Stranger Danger

"Who are they?"

Haotian Hong's eyes widened with fury. "Find them, Brother Xuanyuan."

Xuanyuan Wang did not say anything. He put his right hand into the image and caused it to ripple slightly like water. Then, he slowly clenched his hand around Ye Qing and Feng Qingyou's figure.

The next moment, the image shattered and disappeared, leaving behind only two invisible threads that led toward the distance.

"Found them. Follow me."

Following the invisible threads, Xuanyuan Wang blurred and reappeared fifty kilometers away in the blink of an eye.

"They were here."

Xuanyuan Wang released his divine thought until it encompassed everything within a radius of hundreds of kilometers. However, he found neither people nor traces.

"I found nothing."

"There's no one in the area."

Haotian Hong and Yue Hanhai shook their heads at the same time.

"I'm going to use the Time Intercepting Spell again."

Xuanyuan Wang did just that, reversing time and summoning Ye Qing and Feng Qingyou's image once more. They weren't alone though. This time, a thick black fog and a horse carriage accompanied their figures.

The duo entered the carriage, and black fog churned. Then, they all disappeared.

Yue Hanhai murmured, "That's... Is that the Yin Horse Carriage?"

"That's the legendary Yin Horse Carriage alright," Xuanyuan Wang answered with a deep frown.

Haotian Hong said urgently, "Who cares if it's a Yin Horse Carriage or a Yang Horse Carriage. Can you find them?"

"No." Xuanyuan Wang shook his head. "The Yin Horse Carriage is born from mystery and possesses the ability to pass through the anomalous. The places it travels to generally have shrouded rivers of fate, reversed yin and yang, and pure chaos. It is impossible to track it down via any means, normal or divination."

"So..."

In fact, Xuanyuan Wang had tried using a secret art to track down the two mysterious thieves or the Yin Horse Carriage. However, his divine thought immediately turned into headless flies as soon as they entered the anomalous place the Yin Horse Carriage had slipped into. It was completely futile.

Haotian Hong and Yue Hanhai tried everything they knew to track down the culprits as well, but nothing worked.

"Dammit!"

Haotian Hong yelled in anger in the end. "Did they seriously give us the slip? What if we chase them into the anomalies? Can we find a clue or anything?"

"It's useless. You won't find any clue in those kinds of places. It would be a complete waste of time and energy."

Xuanyuan Wang sighed. "Besides..."

He did not finish his sentence, but Haotian Hong and Yue Hanhai both got his meaning. Those places were a threat even to them.

"What should we do then?" Yue Hanhai exclaimed angrily, "After all we've done, are we seriously just going to call it quits here?"

"Hahaha... fools! Fools, all of you!"

It was at this moment they were hit by Emperor Jing Run's laughter.

Everyone turned to glare at the emperor. "What are you laughing about?"

Emperor Jing Run did not conceal his schadenfreude or ridicule at all. "I'm laughing at you fools who don't even know who's the one who tricked you and played you like a fiddle, of course!"

Xuanyuan Wang stopped Haotian Hong before he could explode and asked Emperor Jing Run, "Do you know who they are?"

"I do." Emperor Jing Run tilted his head with a slightly crazed expression. "But why should I tell you people?"

Xuanyuan Wang said, "They took your Heavens' Eye as well. Don't you want it back?"

"Want it back?" Emperor Jing Run let out a crazed laugh. "Need I remind you that you bastardsdestroyedmy Heavens' Eye? What's the point of retrieving it in its current state? What's the use of a pile of debris, huh?!"

Xuanyuan Wang thought for a moment before answering, "If you tell us who the culprits are, we can assist you in repairing the Heavens' Eye."

Emperor Jing Run's eyes narrowed slightly with indifference and gloom. "It's Ye Qing. One of them has to be Ye Qing."

Xuanyuan Wang lifted a surprised eyebrow. "Ye Qing? The chosen one of the Earthly Sovereign Bell?"

"It's him. It can only be him."

Emperor Jing Run's aura flew into a frenzy as he uttered Ye Qing's name. It was clear that he was beyond angry right now. "Who else would know that I have the Earthly Sovereign Bell? Who else would know about its secrets? Who else could time our useless clash so perfectly? Who else could retrieve the Earthly Sovereign Bell so easily?"

"It can only be him. This was his scheme; his conspiracy. You, me, we are all but clowns dancing to his tune! He fooled us all!"

Rumble!!!

As he laughed like a madman, everything within a thousand meters died. The mountains collapsed, the trees withered, the rivers dried, and every living being was murdered by Emperor Jing Run's rampaging energies.

"It's not impossible if it's Ye Qing."

Xuanyuan Wang quelled Emperor Jing Run's rampaging energies with a simple drop of the palm before voicing his doubts. "But how did he know where our headquarters are located?"

"Are you blind? Don't you see there's another person standing next to him?"

Emperor Jing Run retorted scathingly, "It can only be them. They are his helper, and they must be quite extraordinary."

"Who cares about Ye Qing's helper? We just need to find Ye Qing, and we'll get him and his helper!"

With a thought, Yue Hanhai summoned a book in the air. After the book flipped to an empty page on his own, Haotian Hong pinched his fingers together and gathered the surrounding origin qi, power of the realm, and spirit of the plants. They combined into a formless brush in Yue Hanhai's hand.

Yue Hanhai grabbed the brush and began writing the name "Ye Qing" on the book. Then, he let go of the brush.

The formless brush continued to write even though Yue Hanhai was no longer holding it.

"Moniker: Joyless

Gender: Male

Date of Birth: Unknown

Date of Death: Unknown

Place of Birth: Unknown

Achievements: Unknown

..."

At first, Yue Hanhai was confident the book would work. But as more and more unknowns popped into view, his expression slowly but surely turned gloomy.

The book in the air was called the Earth Spirit Book. It was a Strange Artifact created using the incredible power of the Heavenly Way. One simply needed to write the name of the person on the book, and their information and current location would appear so long as they existed within the Five Phases and the six realms of samsara.

In the past, the Earth Spirit Book had never failed them in terms of finding and locating someone. Not even a Sage could completely avoid its power unless they were beyond the Three Realms and the Five Phases.

That was why he was a little caught off guard by all these "unknowns". It was so ludicrous he wanted to laugh.

Still, Yue Hanhai controlled his temper and kept waiting. If nothing else, he hoped that the Earth Spirit Book would show Ye Qing's current location.

"Current location: Unknown"

Alas, Yue Hanhai was thoroughly let down, and he exploded like a volcano, "What the hell is this? Why is everything about Ye Qing unknown?"

Yue Hanhai grabbed the formless brush again and injected vast amounts of Heavenly Way power into it, causing it to turn tangible. Then, it wrote on the Earth Spirit Book again, "Tell me! Where is Ye Qing?"

Not including Emperor Jing Run, Yue Hanhai was obviously the one most concerned with the fate of the Earthly Sovereign Bell. It was because the Earthly Sovereign Bell was the ultimate treasure, symbol, and foundation of the Earthly Sovereign Hall. All these years, the Earthly Sovereign Hall always lost to the Clear Sky Palace and the Human Sovereign Palace just a bit precisely because they were missing the Earthly Sovereign Bell.

If that was all, he still could have stomached it. But without the Earthly Sovereign Bell to safeguard the Earthly Sovereign Hall's fate, it was highly likely their sect would not be able to protect themselves in the upcoming chaos.

That was why Yue Hanhai absolutely must have the Earthly Sovereign Bell. That was why he would not allow anyone else to have it.