Chapter 493 - 353: His Identity 2
"If we could have figured it out, the Celestial Demon Sect would have already identified the mysterious Spirit Refiner. Senior Fang’s talent in Alchemy and Artifact Refining is just too misleading. Before today, I thought he’d dedicated all his energy to those two fields."
"I think the most terrifying thing about Senior Fang is his concealment technique. It felt like in the blink of an eye, that early-stage Core Formation Demon from the Celestial Demon Sect was dead."
Today, they finally got a glimpse of Fang Yun’s concealment and Attacking Methods.
The discussion about Fang Yun among the Zhou Family’s upper echelon continued without end.
Even after a long time, their hearts still couldn’t find peace.
...
The moment the early-stage Core Formation Demon, Qi Chuqiao, completely lost all signs of life...
「Inside the Celestial Demon Sect.」
One of the Demon Jars, which belonged to the Core Formation Stage leadership, shattered without warning.
"That’s Elder Qi’s Demon Jar!"
Upon seeing this, the Celestial Demon Sect Elder guarding the Demon Jars immediately relayed the news to Lu Yaoling.
This was incredibly grave news.
He was completely unaware of the leadership’s current operation in the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm.
So he couldn’t help but wonder, ’What in the world just happened?’
’How could a Supreme Elder have perished?’
According to the Celestial Demon Sect’s records, few Supreme Elders had ever fallen in battle throughout history. Most died peacefully after exhausting their Life Span.
「On the other side.」
When Lu Yaoling saw the message was from the Elder guarding the Demon Jars, his heart sank.
He immediately thought of the worst-case scenario.
’One of the sect’s leaders on the mission has perished.’
’Impossible, absolutely impossible!’
Lu Yaoling immediately rejected his initial thought.
Before Qi Chuqiao’s operation, he had given her crystal-clear instructions.
Although destroying one of the Celestial Cloud Sect’s affiliated Foundation Establishment Influences was important for saving face for the Celestial Demon Sect, Qi Chuqiao’s own safety was certainly more critical.
Besides, if Qi Chuqiao were to fall in the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm, the Celestial Demon Sect would lose even more face.
That was why he had stressed that if she couldn’t breach the Grand Array of the Celestial Cloud Sect’s affiliated Foundation Establishment Influence within a set time, she must retreat immediately. Once Celestial Cloud Sect reinforcements arrived, escape would be nearly impossible.
Lu Yaoling desperately tried to deny the worst-case scenario, hesitating to open the message from the Elder guarding the Demon Jars.
After composing himself once more, Lu Yaoling took a deep breath and finally opened the message.
"How could this be!"
It was the worst-case scenario: Supreme Elder Qi Chuqiao had perished in the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm.
At the same time, there was another, even more serious problem.
Before her death, Qi Chuqiao hadn’t managed to send back a single shred of information.
With no information, he had no idea how exactly Qi Chuqiao died. Who killed her? Was it a single person, or was she ambushed by a group?
There was no information on any of it.
All he knew was that Qi Chuqiao had died in the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm, on the territory of that Spirit Refiner Foundation Establishment Cultivation Clan, the Zhou Family.
’Could this be the work of the mysterious Spirit Refiner?’
The thought quickly occurred to Lu Yaoling.
In recent years, every time the mysterious Spirit Refiner had acted to destroy one of the Celestial Demon Sect’s affiliated Foundation Establishment Influences, not a single piece of information had ever made it back to them.
’That shouldn’t be possible. The mysterious Spirit Refiner hasn’t reached Core Formation yet.’
The moment the idea surfaced, Lu Yaoling dismissed it.
He was absolutely certain of this.
In the past several decades, none of the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Core Formation Spirit Refiners matched the profile of the mysterious one.
Bai Qinying isn’t skilled in concealment. In fact, the intelligence that Spirit Refiners now possessed Middle Grade Spiritual Artifacts capable of countering them was leaked because of her.
Song Qiaoqiao is decent at Alchemy, but her combat prowess was merely average back when she was an Elder.
As for the last one, Fang Yun, he’s always holed up inside the Celestial Cloud Sect, either performing Alchemy or Artifact Refining. He spends all his energy researching Spiritual Artifacts to counter us, which makes him an even more unlikely candidate.
There was too little information to go on.
The more Lu Yaoling thought about it, the less sense it made.
