Chapter 289 - Broken Messages and Hidden Hands

Chapter 289: Chapter 289 - Broken Messages and Hidden Hands

Huo Yan looked exhausted.

The excitement he had shown when Su Bai first spread the Sect-Scale Formation blueprint across the table had survived the explanation of its principles.

It had not survived the moment he began thinking about actually building it.

The Large-Scale Sect Suppression Array they had completed that morning was already complicated enough to occupy dozens of formation masters through the night.

Su Bai’s new design stretched far beyond the inner peaks, incorporated the Outer Sect and surrounding approaches, and relied on multiple command nodes that had to remain synchronized even if part of the formation was damaged.

Huo Yan rubbed his forehead while studying another section of the blueprint.

"You finished this overnight."

Su Bai nodded.

Huo Yan stared at him for several breaths before returning his attention to the parchment.

"I should not have asked."

Lu Canghai laughed nearby.

The senior figures of Radiant Sky Sect had gathered at Heavenly Forge Peak again despite barely having time to recover from the previous night’s work. Several formation elders had also returned after Huo Yan confirmed that Su Bai’s larger design was not merely theoretical.

Fortunately, Su Bai had made the blueprint as practical as something this complicated could possibly be.

The Large-Scale array they had already constructed remained untouched at the center. New suppression sections would spread outward from it, while the distributed command nodes would coordinate the wider formation without allowing any single location to become indispensable.

Huo Yan understood the principle quickly.

What exhausted him was imagining how much work remained.

Yao Ding eventually took pity on everyone.

Several jade bottles appeared in his hands.

"Drink these before someone falls asleep while burying a formation anchor."

Lu Canghai caught one of the bottles and glanced at him.

"You came prepared."

"I watched all of you work through the night."

Yao Ding distributed the remaining bottles among the elders.

"They will replenish Qi and ease the exhaustion. They are not a substitute for proper rest, so do not use them as an excuse to remain awake indefinitely."

Huo Yan had already swallowed his.

Yao Ding looked at him.

Huo Yan quietly turned away.

The medicine worked quickly.

The heaviness left behind by the previous night’s labor began fading, and the depleted Qi of the gathered elders steadily recovered. Even Huo Yan’s tired expression improved enough for him to begin issuing instructions again.

Construction resumed soon afterward.

Su Bai remained with them this time.

Although Huo Yan could follow the blueprint, several parts of the Sect-Scale formation depended on the exact relationship between command nodes and surrounding suppression sections. Having Su Bai present was considerably faster than forcing everyone to interpret his intentions from parchment alone.

Formation anchors began moving toward the outer mountains.

Teams surveyed the spiritual veins beneath the sect, marking where the new circulation routes could be established without interfering with older defensive formations.

Others prepared the locations for the distributed command nodes while Heavenly Forge Peak continued sorting through the materials Su Bai had brought back from Fallen-Star Sanctuary.

It was during a pause between placements that Lu Canghai approached Su Bai.

"My Disciple, there is something else you should hear."

Su Bai looked toward him.

His master had told him earlier that outsiders had connected him to the cultivator who emerged from Fallen-Star Sanctuary.

Judging from Lu Canghai’s expression, this concerned something different.

Li Xuanzong and Jian Wushuang were nearby. Both noticed the conversation and came closer without interrupting the work around them.

Lu Canghai stroked his beard.

"Old Li and Jian found more than troublesome cultivators wandering around."

Su Bai’s attention sharpened.

"Something related to the demonic movements?"

Li Xuanzong answered this time.

"Yes, but not in the way we originally expected."

He glanced toward Jian Wushuang before continuing.

"You already know that some people among the righteous factions have been leaking information to the demonic side."

Su Bai nodded.

Yue Cangyu had already warned him about it.

Li Xuanzong’s expression became colder.

"What we confirmed was that several of those leaks were not isolated acts."

Su Bai frowned.

Lu Canghai explained, "They traced information from different regions and found the same reports reaching demonic groups that should have had no contact with one another."

Su Bai’s eyes narrowed.

Jian Wushuang continued calmly.

"A report concerning the movement of one righteous sect appeared among demonic cultivators hundreds of miles away before the sect itself had finished distributing the information to all of its allies."

Su Bai became still.

Li Xuanzong added, "Another group knew the evacuation route of a mortal settlement before several of the elders assigned to escort it had received the final route."

That was no longer a matter of one corrupt elder quietly selling information.

Someone was moving intelligence faster than the normal communication network.

Lu Canghai looked toward Su Bai.

"That was what made them start looking at the messages themselves."

Communication talismans had been unreliable for some time.

At first, everyone assumed the failures came from instability caused by the growing chaos outside.

That explanation had gradually fallen apart.

Some messages vanished completely.

Others arrived far later than expected.

More troubling were the ones that arrived carrying information nobody remembered sending.

Li Xuanzong’s expression darkened.

"Two allied forces nearly fought because both sides received orders claiming the other had changed an agreed route without warning."

The confrontation only ended after representatives from both sides met in person and discovered that neither side had sent the offending messages.

After that incident, important factions began verifying sensitive orders through multiple channels.

Even that did not solve the deeper problem.

Su Bai looked toward Li Xuanzong.

"Sect Master, have you found out how they were doing it?"

"Partly."

During the expedition, Li Xuanzong and Jian Wushuang had followed one of the suspicious intelligence routes toward an isolated region that appeared to have little strategic importance.

They found no major demonic stronghold there. Instead, they discovered a temporary relay site.

Jian Wushuang’s eyes sharpened slightly as he remembered it.

