25: Chapter 25 Blood Relatives Merge Spirits, Old Friends Return

The fall of the direct descendant young master of the Zhao Family naturally stirred up a massive uproar in Dingzhou City.

Several elders of the Zhao Family at the late Qi Refining Stage descended one after another, and in their towering rage, they nearly turned Dingzhou City upside down.

However, Su Cheng had done too clean a job of covering his tracks.

That massive fire had incinerated every trace of spiritual energy in the brothel.

As for the twelve Mortal who participated in the assassination, they were originally unregistered individuals with no identity or origin, and they had died on the spot by detonating their own blood and qi, leaving absolutely no clues to follow.

Cultivators were accustomed to using their divine sense to track residual magical power, but among the mundane ashes scattered everywhere, they were left blind.

In the end, after tossing and turning for several months to no avail, the Zhao Family could only classify the incident as the work of wandering demonic cultivators or rogue bandits, and they hastily withdrew, carrying their unvented fury with them.

Dingyuan Trading Firm kept a low profile during this period and went into complete hibernation.

It was not until the rumors completely died down that the trade routes of Dingzhou City recovered their former prosperity.

However, just when everyone at Hidden Dragon Manor thought they had survived a calamity and were preparing to continue living in peace.

A sudden change descended without any warning.

That night, the sky above the desolate mountains a hundred miles outside Dingzhou City was covered in dense, gloomy clouds.

A massive yet extremely chaotic pressure of spiritual energy, like a substantial black cloud, slowly bore down from the horizon.

In mid-air, a figure draped in a wide black robe hovered while riding a magical artifact.

As the black robe billowed, it revealed a face with high cheekbones and a withered, ghastly appearance like an evil spirit.

If any old acquaintances from the Qingmu Su Clan were here, they would surely be terrified.

This person was none other than the Young Clan Leader of the Qingmu Su Clan who, fourteen years ago, had used his own father as a meat shield and abandoned his entire clan to flee alone.

Su Hao!

Fourteen years had passed, and although Su Hao had managed to preserve his cultivation at the Foundation Establishment Stage.

His current state, however, was more miserable than that of any cultivator at the Qi Refining Stage.

The pill poison from that inferior foundation establishment pill back then had long since taken deep root in his limbs and bones.

The low-grade Dao Foundation he had forcefully condensed while breaking through was also covered in fine cracks.

For these fourteen years, not only had his cultivation been unable to advance even an inch.

But on every full moon night, he had to endure the agony of ten thousand ants devouring his heart as his Dao Foundation tore and his true essence backlashed.

"Damn it... This inferior pill poison is acting up again."

Su Hao clutched his chest, his face twisted in pain, as he suddenly coughed up a mouthful of black blood mixed with fragments of his internal organs.

In order to survive and to repair this riddled Dao Foundation.

Over these years, he had lived incognito, and eventually, while exploring a rogue cultivator's cave dwelling, he found an extremely vicious remnant of a demonic cultivation manual.

《Blood Kin Soul Fusion Technique》!

This demonic technique required the essence blood and soul of close blood relatives as a medicinal catalyst, forcibly smelting them into the body to repair a defective Dao Foundation.

However, the Qingmu Su Clan had long been slaughtered by the Zhao and Lin families; where was he supposed to find blood relatives of the same clan?

In his desperation, he adopted the mindset of treating a dead horse like a live one and activated the bloodline tracking secret technique included in the demonic manual.

It was originally just a test.

Yet unexpectedly, the compass of the secret technique produced an extremely strong reaction in this wilderness on the border of the Yue Kingdom!

Su Hao pulled a compass polished from white bone from his sleeve.

In the center of the compass, a drop of his own essence blood was boiling and burning, transforming into a scarlet bloodline that pointed fixedly into the depths of the mountains ahead.

That was the direction of Black Wind Valley.

"Such dense bloodlines of the same origin... There are at least a hundred people!"

In Su Hao's only remaining good eye, a hair-raising fanaticism and greed erupted.

"Heaven will not kill me!"

"To think that so many remnants escaped back then, and even multiplied and lived here!"

Su Hao grinned, revealing teeth stained with black blood, laughing as shrilly as a night owl.

He did not care who these escaped clansmen were, nor did he care how they had survived under the butcher's knife back then.