With things as they were, his only option was to summon everyone.
Six Core Formation leaders had now become five.
Upon receiving Lu Yaoling’s summons but before hearing the details, the faces of all the arriving Core Formation leaders were grim.
Holding a leadership meeting at this time, and with Supreme Elder Qi Chuqiao still not back... a combination of these two facts meant the four arriving leaders had already guessed most of what Lu Yaoling was about to say.
If Qi Chuqiao had returned with good news, a meeting wouldn’t have been called at this hour.
All the sect’s leaders were now present.
The atmosphere in the room was terribly grim.
"Go on, Elder Lu. Tell us why you’ve called this meeting."
"I have bad news. Elder Qi has fallen in the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm."
The four showed no surprise. They had already suspected as much.
"Elder Lu, besides that, did you receive any message from Elder Qi?" Cao Yuchen asked, looking at Lu Yaoling.
This time, he didn’t offer any harsh words or criticize Lu Yaoling’s decision-making as he usually did.
He had, after all, been fully involved in planning this operation.
He had been the one to push for an extremely conservative approach, shortening the window for retreat to an absolute minimum.
By his calculations, Qi Chuqiao should have been starting her retreat right around the time the Celestial Cloud Sect’s leaders were two-thirds of the way there, even at full speed.
The plan was that conservative, yet Qi Chuqiao still fell in Celestial Cloud territory.
"None whatsoever. It’s just like the others who fell to the mysterious Spirit Refiner."
"But the mysterious Spirit Refiner shouldn’t have reached Core Formation yet. And none of the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Core Formation leaders match the profile."
"I know. That’s why I can’t understand how Elder Qi could have possibly perished..."
Silence.
A dead silence!
At this, the five Core Formation leaders of the Celestial Demon Sect fell silent, none of them speaking for a long time.
It was Cao Yuchen who finally broke the silence.
"Given Elder Qi’s fall and the complete lack of information, there is one thing we must do for at least the next hundred years: we must not rashly enter the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm."
Cao Yuchen’s meaning was simple.
’Hunker down.’
The Celestial Demon Sect would have to hunker down, just as the Celestial Cloud Sect had been forced to do at various times in history.
Back then, their sect had brutally invaded the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm, and the Celestial Cloud Sect’s leaders had been trapped within their own walls, not daring to even step outside.
"As long as we don’t act rashly, we won’t have people perishing for no reason. If we must act, we should wait until our Life Spans are nearly exhausted."
As he said this, Cao Yuchen shot a pointed glance at Lu Yaoling.
’The implication was clear: ’When you, Lu Yaoling, only have a few years of your Life Span left, you can do whatever you please. But for now, you’d better behave yourself and stay put as a Guardian of the sect.’’
"We truly cannot afford to act rashly again."
"If the opportunity arises, we must find out exactly which Spirit Refiner was responsible for Elder Qi’s death."
The death of a sect leader—especially one that came with no warning or information—had thoroughly spooked the other leaders, particularly those in the early-stage of Core Formation. None of them had any desire to operate in the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm anymore. They didn’t want to share Qi Chuqiao’s fate.
"Supreme Elder Cao is right." For the first time, Lu Yaoling found himself in complete agreement with Cao Yuchen.
’Even if I take action in the future, it will be when my own Life Span is nearly spent.’
’When that time comes, I’ll deal the Celestial Cloud Sect a devastating blow!’
At that very moment, a new plan began to brew in Lu Yaoling’s mind.
"Then it’s settled," Lu Yaoling declared. "From now on, unless it is of the utmost importance, no one is to enter the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm."
Seizing the opportunity, Cao Yuchen moved to change more of the sect’s current strategies.
"The same goes for our Elders. They no longer need to carry out missions in the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm. If we’re to deal with Foundation Establishment Stage Spirit Refiners, we’ll deal with the ones who dare to enter our Celestial Demon Sect’s Earth Realm."
This strategy of defensive turtling had to be implemented from the top all the way down.
This was the change Cao Yuchen had wanted all along.
Judging by the results of their operations in the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm, their mid-level losses had far exceeded those of the Celestial Cloud Sect.
This time, none of the other leaders objected.
’For him, Qi Chuqiao’s silent demise in the Celestial Cloud Sect’s Earth Realm wasn’t entirely bad news.’