"There were only eleven cultivators stationed there."

Su Bai waited.

"They were not preparing an attack," Jian Wushuang continued. "They were waiting for messages."

That was the first confirmed piece that changed everything.

The group possessed several artifacts designed specifically to detect passing communication talismans.

Once a talisman entered their range, the artifacts could interfere with its route long enough for the message to be intercepted.

Some talismans were destroyed afterward. Others were released again. A few had been altered before being allowed to continue.

Su Bai’s expression became increasingly serious.

Li Xuanzong folded his hands behind his back.

"Intercepting a fast communication talisman personally requires concentration even at my realm. Those artifacts made the process simple enough for cultivators far weaker than me."

That alone was disturbing.

What they found afterward was worse.

The relay site contained route records. Paths commonly used by communication talismans between major righteous factions, cities, outposts, and sects had been recorded with surprising accuracy.

Some had notes beside them indicating which messages should be intercepted immediately, which should merely be copied, and which should be allowed to pass untouched.

Su Bai stared at him.

"They were filtering information."

Li Xuanzong nodded.

That was exactly what they had confirmed.

The enemy was not simply trying to blind everyone.

If every message disappeared, the righteous factions would stop trusting talismans completely.

Instead, enough communication was allowed to function normally that people continued relying on it.

The interference was selective.

Warnings could be delayed.

False reports could be inserted.

Movements could be copied and passed to other groups.

A real message could even arrive normally after the information inside it had already reached the enemy.

Su Bai felt a chill that had nothing to do with the surrounding mountain air.

"That explains why the reports never completely stopped."

"Exactly."

Lu Canghai’s expression had lost its usual amusement.

"The network works because people still believe most messages are reaching their destination."

Li Xuanzong continued, "We destroyed the relay site and took everything that could be recovered."

That included several intact interception artifacts, route records, partially erased messages, and storage rings belonging to the cultivators stationed there.

But the information they recovered revealed that the site was not unique.

There were references to other relay locations.

Most were identified only by coded markers rather than names.

Jian Wushuang had followed one of those routes while Li Xuanzong examined another.

That was when they discovered the broader demonic activity.

Small groups were scattered through regions with almost no obvious military value.

Some stayed near abandoned towns. Others watched roads that connected mortal settlements rather than cultivation resources. Several groups carried the same type of interception artifact.

The pattern finally made sense.

Those cultivators were not wandering aimlessly.

Many of them were positioned where messages were likely to pass.

"They were building a communication net," Su Bai murmured.

Li Xuanzong nodded slowly.

"Or maintaining one that already existed."

That was the part they still did not understand.

The artifacts were too widespread.

Some demonic groups carrying them belonged to forces that rarely cooperated with one another.

The designs were not perfectly identical, but their internal principles were similar enough that Huo Yan would eventually need to examine them carefully.

Someone had either distributed the method widely or supplied the artifacts directly.

Neither possibility was reassuring.

More importantly, who had created the method behind all of them in the first place?

Su Bai glanced toward Huo Yan, who was currently arguing with two formation elders about an anchor location several hundred steps away.

Apparently, the old man was about to receive another project.

Lu Canghai seemed to read his thoughts.

"Do not tell him yet."

Su Bai almost smiled.

Li Xuanzong ignored both of them.

"There was another reason we returned when we did."

During their investigation, Li Xuanzong had personally intercepted a communication talisman traveling through one of the relay routes.

The message concerned Fallen-Star Sanctuary.

At that point, the Sanctuary’s return had not yet reached them through any channel they trusted.

They intercepted several more messages afterward.

The reports were fragmented, but together they revealed enough.

Fallen-Star Sanctuary had reappeared.

A cultivator who had remained inside after the others were expelled had later emerged.

Somebody was already trying to identify him.

One later message contained Su Bai’s name.

"That was when we turned back," Jian Wushuang said.

Lu Canghai glanced at him.

"You still arrived late."

A faint irritation crossed Jian Wushuang’s expression.

"We took the shorter route."

Lu Canghai laughed.

"That sounds like it went well."

"It did not."

The route led them through another supposedly unimportant region.

Instead of saving time, they found several demonic groups operating around three separate communication paths.

Li Xuanzong and Jian Wushuang killed those they encountered and seized the artifacts they carried, but the detour cost them valuable time.

More importantly, it confirmed that the relay site they had destroyed was not an isolated operation.

The interference network extended far beyond one region.

Su Bai fell silent.

That discovery was far more dangerous than merely learning that a few righteous cultivators were traitors.

A traitor could leak one secret.

A corrupted communication network could determine what entire factions believed to be true.

Li Xuanzong’s expression grew more serious.

"After hearing what you discovered about those scattered demonic groups, I don’t think this is only about intercepting messages anymore. Their movements are too widespread and too deliberate. There is likely something deeper behind all of this."

Su Bai’s expression slowly hardened.

Ning Shuang came to mind.

She was inside the demonic side itself, surrounded by people who would never voluntarily explain the larger plan.

If he wanted answers untouched by manipulated talismans and secondhand rumors, she remained one of his best sources.

He would have to return to her eventually.

Just not yet.

His gaze shifted across Radiant Sky Sect.

Formation anchors were being buried beyond the inner peaks. Elders moved between command-node locations while the Sect-Scale network gradually took shape beneath the mountains.

The sect came first.

Once Radiant Sky Sect could protect itself properly, Su Bai could start looking for the people behind the communication network.

After that, whether they belonged to righteous factions, demonic factions, or something hiding between the two would no longer matter very much.