"Right. Searching for them like this is too slow. It's better to make them come to us. But after we kill one more wave, we have to leave at once. If that old fellow shows up, it will go badly for us."
Nalan Yanran nodded. "All right. But let's collect the spoils first."
The two stripped the Storage Rings from the bodies, then flashed away and vanished into the forest. The whole forest fell silent, and only a few corpses lay quietly on the ground.
A few minutes later, several figures descended from the sky. At their head was a white-haired old man with a ruddy complexion who did not look old at all. He looked at the corpses before him, especially that of the middle-aged man, and the veins on his forehead bulged like a powder keg ready to explode.
"Search for them all! I will tear them into a thousand pieces!"
Every Dou Zong took a vast amount of resources to cultivate. This was already the second Dou Zong he had lost, and his heart felt as if it were bleeding.
"Yes, Pavilion Master!" the people behind him answered quickly.
"Aaaah!"
A shrill, horrifying scream rang out. Hearing it, the old man's body crackled with thunder, and he vanished from the spot at once, speeding toward its source. But when he arrived, he found only scorch marks on the ground and a pile of ashes.
He stood before the ashes and sensed them carefully. They were the ashes of a Dou Zong of his own Wind and Thunder Pavilion, and his face turned as dark as water.
Suddenly a light flickered beneath the ashes. The Southern Pavilion Master of Wind and Thunder waved a hand and blew the ashes away. A specially crafted jade bottle came into view, and inside it an exquisite two-colored Fire Lotus was turning.
Boom!
Under the Pavilion Master's gaze, the Fire Lotus exploded.
Far away, Xiao Yan and Nalan Yanran heard the explosion and turned to look toward the blast. Xiao Yan grinned. "Looks like someone set off the Fire Lotus. I wonder whether it killed anyone. If it killed a Dou Zong, we've hit the jackpot."
Nalan Yanran covered her mouth and smiled. "Probably not. A Dou Zong isn't so easy to kill with an explosion, and yours isn't a true Buddha's Fury Fire Lotus."
"True, but it can still teach them a lesson. Haha!" Xiao Yan laughed heartily, then slipped an arm around Nalan Yanran's waist and set off into the distance.
At the blast site, the elders of the Wind and Thunder Southern Pavilion had arrived, too. When the smoke cleared, the scene inside was revealed.
The Pavilion Master's magnificent robe was now charred black, with burn marks everywhere. Even his usually neatly combed hair had been blasted into a bird's nest and was still smoking.
The elders saw their Pavilion Master in such a state and quickly lowered their heads. Their facial muscles twitched uncontrollably, as if they were struggling to hold back laughter. If he had stood on the street looking like that, he would certainly have collected plenty of tips as a street performer.
"Search... search the entire mountain range for those two beasts! I want them to beg for death and be unable to die!"
The Southern Pavilion Master had never suffered such humiliation, and he could not help roaring in anger.
In the northern region of the Central Plains, a hundred miles southwest of Maple City, a battle was raging at a place called Ziyang Mountain.
Two figures, one in red and one in green, stood in the void. They were Medusa and Green Scales, leading the army of the Boundless Heaven Divine Palace as it expanded the Palace's territory everywhere.
At that moment, the Boundless Heaven Divine Palace was slaughtering the Ziyang Sect, which had refused to surrender and chosen to resist stubbornly. The Ziyang Sect was a hidden force of Zhongzhou, and its Sect Master was a Seven-Star Dou Zong. But the Seven-Star Dou Zong had been eaten by White Fang and would soon be digested. Before he died, however, he had crushed a jade token.
"Who has awakened me?!"
After the jade token shattered, an ancient voice echoed from afar. Then an old man with white hair and a hunched back stepped out of a spatial rift and stood on top of the highest building, the Sect Master's Hall, radiating the aura of a Dou Zun.
"Wonderful, it's the Old Ancestor! I never expected the Old Ancestor to still be here. We are saved!"
Many of the older elders of the Ziyang Sect showed ecstatic expressions when they saw him.
The old man surveyed the ruined sect, where the corpses of disciples in Ziyang Sect robes lay everywhere. His face darkened at once.
"Old Ancestor, you must avenge the Sect Master and the sect! These people brought their army straight to our door and demanded our surrender and allegiance. When we refused, they attacked at once, and now the Sect Master has died horribly in that beast's mouth. You must uphold justice for us."
An old man in a purple robe knelt on the ground and wailed to the old man.
The old man looked at the invaders and at White Fang. "This venerable one is Ziyang Venerable. How dare you, mere Dou Zong, invade my Ziyang Sect? Stay here and be buried with my Ziyang Sect disciples! As for you, beast, you will be my sect-guardian beast!"
His aura surged, and the Dou Qi around him circulated wildly, like a river pouring backward.
Suddenly the sky darkened, as if the sun had been covered by something. Ziyang Venerable seemed to sense a mighty pressure and looked up sharply, his pupils contracting. A giant hand, covering sky and sun, had appeared above.
The palm was immense, each finger as thick as a mountain, as if it could cover the whole world, and it carried a heart-pounding pressure. Ziyang Venerable trembled all over as he realized the hand was descending on him. His Dou Qi surged wildly in an attempt to resist the terrifying suppression, but before that great hand his cultivation was like a drop of water in the ocean, unable to stir a single wave.
"Damn it... what level of power is this?!" Ziyang Venerable went pale with shock, his eyes full of disbelieving terror. So much for his hopes of making a grand entrance.
Boom!
The giant hand crossed layer upon layer of space and came down straight on Ziyang Venerable. He found that he could not mobilize his Dou Qi at all, and could only watch helplessly as the hand slapped down.
"No! I don't want to die yet! Don't... Aaaah!" Ziyang Venerable let out a heart-rending scream. His body broke apart inch by inch under the crushing force, the sound of shattering bones clearly audible. Under the might of the great hand, he became countless specks of light and dissipated into heaven and earth.
The hand did not stop. It went on descending toward the Sect Master's Hall.
Boom!
The Sect Master's Hall and the entire main peak of Ziyang Mountain vanished beneath the giant hand, leaving only a vast palm-shaped crater.