228: Chapter 228 Bewitching Soul Search, Buyer Appears (2)

Lu Changyuan projected the four fragments into a Recording Bead—the bead's miniature recording array flickered once—then went dark.

He tucked the Recording Bead into his inner sleeve pocket. "Key features: an old burn scar at the base of the left thumb, and a callus on the second knuckle where a ring was worn. Anyone who can see these two features either met him or saw them when he took off his gloves."

"That's enough."

Leng Feng nodded. "What about him?"

"Remove the spirit-sealing chain. Move him to the side clearing—into the pile of Haiyuan Clan remains." Lu Changyuan turned and walked toward the stone steps—pausing on the second step.

"Wipe the blood off the chain. No need to finish off the corpse—after the Sea of Consciousness collapses, his aura won't be the same as a normal Cultivator. Tomorrow at low tide—the tide will carry the blood away."

Lu Changyuan climbed the stone steps—his footsteps echoing against the seeping ice walls on either side. The door to the Ice Cellar closed behind him.

Scarface's body was unchained from the iron post by two personal guards—after the spirit-sealing chain was removed from his collarbone and left thigh, deep purple bruises emerged where the chains had constricted his skin.

The width of the bruises matched the width of the chain links—the marks were incredibly deep—the skin where he had been bound had lost its elasticity.

He was still breathing—but with the complete collapse of his Sea of Consciousness, the intervals between breaths were growing longer. From once every breath to once every two breaths—then to roughly once every five breaths.

Leng Feng pulled Scarface's shirt up—covering his face—and then, with the two personal guards, carried him out through the narrow door behind the Ice Cellar. The narrow door led to the side clearing outside—the area still littered with the remains of the Haiyuan Clan and the Private Soldiers.

The sky began to turn grey. The golden light on the front of the Ring Reef was no longer shining—the main force of the Haiyuan Clan had been beaten back in their final assault before dawn.

The first page of the Sin Battalion had retreated from the second line of defense to the third—shards of shields stretched from the surface of the reef all the way to the base of the Inner Harbor warehouse wall. The front had ceased fire—for now.

Fog rose over the sea—the sea breeze blew in from the direction of the Dragon Burial Trench, stirring the solidified grey-blue bodily fluids and the dried, brownish-red human blood on the side clearing, causing a faint, fishy smell to drift out again.

The two personal guards laid Xue Lang's "corpse" flat in the center of the side clearing—next to the remains of a Haiyuan Clan False Core Vice-Commander who had been pierced through the abdomen by a bone spear and then torn open from behind by Sword Qi.

Xue Lang's shirt still covered his face—Leng Feng did not lift it. His fingers paused in the air for about two breaths—then he moved Scarface's left arm from his side onto his chest—posing him as if he had perished together with his enemy.

The position where the left arm was pierced by the bone spear aligned perfectly with the sword wound on the Vice-Commander's chest—the bone spear had entered from the front-top downward, while the sword wound went from the front-bottom upward. A very logical puzzle.

Leng Feng stood up—stepped back five paces—and took a look at the whole scene. It was enough.

Then he turned and walked back.

Returning to the Lords Mansion—Lu Changyuan had already returned to the Chart Room. The charcoal sketches and papers in the Chart Room had been scattered everywhere by the night wind.

Su Qingli sat on a low rattan stool—rolling up the base of the Confusion Formation—rolling it while using her fingers to check the newly traced ink on the worn sections of the array.

When Leng Feng entered, he scraped the bone armor shards off his soles at the door—then walked to the chart table.

"Xue Lang's matter—is finished."

"Mm."

Lu Changyuan did not look at Leng Feng. He was looking at a new sheet of paper spread out on the chart table—on it was a sketch of the four fragments he had pieced together during the soul-searching earlier.

The location of the burn scar, the direction of the cloak, the distance from which the military boot sounds came, the simplified tracing of the array platform structure—all drawn by hand. He wrote one word in the corner of this paper—"Left Hand."

Then he stood up—folded the paper in half—and creased it. He tucked the paper into his inner sleeve pocket—stacking it with the Recording Bead.

Su Qingli stood up from the low rattan stool—slid the rolled-up base of the Confusion Formation into a bamboo tube and sealed it—then took out the two sensing array chips she had removed from Scarface's temples, the ones from the sub-array plate.

The array chips were stained with trace amounts of meridian blood—the blood had already dried into a dark pink color on the chips. "Keep the sensing array chips—the residual Divine Sense on them can be used for secondary comparison. If we encounter anyone associated with the buyer in the future—we can compare the residual consciousness fluctuations with the chips to confirm if it's from the same source."

She wrapped the array chips in soft leather—and put them into the Storage Pouch.

Lu Changyuan walked to the window. The skyline was transitioning from grey-white to light cyan—dawn was approaching. The fog over the sea began to recede—the shadows in the direction of the Dragon Burial Trench gradually became clear amidst the mist.

