Ye Yu seized Luo Shu in one hand and closed his fingers around the wooden box in his palm.
He asked, curious, "Whatâs going on here?"
Luo Shu, still shaken, said, "Youâre asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?"
Before they could say more, a gale slammed into them and flung them backward in an instant.
When they steadied themselves, they were already several hundred meters outside the Divine Alliance.
Ye Yu looked aheadâwhat had been a fairly grand Divine Alliance was now a sea of violet fire.
Even from a great distance, the heat rolling off it could be felt.
Luo Shu shook his dog head, incredulous. "Iâm sensing a very familiar aura, but something about it feels wrong!"
Ye Yu lifted an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?"
Luo Shuâs expression turned strange, and he shot toward Tongtian Pavilion at once.
He didnât get halfway before †NĐŸvĐ”â ight †(Read more on our source) white silk wrapped his dog legâ
âand yanked him back to where heâd been.
Clearly, Liu Yuenong did not want Luo Shu returning to Tongtian Pavilion.
Why would she do that?
And why had Tongtian Pavilion suddenly become like this?
Ye Yu didnât have time to think it through before his vision flashed white.
A powerful sense of restraint closed over him.
"Come onâwhite silk tying up Luo Shu makes sense, since he was trying to rush back to Tongtian Pavilion.
"But I was just standing here. Why are you tying me up?"
Ye Yu wanted to spit a curse, but the white silk bound him so tightly he couldnât force out a word.
All he could do was hurtle backward with Luo Shu as the white silk dragged them at extreme speed.
Next, divine power began to gather around them, and space twisted.
"A teleportation array?"
Where was Liu Yuenong trying to send them?
The loss of control left Ye Yu seriously annoyed.
He immediately circulated divine power, trying to break free of the white silk.
But before he could act, a tremendous force struck from outside.
Caught off guard, Ye Yu was hit by a wave of violent vertigo.
He didnât know how much time had passed. When he came to again, he was startled to find himself in a completely unfamiliar place.
Divine power was abundant all aroundâclearly this wasnât within the bounds of the Far North.
Ye Yu swept his gaze about, a little dazed.
"Where did they dump me?"
He struggled to his feet and found quite a bit of white silk still on himâexcept it was completely torn, with traces of scorching.
Clearly, the white silk had taken massive damage.
But he himself was unscathed.
"With defense like that, I acknowledge you."
"But who attacked the white silk?"
"Was he stopping Liu Yuenongâor trying to kill Luo Shu?"
"Waitâright, whereâs Luo Shu?"
Ye Yu looked around again and didnât see so much as a single dog hair.
He released his divine sense at once and began to search.
No sign of Luo Shuâonly a wooden box tucked beside a boulder.
It was the lodging compensation Liu Yuenong had mentioned. Ye Yu opened it to find a single golden pill lying quietly within.
A rich pill fragrance surged outâ
âand set the divine power in his body surging in response.
"This seems to be a Minglong Dao Pill."
Heâd seen information on it before in the Wuzhong Mountain Divine Alliance compendium.
Taken, it could massively boost divine power with no side effects.
Hence its nickname, the Rebirth Elixir.
In his earlier dream, Ye Yu had wanted to get his hands on a Minglong Dao Pill for a taste.
Unfortunately, it had already passed into historyâno one had refined one in a million years.
He hadnât expected one to appear in his hands today.
"Liu Yuenong really paid out big on that room fee."
Even so, Ye Yu didnât lower his guard and swallow it on the spot.
You canât do without a healthy caution toward others.
He invoked his dream-born talent, Heaven-Defying Comprehension, to examine the pill.
With perfect insight, nothing could remain hidden.
Only after confirming the Minglong Dao Pill had no issues did Ye Yu take it with peace of mind.
Very soon, a surging power rose from withinâ
True God, early stage. True God, mid stage. True God, late stage...
In the end, his cultivation settled firmly at the peak of True God, a single step from Great God.
Ye Yu could feel it: at most a month, and he would break through smoothly.
"The Minglong Dao Pill really is extraordinary."
"If I could get a few more, could I just rocket straight up?"
Ye Yu shook his head and gave up that unrealistic fantasy.
Honestly, though Liu Yuenongâs behavior was odd, Ye Yu had the sense she bore no hostility toward him or Luo Shu.
If she truly meant to kill them, sheâd have acted already. Why hand over divine stone and a pill?
After a momentâs thought, Ye Yu set off north again.
By his reckoning, when he and Luo Shu entered the teleportation array, an external force cut in, so they hadnât been sent to the same place.
Wherever Luo Shu was nowâ
âso long as he was alive, he would certainly try to return to Tongtian Pavilion.
If Ye Yu wanted to see him again, he had to go back.
It wasnât that Ye Yu had to stick with Luo Shu; theyâd simply spent some time together, and he wanted to see the dog safe and sound. Only then would he feel at ease.
A short while later, as Ye Yu passed a mountain range, a strangerâs voice rang out behind him.
"Fellow Daoist, wait!"
He turned to see a scrawny youth approaching from afar,
wearing a broad Daoist robe that obviously didnât fit.
When he reached Ye Yu, he bowed first. "Fellow Daoist, are you yokai?"
Whether yokai, ghost immortal, demon, and so onâafter becoming a god, you could still sense someoneâs origin from the aura clinging to them.
Unless the other party deliberately concealed it, it was easy enough to tell.
Ye Yu regarded the youth warily and didnât answer the question; he asked quietly instead, "Do you need something?"
The youth shook his head quickly, then raised his right hand to show a tiger clawâhis true body.
"Donât be nervous, Fellow Daoist. Iâm not a bad person. My name is Tao KuâIâm a yokai god, too. In the God Realm itâs just nice to see one of our own. By the way, do you have a Divine Alliance? How about joining our yokai Divine Alliance? Join and weâre brothers; a brotherâs business is our business."