Gu Yang shook his head and sighed.

"These days, no one believes the truth."

He slowly raised his hand, the inconspicuous black stone pinched between his fingertips.

"Who am I?"

"I never change my name."

"I am Li Feiyu!"

Before his voice faded.

Gu Yang's fingers suddenly exerted force.

Crack.

That black stone was crushed directly.

This was no ordinary stone, but a formation core lodestone he had just taken from the mechanism's hub.

As the lodestone shattered, a strange frequency fluctuation instantly spread throughout the entire cave.

"Not good!"

Daoist Xueku's sharp Golden Core spiritual sense instantly exploded, and an unprecedented sense of mortal crisis enveloped his entire body.

It wasn't coming from the front!

But from underfoot! From all directions!

"Run!!"

He roared mournfully, completely ignoring the disciples beside him. He grabbed Mo Bufan, his entire body burning with blood energy, about to transform into a streak of light and rush out of the corridor.

However.

It was too late.

Sizzle—

There was no earth-shattering explosion, nor any deafening roar.

Only an extremely faint sound, like silk being torn.

The ground, walls, and stalactites above at the cave's entrance lit up with a layer of pale white light without any warning.

The light wasn't dazzling; it even carried a dismal softness.

The Bone-Corroding Soul-Melting Light.

"Ah..."

A mid-stage Foundation Establishment disciple standing at the very edge didn't even have time to let out a scream.

The pale light swept across his body.

Like a hot knife slicing through butter.

His protective spiritual shield, his dharma robes, his flesh and skin, his internal organs... melted away in an instant.

There was no blood.

Because the blood was evaporated by the white light the instant it flowed out.

His whole person was like a pencil sketch being erased by an eraser, disappearing inch by inch into the air, starting from the soles of his feet.

"What is this?! What the hell is this!!"

The remaining disciples went mad.

They desperately summoned their magical artifacts, trying to block this bizarre white light.

But in front of the mechanism set up by the Soul Formation stage Empress back in the day, these so-called top-grade artifacts were as fragile as children's toys.

Sizzle sizzle sizzle...

The white light was like mercury pouring across the ground, penetrating every crack.

"Save me... Elder, save me!!"

One disciple reached out his hand in despair, grabbing towards the hem of Daoist Xueku's robes.

But his hand had only reached halfway out before it turned into nothingness within the white light.

Next was his arm, his shoulder, his head...

In merely the time of a single breath.

Apart from Daoist Xueku and Mo Bufan, the remaining four elite disciples completely evaporated from the world.

Not even a trace of ash was left.

Only the nauseating, sweet and metallic stench in the air, like sulfur mixed with rotting meat, proved they had once existed.

"Ahhh!!"

Daoist Xueku, at the center of the light curtain, let out a scream that didn't sound human.

He was a Golden Core cultivator after all, and his reaction was extremely fast.

The moment the white light lit up, he didn't hesitate to summon his natal magical treasure—that black iron shield.

Pfft.

That low-grade treasure shield, which had followed him for a century, lasted for less than half a breath in the white light before melting into a puddle of molten iron like melting snow.

But this half a breath gave him a life-saving opportunity.

"Blood Demon Disintegration! Escape!!"

Bang!

Daoist Xueku's left leg and right hand exploded simultaneously.

He was actually ruthless to the extreme, directly detonating two of his limbs. Using that boundless power of essence blood, he forcibly pried open a blood-colored gap in the dense white light.

He grabbed the already terrified and stunned Mo Bufan, his whole person transforming into a burning bloodline, desperately charging towards that narrow corridor exit.

Hiss—

Even so, that white light still clung to him like a maggot in a bone, grazing his back.

A large chunk of flesh and skin instantly disappeared, revealing his pale spine and beating internal organs.

"Li Feiyu!!!"

"If I do not avenge this, I swear I am no longer human!!!"

The shrill, venomous roar echoed through the passageway, gradually fading into the distance.

In the end, that streak of blood-red light managed to burst out, vanishing into the depths of the darkness.

...