Chapter 575

"Teacher…" two weak voices came forth.

Ding Huan saw Director Qian Xun Haoyi and Fan Qingsi.

Director Qian Xun Haoyi and Fan Qingsi had lost all their cultivation, their meridians shattered, their dantians shattered, yet their Primordial Spirit remained intact.

Their lifeforce was still decent, showing that Gu Min had not mistreated them.

"Dean Gu, where is Ji Xing?" Ding Huan looked at Gu Min.

Gu Min stepped forward, his face filled with shame: "Ji Xing, as the principal offender, I could not save him from Yuan You—he had his meridians and dantian destroyed, then thrown out of the academy, and vanished afterward."

Ding Huan suddenly turned to the crowd of onlookers and spoke loudly: "Hand over Ji Xing. I will pursue only the mastermind and not implicate any of your respective Xian clans."

"My offer stands for only a hundred breaths. If no one hands over Ji Xing after that, don't blame me for being uncivilized."

Even Bai Chi knew Ji Xing had been forcibly taken away.

The reason, naturally, was the Divine Way Scripture.

Yuan You knew Ji Xing possessed the Divine Way Scripture, and knew that discarding him would invite others to deal with Ji Xing.

So he used others as his blade.

Too bad—whether he used a blade or not, after eliminating Ding Huan's eight disciples, his fate had already been sealed.

No one responded.

Ding Huan looked at Yuan You's decapitated corpse and sent a wisp of flame onto it.

Yuan You's Primordial Spirit watched helplessly as his physical body was destroyed.

His heart was filled with resentment and fury.

His physical body had been cultivated to perfection—his greatest pride—and now, before his very eyes, it was being burned.

"To whom did you sell Ji Xing's Divine Way?" Ding Huan looked at Yuan You.

Yuan You ignored Ding Huan entirely.

Ding Huan did not ask again; he raised his hand and sent a cluster of Law Flame onto Yuan You's Primordial Spirit. Yuan You let out a piercing scream:

"Let me go! I'll tell you everything!"

The Law Flame scorched the Primordial Soul—such unbearable agony was beyond human endurance.

Even though Yuan You was a late-stage Immortal Emperor, he could not withstand this horrific pain.

Ding Huan stared coldly at Yuan You: "When I was still at Yonghuang Divine Art Academy, you were already plotting against me, weren't you?"

Yuan You's Primordial Spirit writhed under the Law Flame, wracked with agony—how could he possibly answer Ding Huan's question?

Gu Min beside him trembled inwardly.

He had known some of Yuan You's intentions to move against Ding Huan.

Now he finally understood: Ding Huan had left voluntarily to spare the academy shame. Otherwise, with Ding Huan's power, how could Yuan You have ever threatened a Dao Master?

A top-tier Dao Master with vision, wisdom, and even the willingness to suffer personal loss—was pushed to the opposite side by Yuan You's own self-destruction.

Now that Yuan You had crossed Ding Huan's bottom line, retribution was inevitable.

Yuan You dying was deserved; Yonghuang Divine Art Academy could never rise under such a person's control.

But Ding Huan this time could not escape either.

Ding Huan's actions had gravely shattered the foundation of the Ten Thousand Laws of the Dao Corridor—the Immortal Surveillance Office would never let him go.

"The hundred breaths are up. Since no one speaks, don't blame me for being uncivilized."

Ding Huan spoke, then raised his hand and summoned a Dao Essence Sphere:

"This is an Immortal Emperor Ascension Dao Essence Sphere. Whoever tells me Ji Xing's whereabouts—no matter who you are—this Dao Essence Sphere is yours."

To Ding Huan's surprise, still no one stepped forward.

He saw several cultivators seeming ready to speak, but they hesitated immediately.

Ding Huan sneered inwardly.

In the Pangu Great World, someone would have spoken up long ago.

These cultivators here were all far too docile.

Or rather, they had been bred into docility by the Ten Thousand Laws of the Dao Corridor—they dared not fight for even a single inch of their own Dao.

Ding Huan stopped asking. His spiritual sense spread out like an endless tide.

He was certain Ji Xing could not have left Yongzhou Xiancheng.

Since Ji Xing could not have left Yongzhou Xiancheng, that meant some family within Yongzhou Xiancheng had captured him to extract his Divine Way.

At this moment, the entire Yongzhou Xiancheng felt Ding Huan's boundless spiritual pressure—all people turned pale with shock.

Searching an entire Xiancheng was not merely a matter of spiritual sense coverage.

In Yongzhou Xiancheng, countless families, Xian clans, and minor Divine Art academies existed.

Each of these factions had Immortal Arrays and seals locking them down; to simultaneously pierce through these Immortal Seals without damaging the Arrays required more than ordinary spiritual sense.

It demanded not just immense spiritual power, but also profound Array Art mastery.

Not even an ordinary Immortal Emperor, let alone a peak Immortal Emperor, could accomplish this.

But Ding Huan could—he possessed a Dao Universe as his Sea of Consciousness, and his spiritual sense likely surpassed even Xie Kuangren.

Coupled with Ding Huan's Array Art level—already at the Second-Class Divine Array Master tier—the strongest Immortal Arrays in Yongzhou Xiancheng were no more than ordinary Ninth-Rank Immortal Arrays, most being Seventh-Rank or even Sixth-Rank and below.

To Ding Huan, these Arrays were virtually nonexistent.

In less than half a stick of incense, his spiritual sense landed on the Pu Clan.

In the Pu Clan's ancestral council hall, a group gathered urgently to deliberate on Ji Xing's matter.

Ji Xing now lay covered in gray-brown grime and wounds, imprisoned in a half-submerged dungeon, barely clinging to life, on the verge of death.

