Chapter 191

"Impossible, the guiding spirit clearly..." Gong Yan's exclamation was cut short by the violent energy, and she was sent flying like a kite with a broken string, crashing through a wall and slamming heavily into the ruins of Miao Street.

The True Essence surging in his meridians reconnected through his limbs and bones, and the twin Immortal Crowns shone brilliantly behind his head. Lin Yu transformed into a golden streak of light, arriving in an instant, his combat boots stepping toward Gong Yan's crown with the force of ten thousand tons.

At the critical moment, Gong Yan flipped and retreated in a hurry, and the place where she had been standing collapsed into a three-zhang-deep pit. Blood spilled from the corner of her mouth as she looked on in shock and suspicion: "You are definitely not Lin Yu; how could he possibly..."

Before she could finish, Lin Yu kicked her into the ground from mid-air. Just as he prepared to finish her off, a mysterious woman wearing a Black Bird mask suddenly appeared to block him: "Wait, does the agreement between us still count?"

Lin Yu's pupils shrank: "Yan Feng? You are actually a member of the Tongtian Pavilion?"

"Otherwise, how would I find your sister?" a light laugh came from under the mask, "The Europa intelligence network is all held in the Pavilion's hands."

Lin Yu withdrew his momentum and snorted coldly: "The promise is still valid, but..." he pointed to the mess on the ground, "Sparing your life just now counts as the first task. There are only two left from now on."

"No need to say more, you want me to let her go?" Lin Yu's fingertips condensed energy, having long anticipated this result. Since Gong Yan was a powerhouse in the Land Immortal Realm, she must hold an extraordinary status in the Tongtian Pavilion.

The masked woman cupped her fists respectfully: "She is my master; I ask that you show some respect."

Lin Yu lifted Gong Yan from the ground fissure with fingers like hooks, sealed her dantian vitals with lightning speed, and tossed her into the air. Yan Feng caught her unconscious master in mid-air and was about to thank him, but was cut off by a shout.

"What is a guiding spirit?" Lin Yu's brows furrowed, the energy around his body surging like a tide.

Yan Feng strapped her master to her back, her words carrying deep meaning: "It is a remnant shadow of a past life summoned from an otherworldly space using a forbidden technique, used specifically to brainwash new members." Before she finished, the two figures had dissipated into black mist.

Lin Yu suddenly felt his sea of Qi churning, his cultivation pouring out like a broken dam.

The two Immortal Crowns above his head shattered with a bang, his realm plummeting from the Ascension Realm to the Enlightenment Period, and tearing pain radiated through his meridians.

When he stumbled and pushed open the door of the Zhongcaotang, the sound of military boots stepping on the ground came from behind him.

"Do you need medical support?" The officer looked at the inch-deep footprints on the bluestone floor, his voice filled with awe.

"Ordinary healers are useless." Lin Yu wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and slammed the door shut, his Heavenly Eye reflecting the faces of the soldiers in the distance, still filled with horror.

Inside a utility room thirty stories up, Yan Feng was treating the unrecognizable Gong Yan with the Nine-Turn Returning Soul Needles. The silver needles pierced into her acupoints with ghostly blue True Qi, and a sigh came from under the mask: "Gongsan Pingbalang once used the Night Wanderer to forcibly raise his cultivation, but that kind of realm catalyzed by medicinal power is like building a tower on sand."

Gong Yan's swollen lips opened and closed with difficulty: "Night Wanderer, Xuanyuan Hai's Immortal-Slaying Secret Poison..." Every word she spoke was accompanied by blood foam, "It specifically breaks the... Ascension opportunity... of Xuanmen cultivators..."

"Wait!" Yan Feng suddenly remembered something, the silver needle at her fingertip hovering in mid-air, "That day, after he performed the secret technique, I saw with my own eyes that four layers of divine wheels appeared behind his head!"

Gong Yan on the bed suddenly propped herself up, ignoring the pain in her wounds, and stared intently at her disciple: "Four-layer Immortal Crowns? That is a mark only possessed by top-tier beings in the Upper Realm!"

She suddenly pulled the corner of her mouth into a bitter smile, "No wonder even the Soul-Guiding Lamp couldn't shake his mind."

