After Li Huang bowed and withdrew, and the heavy chamber door closed once more, Li Mang sat alone within the dim secret chamber.
Within his hand, he gripped firmly that ghastly white bone spine scepter.
The first barrier. He had expended countless resources and had already cracked it.
The second barrier. He had likewise exhausted every means, forcibly enduring his way through it.
Only this third barrier, even now, still stood before him like an insurmountable natural chasm, blocking him firmly, not allowing him to advance so much as an inch.
Li Mang gazed darkly at the bone scepter in his hand, staring fixedly at it for a long while.
In the end, however, he exceedingly decisively withdrew his gaze.
"That is, after all, another matter entirely."
"Since this road before me cannot be walked…"
The corner of Li Mang's mouth curved into a cold smile:
"Now, I would rather first take a look—"
"at just how many fine things there are hidden upon this brat named Lin Mu of Black Blood Stockade, things that might delight me!"
...
Black Blood Stockade, the core main hall.
Within a heavily guarded secret chamber.
The two highest authorities of Black Blood Stockade, Patriarch Lin Cang and Grand Clan Elder Lin Zhen, sat facing each other.
Three pots of tea had already been changed between them.
Lin Zhen was silent for a long while, those old eyes that had read countless men narrowing slightly, before he was first to break the silence:
"Do you… truly believe that string of words the brat spoke in the secret chamber?"
Lin Cang lifted his teacup, gently blowing away the froth, without so much as raising an eyelid.
"No."
The answer was exceedingly crisp and decisive, so much so that even Lin Zhen was slightly caught off guard.
Lin Cang slowly drank a mouthful of tea, set the cup down, a deep gravity carried in his tone:
"The intelligence he threw out has truth and falsehood in it. Nine parts true, one part false — that is the mark of the cleverest liar."
"Though that brat spoke a dazzling flood of words, he most certainly also concealed the most core, the most fatal things."
Lin Zhen's brows knit tighter still:
"Since you do not believe him, then why let him go?"
"Though our stockade possesses no long lost soul searching methods, so long as we take him down, the other means of extracting a confession could still make him confess it all honestly."
"Because he saved Feng'er."
Lin Cang leaned back against his chair, fingers lightly tapping the tabletop.
"Because he gave us news of the beast tide."
"And even more because Black Blood Stockade now stands in an autumn of troubles — precisely the time when men are most needed."
At this point, this Rank 4 warlord could not help but let out a light sigh.
Could a man such as he, Lin Cang, who had cultivated all the way to Rank 4, be easily dealt with?
How could he not know that this collateral member named Lin Mu was by no means an ordinary person?
So young in years.
Such terrifying concealed strength.
Such watertight, enduring temperament.
More importantly— when facing the pressure and scrutiny of himself and Lin Zhen earlier, from beginning to end, this youth's gaze had never once truly wavered in the slightest!
A person like this.
How could he possibly be as simple as what he claimed with his own mouth, as what he displayed on the surface?
But the problem now was that the situation simply did not permit them to purge at will.
Within, there was an assassin's mole hidden exceedingly deep.
Without, there was that old dog Li Mang, who might bite at any moment.
And the front's mid tier combat strength had only just suffered heavy losses, with no successors to fill the gap.
At a time like this, if they forcibly took Lin Mu down without any conclusive evidence, it would not only be equivalent to the clan severing with its own hands — and driving to rebellion — a combat asset of enormous potential.
Moreover—
"Feng'er would be the very first not to agree."
Lin Cang coldly pointed out the most core fatal point.
Hearing this, Lin Zhen fell utterly silent.
Indeed — that Lin Feng had been able to return to the main camp alive this time was itself because Lin Mu had risked his life to save him in a hopeless situation.
What was more, lately, because of Lin Wan'er's grave wounds and refusal to wake, Lin Feng's temperament had already grown near obsessed to the point of madness.
At such a time, no matter who moved against Lin Mu — even he, Lin Feng's own father — Lin Feng would likely turn on them on the spot without the slightest hesitation.
Lin Zhen drew a deep breath, and at last slowly made his compromise:
"Then… continue sending the shadow guards to investigate."
"Mm."
Lin Cang nodded, his gaze profound.
"Investigate."
"But under no circumstances alarm him."
"So long as he does nothing that truly damages the clan's core interests, leave him be for now. Since he wishes to borrow the power of our Black Blood Stockade, then he must bleed and toil for our Black Blood Stockade."
