chsdbacks Chapter 131 The Blood-Red Token
Chapter 131 The Blood-Red Token
Lin Yan arrived at the mountain stream and stopped in his tracks upon seeing the scene inside.
He stood at the mouth of the ravine, his gaze fixed on the three corpses inside.
Wu Meng leaned against the rock wall, his chest caved in, his robes torn, and the blood at the corner of his mouth had congealed into a dark scab.
Shi Gan lay sprawled five steps away, his wrists twisted, a palm print imprinted on his robe, his eyes wide open, dying with unfulfilled rage.
Sun Laoqi was still kneeling, but he had already stopped breathing.
He walked over, squatted down next to Wu Meng, and examined his body.
A large amount of blood spread from under the body into the cracks in the rubble, and it has now almost completely dried up. Based on the time, the person has been dead for at least an hour.
Lin Yan reached out and pressed his hand against Wu Meng's sunken chest to feel it closely. All of his ribs were shattered, and the bone fragments had pierced his internal organs, a fatal blow.
Apart from that, there were no other injuries on his body, nor any signs of parrying.
This shows that he didn't even have time to fight back, or even to dodge.
The only person who could allow him to get within striking distance without warning and then suddenly strike and kill him is someone he knows well.
Lin Yan stood up and looked towards the center of the mountain stream.
A long stick was stuck diagonally in a pile of rubble not far ahead; it was Yang Tie's stick.
The fact that this stick was left here shows that Yang Tie no longer intended to use it for show.
Lin Yan had already become suspicious of Yang Tie when they were fighting the Iron-Scaled Jackal. This Yang Tie was indeed problematic.
The one who could kill Wu Meng with a single palm strike was at least a mid-stage Rank 3, and might even have reached the late-stage threshold.
They have been traveling together for more than ten days since they set off from the capital. Yang Tie has hardly revealed any flaws. If it weren't for the fact that the Crimson Essence Fruit was so precious that it directly aroused his greed and murderous intent, he probably would have waited until they entered the core area before making his move, which would have been even more troublesome.
The Crown Prince's henchmen are all incredibly troublesome; they haven't even seen a glimpse of that treasure yet, and they've already started killing each other.
Once inside the core area, facing even greater temptations of treasure, the situation will only worsen.
Yeah.
At least now he doesn't have to worry about the people behind him anymore. Although traveling alone is riskier, at least he doesn't have to spend his mind wondering when his companions will stab him in the back.
As long as he remains vigilant and spreads out his aura, he can avoid other Dragon Guards and demonic beasts in advance, making it more flexible for him to act alone.
Lin Yan took a breath and suppressed the distracting thoughts in his mind.
He squatted back down next to Wu Meng's corpse and rummaged through the other man's pockets.
The silver notes and pills are gone, and the demon cores we hunted yesterday are all gone too.
Before leaving, Yang Tie searched all their belongings. Shi Gan and Sun Laoqi were also completely cleaned, with not even a single dry ration left behind.
Lin Yan sighed and turned to walk back the way he came.
He did not bury the three bodies.
Cangwu Mountain is no safe place; the time he spent digging the pit and burying the body was enough for the monsters to follow the scent of blood and come back several times over.
Lin Yan had no intention of getting himself involved; he had just escaped from the jaws of a beast, and his internal energy was completely depleted.
He returned to the valley, from where Lin Yan planned to continue advancing.
……
At the same time, in the underground chamber of the Eastern Palace in the capital.
The walls of the dark room were inlaid with copper lamps, the light of which was not very bright, making the whole space dim.
Crown Prince Li Zhengxin was kneeling on a futon in the center of the dark room, with a huge statue of a god holding a halberd and a snake in front of him.
Beneath his knees lay a dark red futon, its edges worn white, clearly indicating that he had knelt there many times.
Li Zhengxin pressed his forehead against the cool stone bricks, his lips moving, his voice low and indistinct, as he chanted an ancient and mysterious prayer.
On the pedestal beneath the stone statue, more than a hundred iron tokens were neatly arranged. If Lin Yan were here, he would recognize that all of them were Dragon Martial Tokens.
In the first two rows of the pedestal, seventy-three tokens had turned blood red, as if they had just been pulled out of blood.
Besides those that have turned completely blood red, some tokens are getting darker, with dark red streaks showing through the black, slowly transitioning to blood red.
After reciting the last line of prayer, Li Zhengxin slowly raised his head.
Just as he looked up, two gray-black tokens on the right side of the pedestal suddenly trembled, and the clicking sound of the tokens hitting the stone platform was particularly clear in the narrow, dark room.
Then, the patterns on the token's surface began to glow with a dark red light, and two phantom figures appeared above them. They were two palm-sized figures, grayish-white and translucent, with blurred features, struggling desperately.
The next second, eight bronze chains materialized out of thin air, one end of each chain nailing into the void, the other end wrapping around the limbs and necks of the two little figures, tightening abruptly.
A piercing scream echoed from the dark room.
Two tiny figures were being dragged into the token by chains, their limbs being pulled and deformed, their bodies being flattened and twisted little by little.
As the bronze chains tightened, their struggles grew weaker and weaker, their screams gradually subsided, and finally, all was quiet.
The blood on the two tokens solidified completely, the two little figures disappeared, the chains in the void faded away, and the dark room returned to silence.
Li Zhengxin stared at the two newly turned red tokens, his expression unchanged, as if he had not heard the screams of the two small, illusory figures.
At that moment, a fire talisman suddenly appeared in the air three feet away from him.
The talisman hung in mid-air, and an old voice came from the fire talisman, carrying a hint of suppressed anxiety.
"Two more have died at Cangwu Mountain, making a total of seventeen people. Eleven of them have already died in just half a month."
Li Zhengxin turned his head and bowed slightly to the fire talisman, "Nephew understands."
The person inside the fire talisman spoke again, "This is the tenth wave we've sent. So many people have gone before, and no one has found that thing yet. Do you know how important that thing is to our plan?"
"Nephew understands."
"Good that you understand." The voice in the fire talisman deepened. "I can't delay the Imperial Preceptor for much longer. His cultivation seems to have increased again. If I can't get what I need within a year, I won't be able to suppress him. Once the Emperor catches his breath, all the plans we've laid out over the years will be ruined. At that time, your chances of ascending the throne will be extremely slim."
"If this group also perishes inside, I will send all the third-rank cultivators from the Eastern Palace there for a final desperate attempt. Whether it's fifty or a hundred people, even if it means sacrificing lives, we will definitely get the item out."
After a moment of silence, Huo Fu spoke again, his tone slightly gentler, "It's good that you have this determination. This old minister can delay a little longer, but at most three more months."
"That's enough. Nephew, you'll prepare the next batch of people now," Li Zhengxin said.
The flames on the fire talisman flickered twice, and the talisman began to burn from the edges inwards, burning completely in an instant without leaving a trace of ash.
The dark room fell silent again.
There are still more than thirty tokens that have not yet changed color, quietly waiting on the pedestal for their rightful owners. Which one will fall first?