Seasons cycled; years shifted.
The body sitting cross-legged atop the mountain peak had turned into a statue of ice and snow, his beard grown three inches long.
Every person and thing in the outside world changed according to their own rhythms and time.
Nothing came to a standstill just because he was in secluded cultivation.
This unfamiliar sense of dislocation made Li Guanqi profoundly uncomfortable. In the blink of an eye after waking, far too much had happened.
At this moment, Li Guanqi could not help but understand a little why the old ancestors of clan factions cared so little about clan bloodlines and ancestral heritage.
After waking from a single seclusion, earth-shaking changes had long taken place within their clans.
They did not even recognize a single person in charge anymore, naturally losing the belonging and bond of bloodline that they had once felt.
It was said that cultivating the Dao ultimately led to the Dao of Ruthlessness.
Not one person once familiar by their side remained alive; only a solitary self was left behind.
The road in pursuit of longevity was so lonely. To such people, the seven emotions and six desires were perhaps the most useless things of all.
Li Guanqi forcibly suppressed the swirling thoughts in his mind.
Taking out a special jade slip, he sent a voice transmission: "Brother Ji, how are they all doing now?"
The fluctuation from the jade slip was just as he had anticipated; Ji Yuchuan sent no reply.
Xi Yunhuai... just like Li Congxin, each was an independently existing individual.
Xi Yunhuai actually knew some things himself, but he did not care.
Living as 'himself,' Xi Yunhuai felt nothing was amiss.
Putting away the jade slip, Li Guanqi suddenly felt a hollow emptiness.
In the past, he had Pengluo, Jiuxiao, and the sword spirit beside him.
He had brothers in crowds around him, and Meng Wanshu had accompanied him at his side.
Having suddenly become all alone, he was still somewhat unaccustomed to it.
"Phew..."
"It really has been a long time since I felt like this."
With those words, Li Guanqi retrieved a long-unworn set of black robes from his storage ring and put them on.
The face-changing bug altered his features into those of a handsome young man, and taking a step forward, his figure teleported thousands of zhang away!
Checking his current location, he found he was still in the Luoxia Domain, and the closest target should be the Chi Clan in the Daochan Domain.
However, he did not plan to head to the Chi Clan right away. With the matter regarding Tianji Pavilion having arisen, he decided to visit the Daochan Domain last.
Orienting himself, Li Guanqi decided to go to the Taiqing Domain first.
Lightning flickered beneath his feet at blistering speed. After flying for nearly an hour, Li Guanqi frowned.
Even with his current speed, reaching the Taiqing Domain quickly was somewhat unrealistic.
Having Guanyun Pavilion transmit a map to him, Li Guanqi looked for the nearest city with a cross-domain teleportation array and changed direction.
Three days later.
Clad in black robes, Li Guanqi walked slowly out of Huanyao City.
Concealing his aura, he did not draw much attention.
With a flicker of his figure, he vanished from the spot.
The cultivator guarding the array rubbed his eyes and murmured under his breath, "Did... did someone just come out? Why didn't I sense any aura at all?"
Li Guanqi flew forward, hurtling toward the location of the Yao Clan.
Looking at the map, he suddenly felt a strange sense of familiarity, and his gaze shifted slightly.
"Uh... the Yao Clan isn't far from Zhongzhou..."
He had not expected this Yao Clan to be right near Zhongzhou.
Li Guanqi did not overthink it. Looking at the distance, if he rushed at full speed, he should be able to arrive in under a day.
He chose not to take a teleportation array; traveling would give him time to ponder a few things.
Many thoughts drifted through his mind. Recalling the ruins of the annihilated Duan clan now, he realized there had been some clues.
Judging solely by the residual aura at the Duan clan, it was indeed Ye Feng's doing.
Yet... thinking back carefully now, the traces left behind in that manor seemed a bit too plentiful.
No matter how he racked his brain, he could not make sense of it. The residual aura had been extremely faint.
Had Li Guanqi not been so familiar with Ye Feng's aura, he might have overlooked it entirely.
That chaotic aura... seemed more like it had been left intentionally...
Yes!
It was as if it had been left deliberately for him to see, yet without leaving any explicit message.
Li Guanqi had once thought that if Ye Feng ever had the chance to 'cross paths' with him, he would definitely seize the opportunity to leave clues.
That was why Li Guanqi wanted to inspect all the locations where these clans had been wiped out.
Buzz!
As night fell, a black-robed figure suddenly appeared atop the tree canopy above the mountain range where the ruins of a devastated clan lay.
Li Guanqi looked down at the broken walls and collapsed ruins, sighed inwardly, and flickered into the courtyard below.
A thick layer of dust blanketed the entire compound, and a faint demonic qi lingered in the air, refusing to disperse.
Everywhere was a scene of utter ruin; the collapsed pavilions made it easy to imagine their former glory.
The white jade ground was stained a purplish-black with blood, and scattered white bones lay all around, appearing chilling under the moonlight.
Li Guanqi walked through the deserted ruins, the snapping of dry branches crunching beneath his feet.
Closing his eyes slightly, he took the entire manor's condition into his perception.
More than two hundred people had been slaughtered in the manor. It seemed to have suffered the same extermination as the Duan clan before—apart from those taken away, no one had survived.
A sweep of his divine sense revealed nothing out of the ordinary; even the location of the Yao Clan's treasury had been dug out by someone else.
Li Guanqi sighed. Just as he turned to leave, a sudden flash of inspiration struck his mind!
Boom!
In an instant, an overwhelmingly powerful lightning domain enveloped a radius of a thousand zhang!
Li Guanqi's sea of consciousness hummed as his formidable divine sense surged forth.
A thousand-zhang projection of the Duan manor appeared a hundred zhang up in the air.
Immediately after, Li Guanqi projected the present layout of the Yao Clan as well!
The two images overlapped in midair. Li Guanqi reached out, slowly rotating the Duan clan's layout into an overhead view,
and aligned all of the Yao Clan's layout into a profile view.
A chaotic, fragmented character—"安"—suddenly appeared before his eyes!
Staring at the character "安" formed by the crisscrossing, chaotic sword gouges on the grounds of both clans, Li Guanqi was overwhelmed by a storm of mixed emotions!
Looking up toward the heavens, his eyes grew moist, and his lips trembled as he murmured,
"You... were you really so certain I would figure it out..."
With a wave of his hand, Li Guanqi erased the spiritual light in the air, took a deep breath, and dismissed the lightning purgatory space.
Buzz!
"Who dares trespass upon the ruins of the Yao Clan?!"
Li Guanqi looked up. A young man with a face fair as jade, dressed in white robes and bearing the refined air of a scholar, stood in midair.
Violent primal energy surged within him, his eyes narrowing slightly, ready to strike at any moment!
When Li Guanqi clearly saw the newcomer's appearance, his gaze turned extraordinarily complex...
Chapter 996