Li Xingtian's Journey of Investigation

The village in the archives was not too far from Yuzhou City.

At the very least, it fell within the jurisdiction of the Demon Suppression Bureau of Yuzhou City.

If two Foundation Establishment cultivators were to travel at full speed, it wouldn’t take long to reach it.

Li Xingtian followed behind Zhao Wanqing for a while, noticing that her gait seemed somewhat peculiar.

It appeared as though her right leg was injured, as each step she took seemed slightly unnatural.

This also caused Zhao Wanqing’s pace to seem rather slow in Li Xingtian’s eyes.

“Is your right leg injured?” Li Xingtian asked.

Zhao Wanqing turned her head in surprise. “How did you know?”

“You instinctively shift your weight when your foot lands,” Li Xingtian explained before continuing, “Are you sure it’s fine to drag that leg around like this?”

“Time is of the essence…”

Li Xingtian’s tone remained calm. “So urgent that you didn’t even take a healing pill?”

“I did, but the blood energy hasn’t been cleared quickly enough, which is why the recovery is slow.”

“Then, could you stop for a moment?”

Zhao Wanqing halted her steps, looking at Li Xingtian with a puzzled expression.

“I have a way to fix it. Please cooperate. If we’re attacked, I can’t guarantee your safety.”

Li Xingtian offered an explanation, then quickly scanned her with his gaze. He could indeed faintly sense a strand of blood energy lingering around Zhao Wanqing’s body.

These wounds… aren’t there a bit too many?

“This might be a bit intrusive, but please bear with it.”

Li Xingtian also stopped, manipulating his spiritual energy to swiftly envelop the wounds tainted with blood energy.

As soon as his spiritual energy touched the blood energy, it seemed to recognize its master, immediately submitting to Li Xingtian’s control.

With a slight tug, the blood energy surged out of Zhao Wanqing’s wounds, following Li Xingtian’s spiritual energy.

Zhao Wanqing stood in stunned silence, feeling the vicious and clingy blood energy that had seemed like it would haunt her for life now being effortlessly expelled by his spiritual energy.

It was as if her beloved daughter of eighteen years had been lured away by some reckless troublemaker with just a flick of his finger.

Zhao Wanqing hesitated, curious as to why Li Xingtian’s spiritual energy could so easily suppress the blood energy.

“It’s a matter of cultivation technique,” Li Xingtian said, reading her expression. “There’s a reason my master sent me and not my senior sister.”

“Thank you…” Zhao Wanqing expressed her gratitude. In any case, with the blood energy gone, the pain had significantly lessened.

Li Xingtian gave a slight nod in acknowledgment. After all, in his eyes, dragging along a liability was always a foolish move.

His past life’s experience had taught him one thing: never team up with idiots.

Right now, Zhao Wanqing was halfway to being an idiot in his eyes.

If she couldn’t prove her worth in the upcoming investigation, Li Xingtian would consider taking over her command and handling the case his own way.

“This is where I found traces of the ritual array,” Zhao Wanqing pointed to a patch of empty ground with no visible marks. “They acted quickly, so we need to hurry.”

Li Xingtian’s gaze swept over the area. If Zhao Wanqing was right, the ground had indeed been thoroughly cleaned, leaving no useful traces behind.

Zhao Wanqing kicked the spot where the array’s core had been, detecting no energy fluctuations:

“For them to be so brazen with their sacrificial rituals, they must have reached a critical point or encountered some unforeseen event that forced them to act recklessly.”

“So, we need to predict their next target.”

Li Xingtian nodded slightly, agreeing with Zhao Wanqing’s plan. It seemed she wasn’t just blindly rushing around.

Having a plan and ideas was enough, and it appeared Zhao Wanqing already had a destination in mind.

Her destination was to the north of their current location.

Yuzhou City’s southern side bordered water, while the northern side was backed by mountains. Zhao Wanqing reasoned that since the Demon Suppression Bureau of Yuzhou City had discovered the demonic cultivators conducting large-scale sacrificial rituals, they wouldn’t dare to act so openly again.

They were demonic cultivators, not suicidal.

They were likely to target secluded mountain villages.

For one, such villages were harder to investigate, and the mountainous terrain with its dense forests would make it easier for them to scatter and escape if the Demon Suppression Bureau caught wind of them.

Under the cover of night, Zhao Wanqing led Li Xingtian in a sprint toward the nearest northern village.

Before setting out, Zhao Wanqing had already studied the surrounding terrain and maps.

After about half an hour, they were close to the village Zhao Wanqing had mentioned.

“Wait!” Li Xingtian suddenly stopped, frowning as he surveyed their surroundings.

Zhao Wanqing quickly halted. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re in a maze array,” Li Xingtian said, scanning the dense forest around them. “We’ve circled this area at least three times.”

Zhao Wanqing was stunned. Three times? She hadn’t noticed at all.

“Getting out of this maze isn’t difficult, but we’ve likely been exposed.”

Li Xingtian’s gaze swept the area, and he soon detected a point of spiritual energy fluctuation.

Although his cultivation had reset after his rebirth, Li Xingtian’s experience and knowledge remained intact.

From the start of the mission, he had been vigilant about their surroundings.

Li Xingtian’s wariness of demonic cultivators was always at its peak, and for good reason—every demonic cultivator he had ever encountered shared one common trait: they had no moral boundaries.

Li Xingtian cautiously approached the source of the spiritual energy fluctuation.

Zhao Wanqing quickly followed, and soon they saw Li Xingtian part the grass and pick up a small stone from the ground.

After examining it carefully, Li Xingtian carefully placed the stone back in its original position:

“It’s a stone bead maze array. Follow me.”

Zhao Wanqing followed closely behind Li Xingtian as he zigzagged through the forest, seemingly going in circles, but after a few turns, they actually managed to break free.

Then, Zhao Wanqing froze in shock.

Before them lay a village that had been completely massacred.

All the houses had been burned to ashes, and the stench of blood hit them with the cold night wind.

On the trees at the village entrance hung headless corpses.

Li Xingtian looked down at the traces of the ritual array at his feet, which hadn’t even been cleaned up.

“How… how could they dare to do this?”

Zhao Wanqing’s voice trembled slightly. There was a vast difference between abducting villagers for sacrificial rituals and slaughtering an entire village for the same purpose.

Demonic cultivators’ sacrificial rituals typically aimed to extract blood energy and human souls to enhance their own cultivation.

However, both blood energy and souls were most potent when taken from adult males.

Women, children, and the elderly provided little blood energy and could even taint it.

Thus, even the most ruthless demonic cultivators wouldn’t do something so self-defeating.

And yet, this was an entire village—men, women, children, and the elderly—not a single one spared!

This was nothing short of a massacre!

Li Xingtian spoke up: “They left in a hurry and didn’t even clean up the ritual array. I’ll record these arrays so we can investigate them later. You go inside and see if there’s any useful information left behind.”

He glanced at Zhao Wanqing’s expression and realized she was somewhat shaken, so he took charge and made the arrangements.