A smile Qi Mobai could not quite fathom lingered on Li Guanqi's face.
To Qi Mobai, it simply felt like a very warm smile.
A few more days slipped by unnoticed. On this day, Li Guanqi was inspecting the city walls.
Leaning against the parapet, he stood with the Black-Armored Guards flanking him on both sides.
Lately, Zhao Ke and the others had treated Li Guanqi with the utmost deference.
Li Guanqi's overwhelming strength had thoroughly won over every cultivator in the Patrol Camp.
Leaning against the wall, Li Guanqi's brow knitted slightly.
"Have more cultivators been entering the city lately?"
In just the span of half an incense stick, he had already noticed two Mystic Immortals entering through the gates.
The guard behind him replied in a low voice,
"Reporting to the Grand Commander: yes. Over the past two days, more than twenty Mystic Immortals have entered the city.
"What is more... they only stay briefly to rest and resupply before boarding the city's teleportation array and departing in haste."
Li Guanqi frowned slightly and asked in a low voice,
"Resupply? Buying things like medicinal pills?"
The guard nodded in affirmation.
Keenly sensing something amiss, Li Guanqi straightened and instructed,
"Go find out where these cultivators headed after leaving."
A short while later, holding a jade slip in his hand, Li Guanqi murmured under his breath,
"Donghua City?"
Li Guanqi then used his authority to review the routes and activities of the cultivators who had entered the city over the past two days.
He found that all of them acted with clear intent. Upon entering the city, some headed straight for the teleportation array to Donghua City, while others used immortal crystals at Linlang Emporium to purchase large quantities of pills before departing in a hurry.
Li Guanqi keenly perceived that something unusual was happening.
Most likely, something in the vicinity of Donghua City was drawing these people!
Most of the cultivators coming to Yuxu City to use the teleportation array belonged to nearby clans and sects.
Donghua City...
Li Guanqi vanished from the city wall in a flash. Back in his courtyard residence, he retrieved the map he had obtained from Zhao He.
Unrolling the map, he quickly located Donghua City amid the shimmering spiritual light.
It was a major city nearly seventeen thousand li from Yuxu City.
No wonder these cultivators chose to travel by teleportation array.
Even for Li Guanqi, flying such a distance would take over two full days without rest.
By teleportation array, it would take at most around twelve hours.
Li Guanqi pondered for a moment, then sent a transmission to Lin Chuanqing explaining his intention.
The man fell silent for a considerable while before finally nodding in agreement.
Qian Ronghe arrived with a storage ring containing thirty thousand immortal crystals and two bottles of Xuanyuan Pills.
When the elder handed the ring to Li Guanqi, he merely smiled and cupped his hands.
Li Guanqi nodded slightly without saying much, simply handing his own jade slip to Qian Ronghe and saying softly,
"Please trouble yourself, Elder Qian, to deliver this to Qi Mobai."
Qian Ronghe smiled and nodded.
"This old man will certainly place it in Young Master Qi's hands."
Changing into a black robe, Li Guanqi quietly stepped onto the teleportation array.
Left behind on the table in his courtyard residence was the jade medallion that symbolized the rank of Grand Commander.
Yet just after Li Guanqi departed, two gaunt elders dressed in plain navy-blue robes arrived in Yuxu City.
One was a hook-nosed elder whose face was creased like ravines, with sunken eye sockets and no ears.
The other had a goatee and bore a massive scar across his throat, looking as though a chunk of flesh were missing.
The goateed elder narrowed his eyes, made several hand gestures, and frowned slightly.
The hook-nosed elder narrowed his eyes, looked around, closed his eyes for a moment, and then nodded slightly.
The two turned into an alley and vanished.
Soon after, two guards slacking off atop the city wall disappeared without a sound.
In a dark, deserted alley, two mutilated corpses lay with blood splattered against the walls.
The earless, hook-nosed elder frowned slightly and raised a withered hand, crushing the souls held within his grasp.
A hoarse, garbled voice rasped from his mouth:
"Dong... hua!"
Immediately after, the two vanished from Yuxu City.
The deaths of the two guards caused hardly a ripple.
After several hours of long-distance transit, Li Guanqi arrived at Donghua City, having concealed his aura and identity.
The moment he stepped out of the teleportation array, Li Guanqi departed the central plaza.
Turning into an alley, with a simple disguise and an alteration of his aura, an unremarkable black-robed cultivator of the Mahayana realm emerged.
Walking along the street, Li Guanqi was secretly astonished.
On this single street alone, he sensed at least three Mystic Immortals!
Moreover, Donghua City appeared even larger than Yuxu City.
Nestled among mountain ranges and backed by towering peaks, the city was cloaked in mist, its celestial spiritual energy exceptionally dense.
It seemed as though a complete immortal-grade spiritual vein lay beneath the entire city.
Pavilions and towers faintly peeked through the mist atop the lofty summits.
Streaks of sword light flashed across the heights, and various great demons could occasionally be seen circling in flight.
Cultivators stood atop each of these great demons, all of which were ranked beasts.
From the conversations of numerous cultivators on the street, Li Guanqi also gleaned a piece of news:
Such a colossal city was merely one of several under the control of the Tianhua Sword Sect.
Four cities in the four cardinal directions all belonged to the Tianhua Sword Sect.
Li Guanqi picked a tavern at random, took a seat in a corner, and quietly listened to the patrons' chatter.
"A powerful sect ranked among the top ten in the entire northern region of Qinzhou, is it?"
Yet... being top ten in only the northern region still seemed far inferior to Lin Wujiu's clan.
Yet the rumors that followed piqued Li Guanqi's interest.
The first concerned the Sect Master of the Tianhua Sword Sect, who was a powerhouse of the True Immortal realm!
The second was the very reason so many had come to Donghua City.
The reason cultivators had flooded the city recently was that the Tianhua Sword Sect had reportedly discovered an ancient spatial secret realm near Donghua City.
Judging by the aura emanating from the spatial rift, it was inferred to date back to ancient times, at least ten thousand years ago.
However, no one knew what the secret realm actually contained.
They only knew that countless cultivators had gathered here, awaiting further news.
Hearing this, Li Guanqi's movements slowed, his brow furrowing slightly.
If it were truly a secret realm abundant in resources, the Tianhua Sword Sect would never have let word leak out in the first place!
Now that the entire city was abuzz with it, what was their real objective?
Li Guanqi hardly believed the Tianhua Sword Sect was charitable enough to let rogue cultivators and other clans and sects cut in for a share of the spoils.
Yet right at that moment, Li Guanqi's heart suddenly tightened.
For reasons unknown, he sensed an extremely subtle yet formidable aura right above his head!!
On the second floor.
A young man clad in a tight-fitting black robe frowned slightly, his drinking pausing midway.
Cold-faced, with a faint air of baleful ferocity between his brows, the youth involuntarily lowered his head slightly as his left hand slowly crept toward the saber at his waist.
Beneath him, he sensed an inexplicable aura of threat!!
The other party had concealed their presence remarkably well; had they not been so close, he would never have detected it!
Almost at the very same instant, Li Guanqi slowly raised his gaze.
The youth above also slowly looked down.
Through the gaps in the wooden floorboards, their eyes met.
In an instant, the temperature inside the tavern plummeted by several degrees.
Yet in the very next breath, both men looked away.
Chapter 1598