In his eyes, these people were not his clansmen, but excellent medicine bestowed by Heaven for him to repair his Dao Foundation!

"Whoosh—"

Su Hao violently urged his true essence, transforming into a streak of escape light emitting a thick, bloody aura, and headed straight for Black Wind Valley following the guidance of the compass.

...

Hidden Dragon Manor, underground secret chamber.

Su Yu, who was meditating with his eyes closed, suddenly opened his eyes.

His divine sense at the Ninth Layer of Qi Refining allowed him to keenly capture that undisguised, terrifying pressure from a hundred miles away.

That was a suppression of life levels that transcended the limits of the Qi Refining Stage, belonging to a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Stage.

But what concerned Su Yu even more was the aura within that pressure which caused his bloodline to faintly feel repulsion and palpitations.

"Bloodline attraction? A demonic cultivation technique?"

Su Yu frowned slightly, countless possibilities flashing through his mind.

He stood up and strode to push open the stone door of the secret chamber.

In the front courtyard, Su Tie and several other managers also felt the heavy sense of oppression coming from the horizon.

Although they were only at the middle Qi Refining Stage and their divine sense could not probe far.

But that malevolent aura, like black clouds pressing down, had already caused the spiritual energy of this land to become extremely chaotic.

"Villa Master, this aura... is it a great cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Stage?!"

Su Tie's face turned pale, his voice tight.

In this remote area, a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Stage was simply an invincible natural disaster.

"What are you panicking about."

Su Yu stood in the center of the courtyard with his hands behind his back, his gaze calmly fixed on the night sky outside the valley.

"It's just an old acquaintance coming."

"An old acquaintance?" Su Tie was stunned.

"Go ring the alarm bell."

Su Yu did not explain and methodically issued his orders.

"Have all the women and children in the villa immediately enter the underground secret passage and seal the entrance."

"Su Cheng, take the martial artists under your command and retreat to guard the inner courtyard; without my order, no one is to take a single step out."

"Yuan'er, go activate the defensive array patterns of the Second-Rank Spirit Gathering Array and draw the spiritual energy to its maximum."

Hearing the orders, everyone immediately reined in their panic and quickly dispersed to execute them.

Su Yu reached out and pressed his hand on the hilt of the sword at his waist, his fingertips gently rubbing the patterns on the scabbard.

It had been fourteen years.

That heaven-favored genius who had used the lives of his entire clan as stepping stones to steal away all their heritage back then.

Now, he had actually turned into an old dog sniffing out the scent of blood to come knocking at the door.

"His Dao Foundation is mottled, his aura is flimsy, and he can't even suppress the bloody aura of his demonic technique."

Su Yu felt the pressure getting closer and sighed.

"Is this the Foundation Establishment path you exchanged everything for back then?"

Above the valley, the thick clouds rolled backward.

A streak of scarlet escape light tore through the night of Black Wind Valley and hovered with a boom directly above Hidden Dragon Manor.

The violent true essence, like a substantial heavy pressure, crushed the two stone lions outside the villa gate into powder.

"An array? A remnant array set up by a mere Qi Refining Stage cultivator, and you want to stop me?!"

In mid-air, Su Hao looked down from above at the brightly lit villa below, his single eye filled with cruel satisfaction.

He was not in a rush to break the array; instead, like a cat playing with a mouse, he fully released his pressure at the Foundation Establishment Stage.

"Listen, you remnants of the Su Family lingering on in your death throes inside."

Su Hao's hoarse and grating voice, carried by his true essence, rang throughout the entire Black Wind Valley.

"Voluntarily dismantle the great array and walk out of the villa, and let me drain your essence blood!"

"Otherwise, when the array is broken, this old man will definitely extract your souls and burn them with infant fire for a hundred years!"

The voice echoed.

The next moment, the heavy vermilion gate of Hidden Dragon Manor slowly opened.

Su Yu, wearing a plain long robe, walked out of the villa alone, stepping over the powder of the stone lions scattered on the ground.

He looked up slightly, watching the evil spirit-like black-robed figure in mid-air, and spoke indifferently.

"Young Clan Leader, we haven't met in fourteen years."

"Your appearance, neither human nor ghost, truly opens Su Tian's eyes."