566: Chapter 566 The traitor reveals his true colors, but ultimately cannot escape dying at the hands of his own people.

Outside the Grand Array, the Hehuan Sect Disciples dispersed.

Some returned to their leaky old huts, some lay down on creaky, broken beds, and others leaned by the windows, watching that light screen as they slowly closed their eyes.

No one worried anymore; no one was afraid anymore.

That light screen locked the people of the Righteous Path Alliance inside, and also protected the people of the Hehuan Sect within.

This night, they could finally sleep.

Inside the Grand Array, however, it was a different scene.

After Xu Ruyu's figure disappeared on the high slope, the light screen never lit up again.

That murky, heavy light screen just stood there silently, not speaking, not moving, like a wall that could never be pushed down.

The Martial Arts Arena was packed with people. Over a thousand Righteous Path Alliance Cultivators were crowded together; some stood, some sat, some collapsed on the ground, and others leaned against one another.

No one spoke, no one moved; only the wind blew in from outside the light screen, carrying the fresh scent of grass and trees, blowing against their faces, cold and chill.

Ancestor Xuan Yin stood in place, his white hair disheveled, his robes covered in dust and his own bloodstains.

His palms were already charred black, but he felt no pain.

His rage eclipsed all pain, burning him until his entire body trembled.

He had lived for nearly a thousand years and had never been toyed with like this by anyone.

He thought he was the hunter and Xu Ruyu was the prey; he thought he was catching a turtle in a jar, and the Hehuan Sect was that turtle.

He was wrong.

He was the turtle, trapped in the jar, unable to even stick his head out.

He turned around abruptly, his gaze falling upon those few people.

Sun Ping was still kneeling in the crowd of the Righteous Path Alliance; he was one of those who had previously run over from the Hehuan Sect side to surrender.

He knelt behind the shield bearers, squeezed among the Righteous Path Alliance Cultivators, his whole body still trembling.

The few people behind him were also kneeling, each with a deathly pale complexion, purple lips, and wide-staring eyes, looking like drowned ghosts just fished out of the water.

They had thought that as long as they ran over, they would be safe; they thought that as long as they defected to the Righteous Path Alliance, they could survive.

Now they finally realized that they had run into a dead end.

Ancestor Xuan Yin stared at Sun Ping, his gaze as cold as a poisoned blade.

He walked over step by step, his footsteps heavy; every step felt like it was trampling on those people's hearts.

Sun Ping's body trembled even more violently. He wanted to stand up, but his legs wouldn't obey; he barely lifted his knees before they went soft again.

He opened his mouth, wanting to shout something, but it felt like his throat was stuffed with cotton, and he couldn't utter a single word.

Ancestor Xuan Yin walked up to Sun Ping and stopped.

He looked down at this person kneeling on the ground, his voice squeezed through his teeth: "Do you still intend to keep wearing this skin? Do you think that with this skin on, Xu Ruyu won't kill you?"

Sun Ping's eyelids jumped violently, his pupils contracting to pinpoints.

The people behind him also froze simultaneously, their complexions shifting from pale to ash-gray.

Their bodies began to tremble—not out of fear, but that uncontrollable shaking that emerges from the marrow of one's bones after having one's secret intentions exposed.

Ancestor Xuan Yin watched their reaction and sneered.

The laughter was cold, as cold as wind blowing out of an ice cellar.

"What? Do you need this Old Ancestor to do it himself?"

Sun Ping's lips quivered several times before he finally made a sound.

The voice was very low, so low it was almost inaudible, like he was talking to himself, or perhaps speaking to someone who didn't exist: "...Withdraw."

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

Then his face began to change.

It didn't change slowly; it rippled like water.

His features began to blur, as if someone had wiped his face with their hand, erasing all the original brows, eyes, nose, and mouth.

Then, new features emerged from the blur, appearing from nothingness, from faint to distinct, as if a new painting was being drawn on a blank canvas.

It was a strange face: high cheekbones, deep-set eye sockets, thin lips, a pointed chin—the entire face looked as if it had been whittled by a knife.

The few people behind him changed as well.

One turned into a burly man with a face full of flesh, one turned into an emaciated old man, one turned into a middle-aged woman with a sinister expression, and one turned into an ordinary-looking young man.

The Hehuan Sect Disciple robes they wore hung loosely on their bodies, as if borrowed, ill-fitting no matter how they wore them.

That was the Tianyan Sect's secret technique, the "Tianyan Disguise Technique," using a living person's skin as a mold and Qi as a needle, stitching one face onto another, stitch by stitch.

Unless the caster personally undoes it, this face will grow on the recipient's face forever, until death.

Sun Ping—no, he should be called by his original name now—opened his eyes. His pupils were gray, as gray as the sky after half a month of overcast winter weather.

He looked up at Ancestor Xuan Yin, his voice as raspy as sandpaper grinding on stone: "Subordinate... this subordinate is incompetent. Please punish me, Old Ancestor."