The front line was silent—occasionally, a muffled sound of a wounded sea beast rolling from the shallows into the water came from the direction of the reef. The main force of the Haiyuan Clan had temporarily retreated to the Deep Water Zone—but not far. On Su Qingli's Receiving Formation—the distance between the main fluctuation sources was shrinking. They were regrouping.

The gap in the side blind spot had been plugged. After the Corrosion Powder was washed away by the seawater—Su Qingli resealed the No. 3 Formation eye with a new layer of old sand—the sensing range had recovered to thirty li—not yet back to the normal sixty li, but it was enough.

After a day and a night, Blue Moon Island—was still intact for the time being.

Leng Feng poured a cup of water. Cool boiled water. He sat beside the chart table—took off his boots and tapped the soles. Stuck in the crevices of the soles were gravel from the stone path, old mortar debris from the narrow alley walls, and bone armor shards from the mud of the side clearing—all tapped out onto the stone slab at the corner of the table. It took nearly twenty taps to get them clean. Then he put his boots back on.

Outside—it was dawn.

Commander Cai of the first page of the Sin Battalion led his men to begin cleaning the battlefield on the perimeter of the reef. Shield fragments were picked up and sorted—wooden shield cores were put into the firewood pile—metal rims were set aside for smelting.

The broken bone spears and blades of the Haiyuan Clan were piled together—bone weapons could not be smelted, so they had to be stacked in the side clearing, waiting for the tide to go out so they could be thrown back into the sea in the direction of the Dragon Burial Trench.

The remains of the Private Soldiers on the clearing—were piled separately from the Haiyuan Clan. The Human Race were piled together—the military insignia on the spears and the brands on the shield faces were recorded one by one on a special draft loss list. The list contained one sentence: "Friendly casualties—suspected twelve men from the left flank retreating forces—pending verification."

Commander Cai pressed an ash mark from his pipe onto the loss list—then folded the list and tucked it into the leather pouch at his waist.

The cleanup had been going on for about an hour—when a young sentry from the Sin Battalion suddenly stood up on the outermost edge of the clearing—next to the pile of remains of the False Core Vice-Commander.

He pointed at the ground with the tip of his spear—on the ground lay the remains of the False Core Vice-Commander with its abdomen torn open by a sword wound. After the abdominal cavity was torn open—the contents had scattered all over the ground. Grey-blue bodily fluids, bone fragments, partially digested deep-sea seaweed—and a dark red coral box about two palms wide, its surface worn extremely rough by bite marks but still recognizable as a square box shape.

Commander Cai squatted down—and pried the coral box out from the residual tissue in the Vice-Commander's abdominal cavity. The box had been eroded by digestive fluids and stomach acid for a long time—layers of seaweed shells had grown on the surface—but the box itself was undamaged.

He turned the box over—on the back was a circle of extremely dense Array Pattern. The style of the Array Pattern was too old—there was no such format in the array records of Blue Moon Island. The Array Pattern sealed a circle of dim light on the surface of the coral box—the light was still fully operational. The lock on the box—could not be opened.

"Take this—directly to the Lords Mansion."

When Leng Feng took the coral box from Commander Cai—dark grey bodily fluid was still dripping from the surface of the box. He carried the box into the Chart Room—and placed it on the chart table.

Su Qingli took one look—and stood up from the low rattan stool. She shone the magnifying array mirror onto the Array Pattern on the box—then frowned.

"The Array Pattern format—is not from the current school. A deep blue outer ring, dark red concentric circles—the sealing direction of each ring is different. The outer layer seals outward—the inner layer seals inward—if you open the outer layer, the inner layer automatically locks. There is a relay array path between the two rings—only someone with a specific spiritual power frequency can open both rings simultaneously."

She tapped the surface of the box with her finger—the sound returned by the array paths on the box surface was extremely deep—indicating that the space inside the box was much larger than it looked from the outside. A space expansion Formation—only a space Formation of the third rank or higher could produce this kind of capacity-increasing effect.

"It won't open. At least not now. To open it—we must find the method that matches this type of Array Pattern."

Lu Changyuan picked up the coral box—and flipped it over. The coral texture on the bottom of the box was from shallow water—completely different from deep-sea coral. Deep-sea coral does not have such longitudinal patterns. This box had been sealed in shallow water for at least many years—then after the seal loosened, an undercurrent flipped it up from somewhere—and it was swallowed by the Haiyuan Clan commander.

"Put it away. Place it in the forbidden items cabinet of the Formation Affairs Room—we'll deal with it when we have time."

The sky was completely bright. Morning light spread across from the horizon—illuminating the clear outlines of the grey-blue bodily fluids that had turned white after being exposed all night on the side clearing, and the dried brownish bloodstains.

On the front of the Ring Reef—the receding tide dragged the floating corpses and shattered bone shield fragments from last night outward—the water line on the reef had receded nearly three zhang from its highest point.

Beneath the water in the direction of the Dragon Burial Trench—shadows were still pushing toward Blue Moon Island layer by layer. The main force had not retreated.

On the horizon—the silhouette of the black masts of the Royal Capital Fleet had already pierced through the ink-blue water-skyline in the distance.