116: Chapter 116 Return to Black Sand Town

In the Great Yu Cultivation World, within the Black Sand Market, at the edge of the inner city, inside a room in a secluded inn, the air rippled faintly.

Gu Shen's figure appeared out of thin air, landing steadily on the hard wooden bed. His gray robes draped down without making a single sound.

He did not get up immediately.

His Qi Refining Level 7 Divine Sense spread outwards silently like an invisible spider web, hugging the ground. At the same time, his gaze fell upon the blind spots of the door bolt and windows.

The transparent shadow threads and colorless powder he had set up before leaving remained undisturbed. The room was safe.

But outside the room, there was a suffocating sense of murderous tension.

It was too quiet.

At this hour, it should have been the most boisterous time for the Black Sand Market's night market. Yet, on the street outside the window, not a single peddling sound from any Loose Cultivator could be heard.

In its place was the rhythmic, heavy sound of Magical Artifact combat boots treading on the bluestone pavement.

"My Lord."

The black iron buckle at his collar vibrated slightly, and Crab's dry, standalone electronic voice transmitted into his eardrums, extremely faint.

"Switched to offline silent mode. Sonar and micro-vibration sensors indicate that this inn has been completely surrounded. There are eight high-energy heat sources in the first-floor lobby and four in the second-floor corridor. All are moving slowly."

Gu Shen's eyes narrowed.

He walked silently to the window, used his fingertip to poke a tiny hole in the paper, and looked outside.

The street outside the inn had been completely cleared.

Over a dozen Cultivators clad in blood-colored robes, holding Magical Artifacts, had sealed off all possible alley exits for escape. High in the air, a blood-colored magical mirror emitting a ghostly light hovered, illuminating the area around the inn down to the finest detail.

Dark scouts from the Blood Fiend Sect.

And they had come out in full force.

"Search! Search every room!"

A brutal, angry shout came from downstairs, permeated with the thick magical power of Qi Refining Level 8. "The Blood Fiend Seal on the yang key vanished into thin air; someone must have tampered with it! I would rather kill a thousand innocents than let one escape! Bring anyone with a strange face who checked in over the past few days for soul searching!"

Bang!

The sound of a door being violently kicked open came from the first floor. Immediately following it was a shrill, miserable scream.

"Senior, spare my life! I am just a passing merchant..."

Shhh!

The sound of a sharp blade slicing through flesh interrupted the plea for mercy.

"Too much nonsense. Next!" The demonic Cultivator's voice was cold and ruthless.

Gu Shen leaned in the shadows by the window, thoughts surging in his mind.

"They are truly desperate now."

In the Spiritless Ruins, he had used a Wasteland plasma cutting gun to physically strip the Blood Fiend Seal from the surface of the white bone yang key. The mark vanished into thin air, completely severing the Blood Fiend Sect's tracking clue.

Having lost their final target, these demonic Cultivators were like mad dogs with their eyes poked out, forced to resort to this most primitive and bloody method to conduct an indiscriminate purge.

Footsteps traveled up the wooden staircase to the second floor.

"There are three guests on the second floor. Search the A-grade room first."

Outside the door came hushed conversations. Two auras of Qi Refining Level 7, one to the left and one to the right, had stopped outside Gu Shen's door.

Gu Shen did not panic.

He reached up and wiped his face. Thousand Faces slightly squirmed, his bones contracted, and his skin smoothed out. In an instant, he transformed into the pale-faced, debauched-looking Young Master he had used at the underground auction.

The magical power fluctuations within his body were also tightly suppressed to the Qi Refining Level 3 Realm.

But he knew clearly that this disguise would not fool the frenzied Blood Fiend Sect.

Their current strategy was "better to kill the wrong person than let one go." To a demonic Cultivator, a Qi Refining Level 3 novice was best dealt with by simply grabbing them and performing soul searching—it was the easiest way.

Staying in the room would only result in being a turtle in a jar.

Gu Shen's gaze shifted to the tightly closed wooden window at the back of the room. Outside the window was the inn's back alley.

"Crab, what is the situation in the back alley?"

"My Lord, the back alley is a visual blind spot. But sonar indicates that there is a heat source crouching at each end of the alley. Qi Refining Level 8. They have sealed off the retreat path."

The front door was blocked, and the back alley was sealed.

A desperate situation.

"Qi Refining Level 8?"

A violent killing intent flashed in the depths of Gu Shen's eyes. If he had faced a Qi Refining Level 8 Cultivator before, he might have needed to maneuver a bit. But now that he had cultivated the Thunder Bone to the second stage, a mere Qi Refining Level 8 could not stop him.

Click.

At the door bolt outside, a slight sound of magical power prying came. Those two Qi Refining Level 7 demonic Cultivators were preparing to break down the door.

Gu Shen did not hesitate in the slightest, his figure suddenly falling backward.

Bang!

He used an extremely clever force to knock the wooden window open. There was no loud noise; the window sash did not even shatter in mid-air, it just detached in an eerie manner.

Gu Shen transformed into a black phantom, dropping straight down from the second-floor window. The shadow shoes shimmered with dark light.

He flipped lightly in mid-air like a falling leaf, his feet landing steadily on the muddy bluestone pavement of the back alley. He landed without a sound.

"Who?!"

Almost the moment he landed, a cautious low shout came from the dark blind spot on the left side of the alley.

A gaunt dark scout wearing blood-colored robes emerged from the darkness.

His Qi Refining Level 8 Divine Sense swept over like a venomous snake, instantly locking onto Gu Shen.

"Qi Refining Level 3? A rat that jumped out of the inn."

The dark scout saw clearly Gu Shen's pale-faced, debauched appearance, and a hint of cruel mockery flashed in his eyes.

He was too lazy to even summon a Magical Artifact. His right hand transformed into a palm, with violent blood Qi surging in his palm, and like an eagle catching a chick, he reached directly for Gu Shen's throat.

"You are courting death."

Gu Shen's lowered eyelids suddenly lifted. The originally timid and pale gaze transformed in that instant into an immensely cold abyss.

He did not retreat but advanced instead.

The aura suppressed at Qi Refining Level 3 was violently torn apart!

The magical power of Late Stage Qi Refining Level 7, mixed with the terrifying blood Qi of the Bone Refining Art's dark gold iron bones, erupted in the narrow back alley like a long-suppressed volcano!

The Qi Refining Level 8 dark scout's pupils shrank, and his heart skipped a beat.

"Dual Cultivation of body and magic? Oh no!"

He wanted to retreat. But it was too late.

Gu Shen did not even draw his blade.

He suddenly opened the five fingers of his left hand.

Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!

Three almost completely transparent, extremely Yin threads shot out from his finger bones. Soul-Pulling Threads!

Under the augmentation of the Nine Nether Silkworm's extreme Yin Qi and the sharpness of the Magical Artifact remnant embryo, these three shadow threads were impossible to detect with the naked eye in the dark night.

The dark scout only felt a slight chill at his neck and wrists.

His forward-rushing body stopped in mid-air in an extremely eerie manner.

The next breath.

His hands were severed at the wrists.

Immediately after, his head slid off his neck with extreme smoothness, and blood shot into the sky like a fountain!

Cutting gold and breaking jade, killing without a trace.

Gu Shen retracted his five fingers, and the shadow threads instantly hibernated back into his finger bones.

He did not look at the warm, headless corpse on the ground; his cold gaze had already locked onto the other end of the alley, where the other dark scout, having just sensed the commotion, was rushing over with a horrified expression.