Li Guanqi had only just breathed a sigh of relief upon discovering that Ye Feng and the others were safe and had not been taken.
Yet the residual demonic qi lingering within the Gu clan domain made his heart clench.
It seemed the Sha organization was still pulling the strings behind this strike by the Lu and Zhu clans!
Li Guanqi's expression darkened. "How could Tang Ru be captured?! With his personality, if he wanted to hide, they couldn't even find Ye Feng—how could they possibly have found him?!"
With that thought, Li Guanqi shot into the air.
Pulling out his jade pendant, he traced its qi signature and swiftly located the Gu clan dungeon.
While the others were occupied with managing the Gu clan's affairs, only Meng Wanshu accompanied him, heading toward a peak in the mountains behind the domain.
Only after glancing back did Li Guanqi realize that this concealed spatial boundary was quite a distance from where the battle had taken place.
Rounding the corner of the unassuming peak, his jade pendant flared with blinding radiance.
Gritting his teeth, Li Guanqi said in a heavy voice, "Open the boundary! It's me, Li Guanqi!"
Hum!
The stone wall before him rippled, and as the space opened, a man's silhouette darted out, followed by several cultivators in black robes.
Catching sight of Li Guanqi's grim countenance, Gu Chuan felt a sudden jolt of foreboding.
"Gu Chuan, Commander of the Yunying Guards, greets the Pavilion Master! Tang Ru... what of him?"
The man looked toward Li Guanqi with eyes full of hope. But Li Guanqi's gaze fell upon the scattered fragments of a magic treasure on the ground.
In his heart, he already knew why Tang Ru had been taken...
Crouching down, Li Guanqi picked up the fragments. This sealing dharma artifact had clearly been used by someone from the outside to seal off the barrier.
"Tang Ru... did he go out of his own accord?"
Gu Chuan's eyes dimmed the moment he heard those words, and everything became clear to him.
For a moment, Gu Chuan choked with emotion. As a mighty Body Integration cultivator, he had not dared to step outside, yet Tang Ru had ventured out instead.
"Tang Ru... did it to buy time..."
Li Guanqi clenched the fragments in his palm and closed his eyes, pain washing over his face.
He understood Tang Ru's reasoning all too well. Standing where he was now, he could picture Tang Ru standing right here with his back to the barrier, resolute in his decision!
To prevent the enemy from finding Ye Feng and the others to threaten Li Guanqi, he had offered his own life and standing as a hostage!
When Li Guanqi rose, a tempest raged within him. His jaws clenched so tight that the muscles of his cheeks bulged.
The veins on his forehead throbbed violently, and a murderous intent radiated outward.
Tightening his fists, Li Guanqi said in a low voice, "Rest assured. I will bring Tang Ru back, no matter what it takes!"
Hum!
"Li Guanqi! My son... what on earth happened to my son?! Why has his soul lamp cracked?!"
Tang Wei's frantic voice rang out from a communication jade slip; clearly, he still had no idea what had transpired.
Taking a deep breath, Li Guanqi held the trembling jade slip in his hand.
He did not know how he could ever face Tang Wei if anything truly happened to Tang Ru because of him.
"Phoo..."
"Uncle Tang... he... has been captured. But I swear to you, I will bring him back!"
Tang Wei did not say much after receiving the transmission. Rising to his feet, he declared with chilling fury:
"Head to Guanyun Pavilion! Mobilize every resource at our disposal to find Tang Ru! Sha... I will drag you down with me to the very end!"
Tang Wei's decisiveness far exceeded that of ordinary men. Almost the very instant he received the news, intelligence networks across the entire Great Xia Domain sprang into motion.
The bounty for information on Tang Ru soared overnight from ten million spirit stones to fifty million!
Fifty million spirit stones was a fortune that many Body Integration experts could scarcely amass in an entire lifetime.
Everyone thought Tang Wei had lost his mind, though quite a few discerning figures sensed a deeper implication.
With the Great Xia Sword Sect and Guanyun Pavilion at the height of their influence, who could possibly dare to kidnap Tang Ru at such a time?
Li Guanqi sent Gu Chuan and the others to assist with the Gu clan's affairs, while he lingered in place for a long time, lost in thought.
The guilt in his heart grew heavier. Had it not been for Ye Feng and the others, Tang Ru could have stayed entirely out of it—he wouldn't have needed to get involved at all.
Glancing toward Gu Lie, who was tending to his injuries in the distance, Li Guanqi flashed forward like a bolt of lightning and appeared beside the old man.
Bowing respectfully, he said in a solemn tone, "Junior Li Guanqi greets Senior. Might I know Senior's esteemed name?"
Gu Lie waved a hand and said in a gruff voice, "I am Gu Lie, an eighth-rank martial artist and a seventh-rank alchemist."
"Junior wishes to ask: what exactly transpired back then?"
The old man took a deep look at Li Guanqi, aware of his extraordinary status, yet remained composed without any stiffness. He recounted everything that had happened from beginning to end.
As Li Guanqi listened to what Tang Ru had said, his teeth remained clenched in dead silence.
To hurry the captors away and keep them from searching for Ye Feng and the others, every single word Tang Ru spoke had been calculated to magnify his own importance!
Li Guanqi took a deep breath, bowed, and took his leave. "Thank you for lending your aid in righteousness, Senior. If you ever have need of me, Li Guanqi, or Guanyun Pavilion in the future, you need only ask."
Li Guanqi was in no state of mind to make polite conversation with the elder, his thoughts in absolute turmoil.
Meng Wanshu remained quietly by his side the entire time without uttering a word. She knew Li Guanqi was fraught with frustration, and pressing him with questions now would only compound his distress.
Before long, the wounded cultivators of the Gu clan had all been settled.
Everyone gathered in the main hall of the Gu clan, where the atmosphere was suffocatingly grim.
Perhaps only Youming sat slouched in a chair, idly playing with his fingers as if none of this had anything to do with him.
That he had stepped in today and thwarted the enemy's scheme was already a massive boon; the Gu clan had merely lost three beast flames and roughly twenty alchemists.
Bang!
The table beside Gu Changsheng instantly disintegrated into ash. Livid with rage, the man hissed through gritted teeth, "The Lu clan and Zhu clan truly have a death wish! Hmph! How dare they abduct twenty-eight alchemists from my Gu clan!"
Rubbing a turquoise bead in his hand from the side, Youming chuckled. "Hey, I still have the remnant soul of the Yu clan ancestor here. Care to vent your anger on it?"
Gu Changsheng glared fiercely at the bead. They had all just learned that Yu Chang'an, the ancestor of the Yu clan, had been obliterated by Youming.
None of them had seen that coming.
After all, an expert in the Mahayana realm was bound to possess more than one method of escaping with his life. The longer such figures lived, the more they feared death, and men like him usually maintained countless hidden retreats.
Yet Youming had struck with ruthless, thunderous speed, denying the man any chance to play his trump cards. He had obliterated him with overwhelming force right from the start, leaving Yu Chang'an unable to even deploy his ocular techniques.
As for the Yu clan itself, no one paid it much mind.
Youming looked at Li Guanqi, tossed the soul bead over, and smiled. "Here, take it. Do with it as you see fit. It's the soul of a Mahayana realm cultivator, after all."
Li Guanqi silently stowed it away, then looked up at Youming and asked in a low voice, "Senior, who was the person you fought at the very end?"
Youming curled his lip and cursed under his breath. "Probably the leader of the Sha organization, the one who fought my second sister. I don't know his name, so I'll just call him Sha."
"This Sha... is remarkably strong! At the very least, on my own, I am no match for him."
Chapter 900