The true faces of those people were exposed; they were not Hehuan Sect Disciples at all.

The Righteous Path Alliance people grew restless; some exclaimed, some gasped, and some cursed in low voices.

They only now realized that their side had been using spies all along, and that those people who ran over from the Hehuan Sect to surrender were not Hehuan Sect people at all.

Ancestor Xuan Yin did not look at them.

His gaze was locked onto the gray-eyed person, his voice cold: "Where exactly did things go wrong? How much effort did we and the Tianyan Sect spend to plant you into the Hehuan Sect? You lot, on the other hand, not only failed to help us take the Hehuan Sect, but you even set us all up! Over a thousand people, four Half-step True Immortals, all trapped in this broken array! Tell me, where exactly did it go wrong?"

The gray-eyed person lowered his head. His lips were trembling, but his voice remained relatively steady: "Reporting to Old Ancestor... this subordinate does not know. Xu Ruyu was acting from the very beginning. Those Spirit Stones, those Array Pattern, those nodes he spoke of—they were all fake. This subordinate thought he was setting up an array, not knowing he was setting up a much larger array. This subordinate... this subordinate was deceived by him."

Ancestor Xuan Yin's rage burned completely out of control.

He grabbed the gray-eyed person by the collar and hauled him up from the ground.

The man's toes left the ground, his collar choking his neck, his face flushed red, but he dared not struggle, dared not scream, and even dared not breathe.

"You were deceived by him?" Each word from Ancestor Xuan Yin sounded as if it were being ground out of his throat. "You were deceived by him, and we have to be buried along with you? Do you know how many people are trapped in this array? Do you know who they all are? They are the Righteous Path Alliance's most elite forces. If they die here, the Righteous Path Alliance is finished. What will you use to compensate? Your life?"

He slammed the gray-eyed person hard onto the ground.

The man hit the stone slab, several ribs breaking, and he spat out a mouthful of fresh blood that splattered on the stone, blindingly red.

But he dared not scream, dared not even cover his wounds, just lying there, motionless.

The others couldn't even kneel anymore, collapsing on the ground one by one. Some kowtowed, some wailed, some curled up holding their heads.

"Old Ancestor, spare us! Old Ancestor, spare us! We were also used by others!"

"Xu Ruyu is too cunning; we are no match for him!"

"Old Ancestor, we are willing to make amends for our crimes! We are willing to charge at the very front to break the array for the Righteous Path Alliance! We beg you to give us a chance!"

Ancestor Xuan Yin did not listen to them. He turned around, facing the light screen that was still flowing, his back to those few people.

His voice was not loud, but everyone heard it. Every word was clear and distinct, as if carved into a stone slab with a knife.

"Since you want to make amends for your crimes so badly, then go. Go and break this array. If you break it, you live. If you cannot break it, you die."

Those people were stunned.

They looked up, gazing at Ancestor Xuan Yin's back, and then at the light screen.

The light screen flowed slowly, like a giant snake taking a nap, but it could wake up at any moment.

They remembered the miserable state of those who had previously tried to break the array—swallowed by the light screen, burned to ashes by flames, or having their internal organs shattered by the rebounding force.

They did not want to die, but they dared not defy Ancestor Xuan Yin's order even more.

The gray-eyed person crawled up from the ground. His chest still hurt; every breath felt like someone was hammering nails into his ribs.

He walked to the light screen, stretched out his hand, and trembling, approached the flowing light screen inch by inch.

His fingertips touched the light screen, and it lit up for a moment.

He was not swallowed, not burned to ashes, and there was no rebound.

He stood there, his fingers pressed against the light screen; it had only brightened for a moment before dimming.

He was still alive.

He was stunned for a moment, then jerked his hand back. There was no injury on his fingertips; not even the skin was broken.

He turned his head and looked at Ancestor Xuan Yin, his eyes full of confusion: "Old Ancestor, this..."

Ancestor Xuan Yin did not look at him. His voice drifted from the darkness ahead, very cold: "Don't think it ends here. This array cannot be broken by brute force, nor can you survive by luck. Since you have sent messages inside before, you should know how to find the weaknesses of this array. Go find them. If you cannot find them, do not come back."

The gray-eyed person opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but closed it again.

He turned around, facing the light screen, and took a deep breath.

Then he took the first step.

The light screen swallowed him.

No sound, no light, no struggle.

He just took a step forward, and then he disappeared, as if he had never existed.

Those few people were so scared they collapsed on the ground; some began to retreat, some hugged the legs of the person next to them, and some fainted directly.

But Ancestor Xuan Yin did not look at them.

He just stood there, his back to them, like a stone statue.

Those few people ultimately did not escape the fate of being thrown into the Grand Array.

Ancestor Xuan Yin waved his hand, and an invisible force swept them all up and threw them into the light screen.

Before they could even manage a scream, they disappeared, like a few drops of water falling into a scalding hot wok—a sizzling sound, and then nothing was left.