The ferocious ghosts dwelling in the Yellow Springs howled and lunged toward it, but with a single sweep of its hoe, ghosts and demons alike were utterly dispersed.
"How is this possible?!"
Venerable Huangquan was dumbstruck. This was his ultimate technique; it should have been impossible for the puppet to emerge unscathed!
The puppet swung its hoe in simple, unadorned motions, yet they were impossible to evade. Every single blow was as terrifying as the heavens collapsing and the earth caving in, leaving Venerable Huangquan battered and covered in wounds within moments.
Seeing the hoe, laden with the aura of death, swinging up once more, he wasted no words. Disregarding any lingering backlash, he unleashed the Yellow Springs Secret Art again and bolted toward the summit of Tianmen Peak at top speed!
He could not afford to stay tangled in this fight any longer. Only by finding Emperor Yu's immortal cache would he have any hope of turning the tables!
The puppet gazed in the direction Venerable Huangquan fled, making no move to pursue him.
"This is the place!"
Venerable Huangquan sensed the rich aura of treasures drawing closer and closer!
He charged through a grove of trees, following the aura of treasures to a cavern. With a single punch, he blasted open the entrance, and the scent of treasures instantly poured out—an exquisite fragrance he had never smelled in his life!
Emperor Yu's treasure was right here!
The Dao Seeking Sect's treasury held an all-encompassing collection; the deeper one ventured, the more precious the items became.
Venerable Huangquan completely ignored the supreme treasures of the Body Integration stage and Tribulation Transcendence stage.
Reaching the deepest recesses of the treasury, he saw immortal artifacts strewn casually across the ground, and greed flooded his eyes.
"Immortal Dao array charts, the *Immortal Slaying Sword Array*, the Nine Dragons Heavenly Gang Shroud..."
Suddenly, as if sensing something, he raised his head to look at a fruit resting on a desk, and his body began to tremble uncontrollably.
As a trusted confidant of Daoist Lord Wanfa, he had once seen Wanfa display his rudimentary Dao fruit: an ethereal, translucent fruit embodying the Dao of Longevity and Ten Thousand Laws as well as the power of time, fathomless in its profound wonders.
Yet the fruit upon this desk was fully solid and complete, without the slightest hint of translucence, flawless and whole.
Daoist Lord Wanfa's drawn-out sigh back then remained etched in his memory to this day:
'Only a solidified fruit is a true Dao fruit. When will this fruit of mine ever reach completion?'
Now, a solidified, fully realized fruit lay right before his eyes, yet what welled up within him was immense terror.
Was this the legendary Dao fruit?
How could it be here?
The surrounding immortal artifacts were relics left behind by Emperor Yu, but what about this Dao fruit?
Had Emperor Yu truly departed for the outside world?
Countless doubts flooded his mind, accompanied by an unspeakable dread.
A long sigh drifted over.
"Why seek your own destruction?"
Venerable Huangquan whipped his head around. At the cave entrance stood a female cultivator holding a teacup, from which delicate wisps of tea fragrance curled, seemingly shimmering with the resonance of the Dao.
It was Enlightenment Tea freshly picked this year, and of the finest quality in all the realm.
The female cultivator savored her tea, gently blowing away the Dao resonance carried within the fragrant vapor, as if she were not the one who had just spoken.
Just as Venerable Huangquan tried to speak, he discovered that his body was rigid and immobile, like a clay sculpture. Helplessly, he watched as the female cultivator walked toward him step by step.
The female cultivator extended a finger and tapped Venerable Huangquan's forehead. Bit by bit, his body dispersed, vanishing into nothingness.
Chapter 761