Chapter 939: Old Enemies

When Yan Buji opened his eyes, the blood mist filling the cave dwelling had not yet cleared; the blood‑colored patterns on his skin writhed slowly like living things, then sank beneath the surface. He exhaled a puff of foul air, and that breath corroded the stone wall into honeycomb‑like holes.

"Peak of Refining Void..." he moved his newly formed muscles and bones, his joints cracking like thunder. This breakthrough expanded his spiritual awareness to an unprecedented breadth; now, even without deliberate release, he could sense every blade of grass and tree within a hundred li outside the cave dwelling.

Yan Buji suddenly frowned as abnormal spiritual energy fluctuations reached the edge of his awareness; someone was casting a high‑grade technique in the Zanghun Shanmai. In this perilous place where spiritual energy is thin, any cultivator's appearance cannot be accidental.

He drifted out of the cave dwelling like a phantom, and after a few rises and falls arrived at a mountain ridge.

In the morning mist, a figure cloaked in a gray mantle was forming seals and casting, strands of Soul Dao light sweeping across the rock wall ahead. The person's face was covered with blue‑green patterns, evidently the result of prolonged Soul Dao cultivation corrupted by yin energy.

"Mid‑Refining Void... soul cultivator..." Yan Buji's mouth curled into a cold smile. He employed a secret art, merging his form with the surroundings, even his breath becoming part of the mountain wind.

The gray‑cloaked man suddenly halted, scanning the surroundings warily.

Yan Buji held his breath and focused; the opponent drew a bone flute from his chest and sounded it, the eerie tone turning into gray mist that seeped into the cliff ahead. The ground trembled, and the shedding rock revealed a massive bronze gate etched with runes.

"Hidden Realm of the Ghost Valley..." the gray‑cloaked man said, his voice trembling with excitement: "Master was right after all..."

Yan Buji's pupils narrowed slightly.

A hidden realm!

No wonder the Zanghun Shanmai has thin spiritual energy yet natural seals; the entire mountain range's spiritual energy has been drawn into the hidden realm. Such ancient realms often conceal earth‑shaking opportunities, but their danger level is also...

In front of the bronze gate, the gray‑cloaked man bit his finger and drew sigils in the air. With each stroke, a portion of the gate's runes lit up. Black mist seeped through the cracks, faintly revealing countless struggling arm silhouettes.

"Who is this person, with such deep Soul Dao Dao Mark, far stronger than a typical Refining Void cultivator..." Yan Buji thought silently.

When the bronze gate opened to a half‑person width, the gray‑cloaked man suddenly scattered a handful of bone powder, and seven snarling ghost heads surrounded him; then he darted through the gate.

Yan Buji did not hesitate, leaping into the gate at the instant it was about to close.

The darkness inside the hidden realm instantly devoured him, bone‑piercing cold seeping into his meridians from all directions. He immediately circulated his power to resist, while also expanding his spiritual awareness.

The sight before him made even the well‑versed Yan Buji's heart skip a beat: a twisted dead forest littered with white bones, three black silhouettes besieging the gray‑cloaked man.

Those black shapes were humanoid yet faceless, each possessing the strength of an early‑stage Refining Void.

In a dim corner, Yan Buji lurked like a specter, his gaze fixed on a figure not far away—a puppet exuding a chilling yin aura.

The puppet was jet‑black all over, as if stepped out of the netherworld; a thin black mist enveloped its body, obscuring its true form. Its movements were somewhat stiff, yet exuded a bizarre power, suggesting it was not a mere corpse but possessed a degree of sentient spirit.

Yan Buji's brows furrowed slightly; he was wary of this yin‑evil puppet. Such a puppet could not be wielded by ordinary people—the yin‑evil energy it contained was so dense, it must have undergone a special forging method. Whether it was crafted by human hands or shaped by the hidden realm's influence, he could not tell.

Four of the gray‑cloaked man's seven ghost heads had already been torn apart, the remaining three dim and lifeless. The soul cultivator fought and retreated, continuously moving toward the shattered stone tablet deep within the dead forest.

A violet crystal atop the tablet emitted an alluring spiritual glow.

When the last ghost head exploded, the gray‑cloaked man suddenly bit off his little finger. The severed finger turned into a blood blade that sliced the three puppets, but he staggered to his knees, the blue markings on his face spreading wildly.

Yan Buji appeared behind Zhang Xungui like a phantom, his palm pressing onto the latter's Heavenly Spirit Cover.

"Soul‑Searching Technique" activated, and a flood of memory fragments surged in!

Three hundred years ago on a rainy night, a dying master gave the gray‑cloaked man half of a hidden‑realm map... a century ago, a bone flute that could open the bronze gate was found in an ancient tomb... deep within the hidden realm lies the supreme Soul Dao technique of the "Mystic Yin True Scripture"...

"Ugh!" the gray‑cloaked man let out a sudden fierce howl. Yan Buji realized something was wrong as he was about to withdraw his hand; the opponent's skull burst open on its own, a black beam shooting straight at his brow!

Yan Buji immediately summoned an armed embodiment, and using a Dao Mark technique to divert, he barely blocked the mutually destructive soul strike.

Looking again at the gray‑cloaked man's corpse, countless black insects writhed beneath the skin!

"Damn, it's a puppet?!" Yan Buji's face darkened, thinking silently that something was wrong.

The dead forest suddenly shook violently.

Yan Buji rushed to the stone tablet, pried off the violet crystal, and the ground collapsed in response.

"Where on earth is this person hiding?"

A master of puppet arts, as lifelike as a real person, using puppets to forge a path—then surely the one trailing behind the puppet, me, would have been discovered long ago!

Yan Buji squinted, yet found no suspicious traces nearby; thus there was only one question!

In an instant, a woven needle shot out from Yan Buji's cuff, following the direction of his swing, and abruptly halted in the eastern air as if striking a wall, sending ripples through space.

"Found it!"

"Damn!"

A young man's voice sounded; the woven needle pierced the void, and the youth swung his sword to block, deflecting the needle back!

Yan Buji squinted, looking toward the opponent.

The gray‑cloaked youth, upon seeing Yan Buji, was shocked: "You?!"

"Who are you?" Yan Buji squinted, recalling no such formidable Soul Dao cultivator among his enemies.

Especially the sword in his hand, which resembled the spine sword of a Foundation Establishment Stage demonic cultivator, Wang Jie, he had once seen in the Nan Ting Mountain Region—its blade was entirely pale, with parallel bone spikes giving it an especially grim look.

The gray‑cloaked man's fury surged, and he sneered: "Alright, alright, truly the heavens have not failed me, for they let me meet you, damned old thief!"

Yan Buji pondered for a while, his eyes scanning the surroundings; after confirming no ambush, he smiled and said, "Friend, you are quite fiery—when did I ever bear a grudge against you?"

"Hmph, old thief! Back when you killed me in Yingchun Gu of the Nan Ting, you never expected this day, did you?!" As he spoke, the gray‑cloaked man raised his sword and lunged; in an instant the surrounding space seemed to flip, and a torrent of black, ink‑like substance poured down from the sky.

Simultaneously, countless ghostly spirits erupted from the black ink, snarling and charging at Yan Buji.

Yan Buji drew his Rift Staff, also releasing several fierce evil ghosts to clash with those ghostly spirits.

Hearing the gray‑cloaked man's roar, Yan Buji snapped awake: "You are Zhang Xungui?!"