Chapter 2185 - 1562: Vengeance (Part 2)

"That’s a good idea! Even if we can’t get it, we absolutely can’t let him hog it all for himself!"

"Let’s not all go back to Cangming Immortal City. We split up and act separately; best if we spread the word thoroughly in all the nearby Immortal Cities. That’ll definitely draw a huge number of cultivators over."

"Alright!"

The other few all voiced their agreement.

"Hopefully he ends up dying in the ruins!"

These people absolutely harbored resentment toward Li Zhirui. One by one they came up with all sorts of schemes, deciding on various ways to obstruct him in just a few words, while venting the purest hatred in their hearts; venomous curses spilled straight out of their mouths.

"Then let’s move!"

The four of them immediately split up on the spot, each flying toward a different Immortal City, not even bothering about the injuries left on their bodies from the earlier exchange—so long as they wouldn’t worsen, it was fine.

Before long, one of them arrived at the nearest Cangming Immortal City.

If he could help it, he wouldn’t have directly made the ruin’s location public; it was far too abrupt and would easily make people suspect it was a trap.

But in order to spread the news as quickly as possible, he couldn’t care about that anymore. He simply scattered Jade Slips and Sound Transmission Talismans across the entire city, letting a huge number of cultivators learn of it as fast as possible, so long as he concealed his identity.

In fact, they had already started doing this on the way back to the Immortal City, leaving behind a large number of Jade Slips and Talismans in hopes that cultivators on the road would find them and rush over more quickly.

To avoid the situation where the cultivators in the Immortal City went too late, and all the Spiritual Objects in the ruins had already been taken.

In just a short while, the matter of the ruins was in an uproar, the entire city in a storm.

"What do you think, are the ruins marked out in those suddenly-appearing Jade Slips real or fake?"

"I feel like it’s more of a trap, just wanting to use the ruins to lure a large number of cultivators over. It’s just that we don’t know the mastermind’s goal, or what follow-up arrangements there are."

"Then we shouldn’t join in this excitement."

"What if the ruins are real, really like the Jade Slips described, with a whole lot of precious Spiritual Objects? If we don’t go, wouldn’t we be missing out on this opportunity for nothing?"

"This..."

Hearing this, the others clearly became hesitant, because if it really was as the Jade Slips described, with a large number of Spiritual Objects in the ruins, then if they didn’t go, those Spiritual Objects would forever have nothing to do with them.

"How about we go take a look anyway? If it’s a trap, we can just withdraw once we realize it. At worst, we’ll just have wasted some time hurrying on the road; but if it’s real, then we’ve struck it rich."

"Then let’s go, stop wasting time."

Many cultivators went with this mentality, following the map to seek out the ruins.

And it wasn’t just some low-level cultivator who learned of it; a number of Earth Immortals and Heavenly Immortal Cultivator also heard the news. Some chose to go have a look, others just snorted in disdain.

As for those four Human Immortal Cultivators, once they saw a large number of cultivators starting to move, they were delighted, especially the one who was injured the most severely, as if he could already see Li Zhirui’s miserable end.

...

Li Zhirui, who was currently hurrying toward the location of the ruins, had no idea that a conspiracy aimed specifically at him was rapidly being woven and taking shape.

Because the map was marked out with great precision, he hadn’t wasted much time on the way and found the location of the ruins with ease.

"It’s right here."

As he spoke, he attacked the patch of seemingly ordinary ground in front of him.

Crack—

A cracking sound rang out, accompanied by a great number of rocks falling. The original ground directly turned into a pitch-black hole in the earth.

These were in fact the later additions made by those four cultivators, meant to keep the ruins from being exposed and discovered by other cultivators.

Their methods for concealing the ruins weren’t bad; it had gone undiscovered all these years, waiting only for one of them to take a further step, at which point they might be able to seize the treasures inside.

Unfortunately, their luck was bad; in the end they ran into Li Zhirui, and all their efforts and preparations went up in smoke, falling into someone else’s hands.

Once the hole appeared, he didn’t hesitate in the slightest and flashed inside.

After flying through a stretch of pitch-black passage, Li Zhirui finally saw the true appearance of the ruins.

An expansive underground cavern with no end in sight, shrouded under a thick layer of yellow Spirit Light.

This didn’t look like some cultivator’s Cave Mansion, but more like the territory of some power that had, due to some unknown accident, ended up in its current state.

Of course, Li Zhirui hadn’t come to investigate how the ruins formed; he had come to search for treasures.

So the first thing he did was make a move to directly break the Defensive Array.

With a thud, a huge handprint appeared on the yellow Spirit Light, which shook violently, but did not shatter.

"Oh? This Formation’s got something to it."

The result piqued Li Zhirui’s curiosity.

Although he hadn’t used his full strength to destroy the Defensive Array just then, the fact that he still hadn’t broken the Formation left him somewhat surprised; the grade of this Defensive Array was not low.

He immediately became serious and focused, once more attacking the Formation, and this time he finally resolved the problem of the Defensive Array.

Crack—

With a sound, the Defensive Array shattered.

"An outsider has trespassed! Eliminate!"

But in the next instant, a new problem appeared.

Several Puppets suddenly activated, rising to their feet like small mountains. Their bodies looked heavy and cumbersome, yet they charged toward Li Zhirui with surprising agility.

He didn’t take these Puppets seriously at all; they were nothing more than a group of Puppets on par with early Earth Immortal strength, without Spiritual Intelligence, only able to act according to preset procedures.

With his strength, so long as he took things a bit more seriously, he could deal with all the obstacles he knew of so far.

The Puppets that were launching an attack at Li Zhirui were suddenly bound by vines. Just a few slender vines were enough to completely immobilize them.

"Hm?"

Just as he was about to go a step further and completely take down these Puppets, he suddenly heard a noise coming from outside.

"This should be the ruins marked on the Jade Slip, right?"

"That’s right, this is the place. But from the looks of it, it seems a cultivator has already gone in."

"Be careful."

In just a moment, Li Zhirui saw the figures of these cultivators.

"Who are you!"

They were startled by him, then, realizing he was only a Human Immortal Cultivator, they felt relieved and shouted loudly, "Get out of here, this place has been taken by us. Otherwise, don’t blame us for being ruthless."

"How did you find this place?"

But Li Zhirui paid no mind to their threats, asking indifferently.

"What’s it got to do with you!"

"Urgh—urgh—urgh..."

In the next instant, however, the few of them were hoisted up by vines, struggling wildly in midair.

Feeling their lives rapidly slipping away, they finally realized that the man before them was definitely not some mere Human Immortal Cultivator.

"I’ll talk, I’ll talk, please let me down, quickly!"

With a bang, they crashed heavily onto the ground, gulping in great mouthfuls of air.

"How did you find this place?"

"We stumbled on a Jade Talisman by chance on the road. It had this location marked on it, so we came over right away, just to try our luck."

But they hadn’t expected it to be real!

Unfortunately, a powerful expert had arrived one step ahead of them, and they’d ended up in such a pathetic situation in an instant.

"Were there a lot of Jade Talismans?"

"There should be a lot. We found quite a few Jade Talismans just along our original route back."

Li Zhirui’s previously indifferent expression instantly turned gloomy. At this point, how could he still fail to understand what was going on?

It had to be those four cultivators from before, unwilling to let him walk off with the treasures in the ruins, so they’d used this method to take revenge on him and vent the hatred and resentment in their hearts.

This was something he had never anticipated.