Chapter 234: Everything Returns

At the village's central square, a crowd had surrounded a black-robed figure lying face-down on the ground.

Everyone was on high alert; without an order being given, they only encircled without attacking, warily guarding against the black-robed figure.

But the black-robed figure just lay on the ground, motionless, as if dead.

Someone suggested going up to take a look, but was quickly overruled.

The Captain's order was only to trap the black-robed figure; before the Captains arrived, no extra action was permitted.

Everyone was furious at the black-robed figure — in their thinking, since the Captain had suddenly issued an order to round up the black-robed figure, combined with the news of Captain Fire's death, Captain Fire had most likely been killed by the black-robed figure.

"Captain Wu is here!"

At that moment, Captain Wu, his face dark, came riding from afar.

He dismounted and rushed straight over.

He stared at the black-robed figure on the ground with a tightly furrowed brow, his hands wearing specially-made knuckle dusters.

"What's the situation now?"

"Reporting to Captain Wu, when we discovered the black-robed figure, he was already lying in the square like this, motionless, like a dead man. We reported it right away and didn't do anything extra."

"Mm."

As Captain Wu was getting up to speed, Fang Yue had also arrived on horseback.

After a brief exchange, Fang Yue said, "From the look of him, he seems to be dead."

"Take off the black robe and we'll know."

Captain Wu didn't waste words either. He gave Fang Yue a look — be ready to cover him at any moment — then he himself carefully approached and directly kicked the black-robed figure on the ground, flipping him over.

The black-robed figure rolled twice and stopped in a face-up position. Captain Wu walked over, yanked the black robe off, and the black mist on the black-robed figure immediately surged like a tide into the black robe in Captain Wu's hand.

As the black mist faded, the true appearance of the person on the ground was revealed.

It was a middle-aged man with a full beard; without the black mist's concealment, his burly build made him look like a big gorilla.

This was the first time Fang Yue had seen the front face of a black-robed figure.

He didn't know whether this guy was Hei Da or Hei Er, since the black robe's disguise effect would disguise any build into the form of black mist.

"Dead."

After examining carefully for a while, Captain Wu turned back and said.

"Dead?"

Fang Yue was a bit dumbfounded.

In his thinking, the last person Captain Fire had seen should have been Hei Da and Hei Er.

Combined with Hei Da and Hei Er's throwing money around at the auction, either their identities were no simple matter, or their strength was extremely powerful.

And the result… dead?

Fang Yue found it hard to believe.

He went up to check himself, and fell silent.

Truly dead, and without any external injuries, as if he had suffocated to death.

"Do you recognize him?"

Fang Yue asked. Captain Wu's face was ugly as he gave a slight shake of his head.

"Unfamiliar face. I need to find someone to look into his background."

After a pause, he lowered his voice and said, "The black-robed figure's identity is a person, which means they encountered something strange together with Captain Fire. That strange thing is silencing witnesses. We need to find the other black-robed figure as soon as possible, get the truth out of them, and track down that strange thing's whereabouts."

Fang Yue thought for a moment and said, "There's another possibility: one of the two of them is the strange thing itself. That strange thing killed Captain Fire, then killed this person too, to cover its tracks."

Captain Wu sighed. "Let's check this person's identity first."

He ordered his men to come over and take a look, especially the few in charge of population records. Soon someone had a result.

"This is Yan Butcher from Gaoyan Village. We have his record of entering the village from a few years ago, and I've seen him a few times myself — it is indeed the same person, no mistake."

Listening to the squad member's report, Fang Yue and Captain Wu exchanged a glance.

"Yan Butcher? What strength? Confirm that Gaoyan Village has this person? His movements over the past two days — investigate all of it!"

"Yan Butcher is just an ordinary villager; he came to Mo Cun together with Gaoyan Village's procurement team. As for his movements, I'll go call the people from Gaoyan Village over to ask."

Mo Cun, connected in all directions, as the largest village nearby, had commercial dealings with many villages; Gaoyan Village was only one of them.

Soon, the person in charge from Gaoyan Village was called over. Seeing the body on the ground, he was so frightened that he dropped to his knees on the spot, begging for mercy again and again.

But under Fang Yue and Captain Wu's pressing questions, they learned that Yan Butcher had been staying with them all these days and had never gone to any auction.

As for any black robe, he knew nothing about it at all.

"Then was there always someone following around him?"

"No, Yan Butcher has been single for many years, never had a wife or children."

This…

Fang Yue's brows knitted tightly.

The information didn't match up. Could there be someone else in Mo Cun holding a black robe…

No! No, that's not right!

Fang Yue's thoughts gradually cleared.

"He's the scapegoat!"

Captain Wu turned to look at Fang Yue. "What do you mean?"