The gray-brown grime was dried blood congealed on his skin.

Ding Huan dashed forward; when he landed, he reached out and seized the Pu Clan's dungeon.

At the same time, Ding Huan's Bone-Devouring Dao Poison engulfed the entire Pu Clan.

"Crack!" Under Ding Huan's hand seals, all of the Pu Clan's protective arrays shattered like paper.

"Master Ding, show mercy—Ji Xing was saved by us, and we were just…" An elder of the Pu Clan rushed forward.

But his words halted abruptly halfway.

Because Ding Huan had already pulled Ji Xing out.

Ji Xing's limbs were reduced to scraps of skin hanging loose; his body was covered in wounds, and a blood hole pierced his third eye.

Clearly, the Pu Clan had used some method to extract his memories.

At this moment, a large crowd surged from all directions.

Seeing Ji Xing's pitiful state, even Bai Chi would know what had happened.

Ji Xing had cultivated the great divine art taught by Ding Huan; the Pu Clan had captured him solely to force him to reveal the divine techniques he had learned.

Ding Huan sneered inwardly.

What a harsh Ten Thousand Laws of the Dao Corridor.

It was utterly ridiculous—in the Ten Thousand Laws of the Dao Corridor, imprisonment and slaughter were grave crimes punishable by immediate execution.

But this was only because the leverage was insufficient; Ji Xing was the living proof.

While the crowd was still murmuring, Ding Huan threw out a ball of flame.

The entire Pu Clan was instantly engulfed in this law-based flame; the crowd could only hear faint cries for help from afar.

Watching this terrifying scene, the crowd fell silent instantly.

Yes, in the eyes of Dao Corridor cultivators, annihilating an immortal clan with flame was terrifying.

Dao Corridor cultivators were accustomed to peace, accustomed to following rules.

Who had ever seen such a clan-eradication?

But soon, everyone remembered Ding Huan's other deeds.

This Master Ding didn't just annihilate a clan—he had just blasted the Eternal Waste Divine Art Academy to rubble with a single spear.

Then he killed twelve Immortal Emperors, half of whom were from the Immortal Surveillance Bureau, and one was the academy's dean.

He had single-handedly defied the Immortal Surveillance Bureau—and strangely, the Bureau had yet to send any strong cultivators to find Ding Huan.

Some quickly connected this to a string of recent events, all of which the Immortal Surveillance Bureau had ignored.

From the removal of the demi-god veins from the Tianxing Dao Art Academy and the Xi Xu Dao Art Academy, to Xie Kuangren's sudden disappearance…

Everything seemed to carry an air of strangeness.

Perhaps the Dao Corridor was about to change.

Ding Huan looked at the crowd; he had intended to post a bounty—anyone who killed a surviving member of the Pu Clan would receive a promotion slot as a reward.

He thought better of it.

In the Dao Corridor, even if he offered the heaviest reward, few would dare to do such a thing.

Even though the Immortal Surveillance Bureau was now weak, the ingrained mental habits formed over centuries were not so easily broken.

When Ding Huan returned to the Eternal Waste Divine Art Academy with Ji Xing, Yuan You had already been burned to death by the law-based flame.

Gu Min was still waiting for him, accompanied by Qian Xun Haoyi and Fan Qingsi.

Ding Huan said to Gu Min: "Go find Zhuo Qi and Li Yunmu for me. I'll wait for them here at the Eternal Waste Divine Art Academy."

"Yes, Master Ding, rest assured—I will spare no effort to find them." Gu Min exhaled in relief.

He had feared most that Ding Huan would utterly destroy the Eternal Waste Divine Art Academy.

If Ding Huan truly intended to do so, he could only tell Ding Huan: Yuan You was Yuan You; the Eternal Waste Divine Art Academy was the Eternal Waste Divine Art Academy—they were not the same thing.

Fortunately, Ding Huan had still been rational and had not destroyed the academy.

After killing the dean and over a dozen Immortal Emperors, Ding Huan had not left—he had stayed to wait for the academy's other disciples.

Gu Min realized Ding Huan feared neither the Immortal Surveillance Bureau nor its director, Xie Kuangren.

He naturally did not know that staying at the Eternal Waste Divine Art Academy was, in fact, safer.

Xie Kuangren would never come here; anyone else from the Immortal Surveillance Bureau who arrived would be walking into a slaughter.

Just now, he had single-handedly killed twelve Immortal Emperors, including the late-stage Immortal Emperor Yuan You, and he hadn't even drawn his ultimate weapon.

Now that he was residing in the Eternal Waste Divine Art Academy, Ji Luo could set up additional death-binding divine arrays—anyone who came would be nothing but meat.

Last time he closed off to cultivate, he hadn't asked Ji Luo to set up death-binding divine arrays—if he had, could Xie Kuangren have escaped even after wounding him?

This time, Ding Huan did not choose his old location; he directly selected the tallest peak within the academy.

Because on this peak stood a sign: Dean's Cultivation Ground.

The dean had been Yuan You; Yuan You had been killed by him; this peak was now his.

Ji Luo, upon hearing Ding Huan say he could go to the Xi Clan in a month to purchase the Nine-Colored Void Lotus from Xi Xi Yuanhao, was also in high spirits.

He voluntarily came out to arrange various divine arrays for Ding Huan.

Including the Spirit Gathering Divine Array, the Defense Divine Array, the Death-Binding Divine Array, the Spirit-Stealth Divine Array…

He knew Ding Huan would cultivate here for a while—likely not leaving until he reached Immortal Emperor.

And once he obtained the Nine-Colored Void Lotus, he would also close off here to restore his physical body.