Chapter 464: Factional Strife

That night, Liu Ziguang led people to aggressively arrest vendors big and small in the city, suspecting them of secretly attacking the law-enforcement cultivators, causing an uproar.

"Report, that Yan Buji has escaped!"

Liu Ziguang said indifferently: "Issue a wanted order, capture him!"

"Yes!"

For a while, chaos continued.

By the next day, the detained cultivators were shouting loudly in the prison, Hua Xuanzi and Chen Zhen among them, looking at the familiar faces around them, they pondered all night and finally realized what was happening.

"Brother Chen, something big has happened."

"This... how dare Liu Ziguang do this?! It couldn't be us..." Chen Zhen looked anxious, obviously knowing his own actions had left no trace, yet Liu Ziguang's massive arrest operation was clearly unreasonable.

"Who would dare to come work on Jade Balance Island in the future if you keep doing this?"

"What about the City Lord?"

Hua Xuanzi looked around, gave a bitter laugh: "I should have realized earlier; Liu Ziguang is deliberately letting his subordinates extort and blackmail, and now the Sun and Moon Palace is likely deep in factional strife!"

"Ah?"

On the other side.

Inside the City Lord's mansion.

Long Xuan Zhenjun sat calmly in the chief seat, looking at Liu Ziguang sipping tea to one side, and said: "Captain Liu, arresting people like this seems unreasonable, doesn't it?"

"How could it be unreasonable? Someone first attacked my law-enforcement team; that's clearly a shameless betrayal! With the beast tide approaching and traitors causing trouble, I'm doing this as a precaution, True Monarch."

Long Xuan Zhenjun gave a cold snort: "Meaning, the Liu family is about to make a move?"

Liu Ziguang gave a faint smile: "As long as the True Monarch is willing to assist, once we succeed..."

"Hmph, you're not qualified to say this to me. Where are the Liu family's Elders?"

Liu Ziguang's face darkened; suddenly a white-haired old man strode in from outside, his aura powerful, and upon seeing Long Xuan Zhenjun he shouted:

"Long Xuan, are you looking for me?"

"Liu Chuanfeng? It's you who came." Long Xuan Zhenjun rose, fixing his gaze on him.

Liu Ziguang also rose, walked over, and clasped his hands: "Greetings, Elder."

"Hmm."

Liu Chuanfeng gestured for Liu Ziguang to step back, then looked at Long Xuan Zhenjun and said: "Recently some things have happened in the Sun and Moon Palace; I suppose you are aware of them."

"The Palace Master... has he really passed away in meditation?" Long Xuan Zhenjun hesitated, then asked.

"Whether true or false doesn't matter; now the Liu family intends to take over the leadership of the Sun and Moon Palace. Long Xuan, do not go against the trend."

Long Xuan Zhenjun gave a cold chuckle: "Are you threatening me?"

"If you have the ability, you should have acted last night. Now I'm merely giving you a chance to consider; don't be overconfident."

Long Xuan Zhenjun took a deep breath: "Let me think it over."

"Then hurry up; once the beast tide ends, the Liu family will formally take power."

After Yan Buji fled Jade Balance Island, combining the rumors he heard nearby, he roughly guessed that the Sun and Moon Palace might undergo a series of power shifts internally, with Jade Balance Island being only one of them.

"The Liu family is too powerful; even I, a mere Golden Core cultivator, cannot oppose them." Yan Buji sighed.

Often it's not that Yan Buji doesn't want to act; the key is that once he gets involved in the power vortex, it's more dangerous than going into battle to kill enemies— a moment's carelessness could cost him his life and cultivation.

To avoid getting deeply involved, Yan Buji plans to find a place to hide and watch the turmoil from the sidelines.

To him, as a loose cultivator, as long as he doesn't cause too much trouble, no one will deliberately pay attention to him.

Furthermore, with the beast tide ahead and the Treasure Vault theft behind, this series of disturbances is likely merely a branch of the Sun and Moon Palace's power shift; the truly dangerous place is still Sun and Moon Island.

Even if Yan Buji gets mixed up in it, as long as he doesn't go to Sun and Moon Island, there won't be much danger.

Unless he runs into enemies here, it's about the same.

"But what enemies does Yan Buji have in the Dongxing Sea Region?"

Song Ziyue and those few companions died at the Penglai Pavilion; even if the lord of Heavenly Pivot Island wanted revenge, he could hardly find it on him.

"In that case....."

Yan Buji took out the Blue-Faced Vengeful Fiend, transformed into the appearance of Xu Long, altered his aura, and headed toward the outer sea.

After a few days.

Beneath the calm sea surface, a huge demon beast suddenly surged upward!

Whoosh!

A blade light flashed, slicing the nearly thirty-meter-tall demon beast in half; a person stood in midair, waved his hand, and a stream of light swiftly returned from before the beast's corpse to his hand.

"It's really not easy to use; this accumulation device, not being my own, ultimately cannot exert its proper power."

He turned his head, looked around; the demon beasts seemed stimulated by the smell of blood, and more and more swam toward this side.

This person is none other than Yan Buji after his transformation.

Naturally, turning into Xu Long's appearance makes it clear he could attract attention, but he intends to use this opportunity to scavenge some spiritual stones.

When the beast tide arrives, most cultivators are defending Star Constellation Island; with the island's grand formation activated, he cannot go to the outer sea, so around here he needs to change his appearance.

Simply put, Yan Buji becomes Xu Long to see if there's any profit to be made.

Actually, if Yan Buji needed to, he could directly transform into another guise and lie low without much trouble, but the key is that problems have arisen in the Sun and Moon Palace, which could very well lead to a series of complications.

Lower-level cultivators and loose cultivators will bear the brunt; becoming Xu Long, as long as someone recognizes his identity, ordinary people dare not easily come to provoke him.

This also counts as leveraging a bad reputation; although trouble will surely arise, it won't be enough to overthrow Yan Buji.

The crucial point is that at this time, going anywhere is certainly safe; even within the inner sea, demon beasts are causing chaos, obviously unlike before.

"Even before reaching the vicinity of Star Constellation Island there are already this many demon beasts; this beast tide is probably not simple." Yan Buji frowned.

Could it be that the formation of Star Constellation Island has been breached? Otherwise, so many demon beasts couldn't have grown in the inner sea; most cultivators in the Dongxing Sea Region are in the Luanhai Inner Sea, numbering not just tens of millions but hundreds of millions; even if Sun and Moon Island occupies the majority, it wouldn't allow that many demon beasts to lurk in the inner sea.

Either a few of Star Constellation Island's formations have been broken, or the Sun and Moon Palace failed to assign personnel to clean up.

But no matter what, this beast tide is probably more severe than Yan Buji imagined.

Thinking so, Yan Buji headed all the way to Zhangyue Island.

After a few days, Yan Buji's pupils constricted.

"This... what's going on?"

Although Yan Buji had never been to Zhangyue Island, he had been to the nearby Xingxiu Island, where there were many ships back then, indicating that the traffic was not light.

But here.....

At a glance, Zhangyue Island was actually occupied by a huge number of demonic beasts, with ship wreckage scattered everywhere around, and countless cultivators' corpses floated on the sea, attracting many demonic beasts to devour them.

"Is it really that serious?"

Yan Buji frowned, sensing several strong auras approaching from ahead, and he turned and ran.