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A teahouse on the top floor of the treasure ship. From the seats by the window, the observation deck was clearly visible.
“Who is that woman in black?” asked a skinny man.
At this early hour, there were few customers in the teahouse.
The skinny man, the middle-aged Tu Yong, and the purple-robed Ye Boheng aside, there was just the teashop’s owner, a waiter, and three other customers.
Tu Yong glanced at the other customers, then transmitted his response to the skinny man and Ye Boheng. “That woman boarded the ship yesterday. Her aura is inscrutable; she’s most likely using some sort of treasure to obscure it. She has four companions, but all four have remained in their rooms since first boarding the ship. They’ve never once emerged.”
Ye Boheng’s eyelids twitched, but he said nothing.
The skinny man furrowed his brow. “That young man in blue boarded the ship three days ago, the same time we did. The woman in black boarded just yesterday. But from the look of things, it seems they know each other.”
Tu Yong nodded. “I dare say with certainty that there’s something fishy about both of them, and it’s even possible that they’re conspiring together.”
Ye Boheng’s expression was a bit strange, as if he wanted to say something, but was hesitant.
“I hope they’re not targeting us,” the sickly man said softly.
It was then that Ye Boheng couldn’t hold back any longer. “Father, we… Why must we bring this treasure back to Tianya City? We’re just a branch lineage of the Ghost Serpents, and we split off from the man branch a long time ago.
“Now that the main lineage is in a tight spot, the other two branches have already made their positions clear: they want to choose a new clan leader. They’ve already sent word saying that they hope we won’t intervene, so why… Why did you insist on doing this?”
Confusion was written all over the young man’s face, and even a bit of displeasure.
After a moment’s silence, the skinny man said, “Our relationship with the main lineage is like that of a tree and its branches. If something happens to a tree’s trunk, how will its branches avoid the aftermath? It’s like the idiom: without skin, hair has nothing to attach itself to.”
The skinny man looked at his son and said gently, “You’re still young. It’s to be expected that you wouldn’t understand such things.”
He paused, his expression calm yet determined. “As a descendant of the Ghost Serpent lineage, I must bring this treasure back to Tianya City for the sake of the clan. I must prevent the worst from coming to pass!”
Ye Boheng was stunned, but a moment later, he suddenly gnashed his teeth and said something strange. “Father, no matter what happens, I absolutely won’t let anything happen to you or Uncle Yong!”
He spoke with staunch conviction.
The skinny man couldn’t help but look gratified. “My boy, your filial piety is joy enough already.”
However, Tu Yong felt that something was amiss, and he couldn’t help but take another look at Ye Boheng. “Young lord, is there something you’re not telling us?”
Ye Boheng’s heart clenched, and he was just about to say something when his father exclaimed, “It looks like that man and woman are about to fight!”
Ye Boheng and Tu Yong instantly looked over.
Meanwhile, on the observation deck.
The atmosphere was stifled and oppressive.
The young woman in black stared intently at Su Yi, then said suddenly, “Yesterday, I asked Ye Boheng, and he said he didn’t recognize you. I figured you were just another passenger, and that so long as we had ourselves a nice chat, we could each go our separate ways without interfering in each others’ affairs. But now, it seems… there really is something strange about you!”
Su Yi ignored her. He tousled the pigtailed girl’s hair, then said to Xie Kuiju, “Take the children to play somewhere further away.”
Xie Kuiju nodded, then hurriedly dragged the little girl by the arm and called for the other children to follow them.
From beginning to end, the young woman in the black dress made no effort to stop them from leaving. She just smiled. “You cannot protect them. No one is leaving this ship alive.”
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Her tone was calm and casual, yet her words were enough to make one shudder.
But Su Yi didn’t seem at all concerned. “Why did you place a Spirit-Locking Devilworm in that little girl last night?”
The woman in the black dress seemed briefly stunned, but a moment later, she pressed her lips into a grin. “That little girl’s soul is rather decent; it’s excellent material for refining a Spirit Parasite. I was delighted to happen upon her, and I naturally couldn’t just let her slip through my fingers.
“After all, everyone on board this ship is going to die. If her soul becomes a Spirit Parasite, it’ll be like living on in a different form. Wouldn’t that be a good thing for her?”
A Spirit Parasite!
This was a spirit body refined through insidious, secret, utterly brutal methods.
The woman in black obviously didn’t even see the pigtailed little girl as a person; she saw her as raw materials!
Her cold indifference made Su Yi’s brow furrow nigh imperceptibly.
He looked at the jujube in his hand, then at the woman in black. “Have your true body come out. Otherwise, I’ll kill you immediately.”
The woman’s pupils constricted until they were the size of needlepoints, and the look on her beautiful face changed.
She suddenly raised her left hand.
The string of silver bells made out of bone suddenly produced a strange sound, like the roaring of the supernatural beings of the Nine Serenities. It instantly reverberated throughout the air above the ship.