The matter of Lin Mu was thus, for the time being, pressed down by the two highest authorities of Black Blood Stockade.
But immediately after, Lin Zhen's expression turned solemn, and he took a brand new top secret intelligence report from his sleeve.
"As for the beast tide, the shadow guards still have not grasped the exact time or route of its eruption."
"However…"
Lin Zhen's expression gradually grew exceedingly grave, even carrying a trace of disbelief.
"Those several Gu Masters we hired at heavy cost to investigate the shifts of the surrounding land veins — while probing the flow of the water veins near Black Wind Ridge, underground, they… unexpectedly discovered some things."
Lin Cang raised his head, asking with a trace of doubt:
"What things?"
Lin Zhen did not speak, but instead slowly spread an exceedingly crudely drawn underground terrain map, still smudged with a little soil, upon the tabletop between them.
He extended a finger and drew a circle upon the map.
And that circle… without deviating in the slightest, heavily encircled the region beneath the belly of the main mountain where Black Blood Stockade stood.
"Here."
"The course of the land veins is exceedingly bizarre — utterly wrong."
"They confirmed it repeatedly with Earth Path Gu worms. There is a massive hollow zone there, and it is absolutely not naturally formed."
Lin Cang's gaze condensed slightly; he too keenly perceived that something was wrong.
Lin Zhen looked at Lin Cang and slowly threw out a startling deduction:
"Below, there seem to exist traces of some exceedingly ancient structure."
"And moreover, based on their judgment…"
Lin Zhen paused, swallowing a mouthful of saliva.
"That aura… very likely has to do with certain long lost inheritances!"
An inheritance!
Lin Cang's expression, hard and cold as stone, in the instant he heard those two words, for the first time truly underwent an exceedingly violent change.
The two of them locked eyes fixedly.
And almost simultaneously, they recalled a name recorded in Black Blood Stockade's annals, one that had lain sealed in dust for centuries.
That was a Rank 5 Demonic Path colossus who had once run rampant throughout these vast Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, slaughtering men like hemp, and against whom even countless great Righteous Path sects had been helpless!
—The Black Bone King!
...
And just as the upper echelons of these two great powers racked their brains over their respective calculations, in every corner of Black Blood Stockade, the myriad living beings were likewise exerting every ounce of their strength for their own survival and ambitions.
Within the External Affairs Hall, Lin Ping, bearing enormous pressure, was still diligently and exceedingly shrewdly handling all manner of complex internal affairs and material allocations.
Though he did not know just what earth shaking contest was unfolding among the upper echelons, the man he was now had already been ground exceedingly resolute by this stretch of war.
Guarding all of what Lin Mu had entrusted to him — that was the sole worth he now possessed in this chaotic age.
In a secluded spot among the trees, Lin Wuxie was cultivating with single minded devotion, his upper body bared.
With the assistance of the Dialysis Gu, he no longer had to be tormented day and night by the Food Path's backlash and pain as before.
He could now devour flesh and blood without the slightest restraint, like a tireless mad beast, madly charging toward higher realms.
And there were also Lin Yan and Lin Xue, gravely wounded in the assassinations… both were clenching their teeth upon their sickbeds, doing all they could to recover with Gu worms, seeking to return to the battlefield as soon as possible.
Everyone was struggling madly within this enormous Gu basin known as the Southern Border.
...
However.
Just as these myriad living beings gave everything they had for survival, for power, for that sliver of illusory future, beneath Black Blood Stockade, within a sealed secret chamber utterly severed from the outside world—
"Crack… crack…"
One crystalline, translucent Primeval Stone after another still lost its luster under that terrifying rate of absorption.
Turning into greyish white powder, scattering down with a rustle.
At the center of the secret chamber, Lin Mu sat cross legged, like a stone carving of an old monk entering meditation.
From beginning to end, he had not once opened his eyes.
He no longer cared in the slightest what world overturning changes had occurred outside.
At this very moment, the entirety of his mind and spirit was already cast into his own aperture.
In the depths of his aperture, that radiant Rank 3 Crystal Corrosion Gu was, bit by bit, exceedingly slowly yet unwaveringly, eroding and softening that layer of originally incomparably tough crystal membrane.
And beneath that softened layer of crystal membrane, that Rank 2 peak stage Primeval Essence, abyss deep and sea vast, accumulated over so long a time, was, just like a furious tsunami, once, and once again, launching an utterly unreserved assault against that barrier which represented the Great Dao of Rank 3.