"This person isn't the Hei Da or Hei Er I ran into at the auction. Hei Da and the others killed Yan Butcher, then put the black robe on him, disguising him as Hei Da's or Hei Er's corpse."

"What's the use of that? We still need to track down their whereabouts."

"I don't know. Maybe it's because they knew we were on their tail, and to avoid being caught by us, they laid down a smokescreen."

"Just for that? This strange black robe item is worth no small sum; I've never seen anything so peculiar in Mo Cun."

The two were just talking when a team member in the distance suddenly came running over in a great hurry.

"Captain Wu! We found another black-robed corpse!"

What?!

Fang Yue and Captain Wu's expressions shifted slightly, and they hurried over.

Same black robe, same posture of death.

When the black robe was removed, inside lay a woman's corpse, her face unrecognizable.

That face, as if burned by fire, the burns left behind made it impossible to tell what she had originally looked like.

"Hei Da or Hei Er?" Captain Wu looked at Fang Yue, who shook his head: "I don't think it's either of them."

"…Then what were these two corpses for? Where are those two people now that they've shed their black robes? And does the eerie thing hiding in the shadows have anything to do with them…"

Captain Wu's questions, one after another, gave Fang Yue quite a headache.

But amid his vexation, a sudden flash of inspiration struck Fang Yue.

He looked up oddly at Captain Wu.

"How does your Mo Cun usually handle corpses?"

"Near Mo Cun there's the Heiqing Shanmai, and one of the peaks is quite close to our Mo Cun…"

"So you leave the village to handle corpses?"

"Right, bury the corpse, erect a tombstone, that's the procedure. Only those who have made outstanding contributions to the village can be buried within the village."

That's it!

Fang Yue's eyes lit up. He stepped before the woman's corpse, drew his blade in a flash, and hacked at her neck!

With a clang, the corpse's head rolled to the side.

…Wrong guess? The corpse is fine?

"You, this…"

"…Captain Wu, have someone bring that other corpse over."

"Got it!"

Though Captain Wu didn't know what Fang Yue was about to do, he immediately cooperated.

In no time, that corpse was brought over, and Fang Yue, without a second thought, chopped its head clean off.

But just like before, the headless corpse showed no reaction whatsoever.

The corpse was fine, so what exactly was the eerie thing behind the scenes trying to do?

Fang Yue was lost in thought when Captain Wu, right before him, suddenly seemed to see something terrifying, seized Fang Yue's arm, and violently retreated backward.

Caught off guard, Fang Yue was dragged back with him. Looking back, he saw the severed head of the Yan Butcher, with black smoke gradually seeping out of it!

What is this?!

"Eerie thing! The Eerie-Detecting Talisman reacted! It reacted!"

"It's the eerie thing! It's the one that killed Captain Huo!"

"On guard! Everyone on guard!"

The surrounding Guard Team members panicked, shouting one after another.

But though their slogans rang out loud, their movements were utterly flustered and at a loss — not even as composed as the new recruits from Gu Yue Cun.

The easy life of Mo Cun had left many of them without any chance to encounter an eerie thing up close, to feel its horror.

"Measure its strength, and then…"

Fang Yue had just opened his mouth to shout when he suddenly sensed something was wrong — he couldn't breathe.

Fang Yue immediately realized something was off, but no matter how deeply he breathed, he simply couldn't draw in air. And the people around him collapsed one patch after another, eyes rolled back, clutching their throats in agony, faces twisted in a terrible struggle, and soon their bodies stiffened, completely still — just like the Yan Butcher's corpse discovered earlier.

A force of over a hundred people, in the span of just one or two seconds, was entirely wiped out.

Even Fang Yue with his formidable base attributes, and Captain Wu whose cultivation realm reached the second-rate of the Postnatal stage, could not withstand this eerie thing's attack.

Ha… haaah…

Fang Yue's limbs felt wave after wave of weakness, his strength draining rapidly.

He and Captain Wu collapsed together with a series of thuds, hitting the ground, consciousness gradually fading.

The last thing he saw was Captain Wu's expression of terror and despair.

Neither of them had expected that the eerie thing which killed Captain Huo would be so terrifyingly powerful.

In just one encounter, in just one or two breaths, it had nearly wiped out every last one of them!

Even Fang Yue too…

He saw Captain Wu's eyes gradually grow vacant, slowly closing.

And he himself, relying on his extraordinary base attributes, only held on for half a second longer before feeling his eyelids gradually drawing shut…

Going to die… will die… will die!!

"The parchment!!"

Summoning every last ounce of strength, Fang Yue roared in his heart.

【Received!】

Time, at this moment, seemed to pause for an instant.

【Time… Reversal!!】

The next instant, Fang Yue felt himself burning.

Burning madly.

