One hour later, the Li family's top-tier human-flesh bomb, a.k.a. the Old Ancestor, once again condensed from an ancestral spirit tablet in the form of black mist.
Gazing at the deep crater formed by Baimei's fall, Li Wei frowned and descended.
After so many years of cultivation and bombing so many people, Baimei was, without a doubt, the toughest one he had ever had to blow up.
Around the crater, the blood of a Void Refining expert and the fragments of his Dharma Treasures littered the ravaged earth.
The air was thick with Heaven and Earth Spirit Qi; it was likely that within a few years, the battlefield would transform into a secret realm.
At its center lay the old Daoist Baimei. His robes were in tatters, and his body was riddled with wounds. His left leg and right arm were twisted at grotesque angles, and on the one remaining half of his face, his bloodshot eye was vacant and lifeless.
The North Star Spirit-Breaking pierced through the old Daoist Baimei's chest, while the Yin-Yang Fish Diagram suppressed him from below.
Baimei could only watch helplessly as the figure strolled toward him. His vision was stained crimson by the blood in his one remaining eye, and his dazed Divine Soul made the Old Ancestor's form flicker and waver. The black mist around his opponent's body billowed.
As the Old Ancestor drew closer, an uncontrollable terror surged up from the depths of Baimei's soul, causing his eyes to fly wide.
"What are you? What in the hell are you?!!"
Baimei let out an uncontrollable roar.
He had lost count of how many times the Old Ancestor had died and come back to life. All he knew was the endless cycle: the Yin-Yang Fish Diagram would appear, the black mist upon it would draw closer, and then… the semi-transparent, black cube would create an echo of pure terror deep within his Divine Soul!
No one could know the depths of Baimei's despair during that past hour.
He had fled for his life in a frenzy, but the Yin-Yang Fish Diagram had shadowed him like a vengeful ghost. The Li's Old Ancestor died again and again, and the repeated explosions had exhausted his life-saving trump cards and drained his spiritual power!
…
Li Wei walked slowly to the old ghost's side and looked down upon the old thief Baimei.
On the semi-transparent panel before him:
[Family Will remaining: 832 points.]
Li Wei couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. For over forty years, he had wanted to break through to the Void Refining realm, but he had never even been able to glimpse its threshold. Even when he learned of the Dao from Xu Cuihua's master, the Fox Saint, his understanding of the Void Refining realm remained superficial at best.
Yaowen had been tracking Baimei for years, and not a day went by that he himself didn't want to kill the man and avenge the clan. For this day, he had spent years running calculations on how to blow the old bastard to smithereens.
But when it came to the actual act of killing him, he had lost count of how many times he himself had died. Of the thirty '0.5-gram anti-matter bombs' he'd had Boss Qi procure, only the last two remained.
If not for his Yin-Yang Fish Diagram's teleportation and its 'Dharma-Shattering' trait, he never would have gotten close enough to the old thief—let alone bomb him half to death, he likely wouldn't have been able to land a single scratch.
"You're a demon! A demon!"
Li Wei heard the old thief Baimei's delirious shouts.
"You've destroyed my Dao foundation! Why must you people oppose me at every turn?!! Hahaha, it doesn't matter! Prince Qian's forces have already struck! Even if I descend into hell, I'll have members of your Li family to keep me company!"
Li Wei slowly crouched down beside the old thief Baimei.
His expression was odd. "Old bastard, did you know that from the moment you appeared in the Duravia Trade Prefecture, our Li family has been preparing for this day?"
"What?"
Baimei froze.
To his ears, Li Wei's voice was like a whisper from the underworld.
"Our Li family has known you were in the Duravia Trade Prefecture for a long time."
"Let me tell you something interesting."
Li Wei's voice was filled with mockery. "You truly have thrown in your lot with a piece of trash. Prince Qian of the Duravia Trade Prefecture is bursting with ambition, and he actually thought he could hide it. My Eternal Sun Prefecture is at the height of its power; ordinary people wouldn't dare to provoke us. Yet Prince Qian did. Do you know why?"
"What are you talking about… What are you saying?!!"
The old Daoist Baimei's soul trembled.
He thought he understood, but he refused to believe it. It seemed that from the moment he had appeared, everything had been a setup—a trap laid by the Li family!
A trap!
…
Aboard the Spirit Ark heading back to the Duravia Trade Prefecture, Prince Qian had recovered his composure after his initial panic.
"So they found out. So they found out all my secrets. What of it?!!"
A faint smirk played on Prince Qian's lips. "Even if every member of Skynet is on their list, even if the Li family knows all their weaknesses—no matter how many they manage to turn against me, as long as half of Skynet remains loyal, I still command a formidable force."
"I should even thank the Li family for allowing me to see who in Skynet is truly trustworthy. Those who remain in the end will be the ones I can truly use."
He slowly turned his head.
Below the spirit ark lay the territory of one of Eternal Sun Prefecture's great powers. He could even sense Nascent Soul cultivators engaged in battle there. They were undoubtedly assassins from the Li family's Hall of Heavenly Principle, locked in a life-or-death struggle with these great powers.
He held an old jade slip in his hand.
He had held this jade slip for forty years. It was the very thing that had allowed him to spend four decades preparing—the cornerstone of his plan to invade Eternal Sun Prefecture!
"Forty years ago, the great powers of Eternal Sun Prefecture secretly pledged their allegiance to me!"
Prince Qian sneered. "Your Li family should never, ever have been so impatient to suppress them. The assassins from your Hall of Heavenly Principle can only hinder these great powers for a short time. Once the hundreds of great powers in Eternal Sun Prefecture have a chance to rally, the fate of the prefecture will be sealed."
"I have already ordered the great powers of the Eternal Sun Prefecture to unleash their man-made calamities. When the time is right, my army will advance, and this prefecture will be mine!"