The immortal-capturing site fell into an eerie silence in an instant.
Everyone exchanged glances, yet not a single person dared to speak first.
Only after a long while did someone ask in a faint, timid voice, "Brother Dao, according to our intel, that World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin... was a fake, right?"
Hearing this, everyone turned to Dao Yuan in bewilderment.
Dao Yuan, who had always carried himself with composure, also had a flicker of panic cross his eyes. Even so, he gave a light cough and said in a heavy voice, "Do not lose your composure! Perhaps the mysterious coffin was merely concealed by the Two Immortals Xi and Yi using unfathomable means, and it might still be right where it was. We—"
Before he could finish, a panicked voice cut him off: "How is that possible?! A clearly counterfeit coffin could actually cross the world for real?!"
Even as the speaker shouted, he flew recklessly and at full speed toward the original location of the mysterious coffin.
It was none other than Nangong Hongzhao, who had previously been so certain of the coffin's authenticity!
"Not good!" The faces of all the newly inducted Immortal Hunters changed drastically. If Dao Yuan's assumption was correct, Nangong Hongzhao's action would very likely force him to face two True Immortals directly. Not only would he lose his life on the spot, but he would also expose everyone else lying in ambush.
Everyone wanted to stop Nangong Hongzhao's reckless behavior.
Unfortunately, his movements were ethereal and unimaginably swift. In the blink of an eye, he had already reached his destination.
Everyone's breath caught in their throats.
Fortunately, the anticipated tragedy did not occur.
Yet their expressions did not ease because of this. Instead, they grew even more disheartened.
"The World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin really is gone."
"And vanished along with it are the two True Immortals Xi and Yi."
The gravity of the situation was clearly beyond the control of these newly inducted Immortal Hunters. Thus, Dao Yuan decisively chose to report upward through the Dao Net.
And the reaction from the other end of the Dao Net went somewhat beyond his expectations.
"What? The immortal bait is gone? Impossible!"
"Under the Dao Net's observation, it is clearly still in its original position!"
"Where is Yan Xuantai?! Why isn't he the one contacting me?!"
A voice of furious rage traveled to everyone's ears from the distant center of the Shuoxing Sea through the ripples of the Dao Net.
By the time the last word sounded, the owner of the voice had already descended in the flesh.
It was a diminutive elder, less than three feet tall.
His silver-white beard and hair were even longer than his body, coiling at his feet like drifting clouds.
The elder's face was frightfully grim as his gaze swept across the crowd.
Without exception, the newly inducted Immortal Hunters subconsciously lowered their heads, not daring to meet the elder's eyes.
"This is..."
Li Fan also sensed the immense might of the elder before him.
With every breath the elder took, the invisible Dao strings between heaven and earth gave off corresponding faint vibrations. The Dao Net in this area even grew clearer and firmer simply from the elder's arrival.
In Ma Tiande's memories, he had seen this elder once from afar.
The assembly where he had obtained the post of Dao Net operator back then was presided over by this very elder.
"One of the council elders of the Shuoxing Sea Governing Council, Nangong Fusheng."
Nangong Fusheng teleported directly to where the immortal-bait coffin had stood. Looking at Nangong Hongzhao muttering incoherently on the spot, Nangong Fusheng barked, "Worthless trash!"
With a single slap, he sent Nangong Hongzhao flying.
Leaving him to tumble uncontrollably through the star sea, Nangong Fusheng gradually reined in his rage and carefully surveyed his surroundings.
Ripples radiated outward in rings, centered on Nangong Fusheng.
Watching from afar, the Immortal Hunters felt as if the entire expanse of heaven and earth had turned into an ocean lashed by a violent tempest—churning, roaring. The howling waves seemed capable of swallowing them whole at any moment. They could only rely on the power of the Dao Net with great difficulty to keep their footing steady.
The Dao Net rippled ceaselessly.
In the end, it concluded with Nangong Fusheng drawing a black nail overflowing with seven-colored radiance from the void with his right hand.
With the nail pulled out, Nangong Fusheng laughed out of sheer fury. "Yan Xuantai, what great skill! To actually fool the Dao Net and pull off such an audacious deception!"
The newly inducted Immortal Hunters also stared fixedly at the black, seven-colored nail in Nangong Fusheng's hand.
Their eyes flickered.
In their past understanding, the Dao Net was synonymous with the Great Dao of heaven and earth. The mighty power of heaven and earth was peerless in this world; one could only seek every means to harness it.
Yet now, on the very first mission they undertook after officially joining the Immortal Hunter organization, they had encountered an entity capable of deceiving the Dao Net.
He had even staged an escape like a cicada casting off its skin right before everyone's eyes.
"Just who on earth is this Yan Xuantai?"