That was… as if sparks struck from friction against time at high speed — that was his surging lifespan.

The burning lifespan, through the parchment connected to his soul, transformed into some unknown power, acting upon Fang Yue.

Then, Fang Yue's time began flowing backward, began rewinding.

Everything about him was flowing backward!

He felt some invisible thing, from within his body, from his five viscera and six bowels, following along his tendons, meridians, and windpipe, gather at his seven orifices, and flow backward out of his body.

At the same time, the suffocating sensation he had experienced before resurfaced once more, and quickly transformed into… familiar air!

He could breathe!

Without pausing for even half a moment, Fang Yue roared and thrust the Gathering Fire Order high above his head.

His inner force surged forth, and the token-structured Gathering Fire Order instantly grew hot, and with a whoosh, it shot up into the silent, dark night sky, rising straight upward, finally bursting into a brilliant shower of sparks in the night sky.

Only now did Fang Yue have the composure to see clearly what that black fog that had knocked everyone down in an instant actually was.

The next instant, Fang Yue's pupils abruptly contracted.

It was a human-bone kite, only the face on it was not the face of Ma Ling'er that he had seen before, but an unfamiliar, aged countenance.

The face on the human-bone kite still held an expression of stunned disbelief, staring dumbly at Fang Yue.

It seemed it had never imagined that Fang Yue could actually survive its attack!

But the fact was, Fang Yue had survived, and had activated the Gathering Fire Order!

This was a signal.

A signal… to attack and to flee.

……

Mo Cun, the southern village-entrance wall.

"…Lord of the Royal Bloodline, listen clearly. Next, I will lure the humans to gather in one place, and voluntarily reveal myself. By killing more people, I will cause a greater disturbance, drawing all of their attention onto me."

"When the time comes, the humans will activate the ancient array! It is a terrifying array capable of killing us, but according to the ancient records of our Wuyu Tribe, Mo Cun's array has a flaw. When the array operates at full power, its protective barrier will weaken to an extremely fragile degree."

"You must stay as far away from the location I choose as possible. When they go all out to kill me and the array is fully activated, seize the time difference. While the array's might has not yet spread over, take the Soul-Entrusting Jade Pendant, ram into the air above the wall, break through the protective barrier, and leave Mo Cun!"

"We cannot drag this out too long. When the humans lose patience and no longer wish to clean us out at the minimum cost, the array will unleash a terrifying might that covers the entire village. At that time, not even our bones will remain!"

"Lord of the Royal Bloodline, leave Mo Cun, tell the King everything that has happened. He will avenge me."

Ma Ling'er recalled Hei Da's final words, her brows tightly furrowed as she looked toward the grand fireworks rising high in the sky.

For some unknown reason, she felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity with this enormous firework, as if she had seen one not long ago.

Certain fragmented memory images surfaced in her mind like flashbacks.

But she quickly suppressed them, because she knew the critical moment had arrived.

Along with the entire sky above Mo Cun, strange runes of ten flowing colors all appeared, adorning Mo Cun like a giant glass bead. Ma Ling'er, who had already transformed into a human-head form, found her breathing growing increasingly rapid.

When, with a thunderous boom, a massive-range stream of light descended from the flowing-light barrier high above, aiming to envelop the village center, Ma Ling'er gritted her teeth and gave a great shout, levitating and ramming into the Life and Death Line on Mo Cun's wall.

A crack was heard.

The sturdy flowing-light barrier that had been impossible to break through before shattered like glass fragments, a hole the size of a human head smashed open in it.

And Ma Ling'er had already crossed the Life and Death Line, left Mo Cun, and was rapidly flying outward.

As Mo Cun behind her grew smaller and smaller, the flashback images in Ma Ling'er mind gradually became clearer.

A flood of memories poured madly into her mind, making her scream as she fell to the ground.

When she regained consciousness and awoke once more, her eyes had become clear, her expression calm.

"Yese Liming, Gu Yue Cun, Lord Han… A Duan!"

Her memories had returned.

She knew what she had to do.

"The Wuyu Tribe will surely return."

She turned her head to look deeply in the direction of Mo Cun, still under the protection of the flowing-light barrier, then flew off into the distance.

……

Mo Cun.

Chief Captain Lang Wu, tightly protected by the array's eye, was surrounded on all sides by various ancient runes.

At this very moment, he was the array, and the array was him!

He, who controlled the array's power, the instant he saw the Gathering Fire Order rise, immediately began to operate it.

Because he knew that if no one came to inform him of the situation of Fang Yue and the others, and instead the battle's status was conveyed through the Gathering Fire Order,

then it meant… that the strange thing hidden in the village was not something their Captains working together could handle!

Then there was only one thing to do!

"Flowing Light Extreme Array!!"

DWG is so strong!!

(End of this chapter)