Uproar instantly broke out throughout the ship: startled cries, shrieks, agonized roars…
There were over a thousand people on board, but all of them felt rending pain in their souls, as if someone were slashing them with a knife. They clutched their heads in agony, and some even bled from the seven apertures of the face and fell to the floor.
Xie Kuiju immediately activated a bronze war shield, which produced a golden light curtain. He and the children were protected inside.
However, although Xie Kuiju was a Spiritual Revolution elder of the Netherworld Spirit Sect, the strange sound left him coughing up blood, and his bronze shield shook.
Within the teahouse, the skinny man and his companions defended themselves immediately, but they still cut sorry figures, and their expressions shifted erratically.
Everything was instantly chaotic. Similar scenes unfolded throughout the ship, and the terrifying sound of the bells even killed some of the weaker passengers on the spot, shattering their souls.
All of them happened in an instant.
Su Yi’s brow furrowed. He furrowed his brow and snapped his fingers.
A streak of pale golden sword qi shot through the air.
Bang!
The woman’s delicate figure exploded, filling the air with a rain of light.
A moment later, she reappeared a few hundred feet away, her right hand holding her left wrist, which was where she wore the string of silver bone bells. The bracelet had already exploded, and there was even a bloody hole through her wrist. Red liquid dripped down her fingers.
The terrifying sound of the bells promptly disappeared.
The woman’s expression darkened, and surprise was evident in her features. “What powerful sword qi!”
She dared say with certainty that if she hadn’t used a secret treasure to dodge right in the nick of time, this body would have exploded, unable to withstand that slash!
Whoosh! Whoosh Whoosh!
Meanwhile, figures shot toward her from all sides.
Some were waiters or servants. Others were rogue cultivators mixed in with the passengers. Some had remained in their rooms ever since they boarded. They included men and women of all ages.
But as they approached, it wasn’t just their appearances that changed; even their auras were instantly terrifying.
All of them were brimming with murderous intent as they surrounded the woman in the black dress.
Within the teahouse, the skinny man and Tu Yong’s expressions darkened. Even the teahouse’s waiter and owner had charged explosively over. In the process, they became a curly-bearded, hulking spearman and an old man wielding a long black whip!
Neither Tu Yong nor the skinny man would have expected that so many experts were hidden on this seemingly ordinary Cloud Tower Treasure Ship!
They hadn’t just misjudged the situation; they’d fallen into an expertly prepared trap!
Before long, nineteen cultivators had clustered around the young woman in the black dress. All of them were in the Spiritual Revolution Realm.
Some of the stronger ones were even at the peak of the Spiritual Revolution Realm!
From beginning to end, Su Yi just stood there calmly.
He never stopped enemies from sending themselves to his doorstep.
“I prepared these subordinates to capture Ye Tianqu, but it seems I’ll have to deal with you first,” said the woman in the black dress.
Her aura changed, becoming cold and imposing, but the biggest change was to her forehead: a strange, golden flower marking appeared there.
Su Yi had seen a similar marking on the stout man he’d killed the day before, except that one was blood red, while the woman’s was golden.
Su Yi was naturally already aware that she was a Blood Pheasant, and furthermore, that she was a main branch descendant with a pure bloodline.
“There really was something fishy about her!” Up in the teahouse, the skinny man’s expression darkened.
Because he was the “Ye Tianqu” the woman in black had just mentioned!
A member of the second branch of the Ghost Serpent Clan!
However, what Ye Tianqu found confusing was how this ambush, which was originally targeted at him, wound up being directed against that young man in blue.
Tu Yong was bewildered too.
Ye Boheng, the young man in purple, looked extremely conflicted. His expression shifted erratically, as if he were frantic, but also alarmed and furious.
“Big brother, you have to be careful!” A clear but quavering voice emanated from afar. The little girl in pigtails clutched the hems of her clothes, her big eyes full of worry.
Her voice came out of nowhere.
She was only five or six, yet she’d spoken up at this incomparably dangerous moment. It would have been difficult not to sweat on her behalf.
But Su Yi just smiled and said gently, “Close your eyes, little one.”
The pigtailed girl froze, and before she could react, Xie Kuiju covered her eyes for her.
He was an elder of the Netherworld Spirit Sect, yet his clothes were already drenched with cold sweat. He was relying on pure willpower to remain standing.
He’d experienced his fair share of battles, and he could tell at a glance that this situation was far too disadvantageous to Su Yi!
“Ridiculous. Even now, you’re worried about some little girl?” the woman in black said with cold indifference, her eyes glinting icily. “But I wouldn’t mind giving you one last chance. Leave right now, and I can spare your life.”
Ever since she first saw him last night, everything Su Yi did made her realize something was strange about him. That was the only reason she could suppress the murderous intent welling within her heart and have a conversation with him.
However, Su Yi just sounded thoughtful. “It seems your true body isn’t on board this ship.”
The woman’s willowy eyebrows knit together.
Su Yi took the jujube he was holding and stuffed it into his mouth. It wasn’t all that delicious, but he ate it with relish.
Then, he swept his gaze across the woman in black and her companions.
“If I can’t kill you within three snaps of the fingers, consider it my loss.”