Questions inevitably arose in everyone's hearts.
A counterfeit mysterious coffin had actually fled with two True Immortals who were supposed to be prey. What was more, behind all of this lurked the shadow of a conspiracy involving an insider of the Shuoxing Sea Immortal Hunter organization.
This was by no means a trivial matter.
Soon, besides Nangong Fusheng, three other cultivators arrived one after another.
Even though they concealed their figures and restrained their auras, their arrival still felt as though it kicked up tempestuous waves within the local Dao Net. The newly inducted Immortal Hunters could only tremble. Faced with questioning, none dared hide anything and recounted everything truthfully.
"Let us return first."
"I suspect this matter is not so simple."
Nangong Fusheng spoke in a deep voice to the three figures, making no attempt to hide anything from the crowd.
His silver beard and hair grew without any wind, wrapping around all the Immortal Hunters.
Just as they were about to depart, Li Fan faintly heard Nangong Hongzhao's anxious shout from outside the cocoon of silver hair: "Third Granduncle, wait for me!"
The silver hair enveloped them, then parted.
In the blink of an eye, everyone had been brought back to the center of the Shuoxing Sea.
They were led into separate, pitch-black partitioned cells for a second round of questioning.
Since they were indeed clueless newcomers, the organization did not make things excessively difficult for them. After a few routine interrogations, it concluded.
However, there was no intention of letting them leave. They were simply kept in countless pitch-black partitioned cells that felt like death row.
Although each person's freedom of movement was not restricted, it was confined entirely to this area.
They could not leave.
The endless darkness gradually gnawed away at everyone's resolve.
At the beginning, the newly inducted Immortal Hunters still held out hope, believing this confinement would end very soon.
Yet as the days went by, the organization seemed to have forgotten them completely. Ever since placing them here, there had not been the slightest peep.
Gradually, different shifts occurred in everyone's mindsets.
"I understand now. Hunting the True Immortals, the disappearance of the coffin—these are all still part of the Immortal Hunter assessment. We are still in the middle of the trial! I must pull myself together, I cannot lose heart!"
"To think I had such a bright future, yet ran into something like this. My whole life is probably ruined."
"The mysterious coffin vanished along with two True Immortals. With an incident this massive, someone has to take the blame. Don't tell me they're going to use us as scapegoats?"
...
Most people lived in constant dread, fearing that each day would be their last.
Only those who could remain calm in such circumstances were true paragons.
Li Fan sensed the three sword intents in the adjacent cell that never ceased, nodding slightly to himself.
"Ever since she was locked in, Jin Changyue has been continuously nurturing those sword intents. Thrown into prison without cause, suffering an unjust wrong, hostility naturally brews in her heart. This happens to be the perfect opportunity to nourish the sword with intent."
"However, if this sword intent is to reach completion, someone must be sacrificed to the sword."
Aside from Jin Changyue, Dao Yuan was also quite composed. Apart from some minor fluctuations in his aura at the very beginning, he remained like a dragon coiled in the deep, quietly lying low and biding his time.
As for Li Fan, he naturally felt no impatience whatsoever. Even so, he still concealed his competence, repeatedly feigning anxiety and despair.
In truth, he was continuously recalling the scene of the Two Immortals Xi and Yi activating the World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin and departing.
The mysterious chant intoned by the Two Immortals Xi and Yi gradually faded in Li Fan's memory with the passage of time. Even the recording in the Dao Assimilation Stone was doing the same.
Li Fan could only review it again and again to deepen the impression.
Yet the overall trend of it fading completely was ultimately impossible to alter.
Li Fan had also attempted to directly mirror the fluctuations from that moment using the miniature Dao Net in his spiritual consciousness.
However, the tremors in the Great Dao of heaven and earth induced by the mysterious sounds had taken place entirely inside the coffin.
Li Fan had only observed from afar through the Dao Net, so he could not record them accurately.
"That coffin was said to be a fake, yet in truth it was real."
"Aside from being unable to cross the world, it was virtually indistinguishable from a genuine coffin..."
Remembering what Nangong Hongzhao had said before, Li Fan felt a stir in his heart.
Although Nangong Hongzhao had not been brought back by Nangong Fusheng initially, he was thrown into this black prison several days later just the same.
Yet he did not display anxiety or worry. Instead, he wore the downcast look of someone who had bungled an assignment.
These past few days, he had simply been lying lazily on the ground, closing his eyes in a doze.
Li Fan silently crept over.
"Brother Nangong, there is something I have held back for a long time."
"It has been sticking in my throat like a fishbone; I won't feel at peace until I ask!"
Perhaps because 'Ma Tiande's' prior performance had left a somewhat positive impression on Nangong Hongzhao, the man abruptly opened his eyes, gave Li Fan an indifferent once-over, and then said nothing, closing them again.
