Published: February 26, 2025
“Tan Yun, what are you doing?” The masked old man exclaimed.
His voice was filled with confusion and disbelief as he watched his disciples, who were supposed to be fighting bravely, abandon the battle.
“Retreat! Quickly!” Tan Yun's voice rang out, firm and commanding.
The disciples obeyed without hesitation, moving swiftly to put distance between themselves and the masked old man.
“Why are you retreating? We have the upper hand!” The masked old man cried out in alarm, trying to understand their sudden change in strategy.
However, his words fell on deaf ears as the disciples continued to fall back, their expressions a mix of fear and urgency.
Tan Yun surveyed the situation, his eyes narrowing as he sensed danger lurking ahead.
The air was thick with tension, and an ominous energy began to envelop the area, sending shivers down their spines.
“Get back to the spirit pool! We need to regroup!” Tan Yun ordered, leading the retreat with determination.
As they moved, a chilling laughter echoed through the air, chilling them to the bone.
“Fleeing so soon? How amusing!”
The voice belonged to a figure shrouded in shadows, emerging from the depths of the Mystic Valley.
With a wave of his hand, a wave of blood mist surged forward, blocking their path and making it clear that escape would not be easy.
“Stop right there!” Tan Yun shouted, his heart racing as he prepared for the imminent confrontation.
The masked old man's expression shifted from confusion to realization.
“Tan Yun, you must stay and fight! Do not give in to fear!”
Yet, Tan Yun's focus was unwavering as he assessed the threat before them.
“There's no time for heroics. We need to secure our safety first!”
With that, he activated his primordial divine step, urging his disciples to move faster.
As they approached the spirit pool, the masked old man could only watch helplessly, grappling with the reality of the situation.
“Why are you abandoning me?” His voice echoed in the silence, filled with despair.
But Tan Yun had made his choice, and there was no turning back now.
"Don't you have eyes? Can't you see for yourself?" Tan Yun sneered.
"Hmph!" The masked old man let out a cold snort and stared into the distance. In the next moment, he seemed to discover something and shouted with bloodshot eyes, "Disciples, no!"
He saw in his vision that the heads of the sixty-nine disciples were rapidly swelling. He intended to stop them, but he had wasted the opportunity while talking to Tan Yun!
"N-No!!"
The masked old man let out a heart-wrenching cry.
"Boom!"
With a deafening sound, one disciple's head exploded, and their entire body turned into a mist of blood, as massive spatial cracks filled the surrounding void!
"Boom, boom, boom—"
Soon after, the disciples of the masked old man began to explode one after another, causing the void within hundreds of thousands of miles to be engulfed by dark spatial cracks, as if the entire space would collapse at any moment.
"Woo—"
"Crack, crack—"
The aftermath of the self-detonation of the sixty-nine ancestral emperor realm great perfection individuals' ancestral emperor embryos rained down, devastating all the trees in the Western Mystic Valley below.
"Crash—"
Then, the mountains crumbled, dust filled the air, and rocks fell like a waterfall.
"Ah!" The masked old man threw his head back and howled, spitting out a mouthful of blood in anger.
He could not accept the fact that his most trusted sixty-nine disciples were dead!
"This is infuriating… infuriating!" The masked old man spat out three more mouthfuls of blood, then looked down at Tan Yun and roared, "Tan Yun, you made me swear an oath, and I have sworn!"
"But you… you actually tricked me!"
Tan Yun laughed heartily, "Old man, you were only half right, because not only did I trick you, but I also want to kill you!"
"Tan Yun, today I will surely skin you alive!" The masked old man shouted angrily, his body rapidly expanding to a height of a thousand feet.