The clinic returned to silence, and Yan Feng focused on adjusting her master's dislocated bones.

As the last piece of shattered bone was reset, she applied the ointment evenly to Gong Yan's cheeks: "You should rest quietly; I will come back to change the dressing after nightfall."

Inside the CEO's office, Li Lin deftly removed her silver-patterned mask.

The secretary pushed the door open just at this moment: "President Qin, Chairman Long is waiting for you to sign the merger agreement."

Passing through the floor-to-ceiling glass corridor, Li Lin tucked her blood-stained cuffs inside without a trace.

In the conference room, Long Jianfei pushed the document toward her: "Regarding the motion for Feng Yuanyuan's reinstatement, I want to hear your true thoughts."

"From the perspective of group operations." Before Li Lin could finish, the roar of an engine came from outside the window.

A military helicopter trailing black smoke from its tail swept across the sky, heading straight for Miao Street.

At this moment, Miao Street had long been sealed off layer by layer by special forces. Lin Yu leaned against the doorframe of the Zhongcaotang, gasping violently, the bluestone floor in front of him stained with blood.

When he saw the familiar figure on the stretcher, his pupils suddenly contracted; Grand Secretary Yan's body had not a shred of life force.

"Pupils not dilated, pulse strong, what on earth..." Lin Yu stumbled to the stretcher, his ten fingers moving rapidly over the acupoints.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xu Jianhua in the corner using golden needles to seal the meridians of his severed arm, the gaze of the old divine doctor filled with worry.

Lin Yu raised his hand to wipe the blood foam from his mouth, only then realizing that his hands had turned a bluish-gray.

The rampaging True Qi inside his body scraped his bones like a sharp blade, but he couldn't care about regulating his breath; he tremblingly flipped open Grand Secretary Yan's eyelids. They were clearly the signs of a living person, yet what he saw with his Heavenly Eye was like a dead, withered well.

"Old Xu, what happened to your arm!" Lin Yu grabbed the other man's blood-soaked sleeve, his fingertips trembling.

Before he could finish, he froze; this junior brother, who was always quick to speak, actually turned his face away to avoid his gaze.

The fluorescent lights in the emergency room hummed, the smell of disinfectant mixed with the fresh scent of blood.

Xu Jianhua suddenly grabbed his senior brother's wrist: "The top priority is Grand Secretary Yan; my flesh wound is just..."

The voice stopped abruptly; Lin Yu's bloodshot eyes were staring at him fixedly, as if he wanted to nail him to the wall for interrogation.

During the standoff, the sound of armored vehicle tracks crushing the bluestone floor came from outside the window, and all the retired soldiers on Miao Street were assembling.

An officer wearing white gloves stood on top of a jeep, and the prohibition from the loudspeaker echoed in the rain: "For this operation, you only need to remember three points: do not ask about the protected target, do not check the equipment serial numbers, do not..."

"Tongtian Pavilion." The three words Xu Jianhua suddenly spat out made Lin Yu's temples throb, his molars biting down until his cheeks ached.

On the hospital bed, Grand Secretary Yan was unnaturally calm; the life patterns that should have appeared on the side of the old man's neck had completely disappeared. He had only seen this condition in ancient books, when the guiding spirit in the sea of consciousness was so powerful that it required the host to concentrate all their soul power to resist...

The red numbers on the electronic clock in the corner jumped to 03:47, and Lin Yu pulled over a prescription pad and scribbled a few lines: "The fire-field yellow must be ten years old, and the He-Luo jade must be chosen with water-wave patterns."

Xu Jianhua scanned the medicine names and suddenly pressed his wrist: "These are all things that could poison an elephant to death."

The Zhongcaotang was filled with a pungent smell of blood, and Lin Yu quickly unbuckled the first-aid kit, his voice rapid: "No time to explain, it must be finished before the Zi hour."

His five fingers gripped the crown of Grand Secretary Yan's head, his knuckles turning pale from the force.

Xu Jianhua's Adam's apple bobbed as he took two steps back, his military uniform hem knocking over the medicine scale as he turned.

When he returned with the special forces, his pupils suddenly contracted; on Lin Yu's bare back, the Nine Palaces Returning Yang Needles were arranged, and a three-inch-long bone-piercing needle was inserted into his Danzhong acupoint.