Li Fan knew that without an explicit rejection, it meant consent.
He immediately sent a voice transmission: "What was the deal with that fake coffin suddenly turning real? Does Brother Nangong know any insider details?"
Nangong Hongzhao said testily, "Didn't you see me getting swept one hundred eighty thousand li away like trash? What inside details could I possibly know?"
Li Fan hastily consoled him, "Brother Nangong shouldn't say that. That was Council Elder Nangong of the Governing Council! How many people would love to be swept aside like that, yet lack the qualifications?"
Hearing this, Nangong Hongzhao opened his eyes again.
He squinted, looked Li Fan over once more, and said thoughtfully, "I almost forgot, you were originally a Dao Net operator, so you hail from the Governing Council as well. No wonder you know how formidable my third granduncle is."
Li Fan nodded repeatedly. "Indeed, indeed."
Seeing Nangong Hongzhao's attitude soften, Li Fan went straight to the point: "These past days, having nothing to do, I've thought it over back and forth. Regarding this fake coffin, there are a few possibilities."
"First, the fake coffin was forged based on the real one. Aside from certain prerequisite conditions, it was no different from a genuine World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin. And those Two Immortals Xi and Yi, having traveled across the star sea, just happened to possess those prerequisites. Thus, it was only natural that they used the coffin to flee to another world."
"However, there is a flaw in this deduction. It was merely meant to serve as bait to trap True Immortals; as long as it looked convincing, that would suffice. There was no need to make it so genuine. Therefore, I also guessed that Yan Xuantai tampered with it in secret or pulled a switch, replacing the fake coffin with another one far closer to the real thing, hiding inside it to wait for the Two Immortals Xi and Yi to enter, explain the situation, and escape together with them."
"However..." Li Fan paused.
"I do not know who this Yan Xuantai is. Assigned to secretly monitor and protect newly inducted Immortal Hunters on their first hunt—a matter of neither great nor small importance—his status and rank shouldn't be particularly high. Yet how could he possess such a supreme treasure?"
"Furthermore, there is that black, seven-colored nail capable of deceiving the Dao Net. No matter how I think about it, I cannot figure it out!" Li Fan let out a long sigh.
"Seeing as we are likely to be locked up here with no end in sight, could Brother Nangong enlighten me? Rest assured, I will never breathe a word of it to anyone else," Li Fan pledged solemnly.
After a long silence, Nangong Hongzhao's faint voice finally came through: "Your mind is quite sharp. In some aspects, it coincides with what I suspected. It's just that I happen to know some inside information you are unaware of."
"It isn't any great secret either, so there's no harm in telling you. That Yan Xuantai originally joined the Immortal Hunters as a member of Sacred Commerce. A hundred years ago, the entirety of Sacred Commerce suddenly vanished from the Shuoxing Sea, leaving behind only a few remnants and abandoned pieces."
"People thought he had long severed his ties with Sacred Commerce. Who would have thought..." Nangong Hongzhao gave a cold snort.
"Speaking of which, Sacred Commerce was actually one of the co-founders of the Immortal Hunters back then. Furthermore, many of the immortal-capturing techniques were actively provided by them. Members of Sacred Commerce were indifferent to conflict and power; their sole objective was capturing immortals, so they held a transcendent status in the earliest days of the Immortal Hunter organization. After Sacred Commerce departed without taking their leave, vanishing without a trace, Yan Xuantai was not treated overly harshly despite being an abandoned piece of Sacred Commerce. They even assigned him an important post..."
Hearing the words 'Sacred Commerce,' Li Fan felt a subtle stir in his heart.
He continued asking, "According to what you say, Brother Nangong, Sacred Commerce was an affair from a hundred years ago. Over the course of a century, who knows how far our Dao Net arts have advanced? Even if Yan Xuantai belongs to Sacred Commerce, could he really possess means capable of deceiving the Dao Net? Could it be that Sacred Commerce was that far ahead of us? Or perhaps..."
As if realizing something, Li Fan abruptly lowered his voice: "Could it be that Yan Xuantai secretly reestablished contact with Sacred Commerce recently, and only then found a method of escape?"
"Even so, that doesn't add up either. Unless that fake coffin did not flee to another world, but to another star sea—where Sacred Commerce currently resides?"
Nangong Hongzhao shook his head slightly. "That is beyond what I could know. This matter is shrouded in mystery. Yan Xuantai is solitary by nature and usually acts entirely alone. Investigating him will be somewhat difficult."
"Still, you can rest easy. We won't be locked up until we die. Once there are preliminary findings, we will be let out," Nangong Hongzhao consoled him kindly.
Chapter 1449