203: clue

Lu Chen temporarily pushed the horrifying terms 'You Clan' and 'ethereal saliva' to the back of his mind.

With clues currently scarce, waiting idly was pointless.

He took one last deep look in the direction where the ethereal saliva had vanished, then his figure slid silently down from the tree canopy, blending into the shadows as he continued to infiltrate deeper into the Thunder Roar Ruins.

The lurking sense of being watched pricked at his back like needles, yet it could not halt his steps of exploration.

Several hours passed in cautious sprinting and vigilance.

The surrounding scenery grew increasingly desolate and ruined. The signs of lightning strikes became more frequent, and the ambient Thunder Malevolence Qi in the air was so thick it was almost tangible.

Occasionally, a bolt of lightning would strike in the distance, illuminating a patch of savage, scorched earth.

Just as he crossed a patch of ground covered in glassy pits, his footsteps abruptly halted.

About thirty feet ahead, a headless corpse lay face down amidst the charred rubble.

The corpse was clad in white robes, stained with mud and dark brown bloodstains, but their style and texture were extremely similar to the set Li Yuanbai often wore.

The neck stump was ragged and uneven. The head was missing, and there wasn't much splattered blood around, indicating he had been dead for some time.

Lu Chen's heart skipped a beat. He took a deep breath, the heavy scent of thunder-fire and a faint hint of decay filling his nostrils.

He stepped forward slowly, his gaze sharp as a knife, sweeping over every inch of ground around the corpse.

Confirming there were no traps or lingering traces of that eerie ethereal saliva, he crouched down and carefully turned the body over.

Naturally, the corpse's face was unrecognizable.

But as it turned, a twisted, deformed sword hilt, pressed beneath the body, came into Lu Chen's view.

The sword hilt had an ancient style. Although the spirit snake carving at its pommel was slightly damaged, Lu Chen would never mistake it—

"spirit snake sword..."

He murmured the words, his fingertips brushing over the cold, bloodstained hilt.

Li Yuanbai's personal sword, which he had seen more than once.

Could it be...? A chill, mixed with disbelief, surged in his heart.

He forced himself to calm down and examined the headless corpse more carefully.

The build, the bone structure—they did bear some resemblance to Li Yuanbai.

The clothing matched Li Yuanbai's style, the sword was Li Yuanbai's spirit snake sword... All signs pointed to the outcome he was unwilling to believe.

However, when his gaze fell on the left side of the corpse's ribcage, his movements paused slightly.

He remembered clearly. During a casual chat over drinks, Li Yuanbai had once pointed to an old scar under his left ribs and mocked himself.

It was an injury from his early days, caused by a Cultivation Technique that went awry, resulting in reversed True Qi.

Although it was later healed, it left a special, faint red scar resembling a flame burn mark.

Li Yuanbai said he kept the scar as a constant reminder not to be overly ambitious and hasty in his Cultivation again.

Lu Chen carefully tore open the already damaged fabric at the left ribcage of the corpse.

The skin was charred and stained with blood.

But the skin in that area, though also damaged, was flat and smooth, with no trace of any old scar.

It wasn't him.

Lu Chen's heart, which had been lodged in his throat, slowly settled back into place.

But what rose in its place was a deeper doubt and gravity.

He gently released his grip and slowly straightened up.

Although the corpse wasn't Li Yuanbai, the presence of the spirit snake sword here, with its twisted hilt and presumably destroyed blade, was enough to prove that Li Yuanbai must have engaged in a fierce battle with an enemy at this very spot.

And his opponent was formidable, forcing him to damage even his personal Magical Artifact.

This person's clothing was similar to Li Yuanbai's. Was it a coincidence?

Or was it a deliberate disguise?

His head was severed. Was it to deliberately conceal his identity, or a result of the battle?

He took a few steps back, no longer looking at the headless corpse, his sharp gaze combing through the surroundings like a fine-tooth comb.

The signs of struggle were quite chaotic: scorched earth churned up, shattered stones, and deep slash marks on several charred trees.

He examined each detail meticulously, not letting any anomaly escape his notice.

A moment later, his gaze settled on the trunk of an ancient tree about ten feet away. Half of it was charred and withered, while the other half had strangely sprouted a few wisps of fresh green shoots.

There, about a person's height off the ground, was an inconspicuous sword mark, slanting upwards, embedded deep into the wood.

The mark was fresh. Compared to the other battle damage around it, it seemed a bit too neat.

To others, it might look like a weapon had accidentally grazed it.

But as Lu Chen approached and ran his fingertips over the edge of the sword mark, feeling its entry angle and the almost imperceptible, slight upward flick at its end,

his eyes flickered slightly.

This wasn't a mark left casually. That upward flicking arc was identical to a small habit Li Yuanbai had when finishing his signature sword move, 'Spirit Snake Flicks Its Tongue'.

More importantly, the direction the sword mark pointed towards was not the most intense center of the battle.

Instead, it pointed diagonally southeast, deeper into a denser forest of twisted lightning-struck trees.

Was it a hastily left directional marker?

Or a hint at an escape route?

Lu Chen hesitated no longer. Whether ahead lay a more troublesome enemy or Li Yuanbai's fleeing path, he had to pursue it.

The shadow of the You Clan, the destroyed spirit snake sword, the headless decoy corpse, the hidden sword mark... Various mysteries intertwined, and the answers likely lay deep within that even darker forest of thunder-struck trees to the southeast.

He took one last look at the unidentified corpse in white robes on the ground, then his figure blurred.

He swept past like a wisp of smoke, racing swiftly towards the southeast direction indicated by the sword mark.

In an instant, he vanished into that forest of grotesque branches and dappled light and shadow.

Not long after Lu Chen's figure disappeared deep into the southeast forest of lightning-struck trees,

from behind an ancient tree at the edge of the scorched earth where the headless corpse was discovered—a tree so thick it would take two people to embrace it, half charred black as coal—

the shadows writhed silently, slowly separating to reveal a dim, shadowy figure almost perfectly blended with the environment.

This person was completely wrapped in a peculiar, deep grey fabric. The fabric appeared coarse,

yet seemed capable of absorbing light, making its outline indistinct and blurry under the cover of the tree shade.

Only a pair of eyes were exceptionally bright—not with a spirited brilliance,

but with a cold, inhuman glimmer, like the pupils of a beast prowling in the dark of night.

These eyes were now fixed unblinkingly on the direction Lu Chen had departed. There was no ripple of emotion within them—no killing intent, no curiosity.

Their calmness was unsettling, as if they were merely confirming the trajectory of a moving object, or waiting for a certain moment to arrive.

He stood there quietly, one with the ancient tree and the shadows, as if even his breath and heartbeat were nonexistent.

A long time passed, until the last, extremely faint trace of Lu Chen's lingering aura was completely swept away by the ever-present Thunder Malevolence winds of the Thunder Roar Ruins.

Only then did those cold eyes blink slightly.

Immediately, the entire figure retreated a step back, completely merging into the denser shadows behind the ancient tree, as if he had never appeared.

Only the air that had been watched seemed to retain a trace of an indescribable, sinister chill.